This hand crafted sword looks waaaaay too big to be lugging around all day during a convention cosplay session. Inspired by the sword carried by the main character Guts in the anime/manga series Berserk (as seen in the poster above the sword), it’s a super sized prop that looks really hard to handle. I applaud your effort sir, now get to work on that Final Fantasy VII Buster Sword stat!

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(YouTube Link)

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering “What’s the deal with cosplayers?” (hopefully in an internal voice that sounds like Jerry Seinfeld), then you should find this video informative and enlightening.

And, while the girl featured in the video can only speak out of personal experience, the sentiments expressed seem to be echoed by her fellow cosplayers, at least according to their comments and posts across the Interwebs.

So, did this video give you a better understanding of cosplay culture, or simply make you dislike the whole thing even more?

–via Geeks Are Sexy

The main problem with moving a giant Gundam robot statue across Japan is having to put it back together again, but maybe this life-size behemoth should have been left in pieces, because he looks like he could do some serious damage to the surrounding city. Head to the link to see some time lapse videos of this bad boy being re-built.

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I try to refrain from posting every cosplay gallery link I come across for obvious reasons, but I thought i’d share this one because it features obscure characters and some seriously well-made costumes.

Among the characters present: a couple of creatures from They Live, Priss Asagiri from Bubblegum Crisis anime, a scary Little Sister from Bioshock, and a strangely fitting female Rule 63 Aquaman. Which costumes did you like?

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(YouTube Link)

Fans of the Marvel Comic series Tomb of Dracula were less than enthusiastic about this goofy anime version of their favorite comic when it came out in 1980.

Part 1 in a nutshell: Dracula takes off with Satan’s girlfriend in an effort to keep Satan from getting it on. All six parts of this amazingly silly adaptation are on YouTube, watch them and see if it’s anything like the silver age comic book series you remember.

–via ComicsAlliance

You don’t need a mask, just a good makeup kit and patience. BeautifulYouTV will walk you through the process, step-by-step. Once, you’re done, put in these anime contact lenses to really freak people out (the objective of all sound fashion decisions).

-via Fashionably Geek

If you are the ultimate Akira fan, and you have a thousand dollars burning a hole in your wallet, then this real life version of the red leather motorcycle jacket worn by Kaneda in the anime feature will soon become your most prized possession. If you can’t afford such geeky luxuries in life, then you’ll just have to bask in the glory of the jacket via the image gallery at the link below.

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We’ve featured tons of geeky tattoos before, but never has one incorporated so many references in one delightful character design. Can you name them all?

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(YouTube Link)

Watching these guys imitate an anime scene is funny yet somehow scary, and it’s made much worse by the fact that they’re acting out to a Backstreet Boys song, especially when the guy on the left’s hair is so much cooler than all of the Backstreet Boys put together. This video makes me glad that people don’t express themselves like the characters in anime do, or else we’d all have a hard time telling whether someone is angry or extremely happy!

-via ComicsAlliance

These aren’t the little critters that have been driving kids, and parents, crazy for over 15 years, but personally I find these designs by Gavin Mackey far more appealing. Gotta catch ‘em all? More like make sure they don’t catch you, alone in the dark…

Link -via ComicsAlliance

Dante was looking quite stylish at the Otakon Convention in the great Okami Amaterasu costume his owners made for him. While I’ve seen a lot of great cosplayers in my day, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog with such a great costume before. Have you?

Link Via The Mary Sue

A Pokéball from Pokémon appeared in the night sky over Niigata, Japan. This brawl is going to be awesome. Link -via Geekosystem

Take a 150-year-old British story, soak it in the culture of cute Japanese anime, and run it through the technology of Vocaloid audio recording and animation software, and you end up with a cartoon production that resembles a Broadway musical! -Thanks, Daniel!

Yung Lee went to the Anime North convention in Toronto and asked cosplayers to act out action scenes with him. He edited the resulting footage into some epic battle action. -via Topless Robot

Anime cat ear headbands have been around for a long time. But these, developed by Neurowear, can be controlled with your thoughts. At least, that’s the bold claim that the company makes about the “Necomimi”. Just concentrate to make them stand up.

Link via CrunchGear

Instructables user lizzomarek made an amazing model of the castle from the anime movie Howl’s Moving Castle. It’s made in the Japanese pottery tradition of raku-yaki and given a steampunk flair. There’s a really neat video about halfway down the page at the link showing the castle, still glowing red hot, coming out of the kiln.

Link via Make

Previously: Two models of Howl’s Moving Castle in paper

Flickr user migpix captions this photo as “Zentradi child being held up by a Valkyrie Veritech Fighter VF-1S in Battloid mode.” If I remember Robotech correctly, the sizing is just about spot on. But did the Zentradi in that series have actual children, or just clones? It’s been too long for me to remember clearly. Anyway, to this day, I regret not having the Ulpio Minucci’s theme to Robotech as the processional music at my wedding. That is one awesome piece of music.

Link via Make | Photo: Macross Wedding Cake

You know how when you go to a really popular anime convention that there might be say a 100 people waiting on line to get their badge? Well back in the 80s those 100 people would be pretty much the sum total of anime fandom in New York City! Thanks to Saul Trabal (show in the photo above) we have a wonderful little photo essay from that era when anime was limited to getting VHS tapes from friends of friends who had pen pals in Japan.

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Hello Neatoramanauts! I’ve been busy adding a lot of new and neat items on the NeatoShop, but yesterday I got stumped. See, I was adding several anime-related items (including some cool new Totoro items – yay! Those are hard to get) and was proceeding nicely until I got to these two Anime Zipper Bags shown above.

I vaguely remember these two from my childhood, but for the life of me I couldn’t find their names. It doesn’t help that my hiragana and katakana are non-existent.

Can someone tell me what the name of the anime or manga? The first correct answers will win one of those zipper bags and my everlasting thanks.

At the Highland Resort Hotel and Spa near Mount Fuji in Japan, you can rent a room decorated to reflect the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. Before you balk at the $450 per night price, keep in mind that it apparently comes with a girl dressed as Rei encased in plastic.

Link via CrunchGear | Photo: Highland Resort

deviantART user Dezychan writes “This is exactly what it looks like, and no, I have no shame in making this.” Nor should he. This image could only be improved upon by including Tom Baker (the Fourth Doctor) as Tuxedo Mask.

Link via Comics Alliance

Blogger Acornbud knitted a toilet paper roll cozy shaped like the titular character in the anime movie My Neighbor Totoro. At the link, you can view detailed instructions on how to make your own.

Link via Geek Crafts

Previously:
Totoro Cat Bus
Totoro Bento Box

Chengdu Guosetianxiang is an amusement park in Sichuan, China. The park has erected an enormous and nearly life-size Gundam model. Well, presumably it’s just a model and not a functional Gundam. It’s 49 feet tall, which is 10 feet shorter than Japan’s.

Link via Nerd Bastards | Photo: Photobucket user phoenixhth

Derek Lieu is the cartoonist responsible for the webcomic Kick in the Head. He noticed that most anime opening sequences have the same features:

It’s always amused me the repeated imagery that exist in anime opening credit sequences. This video doesn’t cover them all, but it has a lot of the big ones. Interesting thing I learned, if a character is running it’s overwhelmingly to the left of the screen.

So he put together this video, showing the openings of 93 different anime series. There’s a complete list of them at the video link.

via Geekosystem | Lieu’s Website

Remember the game SNES game F-Zero? (Oh, how I love F-Zero). Well, it’s back – in spirit anyhow and with weapons – in this new anime called Redline. And boy, it looks AWESOME!

Redline is a new Japanese animated movie brought to us by Takeshi Koike, the director of the Animatrix. Redline took 7 years to make, apparently using 100,000 handmade drawings, it was no minor task and it looks to have paid off… Bigtime. The animation is just spectacular. It was released in Japan on October 9th, with a nationwide subtitled release planned for 2011 in the States, having some small screenings here and there. So we may have a bit of time to wait, but it looks well worth the wait.

The whole thing has the feel of a mix of Speedracer on methamphetamine and Madmax. You can tell this one was made with a beautiful attention to detail as soon as you see some of the explosions. When there is a lot of detail to something like a fiery explosion, then you know there was some juice behind this baby. But truly, words do not do it justice.

Cool-O-Rama has the trailers: Link [embedded YouTube clips]

Jerry and Kat got married. Their cake was designed to resemble the ship SDF-1 Macross from the old anime series Macross. Or possibly the Americanized version, Robotech. You can view more pictures at the link.

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Look at this awesome Speed Racer Mach 5! It’s authentic down to the last detail, but this is no cartoon, it’s a full-size licensed replica from custom car wizard Mark Towle.

Our Speed Racer Mach 5 has it all, from the rotating front saw blades and push button chrome steering wheel to the custom M5 logo and red leather interior. Our Mach 5 is built for SHOW & GO implementing a California RUST FREE CORVETTE C-4 chassis to provide sports enthusiasts with the proformance, and handling only an American Made Corvette can deliver.

Oh yeah, you can buy it! Link

Itasha is, reportedly, a Japanese hobby of decorating cars with female anime characters. Photographer Tomoyuki Sakaguchi took 23 pictures of some of the finer examples of this style.

Link via Pink Tentacle

Fanboy has the larger pic: Link

Joe Peacock (previously on Neatorama) has been collecting Akira cells and production art since he was 14 years old, and now he has collaborated with ToonSeum to show the entire world why Akira is the pinnacle of Japanese anime:

No other film has ever looked like Akira, before or since. It’s stunningly fluid and detailed animation often required as many as nine separate cel layers. The 125 minute feature was comprised of over 160,000 cels and almost as many backgrounds, each one completely hand–drawn and hand-painted. Purists recognize Akira as the last completely hand-created animated feature, as cel animation quickly gave way to cheaper digital production and CGI technology.

Filmmakers, animators, art students and anime fans have largely missed out on in-depth looks at how original, cel-based animation was created – and what better example than the magnum opus that is Akira? No other animation in history – from Japan, the United States or otherwise – focused so much attention to detail in every single aspect, on every single frame and background. Each piece is a study in color theory, layout, motion dynamics and technical artistry. And it is my mission, along with ToonSeum, to expose as many people as possible to the brilliance inherent in this collection.

Links: Art of Akira – via The Journal of Joe The Peacock. Yay.

Remember the digital pet game Tamagotchi? Well, Japan now has the next step in virtual relationship, a Nintedo DS video game called Love Plus where nerdy males can have their very own anime girlfriends.

Lisa Katayama, Boing Boing’s contributing editor, reports that a man who calls himself "Sal9000" has taken the next logical step:

On Sunday, a man named Sal9000 married the love of his life. Her name is Nene Anegasaki, and she lives inside of a Nintendo DS video game called Love Plus. The wedding took place during a Make: Japan meet-up held at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In attendance were a live audience, an MC, the bride’s virtual video game girlfriend — who made a speech — and a real human priest.

A wife with an on/off switch! I don’t know if this is crazy or genius – maybe both: Link (with embedded YouTube clip) – Thanks Xeni!

To celebrate the anime Mobile Suit Gundam’s 30th anniversary, Japan is building a life-size RX-78-2 Gundam in Odaiba, Tokyo. From Anime News Network:

The statue will be free for viewing, but it will only stay up for two months. It will be built with fiberglass-reinforced plastic over a steel frame so it can be disassembled later. The head unit will move and the body will have 50 points that will emit light. Mist can shoot forth from 14 locations on the body. The park is just four trains stops from Tokyo Big Sight, the home of the Comic Market dojinshi convention and the Gundam Big Expo convention that will be held from August 21 to August 23. Bandai NAMCO Group is still determining what to do with the statue after its allotted two months in the park are over.

As you can see, the mecha is almost done. Just in time to deal with the shenanigans over at North Korea, too! Moé passion blog has more pics: Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Frau.

Japan has painted a number of their trains with some really amazing anime art, including Pikachu, Doraemon  and the Anpanman one above.

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