2009 holiday top 10 cosplay hotties
Present, from me to you. Can't deny the popularity of the cosplay posts - especially the cosplay cleavage one back at Kotaku - so it's really high time I post something I've been digging after for a long time, a bouquet of ten cosplay hotties excluding those famous beautés found in the slobsofgaming's eleven hot cosplayers list. In order of appearance: Aya Kiguchi, Kipi, Marie Claude Bourbonnais, Vikki Blows, Kanda Midori, Paranoiko, Alodia Gosiengfiao, Saya and someone whose identity we couldn't pinpoint. Good luck with whatever you end up doing with this tenner.
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naruto shuriken cellphone strap, fillet your balls with style
Case found himself staring through a shop window. The place sold small bright objects to the sailors. Watches, flicknives, lighters, pocket VTRs, simstim decks, weighted manriki chains, and shuriken. The shuriken had always fascinated him, steel stars with knife-sharp points. Some were chromed, others black, others treated with a rainbow surface like oil on water. But the chrome stars held his gaze. They were mounted against scarlet ultrasuede with nearly invisible loops of nylon fishline, their centers stamped with dragons or yinyang symbols. They caught the street's neon and twisted it, and it came to Case that these were the stars under which he voyaged, his destiny spelled out in a constellation of cheap chrome. (via dealextreme)
cosplay rounds: bayonetta
Dante has a female counterpart to look out for. Bayonetta, an apparently 190cm+ double-akimbo battle witch with a slight fuckslutty officelady taint is out on a battle romp. I am not completely sure about the 10/10 score Famitsu gave to Bayonetta but it's always nice to see someone putting effort into topping Lara Croft. Quite a few pics after the jump. By the way, post some more decent cosplay stuff on Bayonetta, if you manage to find them. Most of what I came through were, you know, not delicate.
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tetsuo the bullet man: tsukamoto's english-speaking sequel
That's a good day to be an IO9 reader now. According to them, Shinya Tsukamoto revealed his newest project at the Comic Con: Tetsuo the Bullet Man will be his new sequel to one of the most authentic cyberpunk monogatari so far. The English-speaking movie (to be released in 2010) is about Anthony, a guy working in Tokyo who transforms into Tetsuo after his son is called after the encounter of the "evil driver", a character who's basically creating Tetsuos in the first two movies. Join the Tetsuo Project here.
penfield's electrode: japanese girls and brain hacks for hire
Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield was something we'd have called a radio shack afficionado back in the days, only he did it to brains. If you ever wondered who found out the 0day vulnerability on the brain not feeling any pain directly, Penfield was surely one neurogeek to exploit that. According to what Michael Talbot wrote in The Holographic Universe,
While operating on the brains of epileptics, he would electrically stimulate various areas of their brain cells. To his amazement he found that when he stimulated the temporal lobes (the region of the brain behind the temples) of one of his fully conscious patients, they reexperienced memories of past episodes from their lives in vivid detail. One man suddenly relived a conversation he had had with friends in South Africa; a boy heard his mother talking on the telephone and after several touches from Penfield's electrode was able to repeat her entire conversation; a woman found herself in her kitchen and could hear her son playing outside.
This will serve as a gorgeous intro to YouTube user brainmove's "Repressed adolescent web-series in da house... ", PENFIELD'S ELECTRODE. Smooth Japanese narrative with low angle shots, heavy dose of after-effects and some shots of a mutating mental patient that reminds me of Metalosis Maligna. Tune in when we manage to find out more about this small jewel!
real drive: milyen az élet a ghost in the shell után?
Óvatosan meglépett, cukormázas addendumnak ígérkezik a japán cyberpunk halódó lajstromában Masamune Shirow új, egyébként tavalyi, kevesek által ismert animéje, a Real Drive (RD 潜脳調査室 RD Sennō Chōsashitsu). Nyolcvanon túli főhőssel indítani olyan volt, mint Bruce Sterling Holy Fire-jét kézhezkapni és kétszer olvasni el az első fejezeteket, hogy bevésődjön: új lapra írt történetről van szó, nincs katedrálisban triplaszaltózó amorózó óriásmecha meg luxuspavilonok előtt instant agymosott lakosság. (original RD page in Japanese)
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ghost in the shell stand alone complex new series a possibility
During the question and answer session, one fan asked about the possibility of a third season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Terashima-Furuta answered that she expects the project to happen, but that the director is currently tied up in other projects.
Expects to happen would mean four to seven years on the Western hemisphere, two to three on the Eastern. (anime news network on the production i.g. press conference via drifter)
memory, a short film by Junichi Yamamoto
Mix post-nuclear debris landscape a la Fallout with armor design similar to the pure genius snarly-gnarly-tongue-in-cheek web comics Gone with the Blastwave, add two pinches of human memories to be devoured and voilá, you have Memory, a 7-minutes long animation by Junichi Yamamoto, as reported by Bouncing Red Ball. While you're at it, also check Yamamoto's other anime entitled Melody (字幕版), trippy and dreamlike, completely different from Memory, very much in the vein of Russian animation in the seventies.
Set in a post-apocalyptic world destroyed by nuclear war, it tells the story of a damaged robot found by futuristic soldiers investigating a devastated area.
The humanoid appeared to be household robot, reminiscent of Asimo, and when the soldiers booted it up, they were able to see what was left of videos recorded inside its memory as seen by the robot throughout the years. (via bouncing red ball)
rez (és mi történt még 2001-ben?)
Vannak az életedben olyan pillanatok, amikor a világ, freeze frame, megszűnik mozogni, te pedig fényes, remegő szélű Polaroid-képen nézed, mi robbant be az életedbe éppen, a gondolatok hosszú szálon nyúlnak előre, a hangokat gondosan letekerték, a gondviselő Photoshopja pedig szemnyugtató pasztellbe kevert mindent, elemezhetsz nyugodtan. Ez volt 2001. Az alternatív univerzumok kutatóinak ezzel az évvel a legkönnyebb a dolguk: kilenc és fél perces az a YouTube-ra posztolt videó, amely a 2001: Űrodüsszeia dimenzióváltását ábrázolja, rávágva az előző évszázad egyik legfelszabadítóbb számával, az Orbital Halcyonjával (a Hackers főcímzenéje ez, tökéletes lenne, ha a világ bármely nagyvárosában landolva ez lüktetne a repülőgépek fejhallgatóiból, délutáni meleg napfényben), ez is lett az, ami nem valósult meg,. A mesterséges tudathoz legközelebb a 2000-es évváltás soha meg nem érkezett dátumváltási hisztériája, a Y2K probléma állt, az sem söpörte le a bankárokat és a kormányokat a Mercator-vetületről, a Holdon meg csak százmillió tonnányi jeget találtak a sarkköri területeken, dimenziókaput, monolitot meg idegen civilizációt, na azt lófasznyit se.
Eredményes év volt ez pedig: Amerika laborjaiban kikotyvasztották CC macskát, az első igazi klónállatot (két hosszú hónapig várták, hogy kimúljon, nem múlt ki, csak utána írta meg a Nature a nagy hírt), az operációs rendszerek csatája új fordulatszámra váltott, megjelent a Windows XP és az OS X, a Google bekebelezte a Usenetet, a fórumok és warez boardok máig is biztosan és zavartalan futó ősét, aki pedig beindította a 9¬/11-es félelemgépezetet, leplezetlen dollármilliárdokat zsebelhetett be a védelmi, a külpolitikai és a pániklobbiktól. Japán kétszer is vesénlépte az európai popkultúrát, egyszer Fritz Lang örökbecsű osztályharc-fantasztikumát, a Metropolist írta újra gőzízű, tócsaszemű animébe, aztán Varsót, virtuális valóságot, családi idillként főzött kelkáposztalevest és Artúr király legendáját keverte össze a több év múlva felfutó MMO-őrülettel, így született meg az Avalon, Mamoru Oshii Balkán-ízű vetülete a Ghost in the Shell után. A nagy büdzséktől nem, de a jó ötletektől annál inkább szagló független játékipar (pontosabban a brit Introversion) megszüli az Uplinket, ezzel biztosítván a hackerjátékok lassan gyarapodó, de végeláthatatlanul terjengő utánpótlását, a magyar irodalmi folyóirat, a Prae pedig megjelenteti cyberpunk különszámát, amiben olyan címekkel kápráztatja el a hevült szemüvegű olvasókat, mint „Adatmezők közt: allegória, retorika és a paratér” vagy „A cyberpunk metaforái: ontológia, episztemológia és science fiction”, igaz, akik ezeket olvassák, egy rozsdás katonai bögrénél bonyolultabb tárgyba is lételméletet, grandnarratívát és önkifejezési piramist szőnek.
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philip bloom: alone in tokyo
From Narita to sleeping sararimen: watch Philip Bloom's short movie Alone in Tokyo - made even more touching by the soundtrack, Air's "Alone in Kyoto". Reminds me a bit of Steve Reich cuddling with a sad, sad National Geography vlogger on vasopressine after heartbreak. (via japannewbie)
daichi: japan's answer to beatboxing beardyman
18-year old wonder kid Daichi is making world beatboxing championships - Beardyman and all his celebrity kin - work hard on their tonguework. Although his contestant material for the YouTube Beatboxing Championship is nothing short of amazing (his scratching is GODLY), what's really shining is his appearance in a Japanese TV show where he performs with boyband SMAP - but before that, he's really sending everyone in a frenzy and he deserves every fucking millisecond of it. (via japanitup)
UPDATE 1: It's not merely the scratching that makes Daichi's stagework amazing but also the tongue clicks he does. Ever thought about all the click consonants that South Africans have in lots of their dialects? How many kick-ass beatboxers can they have - or what if Daichi is actually speaking in African dialects when he rolls a groove?
daito manabe having a party in your face
Daito Manabe kickstarted his way to YouTube last October, now he's posting more material on his microstimulus projects that sync facial muscle twitches to glitch minimal. Above: four of his friends taking part in a sync experiment, below: it's all about adding LED light. (via gizmodo)
UPDATE 1: Follow Daito's YouTube channel.
frequency, amplitude: rez-like rhythm/remix games
Cyberpunk died with Johnny Mnemonic, the Krokers said in 1995, Robert Longo killed it - and with that came the slow dissipation of wireframes and vast electronic non-spaces of either consensual hallucination or psychedelia. Tetsuya Mizuguchi had it on PS2 and he brought it back for the 360 XBLA, leaving splinters of rumours about a Rez sequel and leaving us waiting empty-handed. If you still own your PS2, dust it off and google up a store where they still sell Frequency and Amplitude - developed by Harmonix in 2001 and 2003, respectively.
It's all about evoking the mindless speed limit breaking into an octogonal tunnel with sides connected to tracks, each of them containing notes you have to hit in order to keep the music flowing. It's basically a game-induced remix tool, containing songs by The Crystal Method, Curve, Orbit, Roni Size, Juno Reactor, Meat Beat Manifesto and a lot more in Frequency and the same diverse repertoire comes up in the sequel with Garbage, Herbie Hancock, Styles of Beyond or even Pink. My only heartbreak is that it's only for the Playstation - and PC's never really gotten far with similar music/rhythm games apart from Audiosurf.
from edge to finger fu: best iphone apps round-up, part 1
Cyberpunk or not, The Dose HQ is all about 80s vectors revisited (think Darwinia!), abstract geometrical forms and intense finger-flicking action, when it comes to handheld games. Until the i-platforms receive their well-deserved share of Flash, here's a brief rundown of all the apps - mostly games - we came to love in the past few months. They sometimes look like Rez, cover you like Music for Airports and they often frustrate you into an inhuman piece of shrieking Neanderthal who's been just defied by the complexity of a cube. Grab some demonic wisdom here!
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kenji siratori: japanese cyberpunk institution
Kenji Siratori: acclaimed Japanese cyberpunk artist, bizarro idol, brain sex toy for linguists and rebels alike. Released nine books, over forty discs and worked with names like Portion Control, Bahntier, Pride and Fall, Prometheus Burning and Hypnoskull. According to some, he's not even alive. Yet, he talked to us about the Japanese cyberpunk scene. Be advised. He has FUCKNAMLOAD. (Originally published in THE DOSE #2.)
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ghost in the shell 2.0: dvd has now entered the building
Ladies and gents, I now have the Ghost in the Shell 2.0 Japanese edition DVD in my paws, expect the review during the first week of January. The net is vast and infinite... not.
pileus, the internet umbrella
Pileus ("the internet umbrella!") is a joint project by Takashi Matsumoto and Sho Hashimoto - it's basically an amped up umbrella with access to Google Earth and Flickr (also having a screen surface, a built-in camera, a GPS, a motion sensor and a digital compass). You see a bird's eye view on your surroundings in the inside of the Pileus, GPS and the digital compass keeps the overhead display updated, whereas you can take images with the built-in camera and upload them to your Flickr account with context tags. Mix this with the glowing Blade Runner umbrella and I'm so game. (project site, via cpc)
mizuguchi talks rez
In Japan, we had 200,000 copies, including the special package with the Trance Vibrator. I think that in the United States, it was very small. So small. I don't know why, but I think it was too challenging at that time, for the United States market. Recently, we had a big success with Lumines on PSP in the U.S., but before that, many people said to me, there's no market for puzzle games. So it's changing. Now, with Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and new types of music games, I think it's a very good timing. (via)
rez hd hands-on (boingboing)
And if you don't have Rez, my goodness, what you're missing! The masterwork of maverick designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Rez is to shooters what Mizuguchi's later Lumines is to falling-block puzzles. Everything flows to the beat of the game's awesome techno soundtrack; you lock on to enemies then let go of the button to let your fire fly, they explode to the beat of the music. As you progress through the levels, the music goes from a simple back beat and a few rhythmic beeps to a dramatic multi-layered piece, and the vector-line graphics get more and more intricate as well. (via boingboing)
tribal tattoos on the rise
This footage, taken from Japanese TV, gives a hint of things to come in the world of game gaming/entertainment. It has been suggested that the PS3 will include technology that allows gamers to interact with the gaming environment in this manner.