Dec 20, 2005
Last Friday I wrote a post at Gridskipper about the Christmas-themed things that are going on at Cafe Pause, and I figured I’d take a few pics to give you and idea of how it looks. I supplied the Christmas tunes, as well as the Bass/Rankin TV specials for the projector.
PauseTalk is a regular series of events that take place at Cafe Pause on the first Monday of every month, with a start time of 20:00. The idea is to create a forum where Tokyo-based creatives can get together and discuss their own projects, as well as cultural currents of the city. The next edition happens in March.
PLAY is a series of events with Jean Snow spinning some of his favorite virtual discs in a casual setting at Cafe Pause. The next edition happens in January. See the setlist for previous editions here, and subscribe to a feed of the mixes.
Being a survey of recommended titles for your gaming pleasure. New games are added 2-3 times weekly, and all selections are by your host, Jean Snow, a Tokyo-based writer and gamer.
Jean Snow is a contributor to Arcade Mania, your guide to the arcade gaming scene in Japan (Amazon US/Amazon Japan). He also provided assistance on Tokyolife: Art and Design, a guide to Tokyo's cultural output of the past few years, covering the works of over 80 influential creatives.
He will be contributing to the upcoming fifth editions of The Rough Guide to Tokyo and The Rough Guide to Japan, due for release in 2011.
I'm also a proud member of the Pecha Kucha Night family, working on various projects, including updating Pecha Kucha Daily, a blog that highlights the creativity coming out of PKN events worldwide.
I serve as editor-at-large at Néojaponisme, a web journal covering social and cultural aspects of Japan. Read the manifesto, by founder and chief editor W. David Marx.
I love Kobito hiding behind the christmas tree :)
And they are everywhere! And of course, can be purchased at the cafe.
Love those Rankin/Bass Christmas Specials. Unknown in Japan even though they were animated in Japan by Japanese puppeteers hired by the American producers.
Oh wow, I didn’t know about that Japanese connection! It was a nice nostalgic trip for me, as I remember fondly watching those specials on TV every year when I was a kid.
Yep, it’s true although they definitely do play it down. While the character design was done in the U.S. the actally production was done in Japan. If you look at the eyes of those characters (esp. Frosty the Snowman) you can see that they look slighty “Japanese Manga/Anime-ish” in some of the expressions.
In the early days, lots of animation was farmed out to Japan. (Transformers, Thundercats, Inspector Gadget etc) Many studios did the contract work to pay for they own animations. You can say that Saturday morning cartoons paid for some of the Japanese anime series in the 70s and early 80s.
But when Japan got expensive they started to go to Taiwan and Korea. When I was working in Animation we did the pre-production in Toronto and the production was done in Korea and Taiwan. The huge animation industry in Korea and Taiwan now is thriving thanks to Carebears.
For a while, some Japanese studios were contracting Korea to do some TV series as well. I’m pretty sure 2/3s of the original Macross series was animated in Korea (The crappy episodes) but I can’t prove it.
Thanks for all the background info!