I’m not a huge Manga fan, I find most of the storytelling absurd. I did enjoy certain things like Captain Harlock and one other show that was similar in that it had space-faring ships that were kind of like big battleships. The characters wore red and white suits (No, not Macross or Robotech) - if you know what I’m talking about leave a comment.

You can see I obviously have always enjoyed space-themed story lines. Anyway, one of the most amazing little manga films I have ever watched is a short film called Voices of a Distant Star by Makoto Shinkai.

This wonderful film was not produced by a studio, but was done entirely by Shinkai himself. He wrote the story, did the animation, production - everything but the music I believe. It’s a story that conveys incredible emotion and uses technology as a foundation for that story. In other words, the technology itself isn’t the story, it’s a supporting character as it were. That’s one reason why it succeeds so well. Too much you see over the top technology being the story and that gets old fast.

The story begins with Mikako and Noboru being separated at the beginning of high school in 2046. Mikako gets accepted into the training program for mecha pilots to fight the aliens who attacked human settlements on Mars (must have been some other mean aliens other than Ugo). The story evolves as she moves further out into space, where time becomes a factor. She continues to try and contact Noburu as he patiently waits for her.

The story is powerfully presented and delivers a keen emotional punch. The cream on the top is the amazing music composed for the film, which fits absolutely perfectly (in fact I bought the soundtrack).

Do yourself a favor and rent or buy this great little film, you will not be sorry. Let me know what you think! Maybe later I will share some of my favorite parts of the film, but I don’t want to ruin anything for those who have not seen it yet. You can get the film at Amazon.

I haven’t actually been paying too much attention to this project. While I am a Stars Wars fan, I’m not the huge geeky type who knows all the lines and worships all the movies. I still think the first two movies were really the cream of the crop.

Anyway, this week I’ve gotten a bit excited about going to see The Clone Wars. First, George Lucas is not the main creative force behind this one, which is a good thing. His writing skills have severely lacked in his latest movies. Secondly, I love the fact that it’s animated, being a huge fan of animation, and they style they chose looks really interesting.

So count me in, I’m definitely going to go see this one. The story looks interesting as well, going off the beaten path of the typical characters and looking into Anakin’s history and his taking on of his first apprentice.

Some of you know I’m an animation buff (you may have seen my own little mini short I posted). A neat short called Big Buck Bunny was released by the Blender Foundation. Blender is an open source 3D package. Their site appears to be down now due to heavy traffic, but you can view it right here.

Big Buck Bunny from Blender Foundation on Vimeo.

They did a really nice job of telling an entertaining story while showing off what Blender can do. They stated the following goals for the film:

* Developing tools … for editing and rendering hair, fur or grass
* Improve character animation tools for cartoonish motion and deformation
* Test Blender with giant outdoor environments, with large grassy fields and many trees with leaves
* Further validate Blender as a professional animation creation suite

And secondary:

* Create a great and good looking animation short, licensed freely as open content
* Provide content for other artists to learn from or to re-use, including documentation and tutorials
* And of course: Have lots of fun!

I think they did a fine job. I’ve got experience with Hash Animation:Master and Softimage XSI. I have been thinking about doing some things with the strip - like a poster of Asimov’s inner workings - in 3D for fun. I think I’m going to download Blender and give it a try. I’ll post anything I come up with (although it may be awhile).

Speaking of film, if you follow my twitter you may have seen me mention a Marooned trailer for the strip. My good buddy Steve Ogden of Croaker’s Gorge is doing the voice over, which I’m real excited about. I hope to get started on it this weekend.

Hey folks, just a quick note to let you know that I’m taking the plunge next week and moving the strip to Mondays & Thursdays. I’ve already got both done. Hopefully I can swing the schedule. Once a week is just not enough even for me.