Teruko Akatsuki - Tokyo Shoe Shine Boy

Tetsuo by Chris Faccone

Akira by Jimmy Giegerich

Le Matos - Kiyoko

Le Matos - Kaneda (Remix)

Doraemon at the 2020 Neo-Tokyo Olympic Games

by Aleix Pitarch

Akira by Sam Bosma

Bosma's tumblr

Bartkira by Adam Norfolk

Adam Norfolk's Bartkira project pages. As seen on Mr Norfolk's tumblr.

Toren Smith

One-man anime scene Toren Smith has passed away. Mr Smith and his publishing company Studio Proteus, in conjunction with various other comic companies, are completely responsible for shaping mine, and many of my generation's, Japanese media tastes.

Studio Proteus was dedicated to a boutique style approach to manga translation. Pages were photographed from original elements and translated sound effects were designed by award winning comics letterers and manga artists. Studio Proteus was also committed to treating artists and manga professionals ethically. Page rates were high, royalties were paid, and original artwork often commissioned.

Thank you Mr Smith for helping to bring us Akira, Appleseed, Lone Wolf and Cub, Ghost in the Shell, Gunsmith Cats, Intron Depot, Domu, Dominion, The Dirty Pair, Metropolis, The Legend of Kamui, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

AKIRA by Jimmy Giegerich

Kaneda by Morgan Jeske

Hypertext for awesome

NEO TOKYO IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE

Off to see Akira tonight, it's been scheduled on a great big screen at my local art house cinema, FACT, as part of a benefit for the Tohoku Earthquake relief fund. Just to include you, here's Streamline's trailer for their dubbed American issue of Akira; usually seen dumped (to get you pumped) on the front-end of many first wave releases from UK home video label Manga Entertainment.

Akira by Tyler Stout

Geinoh Yamashirogumi - Kaneda

Watch Tatsuyuki Tanaka!

Rooting around the interwebs, I found myself a couple of Tatsuyuki Tanaka shorts. Tanaka, you may know as the author of the rather splendid artbook Cannabis Works. Other than that his CV is very hard to get a grip on. He's done storyboard work for Studio 4 °C, was a key animator on Akira, and has a short in the compilation sequel Genius Party Beyond. Tanaka's work tends to feature exceptionally well observed slouch frames moored in a steam-machine clutterscapes AND BEYOND! Misleading pat generalisation wise, I'd go Katsuhiro Otomo meets Paul Pope. It's all the clean lines.

Anyway, the shorts:

First a Nike advert, featuring an animeheroic LeBron James.

Lastly, an Utada Hikaru music video excerpt.

Here, have the Genius Party Beyond trailer too!

Tetsuo by Moebius

Jean Giraud's take on telekinetic wunderkind Tetsuo, from Katsuhiro Otomo's manga masterpiece Akira. Otomo is pretty unabashed in recognising Moebius' influence on his own clean-line exhaust vision. Imagine that, your hero doodling your very own mind figure creation.