Cosplay at Comic Con

Unfortunately, I had to leave San Diego early and miss the Masquerade, and there was a Gatchaman entry this year:

Phil Foglio does a nice introduction:


Here's a longer video of the contestant. The music is Animetal's rendition of the Gatchaman theme.


And here's an earlier contestant from 1998's Comic Con, this time in the OAV version of the costume. The music here is from the American commercial for the OAV.



Thanks, Tatsunokofan!

Imagi Updates

Felix Ip, the Art/Creative Director at Imagi, has some very interesting images posted on his blog. Screenshots 01 features renders that weren't available at the time the trailer was run at Comic Con. Screenshots 02 features images from the trailer. According to the blog, character designs were modified after the trailer.

Gatchaman Screenshots 01

Gatchaman Screenshots 02

Also, from the comments, I would not expect Imagi's Gatchaman film to release until 2010. From the looks of their promotion, Astro Boy is definitely showing first.

IMPORTANT NOTE: There has been a lot of fan feedback on Felix Ip's site, and he appears to be listening. Go express your opinion.

Also on Butterboom.com, here are the newest pics of the logo and the team, taken from an Imagi sell sheet for the Gatchaman licensing company. The logo I saw at Comic Con. The team I didn't.

News from Gatchacon

Gatchacon, the unofficial con-within-the-San Diego Comic Con, is under way. This year's t-shirts feature a schematic of Battle of the Planets robot narrator 7-Zark-7 and the slogan, "He Thinks So You Don't Have To." Finally we get to see where his FOSDIC is.

Imagi has a booth at the con this year, and their major push is the movie, "Astro Boy" (to the tune of Linkin Park's "Somewhere I Belong") along with an ad for an older project, "Cat Town," and the demo reel from Gatchaman. In the Gatchaman reel, we see glimpses of Jun and a little bit of Ken in uniform plus a flash of the G-1, but the focus is on Joe in his civilan car stealing a suitcase of cash(?) from some thugs and evading some seriously scary gunfire. He looks good, and the demo is impressive... But this is an old demo before Imagi changed their ideas and their staff.

I have heard some of the ideas being bounced around for the latest version of the movie, and to be honest, although these ideas have supposedly been scrapped as well, I'm not encouraged. Something about how Gatchaman was an ancient legend worshipped since the day of the samurai... Bleh. That's been done to death in other films. As it stands now, according to current press releases about Imagi, the movie has been pushed back to 2009, and that interferes with Tatsunoko's Japan release of the live action Gatchaman movie. Things aren't looking good for this film, and I dearly hope I am wrong about this.

Capcom vs. Tatsunoko: Fight!

Imagine Ken Washio battling Street Fighter's Ken.

According to Brian Ashcraft's post at the Kotaku blog, Famitsu Magazine has announced that Capcom is putting together Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes, a fighting game featuring its characters pitted in tag battles against Tatsunoko's best heroes... the Gatchaman among them. Other characters slated for inclusion are Ryu (Street Fighter's, not Gatchaman's), Chun-Li, and Casshern.

EDIT: Check out the screen shots from the game at Famitsu.com: Link

Bits and Pieces: Movie info, Gatchaman article, and Gatchaman cameo in Yatterman

Kevin Munroe on leaving Gatchaman:

In the following interview on IESB.net, Kevin Munroe discusses his new project with Dylan Dog and his reasons for parting ways with Imagi and the Gatchaman movie project. Here's an excerpt:

"With Gatchaman, I guess you can say it came down to creative differences. I’m a little heartbroken to walk away, as I’m still a huge fan of the property and its potential. But I’m glad that at least we got to share a little of my version of the movie in those images we released last year. "


Comic Book Resources article on Gatchaman

And here's an article on Tatsuo Yoshida and one of his greatest creations, co-written by pro-fan Jason Hofius.


Gatchaman cameo on new Yatterman series

The characters from other Tatsunoko series often make cameos in episodes of "Yatterman," and here's the latest (not to be confused with the sighting of Ken and Jun at the takoyaki stand a few posts ago). Observant fan "Zeiderbeck" posted to the Yahoo! Battle of the Planets Mailing List about a Gatchaman sighting on the new "Yatterman" television series. The special one-hour broadcast on May 5, 2008, "One Night Only! Doronbo vs.
Monta Mino! Join Us in a Battle of Brain-Teasers! A Special Episode
Guest-Starring Gatchaman and the Mach Five!" features the voice talents of Katsuji Mori (voice of Ken and Go Mifune from Mach Go Go Go) and silent appearances of the rest of the team and Dr. Nambu. The episode also contains an old Japanese Gatchaman in-joke: a snippet from a typical schoolyard parody of the theme song:

"Chikyuu wa hitotsu! / Warereba oketsu!"
("There is only one Earth! / Split it, and it looks just like a butt!")

Looks like this latest guest appearance could be fun!

Link to Jun Falkenstein's blog

As I mentioned in my last post, news is out that Jun Falkenstein will be the new director of the Gatchaman movie. Thanks to a post by David Labraccio on the BotP Mailing List at Yahoo Groups, I found her blog at Stone Falcon Productions.

Here's an excerpt of particular interest:

One of the things that's bothering me a little bit right now is that fact that the film I am working on has a fan following (of the source material). No, the fans aren't what's bothering me - in fact, that part's pretty cool. What's bothering me is, I know that the minute they announce me as director, all these fans will run over to my IMDB page, look me up, and see that pretty much the biggest directing credit I have is 'The Tigger Movie' - and then they will freak out, because how dare I direct their beloved (INSERT FILM TITLE HERE LATER) when "all I have done" is this rated G film for little kids. Oh yes, they will freak out. And you know what, I can't say that I will blame them.

So with that in mind, I started these 'journal entries' to not only document the process of directing an animated feature for those interested, but also to attempt to convince worried fans that I'm actually a pretty big geek and fan of the genre - and that I have no intention of softening down the film when the source material is so kick-ass.

I don't know how this is going to turn out, so as a fan I'm not quite willing to wail and gnash my teeth quite yet. Wait and see.

New Gatchaman movie director

Just got a tip in this very here blog that Jun Falkenstein has been chosen to direct the Imagi Gatchaman film. I confirmed this, and here are Falkenstein's other works:

Everyone's Hero (2006) Storyboard Artist

The Tigger Movie (2000) Director, Screenplay

Quest for Camelot (1998) Story

Party at Sam's (1997) Director of Photography

Keep those tips coming, folks!