New Thundercats Trailer

Totoro Forest Project

"The Totoro Forest Project is a fundraising exhibition/auction to support the non-profit organization, 'Totoro No Furusato National Fund', Oscar winning filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki has been one of the big supporters of. The event will feature more than 200 pieces of original art especially created by internationally acclaimed artists in the fields of animation, comic books, illustration, and fine arts. Hayao Miyazaki has been actively supporting the preservation effort of Sayama Forest for more than ten years. This 8750 acre park in the outskirts of Tokyo is also known as Totoro Forest. It's in these woods in fact that the concept for the film My Neighbor Totoro was born.


"In the past few decades, the forest has been subject to urban development. Only continued support to the Totoro Trust Fund can help preserve this much needed island of green in the midst of Tokyo's urban sprawl. We intend to donate the entire proceeds of the project to this worthy cause.


"This event can also be a symbolic gesture, sending a strong message to the world in terms of environmental and social awareness.  Imagine artists from all over the world coming together to donate artwork to help conserve a forest they have never seen."

Check out the Gallery.

Ginga Tetsudō no Yoru

Bomb#20 will vouch for me here, but my S.O. is hung-up on the 'Japornimation' archetype.

It stands to figure though, since she's quite a bit younger than I am and grew up in the wake of Manga's releases of Madhouse productions (Ninja Scroll and the like). She also grew up addicted to Walt Disney's television work of the era (including Tailspin, ironically animated by Japan's TMS) as well as the squiggly-lined cartooning of Doug and Pepper Ann (yay, verily, twas bliss to be a Millennial in the 1990s...)

Over this morning's coffee and pancakes we discussed the nature of escapism in works of fiction, and eventually got around to escapism as it pertains to animated cartoons. Given her predilection for disliking Japanese cartoons she naturally has difficulty understanding the 'realistic' approach used in the cartoons from Japan; cartoon people make no sense to someone accustomed to the exaggerated, anthropomorphism typified by America's cartoon past.

I told her about 'Night on the Galactic Railroad' and she sounded interested. Granted, this film is not typical of Japanese cartoons, but as an application of anthropomorphism to universal themes of human nature and certain existential themes she ought to at least be able to 'make the jump' -- or so I hope.

We'll watch it tonight and see if her head doesn't explode.