Sparkly things.

Sep. 25th, 2008 08:53 am
nenena: (W.I.T.C.H. - Irma rocks)
1. The premiere of Yume wo Kanaeru Zou - both the made-for-TV movie and the premiere episode of the new serial drama - is next Thursday, October 2nd. Excitement! Furuta Arata is cast as Ganesha. I saw a promotional poster in Heiando that showed a screenshot of Arata in full elephanty-garb, prosthetic ears and trunk and everything. And - although I really hate to say this - he looked waaaaaaaay better than Ekta's Ganesha. (But that's not hard.) Disappointingly, however, all of the images and videos on the official show website show Arata without the ears and trunk. Apparently his normal "costume" in the series is just a glittery vest and a crown. The prosthetic ears and trunk will only be used in the premiere episode, according to the video interviews posted on the website. Anyway, the Yume wo Kanaeru Zou TV movie is going to be a direct adaptation of the novel, with an incredibly young, hot, and stylish Shun Oguri rather unconvincingly cast as the sallow, washed-up salaryman that unwittingly invokes Ganesha. The serial drama is going to a sequel to the novel, only starring a new female character in the role of the person who ends up invoking Ganesha. Neat.

2. Chris Coleman did something "forward-looking" and kind of awesome? What is this, International Sequential Art Gets Support from Slightly Off-Their-Rocker Politicians Week?

3. Speaking of comics, today's Looking for Group was both terrible and beautiful.

4. Did the Penny and Aggie RSS feed quit working for anyone else?

5. This month's Afternoon/Ah! My Goddess/Chara-Mel triple-punch has left me giddy and ridiculously blown away by awesome. I promise a massive glut of scans as soon as my scanner learns to play nice with the new laptop. In the meantime, however, I will say this: It's not every day that a normally dignified, critically-embraced mens' manga anthology magazine prints an issue covered in sparkly rainbow glitter. But then again, this is Japan, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.
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Do you know the elephant man?

Mar. 22nd, 2008 03:42 am
nenena: (Default)
Ladies and gentlemen, a Japanese vision of Ganesha:

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That is the cover illustration to Mizuno Keiya's bestselling novel Yume wo Kanaeru Zō ("The Wish-Granting Elephant"). The book is about an ambitious but lazy salaryman who one day discovers that the Hindu god Ganesha is crashing at his house. And "crashing" is the right word for it - In this story, Ganesha is described as a NEET whose major habit is "sleeping." But Ganesha promises to dispense advice to the salaryman to help him find success in life. The blurb on the jacket of the book sells it like an Odd Couple story: "The ambitious but failing salaryman and the good-for-nothing god! A fantasy story full of love and smiles!"

Although the book doesn't read like a coherent story at all, it's more of a series of pithy self-help speeches delivered by a chain-smoking down-on-his-luck elephant god who speaks in the dialect of a grouchy 120-year-old Japanese man.

And check out this excellent introductory animation. Excellent.

The best part? The book is apparently slated to become a TV drama sometime later this year. If this at all involves some Japanese dude wearing a giant rubber elephant costume, I am so there. I mean, it couldn't possibly be worse than dressing up a white British dude in a cardboard elephant mask and calling him God, right?

Aw, who am I kidding. The Japanese version of Ganesha will probably be CGI.
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