Post little known facts relating to anime, and perhaps general Japanese (otaku) culture here, for the educating of otakukind!
Fact #1: That air circus-like missile pattern seen in Macross, Daicon IV, and many show since, is called the Itano Circus.
Named after the guy who said to have originally pioneered it, Ichiro Itano, who had also shows such as Megazone 23 and the original Gundam.
Don't forget Macross Plus and Macross Zero. His successor is believed to be Yasushi Muraki who's recent work in Eureka Seven has a lot of Itano Circus (See the end of the 2nd OP)
Episode 10 of Hakkenden: THe Dog Warriors OVA was done by Shinya Ohira and is infamous for being absolutely different from the rest of the OVA: the character designs are totally disregarded and the mood, pacing, story, everything is completely different. It's more different than Aquarion 19.
However, I don't know how the wotakus responded to it seeing that itwas some time ago.
maybe not little known but Evangelion got a rerun just to get psychology students to analyse it.
The Silverna ship in Last Exile is a lot like a heavier-than-air airship in 'The Clipper of the Clouds' by Jules Verne. Alex Lowe is a lot like the captain Robur in that book, too.
Indeed, 'Silverna' and 'Jules Verne' are pretty much equally logical transliterations of the name, although there is no "official" word to support this theory.
Miina Tominaga's name is actually written "Mi~na Tominaga"!
the 16th episode of Evangelion TV series-"Sickness Unto Death, And..."-is a quotation from the title of Kierkegaard's book.
the last episode of the TV series-"Congratulations to all the children!"-was a quotation from the last scene of Yoshiyuki Tomino's anime movie The Ideon (1982), as many people have already pointed out it. In the last scene of The Ideon, after the human race had died out, the souls of the dead characters were drifting in outer space and they heard the singing, "Happy birthday dear children!" That is ironic, in short, the last episode of Evangelion TV series implies that closed and self-sustained interiority is nothing other than a kind of "death." It is death of the self as loss of the other. It also implies that the world of joy for otakus such as the first half of Evangelion TV series cannot help coming to a death on account of its closeness.
Is there any particular reason why so many Gainax series feature very anxious, unhappy young male protagonists with no parents?
Kazuya Tsurumaki: Yes, the directors at Gainax are all basically weak, insecure, bitter, young men. So are many anime fans. Many Japanese families, including my own, have workaholic fathers whose kids never get to see them. That may influence the shows I create.
Can you explain the symbolism of the cross in Evangelion?
KT: There are a lot of giant robot shows in Japan, and we did want our story to have a religious theme to help distinguish us. Because Christianity is an uncommon religion in Japan we thought it would be mysterious. None of the staff who worked on Eva are Christians. There is no actual Christian meaning to the show, we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool. If we had known the show would get distributed in the US and Europe we might have rethought that choice.
>>1, I'm pretty sure that Ichiro Itano only worked on the original Gundam movies. The ones that reused material from the series plus Itano's excellent animation.
In certain areas (Bulgaria being the particular case I've heard of), one can add the separate name of just 'H' to one's name to show that one has undertaken a pilgrimage (usually to Mecka). In this light, the name of the very religious 'Vanilla H' in Galaxy Angel at least appears to make some sense.
Alex Lowe is based on Captain Harlock, according to Murata.
I like this thread :D
There are two Osamu Kobayashi's in the anime industry! They both do the same thing - started off with animation, and then went on to directing, and they have the same kanji - 小林治.
Except that one is a fair bit older than the other. One is the founder of Asia-do, who originally came from A-Pro and has worked on old old anime that few people know about. Very recently he did the storyboard for episode 18 of the anime Zettai Shounen.
The other is a largely independant, young guy who has a distinct style and has an affection for rock music and gritty city life - the director of BECK and the upcoming Paradise Kiss. He's also done the ending animation for Gad Guard. You can find his homepage here: ttp://www.aurora.dti.ne.jp/~osamu-ko/
I hope that was nice and informative.
This is maybe not all that obscure.
Random fact:
Quite some Spells and/or chanting of spells used in Bastard!! are from more or less well known bands such as Black Sabbath, Slayer, Venom, Guns'N Roses, Sodom, Megadeath, Def Leppard ..
just to name some.. full list can be found on volume 8 of the manga.. at least in the german version. if you want a full translation bother Alexander to contact me ;)
In the series Ai Yori Aoshi, Mayu mentions that her mother is working on the quite unique assignment of designing clothes for the Queen of Finland. This is either a reference to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Frederick_Charles_of_Hesse#The_Finnish_throne
...or, MUCH more probably, just the kind of plain stupidity and ignorance often shown when it comes to things outside Japan in anime. ; )
The name of the character Toren Smith in Gunbuster comes from the founder of Studio Proteus, who at the time was well acquainted with the people at Gainax. Conversely, the Dirty Pair: Dangerous Acquaintances book by Adam Warren and Toren Smith featured an evil corporation named Gainax.
Also, Noriko and Jung Freud have the same birthday as Toshio Okada, the Otaku King.
The title "Aim for the Top" is a combination of "Top Gun" and "Aim for the Ace", but everyone probably knew that.
The café in Haibane Renmei has the same name (although romanized differently) as the one in NieA Under Seven, and the used-clothing store has one of the NieA alien suits in it.
Madarame in Genshiken and Madarame in Bleach are voiced by same seiyuu.(Hiyama Nobuyuki)
... who is also the guy that voices all the sounds made by Adult Link, as well as Gai Shishio in GaoGaiGar.
...and Kao Chenshin in Planetes. And Blue in Ryvius.
But he still isn't as famous as Norio Wakamoto, aka CV: Wakamoto, the only voice actor who not only somehow got his very own cartoon alter ego but also became a Futaba Channel meme:
ttp://kazumi386.org:9801/nijigen/wakamoto/hokan.htm
ageru