The Ursa Major Awards
Probably most of you know that I am one of the founders and the longstanding Secretary of the Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association (ALAA), which administers the annual Ursa Major…
Category Archives: FUNNY ANIMALS AND MORE
Outrageous Anime – Part 2
My previous column on “Outrageous Anime” was popular enough that here is a followup on more jaw-dropping anime – deliberate or not. Excel Saga. Heppoko Jikken Anime Excel Saga (Quack…
Two More Notorious Animation Myths
I asked in an earlier column, “How much of what everyone ‘knows’ about animation history is wrong?” This week’s column will look two more widespread animation myths. Here’s the first:…
Sanrio and Me
Sanrio Co., Ltd. was founded in Japan in August 1960 as the Yamanashi Silk Company, by Shintaro Tsuji, to design, manufacture, and sell “cute” wearing apparel. In April 1973 the…
Those Fighting Virgins
One aspect of Japanese animation that the gaijin fan learns early on is that much of it exhibits Shinto influences, deliberately or subtly. For many early fans, it was the…
Olympics Mascot Animation – Part 3
Animation returned with a vengeance to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad) had the National Society of Chinese…
Olympics Mascot Animation – part 2
The 1988 Summer games were in Seoul, and the 1988 mascot(s) was a male & female pair of cartoon adolescent Amur tigers, Hodori and Hosuni (although Hosuni was usually ignored)….
Olympic Mascots Animation – Part 1
My topic this week: The mascots of the Summer Olympic Games, and any animation associated with them. I cannot find that anyone else has written about this, so I might…
Lost In Translation
When the Japanese animated TV series Samurai Champloo (26 episodes, May 20, 2004 to March 19, 2005) first appeared, most anime fans, both in America and in Japan, said, “That’s…
Animals That Should Be Animated
I said in my first column that the earliest animated cartoon that I can remember seeing was Disney’s Pinocchio, on its first rerelease in October 1945, just before my fifth…
