Daft Punk the Movie?

Yep, there is a Daft Punk "movie", but at the same time, not quite.

Interstella 555

Interstella 555 is a film produced by Daft Punk in collabortion of Toei Animation.

The plot of the film is simple, 4 band members (pictured above) are abducted from an alien planet to Earth. They are then brainwashed of their alien memories and made to look like humans. Back home, an alien strives to bring back the band members back to their home country.

I know that wasn't a too detailed of a plot, but I do not want to focus on it as there is a deeper meaning of the story. I'd rather have you experience the whole film yourselves. The full movie can be found on Youtube. I've embedded the video here in case you really wanted to watch it right now.



But what makes this whole film unique is that the whole film, is a "musical", where Daft Punk's album, "Discovery" is played throughout the whole film. In addition, there is no dialog whatsoever within the film, and besides the album being played, occasional sound effects can be heard.

The animation itself is done by Toei Animation. It features an 80's style of animation, but a very refined version. (Note, this film was released in 2003)

Nevertheless, this film should be a real treat, especially to Daft Punk fans.

I do not own or take credit for all of the above images and videos, if you would like them to be taken down, please message me.

Have you seen this film? Do you like Daft Punk? Any similar films out there?

Summer Feast

In lieu of marking the end of summer, we marked it as a pre-celebration for a friend's birthday.

Hot Pot!

 My friends and I went out again, this time to celebrate an upcoming birthday. This outing, we visited two restaurants, the first being "I Cook Buffet".

Contrary to the namesake, there is no buffet during lunch time. Instead, they offer you a set combo in which you can customize things such as the soup base and meat.

The food was nothing special, thinly sliced pieces of meat plus random greens and a few more random fish balls. And of course, our favourite condiment, some weird salty peanut sauce. /sarcasm.

Peanut Sauce?

So you may ask yourself, why is the peanut sauce gone? Did we use it all? Yes we did, but we didn't consume it. Instead, we decided to pour all the sauce into one pot and boil it. Boy was that a bad idea, the fumes that emitted from the pot was deadly and could be sniffed from miles.

Service was mediocre at best. No,  for where I live, most restaurants are Chinese owned/operated so their English may not be perfect. This one is no different. Not only was their English poor, the employees seemed clueless about the menu as if they were new to the job (maybe they were).

Anyways, we decided to head back into familiar territory for dinner, Sushi on 7.

We ordered the usual: salmon & hokkigai & butterfish sashimi and a few maki rolls. Most of the sashimi seemed fresh, but some of it wasn't thawed out enough.

But we also got something different this time, the spider roll. The spider roll consists of avocado, roe, imitation crab stick and deep fried soft shell crab.

The spider roll

Dragon roll and sashimi

In general, Japanese AYCE in our area are decent, but not spectacular in any way. We've gone to a few AYCE, but this one seems the be one with consistent quality.

How is your experience with AYCE places? Have you tried hot pots (or shabu shabu) before?

UFC 134: Silva vs Okami

What better way to end summer with a bang, Silva vs Okami.

UFC 134 at HSBC arena

Finally back in Rio de Janerio, Brazilian fans are in for a treat. Probably the best pound for pound fighter, Anderson Silva will have a rematch against Yushin Okami. Anderson Silva has not lost a single fight since 2006, to no other than Okami which was by disqualification due to an illegal up-kick.

Other main card fights include Brendan Schaub vs Antonia Rodrigo Nogueria. Although Schaub did not win The Ultimate Fighter 10 (lost to Roy Nelson), Schaub has seem to found his place in the UFC as a young and skillful fighter, earning him a fight with the veteran Nogueria.

Also on the card, Mauricio Rua vs Forest Griffin. After Rua lost his light heavweight title to Jones, he has a chance to prove himself against Griffin.


This should be one heck of an event, especailly for the ones at the HSBC arena.
For those that want to watch the preliminary fights free, you can catch them on Facebook, Spike TV and Rogers Sportsnet.

I do not own or take credit for all of the above images, if you would like them to be taken down, please message me.

Do you think Silva will keep his title? What do you think of Silva's illegal upkick? Any predictions for any of the fights?

Shaft Inc.

But wait there's more!

The logo of Shaft Inc.

To those that may have been expecting a non-anime post, please accept my sincere apologies as today is no different.

I'd like to introduce today, Shaft. An animation studio that has either done the animation for many series or at least had their hands deep in others.

The main ones I want to bring up are: Sayonara Zetusubou Sensei (Finished the first series) and Bakemonotargai (I'm currently on episode 10).

If you've read some of my anime related posts, you know that animation quality is a huge factor for me when watching anime and material done by Shaft never disappoints, but aside from quality is their style.

The most prominent feature is that Shaft may use "real life" images for effect such as someone's face or body part. You can see this below, which is a screencap from Bakemonogatari.

The use of "RL"

Another technique they use is written words/kanji. Sometimes it is used in conjuncture with images or it is simply written out as is. Screenshot is from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei.

Kanji used in conjuncture with other images

Another method, although common within many anime series is references to animes or known products.
Another screenshot from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei.

Haruhi referenced in the top right.

The last thing, although I don't have pics for it is the opening sequences of Bakemonogatari. For many shows (not just anime) you'll hear a theme song and a sequence of pictures or video clips that go along with it and for most series, the song and clips only change once or twice. But for Bakemonogatari, these things change for every story arc. The opening sequence will be directly related to the main character of the arc the anime is currently focusing on.

So for that, I applaud Shaft for their quality and effort of animation.


I do not own or take credit for all of the above images, if you would like them to be taken down, please message me.

 Any animes done by Shaft you enjoy? What cool techniques have you seen done in animes or tv series?

Steins;Gate

But summer hasn't ended yet and I still have another series to share.

The main cast of Steins;Gate

This one was a close one. When I say that, I meant that I was close to dropping this one due to the animation quality (see previous post). During the first few episodes of this anime, the quality of how the characters (mostly the face and eyes) were drawn were done very poorly but what kept me going was the concept of the plot.

Steins;Gate the anime came out in April and is still ongoing (set for 23 episodes which mark the finale on Sept. 7).  It features: Okabe, a self-proclaimed mad scientist, Mayuri, a girl who is portrayed as innocent and pure, and Itaru, an otaku and a "Super Hacker". The three of them (but mainly Okabe and Itaru) work on quirky inventions. They eventually create a microwave into a device that can send text messages to the past (dubbed D-Mail). As they explore the their device, they discover SERN, an organization that researches time travel, but SERN doesn't want anyone else to have time travel capabilities so Okabe and friends must avoid capture.

While trying not to spoil anything while explaining the plot, I've pretty much summed up the first 10 episodes or so. During those 10 episodes, we see Okabe recruit new members and trying out more experiments. But more importantly, those 10 episodes help develop each character into deep and possible likable characters.

I really can't guess how this will end as the series up until now has been full of twists and turns so I await the finale (and thankfully, it ends before school starts).

I do not own or take credit for all of the above images, if you would like them to be taken down, please message me.

Have you watched this series yet? How do you think this is going to end? Any animes you liked and want to share?