The manga magazine Young Jump has published a history of the Ig Nobel prizes, noted here and here. There’s no translation, but the images speak for themselves.

The 2010 Ig Nobel prizes will be awarded September 30. Fans of Moyashimon will be interested to know that the theme of this year’s ceremony is “bacteria.” Scheduled events include:

The Bacterial Opera: World premiere of a mini-opera about the bacteria who live on a woman’s front tooth, and about that woman. Conducted by David Stockton. Starring Maria Ferrante, Ben Sears, Roberta Gilbert and Thomas Michel as bacteria — and Jenny Gutbezahl as The Woman. Pianist Branden Grimmett. Costumes by Jenn Martinez.
Microbial Miniconcert by Evelyn Evelyn (and their friends Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley)
Pre-pre-show Boston Squeezebox Ensemble microbeconcert in lobby (begins at 6:45 pm), led by Dr. Thomas Michel
Pre-show Pathogenic Bacterial Pianoconcerto by Maria Eliseeva

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If you get tired of reading manga and watching anime, you can always watch the Japanese Vesuvius. Sakura-jima has been puffing away quite energetically recently, and this webcam has a good view of the active crater. (If you click on the cross-hairs, you can take control of the camera for a while.) It’s best viewed during daylight hours in Japan, though allegedly, if you’re lucky, you can occasionally see some incandescence and lightning at night. (Update: Visibility might be impaired by clouds, particularly when tropical storms are in the region, as is currently the case.)

(Via Art and Adventure.)

I bought myself some belated Christmas presents. I’ll eventually get to the anime, but for now the item in the foreground takes priority. Incidentally, although I have a computer full of soft synths, this is the first hardware synthesizer I’ve ever owned.¹

Instead of following any current series, I have indeed been rewatching Shingu. I probably will check out a couple of upcoming shows, though. Yojo-han Shinwa Taikei is yet another blasted high school college story, but Masaaki Yuasa (Mind Game, Kaiba) is directing. Haiyoru! Nyaru-Ani features Nyarlathotep in the form of a cute little girl. It sounds like she might be a candidate to replace Pyun and Potaru if I redesign my site.

1. Unless you want to count my old, very plastic Yamaha keyboard, but that’s essentially a large toy, unsuitable for gigs.

Here’s the culprit.

The website for Satoshi Kon’s current project is active. Yume-Miru Kikai looks like a significant departure from Kon’s previous work, at least visually, and unlike Paranoia Agent and Paprika, this “future folklore story” might be suitable for all ages.

An appreciation of the background art of Oh! Edo Rocket.

For anyone who’s ever said “Huh?” at a renaissance faire.

If you’re in the Minneapolis area, you can catch a performance of “A Christmas Carol” in Klingon. (Via Maureen the Suburban Banshee.)

A three-dimensional Mandelbrot set? (also via Maureen.)

Bored with caricaturing Roman Catholicism, manga artists have discovered the Eastern Orthodox.

An old interview with the late John Sladek I came across recently. Sladek, discoverer of the thirteenth sign of the zodiac (Arachne, May 13 to June 9),¹ was one of the last century’s best satirists and is of my favorite writers.

Meep.

Thinking about large numbers.

Keep an eye on those ducks:

Public service announcement: the complete Dirty Pair TV is out there, subtitled, if you know where to look.

1. For the morbidly curious, my own sign is “No parking — violators will be towed at owner expense.”

Denno Coil?
Kaiba?
Mononoke?
Mind Game?

Uh-uh. There was no mention of anything I’ve been waiting for. The titles that were announced all look like drivel.¹ Steven has a different list, but he, too, was disappointed.

I’m particularly annoyed that Denno Coil still hasn’t been picked up for region one. Number three of my top five,² it is the outstanding first-rate series I’ve seen that remains unlicensed. There are a number of older series on my to-buy list, but there seems to be less and less to look forward to nowadays. Oh, well; I finally got a new pair of glasses and can read all evening long again. Running out of anime won’t be a disaster.

There is a bit of good news regarding licensing: Kino International will release a compilation of Osamu Tezuka’s short films later this month. These date from 1962 to 1988 and are obviously essential for anyone interested in the history of animation. I wrote a little bit about some of them here.

1. Well, maybe the remainder of Aria isn’t drivel, but I’m one of the few who didn’t find Aria the Animation a life-changing experience.
2. The other four are Haibane Renmei, Serial Experiments Lain, Cardcaptor Sakura and Shingu.

How long will we have to wait for an American release?

Below the fold are Kadokawa’s notes with the Google translation. I would welcome a more intelligible summarization or translation, should any bilingual reader have the time.

「時をかける少女」の細田監督が放つ最新劇場作品。2009年夏公開。
公式HP: http://s-wars.jp

2006 年夏、単館公開からスタートした『時をかける少女』は、口コミでロングランヒットとなり、国内外の映画賞を多数受賞。多くの人に愛される作品となった。あれから3 年、『時をかける少女』を手がけ一躍注目を浴びたアニメーション監督・細田守が、満を持して送り出す最新作が『サマーウォーズ』。キャラクターデザイン・貞本義行、脚本・奥寺佐渡子など『時をかける少女』のスタッフが再結集したこの作品は、ふとした事から片田舎の大家族に仲間入りした少年が、突如世界を襲った危機に対して戦いを挑む物語で ある。

[主人公はちょっと弱気で人付き合いも苦手な、17才の理系少年。]
高校２年の夏休み、天才的な数学力を持ちながらも内気な性格の小磯健二は、憧れの先輩、夏希にアルバイトを頼まれる。二人が辿りついた先は、長野にある彼女の田舎。そこにいたのは総勢27人の大家族。夏希の曾祖母・栄は、室町時代から続く戦国一家・陣内（ じんのうち）家の当主であり、一族を束ねる大黒柱だ。
栄の誕生日を祝うために集った、個性豊かな「ご親戚」の面々。そこで健二は突然、夏希 から「フィアンセのフリをして」と頼まれてしまう。

[ひょんな事から巻き起こった世界の危機に、健二と大家族は戦いを挑む]
栄のためにと強引に頼み込まれ、数日間の滞在をすることになった健二。賑やかな親戚の 面々に気圧されながら、必死に「フィアンセ」の大役を果たそうと奮闘するのだった。
そしてその夜、彼の携帯に謎の数字が連なったメールが届く。数学が得意な健二はその解 読に夢中になるのだが
翌朝、世界は大きく一変していた。健二を騙る何者かが、世界を混乱に陥れていたのだ。
「私たち一家でカタをつけるよ！」
栄の号令のもと、健二と夏希、そして陣内家の面々が、一致団結して世界の危機に立ち向 かう！

“When the girl put the” theater piece directed by Hosoda’s latest hit. Published Summer 2009.
Official HP: http://s-wars.jp

Summer 2006, started publishing a single theater on time, the girl, and word of mouth hit in the long run, many of the best national and international awards. Work was loved by many. Three years since then, but when the girl put Hosoda Mamoru bound coach drew a lot of animation work to the latest long-awaited push for the SAMAUOZU. Jeongdong book, Yoshiyuki Character Design and渡子奥寺script supervisor on a girl at a rally, this team has become a large family of the boy from the countryside passing it to the sudden crisis that hit the World call down the story.

[The main character is also a good social thing with a little bearish, 17-year-old boy Sciences. ]
2 years of high school summer vacation, K. Koiso of a shy nature but have a mathematical genius, senior longing to be asked to work part-time summer rare.辿RI with the first two, of her country in Nagano. There were a total of 27 families. Sakae曾祖母the rare summer, half from the Muromachi period, Sengoku family (of man) is the present head of the house, I bind the family breadwinner.
Gathered to celebrate the birthday of the Young, a unique “family,” many aspects. K. Then suddenly, from a rare summer “of his fiancée and pretend” it was asked.

[The crisis of the world can whip up from HYONNA, Kenji is a large family and provoke a battle]
頼MI込MA is to bulldoze and Sakae, K. came to stay for several days. Terms of the Lively family while気圧SARE, desperately, “fiance” was the struggle to fulfill the main role.
And that night, get the mail連NATTA phone numbers to his mystery. Kenji are good at math but the solution to be crazy about reading
The next morning, the world had changed dramatically. Kenji騙RU to someone, I was entrapped in a confusing world.
“I put the catalog in our family!”
Under the command of Sakae, and K.夏希sides of the house and half the people, appreciate the way up to the crisis of the world united!

Dr. Boli announces his magnum opus:

Distromachia. An epic poem in twenty-four books, describing in allegorical terms the battle between the various distributions of the Linux operating system. The triumphs, tragedies, humor, and pathos of open-source programming are thrown into sharp relief by casting the story in the Homeric mold. 8vo, 2 vol.

Also check the ads in his Celebrated Magazine.

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Via Fellini 8.5, a glimpse of the next project from the Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo team:

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Caninogenic climate change:

(Via Irish Elk.)

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A tea house too high.

(Via The Rat.)

Tired of Ali Project? Here’s some Puccini, also via The Rat.

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It’s not what you wear but how you wear it. A pretty girl with nice smile can redeem “… one of the most unflattering spandex /color combinations of any uniform ever conceived….”

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I think of Hatsune Miku as essentially a vocal synthesizer, albeit with a cute animated representation, so I’m a little surprised that there are videos featuring her in which she doesn’t sing. For instance, here’s Miku and her colleagues dancing to a Polysics number:

(Here’s the original video.)

And then there is this bit of senseless violence to a Touhou tune:

(Via Ken the Brickmuppet.)

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More music: let’s play a Tesla coil.

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Via Astro, an example of voices perfectly matched to their characters:

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Bonus nonsense: The best headline of the year so far:

North Korea Threatens War with Japan if Missile Is Shot Down, Japan Threatens to Unleash Godzilla if Kim Jong-il Doesn’t Reconsider Haircut

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That other dealer is offering a bunch of cheap boxed sets for Christmas. Most of the titles are junk — Princess Princess, anyone? — but several are worth your time: Shingu, Angelic Layer, Fantastic Children, Divergence Eve. Possibly also Witch Hunter Robin (I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard good things about it from reliable sources) and Kodocha.

As Astro notes, it’s harder to find good endings than good openings. Openings are intended to sell the show; often the trailer for a show is the opening. Consequently, producers typically lavish great care and expense on the opening. In contrast, the ending usually just serves to list the necessary credits, and the production is consequently perfunctory. Sometimes the ending tune might be worth hearing, but the visuals are rarely interesting. Nevertheless, I managed to come up with five that are worth both hearing and seeing.

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Here’s something I forgot to post back in October. It’s from the ninth episode of Denno Coil.

Click here to view the embedded video.