J-POP Summit Festival concert with Kyary Pamyu Pamyu trip report!

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu  J-POP concert San Francisco
[adrotate banner=”1″]As part of the continuing adventures of TarsTarkas.NET, I attended a free concert in Union
Square in San Francisco that was part of the J-POP Summit Festival 2013. The Festival is also sponsoring the first ever Japan Film Festival of San Francisco, which I am also attending screenings to (and reviews for Dreams for Sale and Library Wars will be appearing on TarsTarkas.NET!) I have press access, which I say as a disclaimer now, though I don’t accept free screening passes in press form, so I’ve paid my way for those films. I did, however, take advantage of the press access to get front row seats at this concert, which I would be attending anyway. But enough about the moral implications of getting a front row seat, let’s get on with the concert!

The free concert had four acts, so let’s go over them in order of appearance:

First up was Kylee (aka Kylee Saunders), an American singer with a Japanese mother who has become really big in Japan. As she’s currently going to school at Stanford, her focus now is more exposure and performances in the US. Kylee sung a mix of Japanese and English songs, including a cover of Pink’s Just Give Me A Reason. Kylee hung around a big to answer questions from concert host Mike Inouye of the local NBC station.

Up second was LoVendoЯ, the group formed around former Morning Musume singer Reina Tanaka. Over 4000 women auditioned to be part of the band, with Yuki Uozumi, Marina Okada, and Marin Miyazawa ending up with the coveted slots. LoVendoЯ was named earlier this year, and only has a few songs of their own, though I will say they were pretty entertaining. Among their songs played was Joukyou Monogatari. The act came out in outfits that were red and black colored leather, with billions and billions of metal studs in them. While talking with Mike Inouye, Reina Tanaka seemed almost apologetic the group didn’t have more songs to play.

Up third was human beatbox machine Daichi. Who performed by himself and made all of the noises for his songs. He was pretty crazy, creating inhuman musical sounds, mixing American and Japanese songs together into recognizable beats that were still unique. At one point he used a device to record samples of himself that he put on loop o he could perform as an entire band. Daichi has a song voice that sounds like a robot Popeye that he uses as his main song voice, but threw in several other completely different sounds. He also did a neat trick where he held the microphone up to his neck and still produced some awesome music. I believe he was the most impressive of the acts just for how cool it was that he did everything with just his mouth. And if they need a new Jones for a Police Academy reboot…

And, finally, what everyone came for – Kyary Pamyu Pamyu! The screaming was loud, but Kyary Pamyu Pamyu burst on stage with her four American flag attired masked alien cat girl dancers and rocked the house. Or rocked the open public area, I should say. Kyary opened with PonPonPon and went through her hits, Invader Invader, Fashion Monster, you know the drill. The audience was going nuts, and the energy from Kyary and her dancers was electric.

But all good things must come to an end, and thus the concert did as well. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu was kind enough to do a brief interview, and then that was all she wrote. Overall it was a fun experience, and some acts from Japan now have a larger audience thanks to the magic of exposure.

Here is a big bunch of photos I took

After the concert, the Press Pass lost it’s value, so I gave to to our good friend Mongo, who subsequently used the Press Pass to interview the brand new Royal Baby Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge. Also, Mongo has been arrested, something to do with trespassing and harassment of the Royal Family and annoying an infant. Who expected that to be a crime? Freaking infants, they are such babies…
Press Pass Mongo

J-Pop Summit Festival

Deleted Star Trek TNG scenes from The Bonding and remastered DS9 news!

USS honshu
[adrotate banner=”1″]The exciting world of Star Trek remastering is actually really exciting and not just a term I’m using to make it sound more interesting than it is. The discovery of cool not-seen-before deleted scenes thanks to workprints and uncompleted VFXs are archival gold, and new stuff is popping up in unexpected places. TrekCore has posted some deleted scenes from The Bonding, that episode where a kid named Jeremy becomes an orphan when his mom is killed, and so the crew leaves him alone for long periods (right after Picard tells him that “No one is truly alone.”) and then wonders why he’s easily manipulated by the kooky alien of the week. Eventually he and Worf become Klingon blood brothers and he’s never seen again. Luckily the crew becomes much better at dealing with orphan kids several seasons later, when the next one is left alone for long periods and decides to pretend he’s an emotionless android instead of dealing with his grief.

Remember, this is the crew with the magical empath counselor that should have prevented all of this from happening!

In addition, there is news on remastered DS9! It turns out that many of the computer effects artists have much of the assets used to create the shots, including many of the ship models and skins and layouts. The skins were even overly complex considering how much would show up on tv, which helps make them look cool when used for HD work. The image above is an HD render of the DS9 ship USS Honshu from the episode “Waltz“, which just needs an NCC number modification and it’s good to go!

As the article says in summary:

  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Voyager are far more challenging to remaster in HD due to their use of CG. Until now, the original assets used to create these CG shots were presumed lost.
  • Through talking to original artists such as Robert Bonchune, I discovered that a large number of the assets still exist for these shows.
  • The scene files can be accessed using current technology relatively easily.
  • A large amount of the work produced originally was over-built and should hold up well when re-rendered in high definition.

TrekCore continues to be the go-to place to find awesome stuff like this.

via TrekCore

3D printed toys are the new frontier of promotional gimmicks!

[adrotate banner=”1″]The world of 3D printing is full of a lot of unjustified hype and a lot of more realistic scenarios. But one industry that has been making use of 3D printers since before you even heard of them is the toy industry. There is nothing like quickly producing a 3D prototype to find out just how your figures will look, as opposed to a time consuming wait for a physical sculpture (which you can always do later after you get the general look down, but things are increasingly being done via 3D tools)

To wit this pair of current promotions from the two biggest science fiction franchises. First up, you can send in some photos of your head and get yourself a 3D printed Star Trek figure of YOU! A company called 3D Systems is making this happen through a store on Cubify. There are a variety of poses and genders available, though currently all figures are The Original Series uniforms. You can be pointing phasers, running a tricorder, or just telling someone to live long and prosper while sporting Spock ears. This will run you $70 per figure.
Star Trek 3D printing

Now, if you are a fan of that other gigantic franchise, Star Wars, then you are also in luck! But only if you can get to Disney Hollywood Studios in Disney World after May 17th, when is when the D-Tech event begins that will scan your face and 3D print you a Star Wars figure! You can either be a stormtrooper or be frozen in carbonite. This action will cost you $99.95 plus shipping, as you don’t get it until it is mailed to you weeks later. In any event, expect more of these promotions as they are great ways to get blogs to write additional articles about movies. Hey, wait a minute!!!

Star Wars 3D Printing

Star Trek: The Next Generation deleted scenes and a call to arms!

Data cat Spot
Here is a message posted on SomethingAwful by Aatrek, SA goon and hard-working contributor of TrekCore. TrekCore has gotten a hold of some of the VHS workprints of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes that feature deleted scenes that do not appear to have survived in any other format. They got these tapes because someone posted a thread on Reddit and mentioned they had them. Thus, Aatrek got in contact with him and the footage has been saved and is beginning to appear online. As these tapes exists, it seems likely that other tapes are out there. So TrekCore has put out the call to find these tapes and help preserve history for all mankind. But mostly Trekkies who love seeing deleted scenes.

There is some precedent as the extended version of A Measure of a Man was created using a VHS workprint of the episode. Here are two video montages made from the new footage Aatrek got, including deleted scenes from The Wounded, which it is highly unlikely anyone ever saw until this release:

Star Trek TNG “The Wounded” Deleted Scenes
Inside Star Trek: TNG’s Visual Effects – Part 1, “The Child”

KISS x Hello Kitty is a thing, is now a show

KISS Hello Kitty
[adrotate banner=”1″]Since 2010, the KISS army and Hello Kitty have teamed up to bring you merchandise. This makes sense, because both Sanrio and KISS frontman Gene Simmons are well known for throwing their brand on everything they can think of to make mucho dinero. Now, things are going beyond the norm, as the KISS x Hello Kitty line is taking to the airwaves in the form of a new animated tv show on The Hub!

“four Kiss x Hello Kitty characters living their rock ‘n’ roll dreams and bringing pink anarchy to every situation they are in.”

That’s right, PINK ANARCHY!!!!! Pink Anarchy rules, all other anarchy is but a distraction from the truth.

USA Today via @rwmead

KISS Hello Kitty Lick It Up

Does this shirt come in pink, for my PINK ANARCHY???

The Martian Urban Garden

Last year we started growing some plants to have some fresh vegetables once in a while. This sounds easy enough, but as my wife and I live with her parents who use the available yardspace to grow their own plants, we have to turn to growing plants in containers. Thus, we became urban farmers, because farmpunk is not a word I want to use, ever. So the adventure of growing lettuce and basil in pots began, and it went pretty well, considering we had more lettuce than we could eat at one point. It wasn’t until we were halfway grown that I thought I should have been taking photos. And if taking photos, why not share them here, in between trailers for movies involving terrible monster costumes and remakes of remakes.

Thus, suck on some garden news!

Here we see some temporary containers I set up using leftover seeds from last year to see if anything will grow. Most probably will, and I’ll transplant the bigger ones to better containers in a few weeks. This batch was planted on March 10th. It is a mix of lettuce (green and purple), heirloom tomatoes, basil, and carrots.
Garden

Next up for this year, we ordered seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, because even the worst garden blogs had nothing but praise for them. We ordered Morado (a type of purple tomato), White Tomesol (white tomato), and Rocky Top Lettuce Mix for a good mix of lettuce. They threw in a free pack of sunflower seeds.
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

Here I planted two lettuce seeds in each of the leftover soup cans
Garden

and lettuce seeds were also scattered in this trow that has a bonus already sprouted lettuce plant leftover from our attempt at winder gardening (which wasn’t as successful)
Garden

We had leftover of these disks from sprouting plants so I decided to use them to see if the tomato seeds will sprout in them. If nothing shows up in 2-3 weeks, there are still seeds leftover to plant more traditionally. All of these seeds were planted March 17th.
Garden

Luckily the weather here is warm enough that planting is okay. The biggest trial is paying attention to the weather reports to move everything under cover if rain is approaching. So far, there are a few sprouts on the seeds from last year, I’ll have some pictures up in a week or two.