GaiKing
Posted on July 15, 2007
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GaiKing was a 70’s Japanese anime TV show that was broadcasted in select parts of the U.S. in the early 80’s as part of the Force Five weekly series. This of course before anyone had ever even heard the term ‘anime.’ Each day of the week featured a different anime cartoon. It came on right when you got out of school for the day, I remember rushing home to watch it. Gai King was Friday, if I’m not mistaken. You could catch this, and then on came StarBlazers, another fantastic anime; in that case an engaging serial. Battle of the Planets (G-Force) was another great after school anime cartoon. Then the parents would come home and pull the plug: only one hour a day of cartoons, or your brain will turn to mush! The irony of it is, these were very well done, hand drawn, hand animated cartoons with complex characters and quite involved story lines, due to the fact that many of these shows (but not Gai King) were based on intricate, hand drawn Japanese comic books, or manga.
Gai King pre-dated the Transformers, but the main robot/character was a sort of transformer itself; a large dragon mecha (giant robot) that could break apart and transform into several smaller robots, including a bi-pedal battle robot which you can see in the video. The chest piece is the dragons head, and could shoot massive beams of devastating energy out of it’s eyes. I remember feeling just a touch ripped off when the Transformers came along and got all the attention. They were just cars! And now, of course they are a summer blockbuster feature film.
Niho Kozuru
Posted on July 9, 2007
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Over at Bigzanda Gallery we are finalizing the details for an upcoming show at the end of July (or the beginning of August); featuring fantastic sculpture by NihoKozuru. Niho’s work is made of cast rubber and captures light in a unique way. And it’s bendy!
We are toying with lots of ideas, such as having a piece floating out in the harbor, lighting pieces, and hanging some beneath the pier under the gallery space with a webcam watching it all. Dynamic!