Next Club Meeting:September 20, 2025,at the Fountaindale Public Library in Bolingbrook from 11:00 am - 5:00 pm
The Animatrix Network is an anime & manga fan club located in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. We usually meet on the third Saturday of each month (except when holidays or conventions coincide). The meetings are free and open to the public. Join us for a day filled with anime.
This site provides news, reviews, commentaries, and previews of the world of anime and everything it inspires, such as live-action films, comics, music, art, and other weird things to enjoy and contemplate.
The works of children's writer/poet Kenji Miyazawa are beloved by many
and influenced anime and manga greats from Leiji Matsumoto to Hayao
Miyazaki. That's probably why the bankruptcy of an anime studio couldn't
stop Miyazawa's The Life of Guskou Budori from returning to theaters.
Earlier attempts to adapt Miyazawa's odyssey of survival through natural
disaster, The Life of Guskou Budori, at Group TAC (the animated Street
Fighter II movie, Captain Tsubasa) nearly collapsed when TAC went
bankrupt following the death of studio head Atsumi Tashiro. However, it
was revived when producer Yoshihiro Shimizu (Black Jack The Movie,
MURAMASA, Astroboy) brought the project to Tezuka Productions. Their
adaptation hits Japanese theaters July 7th.
The Life of Guskou Budori was previously adapted by Ryutaro Nakamura (Kino's Journey) in 1994.
Aliens: Colonial Marines: Release date February 12, 2013
If Prometheus doesn't scratch your Alien itch, then Colonial
Marines might be just what you're looking for when it eventually hits
shelves. Timeline-wise, the game will focus on the Aliens era.
FUNimation has a hot July planned, with the
long-awaited home video releases of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
and Fractale joined by some classics from the vaults such as sci-fi
titles Ergo Proxy and Armitage III.
7/3/12 Ergo Proxy - "Classic" Label box set - $39.98 Hetalia -World Series (Season 4) Limited Edition - $39.98
7/10/12 El Cazador de la Bruja - Complete Series Box Set "S.A.V.E" Edition - $29.98 Panty & Stocking with Garter Belt - Complete Series Limited Edition - $64.98
This is basically a marketing platform for Toyota which
also serves to promote the Patisserie A.K Labo in Tokyo and musical
artists such as Halfby.
This light-hearted romantic comedy is about an alien that
travels to Earth and is fascinated with Tokyo. There, he learns important human
values such as love and kindness. Some of the cars expected to be
featured in the anime are the Toyota Prius, Toyota Camry, and the
Lexus LFA. Anime production is by Studio 4°C, which
has worked on Detroit Metal City, Steamboy, and Tweeny
Witches.
Peace Eco Smile features some high quality animation and music, both are colorful and upbeat. Each episode is only 3 minutes
long and the entire series is only 4 episodes. For more details, go to the PES website.
The College of DuPage is making changes to some of their facilities: demolishing Building M and moving all of its furniture and materials to Building K, forcing everyone to find new places to meet.
After several years of holding our club meetings at the C.O.D., it is sad to go. We are very grateful for the time and space the Sci-Fi Club and Doc Allen have given us, and we hope to return someday if any rooms are available in the future.
We will be conducting our next club meeting at the Glen Ellyn Public Library, Meeting Room B, on June 16, 2012, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM (when the library closes).
There is public transportation available. A Metra train-stop is located within walking distance.
Please note: We are new to this location and need to be respectful of the library rules of behavior. If you are driving, please park your car furthest from the building to make room for library patrons. Bring light food only. There are no vending machines available. Please keep the room clean. We hope you understand and do your part in making our new meeting location a nice place to stay.
"The writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream."
Ray Bradbury
(1920 - 2012)
Ray Douglas Bradbury (born August 22, 1920) passed away in Los Angeles, California, on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91, after a "lengthy illness".
The New York Times'
obituary stated that Bradbury was "the writer most responsible for
bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream." The Los Angeles Times
credited Bradbury with the ability "to write lyrically and evocatively
of lands an imagination away, worlds he anchored in the here and now
with a sense of visual clarity and small-town familiarity".
Bradbury's grandson, Danny Karapetian, stated that Bradbury's works had
"influenced so many artists, writers, teachers, scientists, and it's
always really touching and comforting to hear their stories".
Several celebrity fans of Bradbury paid tribute to the author by
stating the influence of his works on their own careers and creations.
We say farewell to the man who brought us Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, by remembering some of his greatest quotes: "There was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves."
"People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better."
"We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will."
"We are an impossibility in an impossible universe."
"Science-fiction balances you on the cliff. Fantasy shoves you off."
"We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all."
"You've been put on the world to love the act of being alive."
"We do need knowledge. And perhaps in a thousand years we might pick smaller cliffs to jump off. The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are."
"If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you, and you'll never learn."
"Digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones."
"Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things."
"Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled."
"Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage."
"Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together."
"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you."
"I wonder how many men, hiding their youngness, rise as I do, Saturday mornings, filled with the hope that Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck will be there waiting as our one true always and forever salvation?"
"Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down."
"You've got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were."
"And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores."
"I still love books ... Books smell good. They look good. You can press it to your bosom. You can carry it in your pocket."
"There's no use going to school unless your final destination is the library."
"Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?"
"If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder."
"The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts."
"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."
The anime film Asura is created by Toei Animation, based on a classic
manga by George Akiyama titled Ashura. The unrelentingly dark drama
follows the struggles of a child during a famine in medieval Japan. His
mother was so impoverished and starved, that she tried to eat Ashura at
the beginning of the story. The movie premieres in Japan on September
29, 2012.
A stranger appears within Mount Justice claiming to be a time traveler and the grandson of the current Flash. The boy, Bart Allen,
soon gatecrashes the celebration of the Garricks' wedding anniversary,
revealing his identity to Barry Allen and Iris. The party is interrupted
when they all learn that a villain called Neutron
is on a rampage downtown, and the Flash Family head off to stop him.
Meanwhile, Red Arrow and Cheshire travel to a League of Shadows base in
Tibet where they find the original Roy Harper. In Central City, the
Flashes defeat Neutron and Bart, having taken the name Impulse,
secretly administers a cure to Neutron's uncontrollable ability. Later,
Impulse pretends to discover that he is stranded in the present day. (Forty Years Later): Bart embarks on his voyage to
the present day, fully aware that it's a one-way trip. He bids farewell
to Neutron, who reverts to normal after Bart leaves but is horrified to
discover that the post-apocalyptic future around him remains unchanged.
Nickelodeon has released these promo clips from "When Extremes Meet," the next new episode of The Legend of Korra premiering on Saturday, June 2, 2012, at 11:00 AM (ET/PT). Korra faces off with someone close to her as Equalist activity continues to rise in Republic City.
An epic and magical adventure that tells the story of Santa Claus, the
Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, and Jack Frost - legendary
characters with previously unknown extraordinary abilities. When an evil
spirit known as Pitch lays down the gauntlet to take over the world,
the immortal Guardians must join forces to protect the hopes, beliefs
and imagination of children everywhere... Legends Assemble!
[Source: Wikipedia] The Touhou Project, also known as Toho Project or Project Shrine Maiden, is a Japanese dōjin game series focused on bullet hell shooters made by the one-man developer Team Shanghai Alice, whose sole member, known as ZUN, is responsible for all the graphics, music, and programming for the most part. The series was inducted into the Guinness World Records in October 2010 for being the "most prolific fan-made shooter series". The Touhou Project began in 1995 when Highly Responsive to Prayers was first developed by the group Amusement Makers for the Japanese NEC PC-9801 series of computers; the game was later released in November 1996. The next four Touhou games released between August 1997 and December 1998 also were released on the NEC PC-9801. The Touhou Project was inactive for the next three and half years until the first Microsoft Windows Touhou game, The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, was released in August 2002 solely by ZUN after he split from Amusement Makers and started Team Shanghai Alice. The Touhou Project became a media franchise spanning a steadily increasing number of official games, in addition to commercial fan books, light novels, and manga.
The plots of the Touhou Project revolve around the strange phenomena that occur in the fictional realm of Gensokyo (幻想郷 Gensōky, literally Illusion Village or Fantasy Village), which ZUN designed with a human village in the grounds of some remote mountain recesses in Japan. Originally, it was simply called "a remote separated land of a human village in an eastern country." Long before the Touhou Project's story begins, there lived many non-humans like yōkai as well as some humans in the area. After a few humans lost their way into Gensokyo, humans became afraid of approaching this area, although others settled here for the sake of yōkai extermination. However, as time went on, humans developed civilization and multiplied in number, and thus the yōkai became distressed about how this would affect the balance between humans and yōkai. Thus, 500 years before The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (EoSD), the yōkai sage Yukari Yakumo developed the "boundary of phantasm and substance," which was favored by the yōkai and protected the balance. This was called the "Yōkai Expansion Project" and made Gensokyo a phantasmal world that automatically called out to the weakened yōkai of the outside world. Other things that disappear from the outside world, like extinct animals, lost tools, and architecture, also became abundant in Gensokyo. Since Gensokyo was a plot of land in Japan that was separated by a barrier, it is Japan that is immediately outside of this barrier.
As a result of the seal, Gensokyo became inaccessible from the outside world, and similarly, those in Gensokyo were unable to leave. Gensokyo's existence could not be confirmed from the outside world, nor could the outside world be confirmed within Gensokyo As a result, the isolated community developed its own civilization, different from that of the outside world. Although separated by a barrier, it is a bordering world to its outside, as opposed to being in a parallel universe. There are no seas in Gensokyo, since it is an inland mountain. In Gensokyo, there are few humans, and various kinds of yōkai. Some species include magicians, beasts, therianthropies, vampires, bōrei, tengu, kappa, and yōkai (a kind of miscellaneous group). There are others species that could be yōkai depending on definition, like fairies, spirits, yūrei, onryō, poltergeists, hermits, oni, and gods.
In present Gensokyo, which is presented in all Touhou Project games since EoSD, as opposed to the outside world where unscientific phenomena were dismissed as "superstition" by the time of the Meiji era, magical and spiritual qualities prevail. The only known gateway from the outside world into Gensokyo is the Hakurei Shrine on the border of Gensokyo. The spell card rules were also established to keep up the relationship between humans and yōkai in a mock style, which was necessary for the preservation of the balance of Gensokyo. The "Great Hakurei Barrier," managed by Hakurei Miko, was constructed several decades before EoSD, which is described as a "barrier of common sense," and is thus a strong logical barrier that not even yōkai can pass through. The yōkai were at first against its construction, but then gradually understood its usefulness.
In this town, since who knows when, rain has never stopped. Residents moved out to suburbs and high ground around "rain town." People's memories are now deeply submerged. But into this forgotten rainy town sometimes, someone wanders.
[Source: My Anime List] The final chapter of Ken Akamatsu's young wizard series Mahou Sensei Negima! was collected in a 38th volume of the manga, released in Japan this week. In it, the author included a note discussing the series' future.
Everyone, thank you for your long-lasting patronage. "Mahou Sensei Negima!" which has continued for 9 years, will come to a temporary stop at volume 38. By "temporary", I mean the series will be revived sooner or later. To put it like Chao, the conclusion shown in this volume is merely one of several parallel worlds. "Negima!" still has far more undiscovered mysteries that would easily surpass 100 volumes in length (lol). However, given that the multimedia franchise has met a thorough completion and that I was able to see the "B Version Ending" in the movie, I decided to depict a conclusion for the original story as well. If, in the future, you happen to see a new episode of "Negima!", I would be ever grateful if you could take it into your hands. One of your remaining questions may just melt away.
The film distributor Shochiku released this promotional video on Thursday for the second installment of the Space Battleship Yamato 2199 television anime series and film project. The second film, which will cover episodes 3-6, will open in Japan on June 30. The Blu-ray Disc and
DVD volume of the second film will then ship on July 27.
The official red band trailer for 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter'
starring Benjamin Walker (Abraham Lincoln), Rufus Sewell (Adam) and
Dominic Cooper (Henry Sturgess).
