Zed-O-Rama

Focus

2012-01-11T13:28:00.001-08:00

It's easy to get side tracked and do things that aren't productive. I see things or read things that inspire me to follow my dreams and shit. Then I'm like, "Eh, I'll do it tomorrow."

I hate doing that.

Skit Show...success?

2011-12-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

From what I've gathered, people seem to like Skit Show. All the nerdy types, who are like me, got what I was going for. It's times like this, I wish I had writers and a small crew to make it a legit TV show.

Danger! Skit show

2011-10-29T09:42:00.001-07:00

I'm currently working on a short video called Danger! Skit Show. This was originally meant to be a movie which became a TV show idea. Read the August 22nd, 2010 blog for details.

? SPOILERS ?

So far, I have the intro, the taser skit, Blue Bolt toon, and Imagination Time skits 90% done. I just have the anime remake and the retro game commercial to finish. Windows Live Movie Maker is having trouble handling 5 minutes and 24 seconds worth of footage. :\ It's times like this I wish I knew how to use Avid Express Pro. I guess I should read the manual, huh? Yeah, that would help.

I had to drop three unmade skits because I'm worried about making the Open Projector Night* deadline. The video will be shorter than I originally wanted. Oh, well. It's a pilot anyway.

After OPN, the video will be uploaded to YouTube and available for download. Nothing like free shit, huh??

*Open Projector Night is an event here in Anchorage, where local filmmakers get together and show off their latest projects. It's pretty cool.

Still going! Nothing out lasts...

2011-03-13T15:02:00.000-07:00

...the energizer Jeff!

Yes, I'm still working on TromaLand. Trying to find the final designs of the characters. Simple enough to animate, yet detailed enough to give you something to look at.

It's like trying to find a middle ground between the art style of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei

and an 80s anime.

I'm getting close. Also did some key frame testing last night. There was noticeable mass-shifting and awkward anatomy. Can't stop though. As Chuck Jones once said, "You've got a million bad drawings in you; you better get started."

The MAKING of TromaLand

2011-02-20T08:14:00.000-08:00

My friend, who I shall give the mysterious nickname Mr. S, and I have been working on this TromaLand idea. He point out any errors that stick out or question the logic of some scenes. Which is good. I never had someone do this before. It's almost like having a story editor. I never was good at writing. I could think up scenes in my head and a few lines of dialog. That's about it.

Seeing as we're both fans of Yoshinori Kanada (I mentioned this animator a few entries ago), we thought it'd be cool to make something in his style. Since I'm the only one doing all the animating, we came to the agreement it should be 1970s Kanada animation. Not his later stuff because, quite frankly, I wouldn't be able to do it. I'm not even sure I could do '70s anime! I've never attempted something like this before. Likely one of the main reasons why I never followed through with this idea back in 2008 when I had the chance.

Honestly, I'm glad I didn't. I see a lot of mistakes here and there and they're finally getting fixed.

I'm off to the store to get an envelope and some pens.

The NOT Making of TromaLand (Part 2)

2011-02-12T03:10:00.000-08:00

Would you believe it? I don't!

I introduce my friend to Troma's movies and show him some of their previews. He loves it. He also likes anime. I explain to him my idea for TromaLand and he suggests I make it.

Now I'm going back over my notes, updating character designs, and hunting down a copy of the script.

We'll see how this pans out.

Merry Belated Christmas!

2010-12-27T19:00:00.001-08:00

Fuck that Happy Holidays bullshit. Celebrate whatever you celebrate.

"Merry Christmas!"
"I'm Jewish."
"Oh, in that case, Happy Hanukkah!"
"Hey, thanks!" :D

Maybe it's because I live in Alaska, which is like a time warp back to the 1950s, there's not a whole lot of people who celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or any other holidays besides Christmas. Or it could be the fact I've never actively sought these people out. Not like I hate'em or anything. I'd just be all, "Oh. You're Jewish? Cool." Then awkwardly walk away.

I did read a RE: letter in the newspaper about how this one guy wanted to change the name "Christmas Tree" to "Holiday Tree" and the person who wrote about it said no other holiday has a tree. So, it makes sense it's called a Christmas Tree and not, you know, a Hanukkah Tree. Political correctness is getting out of hand. Really. Who gets pissed off at a Holiday? Well, yeah, Valentines Day is one a lot of people don't like because it's not a real holiday. It's just a thing that forces you to say "I Love You" and spend money on flowers and crap when really you should do that kind of thing when you feel like it. Nobody likes being told to do something because you're not genuinely doing it. Know what I mean?

I've been looking up a lot of stuff on Yoshinori Kanada. He's this Japanese animator who introduced this energetic and jumpy style that influenced a lot of modern animators. It's a kind of style I wish I could emulate. Not because it's SUGOI NIPPON ICHI BAN! ^______^ It just has this energy that you don't see much anymore. Maybe it's out there and I'm not seeing it. Especially in American animation.

What happened to American animation? It used to be a medium enjoyed by everybody. Then around the 1960s, it was pushed in the corner and labeled "kiddy stuff." Sure, you have some animators out there who did things that weren't kiddy. Ralph Bakshi is one. Bill Plympton. Mike Judge. Yet, they don't draw enough numbers (in dollars) to make studios happy. Which is a shame because if they gave'em free reign, I'm sure these guys, as well as others, could make some wonderful stuff!

It seems like in the early 1980s, American animation was trying to break off the norm with Heavy Metal and Twice Upon A Time (the version with cussing). Then somewhere around the 1990s...maybe late 90s/early 2000s, Soccer Mom's ruined everything. Keeping the spirit of Action for Children's Television alive.
AfCT was the company that helped water down cartoons from the early 70s to the early 90s.
Action for Children's Television Wiki page.

American animation today can do more than it could twenty years ago. Shows like Family Guy and Drawn Together probably couldn't get past the development stages if this were 1991. Yet, and again this is just me, it seems like "mature" animation is really just gross out humor and pushing the envelope with shock humor. Which is fine. I'm glad we can do that today. It just seems like that's all anybody aims for. Nobody tries to talk about subjects like heartache or death in animation. Really, the basics of human emotion. How we grow and change.

I think we'll have to wait for the old movie executives to die and let the younger folks grow old before anything can change.

End of my random rant.

Aw, crap!

2010-11-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

I forgot to write down my notes for this next entry. My bad. :(

The NOT Making of TromaLand (Part 1)

2010-10-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

I thought about making a video documentary about this old movie I had that never came to fruition. Like Kevin Smith's Mae Day: The Crumbling of a Documentary or Lost in La Mancha which is about Terry Gilliam's first failed attempt to make a movie about Don Quixote. Since I'm better (not really) at writing things out, I figured this would be a decent way to write out notes and then make a narration script later.

First, I gotta' touch on two subjects that this article will talk about.

TROMA!

Hell yeah!

From Wikipedia: "Troma Entertainment is an American film production and distribution company founded by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz in 1974."

Troma has been fighting for independent art for decades by distributing modest budget films made by budding filmmakers. They also hire non-experts, as well as experts, in their own in-house movies like The Toxic Avenger (1984) or Poultrygeist (2008). Some big names that got their start at Troma include Samuel L. Jackson, Trey Parker & Matt Stone, and James Gunn.

ANIME!

Hell naw!

From Wikipedia: "In English-speaking countries, anime is also referred to as 'Japanese animation'."

Anime is a Japanese style of limited animation with a certain design. Big eyes, tiny mouths, etc. They're often said to have a jerky motion about them or no movement at all. Some famous anime titles include Akira (1988), Giant Robo (1992-1998) , and Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann (2007) . Anime fans are known for being rather annoying. Why did I mention that? Because that's more well known than anime itself.

JEFF WARREN!

What the hell!?

That's me. I've been drawing since I was a little kid. I collect movies and have made a crap load of home movies with my friends. Now they're moving up in the world and I'm still stuck on home movie level because of my self-defeating personality and on/off depression.

TRY TO COMING UP WITH AN IDEA!

It was around 2004, I had this itch to make a movie. Don't remember what lead me to think I should make an animated cartoon for Troma. I do remember taking long walks and tossing around various ideas. One idea was about a small group of kids who get together to make a movie for Troma. Which I thought was too meta and tossed it out.

I was really stumped for ideas. I stopped thinking about it for a short while until I was playing a Japanese video game called Konami Wai Wai World (1988) on a Nintendo Entertainment System emulator. The basic plot of the game was, you played as Konami Man and Konami Woman and you had to save all these famous video game characters.

"Hmm, that's not a bad plot..."

Yes, I totally stole that premise. I set it in a medieval fantasy-themed world (think I called it planet Jersey) that also had some basic technology. Inspired by games like Final Fantasy and cartoons like He-Man. Both used armies and swords yet had things like laser cannons and hover crafts.

I had it. I had my idea.

Tune in next Tuesday for Part 2

The Limited Animator's Survival Kit

2010-09-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

I've been watching a lot of interviews with Richard Williams lately. Williams is the author of "The Animator's Survival Kit", a how-to book on not just on classic cartoon animation, but animation of all sorts. It's a book that hundreds swear by. It's that good.

You might know Williams' work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). He was the animation director. I almost wrote, "he was the director". I guess you could say he co-directed it with Robert Zemeckis.

I've toyed with the idea of making a video series or an article on Limited Animation and all the cost-cutting tricks people could use. I wouldn't mention tweening, since everyone knows that trick. And just for reference, it wouldn't be meant to make budding animators lazy. It would be more for hobby animators who want to make cartoons, but don't have all the time in the world to do it.

I guess that's why they made tweening, huh?

I'll start researching and writing down notes.

Fun Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Animator%27s_Survival_Kit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_animation

I have ideas for posts

2010-09-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

Problem is...I don't know which one to start with first.

Television Show

2010-08-22T04:49:00.001-07:00

I'm finally sitting down and working on Skit Movie. Only now, it's not a movie. It's a television pilot. And it's no longer called Skit Movie. For now, I call it Skit Show (holy shit, such creativity!).

I was watching Alex Winter's The Idiot Box on YouTube and I thought to myself, "I wish I could make a TV show like this. Even if it's only for a season." I started to look around various television network websites that would be interested in a variety show. Came across AdultSwim's Submission page. Hey! It looks like any Joe can submit something to them. That's when I decided to make a TV show. They're well known for their 15 minute programming. Which would make it easier on me thinking up episodes.

So, yeah. That's what I've been up to. Here are some pretty pictures.

It's the "anime" skit (and I use the term "anime" loosely). I've only got 38 seconds finished. It's enough to make some of my friends laugh and say it's good. All this time, I thought it was turning out to be crap. Glad to know it's enjoyable. I hope AdultSwim thinks the same thing and gives me a show. {:3

It's a new blog entry about work

2010-06-20T05:17:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been away for a while. My new (really my old) job wears me out mentally and it makes me want to do nothing but sit and veg out.

What's my job? I'm a wheelchair assistant at the airport. I push people from the ticket counter, through security, to the airplane or I load'em off the plane and take'em down to baggage claim. It's an easy job. It's just the company I work for is small and doesn't pay that much or hire much help. I think on a typical night, we have about six or seven workers. Which sounds all right. Until you get the summer rush and everyone is spread out.

You got one wheelchair pusher meeting an airplane with a request of four chairs. The dispatcher will try to team people up so one person doesn't have to rush back and forth between baggage claim and the plane. Making people wait and all. Like if they're trying to get to a connecting flight.

Can't send everyone to that one plane because, say for example, you got a person who needs to go through security. Then you got another flight that's landed and has requested seven chairs and then ANOTHER flight that's requested three chairs.

The workers get busy pretty quick. The worst I've encountered so far is three flights landing 10 minutes from each other, all with four plus chair requests.

I know you'll get a laugh out of this. There's a tranny at work (I heard he's a post-op, but don't know if it's true) that's hitting on me. It's not even a hot tranny. You know, the kind that can fool you at first, but you have to stop and think "is it a he or she?" It's a 50 year old Filipino. I try to be nice to him/her. It gets frustrating though. What with sneaking up behind me and blowing in my ear or wanting some of my Skittles. As long as it doesn't escalate, I won't say anything. I heard that the tranny needs his/her tips to make ends meet and I don't want him/her to lose his/her job. Especially in this economy in Alaska.

Shit's expensive up here. If you ever come to visit, be sure to take out a loan. It costs $9.00 for a McValue Fries.

I should probably stop here. I wrote enough about work to get me fired.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2005-06-14-worker-blogs-usat_x.htm

It's a beautiful day

2010-05-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

There's not a cloud in the sky. The snow is almost completely gone. And here I am sitting behind a computer writing about it. Think I'll go take a walk.

Lack of updates

2010-04-19T02:59:00.000-07:00

My computer got attacked by a virus. It wouldn't have happened if I actually installed the Windows updates. Who would have thought there would be new viruses since 2005? I'm on my mother's tower, which is the same model as my tower, so the only difference is the lack of porn. Also a lack of music...

Been trying to work on the script and storyboards. My friends have been calling me and asking me to come over. "I'm gonna end up doing it, because, uh... because I'm a big pussy, which is why I work at Initech to begin with."

I've also been watching over my grandmother while my mother was out of town. My grandmother has Alzheimer's disease. It's very stress inducing, I'll say that much.

Been listening to "Call Me" by Go West. I always wanted to walk around downtown with someone behind me playing this song at full blast and I lip sing to it.

Got a couple DVDs for my birthday. Double Feature: Countess Dracula (1970)/ The Vampire Lovers (1970), House on Sorority Row: 25th anniversary edition (1977), Scared to Death (1981), Five Elemental Ninjas (1982), Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988), Syngenor (1990). All are B-to-Z grade movies. Except the Ninja one. It's pretty badass.

See you next time!

1997 special effects

2010-03-30T20:28:00.000-07:00

I was watching home movies on VHS tapes and found some random special effects tests I made. This around the time I discovered the camcorder (Feb/Mar of 1997) so these really suck!

This test barely survived. It's a combination of stop-motion and animation. I drew a rock on a piece of paper held up by a cup or something. Filmed it. Then drew Darth Vader. Placed the paper back and filmed it again.

A simple cut out photo of the Millennium Falcon and leaning against a box. This is on top of my Grandma's Canon photo copier. The brown tones kinda' helped this scene out. When I showed this to my friend Bryant the first time, he asked, "Where'd you get the Falcon model?"

A cut out of a planet on a black sheet with an incomplete Star Destroyer. Space ship special effects were obviously out of my reach.

Here's my sad attempt at recreating a scene from The Empire Strikes Back. I knew the basics of Matte Painting and figured I could do roughly the same thing with a piece of paper. The paper was too close to the camera and I was too blurry to be seen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/stop_motion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_perspective
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/matte_painting

Chris Covell

2010-03-15T02:16:00.000-07:00

I've been following Chris Covell for a couple years now. Videoheads (my own term for "Gamers") might know him if they've looked around on popular gaming sites. First time I learned about him was on TSR's NES Archive back in 2000 (my, how time flies).

I was reading about his RGB output testing on various consoles, which you can read here...
http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chrisc/gotRGB/index.html

There's a screenshot page comparing emulated to composite to RGB outputs.
http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chrisc/gotRGB/screenshots.html

I always noticed it, even as a kid playing my NES, though I never gave it much thought.

It was tricky trying to not get the dithering on screen when I made those fake games for the movie Beekeeping. The dithering came from the fact that these were made on Mario Paint. Like, on cart on a real Super Nintendo. I should say that these youtube clips aren't of the highest quality.

My whole point of this entry is that for Skit Movie, I'm making fake video games in MS Paint, editing them in Windows Movie Maker 2, and transferring them onto miniDV tapes. The problem is everything is so sharp and clear. It doesn't have that output noise that real game consoles have. It does look better, yes. I just always wanted that tiny sense of realism. I'm weird about details like that.

TSR's Nes Archive
http://www.atarihq.com/tsr

Chris Covell's Website
http://www.chrismcovell.com

title here

2010-03-13T23:27:00.000-08:00

You know what expression needs to come back? P.U. It's such a funny thing to say. Next time you're out with your friends and you smell something nasty, say "P.U." and watch their reactions. It'll be quite amusing.

I drew some Happy Video Game Nerd artwork today. I had so much trouble drawing Derek's face that I ended up tracing a screencap from one of his videos. That's why it looks so strange in this drawing. This picture is heavily inspired by MAD magazine. Useless trivia: I used my own had as a reference.

I beat Megaman 10 last night/this morning at my friend Gunner's house. It felt harder than MM9. Overall, I wouldn't say it's a bad game. I also wouldn't say it's up there with the first three games. I might have to play it again and give it some more thought. Definitely worth a play, for sure.

Recently bought Sonic R and Scud: The Disposable Assassin for the Sega Saturn. They were 10 bucks a pop at the local comic book shop. They also have Panzor Dragoon, I think, 30 bucks. Sonic Jam was recently put on the shelf. I think they wanted 30 bucks for that too.

Bought a hand weight today. I'm going to attempt, for the umpteenth time, to get in decent shape so I can continue to be lazy and eat junk food.

Snow!

2010-03-09T20:29:00.000-08:00

"It's snow. Snow in the same sector. Fantastic!"
-The late Dr. David Marcus.

It's been snowing a lot lately. Yes, it's Alaska and I should be used to it. I'm not though. I really hate snow. I hate how it piles up on your car. I hate having to shovel the driveway. I hate how it gets on my windshield and turns into that ice slush and makes my wipers just smear liquid across my field of vision.

Pictured: My car covered in white shit. Not Pictured: My angry face.

From what I've heard, it snowed so much in my neighborhood, the snowplow people don't know where to put it. I can't wait for summer to start. Summer in Alaska is beautiful.

So beautiful.

Gonna' make a movie

2010-03-02T21:33:00.000-08:00

I'm attempting to write a movie script. Not a major blockbuster or something I could mail off to Hollywood. I'm going to attempt making this myself. For now I call it "Skit Movie". Not to cash in on those comedies like Date Movie or Superhero Movie. It just came from me describing this to friends. "It's like a movie with a bunch of skits. A skit movie, if you will." Except I never said it as elegant. It was more like "ME MAKE SKIT MOVIE. UGG UGG!" Then I club'em over the head.
It's going to be like those sketch comedy movies from the '70s and '80s. The Groove Tube (1974), The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), and Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) being the three biggest inspirations. They're low-budget but the humor is what keeps you watching.

Three superior movies to my one idea.

I'm meticulously going over every skit and trying to get the right amount of humor out of them. Making sure not to go overboard or have dull scenes. I start to second guess myself. "Would this part be funny? Is it too obvious? Is this segment entertaining at all? AHHHHH!!!" It doesn't help that I'm a perfectionist either.

What's this skit movie about? To put it simply, they'll be sex, violence, video games, cartoons, a b-grade mini-movie in the middle (much like in Kentucky Fried Movie and Amazon Women), and some crude language here and there. Best part of all - it'll be free to watch on the internet!!! Tell your friends! If you hated the movie, tell your enemies!

Whoops! I forgot I had this!

2010-02-23T18:01:00.000-08:00

Good thing this isn't a child. Otherwise, I'd be in jail.

Figured I'd start up this blog again with a short story. I went to the library today and I had to make poop. The lighting in the bathroom isn't the greatest. When I sat down, I discovered someone pissed all over the seat. I mean everywhere. Damn people.

Alaska's Cartoon Network Channel

2009-07-04T02:11:00.000-07:00

Everyone today knows about Cartoon Network. The Turner channel that ran 24 hour cartoons. Home of many cartoon stars. A lot of people don't know about Anchorage Alaska's Cartoon Network from the late 1980s. I thought it would be fun to talk about that.

I can't go too deep into the subject, (this is starting to sound like the Cyber Ninja review) because simply googling "cartoon channel" brings up the Turner channel. I tried variations like "Anchorage Cartoon Network" and so on. Finally, I found a blogspot account that talked about it. It said that the station was a UHF channel. A UHF channel (Ultra High Frequency) were local stations and because they were local, they didn't have the funding like the bigger name channels had. Resulting in less-than-polished feel about them.

I wanted to say that the station was called simply "cartoon network", but I think I've just heard today's CN name so much, that's it's almost become a generic name. I get the impression from that blog I found that the name was "cartoon channel". It might have had a specific name, but I don't remember. It's been so long. Now you know why it's hard to find information.

The UHF station was Channel 14. On cable, according to my step-brother, it was Channel 44. The station was a lot like the early years of today's Cartoon Network. You had public domain cartoons like Warner Bros. cartoons, Popeye cartoons, and Fleischer cartoons. Hanna-Barbara action shows like Birdman, Space Ghost, Shazzan. MGM cartoons like Tom & Jerry, Droopy, those Tex Avery shorts. It was very much like the early days of CN when it just reruns of old cartoons.

It did have a few then-modern cartoons. The only one I remember, and I'm not entirely sure if I saw this on that station or not, but the cartoon Beverly Hills Teens was on there. Also, like today's CN, it showed anime! Robotech, Captain Harlock & The Queen of a Thousand Years, and Galaxy Express 999. I don't remember if I saw the TV series or the movie of Galaxy Express. I only remember two characters fighting, one with a sword and the other with a gun. The one with the gun commented on how the other was using a sword. Any guesses? :\

I never got to see the station very much growing up. Since it was a UHF station, my Mom's house and my Grandma's house couldn't pick it up. It was static with the faint image of what's being played. I can remember being at my Grandma's house desperately trying to get the channel to work so I could watch Harlock. It never worked and I could see the faint image of the horses coming out... My Dad, who lived in a different part of town, was one of two people who could get the station. Whenever I went to visit, that's all we basically watched.

I remember watching a uncut Tom & Jerry short and it had Mammy Two Shoes telling Thomas he was going to be thrown out (spelt O-W-T) if he didn't catch that mouse. My Dad briefly explained to me that it was an old racist joke, even though I thought she was spelling wrong to be funny. Ah, my innocent child mind...

Another thing I remember was the show The Inspector and how it was always shown late at night. Around 10pm or later, I think. My Dad would tell me to go to bed and I'd beg him to let me stay up and watch it.

Duncan Yo-Yos and Tops were the only toys being advertised. Sometimes there would be a regular commercial for them and once in a while, the station manager or whatever would appear in the control room and be hawking the toys himself. I actually got my first interest in yo-yos because of him.

I don't know exactly when the station went off the air. It was around in 1988. I'm guessing it either died later that year or in 1989. If anyone has memories (or, dare I say it...footage) of this channel, please comment. I don't want this little piece of history to be forgotten.

Links:
The blogspot account that remembers the Anchorage Cartoon Channel

Cyber Ninja "review"

2009-06-22T00:19:00.000-07:00

I like bad movies. Not all of them, but a good amount of them. It's always a game of chance when you watch a b-movie. The same can be said for Hollywood movies, but with b-movies...you can find some real stinkers. Mix in some Japanese b-movies and you'll get a different style of cheese. Here, I'm going to talk about one movie that I sort of like.

Japanese movie poster

A long time ago, 1988 to be exact, Namco funded and released a sci-fi movie Mirai Ninja (roughly translated Future Ninja) across Japanese theaters. I'm afraid I can't find much info on its box office performance, video sales, etc. without having to sift through Japanese websites using Google's translator and trying to figure out that scrambled English. I'll just say that the movie did decent.

Stickers given out at Japanese theaters
Around 1994, Orion Pictures teamed up with Mondo Pop to bring Mirai Ninja here in America. It wasn't released in theaters however, just direct-to-video as, obviously, Cyber Ninja. As it was the standard practice, the movie was dubbed in English with voices that...don't quite fit their characters. Which sometimes causes unintentional laughs. The dub was handled by Carl Macek who was famous (infamous?) for bring us Robotech and Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years. I don't know how faithful his script is since I've never seen the original Japanese dub.

Carl Masek, circa 1849
The plot of the movie is something like this. It's the near-future and the Dark Overlord's Mechanical Army is attacking the Suwabeh Clan, trying to kidnap Princess Saki. In the heat of the battle, a man's brother dies. This man's body was taken by the villain Raimei and is transformed into the Cyber Ninja. Like the movie "Robocop" which came out one year earlier, the Cyber Ninja's memories are starting to surface and he wants to stop Reimei's plans. That plan, I should mention, is the spilling of Princess Saki's blood which will bring Dark Overlord back to life.

(L to R) Cyber Ninja VHS and the DVD
It sounded pretty cool when I read the plot, but again the dub kinda' ruins the feel of the movie. Some of the special effects can look silly at times such the Mecha Ninja troops running at double-playback speed. I'm willing to bet the costumes the villains wear looked great on paper. It just doesn't work well in real life. If you can look beyond some of these flaws, you might find the movie enjoyable. It's especially enjoyable if you invite your friends over and do your own version MST3K!

The movie can be found on out-of-print VHS or on cheapie DVD from VideoAsia under the title Ninja Collection Vol. 1: 10 Feature Film Set. The DVD is nothing more than a VHS transfer, complete with tracking errors. It is listed at Amazon for roughly $20, which is $15 too much. If you want to save your money, you could probably find a torrent of the movie somewhere. I can only hope that a different company, like Media Blasters or Discotek, give this movie the proper release it deserves.

Arcade screenshots
It's only natural for Namco to make a video game based on this movie. It was an arcade game released only in Japan called "Mirai Ninja: Keigumo Kinin Gaiden". You can find the ROM just by looking up "Mirai Ninja". The game plays like "The Legend of Kage" or "Demon Sword" for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. It's faithful to the movie, as faithful as a game can get, and it's pretty fun.

Cool lookin' figures and a page I can't understand
Finally, you can proudly display these awesome figures of the Cyber Ninja and Shoki next to your anime schoolgirl figurines! I don't know if there's a full Cyber Ninja manga or not. That's the only page I can find.

That wraps up this entry. I've probably forgotten to mention a few things, but I hope you found it enjoyable. See you next Tecmo!

Buy The Ninja Collection: 10 Feature Film Set @ Amazon.com
Cyber Ninja review @ BadMovies.org
Arcade screenshots courtesy of The Video Game Museum
All other images were found on internet and from the DVD.

Mirai Ninja (aka Cyber Ninja) © Namco Ltd.