anime

Comica Festival 2009 Review (London)

Recently, I went to check out the happenings of the Comica Festival in London, courtesy of Ctrl.Alt.Shift. If you don’t know anything about this festival, then here’s a good place to start. It combines the yearlong comic/anime/manga collective where artists (famous or not) get to show off their new work for the world to see. The festival runs from the 5th of November until the 26th, so make sure you can get down to the select locations in London to check it out.

Ctrl.Alt.Shift ran a competition to uncover the public’s reactions to what unmasking corruption meant to them, and the results and winners of the competition can be found at the Lazarides Gallery in Soho until the 30th of November (entry is free). There was some pretty awe-inspiring artwork there, to say the least. Being able to walk among the artists and their work as they depicted whatever it was that corruption meant to them was quite the revelation. From dirty needles, to government conspiracies, to grannies not quite living in the real world, all original pieces of artwork were made using a variant of methods – one was even made into wallpaper and attached to the wall.

30th Anniversary Giant Gundam Statue In Japan

Any Gundam followers out there will be rather pleased to know that there has been a commission in Japan for a gigantic 59ft Gundam statue to be erected in Tokyo. The idea was brought forward to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the mecha anime craze, of which an exhibition to celebrate it is soon to begin.