Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos was screened at the Reel Asian International Film Festival, which was likely the last time we get to see the Elric brothers in action. As a parting gift, we present to you what we thought were the Top 10 Moments of Fullmetal Alchemist.

Granted that there are many great moments throughout the Fullmetal saga, it was hard to pick only ten. More importantly, this list MOST DEFINITELY CONTAINS SPOILERS.

10. Hohenheim and Father’s origins.

After episodes (and chapters) of wondering why Father has the same face as Honhenheim, we get to see the origins of these two mysterious characters. It turns out that these two timeless figures were once friends, only to have an entire civilization wiped out, due to the greed of a “little one in the flask”. Hohenheim was forced to continue living with the souls of Xerxes citizens trapped inside of him, only to await the birth of his two sons to end it once and for all. The creation of Amestris, the Philosopher’s Stone, and countless wars were spearheaded by a little creature with a collosal God complex.

9. Alphonse sacrifices himself to revive Edward’s lost arm.

Close to the end of the Fullmetal Alchemist story, we are finally awarded with something we’ve been waiting for throughout the entire series – Edward getting his arm back! In desperation, after Ed is immobilized by a rebar impaling his left arm, Alphonse utilizes Mai’s long-distance Alkahestry to tramsmute his soul in exchamge for his brother’s long lost right arm. Renouncing loudly his younger brother’s idiotic decision, Ed valiantly fights back against Father with his reacquired right arm to end an epic battle with style.

8. Mustang incinerates Lust.

Just a fiery and intense battle between Colonel Roy Mustang and the Homunculus Lust. At first, Mustang getes stabbed in the gut by Lust, only to burn his wounds together and return the pain hundred-fold to the slutty monster. After a continuous sequence of explosions, Mustang was able to wear out the lives of Lust’s Philosopher’s Stone and claim victory to be the first to successfully kill a Homunculus.

7. Mustang takes revenge on Envy. Envy commits suicide.

Revenge is best served with FIRE! Mustang’s long awaited meeting with Envy was expected to be a fire-filled bloodbath celebrating the revenge taken for the late Maes Hughes, his best friend. Except, a few unexpected elements were added, including Mustang’s painful resistance from killing the conniving Homunculus, and also Envy’s eventual decision to take his own life. Not only did we see the moral side to this battle, where Mustang almost fell into darkness by killing for revenge, but also the sad and cruel truth of surrounding Envy. He has known for so long that humans will turn on each other when push comes to shove. But once the Fullmetal crew showed him the truly beautiful quality about humanity, it is revealed how envious Envy felt towards them.

6. Selim revealed as Pride.

This was possibly the biggest reveal of the series. Unlike the 2003 anime, where they misnamed a few Homunculi, revealing that the innocent-faced Selim Bradley as the First Homunculus was a jaw-dropping moment and a very high point in the series. Surprisingly, it was Lieutenant Hawkeye who first noticed the eerie air surrounding the Fuhrer’s son. This was also the first time we get to see Pride’s power and reach, where an ever-expanding abyssal creature with multiple mouths and eyes can spawn from Selim’s small stature.

5. Father opens the Gates of Truth of Heaven and Earth to obtain “God”

Fullmetal Alchemist at its epic finest in this scene. Utilizing the 5 human sacrifices (Ed, Al, Hohenheim, Izumi, Mustang) and the nationwide trasmutation circle surrounding Amestris, Father was able to open the Gates of Truth belonging to the Earth, which responded with the Gates of the Heavens, causing them to open as well. The planetary and celestial gates resonated with each other and Father was able to pull the “entity beyond the Gate”, whom he called God, into himself, along with thousands of souls of Amestrians. In short, he swallowed God whole.

4. Shou Tucker tramutes his daughter and dog into a chimera.

Early in the series and we’re shown what chilling dark waters Fullmetal Alchemist can take us. The Sewing-Life Alchemist, Shou Tucker, seemed friendly at first, but really is a psychopath whose skewed perception of success ruined his family and his life. Unable to provide convincing work leading up to his annual State Alchemist assessment, he resorts to transmuting his young daughter and his dog into a chimera who can speak. Toying with life at its finest, and most screwed up.

3. Edward finds Alphonse’s decaying body

Edward escapes the depths of Gluttony’s stomach by transmuting himself, ending up in front of the Gates of Truth once again. He then turns around and discovers another set of Gates opposite his own, and sitting in front of them was none other than Al’s malnourished body. Unable to bring it back without Al’s soul, he utters these powerful words, “Someday, I’ll definitely come back and get you. Just wait. Just WAIT!”

2. The ingredients to the Philosopher’s Stone.

Early on, we find out the necessary ingredients of creating the Philosopher’s Stone – living human beings. This legendary alchemic amplifier that was supposed to be the Elric Brothers’ key to getting their bodies back, was now not an option due to its barbaric contents. This was the point in the series where we find out Fullmetal Alchemist is much deeper than you see on the surface, and it only got deeper.

1. Hughes’ untimely demise.

This scene was probably the moment where many fell in love, and dropped their jaws, with Fullmetal Alchemist. It was an sad scene, but a pivotal one, that distinguished FMA from any anime series or manga of its time. Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes was the first to discover the nationwide conspiracy (that came to fruition towards the end of the series, check 5.), which sadly lead to his death. After a bloody fight with the homunculus Lust, he enters a phone booth attempting to notify Mustang of the conspiracy, only to be stopped by Envy, who took the appearance of his wife and shot him in cold blood.

Looking back, Arakawa-sensei’s decision to kill off a major character without any chance of resurrection, was extremely gutsy and unheard of at the time. This paved the way for success on all platforms for the franchise, marking Fullmetal Alchemist as an epic tale that was uniquely entertaining.

Spoilers end.

For more Fullmetal Alchemist goodness, check out our review on the entire franchise back when it came to an end over a year ago – Fullmetal Alchemist: A Closed Gate – A Review.

Philbert: @philbertlui
Banana Times: @bananatimes
Reel Asian: @reelasian

At approximately 3am Eastern Time on July 22nd 2010, a major contributor to the wildly, and sometimes silently popular, online subculture of manga scanlation announced its eventual end.

In about 7 days time, the legendary OneManga will come to an end.

If you log on to the OneManga website now, a disclaimer will pop up before you reach the main page. The message that appears is quoted below:

“There is an end to everything, to good things as well.”

It pains me to announce that this is the last week of manga reading on One Manga (!!). Manga publishers have recently changed their stance on manga scanlations and made it clear that they no longer approve of it. We have decided to abide by their wishes, and remove all manga content (regardless of licensing status) from the site. The removal of content will happen gradually (so you can at least finish some of the outstanding reading you have), but we expect all content to be gone by early next week (RIP OM July ’10).

So what next? We’re not really sure at this point, but we have some ideas we would like to try out. Until then, the One Manga forums will remain active and we encourage all of you to continue using them. OMF has developed into a great community and it would be a shame to see that disappear.

You can also show us some love in this moment of sadness by ‘liking’ our brand new Facebook page. It would be nice to see just how many of you came to enjoy our ‘better than peanut butter and jelly’ invention.

Regardless of whether you stay with us or not, on behalf of the One Manga team, I would like to thank you all for your unwavering support over the years. Through the ups and downs you have stuck with us, and that is what kept us going.

As a certain Porky was fond of saying… That’s all folks!

Time for me to go lay down and let this all sink in.

- Zabi

For those who are not involved with the culture of anime and manga, OneManga.com would probably mean nothing more than a website of Orientalized still-image entertainment. But for those of us who are part of this infinitely captivating universe of narrative, creativity and wonder, this is truly a great loss. For years OneManga has provided us with speedy scanlations and translations of manga, both mainstream and cult, both popular and unpopular, for the supportive masses of the Internet. The powers to be may consider the act (in our case, ‘art’) of scanlation as a violation of copyright and infringement laws. In some cases, that may be true, but in many other cases it is most certainly legitimate. With the advent of cyberspace, all traditional methods of advertising, corporation, and capitalism, were undoubtedly challenged. Many large corporate businesses have failed to keep up with activity of the instantaneous Internet that unconsciously distributes to the masses whether or not legality is involved. From my perspective, the art of scanlation is most definitely assisting the companies with their manga products. This recent online subculture may not abide by conventional rules of product distribution and advertising, but it certainly betters the global phenomena of manga and anime. Without the Internet and scanlations, giving manga the identity of ‘global’ would be much less worthy. What OneManga has provided the world in the past few years was a great and vast access to this revowned Japanese cultural art, media, and entertainment, and to have it end is a monumental shame.

Regardless of legal issues constantly hovering over the art of scanlation, the fact that it has grown to its current prominence, and will continue to grow, is a testament to not only the power of the Internet but also the power of readers who undyingly support this culture. The polite disregard scanlators have towards legality shows what they do is filled with passion and energy. Scanlated manga provides a potential and effective counter-culture to large corporations that back smaller entities responsible for manga publication. In short, it provides them with a loud but subtle middle finger to the captains of industry.

Without getting too long winded, I would like to end this tribute post to OneManga.

I hereby formally salute you, OneManga family, and may the waves of cyberspace reincarnate you into something even more grand and spectacular in the hopefully not so distant future.

Farewell.

-Philbert: @philbertlui

As of today, the acclaimed story of the Fullmetal Alchemist has ended with its 108^th chapter. The second anime series adapted from the original manga, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, will also conclude later this month. Fans across the globe could not ask for a more wholesome and honest ending, without any loose ends or leaving us gut-wrenchingly hanging for a year until a movie is released to give us half-hearted answers. That aside, I would like to take the opportunity to voice a claim I’ve been stating for the past year - Fullmetal Alchemist is the greatest anime-manga franchise of the 2000s.

It is indeed a bold claim. Firstly, even though I am a huge fanboy of anime and manga, I don’t watch or read everything. I am very selective with what I watch and read and only choose those that are critically acclaimed, garnered cult status, and those that have the ability to suck you into their unstoppable universe. This means that my claim is not only bold but also very presumptuous, but I’m sure some people would agree with me. Secondly, this claim originates not from critical analysis alone, but also how I have been relating to Fullmetal Alchemist from a personal level since the beginning. This is mainly my experience and my connection with the franchise, and it will definitely contain biases. Quick example: I love YuYu Hakusho because it was part of my childhood, anybody else would beg to differ (check out Yoshihiro Togashi’s latest series though, Hunter X Hunter is the real deal).

I know some people might inquire about other series being “the greatest of 2000s” such as One Piece or Naruto. I wouldn’t consider them because One Piece debuted in 1997, and Naruto in 1999. Fullmetal Alchemist started in 2001, which goes to show FMA’s resilience even going up against giants such as One Piece and Naruto. Also, I have a shounen bias. This 9-year franchise spawned a manga series, two distinguished anime series, a feature film and other little things such as making single-claps extremely cool. To place FMA up against Naruto for example; a series with a manga, BARELY two anime series (Shippuden is not different, they just grew up), and an excess of annoying filler arcs that depreciates the franchise’s overall quality. I still love Naruto, but I’m saying maybe we should just read the manga. Just saying.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS TO BOTH THE 2003 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST SERIES AND THE 2009 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: BROTHERHOOD SERIES.

For your sake, I will be limit details regarding Brotherhood and the ending, just in case you want to read on.

To quote James Lipton, “as always, let’s start from the beginning”. I picked up the first FMA series as it was coming to an end. I blazed through all 51 episodes whilst I was in high school, in 3 days, and those were school days. My first impression: Absolute Wonder. In subsequent years I went on to re-watch the series many times because the series finale left me too vulnerable to function. The repetition also acted as a buffer for Conqueror of Shamballa to be available to North America. I ended up watching it illegally, I just couldn’t wait. A few months later, I wrote an essay about the movie in a university film class 6 months before it would be shown in North American theaters. This was borderline obsession, but it was understandable after being deprived of alchemy goodness for over a year.

For the longest time I held the first anime series over the original manga storyline. But looking back, I realized how hypocritical and stubborn that was. Like many others out there, I wholeheartedly believe that anime should be watched in its original Japanese language with English subtitles, or whatever language you are most comfortable reading. Mainly because that is how it was first made, origin had power. No fabrication of voices, tone, and even storyline (Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus were clearly lesbians, the Americans changed it, go figure). The original will always better in my opinion, so why did I hold onto the 2003 series so stubbornly? Firstly, it was awesome in its own right. Secondly, it provided nostalgia. Much the same as why I like YuYu Hakusho till this day. One other thing I should have noticed was that even after re-watching the first anime series and movie repeatedly, I still was left unsatisfied. I wanted more. More undersized blonde kids with a steel prosthetic arm fighting sinful monsters with medieval science-magic fusion techniques. More! Which is why I ventured into reading the original manga, and boy was it divine.

Three years later in early 2009, they announced a new Fullmetal Alchemist series that was adapted from the original manga storyline. Cue explosion in my pants. After the first few episodes of the 2003 series, Arakawa-sensei needed more time to develop her vision for her manga, so BONES Studios went on with a different plot, which turned out great as well. Now that the manga storyline is finished, I can consciously and confidently say that it is definitely stronger, more captivating, and more complete than the first anime series. I had to wait until the end of the manga storyline to fully understand that. I now wait for how it would look like animated. It will be nothing less than epic.

The completeness and undivided structure of the manga storyline was key in edging out the 2003 anime series. Although it was refreshing to see the 2003 series venture into realism by creating our Earth as a parallel universe, and also being alchemy’s source of energy, it was ultimately an explanation that fell short especially when the Shamballa came around. The 2003 series also fell short in the back-stories and character design of the seven homunculi. I never figured out why they named King Bradley “Pride”, and Izumi’s kid “Wrath”. Nothing wrathful about that kid, instead he was more envious of Edward. He should have been called Envy 2.0. Then there was Elric’s mother who was “Sloth”, which made even less sense. A beautiful mother figure that can transform and manipulate water, somehow characterizes the sin of Sloth? This was a major downfall to the first series in my opinion.

Criticism aside I still adore the first series and the entire franchise. The key aspects of the series that really got me hooked was the premise and the philosophy (see what I did there?). The premise of constructing a fantasy, science, action hybrid universe out of an extinct medieval magic, was already pretty interesting in itself. On top of that, Arakawa-sensei stylized her world in dated European, Middle-Eastern, and Asian characteristics to have it feel more historical and acceptable, rather than forcing an old science to be a norm in modern times.

What caught my eye even more, and immediately drew me into the series, was the theory of “Equivalent Exchange”. Arakawa-sensei created an omniscient law that not only the science of alchemy, but also the natural flow of the universe, abided by. The weight of this theory may be lost on some less venturous viewers, but it surely stuck with me. She took “no pain, no gain” to a very profound and philosophical level. At first it may seem like an obvious and logical explanation to life, but it exemplified the entire world of Fullmetal Alchemist. Without it, the series, the franchise, the characters, would have been much less triumphant.

The Elric Brothers had to discover for themselves that Equivalent Exchange was not only restricted to alchemy, but to the world and universe that surrounded them. Such as how we as the audience also learned that not only in the world of the Fullmetal Alchemist, but also in real life, where you cannot gain anything without sacrificing something of equal or greater value…

But once you overcome that sacrifice and make it your own, you will gain an irreplaceable fullmetal heart.

A lesson thoroughly learned.

Thank you Arakawa-sensei, from the bottom my fullmetal heart. We look forward to your next masterpiece!

Philbert: @philbertlui
Banana Times: @bananatimes

Back in June of 2009 I did a post about a 59-feet tall life-size Gundam replica to be unveiled at Tokyo’s artificial Odaiba island. That attraction was epically shown to the public, and I speculated on how all these monumental statues across the world will come to life and destroy the planet in the same post. That’s right. World War III will be fought with controlled giants resembling popular Anime franchises and religious figures like Buddhas. To quote myself (self-indulging):

It’s only a matter of time before they build life-size EVA units to take over the world, colonize the moon while harvesting minerals from Mars and refurbishing Pluto as a gigantic nuclear explosive to repel Angels from invading. AH! [TBT - 59-Feet Tall Life-Size Gundam to unveil in July]

That was almost a year ago. Lone and behold, they went and built a life-size Evangelion Unit 01 replica from the bust up, to be unveiled at Fuji-Q HighLand amusement park at a new pavilion called “Evangelion: World – Life-Size EVA-01 Construction Project“. They asked the fans which Eva unit should be built, and to no surprise, of course Unit 01 was chosen and built. [Source - AnimeNewsNetwork]

No matter how anti-Anime you are, you have to admit that it’d be pretty amazing to stand in front of this monolith… and maybe wonder if it was a waste of resources. Look! There are people walking in front of it! Just like the screen-shot of the Anime shown above! Fuji-Q HighLand was also home to the aforementioned 59-feet tall Gundam but it would be lying down this time. The giant will stand again at Bandai’s main Gundam plastic model factory later on this year.

-phibz.

How nerdy are you when you recognize melodic similarities in theme songs from different Anime series? Otaku alert!

So when the fifth ending theme song, Ray Of Light by Shoko Nakagawa, premiered on episode 51 of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, I couldn’t help but notice a similar tune in a much earlier Anime, Yuu Yuu Hakusho, and one of its ending themes. Keep in mind that I find far-fetched resemblances in many things. Such as my post about Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock Holmes looking like Alucard who also resembles Carmen Sandiego.

First up, Ray Of Light in FMA: Brotherhood. Pay attention to the background strings from the beginning of the video to about the 0:32 point:

Now onto Yuu Yuu Hakusho’s Anbaransu na Kiss o Shite (Kissing the Unbalanced) by Takahashi Hiro. The similar background melody starts at the 1:12 mark:

Is it just me? Or do you catch the similarities as well?

-phibz.

PS: Click the links on the song titles to check out the full version of the songs.

If you don’t know already, The Banana Times and I have worked frequently with the Heroic Melon Collective. The HMC’s history is a new one, and as of April 2010 it would be one year old! I am truly proud to be part of Heroic Melon for many reasons, most recently because of THIS. It’s like raising a child that breastfeeds from 5 heterosexual (for the most part) fathers. Quite an image (:

On to the main point. Even though the HMC is still in its infant stages, we managed to garner a following so numerous it can trample over the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good And Who Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too‘s model.. To that effect we present to you this amazing piece of fan art from xlithiumflowerx aka Kei-chan (that’s what I call her)!!

On behalf of the HMC, we are truly honored and ecstatic to receive this awesome token of appreciation. Go check out her deviatart site HERE! She has other amazing artwork like this Kamen Rider!! How crazy is that?! Also follow her on Twitter KOCHI!

To end off, here’s a little bit of “art” that I did, dedicated to the Heroic Melon Collective (:

(Hiroiku Meron Korekuchibu)

I ran out of magnets to make double consonants or innovative Katakana characters, but it still works! (the tail of ‘チ’ could bend a little more..)

-phibz.

I’m proud to be part of a creative group of people who are brilliant enough to create great works of awesomeoness (and otakuness), shown in the Central Squares Saga. In the name of loving martial arts, anime, and all things nerdy, Central Squares is a true testament to the power of popular youth media, both Eastern and Western.

In 2006, the first installment of the Central Squares Saga garnered over 18,000 views on YouTube with its intended slapstick cheesiness and low-budget appearance. Above all, its ridiculous humour caught the unexpected waves of the Internet. Unknown to many, the title “Central Squares” has no direct connection to the narrative (or lack thereof) of the video series, but is simply the name of the area of York University in which it was filmed.

A surprise to most, four years later, a sequel was born. With a better set of hands provided by the Heroic Melon Collective and a departure from the beloved handycam look, Central Squares II was bigger, better, flashier, and more nerdy, with a plethora of references to popular video games, anime and television shows:

Dragonball, Star Wars, Naruto, you name it, and Central Squares II pays homage to it in some way. If my nerdiness serves me right, I counted at least 9 references to popular youth media. As I mentioned on our Twitter page, “It has references up the BUTT!”, which makes it all the more epic.

It took four years before a sequel was released, do we have to wait until 2014 before we see Central Squares III? I highly doubt that. Considering the diverse body of work the HMC have created, they are more than capable (not including myself, of course) of doing one, if not two, more installments to this great fanboy saga. With that said, RJ Tumanguil (Perfect Destiny Pictures) has sacrificed blood, sweat, tears, and many nights of sleep to polish the grand display of special effects in CS2. For now, we’ll let the trooper rest. For now (:

-phibz.

Even though we are at the 19th day of the new decade, the Decading Bananas series shall continue until the end of January, as it still marks the events and cultures of the past 10 years. In Part III of Decading Bananas, we are going to open a time capsule of sorts and reveal what kind of influences, interests and fads I was into, as an unknowing young Banana, a short decade ago.

Every time I visit Hong Kong, I always experience several attacks of nostalgia during the journey home from the airport. Even just sitting in my room (which has evolved over the years) and panning my eyes across the short buildings of the neighbourhood, history, my history, naturally unfolds in my mind. This time around I wanted to look for objects that would help me pinpoint what I kind of culture, media and fads I was into around 10 years ago. To my surprise, it was sitting on my shelf the whole time. And this is what I found:

Ten years ago I was an avid collector of CoCo, a bi-weekly comic magazine printed in Hong Kong that regularly featured Japanese manga, local comics as well as gaming news. It was first released in 1997 around the time British rule was handed back to China. Whether the Handover had significance in the birth of this magazine is unknown, but I will look into it. I actually own several issues from 1997 but shall only highlight the ’99 and ’00 issues as it marks what happened a decade ago. The snapshots that follow are the popular trends, manga and culture I, and many other teens, were into at the brink of the millennium.

Like many 10-12 year olds back in late 1999 and early 2000s, I was very much immersed in the global Digimon fad. Ten years ago in Hong Kong, you would be hard pressed to find a kid who did not own Digimon product. Many had 7 or more Digimon Virtual Pets attached to a single key chain, myself included. CoCo followed this trend religiously, to the point where they printed Digimon fan-fiction created by local Hong Kong artists:

In this fan-fiction, Tai has Gomamon and an overweight ExVeemon as his partners

Decapitated DarkTyrannomon versus Etemon

Puppetmon on CoCo cover

*Nerd Alert!* Digimon Adventure was in the midst of airing in Japan at this point, and I don’t think they reached the Dark Masters arc yet. The Puppetmon on this cover of CoCo was to promote the latest Digimon Virtual Pet device that was released, Digimon Pendulum IV: Wind Guardians.

Another major trend in Hong Kong were fighting games such as Street Fighter and King of Fighters. At around the turn of the millenium SNK versus Capcom was released and CoCo followed suit, releasing fan-fictions along the way:

The Match Of The Millenium, well titled

Kyo and Ryu powering up

SNK VS Capcom Fanfiction opening

Noticed how they covered up Mai’s cleavage? Censoring at its best (:

Continuing with another trend in CoCo at the time was Bomberman, but not in the regular sense. These are Bombermen who have marbles at their core, who can either shoot energy blasts out of them, or are used as toys used by teens at tournaments. Both types of these marble-Bombermen have spawned into manga and anime series:

Marble-Bomberman Toys

Marble-Bomberman Toys

Marble-Bomberman Manga

From 1999 to 2000, the world was in between the 1998 France FIFA World Cup and the upcoming 2002 Korea/Japan FIFA World Cup. Even though we were in between the two events, local Hong Kong artists and CoCo kept the football (soccer, for you North Americans) spirit alive through parodies and fan-fiction comics:

Ronaldo caricature on CoCo cover

World Cup manga in CoCo

The once hugely popular Mini-4WD trend was going downhill at this point in time, but CoCo continued to feature them in their issues going into the millennium:

Bakusō Kyōdai Let's & Go MAX promotion

Let's & Go manga in CoCo

Here are some remaining trends, manga and anime that were highlighted by CoCo 10 years ago:

So there you have it. What one of the creators of TheBananaTimes was into 10 years ago. Needless to say my love and passion for anime and manga remains unchanged, but of course I have become more selective to which ones I watch and read. For example, no matter how sexually desperate I was as a young pubescent boy, I would never find the weird-looking big-breasted women in the snapshot above, attractive in any sense. The same goes for now…

Manga and Anime will always be a big part of my creative life and personal life, and it seemed that way back in the year 1999 and 2000 (:

-phibz.

A couple of months ago, I had a conversation with a good friend about my future and how The Banana Times is going to progress. One option for my future was to work for a few years then return to school for a masters degree in possibly Journalism. She asked why not Film Studies, and travel the world for my thesis. I responded “but I wouldn’t know what to write about”. With a brief hesitation I said “…Banana Cinema?”. In retrospect it was an obvious answer, but it never crossed my mind. Naturally, my friend knew this would be the answer all along.

It makes perfect sense since the national cinemas around the world have already been deeply covered and analyzed. Looking further, we live in such a globalized, information-dependent, and international society that language is becoming less and less of a requirement. With that said, national cinemas are evolving beyond the restrictions of their geography and race, thus Banana Cinema is possible.

Banana Cinema will not be contained within a country or a specific culture. It will encompass many Asian cultures and the traces they leave in broadening their horizons past their borders and into other identities. This is definitely something new that can be explored, where a national cinema requires not a nation, but a unified globalized ideology of sorts.

Looking back in the last 10 years, were there any potential young representatives of Banana Cinema that came about? Here are a three people I thought of who have made strides in culture, art and media, as well as influenced myself and The Banana Times (alphabetical order):

John Cho (Actor):

We know John Cho from the American Pie films, Harold & Kumar, and now in ABC’s new drama, Flashforward. Cho has made his mark with the Asian community by by portraying the stereotypical yellowman in Harold & Kumar (soon to be) trilogy, but has graciously advanced into deeper roles such as the revamped Hikaru Sulu in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek and even a guest spot on How I Met Your Mother as the Caucasian-named Jeff Coatsworth. In my opinion his most significant “Banana” role was in Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow where he played the cunning spoiled Asian high-school student, Steve Choe. More on the film later.

Utada Hikaru (Singer/Songwriter):

Utada Hikaru has very little to do with cinema, let alone Banana Cinema, but she has made huge strides in bringing together Asian and Western audiences. Utada’s body of work speaks for itself, with 5 Japanese and 3 English studio albums selling well over 70 million copies. Although her English work is not as powerful or influential as her native tongue, her global reach is undeniable. You’d be hard pressed to find an Anime lover or a gamer who has not heard of Utada Hikaru (Kingdom Hearts, Rebuild of Evangelion). Personally, if Easy Breezy was not selected as her American debut single, Exodus would have been way more popular and recognized (an underrated album methinks).

Justin Lin (Director):

Born in Taiwan and grew up in LA, Justin Lin made one of the most relatable film to Banana Cinema. Better Luck Tomorrow revolved around a group of Asian-American high school students who became bored of school life and resorted to crime and violence. It was made with a very low budget ($250,000) but made it to the Official Selection of Sundance and the Toronto International Film Festival. The stereotypical Asian student who excels in school is portrayed relevantly, with a splash of crime and drama reminiscent of many Hong Kong films. Lin went on to direct Annapolis and Fast & Furious, but he will forever be remembered, at least in our eyes, by the man who possibly kickstarted Banana Cinema.

Please note that the aforementioned three people are not in any way better or more significant than any other possible representatives of Banana Cinema or any topic regarding the blending of Asian and Western cultures. They were elaborated on because of their emergence in the last decade more or less.

Honorable Mentions (alphabetical):
Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, Ang Lee, Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Lucy Liu, Masi Oka, Ken Watanabe, John Woo, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi

-phibz.

Another short post for today. I performed a skit in Japanese language class yesterday. I based my character on the very popular Shin-chan from the Crayon Shin-chan manga and anime franchise. A tribute to the creator, Yoshito Usui, who passed away in September this year. The result..

The outfit could’ve been better but I did act like a drunk perverted kindergarten student. Hence “yoochien”, which means kindergarten in Japanese.

I couldn’t find a funny clip of the series in Japanese on YouTube, so this dubbed version will have to do, the humour is surprisingly funny! I didn’t know Action Kamen (Mask) was Action Bastard in the English dubs, kind of makes it more vulgar, which is good. “Tore him apart with my big Bastard Rod!” (:

Rest In Peace, Yoshito Usui. Your humour will be missed, but it will live on.

-phibz.