Redeeming itself from a poor 2009 summer movie season, Hollywood restored the meaning of ‘blockbuster’ in 2010, giving us the likes of Inception, Scott Pilgrim, Toy Story 3, Iron Man 2 among others. Among that list, my 2nd personal favourite next to the masterful Inception was Scott Pilgrim VS The World. Although not as exciting and well-made as the flurry of Inception trailer mashups, Scott Pilgrim VS The World still holds its own given the film’s comic book and video game dynamic.

Scott Pilgrim VS The Matrix (personal favourite):

Scott Pilgrim VS Inception:

Scott Pilgrim VS The Last Airbender:

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.

The Banana Times reporting from Hong Kong!

I have decided to continue the nerdiness and write another post about Anime and Manga because.. Well. Why the hell not?

Since I returned to Hong Kong from Beijing, I made sure I had my Canon Digital IXUS 75 in my pocket ready to capture some interesting images for myself and for the blog at any given moment. Ever since Hong Kong allowed unlimited customization on license plates, its been a lot easier to not only catch Anime/Manga references, but also easier to make fun of the locals and their English (I guess I used to be one? Not anymore? I’ve been Bananaized).

Helo Kity? So its hee-low kai-tee. Looks like something from Engrish.com

D…Gary-Man?! Another lost child of Engrish. Satoshi Tajiri is gonna be piiissed. Or rather, whoever came up with the English names for the Pokemon characters is gonna be pissed. How the fuck does Satoshi become Ash Ketchum? (ZOMG EVA REBUILD 1.0 DVD!!!)

Okay, this isn’t Anime or Manga related (a Winnie The Pooh manga would be kinda cool?) but its pretty post-worthy. Look how he judges us with his ignorant smile..

Okay. WSJ means Wall Street Journal, but it can also stand for Weekly Shonen Jump! The most popular manga magazine in the WORLD? Duh. I know its a stretch, but hey, it works. And what’s the deal of releasing the Wall Street Journal on September 11th..

Yamada! Hermes is EVERYWHERE in Hong Kong!
I know its a popular luxury fashion brand and its in a lot of places,  but the train man inside of me just had to take picture. And to end it off:

Suneo from Doraemon says FOK!

I have a few more days left in Hong Kong, so the search for more Anime/Manga references continues! Until next time.

Yes. This is where I am, where I grew up, where The Dark Knight was filmed (and yes, I did take this photo).

-phibz.

Also known as ACGHK, it is Hong Kong’s annual comic, animation, games and book fair held every summer. The games and comics fair were separate but merged in 2008. The day before we flew to Beijing, The Banana Times took the opportunity to catch the last day of the fair with hopes of seeing what was left of manga and anime awesomeness. First things first, I had to find the Alchemist.

I was watching some Hong Kong television and I managed to catch an episode of FMA:B in Cantonese, and they were only ONE episode behind the Japanese release schedule. But they translated the new series as “Fullmetal Alchemist FA”, which is just saying the title twice..

The Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood stall:

The Hong Kong Convention crowd:

Hey, that’s a pretty cool-looking action figure. It kinda looks like a – no way…

Your eyes are not deceiving you. That is some sort of manga character made out of a shoe. Remember that great South Park episode with the Chinpokomon? Someone took it way too seriously (0:34 mark).

One Piece x Dragonball Z Cross Epoch! Son Luffy! Awesomeness! And my nerdiness would not be complete without wearing a t-shirt that had “manga” written printed on it (or man hua/man hwa if you’re Chinese or Korean).

I wish I could compare the atmosphere, structure and fandom of Asian conventions and North American conventions but unfortunately, due to my ignorance and inexperience, I have yet to attend an Anime or Manga convention in the West. But I can say one thing for sure. Geeks, nerds and Otaku are everywhere, and we’re only growing. Hell, the term “Densha Otoko” has crept its way into contemporary Hong Kong culture already.

Anime North 2010, I’ll see you soon.

-phibz.

Extremely awesomesauce.

I think if Bruce Lee were still alive and Iron Man existed in real life, Bruce Lee would still win. How two hobbits managed to steal Tony Stark’s battle suit is a whole other wacky unpredictable story.

I was contemplating on writing a stop-motion short film for the next installment to our INTER Series. I think this video made my decision (:

-phibz.

I came across this thanks to IWatchStuff.com and it is pure gold. You can even watch the first episode at Marvel.com!

I really hope Kamen Rider makes an appearance in one of the episodes.
Enjoy.

-phibz