If you lived through the 1980s ninja craze, an un-welcomed bi-product of all that wicked awesomeness was the negative media attention it often attracted, including critical malcontents from within. How many times did you read or hear some sentiment along … Continued
I hope you’ve all pre-ordered Dr. Stephen Turnbull’s Ninja: Unmasking the Myth (available May 3rd). I’m about finished my review copy and am working on both a review and with luck an interview with the good doctor himself. In the meantime, … Continued
Let’s all help some readers ID some great old newspaper and magazine clippings: Ryan Jones runs a great tumblr called Oldtype/Newtype — archiving old issues of Newtype magazine, and ran across this article from September of 1987. Neither of us … Continued
If you’re a dinosaur like me, then you still dig physical media and package art when it comes to your video library. To that end, I’m a regular customer of the Warner Archive DVD-On Demand service. Tons of great titles, … Continued
So how many different schools of character design can you have in one anime? The early 60’s TV version of Shirato Sanpei‘s re-imagining of Sarutobi Sasuke sure did probe that question:
In a nice bit of coinkidink, this past weekend Roy Ware of the awesome Black Sun posted some great imagery of an entirely different Sasuke, an animated film known in English-speaking markets as “Magic Boy.” Occurs to me, with a … Continued
Discovering Sarutobi Sasuke Senjogadake no Himatsuri has been an eye-opener. The below caps will attest to how well-rounded the film is, hitting genre beats from both the super hero sorcerer spectacle-50s and the grim and grittier shinobi-spy 60s at the … Continued
Four months ago or so I ran some vintage publicity stills from movies I couldn’t identify. Well, thanks to VN commenter Robert “ShinobiShaw” Kibodeaux we got some IDs soon after, and I’m finally getting around to putting up these caps … Continued
This kid’s book-and-record (flexi-disc that is) Sarutobi Sasuke: Ninja Shugyou (Ninja Training?) is from 1973, and I know little more than that. The art throughout its 10 cardboard pages is no great shakes – and is actually quite stiff at … Continued
Fooling around with some sixth-scale stuff last weekend, put together this Tonbei the Mist-like kitbash: I have all sorts of 1:6 shinobi cluttering my place, but I always wanted to do an elder suppa figure, a crafty old spy. And … Continued