Dameyo

2-million-yen Toy

// April 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // General

The Japanese toy company Bandai has announced on Wednesday that it will sell a 2-million-yen (US$20,400) toy of Go Nagai’s Mazinger Z manga and anime robot.

The “Urban Material Chogokin Mazinger Z” will mark the 35th anniversary of Bandai’s Chogokin line of toys. The 1/30-scale, carbon/titanium toy will stand 60 centimeters (two feet) tall. The “Urban Material Chogokin” moniker reflects the new materials being used for this toy.

Figurine of classic robot comic to go on sale for 2 million

The toy will be unveiled at the Tamashii Nation 2009 event at the Akihabara UDX building in Tokyo from March 26 to 29. Bandai’s Tamashii Web site will begin taking orders this fall.

In a recent event in Akihabara where different Robots like Mazinger Z and Gundam mechas were exposed, this “highly expensive” figure was unveiled for the public and many celebrities, including the creator of Mazinger Z, Go Nagai, were there.

Mazinger Z was originally aired in 1972 based on a manga created by Go Nagai. In the anime, Mazinger Z was made of special materials called “The Super Alloy” and probably this is the closest replica with that kind of alloy materials. Mazinger Z is made by hand and its height is around 60 centimeters.

Mazinger remains one of Go Nagai’s most enduring success stories, spawning many products in the realm of merchandising, model kits, plastic and die-cast metal toys (the now famous Soul of Chogokin line), action figures and other collectibles.

Mazinger has also been successful in the video game area (at least in Japan), as one of the main stars in the acclaimed battle simulation game series Super Robot Wars, released by Banpresto, featuring characters and units from almost all Mazinger-related shows, alongside other anime franchises such as Gundam, et al.

In 1994, Banpresto released an arcade game called Mazinger Z which was a vertical shoot ‘em up with three selectable characters : Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger and Grendizer.

A 10 metres statue was build in a place called “mas del plata” in Tarragona (Catalonia) at the end of the seventies, to be the entrance for the town, but the town was never completed and the statue remains there.

Tragic death of 5 video gamers

// February 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Gadgets & Video Games

5 Tragic death of video gamers

5. Lee Seung Seop, a South Korean man died on 10 Aug. 2005 at the age of 28 after playing the game Starcraft for 50 hours with few breaks at an internet cafe in Taegu city.

He only paused playing to go to the toilet. The cause of death assumed to be the heart failure stemming. “I hop he won”.

4. Peter Burkowski, an “A” student who had plan to become a doctor some days. Sad, he couldn’t make it. Peter was dead. He died at the age of 18 years old after playing “Berzerk”. Cause of death? Heart attack. The evidence suggested that too much stress is connected to heart disease and hypertension.

3. a Chinese man, Zhu Caoyuan, was killed by Shanghai gamer Qiu Chengwei, age 41. Qiu had lent a sword to Zhu but then Zhu sold “dragon sabre” (a virtual sword which Mr Qui won in the popular online game Legend of Mir 3) for 7,200 Yuan.

Qiu Chengwei stabbed him in the chest repeatedly at his home. A few weeks before he died, MMORPG makers Blizzard banned a number of players from World of Warcraft due to gold farming (The process of mining gold in the game and selling it for real world money). “Too shame, these gamers took the virtual sword too serious”.

2. Shawn Woolley, 21, suicide over EverQuest. He shot himself while the game EverQuest-Vallon Zek ran on his computer at his apartment.

Liz Woolley (Shawn’s mother) thinks it’s a dangerous game, and addictive, by design. “I think the way the game is written is that when you first start playing it, it is fun, and you make great accomplishments.

And then the further you get into it, the higher level you get, the longer you have to stay on it to move onward, and then it isn’t fun anymore. But by then you’re addicted, and you can’t leave it,” she says.

1. Xiao Yi, age 13, a young online gamer jumped from the 24th floor of a building and committed suicide after playing 36 hours (non stop) of online game, “Warcraft III”.

He flew towards the ocean in the southeastern direction in search of his adored heroes: Lungdian, the Angel of Revenge and the Sentinel. He also wrote a suicide note hoping to reunite with fellow cyber-players in heaven, December 27, 2004. “I hope he found them now.”

What’s the story tell you?
“Well, I’m not saying that gaming is bad, but the wisdom of playing to the point of neglecting other viral areas of your life. What is apparently real is video game addiction, a sickness of mind which claimed the lives of these players.”