In which a young girl creates a giant radish spaceship, becomes its captain, then returns two years later in a bunny outfit with super powers.

December 13, 2011 3:18 PM

Here is the opening anime from the 20th Japan Science Fiction Convention, Daicon III (1981). And here is the follow-up anime for the 22nd convention, Daicon IV (1983). Both are loaded with pop culture references, and are (I hear) famous among Japanese anime fans. Here's some more information on them. The student animators of these shorts went on to found the anime studio GAINAX, which you may have heard of. GAINAX previously: one two
posted by JHarris (19 comments total)

Oh, I get it... Daicon / Daikon. Heh.

These are awesome, thanks!
posted by koeselitz at 3:29 PM on December 13, 2011

i just remembered that satoshi kon is dead :(
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 3:40 PM on December 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

And, just because, here is DAICON IV with ponies.
posted by darksasami at 3:41 PM on December 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

The DAICON IV one in particular is famous/infamous because in hindsight it was masterfully prescient as to the fusion of anime tropes with what we think of as "science fiction" or "fantasy" and the flip-flopping of eastern/western cross-cultural influences in animation.

It's really kind of mind blowing if you consider when it was made, and the fact that at that time Gainax was not yet anything even remotely like the global tastemaking powerhouse it later became.
posted by trackofalljades at 3:50 PM on December 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

You should link the Densha Otoko OP too, as it marked a similar revolutionary moment which I don't have time to get into right now.
posted by shii at 4:13 PM on December 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh yeah, also American convention opening anime
posted by shii at 4:15 PM on December 13, 2011

You need this version of IV for the extra minutes of storyboard to animation evolution at the end. There's was a decent medley mix of III&IV floating around the nets with some additional pictures, but it's a tossup between better video in that version and better audio on the youtube versions.
posted by zengargoyle at 4:38 PM on December 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

No post mentioning Gainax is complete without a reference to Gainaxing (possibly kind of NSFW, I guess).
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:02 PM on December 13, 2011

wow, the second animation is amazing, here's a list of the stuff I was able to pick out from it, and it's only about half of the references:

Bioroid
Toho Movie Monsters
Darth Vader & Stormtroopers
The Death Star
Alien from Alien and Aliens
Dairugger IV (aka Vehicle Voltron)
Yoda
Chewbacca
C3PO and R2D2
alien from Warning From Space
hex map from paper wargaming
Space Battleship Yamato
SDF-1
Captain Harlock's ship
Conan
Dragonrider of Pern
the Lion and the children from The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe
Captain America
Batman and Robin
Spiderman
Superman
Wonder Woman
Klingon Battlecruiser
Martian ships from the War Of The Worlds
TIE Fighters
Thunderbird 3
Millenium Falcon
monster from Poltergeist
Nausicaa and an Ohmu from Nasicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind
Mothra
Wave Motion Gun
Robbie the Robot
Breetai from Macross
Power Rangers
The robot from Metropolis
a Martian from The War Of The Worlds
Captain Gloval from Macross
Emperor Ming The Merciless
James Bond
Tin Man from Wizard of Oz
Speed Racer
posted by smoothvirus at 7:35 PM on December 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Love the old Gainax stuff! It's even better if you've seen Otaku No Video, the greatest anime ever made. Thanks for posting!
posted by smackwich at 7:43 PM on December 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also: The Daicon IV opening was paid tribute to in the opening credits to Fuji Television's Densha Otoko.
posted by incomple at 7:57 PM on December 13, 2011

I missed it but Frodo Baggins and Gandalf are in the fantasy sequence.
posted by smoothvirus at 8:03 PM on December 13, 2011

trackofalljades: "The DAICON IV one in particular is famous/infamous because in hindsight it was masterfully prescient as to the fusion of anime tropes with what we think of as "science fiction" or "fantasy" and the flip-flopping of eastern/western cross-cultural influences in animation."

Also, the shout-out to Twilight fandom is pretty forward thinking.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:23 PM on December 13, 2011

Also Naoyuki Katoh's covers for Japanese editions of Starship Troopers.

I miss thinking that most anime was like this- astonishing craftsmanship, bright colors, characters with noses, etc., before the mid-to-late 1990's when actual widespread anime availability in my community and on TV revealed horrifyingly otherwise.
posted by Rustmouth Snakedrill at 8:59 PM on December 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Holy crap. I saw a bootleg of a bootleg of that Daicon III video as a wee lad in the mid 80's. I'd completely forgotten it ever existed until I watched the first minute or so, at which point that unsettling phenomenon occurs when an almost entirely lost episode from your early life suddenly rockets to the front of your cerebellum, and suddenly I realized I was remembering almost every frame just before I saw it. I'm wondering what other bits of random data it bought with it on the way up. Thanks, JHarris!
posted by phooky at 9:49 PM on December 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

phooky, although I never saw these things before (I'm actually not a big fan of anime), I had the feeling it would do that to some people, which is kind of why I wanted to post it.
posted by JHarris at 10:32 PM on December 13, 2011

if youre not a big fan of anime why do you keep posting it
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 10:38 PM on December 13, 2011

That is, admittedly, a good question.
posted by JHarris at 11:35 PM on December 13, 2011

Indeed yes, these are famous among anime fans. I know this because I'm in the periphery of the fandom and I've been shown them at conventions. (You know the guys who always turn up at the fogey panels, or haul gems out of their collection for "Bad, Anime, Bad" - I hang out with those guys.)
posted by Karmakaze at 6:58 AM on December 14, 2011 [1 favorite]