At the Olympics #OpeningCeremony, athletes stepped into the world of Japanese comics and graphic novels as the country name placards and assistants’ costumes referenced manga in their design. (Resends to correct spelling of "manga.") https://t.co/rHtsJlwSpF
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 24, 2021
The Olympics, we are told, are all about unlimited vision and global interconnections and seemingly impossible feats of physicality, so what better media for the current Pandemic Games than anime & gaming, the Japanese-based, globally-celebrated formats that allow us aspiring hikikomori to celebrate with each other from the safety of our own internet pods?
Japanese artists reimagine countries as anime samuraihttps://t.co/7SBBbKaFHb
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 23, 2021
You absolutely want to click on the link here, for the illustrations. (I would donate to a kickstarter for a booklet with all 84-and-counting designs!):
A group of Japanese artists are hoping to help people embrace both the Olympic spirit and Japanese culture by reimagining flags of competing countries as samurai characters.
Nations large and small are represented in the World Flags project, including India, South Africa, Great Britain, Sri Lanka, El Salvador and Turkey…
[Artist Kamaya Yamamoto] starts by researching the meaning and history of a country’s flag as well as the colours and design, and then researches their culture.For example, because the Mexican flag features an eagle perched on a cactus, eating a snake, Mr Yamamoto blended these elements together to create a samurai with a snake insignia and an eagle companion…
Even though the online initiative seems like a fitting promotional campaign for the Tokyo Olympics, the 15 people behind the project don’t make any money from it and do it in their free time…
Some embassies in Japan – like Honduras and Venezuela – have separately contacted the artists because they want to display pictures of the samurais…
“People will only be able to enjoy the Olympics online,” says Mr Yamada. “So hopefully our designs will provide a bit of entertainment and relief for all those tired of Covid-19.”
Google’s new Tokyo Olympics Doodle is an homage to 16-bit video games https://t.co/IqLo0ilUKP pic.twitter.com/rfmO2thrfH
— The Verge (@verge) July 23, 2021
… Google is debuting a new interactive Doodle on Thursday with art from Japanese animation house Studio 4°C. The new Doodle, called Doodle Champion Island Games, is actually a series of Olympic event-themed 16-bit mini-games that you can play, contributing to the scores of four teams Google will track on a global leaderboard.
Playing as Lucky the Calico Ninja Cat, you can join either the Blue, Red, Yellow, or Green teams, represented by Ushi (a cow), Karasu (a crow), Inari (a fox), or Kappa (a Japanese turtle-like water spirit), respectively. The seven mini-games break down across a several new and returning summer Olympic events, like skateboarding, table tennis, and climbing, each with its own “Legendary Champion” to challenge from Japanese folklore and history…
The whole package seems like a sports RPG in miniature, filtered through the kind of Flash games that would consume my afternoons as a kid. You’ll be able to navigate Lucky through a festival over-world populated with the games and champions, complete side quests, and experience the art and cutscenes Studio 4°C created for the Doodle. Google calls it an homage to classic Japanese 16-bit games — and while limited in some ways by living inside web browsers, it definitely seems to capture some of that spirit…
Anime and manga will take center stage at the Olympics. It could fuel a boom in interest. https://t.co/aTyneyx9fK
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 22, 2021
… While these platforms have seen their followings grow significantly over the past two decades, many in the anime and manga industry are preparing for another spike in interest in the United States and worldwide because of the exposure the series and characters are expected to receive during the Olympics…
Many anime — an umbrella term for animation produced in Japan — are adapted from manga, similar to how American comics are shaped into movies. The Olympics ambassadors, who are featured on official Olympics merchandise, are Son Goku (from the Dragon Ball series), Usagi Tsukino (“Sailor Moon”), Naruto Uzumaki (“Naruto”), Monkey D. Luffy (“One Piece”), Astro Boy (“Astro Boy”), Cure Miracle and Cure Magical (“Pretty Cure”), Shin-chan (“Crayon Shin-chan”) and Jibanyan (“Yo-kai Watch”).
Goku is perhaps the most well-known of the group. He’s a naive but determined warrior who is the main character of “Dragon Ball Z,” which was one of the first popular anime in the United States in the 1990s and introduced many fans to the genre. Usagi Tsukino, whose alter ego is Sailor Moon, is the star of another popular 1990s anime, and she welcomed many women into what had previously been a predominantly male fan base.
Naruto, the main character of one of the world’s most popular series, which ran between 1999 and 2014, is a quirky teenager determined to become his village’s strongest ninja. Astro Boy is a compassionate kid robot from the first popular televised anime series in the 1960s that inspired the genre. Luffy is the main character of “One Piece,” the best-selling manga of all time with about 490 million copies sold…
… Anime series have become popular conversation topics in locker rooms at every level of sports, and some of the Olympics’ top competitors count themselves as fans.
U.S. sprinter Noah Lyles, who will compete in the 200-meter dash, has pondered performing one of Goku’s signature moves, the spirit bomb, before a race in Tokyo. U.S. middle-distance runner Isaiah Jewett credited “Naruto” for helping him qualify for the Olympics. And Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka is known to be an anime fan…
(Confession: While I recognized all but one of the nine mascots, I’ve only ever watched Astro Boy — and that was when it was first aired in NYC, back in 1964. Spousal Unit & I didn’t start watching anime together until the early 1990s, so we missed out on much of the ‘pivotal’ series that aired in America in the 1980s.)
The Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony was filled with some of gaming’s greatest tunes https://t.co/g3ASUnlp1z pic.twitter.com/0LRD0zbfew
— The Verge (@verge) July 23, 2021
Full list at the link, if you know the difference between Final Fantasy‘s “Victory Fanfare” and Soulcalibur‘s “The Brave New Stage of History”.
Mo Salad
https://world-flags.org/ A direct link to the flag samurai site, if you want to see all of them.
Kristine
I’d donate to that Kickstarter too.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I see a typhoon is heading Japan’s way.
debbie
I don’t know why I’m watching the Olympics. I hate that someone has to lose.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Can Godzilla be far behind?
Cmorenc
I have eagerly enjoyed watching every summer olympics- until this one. I cannot summon any interest this time around. Well, maybe more interest than televised cornhole tournaments, or competitive bassfishing. But still, ain’t much mojo for summer olympics watching this time around.
But that’s just mho, YMMV.
PsiFighter37
@Cmorenc: I think part of it is that outside of Biles, you don’t have any historically great athletes looking to cement their legacy. You had both Phelps and Bolt having their swan songs in Rio 4 years ago.
SFBayAreaGal
I would donate to Kickstarter.
SFBayAreaGal
@Mo Salad: Thank you.
Butch
@Cmorenc: I tried to watch that bizarre opening ceremony made worse by the frantic graphics from NBC and decided I’d rather take the dogs for a walk.
Lyrebird
THose are amazing designs for sure. I wish they hadn’t made Mexico and Jamaica’s samurai white, though! huh??
trollhattan
Women’s soccer and softball tournaments so far are great teevee.
Looking forward to track and field.
SFBayAreaGal
@Lyrebird: There’s a few I wish the samurais were not white.
Juju
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Seriously? I haven’t checked any weather today.
Just Chuck
Individual Olympic sports I can get behind. The umbrella known as The Olympics are something I just can’t stand anymore, largely due to the endless yammering commentary, naked jingoism, and phony gravitas.
brantl
They really should have called these off. One dead athlete from this will be too bad, and probably inevitable.
NotMax
Obliquely obligatory.
:)
Mary G
No American samurai yet. We are not worthy due to the stain of TFG. This is right and proper until we donate more than token amounts of COVID vaccine to other countries.
NotMax
Yes Virginia, there is Saudi anime.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Should be carrying a bone saw.
prostratedragon
@Mary G: There’s one in the twitter comments which I think is the actual design. Wearing flag-decorated armor. I haven’t yet figured out how to get the world site to show all the flags. Well, I haven’t tried very hard yet.
I did enjoy the opening show. The enthusiasm that teams often show in the parade seemed very touching this time, maybe because I’m now old enough to be grandparent of most of them. With some amusement I also noticed that the first two of the especially exuberant groups were from Argentina and Italy, whose national soccer teams are both just off big wins (not to mention that on the national average, more than half the Argentines are probably of Italian descent). But big smiles were visible under masks all around. Many of the uniforms were fine examples of national and international fashion meeting. And then of course there was the magnificent undress of the martial artist from Tonga. Whatever will we do when he retires?
Interesting that two feature roles for the local hero went to Afro-Japanese athletes, with Naomi Osaka an expected choice for torchlighter, but also one of the two flagbearers (I suppose he could be Indo-Japanese). Good, but very poignant to see Saduharu Oh there, supported on his walk by Hideki Matsui.
Raoul Paste
@NotMax: That was fun
ETA. I’m referring to Heroboy, not the Saudi anime
mdblanche
Strange, I see no mention of “Akira.” Probably because of the whole part where Tokyo hosts the 2020 Olympics and disaster ensues.
Hildebrand
@mdblanche: Glad I wasn’t the only one thinking an Akira reference should have, at least, been winked at.
Ken
I assume each samurai has a series of power-ups to be unlocked by defeating other samurai in battle. For example, Colombia will be able to direct charm spells or sonic blasts from that mandolin, and Costa Rica will throw… um, gold coins and cocoa beans (?) from those horns. Exploding cocoa beans, of course.
This will become clearer once the collectable cards are published.
dm
I was thinking the other day that the traditional Japanese sport of shooting a bow from the saddle of a running horse should be in the Olympics.
dm
Also, Batman Ninja
(Sorry for a link to Amazon (maybe a front-pager can turn it into an affiliate link for the site), but it was the best page I could find.)
There are Samurai Star Wars figures, and the Marvel characters, too.