Sunday, November 30, 2008

KONOHAGAKURE??? WHATS IS...

Konohagakure (木ノ葉隠れの里, Konohagakure no Sato?, lit. "Village Hidden Among Tree Leaves" VIZ "Hidden Leaf Village"), also known as Konoha, is the hidden village within the Land of Fire and the primary setting of the series. As the hidden village of one of the Five Great Shinobi Nations, the village is led by a Kage, known as the Hokage. The faces of all Hokage are engraved on the rock formation overlooking Konohagakure. As of the start of the series, the Third Hokage is the leader of the village. He had abdicated his position in favor of Minato Namikaze, who became the Fourth Hokage, but was forced to reclaim his position after Minato died fighting the nine-tailed demon fox. During Part I of the series, the Third Hokage is killed by his former pupil, Orochimaru, and Tsunade, another of his students, succeeds him as the Fifth Hokage. The origin of Konohagakure is revealed during Part II of the series. The village was formed as part of an alliance between the Uchiha and Senju clans, the strongest clans in the Naruto world at that time. Hashirama Senju, the leader of the Senju clan, became the First Hokage, and defeated Madara Uchiha, the leader of the Uchiha clan, when Madara challenged Hashirama's rule.

Within Konohagakure are a number of locations featured prominently during the series. The Forest of Death (死の森, Shi no Mori?) is a large gated forest used for the yearly ninja exams in which ninja can advance to the rank of Chunin. The Ichiraku Ramen Bar is the favorite restaurant of the series' titular character, Naruto Uzumaki, and he frequently visits it during the course of the series. The Final Valley (終末の谷, Shūmatsu no Mori?) is the location of Hashirama's and Madara's fight for control over the village, featuring large statues of the two overlooking a waterfall. At the end of Part I, Naruto fights Sasuke Uchiha in this location in a failed attempt to return him to Konohagakure.

Naruto Ploting

Naruto Uzumaki is a young boy who has the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox sealed within him. Twelve years before the start of the series, the fox attacked the ninja village Konohagakure, slaughtering many people. As such, the leader of Konohagakure – the Fourth Hokage – sacrificed his own life to seal the demon inside Naruto when he was a newborn. Konohagakure, however, regarded Naruto as if he were the demon fox itself and mistreated him throughout most of his childhood. A decree made by the Third Hokage forbade anyone mention the attack of the demon fox to anyone although Naruto soon realized about this. Years later, Naruto graduated from the Ninja Academy by using his Shadow Clone Technique, a technique from a forbidden scroll that he was tricked into stealing, to save his teacher, Iruka Umino, from the renegade ninja Mizuki. That encounter gave Naruto two insights: that he was the container of the demon fox, and that there was someone besides the Third Hokage who actually cared for and acknowledged him.

The main story follows Naruto and his friends' personal growth and development as ninja, and emphasizes their interactions with each other and the influence of their backgrounds on their personalities. Naruto finds two friends and comrades in Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, two fellow young ninja who are assigned with him to form a three-person team under an experienced sensei named Kakashi Hatake. Naruto also confides in other characters that he meets throughout the series as well. They learn new abilities, get to know each other and other villagers better, and experience a coming-of-age journey as Naruto dreams of becoming the Hokage of Konohagakure. Throughout all of the Naruto plot, strong emphasis on character development changes the plot, with very few things happening because of chance. At first, emphasis is placed on Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, who are the members of Team 7. Later, Orochimaru, a criminal at the top of Konoha's most wanted list, attacks Konoha killing the Third Hokage as an act of revenge. He also desires to acquire Sasuke Uchiha due to his powerful genetic heritage. Believing Orochimaru will be able to give him the strength needed to kill his brother Itachi, who destroyed all his clan, he goes to him. Naruto does not give up on Sasuke, leaving Konoha for two-and-a-half years of training to prepare himself for the next time he meets Sasuke. After the training period, a mysterious organization called Akatsuki attempts to capture the nine powerful tailed beasts including the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox that is sealed inside of Naruto. Several ninjas from Konoha, including Team 7, fight against the Akatsuki members as well as Team 7 search for their teammate Sasuke.

NARUTO THE FIRST...

Naruto (NARUTO—ナルト—, Naruto? romanized as NARUTO in Japan) is an ongoing Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto with an anime adaptation. The plot tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, a loud, hyperactive, unpredictable, adolescent ninja who constantly searches for recognition and aspires to become a Hokage, the ninja in his village that is acknowledged as the leader and the strongest of all. The series is based on a one-shot that Kishimoto first authored in the August 1997 issue of Akamaru Jump.

The manga was first published by Shueisha in 1999 in the 43rd issue of Japan's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine and it is still being released with forty-four volumes. The manga would be later adapted into an anime produced by Studio Pierrot and Aniplex. It premiered across Japan on the terrestrial TV Tokyo network and the anime satellite television network Animax on October 3, 2002. The first series lasted nine seasons, while Naruto: Shippūden, a sequel of the series, began its first on February 15, 2007 and is still airing. Apart from anime series, Studio Pierrot has developed five movies for the series and several original video animations (OVAs). Other pieces of merchanidise include light novels, video games and trading cards developed by several companies.

Viz Media has licensed the manga and anime for North American production. Viz has been publishing the series in their Shonen Jump magazine, and has also been releasing the volumes with some of them within campaigns. The Naruto anime debuted in the United States on Cartoon Network's Toonami programming block on September 10, 2005, and in Canada on YTV's Bionix on September 16, 2005. Naruto began showing in the United Kingdom on Jetix on July 22, 2006. It began showing on Toasted TV on January 12, 2007, in Australia, which features the Manga Entertainment TV version and the German-language. Naruto: Shippūden has also been announced to premier in 2009 in the United States.

Serialized in Viz's Shonen Jump magazine, Naruto has become one of the company's best-selling manga series. As of volume 36, the manga has sold over 71 million copies in Japan. The English adaptation of the series have also appeared in the USA Today Booklist several times and volume 11 won the Quil Award in 2006. Reviewers from the series have praised the balance between fights and comedy scenes, as well as the characters' personalities. However, some of them have also noted the series to have stereotypical shōnen concepts, which appear in several series.

Friday, November 28, 2008

First generation of Japanese animators

The earliest known Japanese animation (discovered in 2005) was produced circa 1917 and consists of fifty frames drawn directly onto a strip of celluloid.[2][3] The untitled short with a running length of about 3 seconds depicts a young boy in a sailor suit writing the kanji "活動写真" (katsudō shashin, for "moving pictures") on a board, then turning towards the viewer, removing his hat, and offering a salute. The creator's identity is unknown.

Sadly, very few complete animations made during the beginnings of Japanese animation have survived until now. The reasons vary, but many are of commercial nature. After the clips had their big time, reels (being property of the cinemas) were sold to smaller cinemas in the country and then disassembled and sold as strips or single frames.

Shimokawa Oten was a political caricaturist and cartoonist, who worked for the magazine Tokyo Puck. He was hired by Tenkatsu to do an animation for them. Due to medical reasons, he only was able to do five movies, including Imokawa Mukuzo Genkanban no Maki, before he returned to his previous work as a cartoonist.

Another prominent animator in this period was Kōchi Jun'ichi. He was a caricaturist and painter, who also had studied watercolor painting. In 1912 he also entered the cartoonist sector and was hired for an animation by Kobayashi Shokai later in 1916. He is viewed as the most technically advanced Japanese animator in the 1910s. His works include around 15 movies.

Kitayama Seitaro was an early animator who, unlike the other pioneers of his era, made animations on his own, not under commission by larger corporations. He even founded his own animation studio Kitayama Eiga Seisakujo, which was closed due to lack of commercial success. He utilized the chalkboard technique, and later paper animation, with and without pre-printed backgrounds.

The works of these two pioneers include Namakura-gatana (An Obtuse Sword, 1917) and a 1918 film of Urashima Tarō which were discovered together at an antique market in 2007.[2]

(From : Wikipedia)

Thursday, November 27, 2008

ABOUT NARUTO ...

Naruto is licensed in the United States by VIZ Media. Please support the publishers that bring our favorite manga titles to the US by purchasing the official Naruto manga volumes when they are available in your area.

To more detail about Naruto:
Naruto Comics Free : http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

HISTORY

Anime began at the start of the 20th century, when Japanese filmmakers experimented with the animation techniques that were being explored in France, Germany, the United States, and Russia.[3] The oldest known anime in existence was screened in 1917 - a two minute clip of a samurai trying to test a new sword on his target, only to suffer defeat.[4]

By the 1930s, animation became an alternative format of storytelling compared to the underdeveloped live-action industry in Japan. Unlike in the United States, the live-action industry in Japan remained a small market and suffered from budgeting, location, and casting restrictions. The lack of Western-looking actors, for example, made it next to impossible to shoot films set in Europe, America, or fantasy worlds that do not naturally involve Japan. Animation allowed artists to create any characters and settings.[5]

The success of Disney's 1937 feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs influenced Japanese animators.[6] Osamu Tezuka adapted and simplified many Disney animation techniques to reduce the costs and number of frames in the production. This was intended to be a temporary measure to allow him to produce material on a tight schedule with an inexperienced animation staff.

During the 1970s, there was a surge of growth in the popularity of manga—which were often later animated—especially those of Osamu Tezuka, who has been called a "legend"[7] and the "god of manga".[8][9] His work and that of other pioneers in the field, inspired characteristics and genres that are fundamental elements of anime today. The giant robot genre (known as "Mecha" outside Japan), for instance, took shape under Tezuka, developed into the Super Robot genre under Go Nagai and others, and was revolutionized at the end of the decade by Yoshiyuki Tomino who developed the Real Robot genre. Robot anime like the Gundam and Macross series became instant classics in the 1980s, and the robot genre of anime is still one of the most common in Japan and worldwide today. In the 1980s, anime became more accepted in the mainstream in Japan (although less than manga), and experienced a boom in production. Following a few successful adaptations of anime in overseas markets in the 1980s, anime gained increased acceptance in those markets in the 1990s and even more in the 2000s.

Anime

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Anime (アニメ? literally - "Anima", taken from half of "animation") (pronounced [anime]listen in Japanese, but typically pronounced /ˈænɪmeɪ/ or /ˈænɪmə/ in English) is animation in Japan and considered to be "Japanese animation" in the rest of the world.[1] Anime dates from about 1917.[2]

Anime, in addition to manga (Japanese comics), is extremely popular in Japan and well known throughout the world. Anime itself is considered a form of limited animation. Anime can be released either by television broadcast or released directly to video, in which case it is often called OVA or OAV (Original Animation Video).

Anime can be hand-drawn or computer animated. It is used in television series, films, video, video games, commercials, and internet-based releases, and represents most, if not all, genres of fiction.

(from Wikipedia)

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