Ukrainian girls from the city of Odessa keep making the news for altering their appearance in dramatic fashion. The story of a girl who turned herself into a real life Barbie doll has spread across the globe and the saga continues. Two more girls, Anime and Dominika, have become living dolls and received publicity for their disturbing looks.Anime, 19-year-old Anastasiya Shpagina, transformed herself into an anime character and never leaves the house without makeup.

Applying the makeup takes Anime a few hours to accomplish so she wakes up at 5 a.m. to make it to work on time. When she walks down the street in a fairy-like outfit, with long purplish hair, looking at the world with her raccoon-like eyes, it doesn’t go unnoticed. “I don’t pay attention to reactions, the most important thing for me is my comfort,” Anime said during a talk show on a Ukrainian TV channel.

In interviews with Anime, which appeared on mainstream television in Ukraine and Russia over the past months, she gave the impression of being a pleasant, slightly naïve, girl, who is living in a dream and plays a fairy in a fairytale. She subsists almost entirely on honey-dew—no bread, meat or fish; mostly fruit and veggies. However, she is probably not as naïve as a fairy—her extreme makeup and unconventional style serve as a great promotional tool.

Anime is a hairdresser and makeup artist so all that publicity will, hopefully, work well for her career. She said that right now she’s interested in focusing on her work, but in the future would like to move out of the city and have a family. She says she doesn’t have a boyfriend and states that she would like to have plastic surgery to enlarge her eyes, to make them the size of the ones she paints on her face with makeup. She claims she hasn’t had any plastic surgery and her look is only the visual effect of styling and make up.

Unlike her, Barbie – also known as Valeriya Lukyanova – and her friend, Olga Oleynik, aka Dominika, had breast surgeries and accentuate their “Barbiness” with long hair, giant eyes, contact lenses, small mouths, tiny waists, curvy hips, full busts, and slightly manipulative unemotional manners. In a talk show, Barbie said her measurements were 86/47/86, in centimeters, which in inches equals 33.85/18.5/33.85. Olga Oleynik said that she has had breast surgery to balance the proportion with her hips because she is all about harmony and perfection.

What is it that makes these girls turn themselves into living dolls? A struggle for perfection or escape from reality?

It seems to have a connection to “Barbie doll syndrome” – when young girls try to attain impossible standards of beauty – but with Odessagirls it varies from case to case.

Anime seems to be a young girl who’s not completely comfortable in her skin and experiments with styles. Anime’s body image doesn’t radiate Barbie’s sexiness. She says the world is cruel and is full of unhappy people and it’s easier to live the way she does, creating a fairy tale for herself.

Barbie, whose spiritual name is Amatue, openly says she exploits her looks as internet PR to attract people to her lectures on esoteric subjects where – for $80 per person – she teaches astral projection.

Dominika seems to be similar to Barbie and calls herself her spiritual sister. They appear together in interviews and talk about esoteric matters. She positions herself as an artist and a fashion designer.

Whatever this ‘Barbie-Flu’ in Odessa is, it seems to be creating a phenomena that the world is watching with  great interest, clicking through the weird pictures and videos, looking into their doll-like eyes. Barbie, Anime, Dominika—what’s next?

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Are you interested in Japanese anime culture? If you aren’t, you might want to consider it just for this weekend, when you get a unique opportunity to learn more about it at the Festival of Japanese Culture and Animation.

Japanese anime, or animations of a peculiar style that feature large doe-eyed characters, will be screening day and night this weekend. Real people dressed up in spectacular anime-style costumes will also perform at the fest.

Visitors will get a chance to transform into many of the characters and take part in a fancy parade of anime fans, who will march through the center of Kyiv to show what anime culture looks like.

There will also be master classes available for those who would like to learn the art of bringing Japanese cartoons to life, as well as acting and photography. A lot of anime-themed photos and merchandise will be available for sale.

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When an event occurs in anime, it’s written in stone, figuratively, and this is what allows the fans to really invest in the story, root for the hero’s victory and despair at the occurrence of whatever events we find unfortunate.

Because they realize that events in anime have a lasting impact on a character’s life. Now some fan out there could argue that with enough time, one could really take a liking to the storylines laid out in Marvel/DC’s vast collection of titles; and that with enough patience, one could really begin see the complex developments presented in the characters of some of these well known books.

But if Marvel is going to spend years designing noteworthy plots surrounding the relationship between Spiderman and Mary Jane, only for their entire relationship (and marriage) to be erased out of existence years down the line, as a fan, I would question the reason behind the endless hours I wasted following this specific plot through the years, only for it to be flushed down the toilet.

And this wouldn’t necessary be fault of the author; but the fact that after every few years, a comic book character’s life needs to be restarted and refreshed for the sole purpose of attracting new readers – and keeping the character alive for decades to come – is western comic’s biggest thorn, or at least one of them. No one that had the privilege of watching Naruto Shippuden’s Pain Arc would deny fighting back the odd tear at the death of a ‘certain important character’, and the reason?

Because in anime, it is normally accepted that that would be the last time that character would appear, ever, and it’s that thought that has greater impact on the fan, while at the same time adding depth and seriousness to the story. And the Whitebeard War Arc in one piece had me gaping in awestruck shock at the finale of the ill-fated rescue arc, all the result of a well developed and executed character development.

The fact is, without properly paced character development, anime isn’t worth much. Many would go into a series, silently watch the bland dialogue mixed in with a little bit of action and then move on to the next series, never giving the one before a second look, or after thought. And when you can watch a show, and give it no more thought beyond its end, then you know you have just wasted a large portion of your idle life.

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On Sept. 25, 2012 anime publisher FUNimation Entertainment releases the first part of “Steins;Gate” in a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack and we decided to check out this science fiction mystery based on the visual novel from 5pb. and Nitro+.

“Steins;Gate” follows the story of Rintaro Okabe, an eccentric young man who leads the “Future Gadget Laboratory”, a group that consists of himself, a hacker named Itaru and a girl who works at a cat girl/maid café named Mayuri. Rintaro fancies himself a mad scientist and one of his devices is a supped up microwave with a cell phone attached that seems to turn bananas into gelatin and may in fact be a time machine.

As Rintaro and his assistants work to uncover what is really happening with the bananas they meet Kurisu, a scientist visiting from America who is determined to prove that time travel doesn’t exist. After a chance encounter during speech on time travel where Rintaro witnesses Kurisu’s death he is in a state of shock to find her alive and well with no knowledge of who he is, but that just adds to the mystery and curious to find out the truth Kurisu joins the team.

As the group recruits even more members and they step up their experiments they begin to actually make small changes in the past using text messages. That doesn’t sit well with a powerful corporation though, and a mysterious time traveler may have the answers as to why. I don’t want to give away too much of the story as this is only the first part of the anime so I’m not going to reveal any more at this time.

The story of the series is definitely an entertaining one, early on though it feels really slow and watching as the group experiments with bananas and text messages is a bit frustrating as you would hope for a mad scientist Rintaro would have something with a little more “bang” happening. There are good reasons why they don’t just jump full on into the time travel experiments but it can feel a bit boring to watch and the subtle changes may leave you wondering what is really going on.

As things progress though the anime does get a lot more interesting to watch and as you learn more about the cast many of the characters are easy to like. Rintaro was one of those characters that you either love or hate, he is crazy and funny to watch but his wannabe maniacal laugh and the nonsense he is constantly spouting when he is talking to himself can get annoying at times.

Visually "Steins;Gate" looks good, the picture quality of the DVD version is clear, bright and colorful and shifts to forebodingly dark nicely. The characters all have unique designs that seem to fit well with their personality types, Rintaro’s design especially fits the unstable type of character he is, as does Kurisu with her stuck up loner personality.

The Japanese voice cast fit really well with their characters and compared to the English voice cast are the much easier to listen to option. The Japanese cast just seemed to sound a little better with many of the characters; Rintaro’s voice was especially easier to listen to in Japanese. The English subtitles were easy to read, have good flow and remain on screen for a fair length of time.

Included as on-disc features for “Steins;Gate” are episode commentary for episodes 1 and 12, the clean opening and ending, trailers for other FUNimation Entertainment releases as well as a map of Akihabara that shows some key locations from the anime.

All-in-all “Steins;Gate” is an entertaining series that combines modern day science fiction with mystery to deliver a really deep story. Things may move a little bit slowly at first but once things pick up the series draws you in and never lets you go. One thing is for sure, by the time you finish the last episode of part one you will be dying to see what happens in part two.

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IG Port, the parent company of the anime studios Production I.G, Xebec, and Wit Studio, announced on August 31 that it would establish a Canadian subsidiary in Ottawa in September. IG Port intends to use "Production I.G Canadian Bureau" to jointly produce films with overseas partners, and then to manage those properties.

Although IG Port has not revealed the amount of the new company's capital, Production I.G financed 66.7% of the bureau, while a Canadian entertainment company, The Nakamura Group Advantage, contributed 28.3%. The Japanese movie business consulting firm Filosophia put in the remaining 5%.

Production I.G President and CEO Mitsuhisa Ishikawa will also head up the new subsidiary. Since IG Port currently has a Production I.G., LLC subsidiary in Los Angeles, Production I.G Canadian Bureau will be IG Port's second overseas unit. (IG Port is also the parent company of the Japanese publisher Mag Garden.) According to the animeanime.biz website, Production I.G., LLC is mainly an intermediary for overseas business, while the new Canadian subsidiary is apparently aimed at cultivating local business.

Headed by CEO Ken Nakamura, The Nakamura Group Advantage mainly deals with international production and distribution of films, television programs, and other works. Tetsuya Fujimura leads Filosophia in helping Japanese companies offer their manga, anime, games, films, and other properties for Hollywood film adaptations and remakes.

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Aspiring manga artists looking to start careers as comic professionals will be able to get a leg up on the competition by attending the Sept. 22-23 Kyoto International Manga Anime Fair 2012.

The Tokiwa-so Project, which assists just such budding artists, will have a booth set up on the basement level of the Miyakomesse complex, where the event will take place. The manga-anime fair will also be open to industry professionals on Sept. 21.

Editors from leading manga publishers in Tokyo will be present at the booth to interview young artists in the Kansai region and offer them career-planning advice.

About 20 editorial departments of major manga magazines, including Shueisha Inc.'s Jump Square, Kodansha Ltd.'s Nakayoshi, Kadokawa Group Publishing Co.'s Shonen Ace and Square Enix Co.'s G Fantasy will also accept original drawn pages from amateur artists.

Formed in 2006, the Tokiwa-so Project was inspired by Tokiwa-so, an apartment building that once stood in Tokyo's Toshima Ward and housed a community of well-known manga artists including Osamu Tezuka, Fujio Akatsuka and Fujiko Fujio.

Managed by nonprofit organization Newvery, the project offers aspiring manga creators low-rent housing and encourages them to concentrate on producing their works. The project has helped boost the careers of more than 200 young artists.

Currently, Newvery is renting 21 houses in Tokyo in which amateur artists live in 116 rooms. So far, 23 young creators have made their professional debuts.

In 2012, the organization was commissioned by the Kyoto city government to implement a local edition of the Tokiwa-so Project to assist students and aspiring artists in the Kansai region.

In recent years, Kyoto has raised its profile as a center of manga education. About 1,000 students are studying manga and other related courses at three universities in the city. It is also home to the Kyoto International Manga Museum, the first of its kind in Japan.

The international manga fair is intended to create new businesses and foster human resources in Kyoto and its surrounding areas.

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Earlier this month, cops in Tokyo's Shibuya stopped a person dressed as an anime female (see above). The mask is called an "animegao" (????) or "anime face". According to Japanese publication Tokyo Sports, the police stopped the cosplayer, asking, "Why are you wearing that mask?" The anime faced cosplayer replied, "That, I cannot say." The police, however, had the cosplayer write down his or her name and address. The perplexing scene was supposedly happened upon by a Tokyo Sports writer, who noted just how odd—and freaky—the whole thing was.

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Global video site Viki has continued to expand its presence online after doubling down on Japanese anime with the launch of a dedicated YouTube channel, a new content deal with Hulu and exclusive access to a classic anime series.

Viki has launched its Tezuka YouTube channel, which is part of the video giant’s ‘Channel’ premium content push, with more than 100 episodes from famed Manga producer Osamu Tezuka. The episodes come directly from Viki’s own Anime collection and each one includes the company’s renowned subtitling support, which can be switched on using YouTube’s caption mode – marked by a ‘CC’ in the player bar.

The Singapore-based firm is furthering that Anime push in the US after it has added the Japanese cartoon genre to its existing sharing agreement with streaming giant Hulu. Already, Hulu includes Korean content from Viki and now the company says it has added “roughly one hundred hours” of anime to the service, which is also available in Japan.

Finally, in what is likely to yield a nice visibility boost from Viki, it has struck an exclusive deal to broadcast Riyoko Ikeda’s ‘The Rose of Versailles‘ for the first time in North America. For those who are not familiar with ‘shojo manga’, it is considered a classic and has been tightly guarded by Ikeda.

Viki will screen the first episode at Comic Con in New York in December and, with a large portion of comic fans descending on the event, the showing is likely to help many fans connect with Viki and its sizeable collection of content from Japan.

Tammy Nam, who heads up Viki in North America, told TNW that she is “very excited” by the opportunity. “It hasnt seen light of day for some time since Japanese anime licensers are strict, so this is significant,” she said.

While it may sound strange for a video content firm to give its content to larger rivals, the moves are entirely in line with Viki’s objectives, as Nam explains.

“We want to be where our fans are, as they like convenience. We already have distribution deals with FB, Hulu and others so YouTube is a great partner to give us broader reach. It will help us break down language barriers to give people access to content that they wouldn’t otherwise understand.”

On the face of it, Asian content, and anime in particular, might seem like it appeals to the US-based diaspora, but Nam says 70 percent of those that watch it on Viki are in fact non-Asian. That is a testament to Viki’s crowdsourced translations, which mean most of its content can be watched with a variety of subtitles.

Viki’s unique community of volunteers have translated Viki global content collection into close to 200 million words of subtitles, across 150 different languages. Nam says that, when it comes to anime, users are particularly engaged, spending more than 20 hours per week on translations.

The Hulu and YouTube deals mark a more global focus from Viki expansion efforts, which recently centered around Asia. The company announced distribution partnerships with MSN across Southeast Asia and Renren in China in recent months.

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Dragon Ball Z. Pokemon. Digimon. Yu-Gi-Oh! If you’re a kid of the 90s, you probably recognize these shows as the animes you might have grown up watching. Although anime, a Japanese animation style, is usually thought of as a genre for children, Sivan Khan, a junior majoring in communication, founded the Anime Culture Association to show otherwise.
     
“If you’re into horror and you’re older, you can find something – or sports and you’re in high school,” Khan said. “I think no matter what your age, you can ultimately find a show that will live up to your interests.”
     Although there are two anime clubs already on campus, Khan founded the Anime Culture Association because he wanted focus on the social aspect. He also wanted to reach out to people who don’t know much about anime.
    
“I want to open it up to people who see anime as a nerdy thing,” Khan said. “There’s a lot of people that have a passion for it. I wanted to bring it to the surface.”
    
He noted that anime is something he grew up with. “I think that a lot of cartoons in America are targeted to one audience: children,” Khan said, adding that there are thousands of other different genres.
    
Khan first became interested in anime when he was in elementary school. “Every morning, every night, it would just be anime. Through the Internet, I could find shows that weren’t being shown in America and still watch.”
    
Khan’s favorite anime is the Japanese “School Days,” a 12-episode show that is explained on its website as the “ultimate love triangle.” The main character, a boy named Itou Makoto, becomes attracted to the girl who shares his train ride to school.
    
“The character development is just filled so well into the 12 episodes that it really grabs my attention,” Khan said. “When I first went to college, no one had seen it; I talked about it so much that now people have.”
    
He mentioned also liking the 1998 “Outlaw Star,” an American anime that featured an outlaw crew of an advanced starship. “That show really opened up my horizon, let me take off,” he said.
    
The 2006 “Higurashi,” or “When They Cry,” was Khan’s first Japanese anime. “It was so different; I wanted to see if there were any more like them.”
    
More recently, Khan was influenced by the 21st annual Anime Expo in Los Angeles. The July convention is North America’s largest anime and manga celebration. “It really motivated me,” Khan said.
    
The Anime Culture Association planned a trip to the Denver anime convention earlier this month as well as a meet-and-greet at a local anime shop. The club is gathering other ideas, too.
    
“It’s mostly a club decision,” Khan said. He added that although the group does plan to watch anime, there will also be a lot of socializing and discussion.

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In Uganda, when you combine the elements of the computer and gaming, the result can only be described as hell. Many a gaming enthusiast can attest to the endless hours wasted in the mind-numbing attempts at enjoying the simple pleasure of gaming on one’s precious desktop. Concepts such as installation, graphics manipulation and refresh rates can play out as excruciatingly as a torture session under the steely watch of Jack Baur.

Let’s just face it; no matter how much work the boys and girls at EA Games and Eidos put in, computers are the least suited devices to indulge in gaming, at least in Uganda. Each year brings with it new technologies designed to process the ever-advancing graphical requirements of the year’s newest releases. The rate at which computing technology advances to meet these requirements is sadly lacking.

Now, I know the idea that a company would go through the financially back-breaking troubles of transferring a successful gaming experience to the PC platform without sufficient technologies to process them is preposterous, and that’s not what I am saying.

What I am saying is that these technologies are hardly available in Uganda. The first time I tried to play Resident Evil: 4 on my desktop, it took an amazing 45 minutes just installing CD 1, and even after I was done, I spent the next several minutes – wholly enormous in the gaming experience – watching as the pixels organized themselves on the monitor just so Leon could say a word.

And even when I finally managed to acquire a decent speed out of the infuriating thing, I had to consider just how much money I had spent in upgrades over the years, just to get my desktop to this rather lacking level of slow game play.

Fortunately for me, it was only six months after this that I finally acquired that Dell laptop I had coveted for so long. And, Shs 1,450,000 later, I was more than satisfied with how much smoother and natural the game play became.

Until Resident Evil: 5 came out. And I was right back to square one, watching the pixels arrange themselves on the screen as I feigned patience.

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