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JERRY BECK
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AMID AMIDI
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Tailenders
by jerry
August 6, 2009 12:05 am


Move over, Speed Racer! Here comes the trailer for Tailenders:

The plotline here: A serious accident requires a driver to have his heart replaced with the engine of his own racing car. And I thought Turbo Teen was wild!

08/6/09  1:18am
Adam C. says:

It still unnerves me how similar this project is in both style and content to Takeshi Koike’s Redline:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFkkNxXuqQ0

08/6/09  1:45am
Professor Widebottom says:

Once again, Japanese animation puts me on the edge of feeling like I’m losing my mind… and it’s really interesting at the same time.

08/6/09  1:54am
Christina S. says:

So I know that a lot of people are probably going to dismiss this as over-stylized animu garbage… but I don’t care. This looks AWESOME.

08/6/09  2:30am
Charlie says:

That looks nuts.

08/6/09  2:41am
Tim Drage says:

Looks interesting but no REDLINE:
http://www.catsuka.com/player.php?id=redline_trailer

08/6/09  2:45am
vzk says:

That looks like a cartoonier version of IGPX.

Cool.

08/6/09  2:48am
Royston Dann says:

The style is a little reminiscent of that of Takeshi Koike, whose movie Red Line seems at least superficially to involve similar themes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFkkNxXuqQ0&feature=related

Takeshi Koike’s work is incredible, and I understand that he draws most of the key frames for the animation he directs, which may explain why Redline has been in production for four years or more.

Does anybody know the status of Redline? I haven’t heard anything about it in some time.

Thanks!

08/6/09  3:15am
Krepta says:

This isn’t the kind of thing that will bring anime to the forefront of American critical discussion. Nor will it convince anyone new that Japanese animation is more than just incomprehensible ultraviolence.

It will, however, make a million ten-year-olds scream “AWESOME!” I know this because the ten-year-old me who lives in my heart just did so.

08/6/09  4:32am
Gagaman says:

I think I saw a pilot or test animation for this once.

Was sold the moment I noticed the pink Dinosaur on ROLLERBLADES.

08/6/09  4:44am

I like this! Good clean animation fun for all the family…

08/6/09  5:24am
tohoscope says:

Strange, it reminds me of Wacky Races.

08/6/09  5:35am
Dead End says:

Reminds me of Red Line, which looks even wilder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw-SbsZTc3w

08/6/09  5:56am
Iritscen says:

Wow, the style reminds me of Dead Leaves. Anyway, it looks outrageous and awesome.

08/6/09  6:04am
darin m says:

Hardcore!

08/6/09  6:24am

Looks like something GAINAX would produce.

08/6/09  7:44am
Oluseyi says:

Muddy visuals and audio. The prognosis is not good.

08/6/09  8:09am
Steve Gattuso says:

None for me, thanks. I’m driving.

08/6/09  8:27am
startend says:

Here somes TAIL-GATER– I mean, TAILENDERS!!! I thought it said that before I really read it.

Yeah who’s the studio? It looks like GAINAX. The only thing I don’t like is how the cars and race courses are in 3D, but they, it’s inconspicuous.

08/6/09  8:35am

Smells like FLCL or Gurren Lagann.

08/6/09  8:42am
cartoon says:

It’s like my brain just went WAAAUUGHH PEW PEW PEW CRASH BRRRRLLRGGLGLLGL

08/6/09  8:51am
James T says:

Wow. I’m usually put off by cel shaded CGI, but this makes it look so slick and stylish. I’d love to see how they made the show.

08/6/09  8:52am
Tim Drage says:

Reminds EVERYONE of Redline apparently. :)

Worth noting by the way that this is an independent production, tho I haven’t read enough about it to know quite how homemade or otherwise.

08/6/09  8:53am
Tim Drage says:

Oh and it looks nothing like Gainax.

08/6/09  9:33am
Adam says:

Struck me as very similar to that short in the animatrix, with the track runners. Also sort of reminds me of Afro Samurai. Evidently everyone else immediately thought of Redline, though.

08/6/09  9:49am
Scott says:

Another japanese kiddie cartoon with little story or character. Graphics look ok, if derivative.

08/6/09  10:00am
Rodrigo says:

Roller skating T-Rex sold me.

08/6/09  10:00am
tohoscope says:

Nobody but me thought of Wacky Races? How old are you kids?

08/6/09  10:09am
Turbo Teen Forever says:

That main title Turbo Teen human-to-car morphing scene was animated by John Kimball.

08/6/09  10:29am
VGREER says:

Wow…that looked pretty bad ass.

08/6/09  10:47am

What- no cute, talking animals? Do the characters learn some moral lessons about stuff (like how lying is bad)? At least have the decency to throw in some overly-expensive celebrity voice talent!

See, this why Japan doesn’t know what it’s doing when it comes to animation. Not like us!

08/6/09  11:22am
Royston Dann says:

Adam; Redline, World Record (Animatrix) and the original Afro Samurai pilot are all directed by Takeshi Koike at Madhouse, so it’s interesting that this trailer brought those things to mind for you.

Iritscen: Takeshi Koike was also key animator for Dead Leaves, so it seems many people are having a similar response. Okay, I promise I won’t mention Takeshi Koike again.

08/6/09  11:58am
Gagaman says:

Haha my bad, by a pilot animation I must of meant Red Line, I just presumed this was that getting a series. Guess they really are similar.

08/6/09  2:33pm

That was a seriously messed-up mind trip. The anime seems like it will have wonderful eye candy, and reminds me of my own art style.

08/6/09  2:45pm
Scotty A says:

YEEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!
Stinger Nose and PingPongBall Head FTW!!!

08/6/09  4:29pm
Graham says:

Wow thanks for showing me that Redline trailer! I don’t usually like anime but that was awesome!

08/6/09  5:15pm
Jose Manuel says:

well I love miyasaki but I`m not a big anime fan, this trailer shows what I thing About mainstream anime : 98 percent style 2 percent nothing else

08/6/09  5:40pm
Jack says:

Wacky Races!!! Got a bit of a Paul Pope flavor to it, non? Dig it!

08/6/09  9:59pm
Isaac says:

Baron Lego, maybe both (US CG films and Japanese anime films) are derivative nonsense, each pandering to a different group’s lowest common denominator. There’s nothing inherently wrong with making a product that pleases a large audience by being simple, but we don’t need to pretend that it’s genius.

“Tailenders” looks like an animated action melodrama for teens, a popular genre in anime. CB’s Jerry did just toss it on the front page without much editorial work, and he left everyone guessing at his intentions.

Christina S, glad to oblige! Saturated with fast-slow-fast timing tricks; scant personalities; fixed and repetitive gestures, poses, and expressions; flapping mouths with no lip-sync; long-winded and ridiculous dialogue.

08/6/09  10:32pm
Christina S. says:

Okay, so after watching that Redline trailer… yeah. Something’s up. There is no way the two look so similar without any kind of connection.

And Isaac, you are of course entitled to your own opinion, but I think calling Tailenders a melodrama is a mistake. I mean, there’s a pink dinosaur rollerskating. It’s obvious that whoever’s in charge of this is trying to make it as ridiculous as possible.

08/7/09  5:50am
Royce Day says:

And yet the concept is still not as wierd as FLCL…

08/7/09  9:20am
Tim Drage says:

this trailer shows what I thing About mainstream anime : 98 percent style 2 percent nothing else
Aside from that sentence being pretty much incoherent, this is not really ‘mainstream’ anime, it’s an indie pilot.

Anyway for people who are actually interested in animation business worldwide and not just posting to make sure everyone knows how proud they are to be willfully ignorant about anime, here are some interesting related links:

‘Anime Innovation Tokyo’ who are producing this and other creator-driven independent works:
http://anime-innovation.jp/about/index_en.html

Here’s their youtube channel with more trailers and making-of from Tailenders and other projects: http://www.youtube.com/DOGAKAKUMEI?gl=JP&hl=ja

We now return you to our scheduled OMG SO WACKY JAPAN DURR CAN’T UNDERSTAND ANIMES MAKE NO SENSE LOL BIG EYES

08/7/09  9:22am
Tim Drage says:

scant personalities; fixed and repetitive gestures, poses, and expressions; flapping mouths with no lip-sync; long-winded and ridiculous dialogue.

….MUCH LIKE YOUR POSTS! *ZING*

08/7/09  9:56am

Isn’t this the trailer for the new Mario Kart videogame? ;-)

08/7/09  11:10am

Actually, even though I assimilated this days ago, it wasn’t until everyone here pointed out the similarity to Redline, that I realised it WASN’T Redline.
I actually thought this was a second trailer for that other thing that I had watched the previous week (Redline), but hilighting the cel-shaded filler instead of the kurisuma hilights. Didn’t twig it was a seperate project at all.
I’m such a goon.

08/7/09  6:05pm
:: smo :: says:

haha that WAS nuts! and i’m really glad you gave turboteen props!!!

08/7/09  8:44pm

Issac: Genius? Hardly. But that thing caught and held my interest more than a lot of what we’re cooking up on this side of the planet, animation-wise. Maybe some North American studio could make a cheap, stilted-looking Flash version (but with full lip-sync, of course) and show ‘em how it’s done.

08/7/09  9:28pm

I’ll join the club. Reminids me of uh, Cars! And Robo Geisha.

08/9/09  8:38am
Ridgecity says:

japanese animation tends to get stale every few years, but everytime it comes back, man… It makes me fall in love with watching cartoons again.

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