NEGADON, THE MONSTER FROM MARS NEGADON, THE MONSTER FROM MARS
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There’s a new independent 25-minute CGI short from Japan called NEGADON, THE MONSTER FROM MARS, directed by Jun Awazu at Studio Magara. Usually, I’m turned off by photorealistic CG, but there’s an element of stylization in the production that lifts it above typical photorealism. Brew reader John Cassidy writes more about it:

I’m a big fan of tokusatsu (Japanese for “special effects,” which describes all Japanese live-action FX fantasies, from Godzilla to Ultraman to Kamen/Masked Rider). NEGADON, THE MONSTER FROM MARS is a tribute to the “daikaijuu” (giant monster) genre of Golden-Age tokusatsu eiga (the 1950s and 60s), with a giant space monster, military mecha, and even a giant robot (created by an emotionally-scarred scientist), which fights with the title monster at the end! Even with CG-animation, the creators of this short wanted to capture the hand-made feel of vintage tokusatsu (right down to outer space being dark-blue!), and it looks impressive. It was released on DVD in Japan this past December 15th.

Here’s the official site and in English. You can download three different trailers for the short HERE. The third version trailer (linked in the collage therein) is my favorite.

Amid Amidi

Amid Amidi is Cartoon Brew's Publisher and Editor-at-large.

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