Cinematic Toys

Appleseed, originally uploaded by Thorsten Becker.

Yamato action figures of Deunan Knute and Briareos Hecatonchires from the 2004 anime Appleseed based on Masamune Shirow’s manga of the same name. I very much enjoyed the movie right the first time I watched it and can definitely recommend it if you like Animes such as Ghost in the Shell or Akira. Even though the second one, Ex Machina, boasts a significantly more polished style, visually and story wise, I still enjoy the first one equally as much. I’d also like to mention the excellent soundtrack which is available on a 2 CD set, one for the actual score and the other featuring the different Electronica style tracks from the movie by the likes of Paul Oakenfold, Boom Boom Satellites and Ryuichi Sakamoto, to name a few.

Shortly after watching Appleseed I started collecting some of the merchandise. Yamato had a nice set of various figures, though unfortunately they are not poseable (or only to a very limited degree). However, they captured the likeness of each character rather well and the chosen poses work nicely on display. The set is mostly sold-out by now but there are usually a few available on eBay.

This is a re-work of an older shot. After seeing some very impressive Anime styled toy photos recently (see my Flickr group to the right) I felt the need to give the initially rather straight shot a good work over, changing the mood and coloring to something a bit closer to the movie. The picture was originally taken with a Canon PowerShot S3 (a camera I was NOT very happy with as it had stuck pixels within 6 months of purchase). The figures were placed in front of my monitor while using one of my photos of the Boston InterContinetal as the backdrop.