Great Galaga

While checking out Yodobashi Camera yesterday, I discovered an awesome kit of the ship from the classic video game, Galaga!

I was then informed later that night at dinner, by Yasuhiro Nightow no less, that the design was done by the creator of Maschinen Krieger/SF3D, Kow Yokoyama!

Darker Things

We've been wanting to bring Clear Smoke back for a while, and rolling it out with the upcoming Neo Voss color feels like the right move.

The Clear Smoke color pays homage to many things, but I want to personally dedicate this new run to our friends Yasuhiro Nightow and Noriyuki Jinguji, two of the creators of Assemble Borg. Now we can have some matching parts to build Mr. Assemble a partner for battling the Jarknoids.

More sneaks up soon!

A Night with Nightow

For the last few trips to Japan we have had the absolute honor of spending some time with Yasuhiro Nightow, best known for creating Trigun, Gungrave and more recently as a third of the design team (which also boasts the genius talents of Yutaka Minowa and Noriyuki Jinguji) behind one of the absolute coolest lines out there today, Assemble Borg (if you haven't discovered Assemble Borg take the time to check it out, it's like our much cooler Uncle who has his act together).

In what has quickly become a tradition, Nightow san took us out for some okonomiyaki (like a Japanese pancake/pizza) at a spot near Nakano close to where his studio is. The food was awesome as usual, even if we were without the company of Jinguji san this year (but he did send something special in his place -more in a moment).

On top of buying everyone dinner, Nightow showed us the latest installment of his wild manga, called Kekkai Sensen (Blood Blockade Battlefront under Darkhorse here in the states) and gave us the scoop on upcoming Assemble Borg projects. A total class act all the way.

The most shocking element of the night though, was when Nightow san whipped out an original sketch done by Jinguji san that nearly made me and Jesse's heads explode. According to Nightow, Jinguji had become interested in the Rig that I had given him last September, and after analyzing it for a while, decided that Callgrim should have a Rig type vehicle as well. So he designed one. One of the main mech designers for Assemble Borg made Callgrim a Rig. Suffice it to say it was a golden moment for both Jesse and I (Jesse is going to frame the original).

Deep thanks from Jesse and I go out to Nightow san and Jinguiji san for an unforgettable night.

I also want to send out an extra special thanks to Don "Datadub" Kratzer for getting us all together and also for once again looking out for us during our time in Japan. You know everybody D! Thanks a million for taking the time to shuffle our ragged frames around wonderland, it was a blast as always.