Entertainment Editors
ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 2, 2002
With today's launch of InstrumentExchange.com, musicians now have a specialty online marketplace where they can buy and sell almost any type of musical instrument and gear with an ironclad guarantee.
Thousands of musical instruments are listed including rare and collectible items.
"The musical instrument industry is massive, but until now, there hasn't been a comprehensive online marketplace for musicians and retailers," said Larry Tedesco, President/CEO of InstrumentExchange.com. "InstrumentExchange.com is a full service auction specializing in musical instruments and gear only and is built by musicians for musicians. The site's time-saving technology is easier to use and offers the most product information available anywhere. It's clear that musicians prefer to shop at specialty music stores versus general retailers. The same holds true for online auctions - musicians now have a specialty auction focused exclusively on musical instruments and gear."
Unique Guarantee: InstrumentExchange.com provides its customers a comfort level by being the only Internet auction site for musical instruments that offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee, typically only found at traditional retailers. Buyers have 48 hours to inspect instruments/gear before payment is final. Unlike general, self-serve auctions, InstrumentExchange.com
collects payments for all completed orders and guarantees sellers' payments.
InstrumentExchange.com's BlueBook: Provides comprehensive pricing information for used instruments/gear and is projected to become the industry aftermarket pricing standard.
The Review Section: Musicians rate instruments and equipment they use, providing a wealth of hands-on product information for other shoppers.
Get the Best Price via The Request Program: This innovative program empowers musicians to submit requests for the instruments/gear they want at their desired price. InstrumentExchange.com routes these requests to its national network of retailers who fill the requests daily.
No listing fees: Customers can list as many items for auction as they like without charge.
Centralized, Guaranteed Shipping: Via a unique partnership with FedEx, buyers and sellers enjoy easy to arrange, discounted shipping as well as full compensation for any damage in transit.
Customer Communication: Customer issues/complaints are resolved quickly and seamlessly through a fully developed, automated online arbitration service. The system keeps individuals' identities private.
Secure payment: InstrumentExchange.com utilizes the standard in Internet credit card security, Verisign. SSL encryption protects all credit card numbers. InstrumentExchange.com stores no credit card numbers, eliminating any subsequent accessibility to customers' secure information.
Privacy: No account information is sold or made available to companies not affiliated with InstrumentExchange.com.
InstrumentExchange.com is the premier online auction marketplace for new and used musical instruments and gear. Based in Atlanta, GA, parent company ExchangeBlvd.com also operates the highly successful GolfClubExchange.com - the largest golf club auction in the world. The company is expanding its specialty auction site lineup with the planned addition of PhotographyExchange.com, HomeHiFiExchange.com and other sites in 2003.
The Polar Technology trust has earned its first performance fee in 10 years after its assets finally regained their net value at the peak of the 2000 tech bubble.
The trust earned a fee of #3.3m after outperforming its Dow Jones World Technology benchmark index over the 12 months to April 30. Since the fund's net asset value peaked in April 2000 its index has halved in value.
Ben Rogoff, the fund's manager, remains 20% overweight fast-growing technology stocks compared with cheap peers.
Rogoff says some large incumbents with modest share prices are getting left behind by new technologies such as cloud computing, which exploits the "cloud" of the internet to reduce physical limitations on using IT.
By contrast, Rogoff declined to buy into the recent listing of LinkedIn, saying the social networking firm's stock was too expensive.
Copyright: Centaur Communications Ltd. and licensors
Additional Sessions Judge Kamran Bashrat Musfti Thursday released a man accused of uploading malicious material against the President Asif Ali Zardari and hacking a local website after the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan granted him bail. The trial court adjourned the case till July 8, ordering and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Cyber Crime Unit (CCU) to release the accused. A First Information Report (FIR) vide 18/ 10 was lodged against the accused on 05-12-2010 under section 36, 37 ETO 2002.
According to FIA enquiry No Re-72/10 initiated on the report of Muhammad Naseem, Principle Investigator FIA/NR3C, F-11/2, Islamabad, it has been transpired that ADIL/Th3-penetrator (username) by using IPs 119.153.51.218 and 203.99.173.71 defaced the website (www.president-of-pakistan.com) and uploaded material defaming the President and the country. The subscriber information provided by PTCL against the aforementioned IPs is Shahbaz Khan, a resident of Pindi Ghep. A case was registered on prima facie evidence under sections 36 and 37 of ETO against the username" ADiL/Th3-penetrator" and aforesaid IPs with the permission of the competent authority.
FIA on 05-12-2010 constituted a raiding team consisting of Senior Investigator (Technical) Fakhar-uWslam, Sub Inspector Fazal Maabood, and Constable Wasif Waseem Shah. The team raided the Shop No. 11, National Market Pindi Gheb No.0572352777 and arrested the accused Shahbaz Khan.
The defense counsel submitted a bail application to the SC few days back. He argued there was nothing on record proving his client guilty of the crime. Subsequently, Justice Nasirul Mulk accepted the bail petition.
The Justice said in his order that having heard both the counsels and gone through the record, "we are inclined to grant bail to the alleged person on the grounds that he is of 22 years of age and the maximum sentence for the offence is seven-year imprisonment and there are no exceptional circumstances to decline bail when the offence does not fall within prohibitory clause of section 497 CrPC".
Khan, during probe, owned up that ADIL/Th3-penetrator was his usernames and had logged in several times by it. CPU, DSL Modem, and other equipment used in commission of the crime were seized. According to FIA investigation, the accused disclosed that (www.president-of-pakistan.com) was hacked by some international hackers and they themselves uploaded obnoxious material and remarks. Khan claimed that he had just added the following lines on the said website "THIS SITE GOT HACKED BY ADIL WHERE IS YOUR SECURITY? HUH DON'T TELL ME TO STOP!" THANKS 2= FBI, MASTERMIND, SALMAN, EJA2SALAM PK, CODE5, SHER, SAIF".
A bail petition by the accused had been disposed by the Islamabad High court. The SC accepted the bail plea on furnishing bail bonds in the sum of Rs 2, 00,000/ with two sureties each of the same amounts to the trial court. The SC referred the bail petition order to District Court, following which Additional Session Judge Kamran Bashrat Musfti Thursday ordered FIA CCU to release the accused and adjourned the case till July 8.ECe
Copyright Plus Media Solutions Private Limited. All rights reserved.
Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company
MONROE, Mich., June 13, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- La-Z-Boy Incorporated (NYSE: LZB) will report its fiscal 2011 fourth-quarter and year-end operating results after the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, June 21, 2011, and will hold its quarterly investor conference call at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time the following day, Wednesday, June 22, 2011.
The dial-in phone number for the live conference call will be (877) 407-0778 for persons calling from within the U.S. or Canada, and the number for international callers will be (201) 689-8565. The call will also be webcast live and archived on the Internet, and will be available at http://investors.la-z-boy.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=92596&p=irol-calendar. A telephone replay will be available for a week following the call. This replay will be accessible to callers from the U.S. and Canada at (877) 660-6853 and to international callers at (201) 612-7415. Enter account #286 with Conference ID #373722.
Additional Information
This news release is just one part of La-Z-Boy's financial disclosures and should be read in conjunction with other information filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is available at: http://investors.la-z-boy.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=92596&p=irol-sec. Investors and others wishing to be notified of future La-Z-Boy news releases, SEC filings and quarterly investor conference calls may sign up at: http://investors.la-z-boy.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=92596&p=irol-alerts&t=&id=&.
Background Information
La-Z-Boy Incorporated is one of the world's leading residential furniture producers, marketing furniture for every room of the home. The company has three reportable operating segments: upholstery; casegoods; and retail. The La-Z-Boy Upholstery Group companies are Bauhaus, England and La-Z-Boy. The operating units in the Casegoods Group consist of two groups, one including American Drew, Lea and Hammary, and the second being Kincaid.The company-owned retail segment includes 83 of the 305 La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries[R] stores.
The corporation's proprietary distribution network is dedicated exclusively to selling La-Z-Boy Incorporated products and brands, and includes 305 stand-alone La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries[R] stores and 536 independent Comfort Studios[R], in addition to in-store gallery programs for the company's Kincaid, England and Lea operating units. Additional information is available at http://www.la-z-boy.com/.
Contact: Kathy Liebmann 734-241-2438 kathy.liebmann@la-z-boy.com
SOURCE La-Z-Boy Incorporated
Mountain View, CA and New York (PRWEB) May 25, 2011
Fashion icon Vera Wang is setting a new trend by partnering with online sharing solution Meebo. Vera Wang has integrated the Meebo Bar on Vera Unveiled--the company's blogato provide its visitors with rich social experiences such as real-time chat and sharing to a user's social graph through drag-and-drop technology.
Additionally, Vera Wang is integrating several custom features into its Meebo Bar including a simplified newsletter sign up, YouTube videos from the runway and connections to its Twitter feed and Facebook Fan Page. Vera Wang is also leading the way for others as the first in the industry to use Meebo Bar as a driver for sign-ups and revenue for "XO Vera," the brand's advertising sponsored email newsletter.
"Providing our audience with a more personalized and direct experience when they visit our site is important, but the impact of enabling them to share that experience is limitless," said Susan Rerat, Vera Wang Digital. "With the integration of the Meebo Bar on Vera Unveiled, we're offering a new and easy way for our consumers to spread our latest style trends and news directly with their friends and family."
"We want to help those on the cutting edge of fashion, style and technology harness the full potential of the social Web with the Meebo Bar," said Martin Green, Meebo's Chief Operating Officer. "We are excited to be the go-to resource that style destinations like Vera Wang are choosing to bring social functionality and content distribution to their existing and prospective customers," said Martin Green, Meebo's Chief Operating Officer.
In addition to Vera Wang, other retailers that are increasing their digital reach with Meebo include Bonobos and Designer Social, as well as fashion websites FashionTribes.com, Trendland.net and Millionlooks.com.
The Meebo Bar is now featured on more than 8,000 websites. Meebo reaches 40 percent of U.S Internet users (comScore) and almost 170 million people worldwide (comScore January 2010).
About Vera Wang Group
Vera Wang Group designs, markets and distributes collections of women's ready-to-wear and bridal apparel. Vera Wang Licensing LLC, the licensing division of the company, has selectively granted licenses for the manufacture and distribution of fragrance and beauty-related products (Coty Prestige, Inc.), eyewear (Kenmark Group), china, crystal, silver and gifts (WWRD), fine papers (William Arthur), mattresses (Serta), bedding (Revman), Lavender shoes (Brown Shoe), luggage (Hartmann), flowers (FTD) and Barbie (Mattel). In addition, Vera Wang on Weddings was published by Harper Collins in 2001. In 2007, the company partnered with Kohl's to introduce Simply Vera Vera Wang. In Spring 2011, Vera Wang launched her highly anticipated inaugural collection for David's Bridal, White by Vera Wang, which brings the acclaimed Vera Wang aesthetic to a new set of brides.
For more information on Vera Wang, please visit the company's website at http://www.verawang.com.
About Meebo
Meebo helps you discover and communicate the things you care about the most. It integrates all social networks and communications channels into a single, simple-to-use solution, and enables people to easily share content and communicate in real time with the people who matter to them. Meebo connects people to their friends on the numerous websites that have installed the Meebo Bar, through mobile devices and via Meebo Messenger. It is a privately held company and was founded in 2005. For more information, visit meebo.com.
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Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/5/prweb8484346.htm
Open Solutions Inc.[R], the leading innovator of enterprise technology to financial service providers across the United States, Canada and other international markets, launches the industry's first comprehensive package of on-demand services through its Global Operations Center (GOC). Open Solutions' on-demand clients gain access to advanced technology and expertise; cost savings and efficiency; enhanced flexibility; reduced operational risk; and freedom to focus on core competencies.
Open Solutions' GOC is a professionally-managed, modern computing facility that provides single-source processing for an institution's core system as well as ancillary solutions, such as item processing, loan origination, relationship management, financial accounting, Internet banking and more. Open Solutions' GOC provides a complete hardware and software environment and the technical expertise needed to meet the total computing, network and telecommunications requirements of financial institutions that prefer a shared, fully-managed environment. This allows on-demand clients to reduce costs, address complex regulatory requirements, access scalable computing resources, and focus on their primary business rather than their IT infrastructure.
Open Solutions consolidates each on-demand client's technology systems under one, state-of-the-art, rigorously-maintained, GOC roof. The GOC frees clients from the expense of replacing outdated and obsolete technology - and provides scalability to meet any level of growth for virtually any size institution. Certified professionals, who are skilled in banking, regulation, security, infrastructure, disaster recovery, networking, database administration and operations, staff the GOC. They also possess extensive product knowledge and practical expertise in Open Solutions' DNA and ancillary products.
Open Solutions' on-demand services are further enhanced through a new strategic partnership with HEIT, a leading provider of cloud-delivered managed services for community financial institutions. HEIT will provide server, desktop, printer and internal network performance monitoring and management services to ensure the function and efficiency of clients' mission-critical resources. While HEIT's comprehensive managed performance services are available to both Open Solutions' U.S.-based on-premise clients and on-demand clients, HEIT's cloud computing model is fully-aligned with the goals of Open Solutions' clients who choose to access services on-demand rather than maintaining resources in-house. HEIT's cloud services provide 24x7x365 monitoring and management of the institution's network-attached devices through its dual, fully redundant, U.S.-based HEIT Integrated and Validated Environment (HIVE) centers.
"With more than thirty years' industry experience, Open Solutions recognizes the advantages on-demand services can provide," stated David Mitchell, Chief Marketing Officer at Open Solutions. "That's why we've made significant investments in our people, processes and technology. Our core technology, state-of-the-art Global Operations Center and partnership with industry leaders such as HEIT mean our on-demand clients can focus on what they do best - running their financial institutions and meeting the needs of their communities and accountholders. In the face of unprecedented regulatory requirements and increasing operational costs, financial institutions need a viable economic alternative. We believe our on-demand strategy and GOC provide that and more." About Open Solutions Inc. Open Solutions Inc. offers a fully-featured strategic information management product platform that integrates core processing applications built on a single centralized Oracle relational database, with Internet banking, cash management, CRM/business intelligence, financial accounting and management tools, profitability tools, wealth management, imaging, digital documents, interactive voice response, technology services, HSAs, payments and loan origination solutions. Open Solutions' full suite of products and services allows banks, thrifts, credit unions and financial services providers in the United States, Canada and internationally to better compete in today's aggressive financial services marketplace.
For more information about Open Solutions, visit www.opensolutions.com.
Open Solutions Inc. is a registered trademark of Open Solutions Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright 2011 Open Solutions Inc. All rights reserved. Editor's Note: The correct usage of the company name, Open Solutions Inc., is either referring to it as Open Solutions Inc. or Open Solutions. Open Solutions no longer uses the acronym of OSI to refer to the company.
Keywords: Advertising, Business Software and Service Companies, Finance, Financial Institutions, Financial Services, Industry, Investing, Investment, Marketing, Open Solutions, Open Solutions Inc., Technology Companies, Telecommunications.
This article was prepared by Telecommunications Weekly editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2011, Telecommunications Weekly via VerticalNews.com.
GREENVILLE, S.C., April 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- KEMET Corporation (NYSE: KEM) will host a conference call at 9:00 AM (EDT) on Thursday, May 12, 2011, to discuss its financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended March 31, 2011.
To access the call via telephone, participants in the United States should dial 1-800-416-8033, and participants outside the United States should dial 1-706-643-0979. Participants should reference "KEMET Corporation" and Conference ID# 61048588. Participants can view a corresponding presentation from the KEMET website at www.kemet.com by clicking on the fourth quarter conference call link in the Investor Relations section of the website. The presentation will be available immediately prior to the beginning of the call. Following management's comments, there will be an opportunity for questions.
In conjunction with the conference call, there will be a simultaneous live broadcast over the internet, which can be accessed at http://www.kemet.com/ir. A replay of the conference call will be available until midnight, May 26, 2011, through the same link. Also available in the Investor Relations section of the website is additional company information and a link to subscribe to KEMET news and financial releases.
About KEMET
KEMET Corporation (NYSE: KEM), applies world-class service and quality to deliver industry-leading, high-performance capacitance solutions to its customers around the world. KEMET offers the world's most complete line of surface-mount and through-hole capacitor technologies across tantalum, ceramic, film, aluminum, electrolytic, and paper dielectrics. Additional information about KEMET can be found at http://www.kemet.com.
CAUTIONARY STATEMENT ON FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
Certain statements included herein contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws about KEMET Corporation's (the "Company") financial condition and results of operations that are based on management's current expectations, estimates and projections about the markets in which the Company operates, as well as management's beliefs and assumptions. Words such as "expects," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," variations of such words and other similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions, which are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in, or implied by, such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect management's judgment only as of the date hereof. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any of these forward-looking statements to reflect new information, future events or otherwise.
Factors that may cause actual outcome and results to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements include, but are not necessarily limited to the following: (i) adverse economic conditions could impact the Company's ability to realize operating plans if the demand for the Company's products declines, and such conditions could adversely affect the Company's liquidity and ability to continue to operate; (ii) adverse economic conditions could cause further reevaluation and the write down of long-lived assets; (iii) an increase in the cost or a decrease in the availability of the Company's principal raw materials; (iv) changes in the competitive environment of the Company; (v) uncertainty of the timing of customer product qualifications in heavily regulated industries; (vi) economic, political, or regulatory changes in the countries in which the Company operates; (vii) difficulties, delays or unexpected costs in completing the Company's restructuring plan; (viii) the inability to attract, train and retain effective employees and management; (ix) the inability to develop innovative products to maintain customer relationships and offset potential price erosion in older products; (x) exposure to claims alleging product defects; (xi) the impact of laws and regulations that apply to the Company's business, including those relating to environmental matters; (xii) volatility of financial and credit markets affecting the Company's access to capital; (xiii) the need to reduce the total costs of the Company's products to remain competitive; (xiv) potential limitation on the use of net operating losses to offset possible future taxable income; and (xv) exercise of the warrant by K Equity, LLC which could potentially result in the existence of a significant stockholder who could seek to influence our corporate decisions. Other risks and uncertainties may be described from time to time in the Company's other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
| Contact: | William M. Lowe, Jr. |
| Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer | |
| williamlowe@KEMET.com | |
| 864-963-6484 |
SOURCE KEMET Corporation
Web site accepts title given! By becoming the complete media source for the people in the culture. Not only reaching out, and extending itself. But also going out of their way never to charge. Helping the every day person get on step closer to being a star, and known by the world.
(PRWEB) May 11, 2010 -- Web site peels off old skin and morphs into an even better tool to serve their users. Providing a one stop source to see all breaking news and current events with rapid updates. A multi facet social networking board that allows you to interact with other network members along with striving artist on the brink of super stardom attempting to widen their fan base to reach across the entire globe. The site is equipped with the latest Web 2.0 tools, to let all members navigate their way to success. To give users an added bonus of self promotion, forums and other hands on tools will be provided to all. Putting all of this plus more at their interactive users fingertips solidifies this site as a concrete and much needed marketing source to make a definite mark in any up and coming or established artist arsenal.
The sites goal is to provide more to their visitors than just acting as a "robotic" site by being interactive with everyone. Taking out time to attend and advertise some offline events to assist in showcasing new and established talent. Multiple media sources are available at the users disposal to reach hundreds of thousands eyes.
Offline Magazine - Stepping offline, and showcasing the talent of the future! Letting TV/film directors, producers, casting agents, modeling agencies, music labels, video directors, and other magazines know that they don't have to find the diamonds in the rough anymore, cause that has already been done. At the same time letting known celebs promote their up coming material. Mean while being received from all in hip hop from the streets, up to cooperate offices.
Modeling Contest -Models, that are serious about gaining mass exposure. Being noticed as the honey of the month, will result in receiving major promotion at no cost to them! With a chance to be rewarded with cash and prizes. Grand Prize winners will be awarded a chance to be featured in the offline magazine at the same time creating a buzz online that will get recognition by other sources of media, and advertisement.
Social Networking Board - Most boards are self serving, but at this profile board the focus is on assisting people in making the connections that can help them create their own team to get better promotional results, and with better products. Within music, pictures, and videos. Plus meetings that can better display your talents.
Radio - A weekly online radio show, letting unsigned artist, models and stars of tomorrow put themselves in front of their peers and fans, letting them gain the exposure to suit their needs. The show also features celebrity guest you can interact with asking questions to gain their personal insight on their trials and experience in the entertainment business.
TV - Taking all videos from the members of the social networking board, and making a broadcast nation wide commercial, seen on BET, and VH1. Plus a TV channel on the site where you can post your videos, and receive thousands of views daily, further showing your skills and expanding your fan base.
Seeing all that they have to offer, and not seeing any fees, or hidden cost. Realizing this is a place for the person who is trying to make it, or just keeping up with hip hop. Plus inviting the executives of the entertainment field to see the new faces, trying to break in the industry. With breaking news from hip hop, and the world. Constant updates to keep the user in tune with what the internet has to offer. Giving them a place where someone is willing to help at no fee to them. Just because they live in the culture, and love hip hop. Seeing there is a need for advise to the newly growing populated users, and fulfilling that need. Therefore creating a digital divide.
Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010hiphopmediasource/4hiphophoneys/prweb3938004.htm.
Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai, 1954) is one of the most influential films ever made, spawning numerous official and unofficial remakes around the world. One of the most ambitious of these is Samurai 7, a 26-episode anime television series produced in 2004 by Gonzo studio and aired in high definition in Japan on the satellite network Animax. Because anime commands a huge international audience, the series traveled far beyond Japan, via cable television and DVD. It aired, for example, throughout Southeast Asia and Latin American and aired in the U.S. in 2006 on the Independent Film Channel. The series melds Kurosawa's samurai period film with a science fiction setting and the free flights of fancy that animation enables and that the historical fidelity of Kurosawa's original inhibited. The series was neither the first sci-fi nor the first animated rendition of Kurosawa's tale. Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) transposed Kurosawa's story to interstellar warfare, and Pixar's A Bug's Life (1998) was an animated feature remake.
But Samurai 7 is more ambitious than these efforts, partly by dint of its length but mostly because of the intimidation that the anime filmmakers experienced in tackling the remake of such an imposing work. Their awareness of the long shadow cast by Kurosawa's classic drove them to work especially hard at their craft. The series demonstrates the powerful appeal of Kurosawa's narrative--the epic story of 16th century samurai warfare proved eminently adaptable into anime, one of the most popular genres of contemporary culture. Indeed, anime exists at what Susan J. Napier calls "a nexus point in global culture." (1) As she points out, anime is not only a major part of Japan's cultural export market but is also "a small but growing part of the non-Japanese commercial world, in terms of the increasing number of non-Japanese enterprises that deal with anime. These range from small video rental operations in big cities throughout the world to mail order houses up to and including such behemoths as Amazon.com." (2) And, one might add, such Western cable television enterprises as the Independent Film Channel. Furthermore, this nexus of popular culture includes such participant activities as cosplay at anime conventions, i.e., fans of the series attending costumed as their favorite characters. Photographs of fans dressed as the anime Kikuchiyo or Heihachi can be found on the Internet, and web-boards track fan discussion on the merits and appeal of the respective Samurai 7 characters. (See, for instance, http: / / manga, about.com / od / imagegalleries / ig / 2007-NY-Anime-Festival-Gallery / NYAF-07--Samurai-7.htm)
By entering this nexus of global entertainment as the inspiration for a successful series, Kurosawa's film lives on by acquiring a new and different identity. The title of the series identifies it as Akira Kurosawa's Samurai 7, surely an improbable possessory credit. Not only had Kurosawa long been gone when the series was planned and created, but the historical purist in him--that filmmaker for whom the samurai past was a living reality and for whom film was a means for exercising the historical imagination-would have been unlikely to embrace this transposition of the film. He initially planned Seven Samurai as a kind of quasi-documentary portrait of the rituals and routines of a day in the life of a Sengoku-era warrior. With its robots and flying spaceships, the anime series is a long way from the detailed texturing of a historical era that so distinguishes Kurosawa's film.
But Kurosawa's approval is now beside the point, especially since he has a possessory credit whether he would have wanted it or not. What counts is that the anime filmmakers felt cowed by the stature of Kurosawa's film and resolved to account for their temerity in remaking it by striving for excellence in the storyline, the casting, the art direction and the visual effects. Sound designer Yota Tsuruoka remarked on the "definite feeling of the magnitude of the title, of the magnitude of the image that people around the world have for the movie." (3)
The series' executive producer, Shoji Murahama, pointed out that a live action remake would probably turn out quite badly. "It would take a lot of courage and grace to do a live action remake. If someone decided to, it would require lots of money and talent. And even then, there's little chance of really capturing what made the original a masterpiece. I figured it might be possible to pull it off in animation." (4)
Animation would privilege a free adaptation that might honor the spirit of the work while taking it in a direction that would attract a young audience less likely to be enamored of an old black-and-white movie. With animation teenagers are "more likely to take an interest in the original work it's based on, more likely to come in contact with Seven Samurai. If we can make something that can play such a role, and can carry some of Kurosawa's original will and spirit, I think it'll be incredible." (5) Anime might furnish young viewers with a gateway to the classic, original film.
But in order to make the adaptation work as a television series, new narrative material had to be invented. Kurosawa's film ran just under 3-1/2 hours, while the 26 episode television series would be almost three times as long, with each episode holding around twenty-two minutes of story material. All of the familiar characters from the movie, of course, would appear in the series, including several of the prominent farmers, such as Manzo, Rikichi, and the old village elder who .lives in the millhouse. (Throughout the following discussion of Seven Samurai, I assume that the reader is familiar with film. Consequently, I will not spend a lot of time explaining who the major characters are and summarizing the major plot points.) Important new characters in the series include Kirara, a water priestess who accompanies Rikichi in the search for samurai and whose amulet has special powers that divine the moral fiber of prospective candidates. She also furnishes a love interest for both Kambei and Katsushiro a completely new plot element. In Kurosawa's original, Katsushiro, the youngest and most inexperienced of the samurai, fell in love with Shino, a farmer's daughter. Kirara is more self-possessed in a resonantly modern way than was the relatively passive Shino. But Kurosawa's Kambei was an aging warrior well beyond the appeals of young love, and it would have made no sense in the plot terms of his film for Kambei to have dallied with one of the village maidens. But in the anime series, considerable screen time is occupied by the love triangle among Katushiro, Kirara and Kambei, with Kirara's preference remaining ambiguous and her choice delayed for many episodes.
Accompanying Kirara and Rikichi on the quest for samurai is Komachi, Kirara's sister, a chirpy little girl whose inclusion in the storyline presumably is intended to pull in even very young viewers. She is the shojo character--the pre-adolescent girl--that is a recurrent and popular character type in the world of anime. She squeals, laughs, shrieks, and chatters in a running commentary on the action. Ukyo is another new character, the chief villain of the television series who has the audacity in the final climax of murdering Kikuchiyo, the most beloved of the samurai warriors. In Kurosawa's film, there really were no villains, at least none personified as individual characters. The marauding bandits were a generalized pestilence. A few were visually memorable, such as the chieftain who sported a helmet with enormous horns. But none were individualized as characters in the manner of Ukyo, who is a spoiled, self-indulgent son of the magistrate governing the city of Kogakyo, where most of the action in the initial third of the series takes place. Ukyo is decadent and cruel, and he eventually succeeds in becoming emperor, whereupon he puts into motion a Machiavellian plot to provoke war between the Nobuseri (a cyborg army), the ronin, and the farmers.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Kogakyo is a new addition to the series, a fully imagined city with towering buildings, a high tech quarter, a business district and market, and low tech slums. The farming village was the primary location in Kurosawa's film, and the early scenes in town, when the farmers are searching for samurai, are unspecified as to place. By contrast, Kogakyo is not merely the principal setting of the first portion of the series; the climax takes place there, too, as the surviving samurai battle Ukyo for control of the city. A lengthy subplot involves Ukyo's desire for Kirara. He kidnaps Kirara and intends to exploit her in his harem. This depraved plan furnishes the material for numerous action scenes as Kambei, Katushiro and Kikuchiyo fight to free her. The necessity to invent new story material, sufficient to sustain a multi-part television series, with numerous narrative arcs, compelled these revisions and extensions of Kurosawa's storyline.
But the most substantive changes are those that have re-inflected the characters of the seven warriors. In Kurosawa's original, all of the samurai except for Kikuchiyo and Katsushiro were elder men, seasoned warriors most of whom were past the prime of their life. The portrait of aging adventurers helped to give the film its considerable melancholy. In the anime, by contrast, they are very young men, an obvious ploy to connect with the young audience demographic to whom the series was pitched and that is anime's most devoted audience. Kambei was mostly bald throughout Kurosawa's film, having shaved his head in an early scene to disguise himself as a Buddhist monk in order to save a kidnapped child. The cartoon Kambei, by contrast, has long, flowing locks of hair and a small goatee. And, like many characters in anime, he does not look Japanese. His facial features are Western. His hirsute appearance makes him both younger and more sensual than was Kurosawa's character, appropriate given his new status as a potential love interest for Kirara. On the other hand, the anime Kambei is more mono-dimensional than in the Kurosawa film in that he is consistently morose and often quite absorbed by the purity of his own unique melancholy. He is sad because he has lost so many battles and because the samurai world is in eclipse. The film Kambei, so memorably performed by Takashi Shimura, was a god among samurai, a supremely capable warrior, but he was also quite human in the variety of his moods and demeanors. He could speak soulfully about losing all of the battles in which he had fought but could also joke at the guilelessness of Katsushiro or the blustering of Kikuchiyo. The anime Kambei projects a far more limited emotional range, mainly a weltschmerz that at times verges on neurasthenia. Shimura's Kambei is more variegated and finely textured, but the simplicity of a limited emotional palette and broad character strokes is a part of the audience appeal that the anime artists were striving for.
All of the anime samurai, save for Kikuchiyo and GorMbei, have abundant locks of hair. Kyuzo has a big mop of bright blonde hair, giving him a decidedly un-Japanese appearance. Shichiroji, Kambei's buddy, looks like he is in his twenties, and Heihachi appears even younger, a veritable kid sporting a bomber jacket and goggles. Although we meet him chopping wood, as in Kurosawa's film, he looks like he would be more comfortable playing a video game than wielding a sword.
Gorobei's hair is closely cropped in a butch cut, and he appears at least a decade older than Schichiroji and Heihachi. He is also darkly completed, which serves to set him off racially from the other members of the band of warriors. Whereas Kurosawa's Gorobei was not well individuated as a character, the anime version not only has a vivid personality but he becomes one of the most well-defined and memorable of the samurai. When we meet him he is working as a sideshow entertainer, using his great martial skills to snatch arrows out of the air before they can strike his body. When Katsushiro, on a dare, fires an arrow at his head, Gorobei traps the flying missile between his hand microseconds before it can penetrate his forehead. With these skills, Gorobei emerges as one of the greatest of the warriors, alongside Kambei and Kyuzo. This martial prowess is a distinct difference from Kurosawa's film, where Gorobei's fighting skill is never vividly dramatized.
In some ways, Katsushiro closely resembles his counterpart in Kurosawa's film. The closer mapping in this case is certainly due to the overlap of Kurosawa's character with the ideal demographic for the anime series. Both iterations of the character are green young men, with a fighting spirit but no real experience in battle. And both are ready for love and find it quickly, although with different characters (Kirara and Shino). Later in the series, however, a rift develops between Katsushiro and Kambei because of Kirara, something that would have been unthinkable in the film because the young samurai was totally devoted to honoring his mentor.
Kyuzo and Kikuchiyo see the most striking and extreme transformations in their characters from film to anime. To audiences of Kurosawa's film, both men are the most popular of the samurai heroes, and the anime series has worked the deepest changes in their characters. Kurosawa's Kyuzo was a great man of mystery, a silent loner and a peerless swordsman, the one among the samurai who had the clearest claim to mythic stature. When he goes off alone to kill a few bandits and take their guns, no-one dares criticize him for ignoring Kambei's order that everyone must work as part of a group. When he is killed in the final battle, everyone on the field freezes, unable to believe that such a magisterial figure has been cut down by a fire-arm. With Kambei, he personifies the greatest virtues of bushido and cuts the most imposing of heroic figures. The anime version, however, is a professional assassin! He works for Ukyo and is dispatched to execute Kambei. When Kambei fights him to a draw, however, he promises Kyuzo a rematch but only after the mission to defend the village is complete, and Kyuzo agrees because he is eager to kill Kambei but must honor his wishes first in order to claim an honorable opportunity for a rematch. Thus, Kyuzo joins the adventure because he wants to slay Kambei! When he is killed near the end of the series, his last promise is to match swords with Kambei in the afterlife. Like the film's version, the anime Kyuzo is a master swordsman, but, in the new conception peculiar to the series, he is a mercenary and is allied with the film's chief villain. Although the travails of their adventure serve to bind Kambei and Kyuzo closely together as allies, and although Kyuzo will die in Kambei's arms, the television series makes him a renegade and an outlaw instead of the calm, reflective Zen master of Kurosawa's film.
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As startling as is Kyuzo's transformation from the disciplined and reflective swordsman of Kurosawa's film to a murderous henchman, Kikuchiyo's re-design is even more remarkable. In the series, he has become a robot, a mechanical creature that can lose an arm or even a head in battle and then have it reattached by a skilled mechanic. He is one of the mecha characters, a fusion of human and machine, that are ubiquitous in futuristic anime. As Antonia Levi writes, "Anime robots come in two basic forms: cyborgs and giant robots. The cyborgs are humanoid and have some human responses and emotions; they also operate more or less independently. The giant robots are large exoskeletal structures, usually fighting machines, which require one or more human pilots." (6) The Nobuseri use giant robots to prey on the farming villages, and as a cyborg hero, Kikuchiyo confronts and battles them.
As the series presents his backstory, Kikuchiyo has elected to exchange his human self for the superior fighting skills that the robotic body armoring pro vides. In the series' alternative iteration of samurai history, many warriors rise to a higher level of martial power by becoming robots. In this way, they become more fearsome fighters and deadlier adversaries. Indeed, the series' version of Kurosawa's bandits, who in the film were ronin just like the seven heroes, presents them as Nobuseri, samurai who have forged their bodies into a mechanical exoskeleton and who are now preying on the defenseless, just as Kurosawa's bandits had done. Thus, in the series, Kikuchiyo becomes a replicant of the bandits, a plot twist that is unique to the anime production.
This robotic Kikuchiyo does make a kind of sense in that Toshiro Mifune's performance in Kurosawa's film is so broadly pitched, so far over-the-top that it reasonably inspires an equally stylized rendition in the terms of anime. Mifune, of course, wasn't playing a robot, but the sheer physicality of his performance, the nonstop grimacing, scratching, jibbering and somersaulting underpins the bio-mechanical transformation that the cartoon series works upon the character. Thus, there is more of Mifune's performance lingering in the anime series than of any other actor from Kurosawa's film. And this is plainly evident in way that the cartoon Kiku--as he is affectionately known in the series--blusters his way into the adventure and fights as much with verbal bombast as with actual sword. Like Mifune, he carries a giant sword, except that it also works, when necessary, as a gigantic chain saw capable of cutting through metal, which he does at every opportunity. If Mifune was excessive in the film, the animated Kikuchiyo is equally excessive within the stylized realm of the series. And at every turn, the anime narrative insists on the human elements of Kikuchiyo's personality. Indeed, despite his mechanical body, he has the most forceful personality of all the samurai heroes. This emphasis bears out Susan Napier's observation that mecha narratives often focus on the human within the machine: "It is this contrast between the vulnerable, emotionally complex and often youthful human being inside the ominously faceless body armor or power suit and the awesome power he / she wields vicariously that makes for the most important tension in many mecha dramas." (7) Indeed, numerous story events feature Kikuchiyo interceding into a conflict with his buzz-saw sword and body armor in ways that provoke new and unintended catastrophes for which he profusely apologizes.
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In many respects, the plot of the anime series conforms very closely to the story of Kurosawa's original. All of the major events in the film appear in the anime series and even many of the motifs and images that helped to make Kurosawa's story so memorable. Heihachi's flag, for example, with its striking juxtaposition of characters for samurai and village and with the triangle representing Kikuchiyo's uncertain status mid-way between both worlds, appears in the series and is hoisted in a similar fashion above the farming village as an emblem of the alliance of samurai and farmers. The early scene in the mill, in which the village elder tells the farmers to hire samurai is ported over to the series as a nearly exact copy. The cartoon character even tells the same story about having once seen a village spared from bandit raids because that village had done the unthinkable in hiring samurai. The cartoon versions of ManzM and Rikichi quarrel over the elder's recommendation, just as they do in the film.
At times, the anime even replicates some of Kurosawa's memorable compositions. When Kambei accepts the farmer's pleas for help, he holds their rice bowl in the extreme foreground of the shot. In Kurosawa's film, this composition emphasized the ethical basis of Kambei's heroism, that is, his recognition of the reciprocity of obligation. The farmers had shown him their best effort by allocating their rice for the samurai while subsisting themselves on a diet of millet. By formally accepting the bowl of rice, Kambei is acknowledging his indebtedness to the farmers and their village. These relationships are less clear in the anime because the cartoon Kambei is a more monodimensional character and because he plays much harder to get than his filmic counterpart. He turns the farmers down several times and seems motivated by little of the humanitarian impulse that guides Kurosawa's character.
But while the series often hews closely to the narrative template of Kurosawa's film, the plot is also notably transformed. The anime is a science fiction story in which the villains fight with mechanized weapons and fly spaceships from which they launch huge and devastating war machines. So the anime samurai confront mechanized warfare and automatic weapons and do so with their swords. They deftly deflect bullets with their blades, and Kambei and Shichiroji are both skilled pilots. In fact, we meet them in the series prologue as they fly a spaceship into battle. While the series' emphasis on futuristic technology is a common feature of anime, it does tend to dilute the symbolic force of the opposition between gun and sword as it appears in Kurosawa's film. There, only the bandits have guns, and the guns bring the specter of modernity into the movie, that which ultimately defeats the samurai class. All of the samurai heroes who perish are killed by gunfire. It is this--the inevitability of historical change, the dawning of a modern world--that Kambei acknowledges in his memorable remark at the end of the film about the samurai having lost the battle and which Kurosawa acknowledges in the concluding camera tilt up to the samurai graves on the hill.
In the anime series, these perspectives about the nobility of failure are far more dilute and diffuse because they have little to attach to. By intermixing the historical frames--a medieval one consisting of a farming village subsisting on rice production and samurai fighting with swords and adhering to the tenets of bushido, and a futurist one in which samurai can become robots and fight with advanced weaponry--the anime series loses the organic connections in the historical framework that made Kurosawa's symbolic drama so powerful and persuasive. When guns and swords co-exist as extensively as they do in the series, there is no longer any meaningful opposition between them and therefore no historical vision of changing eras that the opposition can articulate. In Kurosawa's film, the climactic battle in the rain embodied the supreme heroic effort of the alliance between samurai and farmer, a unity in the face of the chaos represented by the bandits. In the series this is no longer enough. The battle in the rain occurs in episode 16 of the 26-episode series, and the true climax of the series involves a large scale assault by the samurai, flying in spaceships, on the city where Ukyo and his Nobuseri army are headquartered. This battle is rife with automatic machine-gun fire, explosions, dueling spaceships, and robotic warfare. Because so much is mechanized in this futuristic landscape, the anime Kambei's lament about the end of the samurai era becomes pure form, a plot convention without content.
Thus, when the anime characters do give voice to the historical themes of Kurosawa's film, the remarks have less force. In the prologue, as Kambei and Shichiroji fly their ship toward an overwhelming number of enemies, Shichiroji tells Kambei that this looks like a losing battle, and Kambei replies that it's all they have. Kurosawa took three and half hours of screen time to build toward this ironic perspective, whereas the series tosses it out, in an almost casual fashion, right at the beginning. The series telegraphs other components of the historical world that Kurosawa embedded in his drama in terms of image and action rather than explicit dialogue. When the farmers spill their rice, the anime Katsushiro gets on his knees to pick it up. When Rikichi protests that he ought not to do this, Katsushiro says that it's part of bushido to help others. This explanation about the tenets of bushido is evidently offered to help orient the young viewers of the series, who wouldn't be expected to know much about it. The comparable scene in Kurosawa's film has no explanation, and, in fact, Katsushiro doesn't help pick up the rice but, instead, tosses a few coins to the farmers and is visibly uncomfortable about even this level of fraternization with a lower class. The scene in the film that most develops the theme of samurai obligation to help others is the one that introduces Kambei, saving a child from a demented thief. Kambei shaves his head so that he will pass as a Buddhist monk and be able to get close enough to the thief that he can snatch the child. He does so successfully, but there is no dialogue in the scene about the meaning of bushido. The idea, instead, is implicit in the action. While the anime series ramps up the action--the thief there is hotwired with dynamite which he threatens to explode--it doesn't contain the moral force of Kurosawa's sequence.
The historical drama of the film, then, is translated in a fitful way to the cartoon series. Whereas Kurosawa's 16th century world seemed fully dimensional, the anime feels notably flatter. Partly this is a matter of the themes from the film translating poorly to a science fiction realm that incorporates vestiges of a medieval world. But it is also a function of the difference between Kurosawa's dynamic film style and the two-dimensional graphic conventions of anime. Kurosawa continuously dollies and tracks his camera into the depths of the action, taking viewers physically into the heart of things. He also uses editing in a manner that propels the story forward, quickly and with a narrative rhythm that is both economical and viscerally appealing. The anime series, by contrast, features mostly traditional cell drawings and the more restricted kind of movement that goes along with them. The camera cannot travel into the heart of a scene or convey the kind of exciting motion perspective supplied by Kurosawa's moving cameras. Computer animation is used sparingly in the series, so the kind of 3D effects that it makes possible are not often found. As a result, while the physical environments are rendered with great imagination, the sensuous and dynamic visual energy of Kurosawa's film is not.
The series' creators felt strongly that a modern audience would be unlikely to watch an old, long, black-and-white movie, however famous it may have been. Some of the production crew even confessed that they had trouble staying with Kurosawa's film. They saw their task in making an anime version to be a means of updating the film in ways that would make it attractive for today's viewers, some of whom, hopefully, might seek out Kurosawa's work after having seen the anime series. Samurai 7 proved to be a big hit for Gonzo, and it found a wide international audience as it went overseas to cable television outlets and to DVD and inspired anime conventions, fan behavior and Internet communications. Like Kaze no Yojimbo (2001), an earlier anime series based on another of Kurosawa's films, the Gonzo series is a very free adaptation, even a kind of riff on Kurosawa's work, but its success in Japan and overseas demonstrates the excellence of Kurosawa's narrative, which furnished the template for the adaptation. Seven Samurai perhaps has been remade more than any other film. Whether the animators are correct in their belief that an old, black-and-white movie will fail to connect with a modern audience cannot really be tested on the basis of Samurai 7 since the adaptation is nearly a horse of a different color. But their robust adaptation of Kurosawa's film helps to keep the original work alive and points to its enduring significance as one of the pinnacles of narrative art in the cinema. It also establishes Kurosawa as a presence within anime, one of the most pervasive forms of international popular culture. And that's not a bad place to find this old master residing.
Notes
(1) Susan J. Napier, Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005): 22.
(2) Napier 8.
(3) "Samurai Resurrected: Interview with Sound Director, Yota Tsuruoka," insert notes accompanying disk four of the series DVD set.
(4) "Samurai Resurrected: Interview with Executive Producer ShMji Murahama," insert notes accompanying disk one of the series DVD set.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Antonia Levi, "New Myths for the Millennium: Japanese Animation" in Animation in Asia and the Pacific, ed. John A. Lent (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2001): 44.
(7) Napier 87.
