DAICON III and IV Opening Animations
| Daicon III & IV Opening Animation | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Hiroyuki Yamaga |
| Music by |
Koichi Sugiyama Yuji Ohno Bill Conti Kitarō Electric Light Orchestra |
| Distributed by | Daicon Film |
|
Release date
|
1981 (III) 1983 (IV) |
|
Running time
|
Approximately 5½ mins (III) Approximately 6 mins (IV) |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
The Daicon III and IV Opening Animations are two short, anime, 8 mm films that were produced for the 1981 Daicon III and 1983 Daicon IV Nihon SF Taikai conventions. They were produced by a group of amateur animators known as Daicon Film, who would later go on to form the animation studio Gainax. The films are known for their unusually high production values for amateur works and for including numerous references to otaku culture, as well as its unauthorized appropriations of both the Playboy Bunny costume and the song "Twilight" (1981) by English rock band Electric Light Orchestra.
Daicon III was made by Hideaki Anno, Hiroyuki Yamaga and Takami Akai and Daicon IV credits twelve people, including Yamada as the director and Anno and Akai as animation supervisors. Despite the questionable legal status of the works, the production of Daicon III resulted in debts that were repaid by selling video tapes and 8mm reels of the production; of which the profits went to the production of Daicon IV. In 2001, the anime magazine Animage ranked the Daicon animations as the 35th of the "Top 100" anime of all time.
The Jet VTOL ship from Ultraman's Science Patrol descends out of the sky toward Earth, as a school girl, carrying her randoseru, observes from behind a tree. The Science Patrol offer the girl a cup of water and ask her to deliver it to "DAICON". The girl salutes and races away, but she quickly experiences trouble as Punk Dragon blocks her path. He summons a mecha from Starship Troopers, and it and the girl begin battling. The girl tosses the mecha aside and Gomora rises from the earth. Using a booster concealed in her backpack, the girl flies up into the sky and evades Gomora's blast, with the mecha flying after her. They continue their battle in mid-air. A blow from the mecha sends the girl falling, imperiling her cup of water. At the last moment, she has a vision of the Science Patrol and regains consciousness. She snatches the cup before it crashes to the ground. Resuming her battle with the mecha, she catches one of its missiles and hurls it back at the mecha, causing a huge explosion. The destroyed mecha launches a rocket, summoning Godzilla with the Ideon symbol. With King Ghidorah and Gamera chasing her, the girl flies through the air with her jet-propelled backpack. A Star Destroyer, a TIE fighter, and Martian fighting machines from the film The War of the Worlds (1953) cross the background. Reaching into her backpack, the girl pulls out a bamboo ruler, which magically becomes a lightsaber. After slicing an Alien Baltan in half, the girl launches a number of miniature missiles from her backpack. Hit by one of the missiles, a Maser Tank from the Godzilla series catches fire. The Atragon breaks in two as the Yamato, the USS Enterprise, an X-wing fighter and Daimajin explode in complete chaos. The girl pours her cup of water on a shriveled daikon buried in the ground. As the daikon absorbs the water, it turns into the spaceship Daicon. Bathed in light, and now wearing a naval uniform, the girl boards the ship, where the film's producers, Toshio Okada and Yasuhiro Takeda, sit at the controls. As the landing gear retracts, Daicon departs for the far reaches of the universe.
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