R-type Anime Short

Animator Paul Johnson has created an anime short film based around the video game R-Type, the hard as nails shoot 'em up. The 90's inspired art style and deliberately dreadful voice acting is spot on and reminds me of some truly awful anime and manga I watched in my youth. In his own words:

Sucked into one of the toughest video games around, one man has to fight for his life – and the high score!
This is an homage to arcade classic R-Type and 90’s anime - with each second of animation containing around 17 drawings. 17 DRAWINGS PER SECOND!

Check out the video below!

R-Type Animation is Mindblowing

I love hand drawn animation and I love R-Type, so when they combine I am suitably excited. R-Type was released by Irem in the arcades in 1987 and when I first played it at Heathrow Airport it held me in awe. The huge sprites, detailed Giger-esque enemies and wonderfully realised alien environments made other shmups of the time look dated. R-Type still stands the test of time well and I play it occasionally on my Master System.

Paul Johnson, an artist and animator, must have been a huge fan too as he has made a R-Type animation in the Japanese anime style. It is not finished yet but what has been made is impressive. Check out the video and keep up with his progress at his Twitter page (linked below)