Tacos

Cartoon Network once gave a bump to a little known — *laugh* — BONES title known as Cowboy Bebop lifting it from obscurity to the point that Sony Pictures snagged the license to the movie. Of course, we could also say they’ve doomed us all with the news of a live action movie with Keanu Reeves currently attempting to be in the works. We can only hope they learn from past mistakes.

Now another Bandai series with a Cartoon Network Adult Swim run is getting a theatrical film: Eureka seveN. The official Japanese website has been updated with a movie trailer and the race to snag the U.S. distribution rights to this film can’t be far behind. If you missed the U.S. broadcast of the TV series and skipped the DVD singles, now is the perfect time to jump on a collection of Eureka seveN. Eureka seveN: Pocket Full of Rainbows hits Japanese theaters on April 25th.

Yes, the Japanese are one step closer to bringing android teachers to life.  7Network has a short video clip on Yahoo! of the teacher in action.

Japan’s robot teacher calls roll, smiles and scolds, drawing laughter from students with her eerily lifelike face. But the developer says it’s not about to replace human instructors.

Unlike more mechanical-looking robots like Honda Motor Co.‘s Asimo, the robot teacher, called Saya, can express six basic emotions — surprise, fear, disgust, anger, happiness, sadness — because its rubber skin is being pulled from the back with motors and wiring around the eyes and the mouth.

In a demonstration, the robot’s mouth popped open, its eyes widened and eyebrows arched to appear surprised. Saya pulled back on its lips to make a smile, and said simple preprogrammed phrases such as “Thank you,” while its lips moved, to express pleasure.

…

Kobayashi says Saya is just meant to help people and warns against getting hopes up too high for its possibilities.

“The robot has no intelligence. It has no ability to learn. It has no identity,” he said. “It is just a tool.”

But would he create a robot in human form, say, a fantasy friend with movie-star looks?

“Sure,” he says, “If you’re willing to pay.”

That made-to-order robot will cost about 5 million yen ($51,000), he said.

However, whether humanity will do the right thing or the wrong thing remains to be seen. Just remember, all of this has happened before and will happen again. Of course, I might not mind the “will happen again” part if they look like this.

ABC News has put together a video story following the newest American export to Asia: Cheerleading. Yes, movies like Bring It On and High School Musical have managed to corrupt the world of the orient with pom poms, dance routines, and spirit fingers. OK, we’ll ignore the fact that other outlets — sports teams, school systems, etc. — have also managed to get the word out about this phenomenon over the years. Heaven help them if they find out what beer pong is.