Gaara Anime Picture

aara (我愛羅, Gaara?) is the youngest of the three siblings. He was created by Kishimoto as a foil to Naruto Uzumaki, with a similar background yet a highly divergent personality. When Gaara was born, his father intended to make him a military weapon for Sunagakure by sealing the One-Tailed Shukaku (一尾の守鶴, Ichibi no Shukaku?), a powerful and dangerous tailed beast, inside him. Similar to Naruto, Gaara was tormented by his fellow villagers for being the host of a tailed beast. After one of his few remaining relatives tried to kill him, Gaara developed a sadistic and withdrawn personality, killing others to affirm the value of his existence. His battle with Naruto during the invasion of Konoha changes this mentality; as a result, he becomes more willing to help others as the purpose for his existence, and he assumes his deceased father's position as Sunagakure's Kazekage during Part II. Gaara's seiyū in the Japanese anime is Akira Ishida, and his English voice actor is Liam O'Brien
Gaara Anime PhotoGaara Anime Photo

Gaara Anime PictureGaara Anime Picture

Gaara WallpaperGaara Wallpaper

Chiyo Anime Gallery

Chiyo (チヨ, Chiyo?) is an adviser to Sunagakure who is introduced at the start of Part II. She is mistrustful of other ninja villages, making treaties as a formality and quietly strengthening Sunagakure's military might simultaneously. During the various ninja wars, she used her knowledge of poisons to aid Sunagakure, only to have many of her efforts nullified by the work of Tsunade. She is a skilled puppeteer and taught her grandson, Sasori, everything she knew. When Sasori kidnaps Gaara, the leader of Sunagakure, in Part II, Chiyo joins a group of Konohagakure ninja in rescuing him. With the help of Sakura Haruno, the apprentice of Tsunade, Chiyo is able to kill her grandson. Despite their efforts, Gaara also dies before they can rescue him. Touched by the genuine bond formed between Sunagakure and Konoha, Chiyo gives up her life to revive Gaara, hoping that the relationship of peace might be continued. In the Japanese anime, her seiyū is Ikuko Tani
Chiyo Anime WallpaperChiyo Anime Wallpaper

Chiyo Anime PictureChiyo Anime Picture

Akamaru Wallpaper

Akamaru (赤丸, Akamaru?) is Kiba Inuzuka's ninja dog (忍犬, ninken?), best friend, and constant companion. At the start of the series, Kiba carries Akamaru around on his head or inside his jacket. By Part II of the Naruto storyline, Akamaru grows large enough for Kiba to ride atop his back, but since Kiba spends so much time with Akamaru, he fails to notice this drastic difference.[49] With his heightened sense of smell, hearing, and the ability to detect others' chakra levels, Akamaru acts as a valuable tool for Kiba in hostile situations. To help Kiba keep track of opponents, Akamaru can urinate on them, giving them a strong odor that can easily be tracked. In battle, however, he relies on Kiba to provide the chakra for the combination jutsu they execute, which requires Akamaru to transform into a clone of Kiba. In the original Japanese anime, Akamaru is voiced by Junko Takeuchi, who is also the seiyū for Naruto Uzumaki, and Kōsuke Toriumi, who voices Kiba, when Akamaru transforms into a clone of Kiba. In the English adaptation of the anime, he is voiced by Jamie Simone, but when Akamaru transforms, he is voiced by Kyle Hebert, who additionally acts as Kiba's voice actor.
Akamaru WallpaperAkamaru Wallpaper

Akamaru Anime PictureAkamaru Anime Picture

Kiba and Akamaru from Naruto AnimeKiba and Akamaru from Naruto Anime

Have An Ollie Jolly Christmas!


I wrote about legendary Disney animator Ollie Johnston back in April of this year at the time of his passing. Though Ollie lived to a ripe old age, as well as outliving all of his fellow members of "The Nine Old Men", it was still a very sad occasion for me. Even though I had only met with both Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas on less than a dozen occasions, these two wonderful artists had kept in touch with me through the exchange of Christmas cards each year. I actually ended up on Ollie's list several years earlier than Frank's, so my cards from he and his wife Marie date back to the year 1985, just a year after I had started my own Disney career up here in the Canadian office before later relocating down to Florida's Walt Disney World.

These earlier ones in my collection are my favourites. (Click on them to see them MUCH bigger!) Ollie was in his 70's and there's still a real vitality in his drawings, similar to his rough animation in his years at Disney. There's also a running gag in these about poor Marie having to wear the mouse ears. I've only included some of the cards which feature Ollie's sketches by the way, as there are several later on where he instead printed humourous photos of he and Marie, where Marie still had to pose in the mouse ears! There are two (of three) cards here that show Ollie transforming into a deer while he and Frank were putting a great deal of labour into writing their book on "Bambi".

The 1993 card shows Ollie as he and Frank were working on their next book about "The Disney Villains", which is an overview of all of the villains that were developed for the films, not all of which Frank or Ollie had necessarily worked on so it's not as in-depth as their previous books. This also was their final publication, as they had now both hit 80 and were starting to feel their age. Ollie in particular was suffering from arthritic hands and therefore finding drawing a more painful task too, and you can see that his line is a little less sure than it had been, yet there still remains that vitality and feeling of inner life in these little sketches. 1995 marked the debut of Gypsy and Frisky, the two beloved dogs that Ollie and Marie had welcomed into their home. These two characters remained a fixture throughout most of Ollie's later Christmas cards.

The photo of Ollie at the top of this post is from his 2005 card - the year that he received the National Medal of Arts for his long artistic career, presented to him by President Bush at a ceremony at the White House in November. As you can imagine, this collection of Christmas cards from Ollie and Marie I cherish very much, especially now that this wonderful man has left us to be reunited with his beloved Marie. Ollie Johnston was one of my biggest artistic heroes and was extremely generous to me back when I was just a kid with a dream of working for Disney one day. I am grateful for the tremendous legacy he has left us, and my personal memories of having been fortunate enough to have known him as a friend.

Merry Christmas to you all, and thanks for continuing to drop by The Cave!

"All the Noise, Noise, Noise, NOISE!!"



Yes, sad to say, but I tend to get a little Grinchy this time of year. Mostly it's due to the drudgery of Christmas shopping. It's not that I don't want to buy gifts for family and friends, mind you, it's just that I end up having a tough time trying to find stuff that I think they will like. In fact, it always seems that I see all sorts of books, CD's and DVD's that I'D like instead! So it does feel like I'm trekking through many a store over and over before I settle on the right gifts to buy for others.

But my main complaint about Christmas shopping is making my way through the overcrowded malls and having my ears assaulted by all of the crappy contemporary Christmas songs! I'm afraid that my tastes in music have always been a lot closer to my parents' generation than that of my own, and in fact as a teen I always preferred the records my Dad played around the house far more than what my peers were listening to at the time. As such, I never did develop a taste for the rock music of the day, although a lot of the pop/rock on the radio back then certainly was a lot more tuneful than what's on nowadays. Which brings me to my complaint.

Why do all of the untalented, similar sounding, young pop/rockers of today feel that they need to release their crap versions of Christmas songs? They all seem to sound the same, as their trilling crap voices meander around the notes without ever really hitting their target, adding in a lot of inane "Yeaaahhh"s to fill in any pauses between the lyrics. And then there are the mindless rappers who have cut melody out of the equation altogether, trying to force in ten times as many words (most of them unintelligible) than the original composers had written in the first place. And all of this tuneless, appalling crap is being blasted at high volume out of every clothing and electronics store that I am forced to pass by.

Now to be fair, there are a few stores and restaurants where I can hear old chestnuts from glorious Christmases past sung by the likes of Bing, Frank, Dino, Sammy, Ella, Peggy, and Nat, but even then there still seems to be a few contemporary crap songs thrown into the mix just to rankle my nerves. Incidentally, why is it only at Christmas that the great singers of the past are allowed to be heard in public at all before being placed in the box of mothballs again for another year? If one didn't know better, one might assume that Bing Crosby had recorded "White Christmas" and nothing else during his entire career!

So there you have it - the reasons for my annual Grinchy demeanor. Please let it be Sinatra singing as I sit down to a plate of roast beast...(sigh)

And speaking of Frank and Dino, here's some fun Christmas music by the all time kings of cool - a surefire remedy for curing Grinchiness:

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kyou no go no ni 11

kyou no go no ni 10

Skip Beat 10



Ga rei Zero 10


Ga rei zero 9

Tora Dora 12







Naruto Shippuden 89



Happy Birthday Leonard!



Here's a salute to my favourite film reviewer and historian, Leonard Maltin. I was lucky enough to meet Leonard way back in 1982 when he was one of the attendees at The Ottawa International Animation Festival. He'd only recently started appearing on the newly created "Entertainment Tonight" (which was so much better in those days), so not many people were as familiar with him as they are today. However, I knew of Leonard Maltin primarily as a noted authority on animated films, through his two books, "The Disney Films" and "Of Mice and Magic". Anyway, I wasn't going to be shy about saying hi, so I went up and started chatting with him. He was such an affable fellow that, since he was going to be around the festival all week, I took the opportunity to do a caricature of him and presented it to him a few days later. He seemed quite genuinely delighted with it and was happy to sign my copies of his two books in return. He also extended an invitation to come visit him if I ever found myself in NYC, which I ended up taking him up on about a year later.

At that time, Leonard and his wife Alice were still living in Manhattan, even though Leonard was having to fly to LA for all of his Entertainment Tonight film reviews. Some time later they would relocate to LA in order to make that task more practical. When I saw him in New York he was in the middle of obtaining a second apartment in his building to set up as an office, as his film and cartoon collection had gotten too big for the one apartment they lived in. He and Alice were very gracious to me and Leonard took great delight in showing me his extensive collection of cartoon memorabilia. After an enjoyable visit, they strolled with me back to where I needed to catch a bus back to my hotel.

What I love best about Leonard is his obvious enthusiasm for movies and, even when he does offer up some criticism he is never mean spirited with it, always balancing out the bad with some good. Back when he wrote "The Disney Films" in 1973, it was long before it was fashionable to write about Disney and there were very few textbooks available on the subject. I think that the only two books on Disney I personally had at that time were his and "The Art of Walt Disney" by Christopher Finch. I found myself referring to his book often, as those were still the years of "The Wonderful World of Disney" on Sunday night TV, and I would read up on any of the live action Disney films that were about to show up on there for extra background on their production. What I didn't know at the time was that Leonard would have been only a young fellow of 23 when that incredible reference book was published!

In recent years, longtime Disney fans have Leonard Maltin to thank for his efforts in launching the "Walt Disney Treasures" series of boxed DVD sets devoted to vintage Disney animation, early television productions and Walt Disney, the man himself. Leonard also hosts these DVDs, providing a lot of historical background and supplemental interviews with legendary artists and performers. I have pretty much all of these sets, and find myself returning to them often to indulge in the warm nostalgia of that wonderful era of real entertainment.

Leonard currently has a website called "Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy" as well as a quarterly publication that showcases vintage films of the early days of Hollywood, his real passion. And since Leonard has been such a loyal friend to animation and Disney over his many years as a film historian, I thought I'd give this new caricature of him an appropriate Disney cartoon-style, sunburst backdrop. By the way, I see from my list of celebrity birthdays that Leonard shares his birthday with Steven Spielberg, which I'm certain makes him happy. But he also shares his birthday with screen legend, Betty Grable, and I'll wager that makes him even happier! Happy Birthday Leonard!

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Bleach 199



Chaos Head 10



Tales of the Abyss 11



Tytania 10



Team 10 from Naruto Anime

Team 10 is a group of Konohagakure ninja led by Asuma Sarutobi. The fathers of the three team members Choji Akimichi, Shikamaru Nara, and Ino Yamanaka were also on a team together, and both generations refer to their team using the moniker "Ino-Shika-Cho". During Part II, Asuma is slain in an encounter with members of Akatsuki, and Kakashi Hatake briefly assumes leadership of the team to hunt down those responsible for Asuma's death.(Blogspot)
Team 10 from Naruto AnimeTeam 10 from Naruto Anime

Team 10 WallpaperTeam 10 Wallpaper

Asuma Sarutobi from Naruto Anime

Asuma Sarutobi (猿飛 アスマ, Sarutobi Asuma?) is the leader of Team 10 and son of the Third Hokage. He had a falling out with his father when he was younger, and briefly left Konohagakure in protest. The two had not completely reconciled by the time of the Third's death. Asuma is usually seen smoking a cigarette, but will temporarily drop the habit when something is bothering him, such as when his father died. Among all his students, Asuma shares a particularly close relationship with Shikamaru Nara, and the two frequently play shogi or go together. Asuma frequently appears alongside Kurenai Yuhi, leading many characters to assume the two are a couple. Both deny this and promptly try to change the subject whenever it is brought up.(Wikipedia)
Asuma Sarutobi from Naruto AnimeAsuma Sarutobi from Naruto Anime

Asuma Sarutobi Anime WallpaperAsuma Sarutobi Anime Wallpaper

Asuma Sarutobi PhotoAsuma Sarutobi Photo

Hidan from Naruto Anime

Hidan (飛段, Hidan?) is the immortal, foul-mouthed partner of Kakuzu and a former ninja of Yugakure, the Village Hidden in the Steam. He is a member of the Jashin (ジャシン, Jashin? lit. "evil god") religion, a religion that worships a deity of the same name and where anything less than death and utter destruction is considered a sin.[78] His religion's experimentations have led to the creation of his unique abilities; by consuming an opponent's blood and then drawing Jashin's triangular-design on the ground, Hidan can create a voodoo doll-like link with his opponent.(Wikipedia)
Hidan Anime PictureHidan Anime Picture

Hidan WallpaperHidan Wallpaper

shikamaru hidan and kakuzu from Naruto Animeshikamaru hidan and kakuzu from Naruto Anime

Zetsu Anime Photo

Zetsu (ゼツ, Zetsu?) is the only member of Akatsuki to regularly act without a partner. This is in part a result of his ability to merge with any object and quickly travel to a new location, something that few other ninja are capable of. Because of this ability Zetsu serves a variety of different positions in Akatsuki, such as a spy that observes and reports on battles of interest or a lookout during Akatsuki's meetings. He is cannibalistic, and is often sent to dispose of bodies Akatsuki does not want found, mirroring the large venus flytrap that envelops his body. Zetsu's body is split into two different colors, his right side being black and his left being white. Similarly, the two sides have their own personalities and knowledge bases, frequently leading to discussions and arguments between the two. As Kishimoto originally planned Akatsuki to be a group of individuals with close to no human characteristics, he decided to make Zetsu half black and half white to better show his double personality. The black half speaks in katakana in the Japanese manga, and white speaks kanji and kana. In the Japanese anime, Zetsu's seiyū is Nobuo Tobita, and in the English adaptation, Zetsu has two voice actors: the black half is voiced by Michael Sorich and the white half is voiced by Brian Beacock(Wikipedia)
Zetsu Anime PhotoZetsu Anime Photo

Zetsu ImageZetsu Image

Zetsu PictureZetsu Picture

Sasori Anime Wallpaper

Sasori (サソリ, Sasori?) is a former ninja of Sunagakure. His parents died when he was young, leaving him in the care of his grandmother, Chiyo. Lacking the love of parents, Sasori left Sunagakure when he got older and joined Akatsuki where he is initially partnered with Orochimaru. After Orochimaru's defection Sasori teamed with Deidara, who looks to him and his artistic knowledge with reverence. Before leaving Sunagakure, Sasori was taught the art of puppetry by his grandmother, which he refined to fit his needs over the years. He eventually devised a way to convert the corpses of humans into puppets, allowing him to use any of the ninja abilities they possessed during their life for himself. In time he even converted his own body into a puppet, which gives him eternal life and allows him to control hundreds of puppets at once. Each weapon in his puppets' extended arsenal is laced with a poison of Sasori's design that causes extreme pain to the inflicted until they die. Sakura Haruno is able to create an antidote for Sasori's poison, allowing her and Chiyo to fight him uninhibited. They eventually destroy his heart, the only part of his humanity he kept when converting himself to a puppet, resulting in his death. In the Japanese anime, Sasori has several seiyū for his different appearances: when he is controlling Hiruko, a scorpion-like puppet he wears like a suit, he is voiced by Yutaka Aoyama; when he is featured as a child, he is voiced by Akiko Yajima; and as an adult, he is voiced by Takahiro Sakurai.(Wikipedia)
Sasori Anime WallpaperSasori Anime Wallpaper

Sasori WallpaperSasori Wallpaper

Sasori Anime PhotoSasori Anime Photo

Deidara Anime Picture

Deidara (デイダラ, Deidara?) is a former ninja of Iwagakure. He tends to end his sentences with an audible grunt that is usually translated as "hmm", "yeah", or "un". He acted as a terrorist bomber for hire before being forced to join Akatsuki by Itachi Uchiha. Though he came to embrace the organization, Deidara holds a grudge against Itachi and all Uchiha throughout the series, as he feels their Sharingan eyes look down on his abilities. Upon joining Akatsuki he is partnered with Sasori, who Deidara treats as his master due to his artistic expertise. Sasori is replaced by Tobi after his death, and Deidara assumes the master-position as Sasori had before him; although he still abuses Tobi when annoyed by him, he becomes more like Tobi's teacher, and adopts a genuine care for his well-being. By consuming clay with mouths in his hands, Deidara is able to create his own form of art: sculptures that explode with varying intensities. Deidara's creations can take any form he so chooses, and from the time of their creation to their detonation he can bring them to life and control them remotely. He is very confident in his art's ability, such that he believes it cannot be defeated.[64] When Sasuke Uchiha, Itachi's younger brother, is able to systematically nullify and gain the advantage over his art, Deidara transforms himself into a living bomb in an effort to kill Sasuke and prove his art is supreme, but ultimately fails and kills himself.[65] His seiyū in the Japanese anime is Katsuhiko Kawamoto, and in the English adaptation, he is voiced by Quinton Flynn.(Wikipedia)
Deidara Anime PictureDeidara Anime Picture

Deidara Manga PictureDeidara Manga Picture

Deidara Anime WallpaperDeidara Anime Wallpaper

Naruto Final Battle Annime Picture

Naruto Final Battle Annime PictureNaruto Final Battle Annime Picture

Naruto Final Battle Manga PictureNaruto Final Battle Manga Picture

Naruto Final Battle WallpaperNaruto Final Battle Wallpaper

"Walt's People" Volume 7

Here's a shameless plug for a book series I've been connected with since the beginning, having illustrated all of the covers with my Disney caricatures. Didier Ghez, who runs the very informative blog, Disney History, now has the latest volume of "Walt's People" available for purchase. With Christmas coming up fast, you folks may want to buy a whole bunch of these wonderful compilations of historical Disney interviews for the Disney enthusiast in your family. Head on over to Amazon to purchase as many as you can possibly afford!!

Below are the caricatures that adorn the cover of Walt's People Volume 7: Clarence "Ducky" Nash, the voice of Donald Duck; X. Atencio, the Imagineer; and Jim Macdonald, the head of the Sound Effects dept.

Tytania 9



Ah! my Goddess Season 2 Episodes

Toaru Majutsu no Index 11



Kannagi 11