Daicon III and IV Opening Animations

The ''Daicon III'' and ''IV Opening Animations'' are two 8mm film anime short 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 the Playboy Bunny costume. Usage of the songs "Runaway" by Bill Conti (from the soundtrack to the 1981 ''James Bond'' film '' For Your Eyes Only'') as well as "Twilight" and " Hold On Tight" by English rock band Electric Light Orchestra were also unauthorized.

''Daicon III'' was made by Hideaki Anno, Hiroyuki Yamaga and Takami Akai and ''Daicon IV'' credits twelve people, including Yamaga 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, the profits of which 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.

Summary

''Daicon III Opening Animation''

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 it, causing a huge explosion. The destroyed mecha launches a rocket, summoning Godzilla with the Ideon symbol. The song "Runaway" by Bill Conti (from the soundtrack to the 1981 ''James Bond'' film '' For Your Eyes Only'') emphasizes the action as King Ghidorah and Gamera chase the girl while she 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.

''Daicon IV Opening Animation''

The ''Daicon IV Opening Animation'' begins with an abridged, 90-second retelling of the ''Daicon III Opening Animation'' set to "Noah's Ark" by Kitarō from the album, ''Silver Cloud''. After this, "Prologue" by Electric Light Orchestra is heard, while the lyrics appear against a starfield and an outline of the spaceship ''Daicon'' passes in the background. The film proper begins as "Prologue" segues into "Twilight", the song which follows it on the album ''Time''.

The girl from the previous animation is now an adult, wearing a bunny costume. She fights off a multitude of sci-fi monsters and mobile suits then jumps into a throng of Alien Metron and tosses them aside. She is then in a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader, with Stormtroopers sitting in the background and the Death Star enshrined in one corner. From atop a cliff, a xenomorph with artificial legs,a reference to Dai Sentai Goggle V's monsters who when grown giant, have the same metallic legs, wielding the Discovery One, knocks the girl down with an energy burst and the Dynaman robot (Dyna Robo) attempts to crush her. The girl lifts Dyna Robo off her with superhuman strength and smashes it against a cliff. The Stormbringer suddenly appears in the sky, and the girl jumps on it, riding it like a surfboard. A few scenes unconnected to the main plot are shown, such as Yoda as ''Yū Ida'' given a Japanese comedy routine with various characters in the audience. The girl is still riding the Stormbringer when she runs into a formation of Ultrahawk 1's. Then the ''Yamato'', the ''Arcadia'' attached to the transformed SDF-1 Macross appear, along with an exploding VF-1 Valkyrie variable fighter from ''Macross'' armed with a ''Gundam''-style beam saber. An air battle unfolds in an ''otaku'' coffee shop. The girl is then seen in a world filled with American comic superheroes. A host of machines and characters (from ''The Lord of the Rings'', '' Conan'', ''Narnia'', ''Pern'', and others) fly past her into space, including a Klingon battle cruiser, the moon ship from H. G. Wells

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