Robot Communications Inc.

From the Audiovisual Identity Database, the motion graphics museum

Background

Robot Communications Inc. (Japanese: 株式会社ロボット) is a production company located in Tokyo, Japan and was founded on March 5, 1986. Despite the name, they actually do computer graphics work and film production. They didn't appear to use a logo until 2005.

1st Logo (September 3, 2005-January 21, 2012)


Visuals: On a black background, there is a retro-looking robot with a cone-shaped head and an orbiting top over its tip, all in black with rough-looking white outlines. The text "ROBOT" as well as a thick line, all in white, pop in one-by-one, and continually do so for the next several seconds as the robot reaches to its chest and opens a door. It then pulls out a red heart shape from there, looking at it, and then lets it fly off. As it flies off, the robot waves at it like a "goodbye" and the heart flies into the screen in an arch pattern, filling the entire screen with red. The full company name "ROBOT COMMUNICATIONS INC." appears onscreen in a rather plain font.

Technique: 2D computer animation.

Audio: A dull-sounding heartbeat that continues throughout the 1st half of the logo. This is followed by a calm guitar/clarinet tune which grows into a full-blown orchestra by the time the heart reaches the screen, ending with a gong hit and a bombastic fanfare.

Availability: Appears on Summer Time Machine Blues, Always: Sunset on Third Street, My Pretend Girlfriend, K-20: The Fiend With Twenty Faces, Space Battleship Yamato, Accuracy of Death, and Gravity Clown, among others.

Legacy: However, since the release of Always: Sunset on Third Street '64, subsequent movies wouldn't use an animated on-screen logo until 2016.

2nd Logo (December 10, 2016-)


Visuals: On a black background, a red heart shape outline pops in and is filled with red. It then turns into a thin line, which turns white, and gains a brief cardiogram pulse. The pulse quickly turns into the "ROBOT" text from before, with the letters popping in from the line before being filled in. It then turns into another heart shape with 2 holes in it as it zooms out, and it then "beats" into a wind-up key. The wind-up key turns and as it does, a simpler version of the robot from before is drawn in, along with it's shadow. Suddenly, it jerks upwards, causing it's head to become misplaced, but the robot pushes it back into place. Lines then emit from the tip of it as "ROBOT COMMUNICATIONS INC." in the same font as the actual Robot logo fades it above it.

Variant: On Fueled: The Man They called Pirate, the background is red and begins with a white heart.

Technique: 2D computer animation.

Audio: 3 heartbeats in sync with the animation, the wind-up key turning, the sounds of the robot moving, and then an echoing beep when the robot pushes its head back on.

Availability: Has been seen so far on Fueled: The Man They called Pirate, The Dark Maidens, and Memoirs of a Murderer.

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