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Sora no Otoshimono Flying Panties Event Planned

Not-So-Daily Link of the Day II: Award-winning science-fiction author Housuke Nojiri (Rocket Girls, Usurper of the Sun) will appear at this March's Sora Fes! — a festival for homemade model aircraft inspired by the flying panties seen in the Sora no Otoshimono television anime series.

Last year's animated adaptation of Suu Minazuki's Sora no Otoshimono modern fantasy manga created a stir with its ending animation footage, which featured a flock of flying panties in formation. Nojiri wrote the novel inspiration of the Rocket Girls anime, but he was not directly involved with the Sora no Otoshimono anime. Nevertheless, he was inspired by Sora no Otoshimono to supervise the mass production of model ornithopters (flapping-wing airplanes) shaped like flying panties. The ornithopters will launch at Sora Fes! for 1,000 yen (about US$11), but each 2,000-yen (about US$22) ticket to the event will include one ornithopter.

Besides Nojiri, the event will host the other creators of the flying panties ornithopter, Kazuhiko Hachiya (the artist best known for developing OpenSky's life-size jet-assisted glider inspired by Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind), and TBS Television announcer Jun Suzuki. There will be a workshop for building ornithopter kits and a discussion panel with Nojiri, Hachiya, and Suzuki.

Crunchyroll is streaming the Sora no Otoshimono anime in North America and other regions. Viz Media's Haikasoru imprint published Nojiri's Usurper of the Sun novel last year, and it will publish Nojiri's Rocket Girls novel this July. Bandai Entertainment released the Rocket Girls anime in 2008.

[Via Canned Dogs]