Melon Brains: Exploring The Mind Of The Dolphin

Article to do

• Write a proper Development section. The Quotes section pretty much covers it all but having a brief summary of that info in a Development section allows for us to expand it with additional info, like...
• Estelle Myers, Australian dolphin researcher, seemingly played a part in the development of the game. Let's get this added into the development section too. Per the esteemed LaserDisc Archive.
• Also Bob Talbot was the cinematographer on Free Willy and other movies.
• Much (all?) of the footage in Melon Brains was later republished in a 1999 DVD by Pony Canyon titled PEACE BLUE.

CartridgeCulture (talk) 00:21, 4 September 2021 (EDT)

HD footage courtesy of developer Jotaro Nonaka

• Link

CartridgeCulture (talk) 04:16, 26 June 2021 (EDT)

PeaceBlue #01 YouTube video description dump

"PEACE BLUE" TOKYO WILD DOLPHINS

Spinner Dolphins & Bottlenose Dolphins Filmed around OGASAWARA ISLAND

Camera by Hiroyuki Nakano Underwater Camera by Tadahiko Matsui

Directed and Produced by Hiroyuki Nakano Music Produced by Eiki Nonaka

M-1: "HOTOTOGISU" written and performed by HIROKI OKANO taken from his album "ENN".

M-2: "WAVE DANCER" written, performed and produced by WONG WINGTSAN

*This clip was taken from a DVD titled "PEACE BLUE" which was originally released by Pony Canyon in 1999. 

Some background information about this clip.

This beautiful video clip was originally produced as part of a multi-media title on Laser Active (LD-ROM) titlled "MELON BRAINS" released by Pioneer in 1994.

I have some found memories with this "Melon Brains" as the project was my brainchild and I was heavily involved with the initial planning and also involved with actual production and programming of the title, together with my old friend Hiroyuki Nakano, who was a creative director of all video footages filmed for this title.

Later in 1999, he took this offer from Pony Canyon to put together several footages from the Melon Brains and produced this DVD title.

Around 1988 and 89, I was deeply interested in the lifestyle of Dolphins, as I have read this beautiful photo book on Dolphins which I accidentally purchased at a small book store in Geneva during the time when I was visiting Yoko Ono there to take care some business of G.O.W. (Greening of the World) project.

G.O.W. was a project which I was producing together with Yoko at the time, our plan was to organize a big concert event to cerebrate late John Lennon's 50th birthday (if he was alive in 1990 that is), and also make the occasion to promote awareness of our environment. The concerts were eventually held at Tokyo Dome for two days in December 1990.

I do have some very interesting stories to tell, but I will reserve them for some other occasions...

Anyway, I have read this book (which I still have somewhere in my book shelves) and learned that Dolphins are in fact, very intelligent creatures and there are number of scientists and researchers who were studying their ability to communicate using their so-called "Melon Brain" to focus and generating ultrahigh sonic sound under water, much like a beamed radar used by submarines.

This Melon Brain is actually very fatty organ which is located in frontal area of Dolphin's brain. It is quite flexible and according to some scientists it was believed that they use it like a lens to focus their voice (called signature whistle, because each dolphin has its unique sound ID like a name.) and target the beam of sonic sound to the target object.

Some scientist such as Dr. John C. Lilly (R.I.P. I miss him so much!) was thinking way ahead and he believed that Dolphins are far more intellectual than us human, and way advanced as a species thriving on Earth. He even tried communicate with Dolphins to achieve Inter Species Communications!

He once told me at his house in Maui, that he actually had several experiences of communicating with Dolphins telepathically as he was floating in his famous "Isolation Tank".

In fact, I was privileged to have experience tha tank, as he let me use his tank when I was visiting him for his birthday occasion back in 1995. It was this original Samadhi Tank situated right outside of his house standing on a high cliff looking over the pacific ocean.

I had this absolutely fantastic and far out to the max experience in Lilly's tank. I neve felt so peaceful in my life like that!

Unfortunately I would never be able to experience that ever again, not without his help...Sooo Sad!

Well, I think that's somewhat explains why we produced this DVD.

Ever since I met John and learned about Dolphins, they became some very special entity in my life.

I can automatically relax just by watching and following their graceful movement, beautifully captured and edited here by Nakano.

Sometimes, I wished that I was born as a dolphin... but then again, it's amazing to live as a human being today!

As you know, we had the Fukushima nuke incident and all that disasters following after. This reality never seize to bore me!

I hope you'll enjoy this clip as much as I do still...

Peace! A-key Nonaka

CartridgeCulture (talk) 23:59, 3 September 2021 (EDT)

PeaceBlue #02 YouTube video description dump

"PEACE BLUE" TOKYO WILD DOLPHINS

Spinner Dolphins & Bottlenose Dolphins Filmed around OGASAWARA ISLAND

Camera by Hiroyuki Nakano Underwater Camera by Tadahiko Matsui

Directed and Produced by Hiroyuki Nakano Music Produced by Eiki Nonaka

"SEASHORE" Written and performed by WIND TRAVELIN' BAND

*This clip was taken from a DVD titled "PEACE BLUE" which was originally released by Pony Canyon in 1999.

(user note: the rest below is identical to PeaceBlue #01's description) CartridgeCulture (talk) 23:59, 3 September 2021 (EDT)

Credits

• Entire Project Planning, Production: Jotaro Nonaka
• Soundtrack: Jotaro Nonaka

CartridgeCulture (talk) 23:39, 3 September 2021 (EDT)