15 Thoughts from Akihabara

For those of you who don’t follow me on twitter, and that means pretty much everyone, I recently went to Japan. Two of my days were spent in Akihabara. Below are some of my thoughts on what some have referred to as the Anime holy land.

Mikunopolis: Christmas in July and World Conquest

I returned from Los Angeles and Anime Expo 2011 a few days ago and I have to say that the highlight of my trip, other than the soon to be regretted level of purchases I made in the dealer’s room, was anything dealing with Hatsune Miku. While the high point of all things Miku was obviously Mikunopolis, it was fun to learn a lot more about Miku over the course of the weekend through all of the panels. Before heading to Los Angeles, I was definitely a fan of the virtual idol, but going into the weekend I didn’t really know what to expect. After leaving, it struck me that being a fan of Miku was really a lot like believing in Santa for a few reasons.

First, like the meaning of Christmas, Miku can really be whoever you want her to be depending on what you like to do, and I’m not talking about her seemingly endless wardrobe for all the perverts out there. Well, I suppose that might be part of it. Still, fans can create new songs, animations, or character designs of and about Miku and send them out there for others to enjoy through the use of the internet. But just as Christmas isn’t just about candy canes and sleigh bells, Miku isn’t just about the music. One thing that became perfectly clear to me almost immediately this weekend is that Miku could very easily be a synonym for Commercialism, and in a lot of ways this is a good thing. It is because of this entrepreneurial spirit fan designs for Miku show up in games or on figures. It is because of this entrepreneurial spirit that allows companies to make money off of Miku’s products, even through the use of a decentralized business model. And in the truest of sense of all things commercialism, Miku is often depicted in pictures that are less than pure.

New York Anime Festival 2010 – Friday

This past weekend was the New York Anime Festival, which was combined with New York Comic Convention. Being located about 4 hours away in Boston and hearing that The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya would be playing, I decided to make the trek down. Here is a chronicle of what I saw and experienced there. I originally intended to make one post, but the post on Friday alone was getting too long, so I’ll split this into two parts. Saturday and Sunday were much less eventful than Friday, so the second post may end up shorter than this one.

New York Anime Festival 2010 – The Cosplay

If you’ve been following my Twitter feed at all, you know that I was at New York Anime Festival (combined with New York Comic Convention) this past weekend. I’m working on a proper writeup of the convention overall, but in the meanwhile, enjoy some photos of the great cosplayers I took over the weekend. You can find all the cosplay photos I took in my Picasa web albums: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3. The resolutions have been reduced from their original 12MP so that they don’t take up insane amounts of space, but if you’d like the full-res version of any of them, just ask. And to all the cosplayers during the convention, thank you!

Anime St. Louis 2010

Anime St. Louis is really the impulse convention of the year for me.  I always decide to go at the absolute last-minute, and then somehow the arrangement just works.  This year, I have Heidi to thank for providing the little convincing needed to go.  Seriously, those puppy dog eyes are powerful stuff.  I also need to thank Alisa for providing lodging during the convention so I could attend all three days instead of just one.  Now, without further ado, the convention coverage!

Anime Boston 2010 Wrap Up

As expected, day 2 saw more cosplayers than day 1. Day 3 had fewer, of course, and had a more relaxed, muted atmosphere as well.

Again, I’ve uploaded the photos I took onto Picasa: Day 2 and Day 3.

Maybe this will help him get over his depression

Anime Boston Day 1

Well, Boston was blessed enough to have a gaming convention then an anime convention on back to back weekends, both at Hynes Convention Center, conveniently enough. Naturally I took the day off work to attend day 1.

That's dedication!

Dance in the Vampire Bund 11 – Underworld

There was more talk and less action in this episode than I expected, but I found that to be alright, because the talk brought back that very important issue that had been ignored for the last many episodes: Akira’s continued amnesia. And it ties it together with Telomere; what Akira still doesn’t remember is what Telomere wants. And Telomere comes back in this episode to get it from him. With just 1 more episode left, all the loose story ends have come together, for one last Dance… in the Vampire Bund (sorry, hate me if you want to for that).

PAX East Day 2

Well, Penny Arcade kicked off their first PAX East here in Boston at the Hynes Convention Center, so I had to attend. I didn’t make it in time on Friday because I had to stay late for work, but today, Saturday, I spent the whole day there, from 10am to 10:30pm.

Ohayocon 2010 – WE’RE IN COLUMBUS, TRIIIIIIIIICK

We all learned a lot this weekend. CJ learned how to BS improvise the first 25 minutes of a panel when the projector fails. Rakuen learned functioning on 3 hours of sleep is not easy. (We suspect he already knew that, but perhaps he’d forgotten?) Dave learned nothing, because he was busy working his butt off running the game rooms. And Jenni learned that 4 Russias and one Latvia makes for a very interesting photoshoot.

It was an educational weekend, but most importantly, it was fun (and more than a little wild.) Our writers presented 3 panels, including Anime Blogging 101 and the premiere of Anime Blogging 201. Though we had to battle a fair number of screw-ups and miscommunications, everything worked out in the end, and we made the most of the best Ohayocon yet.