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Apr 23rd, 2009, 10:14 PM
Noob Blog #2: Out of the room and into the world ! Japan expo 2008 !
Greetings to all my readers or to the minority of ppl that visit these forsaken and desolate downloads deprived parts of the forums... (tense)
Today I have finally taken up the courage of writing (finishing) another blog about the anime/manga world or as some of us may refer to as the otaku world. As I was saying in my last blog, there are many kinds of Otakus. Some are really devoted and share their otakuness with their environment (melonpan with his pillow in the streets for ex -_-‘) and others are rather shy and use the internet to express their feelings about their favourite series/mangas. But have u ever felt the urge to have physical contact with the Japanese culture or just its otaku sub-culture ? OFC other then the daily skinship some of u may have with ur goods (pillows, figures), DVDs or mangas... -_-‘
Well, some of us don’t have that much material stuff to play with. I for instance have sealed away my action figures a long time ago (I had a few power rangers figures when I was a kid...), so collecting small figures with removable pants is not really my thing:
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/115/111cgz.jpg
OK... enough fanservis for Sitheries and the bunch... As I was saying, sometimes it feels nice to go out of one’s chamber, into the wilderness and make ‘contact’ or at least watch other otakus in flesh and blood and be relieved that ur not alone in this fantasy forsaken world ! :D
That is when events like Otakon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otakon come in handy. Well since I’m not in the US, but in France, Paris (I’m not French) the convention I went was Japan Expo.
1. WTF is Japan Expo ?
As I said, similar to Otakon, it’s a place where a bunch of ppl, mostly ppl who can tell a difference between anime and Disney gather to be able to participate in many Japanese culture/sub-culture related events like manga/anime sales (old, really old series... so once again fansubs FTW), J-Music, free projections of Japanese media or something related to it, Cosplay (for the nabs, u never know... cosplay: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosplay) and many more activities.
2. The inner sanctum:
Ill briefly summarise the main activities u can find there since my goal is not to describe the whole thing (there is OFC some boring stuff and its rather big).
a) Stands, stands and some more stands:
Spoils of some Otaku war or just some random junk ppl in Japan threw away 50 years ago ? That’s what ull think if u see the exaggerated amount of stands selling weird stuff like Mario figurines, DBZ action figures, weirs T-Shirts, posters, swords and many other weird unidentified items and objects of all sorts and sizes:
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/9371/222pya.jpg
(Swords + girl cloths = bad combination and organisation... but more importantly why don’t they have pants on ? Emmm Sith where u there that day ? -_-)
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/9687/333egp.jpg
(Cursed dolls... eeem... I definitely get the filing I’ll be cursed if I touch them... o_O)
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/3724/444gyb.jpg
(Invasion of the killer figurines ! xD)
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4239/555npy.jpg
(Lego, did I just see some Lego ? Might also be my imagination... :/)
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/3497/666otg.jpg
(Suki ? No... I’ll pass... (puke))
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/213/777dbt.jpg
(Yeah... someone definitely made a mistake here... :P)
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/6782/888ecm.jpg
(These were expensive... (sob))
Well don’t get me wrong, not all of it was junk, just 80-90% of it was... after an hour... or 2... or more of digging u manage to find some interesting things u wanna buy... I guess one man’s trash is another man’s treasure... :/
b) Non commercial fun... yeah there was some:
Other then junk selling stands there were also other activities, some of them where rather good and fun to watch like promos for some free anime style online games (even though none of them where good enough for me to play them, but I did get a free T-Shirt), a “conference” or something like that with the author of Death Note in person ! Well it was in the morning and as some of u may already know, I kind of like to sleep till noon so I just barely managed to see his... hat covered head form quite far away and heard everyone clap and whistle as he was leaving the stage... anyway must have been fun... probably... :/
Among other events there were also 1 or 2 J-Music lives, which I didn’t see coz well Japan expo is held during 3-4 days so I had to chose one... 2 or 3 days is too much... so I chose the one with the DN author... I taught of making him sign my perfect copy of the death note with all the rules in it ! And see if it works... but as I was late that morning... -_-‘
Now the most disappointing event of all was ofc the Haruhi projection ! Yeah the French are late... and as you all may have guessed the dubs where not from this world... their voices where... weird... didn’t fit the chars and where also kind of old... :S
Anyway u should be glad to know if u live in the US that ur not the only ones responsible for the mass anime massacres that have been happening these last few years... or since the beginning of the anime industry...
As for the best event, I don’t know if I can call it the best event but... let’s say the one that was for me the most fun to watch, was the Cospay event ! It was also the most surprising event of them all. I was kind of expecting some halfassed performance of some 12 year old kids dressed up in DBZ and Naruto costumes they had bought at the local groceries store. But on the contrary there were some pretty nice and professional costumes. Some ppl even formed a group and Cosplayed all the chars (main chars) from Bleach and Naruto. There were also some Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts Cosplayers so all in all it was quite versatile and fun... (Don’t worry there were also these kids dressed in DBZ and Naruto... lots of em... as expected) but I didn’t have a place to sit down and had to stand... after 4H+ of walking... it’s kind of painful... -_-‘
Anyway, sometimes images are better than words so hf with these :D :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/flexgraph/sets/72157606055032899/
3. Much to learn I still have, thus apprentice I still remain:
The whole event was rather fun to watch. It was lively, a bit crowded or maybe too crowded for my taste, (These greedy **** should limit the number of entrances a bit more) but it most certainly was a good experience.
Still, I think that the most interesting thing I saw there where the people. From parents with kids to Cosplayers and from Cosplayers to weird metal guys and gals thinking they were going to bring forth doom upon this world by assisting such an event... Yeah, as a big supporter of anime (and manga ofc) I was kind of in my element but I was also a stranger.
I was normally dressed, the usual, it was hot out there so I had jeans, a T-Shirt, my fav for all weathers and situations hybrid raincoat/jacket that can easily fit into the backpack I had brought along for some goodies (the raincoat really helped... while w8ing in the line outside it suddenly started to rain really hard, some ppl stayed in that rain for like 1h and where completely wet once they entered... (lol)) so yeah I was in my normal stealth-otaku mode, while some were in full-powa costume mode.
Well these ppl that where really well prepared and had really good costumes (or just some average ones) were drooling all over the manga and anime they were selling there... but I... had already seen them ALL (well let’s say 70% +/-, the ones they had there where rather old ones anyway). Some of them were also in huge groups or just small ones (like fansubbing groups... they had big signs saying ***-fansubs) whereas I had managed to drag along only one friend... who was not that much into this stuff. So yeah in some ways I was on a lvl they could only dream of achieving (yeah I know I’m exaggerating :P) coz I spent my last 4 years watching anime (nearly every day)... but in some other way I felt that I had still a long way to go to fully be able to enjoy such an event.
Anyway I did not bring shame upon this community ! Thus I brought some spoils of war ! Here is one of em and at the same time BIG fan service to Darksage (lol):
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/5881/999yrz.jpg
Now its ur turn ! Tell us if you've already been to such an event, or if u plan on going to one again/for the first time and ofc post ur comments on this whole pile of text u have read a while ago witch took away like 5H of my life ! (:])
PS: Sorry for the delay, as u all may have guessed, there is absolutely no valid reason for the delay... but if anyone is at fault then it’s these damn games and damn anime series I kept watching non-stop these past few days that I’m on vacation ! And yes they where fun ! :D
Credits: Me, Google and Word !
Greetings to all my readers or to the minority of ppl that visit these forsaken and desolate downloads deprived parts of the forums... (tense)
Today I have finally taken up the courage of writing (finishing) another blog about the anime/manga world or as some of us may refer to as the otaku world. As I was saying in my last blog, there are many kinds of Otakus. Some are really devoted and share their otakuness with their environment (melonpan with his pillow in the streets for ex -_-‘) and others are rather shy and use the internet to express their feelings about their favourite series/mangas. But have u ever felt the urge to have physical contact with the Japanese culture or just its otaku sub-culture ? OFC other then the daily skinship some of u may have with ur goods (pillows, figures), DVDs or mangas... -_-‘
Well, some of us don’t have that much material stuff to play with. I for instance have sealed away my action figures a long time ago (I had a few power rangers figures when I was a kid...), so collecting small figures with removable pants is not really my thing:
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/115/111cgz.jpg
OK... enough fanservis for Sitheries and the bunch... As I was saying, sometimes it feels nice to go out of one’s chamber, into the wilderness and make ‘contact’ or at least watch other otakus in flesh and blood and be relieved that ur not alone in this fantasy forsaken world ! :D
That is when events like Otakon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otakon come in handy. Well since I’m not in the US, but in France, Paris (I’m not French) the convention I went was Japan Expo.
1. WTF is Japan Expo ?
As I said, similar to Otakon, it’s a place where a bunch of ppl, mostly ppl who can tell a difference between anime and Disney gather to be able to participate in many Japanese culture/sub-culture related events like manga/anime sales (old, really old series... so once again fansubs FTW), J-Music, free projections of Japanese media or something related to it, Cosplay (for the nabs, u never know... cosplay: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosplay) and many more activities.
2. The inner sanctum:
Ill briefly summarise the main activities u can find there since my goal is not to describe the whole thing (there is OFC some boring stuff and its rather big).
a) Stands, stands and some more stands:
Spoils of some Otaku war or just some random junk ppl in Japan threw away 50 years ago ? That’s what ull think if u see the exaggerated amount of stands selling weird stuff like Mario figurines, DBZ action figures, weirs T-Shirts, posters, swords and many other weird unidentified items and objects of all sorts and sizes:
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/9371/222pya.jpg
(Swords + girl cloths = bad combination and organisation... but more importantly why don’t they have pants on ? Emmm Sith where u there that day ? -_-)
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/9687/333egp.jpg
(Cursed dolls... eeem... I definitely get the filing I’ll be cursed if I touch them... o_O)
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/3724/444gyb.jpg
(Invasion of the killer figurines ! xD)
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4239/555npy.jpg
(Lego, did I just see some Lego ? Might also be my imagination... :/)
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/3497/666otg.jpg
(Suki ? No... I’ll pass... (puke))
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/213/777dbt.jpg
(Yeah... someone definitely made a mistake here... :P)
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/6782/888ecm.jpg
(These were expensive... (sob))
Well don’t get me wrong, not all of it was junk, just 80-90% of it was... after an hour... or 2... or more of digging u manage to find some interesting things u wanna buy... I guess one man’s trash is another man’s treasure... :/
b) Non commercial fun... yeah there was some:
Other then junk selling stands there were also other activities, some of them where rather good and fun to watch like promos for some free anime style online games (even though none of them where good enough for me to play them, but I did get a free T-Shirt), a “conference” or something like that with the author of Death Note in person ! Well it was in the morning and as some of u may already know, I kind of like to sleep till noon so I just barely managed to see his... hat covered head form quite far away and heard everyone clap and whistle as he was leaving the stage... anyway must have been fun... probably... :/
Among other events there were also 1 or 2 J-Music lives, which I didn’t see coz well Japan expo is held during 3-4 days so I had to chose one... 2 or 3 days is too much... so I chose the one with the DN author... I taught of making him sign my perfect copy of the death note with all the rules in it ! And see if it works... but as I was late that morning... -_-‘
Now the most disappointing event of all was ofc the Haruhi projection ! Yeah the French are late... and as you all may have guessed the dubs where not from this world... their voices where... weird... didn’t fit the chars and where also kind of old... :S
Anyway u should be glad to know if u live in the US that ur not the only ones responsible for the mass anime massacres that have been happening these last few years... or since the beginning of the anime industry...
As for the best event, I don’t know if I can call it the best event but... let’s say the one that was for me the most fun to watch, was the Cospay event ! It was also the most surprising event of them all. I was kind of expecting some halfassed performance of some 12 year old kids dressed up in DBZ and Naruto costumes they had bought at the local groceries store. But on the contrary there were some pretty nice and professional costumes. Some ppl even formed a group and Cosplayed all the chars (main chars) from Bleach and Naruto. There were also some Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts Cosplayers so all in all it was quite versatile and fun... (Don’t worry there were also these kids dressed in DBZ and Naruto... lots of em... as expected) but I didn’t have a place to sit down and had to stand... after 4H+ of walking... it’s kind of painful... -_-‘
Anyway, sometimes images are better than words so hf with these :D :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/flexgraph/sets/72157606055032899/
3. Much to learn I still have, thus apprentice I still remain:
The whole event was rather fun to watch. It was lively, a bit crowded or maybe too crowded for my taste, (These greedy **** should limit the number of entrances a bit more) but it most certainly was a good experience.
Still, I think that the most interesting thing I saw there where the people. From parents with kids to Cosplayers and from Cosplayers to weird metal guys and gals thinking they were going to bring forth doom upon this world by assisting such an event... Yeah, as a big supporter of anime (and manga ofc) I was kind of in my element but I was also a stranger.
I was normally dressed, the usual, it was hot out there so I had jeans, a T-Shirt, my fav for all weathers and situations hybrid raincoat/jacket that can easily fit into the backpack I had brought along for some goodies (the raincoat really helped... while w8ing in the line outside it suddenly started to rain really hard, some ppl stayed in that rain for like 1h and where completely wet once they entered... (lol)) so yeah I was in my normal stealth-otaku mode, while some were in full-powa costume mode.
Well these ppl that where really well prepared and had really good costumes (or just some average ones) were drooling all over the manga and anime they were selling there... but I... had already seen them ALL (well let’s say 70% +/-, the ones they had there where rather old ones anyway). Some of them were also in huge groups or just small ones (like fansubbing groups... they had big signs saying ***-fansubs) whereas I had managed to drag along only one friend... who was not that much into this stuff. So yeah in some ways I was on a lvl they could only dream of achieving (yeah I know I’m exaggerating :P) coz I spent my last 4 years watching anime (nearly every day)... but in some other way I felt that I had still a long way to go to fully be able to enjoy such an event.
Anyway I did not bring shame upon this community ! Thus I brought some spoils of war ! Here is one of em and at the same time BIG fan service to Darksage (lol):
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/5881/999yrz.jpg
Now its ur turn ! Tell us if you've already been to such an event, or if u plan on going to one again/for the first time and ofc post ur comments on this whole pile of text u have read a while ago witch took away like 5H of my life ! (:])
PS: Sorry for the delay, as u all may have guessed, there is absolutely no valid reason for the delay... but if anyone is at fault then it’s these damn games and damn anime series I kept watching non-stop these past few days that I’m on vacation ! And yes they where fun ! :D
Credits: Me, Google and Word !