Autumn of Arts

Photo by Saya-Mikan

In Japan, it is said that autumn is the season for cuisine, reading books, and arts. I went to a arts exhibition yesterday and am going to go to listen to a orchestra from now on, I'd like to talk about these.

Yesterday, I went to arts exhibision by Kazuo Oga. Kazuo Oga was a member of studio Ghibli(now he is working as a indivisual illustrator) and he is a specialist of drawing background pictures. He engaged in Tonari-no-Totoro(My Neighbor Totoro) and Mononoke-hime(Princess Mononoke) as an arts director, and also in Majo-no-Takkyuubin(Kiki's Delivery Service), Sen-to-Chihiro-no-Kamikakushi(Sprited Away), Hauru-no-Ugoku-Shiro(Howl's Moving Castle), and many other animes by Ghibli as background picture staff.

This exhibition is to show these background pictures drawn by Oga, thus it was like a exhibition of Ghibli arts.

Each pictures were drawn finely and in detail, I thought it would be too good to be used as merely a background of anime... (it seems pictures of today's anime is far less better in quality than even 80's Ghibli!) Together, it would be impossible to reproduce these fine images on TV... New Generation DVD must be needed!

In this exhibition, popularity of Ghibli is well proven. It took 170min to just enter the exhibition at 11AM! When I stood in a line at 5PM, it still took 130min to reach the entrance!
However long I stayed in line, it was worth visiting.

Today, I'm going to go to a concert performed by Autumn Leaf Orchestra. They are orchestra specialized in music in Hentai Games. Today's program includes music from AIR, CLANNAD, Tsuyokiss, Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru, and other games.

As I know, there's half dozens of orchestra specialized in playing game music and also some "normal" orchestra play game music. However, usually their program is from Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy. Very limited groups play music from Hentai games. (As for band consist of Vo, G, B, Dr, It seeems many are playing Hentai game music, but there're few orchestra)

There're many good musics in Hentai games. Such as from Key, NekoNeko Soft,,, I hope these musics get popularity among the people.

Kigurumi Only Event GURU-CON!

Photo by Yuuki

There're many anime conventions worldwide today. But I suspect a large number of these conventions treat anime generally... I mean, many anime are the subject of conventions.
Here in Japan, Many conventions (in many cases, it is correct to say dojin market) treating specific one anime are held and they are called as "Only-Event"

For example, today Sep 16, 30(!) dojin markets are held in Japan, and 22 of them are "only event". Namely, mimi(girls with animal ears) only, HUNTERxHUNTER only, Hayate-no-Gotoku only, Gintama Sakata x Hijikata only, Characters of Prince of Tennis with Glasses only, so on and on.

Though each dojin-market is small (joined by 40-500 circles) compared to larger one such as Comic Market(50,000 circles), These are held every weekend and nearly all genres are covered. It's not going too far to say that the world of dojin-shi are based on these only events.

It is that only event. 1st Kigurumi only event "GURU-CON" was announced to be held on October 7th 2007. I suppose this is the only "only event" in kigurumi world. This event will include phototaking, broadcasting via internet, and market related to kigurumi.

In the 0th GURU-CON trial last year, about 30 kigurumi joined. The number of kigurumi is comparable to WF, thus could be considered as one of the largest festival of kigurumi.
I don't know well what plan is prepared in this GURU-CON, but something interesting must come, I'm looking forward to join and enjoy it. Please wait carefully for the report.

Our Summer(C72) has gone...

Photo by Saya-mikan

I enjoyed this summer, along with Comic-Market.72th Comic-Market(C72) was held for 3 days. In 20 acres of hall, about 12,000 creaters open their booth to sell their dojin goods. As for some famous dojin circles, the number of books are so limited that many people wait outside from 5AM until the opening, 10AM.

If you go to Tokyo-Bigsight(hall of C72) just in time of opening, there would be long long waiting lane, and it is said you must wait about 1 hours just to enter the hall. That's why I went late afternoon. Although some booth had been closed, I enjoyed the atmosphere of C72. This is the summer for Otaku!

It was very hot in Tokyo that day, the temperature rise to 36C. Along with the heavy crowded people, some 100 people fell off by severe heat. They are brought to care unit by volunteers, and volunteer licenced doctors and nurses took care of them. Yes, C72 is maintained by 2000 volunteers and no paid workers(except for guards). I think this is the wonder of Comiket.

Until tomorrow, the lance of longinus, created inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion, are shown at Ebisu, Tokyo. I'd like to see it!