Light Novel is Expanding in Anime World

Photo by Hayarina

Many animes are based one Manga. This type of anime includes DRAGON BALL, Card Caprtor SAKURA, DEATHNOTE, Doraemon... Nowadays, I think more than half of animes on air are originally started as Manga.

Other source of amines are game and light novel, which are particularly increasing. I'd like to talk about "light novel" today.

Light Novel(juvenile novel) is basically novels for teens. Though the definition is not clear, it can be said they usually have many illustrations in the novel, in some cases by famous dojin illustrators. This may be because the readers are tend to be otaku...But the influence of light novel isn't limited to otaku; Quite frequently some light novel are listed as #1 sales among all novels.

This category is not so new, there have been since 1990 or more past. The early examples of anime introduced from light novel would be Slayers(1995). However, the number of animes seems to be exploded in this three years. Namely, Suzumiya Haruhi, Shakugan no Shana, Full Metal Panic... it would be impossible to show them all.

I'm frequent reader of light novel from my younger times, I grew up with Slayers and Records of Rodoss War. Usually these novels are written by plain text, however some have inpressive expression. My definite recommend is "Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu" or "Iriya's Sky, Summer of the UFOs" by Akiyama Mizuhito. Though his novel also transfered to anime, it seemed to me that the sense of the text was not fully transported. Full translation might be impossible by today's level of anime.

The distinction between light novel and common novel is becoming more vague. Some writers started their career in light novel have got most respected prize in literature (Naoki prize). In the othre case, Otsu-ichi(he's one of my favorite, also light novel writer at first) is now considered as one of the most prominent young mystery writer.

We can't take our eyes from light novel!

No Moe, No Holidays

Photo by Raise

There have been succeeding holidays (called Golden Week) in Japan. Many people travel abroad or inside Japan, or go to amusement park, special convention, so on.
Trains and airplanes are full and roads are highly congested. Are some 20 miles of congestions common in your country?(I don't know well about other countries...)

I went to my grandparent's house, thus there was no Moe in this Golden Week, handful of anime unwatched are only remaining ^^;

Here's a photo report of Children's day(5/5) in Akihabara. It seems there're plenty of maid, lolita, TV staff, maid, China clothes, police officer, family, Dragon Ball, figure, Kamishibai, Hentai illustration, Oden-can, police officer.
Akihabara goes as usual, because Akihabara may be always in festival (^^)

Photo by Nimble

Today I'd like to report Today's Akihabara.
The photo is here on the web.

As you may know, there're some cosplayers including maid, anime characters and so on, on every weekend... no, everyday.Especially in the weekend, entrance by cars to the main street is prohibited and 100 feet wide road become open for pedestrian. Thus, dozens of maid-san fill the 1500 feet long road and so the cameraman want to take a shot, police officeres trying to break up large crowds ^^;

Also today, maid with "no underware" walked gracefully with her hands down. It is also usual that many cameraman surrounded her and took many photo...

Only the difference was that, the maid was a cute dog .

* "With no underware" or "Pants-haitenai" is one of an attribute(Zokusei) and a point of moe. CO2A(Komatsu Age) is one of the famous illustrator of this category. His paint is my favorite (^^)

My Memory of Amarican Animes

Photo by Hayarina

From April, new episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was started. It is the first time on air in Japan since 1993, thus I enjoyed this anime with old memories.

I think the first anime would have produced in US, and animes from US, especially in '50s or '60s, were on air in Japan. I can recall,

Looney Tunes(Bugs Bunny and Road runner)
Tom and Jerry
Disney
And also, my friend suggested Peanuts(Snoopy) (I don't remember this anime well, though I really like manga of Peanuts)

Since '80s, there have been few animes from US, probably as much as 1 anime a year. However, there animes constitute a substantially large part of my anime history.

I hope this time's Ninja Turtles is remembered long time as well, and some new interesting animes are imported from all over the world.

Link to Kigurumi websites added

Photo by ZoE

Some links to Kigurumi websites are added. Although you already know some of them (all of them? ^^;)

I divided websites into "English available" and "Japanese." You would have little difficulty to find Kigurumi photo gallery at websites in former category, so why don't you visit?

Link to this blog is welcomed, I'll be glad if you told me about that. Moreover, though I added every website with Kigurumi gallery I found, it's impossible to find ALL. If you kindly introduce me about other site, I can add it.

In addition, I'll be happy to advice how to write on your website English-user-friendly or Japanese-user-friendly.

Cosplay Festival at Palpal

Photo by Koma

Hello,
I went to Cosplay Festival at Lake Hamanako, called "Cosplay Frontier at Hamanako Palpal." (It would be correct to say Cosplay Festival, rather than Convention, as there are no meeting or talk show other than cosplay contest.)

As the location is between Tokyo and Nagoya, I could meet some kigurumis from Western Japan, who rarely come to Tokyo. And I enjoyed playing in the scenary of water, green, and some European styled street.

The themepark was filled with many cosplayers. If you don't do cosplay, it would be interesting to come. Why don't you? (I can give you some information about cosplay festival.)

PS) I will be glad if you could send me some photo of me...

Baseball, enemy to otaku, has begun!

Photo by Raise

Baseboll game IS NOT enemy. The enemy is BROADCASING of baseball on TV. Enemy to what? The answer is: ANIME.

Spring is the time for new anime to start. I'll check 25 or more animes, this is not the today's topic.

Why baseball on TV is enemy to anime? That's becasue baseball broadcastings usually don't end on time, and a lot of animes are on air midnight, after baseball.

If a baseball game doesn't finish in 3 hours, the TV program will extend 30 minutes or more. then, following program including anime will delay.

As anime is on air midnight, between 0:00AM to 4:00AM, we usually set a recorder to record it, say, set to record 1:00-1:30 program. However, because of the delay by baseball, the obtained video would be the program which should have been on air 0:30-1:00 if on time.

Thus the only I get is TV shopping program selling strange products^^;

All the anime otakus should pay attention to the baseball following 6 months...

PS. I really like baseball itself, thus it is ambivalent.
PS2. I think half of animes is on the midnight, 35 percent on the evening, 15 percent on the morning, in today's Japan.