Support for Otaku Travelers to Japan

I suppose the readers of this blog is otaku or kigurumi-lover.

Why don't you come to Japan? Traditional buildings including world-oldest wooden temple, exotic festival, very urban streets, and the hottest anime/manga culture!

However, it would be difficult to find human-sized figure, latest amine or lolita costume, even hentai dojin with an English guidebook of Japan.

Furthermore, I think there're no information in English, as to when you can see kigurumi. Kigurumi aren't walking at the street of Shibuya any time!

If you have an interest, I'd like to support your planning in Japan. Don't hesitate to mail me! (address is shown in the right row)

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Photo by Tonta

Toshimaen with a English Lady!

Photo by Tsukino-Tsubasa

with:

Chiffon(http://savemind.blog20.fc2.com/)

Haruna

Plastic Sister(http://plasticsister.com/)

I went to Toshimaen Cosplay Festa last Sunday!

We had a little rain, but many(around 10?) kigurumis are playing there. I also had a chance to take a picture with Mask Rider ^^

I enjoyed so much with a foreign guest. I'd like to show my gratitude for who supported us.

Kigurumi Spam

Photo by tarax

No, There isn't actually what I should call kigurumi spam ^^;
It would be very funny if I receive "Kigurumi mask at 50,000yen!" or "I'm a kigurumi girl, why don't you date with me?"


Many English spam mail(and few important mail) come to my mail account, thus mailer's filter got strict at English mail. (Actually some mail went to dustbox automatically, some are rescued and the others are... I don't know)

It is not limited to when you kindly sending me a e-mail; It is needed to make your mail to be not regarded as spam, especially when you send a mail to Japanese.

When you're sending me an e-mail, it would be appreciated if you include the word something like "kigurumi." Thank you.

Is Today February 26??

Photo by Tonta

I went to Ikebukuro(also known as the town of Fujoshi, who loves BL) to buy just published "Hidamari Sketch" No.3.

Hidamari Sketch is a 4-koma manga(I didn't know this type of manga doesn't seem to be popular outside Japan, see Wikipedia), and was translated into anime. Next anime series is also in preparation as "Hidamari Sketch x365."

The author is Aoki Ume, who is also known as the illustrator of Mecha-Shindoh, a mascot character of previous Ero-ge maker Neko-Neko Software. (Kataoka Tomo, the writer of Narcissu (have you ever played this english-available visual novel game?) , is the director of this ero-ge company.)

Anyway, I went to Ikebukuro and couldn't find this manga, and the only one thing I could found out was that today is 26Feb, publish will be 27Feb.

UmaUma.

I often find some photographs where kigurumi is holding some latest gadgets and saying "Hi I got this one!" I want to do that, but it will take much time and then I won't have enough time to write this blog(lol

Study Study Study, That's My Life

Photo by Nimble

I had so much studying that I went to Wonder-Festival last Sunday (Too much studying drove me going to kigurumi heaven, and winds browing veeeeeeeeery strongly!)

Yes, the winds here in Tokyo have been very strong in these days, and WF office had to decide to close outdoor phototaking space... The allowed space inside were very narrow and so crowded that you can't expect a lot of kigurumi photos uploaded.

Though I couldn't find a lot of kigurumi there, I did meet some new kigurumi. How cute they are! However, recently I have found many very kawaii kigurumi outside Japan. I hope I can meet them in US, Europe, Taiwan and other areas.

P.S. I'm planning to visit Venezia and north Italy in early July.(Might be influenced by the manga "ARIA") Aren't there some kigurumi? ^^;

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P.S.2 I hope some larger masks come to be available, because it would come to be unnecessary to pay heavy attention to my weight :-P

Photo Reports of GURU-CON!

Photo by Saya-mikan

I collected several photo-reports of GURU-CON. Here're the links...



Nari-log. I went to GURU-CON Vol.1!
Taking a picture record of show Kigurumi Event
Yossii's blog annex Yesterday's GURU-CON 1 2 3 4
gerog v2 GURU-CON Vol.1 Pictures Flickr
Karin's Blog Well done, GURU-CON My friend's...
Kinokuni Blog I went GURU-CON and wore it
Mame-san and myself and daily life GURU-CON
Kamio GURU-CON 1st
WONDROUS Pharmacy GURU-CON #1



Can you feel the atmosphere?


There were a self-introduction by each kigurumi, discussion about kigurumi, Puri-kura(mini-photo booth) service, kigurumi mask & zentai shop, and Princess Hug(Ohimesama-dakko, what to say in English?) competition.

I'm looking forward to more events planned at the next GURU-CON.

Through Otaku Eyes: Article from World-Largest-Newspaper

photo by geroine

Yomiuri Shimbun(Newspaper) is approved by Guiness Book to have the world-highest newspaper circulation(about 10,000,000 copies daily).

In addition, this newspaper is gathering wide attention by Japanese otaku, as this paper published an article introducing otaku culture.

The important point is that, these article is not like ordinary article written by non-otaku, such as "moe is sweeping in Japan!" I'd like to list some of the titles:

Imouto(younger sister) Moe
Legend of Futari-wa-Pretty-Cure
Our Dojinshi was sold out in Comic Market!

What deep themes they are dealing with! Please think as if, in New York Times, it is discussed how Nagisa and Honoka is moe :-)　No other newspapers have this sort of articles about latest otaku culture.

These articles are written by two full-time journalist who are otaku themselves: Fukuda Makoto and Ishida Kanta.

It is disappointing this regular series was finished, however, they are still active in writing otaku-related articles and introducing midnight moe anime.

And now, they started to write otaku articles on The Daily Yomiuri(English paper published by Yomiuri Shimbun).

Here are links to recent articles. Why don't you read them?
THROUGH OTAKU EYES / It’s no longer Japan’s secret: Cosplay is sweeping the globe(cache)
THROUGH OTAKU EYES / Romantic sighs of ’moe’ unheard by loves(cache)
THROUGH OTAKU EYES / ’Eva’ rebuilt, but not epoch-making(cache)