Mistakes of Youth: The Blog (Powered by EXCELLENCE!)

I was given $75 for Barnes and Noble, so after buying a new phone and depositing some living expenses into my bank account, I decided to drop by the nearby B&N to scout out what’s good in the US.

Man, everything I wanted was  expensive Viz Signature stuff. Well, that or series I have yet to complete (NHK, Karin, Hayate…) In addition to all that, I did consider buying the translated volumes of Zetsubou Sensei, as well as the Haruhi novels. They didn’t have the Haruhi novels at my local store, though. Just volume 3 of the manga. Hmm.

Also, why is Dark Horse translating Ikari Shinji Raising Project?

One thing I noticed about the manga section at this B&N was that it was a whole shelf smaller than it was before I left for Japan. Little did I know that was only the beginning of it!

Afterwords I went over to my local Best Buy with hopes of finding the first Hayate collection, only to find that the anime section had become far more depressed than it already was when I left for Dai Nippon! All of the DVDs were displayed cover forward, there was bunch of empty space, and a lot of the stuff was either sure-fire sellers or old unsold singles.

None of this felt strange, though. Neither the $10 dollar price tags on manga, or the minuscule anime DVD section. I guess I wasn’t in Japan long enough for that stuff to feel weird.

Hell, the only weird thing that happened was that I kept standing on the wrong side of the escalator.

One international trip and a week-long vacation later, we (royal we) here at Mistakes of Youth are almost once again open for business.

I know there hasn’t been a comic for the past three weeks. I acknowledged that this may well be the case in the last comic update. There probably won’t be one for this weekend either since I’ll be moving into my new place in Boston. However, I do have six strips planned out, and with courage and hope I’m going to try and punch them out in two weeks to finally round off the characters’ time in Japan.

お楽しみに！

Public trash cans.

They don’t have them in Tokyo. Well, maybe outside of Seven Eleven or something, but generally there’s no public trashcans. Certainly not in parks.

Ok, what the fuck’s going on here? There have now been more than three separate occasions where I’ve seen Fluke’s (even if Fluke vectors doujin images, he credits the artist so he’s cool in my books) vectors of TimTimMachine’s work around AKB.

First Occasion

Ok, this actually wasn’t in AKB, but in Shibuya Mandarake. I also lack photo evidence (for obvious reasons), but bear with me, ok? While looking through cheap and bad doujin dakimakura I’d never buy (all the good stuff is the showcases) I came across a cover that was clearly just an older version of this vector.

It struck me as odd then. An anomaly. I don’t doubt that bootlegged anime goods exist in Japan (they exist in large numbers) but the fact that I knew both of the parties involved behind that imagery did spook me a bit.

Second Occasion

In the midst of some late-night AKB strolling, I wandered towards one of the shadier stores to check out their wares. Low and behold, I found (what looks like) a mini dakimakura, once again featuring another older version of this vector.

Third Occasion

This third run-in comes to us via Akiba Blog-san, but I do intend to check this out later myself. Long story short, some guy in the backstreets of AKB decided to make bootlegged oppai mouse pads. The imagery used is either appropriated fanart, or appropriated official imagery, but the Mikuru pad is–once again–a vector by Fluke based off of a TimTimMachine illustration. While the original can’t be found (a lot of the old vectors got lost in some site move, by the way) here’s a newer version. That’s an 18+ link, by the way.

I won’t be buying any of these since I don’t like bootlegged goods, even if official Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu dakimakura and oppai mouse pads are zero in number. Ok, so Animage did put out some low quality Haruhi dakimakura (one of which I have) but that’s it. Clearly if they want to get a one-up on these pirates, Kyoto Animation must act with official goods.

I’m waiting for that Mikuru dakimakura, you hear?

In order to convey the greatness of figures to more, let’s say, “normal” people, our buddy Danny Choo decided to hold (past tense, I believe it’s over) a figure display in hipster-haven Harajuku in an attempt to fulfill this goal. That was the Tokyo Figure Show. Near the end of the showing, he decided to throw a party, and me being who I am decided to attend.

I actually popped my head over to the display a few days before the party to take some photos without being surrounded by too many people. The figures on display covered a decent rage, but I noticed that posables–Figmas, Nendoroids, and the like–were clearly the favourite. Series wise, it skewed a lot towards Haruhi and Lucky Star, which makes perfect sense. The Figma of Danny’s mascot, Mirai, was on display, and it seemed pretty well made.

The party was pretty good. Since it was being held in what seemed like a display space sponsored by Vitamin Water, free Vitamin Water, as well as Vitamin Water cocktails were served for the low, low price of free. Danny’s actually a great MC–really funny, and does well to excite the crowd. There was one janken tournament for three Vocaloid figures, and afterwards he gave out free Petite Nendoroids to those who don’t already own figures. I asked if I could take one, and he said only if I write a report on this event.

But that’s not why I’m writing this report!

What I do want to write about are the two fascinating people I met there. The first one was a Japanese guy in his mid-30s who works for the figure site Amiami.com. It was neat talking to him because he was an oldschooler otaku, and he just happened to have lived in West Virginia of all places. It was pretty cool to hear his stories as a lone Japanese man in redneck country, but it was even more interesting drilling him for info about “The Good Old Days.” Had I known I was going to meet someone like this, I would have prepared questions, so I was kind of reduced to asking him about the general climate of fandom in the 80s and 90s, and what the popular shows were.

The most interesting thing I took from this conversation was his comments on fan culture then, and fan culture now. In the 80s and 90s, there wasn’t much in the way of licensed goods, so people had to make their own. As such, Comiket and Wonder Festival were born. Now-a-days there’s a ton of official merchandise, and it’s resulted in fans turning more into consumers, rather that creators. He also noted that otaku back-in-the-day had a more scholarly knowledge of their obsession, while people today don’t care as much. This is kind of the same story you hear when you talk to any older fans, but it was neat hearing it from an Actual Japanese Person.

The other person I met was Adrian Lozano, a frequent poster on the Macross World forums, as well as the behind-the-scenes man for the blog Otaku2. Talking with him was fun, even if our conversation just kind of degenerated into the strengths and weaknesses of Eva 2.0, and us talking about Colony Drop’s most dangerous contributor, Sean. He did weigh in with some interesting views of fanculture, as well as the way he’s changed as a fan over the years.

So yeah, overall it was a good time. A+++ would attend again. Probably needed more Vitamin Water cocktails.