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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.

Before I proceed with this review–and I hope it won’t be too long–I’d just like the readers to keep in mind that my Japanese comprehension is still pretty bad, and I had to pee like crazy half-way through the film which resulted in me paying more attention to finding a good moment to slip out than actually watching the movie proper. Anyways.

I hadn’t actually heard of Summer Wars until I landed in Japan–I guess it didn’t really get much press or something, because the first time I saw anything about it was on Moetron’s season listing some months back. I was immediately taken by the Sadamoto character designs, as well news that it’d be made by the same team that brought us Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo. As time went on, I noticed that the film would be using some really Murakami Takashi-esque imagery throughout, which kind of put me off, but didn’t make me hate it on sight. Upon seeing the film now, the Murakami imagery wasn’t a problem at all… but other things did hold it back from being awesome.

The thing that hurts this movie the most is the fact that Tokikake’s boots are kind of difficult to fill. Tokikake is an extremely emotionally charged film, and I don’t think Summer Wars really lives up to that. Not that it really tries to, but what it aims at just doesn’t seem to be what you should be aiming for if you’re the guys who made Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo. It does aim high, and I think they hit their mark, but it seems they kind of missed what made Tokikake such a charming film.

To put it simply, the movie is far too plot centric.  You can read all about that here. Where Tokikake put character interactions and the like first, Summer Wars sets up its plot as the most important part. That wouldn’t be a bad thing, but when your plot is “country hicks have to defeat the rogue AI before it takes over the internet” it does leave something to be desired. And it’s not as if these characters are bad–they’re all spunky, energetic, eccentric and fun in their own ways, but there’s just too many of them! Running at nearly two hours long, the movie still doesn’t have enough time to expand upon its cast to the point that we can really care about them. Heck, I can only remember three of character’s names. But it’s not a bad movie. It’s a fine race-against-the-clock, sci-fi sort of thing, but when you take into consideration the kinds of heights that Tokikake leapt for (pun intended), it leaves one with a profound feeling of “that’s it?”

The movie looks fine. The animation is nice, fluid, and has lots of life. The main thing that bothered me, though, was that the characters didn’t seem as solidly rendered as the characters in Tokikake. They seemed to take on more blob-like existences when we got into medium shots, and faces became less-detailed than I would have cared for. The Murakami-influenced stuff is decent. I liked it better than I thought I would, but it still stinks of Murakami. Once again, it’s not bad, it just doesn’t seem to live up its predecessor.

In the end, even though I did go in with slightly low expectations, the fact that Summer Wars met them was kind of disheartening. It isn’t a bad movie. It’s a fine movie. It’s just not as good as the other one those guys made.

Original Post

Here’s a comic that won’t be funny unless you get most of the references. Heck, it’s probably still not funny even if you do get them. But I like it, so I made it. It’s my comic after all, I’ll do what I want!

This comic was kind of born from me just wanting to reference a bunch of (mostly) old school shows, and then in the end I wrapped it all in a Pani Poni Dash gag that I believe also turned into an old 2ch neta. I figured I’ve already alienated my readership with this blog entry some days ago, so why not go all the way and throw out some jokes only I’ll get? Sounds good to me!

Comiket is approaching with speed comparable to that of the Millennium Falcon, and I’ve yet to mark off my maps. I’ve just been so busy walking around Japan and taking pictures! I’ll try to mark my stuff off tomorrow. I’m lining up days 1 and 3 most likely, and just strolling in on day 2. I know some readers are going, so if you’re interested, drop a comment in the comments section and maybe we can work some last-minute meet out.

That’s all for this week. There probably won’t be comics for the next week or two due to a) Comiket and b) me going back home. So you’re left this one for a while! Enjoy it!

Ok, I’ve seen my fair share of fanservice anime in my time, but never have I seen service shots such as these.

When did sand on the boobs, and the wiping of said sand from the boobs become in vogue? Did I miss the memo?

Hey guys, maybe if the Pachinko game is successful they’ll make more Nadesico!!!

…yeah, right.

Shinjuku Tsutaya is truly a force to be reckoned with.