12 Days 2009: Day 2 – NYCC and fans.

So what was great about February?

In One Word – or Four – NYCC aka New York Comic Con!

I was there as press so it made it something interesting. Got to see some interesting manga panels. It was three days worth of convention coverage, but what I felt was a strong image to those days were the hoards of Sakurai Sho/Arashi fangirls on Friday. NYCC capitalized on this, have a certain guest, and the fans will come.

So it may or not be that, I am going to be on the mark or not. I do notice some other Anibloggers already on their second day of 12 Days, and I know that Kairu is going to be doing a 12 Moments in Anime spin.

Oh well, I like to give some closure for my blog on a year’s review. Hence my reasoning for including real personal photography as well. On the side note, thanks to Oishii Anime for linking back.

12 Days 2009: Day 1 – Beginnings and a relay.

The picture is from Tsuneki’s deviantart page.

January

Began my 2009 year strongly with a resolution to write as much as I can. January was a month of beginnings.. >_<Wrote 19 blog entries this month.

• Reviewed two artbook and a cd I brought.
• Began Anime Female Feature, which is currently at a standstill.. hopefully will pick it up again.
• Started anticipating New York Comic Con 2009.
• Added a paid WordPress feature that I didn’t use as much as I though I would have.
• Did a figures wishlist, of which I picked up most of the figures.
• Wrote about my Japanese learning goals.

Photography Final: Carue’s Journey

Sooo yesterday I presented my photography final project, and yes after two hours of waiting at the photography lab, I arrived at my class late. Because I was late, I was one of the last presenters, when the professor mentioned to hurry up, I pretty much stammered my entire presentation out. I really don’t have much practice with public speaking.

I doubt anyone, outside of knowing any thing about One Piece or Black Lagoon or the premises of figure collection, knew what my project was on. I took way more pictures, will upload them to Flickr at another time.

The most memorable comment was that someone wanted to punch the duck out. Duck meaning Carue. Last week after my professor said that the pictures were all looking as if they were out of a catalog. I was up for a long time trying to imagine a premises of it being  a good project. So, I went and found a vector image from Anime Paper, and the superimposed that image on all of my figure picture. I was thinking it was pretty cute idea. Similar to that traveling garden gnome commercial that was several years ago. Apparently my line of thinking wasn’t the purpose of the final, so I may have over thought the project a bit too much. Oh well.

These images actually weren’t the best that I have got, but with the fact that I was going on days with not much sleep, and I wanted to get a certain perspective, without the pictures looking as if they should be in a catalog.  I chose some images as representations. My favorite shoot was with Franky and Brook. Hardest to shoot was with Shenhua, and Luffy. I pretty much scared my mom out of the kitchen after something happened with my Vivi.

I usually don’t have any of my One Piece or Shenhua figures outside of their boxes, because there is simply no space, and with the highway outside where I live, dusting would be a daily nightmare. I brought most of these pieces from Japan. At the moment, I have one more figure in Japan, and ordered two more figures for next year.

If the images are under the cut are, small, then I have actually uploaded them to my flickr.

What do you think?

Kimi ni Todoke – Midway Review (8-9)

Ahh so this my impressions of a midway point for this series. Since there is only going to be 12 episodes, this blog entry is slightly delayed. But so far, I have been ooohing and ahhhing over the series. Mainly because the show is cute and the art is nice to look at. All sparkly and such.

In the ninth episode, I just noticed how nice it was where Kazehaya fans himself with a paper while he blushes. That movement just seems so smooth, I can only imagine how much paper it would take for the cells to be like. Then I recall that this is a Production I.G. anime, so most likely scenes is a computer generated movement, with some cells, but not every movement a cell drawn image.

So the pattern of Sawako being pretty embarrassed to having that much friends continues, but with the interactions of other characters other than herself, it makes the work more exciting to look at.

There are several elements thing that plagues this work, and puts in my book as a shoujo that is not as bad to watch as other *series.* The issue is the continuing jealousy and love triangle that would should bring some conflicts to the shy relationship of Sawako and Kazehaya. Nearly everyone around them, would know of their feelings for one another, except for the main couples themselves. Gendomike of Anime Diet wrote his perspective on points that I feel that might be relevant to where my idea is going.

I don’t particularly care about how this would probably end the anime, since there is only twelve episodes scheduled. But I also realized that this is a high school situation, probably not realistic to reality at all. The conclusion of the anime is going to be prompting any viewers to go to the manga, as they have with series like Kare Kano or Fruits Basket, or Special A.

I don’t really recall much shoujo series being animated for the entire series, other than Fushigi Yuugi, Ayashi no Ceres, Marmalade Boy and Hana Yori Dango, but even then those might have some differences that I am not aware of. I still have yet to read the manga yet, but yes the manga will be continuing the series. I will probably miss the anime when it ends though.

12 Days 2009 – Preparation..

Okay okay, so this year, was reminded by _eternal to think about 12 Days, since I did it last year on this blog – wanted to do something like that for 2009 as well.

As a blogger, I wish I was as prolific as other people’s blogs are, but yeah, so there is a wish to be completed in my long list of things to do or buy.

12 Days as I remember was a anime blogging project that I began last year, that called for bloggers to recap elements of what happened in a particular blogger’s previous months, what symbolized that month for the blogger in their mind.

So my 12 days entries will begin on December 14, and run until Dec 25.

Microwavable mochi = cardboard tasting glue?

I found this commercial on Japan Probe on mochi.

This is of course a commercial for microwavable read made mochi, somehow with the fact that freshly pounded mochi is kinda of a publicize event, demand is inevitably greater than supply, hence the microwavable mochi. The effect is kinda lost though. Can only wonder as to how this would taste like.

Can only think of cardboard or glue as the result of microwaving this treat. Even the video reflects that it looks like glue.. >_<

Any opinions?

2009 Great Manga Gift Guide

Ahh I am getting pretty happy with the amount of graphic novels that are coming out by various publishers, in the next couple of months. I took an interest in Yuricon’s call for reader/reviewers to provide a graphic novels gift list. At this time, reading graphic novel takes about 55% of my time. I believe that these lists, are a great way to push forth favorite or great manga titles to be shared.

I notice some interesting discussion issues that are brought up by Deb Aoki

debaoki: let’s face it, manga is still considered an exotic, misunderstood genre to many mainstream US comics fans.

debaoki: i live for the day when i see manga reviewed/profiled more frequently on NPR, NY Times, LA Times, Entertainment Weekly, etc.

I agree with probably the first one, but then again I wonder where does publishers send graphic novels, since I am not sure if it is that widely distributed, as I hear a classmate complain how limited the Borders in Staten Island mall wouldn’t have as much Graphic novel content as a Manhattan Borders.

The second point, I see as something I see stating as a small feature in the Librarian trade magazines, so yes, it will be good to see graphic novels reviewed/profile more frequently on mainstream papers, but my only issue – how much of the news that will be in mainstream paper, won’t be redundant repetitive news for people who are readers of graphic novels?

Anyway!!!! Back to this Manga Gift Guide List! There is no clear theme in what I read, since I read a lot. I will try to separate it into gifts for a type of reader though. So this list is an actual push for what I loved to read, and seeing  if other bloggers will be rec-ing similar books or else.  ^_^

Photography Midterm

With the semester coming to a close sooner.. and I am still working on my final project, decided to put up photos that I submitted for my midterm. The critique I recall hearing, was that these shots looked liked they being prep for magazines. There was no rhyme or reason why I chose these images, can you see/or guess what I did with them? Any comments as to where these shots may or may not have been taken from?