The Most Wonderful Time

I am so prepared for Halloween now! Fall Break was perfectly productive, and I am now done with all of my Y-Con cosplays! It's like a miracle! For AWA I was still sewing in the hotel room, but this time I'm ready 4 days early (except for a needing a couple more snaps on my gay clubbing shirt)!

You hear that? I LEAVE FOR CALIFORNIA IN 4 DAYS!!!!

( Cosplay progress pics behind the cut~ )

So the outfits that I'm going to be wearing are Mukahi Gakuto (TeniPuri, borrowed from Paula), Oshitari Kenya (TeniMyu DL6th), Grell (Kuroshitsuji anime), and Kira Izuru (Bleach). There's a chance that I might actually go out gay clubbing on Thursday in my gay clubbing!Kenya outfit, but we'll see how tired I am after the flight for whether or not that actually happens. Either way much fun will be had with Paula yay!!!

And on Saturday I'll get to see all my other closest friends from Japan too! I think we're planning to all have a late lunch together. Man, it's only really just now sinking in that my California adventure is starts this week, but every time I remember, I get even more excited!

So in partially related news, I had a super fun awesome Air Gear cosplay photoshoot with Kilik yesterday~!!!! The pics were all put up on the art server this evening, so as soon as I transfer them over to my computer and sort out which are the best ones, maybe do a little photoshopping, I'll pass them along. (Bur, we should do like we did with our first Falls Park shoot and meet at Coffee Underground or something and go through the pictures together! Maybe sometime next week? Yes?)

Hope everyone has a good Halloween!

Hello, everyone! Time again for another Rachelmas life synopsis!

First of all, even though it was a few weeks ago now, AWA was super awesome. I ended up not wearing any cosplay on Thursday, moving Pierrot to Sunday, and dropping Kozue from my line-up, but whatevs. It worked well that way. If you wanna see pics, they're over here (in the sub albums too). So it was good. I got chill with Seth and Melissa a whole bunch, and got to see Kimmy and Jumi and Bur and Ren, and randomly got to meet Rob for the first time! ♥

Most exciting person I got to talk to though, no offense to my lovelies, was a photographer named Ejen Chuang. He's making a book of American cosplayers, and traveled around the US for a few months, hitting up big conventions and taking pictures for this project! Here's his website, where he posts some of his pictures, interviews with cosplayers, project updates, etc. So yeah, I ended up getting into some big, long conversations with the guy. His project relates very closely to the research that I was paid to do starting this summer, the comparison of Japanese and American cosplay subcultures. In the end, we decided to help each other out. I'm going to write an essay, which is basically an overview of my research, for him to include in his book, and he's going to include a link to my English cosplay survey in his next bulk email, since he had to get some of the contact information of all of the people he got pictures of. This means I'll have hundreds of cosplayers from around the nation taking my survey for epic statistical win, and I'll have a published paper on the topic of cosplay to add to my resume of awesome!

In other news, I did in fact manage to create the FU Anime Club! (In my head I call it "Fuck" because the acronym is like Japanese ファック) We've had 2 meetings so far, each with a decent turnout of 10-15 people. We're working on drawing up a budget request now, trying to allocate funds so that we can take a school-funded road trip to Momocon next spring, and also see about getting an anime dubbing director to come and visit and possibly put together some sort of "voice your own cartoon" event. Big plans for a first-year club. I'm excited.

School has been eating into my time as usual. Yesterday I had my first "holed up in the art building until past midnight" night since I got back, and it was not exciting. >_x Honestly, I really prefer not to dwell on the fact that I have classes, so I'm gonna just skim over that shit and talk about the cosplays I'm working on for Halloween weekend and Y-Con!

My gay clubbing Oshitari Kenya Tenimyu pants are done!
( Pictures under the cut )

After those two things, all I'll have left to make for Y-Con is my lime green frilly gay clubbing shirt. And I have about 2 weeks, including fall break, to get that done! Totally doable. Woo.

Tomorrow is drag day. I'm gonna dress manry.

But instead of going into that, here's my cosplay schedule for AWA next weekend! Don't hold me to it, but I'm thinking....

Thursday- Pierrot (Yakitate!Japan)

Friday morning & afternoon- Hakkai (Saiyuki)
Friday evening- Madame Red (Kuroshitsuji)

Saturday morning- Soi Fon (Bleach)
Saturday noonish- Sleeping Forest Rika (Air Gear)
Saturday evening- Legretta (Tales of the Abyss)

Sunday morning- undecided, maybe Legretta again?
Sunday afternoon- Kozue Kaoru (Revolutionary Girl Utena)

Sunday is still pretty up in the air, since I could wear just about anything in the morning, and I'm not sure if I want to do the black rose duelist version of Kozue, or the school uniform. Might need to see what my other cosplay buddies are planning.

Hihiii. Anyone out there still remember who I am? Figured it was time to break my trend of not posting and to give a nice summary of life. Warning: this post was not re-read before posting, so it's probably full of misplaced thoughts and weird ass grammar issues. Please forgive them.

Biggest change from my last post is probably that I'm not in Japan anymore. I'm not even back in my home town, actually. I've moved from and beyond both of those places, and am typing this entry from my apartment at good ol' FU. Senior year started last week, but that's getting ahead of myself.

~~~~~~

Tokyo was amazing. If you couldn't tell from the way I was posting about it (back when I was still making regular posts), I absolutely loved the time that I spent there. ( Herein lies a synopsis of my overall Japan experience )
I think more than anything, being in Japan made me realize just how much I'm ready to be done with school and start really DOING things with my life. There was so much life to experience in Tokyo, but I often felt that I either didn't have the funds or the time to experience it all. I'm ready to go out and make money doing what I want to with my life and then to spend that money doing what I want to with my time.

Back in the States, I admit that when I first opened the shade over my airplane window I cried for the fact that the sight that greeted me was so. not. Japan. There was a bit of reverse culture shock. Went to PersaFailCon my second and third days home, which was nice only for the facts that a good FU friend (and crush) of mine stayed at my house to see me and attend the con with me, and I got to see most of my close Alabama cosplaying friends and hang out with them.

I only got a month of summer before it was time to move back to college, which wasn't enough time to spend with all the people back home, but it kept me from getting bored and restless. Now I'm all settled in my apartment, and I've already had my first half week of classes. The classes I'm taking are costuming, chemistry for non-majors, painting I, and senior art seminar. I'm also getting paid a little to be a TA in the Japanese 110 class, and I'm determined to establish an anime club here. Hopefully, that won't come to be too much work to handle. My teachers seem nice enough, at least, though my first impressions from my seminar teacher were not particularly pleasant....

If a few weeks I'm planning on going to AWA for a weekend. Still have 2 more cosplays to finish for that: Legretta from TotA and Hakkai from Saiyuki. Then over Halloween weekend I'll be flying to California to see my best friends from Japan ( ♥ ) and to go to Y-Con. I've already got the plane tickets and the event registration worked out. Much awesome!

So, hope to talk to you guys more and regularly. ^^; ♥

Last weekend was a good time to be a foreigner interested in Japanese small theater. Seriously, it was a jackpot of a weekend for me at least.

The epic theater experience started on Saturday afternoon with the *pnish* produced play called Reverse Historica (or 'Rebirth Historica'). It's actually the second time that this play has been performed, but I wasn't in Japan (or even interested in these things at all) when it was first made. This time it had a whole new cast in a whole new location, but was almost line-for-in the same. I've seen the original on DVD a couple times, so I was able to compare them. Conclusion: Amazing!

( More in-depth report under here. )

It's almost unfortunate that the next day, Sunday, had to be so incredibly awesome! Reverse Historica kinda pales in comparison to the experience I had at the DVD release talk event for the play Dust, featuring Nagayama Takashi and Yonehara Kousuke (Hitsugaya/Kikumaru Eiji and RUN&GUN/Romeo of Airmyu). Getting into the event (of which there were 3), you were required to buy a DVD, of course, but rather than buy our own, Paula, Court, and I bought DVDs for some people living outside of Japan and thus each went to an event for free, then convened afterward to compare stories of what happened and what was said. And let me warn you now, this thing is going to be pretty damn in-depth.

( Here's a what was said during the talk portion of my event~. )

So about half an hour in, they ended the talk event and started a prize lottery!!! I swear I've had such horrible luck with these things. always missing the best prizes by one number. It happened at JumpFest and it happened again at Santies.

( WELL I GUESS LIFE FINALLY DECIDED TO STOP BEING A COCK TEASE! XD!! )

Court's report on the first event can be found here, and I'll link to Paula's whenever she gets it posted.

Also! THIS IS THE BEST PAGE OF THE DUST PAMPHLET, OH YES!!!
.

Yes, I still have a lot of life and Japan and fandom stuff to post about, but first! I just finished watching the first episode of the new season of Fullmetal Alchemist!

First impressions? It is very very pretty. I'm liking the animation and coloring style. The opening song was especially wonderfully animated, and I think I need to download the song. The voices are the same as last time in a lot of cases, which is good. The only person that will really take some getting used to is Shinichiro Miki as Roy Mustang. I can see his voice working well, but first I'll have to get over thinking "Yohji?!" every time he speaks. XD;;;

( And from here, spoilers? Maybe, if you're very sensitive about knowing <i>anything whatsoever</i> that happens. I promise I'm being very general. )

So! Gonna apologize now for how long this post will be. I'll try to break it up into parts and hide everything behind cuts so it looks less daunting. XD;

( General stuff and media. )

( FujiQ Highland theme park with pic links! )

And wow that took forever to write! I think I'll stop there for now and post about the anime fair, Kitty Guys, hot spring, and theater plans (and miracles!) tomorrow. XD;;

Oh thank God! Just received this email:

Rachel-

Sounds like there were some communication issues in the fall (I was only copied on the message about your request and there was no follow up or direct communication with me). You really should have received proper approval before assuming that we could waive the requirement, but that said, I'm sorry that I didn't read the copied message carefully enough to know that I should have researched the issue and responded that week. I'm copied on LOTS of email just for my reference.

Your advisor, Dr. Yagi, is great and well on top of all the curricular matters, so let's go with what you two discussed in the fall. I'll waive the regional requirement for you given your unique scheduling challenges and circumstances.

Hope you enjoy the rest of the term and that you're having better weather there than we are here!

Dr. Kaup

I got my damn credit! One less class I have to crowd into my schedule next year! As it should be! Yays! Next year's still going to be stressful as hell, I'm sure, but I'll take every break I can get.

Also, I really want to see/own this. No idea what it's about, but I don't quite care. I know pretty much all of the all male cast, and half of them are dressed like women. Um...yes.

I think there's been far too much happy on this journal over the past few months. I should toss some rage and discouragement into the mix. XO

I've come to the conclusion that senior year at my home university (should things continue in the direction they are going) is going to suck fat, hairy balls. For the past week I've been in regular contact with my advisers back in the States, trying to figure out what sorts of classes I can and will have to take. What's come from it is a lot of confusion and disappointment.

First, I checked to see what art classes would be available next fall and not only were there no art classes relevant to my focus or interests, but the two teachers I've had the most interaction with were mysteriously missing. One of these professors is my adviser within the art department and the other is the person who taught every single one of my computer art/typography/advertising and screen printing classes last year. What the fuck?! After a year abroad I'm returning to school as a senior with a graphic art focus, in need of some direction on things like my senior art show, but the computer art teacher is someone I've never heard of, my adviser is missing, and I'm stuck taking irrelevant beginner classes with a bunch of sophomores. Great. I'm probably going to end up taking something like Painting I, just because it's there, and that class is taught by the ONE remaining studio art professor whom I'm familiar with.

Now, if only that were the end of it, but no. My Asian Studies major had to go and screw with me too. Basically, my Asian Studies adviser will be gone too on sabbatical. This came as a shock, though evidently I was supposed to already know. I didn't. I thought I'd be a teaching assistant for him in the Japanese101 class and everything. Nope, that's a position to be had with another stranger.

And you wanna know the icing on the cake? First have some context. You see, there's no such thing as a Japanese major at the great FU, so even if you've taken, let's say, 36 hours of Japanese language and a collection of courses on art and religion etc, you're not done until you've taken a course on China and one on India. I thought I'd helped myself out by taking a "Self and Society in Eastern Religions" course here in Japan, since more than 2/3rds of the course focused on India and China in turn. But no. Learned today that based on a very recent staff meeting at FU, classes like Buddhism no longer count as regional courses, so the person in charge would feel bad making an exception for me and giving me regional credit. WHAT THE FLYING FUCK?!?! THE ONLY REASON I SIGNED UP FOR THIS COURSE WAS BECAUSE I WAS GIVEN THE IMPRESSION THAT IT WOULD HELP ME COMPLETE MY MAJOR! YOU'RE TELLING ME THOSE HOURS WERE ALL BUT A WASTE?!?! What really irks me is that I asked for confirmation as to this course's relevance way back at the beginning at fall term, back when I could still drop it, but they never got back to me. Now they're denying me the credit because they overhauled the system a week or so ago? AAAAARRRHHHGHHGHG;ZANSDGZO;SOERGH;ZSOIHFSGFNR!!!!!

I just wrote a gracious and cordial email to the person in charge, pleading with her that I get this credit and lighten my load just a little. I'll let you know how that goes. -_- I'll also post about things like theme parks and anime fairs sometime soonish, hopefully. Just had to let off some steam.

3 weeks in America, and they're already over. It was good to see everyone. As I predicted, most of my days were spent sewing and playing video games with the sis, but I'm still really glad I got to spend that time with my friends and family, lazing about and eating American food. I'm also really glad to be back in Tokyo now. Three and a half days here in Japan and I've already got a shit ton to post about! :D And thanks to jet lag, I have the perfect 5am opportunity to do it! :D

The plane ride was not fun since I didn't have any friends or random strangers to talk to for the full 14+ hours, but Paula was awesome enough to come and meet me at the airport and help me carry my bags across Tokyo in the rain. We immediately went and sang an hour and a half of karaoke, and have been going every day since then too. She was going into withdrawal almost as much as I was. XD; After that was CoCo's Curry with the addition of Peter. Made him the happiest person around by passing along some canned squeeze cheese from America~. That night we watched both episodes of Puni Puni Poemy for the sake of staying together and completing something. Now we just gotta watch it again with English commentary. >X3!

The next day was Saturday, and Paula took me to movie theater to see the film of a play called Arashi ni Naru made Matte. Now when I say movie of a play, I mean that there was a stage production which they filmed and then added background music and fade in/outs etc to make it look like an actual movie. And honestly, if I hadn't known beforehand, I might not have realized that the recording was of a stage, it was that well done, the sound was that good, and the mics and audience were that well hidden. The only actor that I knew of beforehand was Tuti, but everyone did a really good job and I absolutely loved the plot and the acting. And then what was really amazing, the lead actress and the guy who acted as narrator and comic relief were sitting right behind us in the theater!!! When the show was done they stood up and went to the front to answer to some comments. they even let us take pictures of the actors, so I have that on my phone~. It was really neat, and I might have to buy the movie when/if it comes out while I'm here. ♥

I spent that night at Paula's place, then on Sunday we went out to Tokyo Big Sight for an art event called Geisei. It was basically a sort of exhibition and competition for budding, young artists in Japan to share their work and be critiqued. It was really interesting to walk around the booths and see everything from calligraphy to metalwork to anime fanart to impressionistic sculpture sets with the artists dressed up and acting as the centerpieces. But honestly, the purpose of the event came a pleasant surprise to us, because our whole reason for going was 1:00 center-stage. KENN and Fujiwara Keiji!!!! (that's Kazu of Air Gear/Myu and Hughes of FMA, for the uninformed)....along with two other guys who I didn't recognize beforehand, but their names are Maeno Tomoaki and Okamoto Nobuhiko (who it seems I actually do know from Potemayo!!! :o ♥) They are all voice actors in a couple of dating sims which are soon to be released, so the MC asked them questions like how they would like to have someone's love confessed to them. XDD!

KENN still needs to eat a sandwich, but he was great, and he and Maeno Tomoaki seemed to be buddies...that or they were bonding on stage over the fact that the Japanese fangirls in the audience would scream and squeal every time they did something so small as to scratch their noses. Nobuhiko was the most adorable thing ever, and I will totally be his fan from now on, he was so absent-minded and cute! When the MC asked everyone how they liked voicing for a dating sim, he started to answer, forgot the question and asked for it to be repeated, then answered that he's always wanted to ride in a giant robot, so playing a character that did so was like a dream come true. XD ♥ He's such a innocent little romantic~. Fujiwara Keiji was....not so excited to be there. Seems like he felt as though he'd sold out by being in a dating sim, but nonetheless, he was entertaining to hear from. I mean, he's the goddamn Fujiwara Keiji!! He congratulated Nobuhiko on achieving his dream of riding in a robot. XDD; So yeah. A lot more was said, but this entry is already really long, so comment if you want to know more~.

Monday was much less eventful. Just watched the first Airmyu backstage and sang a couple hours of karaoke. I could have gone to a mouse-eared musical with Daiki (*pnish*) and Yuya Miyashita (RUN&GUN and Airmyu's Puck) in it, but I wasn't willing to spend the money. I mean, I just paid for my tickets to the Burimyu Film Fest (where I'll get to see Tatsuya, Osamu-chan, Naoya, Nagayan, and Eiki omfg yes!!) and need to pay for Reverse Historica (*pnish* production). I am not feeling very rich right now. XD;; From what I hear it was entertaining, so that's good, but I don't feel too much of a loss.

Sometime this week I should be marathoning anime. Really want to watch more of the Shibatora drama. I'll be going to an amusement park at the base of Mount Fuji on White Day(?). Aaaannnnnndd I really need to make a cosplay post, an art dump post, and a fanfic post (omg fanfiction from Rachel?!?!).

So I really need to make a post about how I'm in America for 3 weeks, got here safely though a little sick, got some pictures to post, photoshoot/meet-up this weekend, etc, BUT THIS GETS PRECEDENCE!!!!

*big breath* I JUST GOT AN EMAIL SAYING THAT I'VE BEEN CHOSEN FOR A FURMAN ADVANTAGE RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP!!!!
In other words: THEY WILL BE PAYING ME $3000 TO DO RESEARCH ON COSPLAY WHILE IN JAPAN OVER THE SUMMER!!!!

If my voice weren't gone right now, I'd be yelling my news to the world from my doorstep, I'm that excited. XDDDDD

So 5 days ago I turned in my final project for architecture and took my final exam for religion, thus completing my first semester of school in Japan. Woo! But that is not the topic of this post.

Rather, 2 days ago I went to Santies!!!!! For those of you who do not know and follow events held by small stage performers in Tokyo (that being almost all of you), this was a talk event featuring the two oldest members of an increasingly popular performance and production group called *pnish*: Moriyama Eiji (of first-cast Tenimyu and Burimyu fame), and Washio Noboru (the quiet one). "San" means "3" in Japanese, and "-ties" is there in the English sense of numbering. The guys formed this special little partnership when they were the first of *pnish*'s four to hit their 30th birthdays. They're now both 32 and this is their 3rd Santies event. I was glad to get in, since I had to buy tickets at the door and was afraid that the popularity of that day's guest, Nagayama Takashi, would cause a crowd. Turns out I got a nice seat about halfway back, though it wasn't nearly as good as the "crotch-cam" view that Paula and Court got from the middle of the second row. XD;

So, like with all my other posts on events of this sort, I won't go into too much detail. Don't want to bore you with things you don't care about (like my hearing commentary on a video of the guys revisiting MoriEiji's hometown, or Nagayan showing pictures of himself as a kid and sharing a story about pulling a bathroom prank on Eiji during their Burimyu days, or the guys all playing pretend pitcher-catcher on stage, or Wasshi being an amazing singer and dancing with MoriEiji to a song they wrote), but I will mention the interesting lottery prizes they were offering~. Basically, if you purchased a tank-top from the merchandise table in the lobby, you got a chance at one of the "adult moments with Santies" drawn for at the end of the show. The shirts were already questionable because they basically had prints of the guys arms or hands hugging/groping you from behind. XD; I bought Wasshi's green gropey one for myself and MoriEiji's black hugging one for Bur, giving myself 2 chances at winning something.

So first they gave away some purikura of themselves based on seat numbers, which I was 3 chairs away from getting, though I wasn't too disappointed for having missed out on it, because after that came the lottery for the good stuff: a Polaroid picture with Wasshi and MoriEiji, the original prototype handprints used for Wasshi's version of the tank-top, and finally an invitation to one of 4 things, your choice of a trip to the park and a hot drink with Santies, a hug from behind from each of the guys, a bar trip to have a drink with the two of them, OR A CHANCE TO LET THEM REENACT THE SHIRTS AND GROPE YOUR BREASTS FROM BEHIND! NOT KIDDING!
It came time to draw winners. My tickets were 935 and 340. It got to the last prize, and I hadn't won, and I didn't really expect to win in an audience of 300+ people, and it was all okay, but then Moriyama started to read off the final number. In the sexiest voice he could muster, "three hundred..and forty........four."

GAAAAAAAHHHHHHHAasdingoaierhgndslfirei. It was like JUMPFest all over again, being 2 Japanese syllables away from winning the most awesome of prizes! I would have gone for the drink option most likely, since I'd never be able to show my face at any of their events ever again if I were to request that they grope me, and really it would have been super awesome to chat over a drink, even though I have very very little confidence in my Japanese speaking ability. At least I got to shake their hands and let them know how much I enjoyed myself as I exited the theater. Hell, not even the lottery was a complete failure, because my friend Paula actually won a picture with the guys! A scan of it is embedded in her awesome and in-depth event report, should you be curious to see or want to read more of what went on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As a temporary sidenote, I did some Bleach cosplay in a park near Waseda yesterday. Borrowed a wig and vice-captain's badge from Paula and played the Izuru to her Gin. I'll post and link pictures as soon as I finish cleaning them up.

And more importantly, I'll be getting on a plane to go back to America in 2 more days!!! O_O! It's really surreal. Doesn't feel like I'm about to be gone from here. I know that a lot of people are looking forward to seeing me, and I'm glad to be seeing them too, but it's a bittersweet feeling, to be truly honest. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself for a lot of my time back, since all my friends will be at work and school for the majority of the day most days, and I only really have plans for dental and hair appointments and for one of the weekends. I expect to spend a lot of time alone and sewing....

Thank you Air Gear manga. Only you can body swap our brand new American president with a middle school girl in a skater gang. The crack that you come up with never gets old. ♥

In other news, I'm totally done with my Japanese class for this term! Don't have to wake up early 3 times a week for 3 straight hours of frustration and moonspeak! I can use that time for better things! Like sleeping. And karaoke.

In fact, by this time next week, all of my classes will be done and over with. Most Waseda students are already done, but my imported western teachers don't understand the Japanese practice of having finals a week early. I don't mind too much though; it's more like what I'm used to. I swear there is already no pressure on me to do anything school related over here because the grading system is so insanely easy (60+ is still a B). It's seriously going to come back and bite me in the ass when I get back to America and have to work on my senior art show and Asian research project stuff. XP

Speaking of America, I'll be returning to the States for about 3 weeks this February! But not before some final fun things like another Japanese small theater performance *crosses fingers for door tickets* ♥ Should be a nice break. I'll enjoy all the people and the American food especially. :P Still, I'll be returning to Tokyo in early March, so I can hit some Japanese anime events and see the sakura trees bloom before my second semester classes begin. ♥

And going back to the topic of work that I'll be doing next year, I turned in an application this past week to be part of some Furman Advantage teacher-student research collaboration. My topic: cosplay. Basically, if I get chosen for this thing, they'll pay me something like $3,000 to do scholarly research on cosplay, a most beloved hobby of mine. ♥ Hell yes. I'll be sure to let you know if that works out.
Also, I agreed to be a teaching assistant in my adviser's first-year Japanese class back in America next year. It's only about 5 hours a week and it's a paid position, doing things like being a conversation partner to the other students, answering questions, preparing teaching materials, and things like that. Sounds nice and simple.

So I think I'm due for another post, especially since a lot of cool things have happened lately, and I'll probably miss a bunch of stuff, but oh well.

Been watching a lot of stuff lately, old and new. Discovering the Yakitate!Japan anime with Paula and Melissa. Showing the Air Gear anime to Paula and Peter, whom I'm also introducing to Gurren Lagann and AirMyu. Being shown TeniPuri, TeniMyu, some *pnish* plays, and Hottokenai *pnish* by Paula in turn. It's a wonder I have time for school work. Oh but wait...I don't really do much in the way of school work. XD; Thank the heavens I only have 2 more Japanese classes and a couple weeks for my finals in everything else. My give-a-damn's loooong busted.

But back on the topic of watching things, this past Saturday I went with a large group of international students from California to a kabuki theater. I was stupid enough to forget my ticket at first and had to make an extra hour long trip down and back to get it from my dorm room. Honestly, though, it's okay that I missed the first act. The thing was a total 5 hours long, and while on my return quest I played good Samaritan and helped some old Australian women navigate the trains so they could get to Asakusa. Once I finally got insidee, the kabuki really was gorgeous, very well performed, the stage was amazing, the women were actually men in women's kimono, but it was also 5 hours long and most of the stories told ended in death. I was falling asleep when I wasn't reading or playing my DS, at least until the AMAZING final act which was wonderful solo dance, though it had a story. Never before have I seen a more beautiful man in a more beautiful set of kimono. It was lovely. But I'm happy to add kabuki to my list of Japanesey things that I've done and don't have to do again. XD;

Last Sunday I went to see the 3rd Bleach movie in theaters. It wasn't bad, though the animation was a bit inconsistent, some of my more favorite characters were underrepresented, and it had plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. Still, I very much enjoyed myself and I'm totally glad I saw it. Also proud of myself for understanding everything that was going on despite the whole Japanese-with-no-subtitles thing. :D For the record though, movie tickets are hella' expensive in Japan, but the chairs in the theater are so comfortable!

And now for the most recent and most exciting of news! Earlier tonight I went to a small theater with Paula and fencer_x to see a play called Ayakashi. I won't go into too much detail because I'm pretty sure all of you on my flist either don't know/don't care about anyone involved in Japanese small theater or you were actually sitting right there with me. But seriously, it was awesome! Daiki (sexy, goofy, funny, mega otaku, leader of *pnish*) was the writer and the main character, and because it was the first showing he had signed postcards for everyone and came out into the lobby to say hello to people from beside the merchandise table. I admit to buying some extra pins just because it meant I could get close and get his personal greeting. XD; The play itself was great fun and made for a great first experience with Japanese small theater for me. Daiki should be proud. The anime-esque cliches were abundant, what with all the swords, demons, peace signs, magical balls, sudden but inevitable betrayal, etc, but it was hilarious still and I loved it to bits. I was surprised by how many of the actors in the all-male cast sensuously rubbed against Daiki's character at some point or another, since Daiki wrote those bits in for himself, but that's cool, and I don't mind. XD; They made an Obama joke at one point, which was awesome and totally caught me off guard. Aaaaaand I'll quit boring/confusing you and stop there! XD I should really be studying for a kanji quiz, writing an essay, and going to bed anyways~.

BEST 5 BUCKS EVER SPENT AT BOOK OFF!!!!!

So you may or may not know that the anime version of Weiss Kreuz was created because the voice actors wanted to start a singing group and hold concerts as their characters. Totally lame true facts. So yeah. At the used book/game/CD/DVD store today we found a DVD copy of their last live. It's like my guilty pleasure and my new found love of Japanese live performances all rolled into one, and it did not disappoint at all. It lives up to its namesake, and while that's not necessarily a good thing, it's bad in the best kind of way. XDDD

There were two levels of funny and great to this thing. The first was that they were but also totally were not getting into the whole "being their characters" thing. I mean, they appeared on stage accompanied by quotes from their characters and opened the show with Velvet Underground, the theme of the first season, and sang all other theme and character songs, but then they didn't really try to act in character at all. XD Tomokazu Seki (Ken) and Takehito Koyasu (Aya) were totally getting into the singing and dancing and hamming it up; Tomokazu especially, bouncing around everywhere and making the most ridiculous faces. ♥ I love him even more now. Shinichiro Miki (Yohji) seemed almost shy. He didn't talk much, and when he did it was really soft and/or fast. However, his pants were pretty tight, and his crotch said hello quite clearly. Hiro Yuuki (Omi)...well I guess his personality fits his character to begin with. Hard to believe that little, girly man is actually the oldest of the four. But! Continuing with the point I was trying to make, they totally changed into their characters' Gluhen mission outfits about halfway though the show. XDDD;; I loled. Those outfits are so bad, but what's better is that Takehito Koyasu basically said during one of their non-singing moments "It's like...cosplaying! That's so weird. And singing like the character would is hard" and Hiro Yuuki had to remind him, "Being our characters was the original concept, you know?" XD And Tomokazu Seki was just off to the side laughing his ass off being like, "Hahahah, my shirt looks normal, but you look dumb~" Something tells me they weren't taking the idea very seriously. X3

The second thing to make this concert so hilarious and thus wonderful was the gay. The implicit gay oozed from this stage like a very porous and homosexual oozing thing. The outfits were bad enough, but when Tomokazu Seki and Takehito Koyasu shared a song called Basanova, Casanova (lyrics include "pry open your lips/I want to pour in jealousy/long, long kiss"), I just about died. And it didn't stop there! With those two especially, it just kept going! Example: it was really warm under the lights on stage, to the point that the band was stripping off their clothes. Two thirds in and Takehito and Tomokazu were sharing a towel and brushing away the sweat as if they're powdering their noses and smiling coyly at each other over the fangirls' screams. XDDD They had to have made a lot of AyaxKen shippers extremely happy.

But the real winning moment!!!! Takehito Koyasu dressed as Aya and groping the shirtless guitarist. Can't say I was expecting that one~. XD

Oh, and to give this post just a little bit of real substance, I only had 3 classes to start back with this week, and they seem to have gone okay. Kanji test on Thursday was not a fun way to jump back in, but we went to karaoke afterwords, so that made it okay. Friday I had to give a group presentation on ring-tailed lemurs with a partner that I had only spoken to once. We met in class and used our free hour at the beginning to organize our information and presentation approach. It's a miracle we pulled that one off, but yay. And then there was watching of Bleach Musical Bankai Code 002 at Paula's. ♥ Kinda sad that there aren't any more of those for me to see...except for the first two which we skipped.

Monday is another Japanese holiday, so I don't have class. :P

Thank you for the help, Paulaaaaa~! ♥ Sorry I turned your tub blue. One-thousand internets for you.



I has blue hair.
Just in time for classes starting again tomorrow. One more month before spring break. Gotta hold out just a little longer~.

So I got caught making an offense against the dorm rules today. Hanging out with friends is like a felony in Japan, it feels like. Was watching Gurren Lagann in my room with a friend tonight and got a ring from dorm security, giving me a piece of paper saying that I can't have other residents in my room after 11pm and if it keeps happening I'll be kicked out. Bigger problem: my friend isn't actually a resident, just another exchange student at Waseda. This is an even bigger no-no.

Honestly, I knew the rule. It was written in bold in the handbook, but I had no idea that they were going to have security stalking the halls and listening for conversations behind closed doors as soon as curfew hit. So I took the warning slip and feigned ignorance and misunderstanding at what I'd done, explaining that my friend was a student and we thought that might be okay, then urged the man to explain exactly what the allowances were for having visitors. I think I got off with just a warning, but after being caught breaking the big, bold rule, I'm not going to be letting anyone else into my room at all, I don't think. From what the security guy said, supposedly I can invite people into the lounge on the first floor, but I don't know if they'll take well to people huddling around a computer that's blaring explosions and pompous manly phrases... XP

This inability to loiter, even in your own living quarters is something that I definitely will NOT miss about Japan. DX

A week in review:

Happy to report that the visit with my family was a huge success. Christmas was nice, though the gift giving was one sided, since all but the things that I had bought were gifts for me. XD; Got my sister some Japanese Pokemon cards and gave my parents a haori from Waseda University. Everyone seemed very pleased. ^__^ I, in turn, got a good deal of traveling money, a new DS game, a 3D rendering program, Millenium Actress and a music CD (thank you, Jake. All but 2 of the songs were new), a box of cheeses, Velveeta shells and cheese, JIF peanut butter (you have no idea how much I longed for real cheese and peanut butter o_o), and some other knick-knacks.

( Family Travels: Cut for length )

So they left of the 30th, while I (with their permission, I feel I should add) instead of saying one final goodbye, went to Comiket 75! It was the last day of Comiket, but still the line to get in was IMMENSE! I thought the line for JUMP Fest was big, but it paled in comparison to Comiket, I do believe.I'm amazed that I managed to get on site before 11, having only arrived at 9, an hour before its opening. Once there, I headed straight for the cosplay changing room to put on my Pierrot. Just like with Cosday, people weren't allowed to arrive in costume, but had to pay 800 yen to use the changing rooms and then go through a special checkpoint where they would register any items or props they brought. I had to register my fake bread, which I though was totally hilarious, but totally worth it.

( Comiket report )

I didn't take many pictures, especially considering how many great cosplayers were there, but in the last 20 minutes or so before heading back to the conference tower to change, I did a big loop of the cosplay terrace and got some shots of the more unique and personally favored cosplays:
Kamina and Garlock!Simon - it was so great. They were standing there all badass, but then when the pictures ceased, Simon turned to Kamina with the cutest little shy smile and bowed and thanked him for letting them take pictures together, telling hi how awesome and cool he was. XD
Cornellia and the Euphinator - Great Code Gayass. There were a couple Emperors of Britannia (along with multiple versions of the main cast members) wandering around too, but I didn't manage to get their pictures.
Pokeymans! - 'nuff said.
I forget... - but it was really literally shiny!
Soul Eater - This one's for Froggy.
Dist, Luke, and Jade - taken from aove, so they kinda look like midgets. XD; I surprised Jade by being a foreigner, but because he's Jade, I'll totally forgive him for calling me a gaijin~ ♥
Rao - Okami loooove! I seriously made this girl's day by knowing who she was and wanting a picture. She was so surprised and gave me such big thanks afterwards. Rao cosplayers gotta stick together!

So tommorow's Christmas, and there's SO much I haven't posted about! I'll stick to the fun stuff and leave out the legal and educational stuff, though you can rest assured that it's all taken care of, I do believe. :D

So Friday I tried out my first TeniPuri cosplay, with Paula as Eiji and a couple of her rp friends from Australia as Inui and Fuji! I was Kaidoh, but pretty much the entire outfit was borrowed. XD; Still, it was a lot of fun and crack! First we went over to Akiba to take some pictures, since the tennis courts were closed for renovations, but we found the most awesome graffiti wall and took lots of shots there before heading over to Baba, to sing karaoke and eat delicious curry. There was Inui juice and much more-or-less in-character crack. XDD Awesome day.

Btw, all of the best pictures can be found in this gallery and its sub-gallery.

Now! Skip to Sunday! JUMP Festa!!! In other words, an enormous one-day event in Chiba celebrating everything remotely related to Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, including but not limited to Bleach, TeniPuri, the Dragon Ball saga, Naruto, Reborn, One Piece, Kingdom Hearts, PS0, and so on. I don't know how many thousands of people were there, but Paula and I were 2 of a small handful of foreigners going to this thing, which took up a few warehouses worth of space and filled it up with merch, games, museums, event stages, and preview screenings. It was huge and AMAZING and I can tell you more about that if you're curious, but frankly, our whole reason for going was to see a talk by 4 members of the cast of ( Rock Musical Bleach )

Btw, this con report will pale in comparison to the one that Paule puts up, whenever it is that she does so, as hers will have much more detail and the inclusion of pictures. I can link to it when it's posted if anyone's curious and if Paula doesn't mind o.o

So the next day, Monday, two days ago, I had my last day of classes, and my family arrived in Japan! I was a little antsy for a lot of the day because none of them can speak Japanese and evidently my dad's international phone doesn't work here, so they arrived but couldn't call to tell me as much, and for all I knew could have been lost in Tokyo. As it was, they did get lost in Shinjuku station, but a nice English speaking Japanese man led them to the bus stop for the shuttle bus to their hotel and let them borrow his cell phone to call me, so I was able to meet with them around 7 at night, though they were all jet lagged and worn out.

On Tuesday I gave them a general introduction to "my" Tokyo by showing them around my school's campus and letting them see the view of the city from both the TMG building's observator by day and the Tokyo Tower's main observation deck by night. As it turns out, it was the 50th anniversary of the construction of Tokyo Tower, so it was rather insanely crowded, but it had special lights, decorations, and free gifts all around.

Today I took them to see the Imperial Palace East Gardens, and get more of an Edo-age feel of Japan before leading them over to Akihabara for the modern techno sensory overload side of the city. The gardens weren't as nice as they could have been because it's winter and rather brown looking right now, but my dad still got some really nice pictures and the whole day was a lot of fun. Tomorrow we'll do the Christmas thing, have a big lunch at Denny's, and then I'm going to take the family shopping in Harajuku and to karaoke in Shibuya. If it's not too out of the way, we're hoping to have dinner at Hard Rock Cafe, as well. The day after will begin our trip to Kyoto, and you'll hear more on that when I get back, I'm sure! :D

And that's it for now! If you've managed to read through all of this post, I first applaud you for your patience and tenacity and also wish you a most wonderful Merry Christmas Tree. ♥ Love you guys.

First off, my 21st birthday was awesome! Didn't touch a drop of alcohol, as it turns out, but I did sing karaoke for about 5 hours and eat a birthday cream puff. XD ♥ Also made an amazing discovery! Air Gear doujinshi! It does exist! And now I have 3 of them and will likely go back for more~. Especially if Bur or someone else I know in rl would like a SupiSano book which is also half IkkixSano and implies Ikki<-Kazu and SupiKazu, cause then I'll have to buy a second copy and keep this delicious crack for myself. y/n?

Having to get up and go to class today was hard. I'm especially not looking forward to Thursday when I have a comprehensive kanji quiz in the morning and a big religion test in the evening. At least I'll be breaking up the day by spending part of the afternoon teaching Paula to dance the full Hallelujah Goodbye. We may not dance as good as Tuti, but we can damn well have a good time making fools of ourselves in public anyway. XDDD!

So the other thing that I agreed to today (and the reason I want now to be Friday rather than the weekend, despite my having another class to go to that day) is some PoT cosplay on Friday morning or afternoon~. Honestly, I've barely watched any Prince of Tennis and had not even considered cosplaying it until this evening, but some uniform parts will be lent to me, and I will thus become a ghetto last-minute version of Kaidoh. I'll take any excuse whatsoever to dress up, just so ya know. XD We found a green dish towel that fits around my head, and I just happened to bring my black wig, so yeah. It's not exact, but we're gonna make it work. I pretty much got the expression down at least?

But yeah, what's really funny about that wig is that it's the one I'm modifying to use for Soi Fong and I totally did all that (unfinished!!!) styling tonight, just to make it short enough to look like boy's hair when under my makeshift bandanna. But to do that, I had to actually wear the wig and cut it using crappy sewing scissors and a mirror. Made a total mess of my bathroom sink. XD;;

So in short here's my schedule:
Study and do important health insurance things tomorrow.
Tests and dance lessons and a play I'm not going to on Thursday.
Friday is cosplay and supposedly some naked Nagayan (I could explain that, but it's easier not to).
Saturday I should probably study some more and sew a bit.
THEN SUNDAY IS JUMP FEST! Free festival all about Shonen Jump and the manga/anime/musicals/games related to it. Paula and I will be going for the Burimyu cast members that will be there, but it's pretty much guaranteed that we'll do some browsing through the booths, so let me know if there's something any of you want me to keep an eye out for.
And Monday is the last day of classes before Christmas break and my family will arrive! :D