This world is a fascinating and wonderful place.

A few months ago, a Japanese crowdfund project wandered over my feed and I immediately backed it. Kimono artist Remake-ya Candy and photographer Sato Hiroko were collaborating on a photo album of women wearing men’s kimono. Candy’s goal is to bring kimono back as daily wear, and Sato is a photographer who combines whimsical and classical beautifully. They seemed like a great collaboration for this “genderless kimono” project.

This week I received my copy of the Josei ga Otoko Kimono o Kiru Shashin-shuu (女性が男着物を着る写真集) and it gets a two-thumbs up from me. Because the pictures from the album itself have not been shared publicly, I’m only sharing here an image from the Campfire campaign page and the cover, but I strongly recommend following both Sato and Candy on Twitter for fun kimono photos.

First of all, I loved the premise. No surprise. But surprisingly, I actually loved most of the photoshoots. Each model is wearing a custom kimono that really suits them, then they are photographed multiple times in settings around a city, cafe or photoshoot set for maximum mood. Really lovely photos. As a testament to both kimono maker and photographer, this book is excellent.

The final pages include some backers who chose to participate in a photoshoot in genderless kimono. In many ways these are even better, as they are just everyday people who are wearing such incredible clothing and looking so damn good doing it, that it makes one want to run out and hire both Candy and Sato.

The campaign was a raging success, bring in nearly 3x the initial goal, with 132 backers. That indicates to me, that most of the backers threw a lot of money at this project. I know I would sure have participated at a higher level if I was in Japan. ^_^

I don’t often review crowdfunding rewards on Okazu for several reasons. One, if the book is not available for sale, that usually makes it awkward. And, quite often the reward is…okay. It wasn’t why I backed the project. In this case, the photo album is lovely and will definitely find a place on my shelves next to Tokyo Bois! and a few other queer-friendly photo books I have. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 9

Really fun to flip through and appreciate fashion and location…and models. ^_^

Via YNN Correspondent Amy M, take a look at this NHK video on kimono artist Candy for some fun looks.

My office is once again in desperate need of a cleanup, so it’s time for some Lucky Boxes!

This time we have 5 Lucky boxes – all are premium boxes with media, manga, candy and toys. They also include other flat fun things like stickers, bookmarks or postcards which are equally random and frequently bizarre (and often not at all Yuri.) As always, there are candy and toys. The larger boxes have a few other surprises, as well!

My promise to you is that you’ll get random things, sometimes in other in random things. ^_^ I assure you that this is all 100%, unadulterated stuff.

This time we have 1  Very Large USPS box (which is listed on the box as Large Mailing box, but it’s about twice the size of the Large Flat Rate box, go figure, so I’m calling it the Very Large box,) 2 Large USPS Flat Rate and 2 Medium USPS flat rate boxes.

We have one Box remaining!
Medium Box 2 – $30

1 Very Large Box – $75 – Claimed
Large Box 1 – $50 – Claimed
Large Box 2 – $50 – Claimed
Medium Box 1  $30 –  Claimed
Medium Box 2  $30 –  Claimed

***

To be eligible to buy a Lucky Box, follow these instructions carefully. Please. Thank you. Failure to follow all of these instructions will disqualify you. It’s not personal, they are all claimed pretty quickly and I don’t have time to track you down for a piece of information.

1. You must live in the Continental USA (contiguous 48) only, no APO/FPOs. This is disappointing for me too, so I apologize.

2. You must be over 18, I am not policing books or recipients.

3. Email me with the Yuricon Contact Form with the subject “Lucky Box.” Use an email you check regularly, because I will reply asap. The first person who responds to my email gets the box.

4. *****Please include your name, age, mailing address. ***** Tell me which box you want. Even if you’ve given me your address previously, please include it, I am very lazy.

5. I will contact you at that point and give you details about payment by Paypal. Please be prepared to check your email and get payment out so this post doesn’t linger. Thanks in advance. These will be shipped out asap, as well; the whole point of this is to get these out of my house. ^_^

This whole process will be handled with utmost capriciousness, as usual. ^_^

Get your Lucky Boxes and get this stuff out of my house!

Well, it’s raining and I have nothing today, so I decided to sit down and make a single Premium Lucky Box.

This box has an Artbook AND a Drama CD AND manga and other stuff like toys, candy, paper goods and other fun goo-gaws! I assure you that this is all 100%, unadulterated stuff.

This time we have 1 Large USPS flat rate box only and because I filled it up with some extra fun, it’s going for $75. This is 18lbs of utter nonsense. None of that 5 snacks and a cheap plushie crap here. (Although I probably should by cheap plushies – they’d provide more padding.)

Large Box – $75  – Claimed

To be eligible to buy a Lucky Box, follow these instructions carefully. Please. Thank you. Failure to follow all of these instructions will disqualify you. It’s not personal, they are all claimed pretty quickly and I don’t have time to track you down for a piece of information.

1. You must live in the Continental USA (contiguous 48) only, no APO/FPOs. This is disappointing for me too, so I apologize.

2. You must be over 18, I am not policing books or recipients.

3. Email me with the Yuricon Contact Form with the subject “Lucky Box.” Use an email you check regularly. Because I will reply asap. The first person who responds to my email gets the box.

4. *****Please include your name, age, mailing address. ***** Tell me which box you want. Even if you’ve given me your address previously, please include it, I am very lazy.

5. I will contact you at that point and give you details about payment by Paypal. Please be prepared to check your email and get payment out so this post doesn’t linger. Thanks in advance. These will be shipped out asap, as well; the whole point of this is to get these out of my house. ^_^

This whole process will be handled with utmost capriciousness, as usual. ^_^

If you come here too late to get a Lucky Box, you know what? Contact Me and I could, possibly, put one together for you. I got plenty o’stuff sitting around.

So this month and next are going to be a bit of a lot, and I was looking for something to fall into for relaxation, I popped over to Bookwalker JP and thought I had bought the Super Cub light novel series. Trying to make sense of technical manual talk for a scooter I don’t own sounded about right for taking my over-stimulated brain offline. Well, it turns out I bought Volume 1 of the Super Cub manga and you know…that worked for me very well. I’ve seen the anime, and this can just remind me of that, until I get to the end and then pop over to the novels. Since I read it, the differences between the manga and the anime are much on my mind.

To begin with there are two major changes. One, the manga is full of creeper gaze service, which never adds anything good to a story. So be warned.

The second thing that is different is pacing. I’ve talked about this a lot over the years on Okazu. I read quickly  and even my reading Japanese is going to take less time than an animated scene that takes its time. In the case of Super Cub anime, the first few episodes of the anime are handled with deliberation. We spend time watching Koguma’s daily schedule and really get to feel the emptiness of it. That emptiness becomes a burden for the viewer, each detail weighing us down more as a form of sympathetic depression. It’s rough going, but we *need* to feel that, so the change in her world that comes with her Super Cub will feel that much more uplifting. The manga takes pages to tell a story where the anime took episodes., so if you have not watched the anime, it will feel less like a miraculous change from the beginning of the volume to the end. 

Nonetheless, Koguma’s life does change  –  quite radically – with the purchase of a used Honda Super Cub. While she’s still on limited funds – more so now – her day is less filled with the drudgery of riding her bicycle along mountain roads to school. She has free time and mobility. And, as the volume closes, she finds herself making an acquaintance. Again, in the anime, this was extraordinarily difficult for Koguma and she held herself back from friendship for a long time, unwilling to be hurt.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of women’s friendship in my love of anime. Mainstream media, focused on stories of romance and  – oh, you know straight women doing straight women things with wine and man bashing and other things completely alien to me – rarely shows women just relying on each other, being there for each other. Which is why I so obsess over She Loves To Cook, She Loves To Eat.  Super Cub does tell just exactly this story, from the perspective of a girl who has been so cruelly treated by life, she literally describes herself as having nothing in every way. By the end of this volume, she has one thing – Koguma has a Super Cub –  and that one thing is going to lead her to many other things.

Ratings:

Art – barfing noises
Story – Not as hard one the emotions as the anime, but still rough
Characters – Can we give Koguma some props for existing at all? I’m not sure I would have.
Service – barfing noises and with Reiko, it ain’t gonna get better
Yuri – 0

Overall  – 8

Postscript:  If you come here too late to get a Lucky Box, you know what? Contact Me and I could, possibly put one together for you. I got plenty o’stuff sitting around.

Among the many things I am doing now that my health is improved is cleaning up the office.  ^_^ Yuricon & Okazu Central gets so absurdly filled up with stuff that it’s time for Lucky Boxes!

This time we have 3 Lucky boxes as you can see on the left. They are full of comics and manga and poetry and magazines. All of these boxes include other flat fun things like stickers, bookmarks, comics, or postcards which are equally random and frequently bizarre (and often not at all Yuri.) As always, there are candy and toys. These boxes all include some special CDs, as well!

My promise to you is that you’ll get random things, sometimes in other in random things. ^_^ I assure you that this is all 100%, unadulterated stuff.

This time we have 1 Large USPS flat rate box and 2 Medium USPS flate rate box.

Large Box 1 – $50 – Claimed
Medium Box 1 – $30 Claimed
Medium Box 2 – $30 Claimed
***

To be eligible to buy a Lucky Box, follow these instructions carefully. Please. Thank you. Failure to follow all of these instructions will disqualify you. It’s not personal, they are all claimed pretty quickly and I don’t have time to track you down for a piece of information.

1. You must live in the Continental USA (contiguous 48) only, no APO/FPOs. This is disappointing for me too, so I apologize.

2. You must be over 18, I am not policing books or recipients.

3. Email me with the Yuricon Contact Form with the subject “Lucky Box.” Use an email you check regularly. Because I will reply asap. The first person who responds to my email gets the box.

4. *****Please include your name, age, mailing address. ***** Tell me which box you want. Even if you’ve given me your address previously, please include it, I am very lazy.

5. I will contact you at that point and give you details about payment by Paypal. Please be prepared to check your email and get payment out so this post doesn’t linger. Thanks in advance. These will be shipped out asap, as well; the whole point of this is to get these out of my house. ^_^

This whole process will be handled with utmost capriciousness, as usual. ^_^

Ready….Steady…Get Your Lucky Boxes!