Hana and Natsu share an apartment. And food. And a budget. And lives.

Hana and Natsu have very little money for extras…like dinner.

Hana and Natsu make up silly games for themselves to pass the time, since they don’t have books or TV.

Hana and Natsu get to the beach by hitchhiking.

Hana and Natsu are very hungry.

Hana and Natsu play with the kid downstairs, whom they call “Doctor.”

Hana and Natsu make newspaper armor.

Hana and Natsu sometimes whack each other for making bad jokes.

Hana is the boke and Natsu is the tsukkomi unless it’s the other way around.

There is no reason to think that Hana and Natsu are a couple, except all of the above.

Ratings:

Art – 5
Story – 5
Character – 6
Overt Yuri – 0
Implicit Yuri – 5
Service – 1

Overall – 5

Flat & Flow (ふら・ふろ) is not a 4-panel comic, but it might as well be one. It’s silly, easier to take in small chunks than large ones, full of poverty-stricken-slice-of-life gags.

This is not everything we brought back – much of this is in piles and the kitsune collection is separate, but it gets the idea across.

You may notice a prominently placed Strike Witches item. This is a limited edition windbreaker that was a gift from Ana. As you might guess if you know anything about my tastes, Strike Witches the series holds little interest for me – too many things that don’t appeal – but I love the logo. I will proudly wear the windbreaker to venues where the logo is unlikely to be recognized.

Now I must eat, then sleep.

It’s nice to be back.

Oh, last random junk food item of the trip was a Pukapuka Tai – a taiyaki shaped wafer cookie with melon flavored cream. It was tasty, as long as you like melon-flavored stuff.

This morning dawned with the kind of weather I associate with March. Cold, raw, steady, drippy rain. It was absolutely blecch. A perfect day to head out to Big Sight and visit the Tokyo Anime Fair.

The Ariake station and approach to Big Sight was creepy and sodden, since every other time we had been there it was full of people, now it was just full of water. Where Comiket fills all 6 East Halls and all 4 West halls, TAF fills East Halls 1-3. It was exactly as I expected, a trade show for anime – many of which have been previously announced, so are not new news. We watched the trailer for the CGI Captain Harlock movie which was so good we wanted a cigarette after it, and I got a few Pixel Maritan character figurines among lots of pieces of paper announcing series available for licensing? Want a laugh? Rose of Versailles was listed as available for licensing. Hee. (If you don’t know why that is funny, don’t worry about it.)

We met up with some great folks, Ana and Mari and the Otakon folks and translator Bill Flanagan and some of us went to lunch and had a nice chat. I love industry gossip. :-)

After we had seen all that there was to be seen and gotten all the random items we wanted (we passed on the 4-foot tall Heroman bags) Bruce, the wife and I headed home, stopping for murasaki (purple) sweet potato treats at the station.

We flattened out a bit until we got a call from Mari – she and Ana wanted to have some tea with us, before they headed out to the TAF Gaijin Dinner (to which I was invited, but passed. If I had been by myself, I mighta gone, but with the wife, I felt it was unfair.)

We had tea and some okazu – mine was smoked daikon with cream cheese – and then we parted – my party went to Animate to do a little shopping for a few folks and they headed off to dinner.

Tomorrow, we’re going to hit Akihabara, finally, for a little surprise for Bruce. :-)

Today’s Random Junk Food Item: Pumpkin flavored Crunky. It wasn’t as pumpkin-y as the pumpkin seed bagel I had for breakfast (pumpkin bagel with corned beef, mayo, onion and lettuce.) And the sweet potato sweet, which was full of sweet potato-y goodness and was very purple. D’oh – forgot to take a picture. ^o^

Despite the threat of bad weather the entire time we’ve been here, today is the first day we’ve had really crappy weather. It’s cold – a degree or two colder and the rain would be snow. Right now it’s sleet/hail.

Bruce decided that it would be a good day for a train ride and the wife and I decided that it was a good day for a museum. We headed out to Ryogoku to visit the Edo-Tokyo Museum. And in doing so, we zigged where we shoulda zagged.

You know how sometimes there’s a choice of road and you pick the wrong one and have to retrace your steps? Well, yesterday we learned that the day after we leave, the third Girl’s Love Festival will be held in Tokyo. When I booked this trip, there had been no date for it and no hint it would be this coming weekend, so I didn’t learn until yesterday it was gonna be on Sunday. Sigh. Today we walked around Akihabara station looking for food and ended up eating sandwiches at a Tully’s coffee, when it turns out that right outside the Ryogoku station was an awesome selection of delicious looking places to eat. You know the feeling…zigging when you shoulda zagged.

The museum is very nice, with an Edo period side and a Tokyo period side. There was a nice mix of life, culture (high and pop), history and geography. I’d recommend it.

We then slogged over to Nihonbashi, because we never had made it over there before. In the cold rain, it maybe was not as beautiful as we’d like, but it was still fun to be at Mile 0.

We stopped at the train station for a new extra bag as we always do and then up to the Post Office in Metropolitan tower for Leiji Matsumoto and Shonen Sunday stamps. Now we’re back in the room having a nice hot bath after being soaked by rain, watching Sumo until Bruce comes back and we go out to dinner.

Random Junk Food report: Banana Milk Crunky did actually taste like a bowl of cereal with milk and banana. (Everyone else is writing about Banana Kit Kat, so I thought I’d be different.) And soy and mayonnaise flavored potato chips taste slightly of Japanese mayo.

Tomorrow, Tokyo Anime Fair.