Hello Okazu Readers! I am writing you from beautiful Tokyo! (This is said with no irony. I like cities and have always liked Tokyo.)
Every morning I am greeted by this view. We’ve had lovely weather.
Made a short visit to Animate, in which we found the Yuribu (Yuri club) proudly displayed by the door.
Only bought one book, because it was the last copy on the shelf there, but will be back to do actual book shopping later. Instead we bought these.
Remember a few weeks ago, when I reported there was the Animate Girls Festival and Asagao to Kase-san anime had a booth? This is what is left from the goods at that booth. I bought everything that remained (except two that escaped my notice.)
The wife bought a Sailor Moon collaboration purse at GU, with a little jewelry to hang off it.
We had a lovely dinner with James Welker, who always makes us feel at home.
We’ve hit up half of Book-Off, and a bookstore here, but it was Thursday that we really got the buying ball rolling. At Comitia, I bought multiple copies of Galette, and a number of other original Yuri doujinshi. Not as many as in previous years, because after the 35th one titled “Hajimete” or “Hatsukoi” I just felt a bit eye-rolly. Folks, please learn to write a story beyond “there is a girl, she likes another girl. The other girl likes her. The end.” Thank heavens for some of the folks doing Yuri about adults. I’ll do a much more detailed review of everything when I get home.
We then wandered through the Kaigai Festa, the International Comics Festival, where I spoke with folks at the TCAF table. And I spoke with Sonia from France, as I bought her English-language Yuri comic (about schoolgirls in love for the first time, of course).
Next day we hit up Mandarake where I managed to find some stuff to buy (duh) and had a nice lunch with Deb Aoki. The three of us stopped for a rest at the Murakami-owned coffee shop, where I had a Murakami latte.
It was a very relaxing way to ease into buying too much stuff, because the next day, we hit high gear.
Comic Arts Tokyo 2 is the second year of a small independent comic show, held at the Tokyo campus of Temple University. I found a number of awesome people and things. Among them were An Nguyen, creator of So Pretty, Very Rotten, a very talented artist named Erica Ward (so, obviously I will remember her name! ^_^) And I bought this awesome painting from Makiko Kodama. Yes, I went to a comic show and bought a painting. ^_^ This is all the things. Rokurokubi is my favorite youkai, in uniform, kissing another Rokurokubi, cutely in a cafe. Squee.
We then had lunch with the indefatigable shoujo scholar Fujimoto Yukari-sensei, who was delightful as always. She had a gorgeous Utena-collaboration themed handbag, based on Anthy’s dress from the movie. We were so jealous.
It was a magnificent night so after we left Fujimoto-sensei, we decided to head over to the Toyokawa Inari Shrine. We made some offerings, lit some incense and candles and said farewell to Bruce. It’s been a rough trip without him and we apologize to everyone we’ve met with for moping, but we’d been coming to Japan with him for 12 years and we feel his absence keenly here.
Once that had been done, we headed over to Tokyo Station Character Street. Where I unloaded a mass of money in a beauty shop that was selling Sailor Moon, Utena and other series goods. This store had bath and beauty items for adult women, who just happened to want their bath bombs to look like, you know, the Outer’s henshin wand toppers. (^_^);
And an Utena bath set, journal, stickers and calendar which will need to be put together before you can see how awesome it is.
And then we dragged ourselves back after a lot of walking and shopping. Next up, Harajuku for Kiddyland and the Eternal Sailor Moon shop and probably Yamashiroya.
Made it home after a particularly excruciating trip. It was a little shorter than usual, but a guy a few rows over with a hacking cough made sleep all but impossible, and the flyers included a surprising number of people who had no idea how to use the bathrooms appropriately. I mean, really, had no idea at all.
Our final event of this eventful trip was to the Tokyo Rainbow Pride Festa at Yoyogi Park. Yoyogi Park is the Park closest to Harajuku and the Meiji Shrine, so the crowds there are always delightfully immense and full of girls with cute, fashionable clothes. Today it also included cute little gay kids and families spending an absolutely gorgeous day in the park for the final Saturday of Golden Week. It could not have been more perfect a day.
