Archive for the Tokyo Journal Category


‘Aoi Hana Meets the Enoshima Electric Railway’ Special Event Report by Bruce P

August 5th, 2012
Advertising Poster, Fujisawa

OMGOMGOMG! We have a very special Special Report today! Yuricon Staffer and Okazu Superhero Bruce P. took a little summer trip to Japan and wanted to tell us all about it. Here’s his report of the Aoi Hana x Enoshima Electric Railway Special Event!

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I recently had the opportunity to attend ‘Aoi Hana Meets the Enoshima Electric Railway’, an event held in Enoshima in connection with the publication of Volume 7 of Shimura Takako’s beautiful manga series. Actually, I made the opportunity. As a fan of Yuri, and Japan, and railways, and with Aoi Hana being my favorite series, nothing could keep me from attending this event (although a ride to the airport that never showed up came close).

The Enoden (i.e. Enoshima Electric Railway) runs from Kamakura along Sagami Bay to Enoshima and on to Fujisawa. This area is the setting for Aoi Hana, and the Enoden is the little train Fumi and A-chan take to school. In real life this is a seashore vacation area with a lot of young out-of-town summer visitors, and the Enoden is happy to promote itself to them with different events. An event for anime and manga fans is a perfect fit. Put on in association with Manga Erotics F, publisher of the series, ‘Aoi Hana Meets Enoden’ was as close to perfect as you can get without coffee mugs.

So on a hot Saturday morning I took the train called ‘Romance Car’ from Shinjuku to Fujisawa. Filled as it was with excited shore-bound families, and with scenery consisting mostly of trackside apartment blocks, there was little romance involved. It did stop briefly at the town of Shin-Yurigaoka (‘New Hill of Lilies’), which I took as a good sign. Five stops on the Enoden brought me to Enoshima, and after a short walk I found Enoden House, the principal site of the event. It was an hour after opening on the first day, and there was quite a crowd. Enoden House consists of a single large room; it was devoted half to toy train items for sale, and half to the event. There was a goods counter, the line for which extended out the door when I arrived (admittedly it wasn’t very far to the door). Items for sale included Aoi Hana lunch bags, tote bags, a variety of clear files, very nice post cards, pins, and copies of the manga and anime (but no coffee mugs). Background music from the anime was helping to put people in a festive mood. Festivities at the cash register were intense.

Enoden House

On the walls there was an art exhibit, consisting of original B&W ink drawings used in production of the manga, and framed copies of the manga’s color illustrations. To each of these color illustrations Shimura-sensei had added character sketches and an autograph. They were being raffled to folks who made purchases. You were allowed to turn the red drum, the number of turns depending on how much you had purchased; you cranked away, hoping for the lucky token to fall out. If it did, you could select any of the autographed illustrations on the wall for your own. I ended up with 27 turns. And zero framed illustrations. Good exercise though.

It was very hot, and Enoshima, being the shore, had sea breezes and stuff shops and food and drink and ice cream places and was really very pleasant. So I spent the day in the area, visiting the island with the tower you can see in some scenes, and late that afternoon stopped back at Enoden House to see how things were going. It was relatively uncrowded at that point, allowing for better viewing of the artwork, and of the adventures of ‘chibi A-chan’ and one of Enoden’s mascot figures, which looked like a fluffy throat lozenge. They had been photographed ‘posing’ at different spots along the railway. Some people were still buying, and by that time the DVDs had sold out.

Vol. 2, p. 150, trackside entrance to sweets shop.

Tokyo was so hot and Enoshima was such a delight that I went back again the next day. I walked around finding some locations used in the series.

Vol. 2, P. 149

Stopped one last time at Enoden House; it was not as crowded as on Saturday, most of the illustrations had been claimed, and the manga had sold out. Two more turns of the drum. More exercise. Zero framed illustrations.

The Enoden House exhibit was fun, but there was something that impressed me much more. As part of the event special posters with illustrations and quotations from the manga were put up in all the stations on the Enoden line. These were in addition to the quite nice general advertising poster for the event.

There are 15 stations, and there were 15 different one-of-a-kind special posters. Each one was incredibly elegant and beautiful. Apparently fans had been involved in the selection of the scenes and quotations.

To see them, and even more to see them hanging there in the wider world – and not, say, just in the back of a manga shop – was actually breathtaking. As a fan I was deeply impressed and grateful for the effort that had been taken to produce these posters, and with the elegance of the result. They were hard to photograph because they had a shiny, reflective surface, but I wasn’t the only one buying tickets to ride to all the stations just to take photos of them. The Enoden line didn’t mind a bit.

Was it worth the trip? You bet it was.

Erica here: Bruce, thank you for the report and the pictures! As a fan, I completely understand what you mean about seeing these up in the wide world. I’m so excited that this series has – and will for a few more days – brought tourists to Kamakura and Enoshima. And those posters. Wow. Thank you again and I can’t wait to see your swag!





Event: Girls Love Festival Report

September 14th, 2011

First of all, my apologies for having no pictures of the event, as there were signs everywhere forbidding picture-taking. I had lost my camera early in the trip and my wife’s is too large to use surreptitiously.

Girls Love Festival (website is in Japanese) is one of two Yuri-only doujinshi events being held in Japan. Girls Love Fest is in the Tokyo area and Maiden’s Garden (website in Japanese) is held in Kyoto.

I had never had a chance to attend either of these, so I was both excited and a little apprehensive about this one. ^_^ But it turns out I need not have been worried at all.

Girls Love Fest has a list of participating circles on their website, so I knew going into it that there were a few people I wanted to meet or see again.

Bruce, my wife and I took the train to Kamata station, where we found the PIO building without difficulty. Outside was our dear friend Komatsu-san and we waited for the last our party, a lovely, talented and funny young lady, Ransui-san, who draws doujinshi herself. We were treated to a preview of her upcoming PreCure works, which are incredibly cute!

We watched the line of attendees go in when the event opened and were not terribly encouraged by the female/male attendee ratio. It appeared that very few women were attending, but when we finally got in, there were more than it appeared on the line. Circles seemed split 40/60 female/male and attendees were more like 30/70. So, not as many women this time as Komatsu-san said there were last year, but it wasn’t a bad split.

You have to purchase a copy of the event catalog to get in to the event – the catalog acts as your “ticket” into the event space. It wasn’t that expensive, and very nicely printed.

The room was a convention center hall, half was one show, half the other show. GLF was on the window side. Because the show was small, the aisles weren’t crowded, so it had a nice, airy, open feeling.

Everyone we talked to was so nice! Lots and lots of smiles. We gave away Yuricon “I Love Yuri” pins to the show Boss, and a few circles we knew and some folks who had come to the Yuricon 2005 event in Tokyo. (I had ordered more, but thanks CafePress for taking more than two weeks to ship a bag of pins, so they arrived too late.)

We were able to say hello to Circle Sakuraike (Kimochi no Katachi Volume 1 and Volume 2) and of course buy their books! and slowly, relaxedly wander the aisles. There wasn’t as much 18+ material as I feared. In my heart, I sort of expected the event to be mostly loli-porn, so I anticipated being disappointed with the doujinshi for sale. But, I was pretty much wrong. I was glad to be wrong. ^_^

The event theme was “magical girl,” so there was a lot of Madoka work, no surprise, and a fair dollop of PreCure. A little Nanoha, much less than I expected and surprisingly a pretty decent showing for Maria-sama ga Miteru (thus proving that Yumi is pretty much magical. ^_^) There was one lonesome guy selling Strawberry Panic doujinshi and only one Vocaloid seller – all of us commented on how strange that was. We all expected way more of that.

I got fangirly squee-y when I came across Amano Shuninta’s (Sweet Guilty Love Bites) booth. I saw the doujinshi first, and recognized the art style, then blurted out, “OMG, is this Amano Shuninta?” at which the adorable woman standing there raised her hand. I asked her to sign a doujinshi, and bought everything, pretty much, then gave her a “I Love Yuri” pin. ^_^ I also found Momono Moto (Kimi Koi Limit) gave her a pin, tried to buy a book, but she gave it to me. Thank you! I really wanted it for the CD it came with, I think it’s a game, that looked kinda fun. Girl Prince and Princess on the cover. I’ll see if I can make heads or tails of it. ^_^

I also asked some random artist to sign her work, because it was so cute. She looked shocked, then embarrassed, but she did it. That was also very cute. (^_^)

Kogado, the company that created Yuri game Soulfege was the only corporate presence there, they were advertising their new Yuri game, White Robe Lovers, which takes place in a nursing school. If there is a faster way to turn me right off, I can’t think of it. That whole nurse fetish thing just leaves me cold. But, what was notable, was that Kogado had an itasha there to advertise the series. In the front window of the car was a URL which struck as all as amusing, but none of us knew whether it was unintentional or not: http://blog.kogado.co.jp/patheticar/. Either way, we agreed that the URL was truth in advertising.

Before we left, we all agreed that next year we’ll go to the Maiden’s Garden event together. Komatsu-san and Ransui-san left us to go to take in a PreCure musical show, so we said our goodbyes to them and left GLFes, with piles of doujinshi, fan novels and memories of many smiles.

I would encourage any of you to attend this event – it was friendly, relaxing and fun, just as one would hope it would be. ^_^ Thanks to everyone who made it possible and to everyone who sold there. And many, many thanks to Komatsu-san and to Ransui-san for joining us on our adventure!





Three Out of Four Ain’t Bad

November 9th, 2010

The morning dawned, as it always does when I travel, too early. Bruce and I lazed around the room this morning, eating a combi breakfast, then headed out on one of the chores I was asked to do. We started with Hibiya and the Takarazuka Theater, where we bought stuff for a friend. Of course we bought stuff for us too, duh.

Then we headed over to Shibuya where, despite my resolve, I ended up buying more books. I’ll do that thing where I lay everything out for you, but this time it was a lot more books and a lot less stuff.

We popped back to the hotel for an unload/refresh, then did a quick reccie of K-Books here to look for something I didn’t expect to find and so was not upset when I didn’t.

Then we tried to squeeze in Akihabara. It was one thing too many for me. The migraine I’ve been fighting since I got here just whomped me flat. I left Bruce and came back to the hotel where I am trying to stay upright and pack. Then sleep. Tomorrow it’s once more around the area and off to the airport, so don’t expect to see me for a few days.

It’s been fun as always! See you all soon!





Shopping, Day 1

November 8th, 2010

We have well and truly shopped until we dropped. We’re both sitting here barely coherent, eating food from the convenience store woodenly. I am contemplating a bath because I cannot think of anything else.

The morning started bright and early about 80 hours ago, it feels. Bruce and I had a pleasant breakfast then wandered leisurely through a few of the local stores. After a few hours, we met my Commanding Officer, Ana, who joined us for lunch at the Lion Beer Hall (us and the old guys who eat there.) Afterwards, we came back to the room and had a nice chat about translation and the manga market and related stuff. Ana had a bus to catch so we showed her off, then headed out to Nakano to shop more.

About 2 hours later we had bags stuffed with books and the arches in our feet had collapsed, so we straggled home….

Shopping is hard work.

Tomorrow, we want to get to Shibuya, Akihabara and Hibiya, if possible. Right now, I want to make it to the bath tub.

But first! I must eat my One Piece orange jello. ^_^





Tales of Osaka

November 7th, 2010

Time to back up to the beginning.

So, as you know, Bruce and I arrived in Tokyo, stayed in our nice room in Shinagawa, which is becoming an increasingly bad idea, as the hotel is so nice, every other hotel is awful in comparison.

The next morning, we hopped the Shinkansen out to Nagoya. On the way there, we failed to see the life-size Gundam that is in Shizuoka, (I thought they had dismantled it already!) and I’m very annoyed at myself that I didn’t look for it. ^_^;;

We arrived in Nagoya and managed to be found by William Flanagan, whom you may know as the translator of Lucky Star (the good one, that took over halfway), Tsubasa Chronicles, Code Breaker and many other manga. It was our pleasure to have met Bill last spring at Tokyo Anime Fair and he was nice enough to ask us to drop by for some local specialties if we were in the area. A local specialty happens to be katsu and it also happens to be one of my favorites meals, so when the stars aligned we had a really nice lunch, thanks Bill!

We eventually made it to Osaka, where we found that the hotel did not have our reservation. Always a good feeling. The hotel found us a room, where we tried to spend as little time as possible. The only reason I picked the hotel was its proximity to the theater and that was, in the end, the only good thing about it. ^_^;

We met up with Komatsu-san, who took us on a tour of Osaka, including the geek district. I really like Osaka, there’s a lot of energy and a LOT of food everywhere. But then, I finally crashed and burned and we went back to our rooms without even eating dinner. I had one rice ball and fell asleep by 9:30.

The next morning was the big day! Of course Bruce and I were awake very very early and we sat outside at the mall where the theater was. Eventually we were joined by Komatsu-san and we waited for the mall to open. Originally, we were first on line, but then two VERY motivated otaku came up and basically cut everyone off to be first. I didn’t fight them. It wasn’t worth it, so I was the #3 ticket. Now that we had tickets, we relaxed and went for a walk – to see the Heartcatch PreCure movie! Marimite was only being shown twice that day and the first showing was at 3:45, so we walked a bit to another mall (which had a very southwestern canyon look about it) and stood in line with a bunch of 4 year olds and their mothers (and a Dad or two). The girls got a little flashlight and a PreCure visor, I was apparently too old for such things. ^_^

Bruce, who is not watching PreCure, described the movie as a “High decibel fruit salad.” It takes place in Paris and while it had no original elements, it was still fun. Of course we all had to lend them the power of our heart flowers to help PreCure beat the bad guy. And in case you consider trying to be clever, no my heart flower is *not* a lily. So there, nyah. Bruce didn’t lend his power, because, he said, if all of Paris wasn’t enough to help, he didn’t think his would matter. What a meanie he is – we might have been destroyed because of him!

We had a ramen for lunch, with a side of fried garlic and happy, full and ready to be disappointed by the movie we made our way back to the theater. The two motivated Fanboys were first in line and they were let in first, then me, Komatsu-san and Bruce. The one Fanboy changed seats like three or four times, then sat there and fidgeted in a really creepy way, thus fulfilling every creepy otaku stereotype possible. The audience was split about 60/40 men/women, and mostly everyone was normal, with only about a half dozen really creepy otaku types. The two guys sitting next to me were both young and seemed kind of unlikely an audience. There were a number of younger women, as well, so overall, I was impressed with the crowd. Then the movie began….

…with an absolutely hilarious animated short voiced by Itou Miki and Ueda Kana about things we should not do while the movie is on. Yumi explained that we should not use our cell phones, take pictures, eat food loudly (illustrated by a picture of a bowl of ramen, because you know you might eat that in a theater…) or give rosaries to your soeur. Then Sachiko recapped and it was time for the movie.

Which was…really fun! They rewrote some bits, but I think it worked. The beginning was a scene in which Yumi comes into class and finds Miyuki crying tears of joy because she received a rosary. You remember Miyuki, right? She was one of the first Yoshino-wannabees in Yellow Rose Revolution. Total drama queen. This gives Yumi a chance to “explain” the soeur system to us. Also kind of fun was that *every time* Yumi comes into the school, she says the “walking slowly is preferred here” bit. Like she’s mentally preparing herself, or something. Oh, both Bruce and I loved the fact that the floors squeaked in the school. Like old wooden floors do.

Yumi and Sachiko actresses did a much better job than any of us expected. And then it started to dawn on me – every actress was picked for a specific reason. Yumi, because she could make her eyes big, Shimako for her smile. The voices were all very good, so the casting people were very mindful of what we wanted to hear and what we were used to. Kashiwagi was the worst choice, his body language was terrible, but his voice was really good. So, they were obviously thinking about it hard.

The rewrites were small, didn’t affect the major plot points, gave Yoshino lines she might otherwise not have had (poor Yoshino!) and by the end, all of us were right there with Yumi and Sachiko as Yumi and Sachiko.

In the end, Bruce, Komatsu-san and I all gave it a 9 out of 10.

Then we made Komatsu-san take us for okonomiyaki, because we were in Osaka and since neither Komatsu-san nor I like takoyaki, we had to do *something* typical! Dinner was delicious (of course,) then we went on a nice, wandering long walk around Osaka Shinsaibashi/Nihonbashi area. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful night and the company was pleasant. It was perfect.

The next morning we met up for breakfast (a little challenging on Sunday AM) then we parted with many thanks. I know I thanked you many times Komatsu-san, but once more – thank you so very, very much for everything! We both had a wonderful time. Here’s a link to the pictures I took, which include some of Komatsu-san and Osaka.

The train ride to Tokyo was long, the subway ride to Ikebukuro was long, the walk to the hotel was long, but here we are! Today, we meet up with my commanding officer, Ana, and do some shopping! See you later!