AIKBA! A day spent navigating up and down one cramped, crazy multisensory, multifloor store after another. Akiba, the venerable Mecca of otaku the world over, was a long street filled with tall skinny buildings all trying to outshout each other as throngs of geeks made their way down it, occasionally vanishing into one of the shining, gaping maws that awaited them. Was it an eye-opener? Most certainly. Would I want to go again? I'd say yes, but my wallet is sitting in a corner screaming "No! No! NO!" You figure it out.

We spent the day there, going in succession from Kotobukiya, K-Books, Gamers, Asobit Chara City, the @thome maid cafe, Toranoana, and Animate. Each of the shops was overflowing, absolutely overflowing, with varying portions of CDs, DVDs, games, manga, doujinshi, hobby kits and character goods. The madness didn't end where the merch did: the walls, the stairs, the gantries, even the interior of the damn lifts were literally plastered over with posters, ads, prices, and more anime than the eyes could stand. I didn't take many pictures of the places we went: where the hell would I start? Akihabara is not a place, it's an experience.

The absolute best part of our day was the time we spent in the maid cafe. We weren't actually planning on going, but we needed to find a place to sit down and sort through the stuff we'd bought, and we had been given directions to the place by my sister's otaku guy friend, so we decided to give it a try. What we found inside was a delight: the maids were cheerful and friendly, who held a rock-paper-scissors game for all the patrons, taught us to do a little "MOE, MOE, KYUNN~" handsign-and-chant thing before tucking into our sweets, and talked to us despite our general failure in speaking Japanese. One of the maids serving us saw us sorting through the b00bies doujin we'd bought and told us she was a fan of the series too (she liked Lockon and Patrick). When she saw the Tieria-centric ecchi doujin menelvir had bought for me, she said "Banshi ni attai suru!" Which was the title of the doujin, but left us all in a fit of senseless giggles anyway. menelvir asked another of the maids about the ring she was wearing which was this little thing with a faux macaroon on it, because she wanted to see if she could buy one like it. But it turned out that the girl had made it herself, and then she insisted on giving it to menelvir. Oh man! We left the cafe feeling slightly guilty about it, but also completely bubbly and giggly-- it gets infectious. I highly recommend visiting this cafe if you're ever in Akiba, it takes up several floors on a building on the left of the first big cross junction after coming out of the station. (@thome cafe's website)

The worst part of the day, if I had to say, was probably our time in K-books while we were browsing through the used CD section, which was also in the doujin and character good section. That place just gave off... weird vibes, from the body pillows on sale to the shelves of hentai stuff all over, and the men there who were giving us all sorts of strange looks. We three were the only girls in that entire half of the store, and it felt really skeezy in a way that the normal, non-yaoi hentai doujin part of Toranoana didn't (even though the latter had ginormous nipples on display everywhere you looked. Everywhere, I assure you). Maybe guys would have been comfortable hanging up, but we certainly weren't.

What else can I say about Akiba? By the end of the day we had bags filled with anime merch of all sorts, gotten entirely sick of the theme songs to K-on (they were playing in every shop we went into. EVERY shop), and spent more money than we had capacity to not feel guilty for. I'm just thoroughly glad that I'm not a huge fan of any of the anime series that have come out this year, or I would be much, much poorer.

( Pictures of the shops, and my swag! )

And finally, a catalogue of the stuff that I couldn't take out and photograph in public. I have no idea why I thought making a video of it would be a good idea, since I hate my voice and how dumb I sound when I talk, but there you go.




Today's flickr stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jyyang/sets/72157618685353139/

Tomorrow: Ikebukuro, and a butler cafe!

Some backstory. I RP Ribbons Almark on the #g00tweets Gundam00 Twitter RP. We get to talking about skittles a lot. Not the candy, the Innovators. Sometime during one of our exchanges I was suddenly compelled to go to Skittles.com and check them out. Which was when I discovered that the Skittles.com homepage had been transformed into the Twitter search page for the word "Skittles" and that ALL OUR SKITTLE-RELATED TWEETS WERE SHOWING UP ON IT.**

Several hours of clicking on links and pictures later, I had developed a horrifying craving for Skittles. (GOD DAMN BUT THOSE INSIDIOUS MARKETING TACTICS WORK.)

So before I headed for Japanese class this week I went Skittles-hunting in town. I managed to corner a packet of the damn things in a 7-11 and made away with them. As we walked into a narrow, crowded underpass roped into half to manage the traffic flow, I giggled to my sister, "Who needs food when you have Skittles?"

And just then, as we were crammed into the crowd at the barrier's edge, next to the stream of folks going in the opposite direction...


A RANDOM SETSUNA WALKED PAST ME.


... ..."WTF?!?!?!"

It was a random group of cosplayers; aside from the Setsuna in the red scarf and the mad spiky hair, there was at least one character from Bleach amongst their number. Walking around the heart of town in full costume. I have no idea what they were doing, but I very much regret that the crowds were moving too fast in either direction for me to go up to the Setsuna cosplayer and intone, "SETSUNA F. SEIEI". Or, as my sister suggested, "INNOVATOR". Before running away giggling like the madwoman that I am.

Missed chances, missed chances!

But at least I didn't miss the chance to do a Skittle and gunpla/gashapon photoshoot after I got home.





In case you're asking: yes, I nommed all the Skittles in those pictures after that. No, I obviously don't give a flying fuck about poisoning from lead in paints. IT IS CRIMINAL TO HAVE SKITTLES AND NOT EAT THEM, OKAY?


**(Screencaps of Skittles.com or it didn't happen!)

AN IMMENSELY QUICK SNAP POLL.

Based on what you know of the differences in secondary sexual characteristics between adult males and adult females in the human species, answer the following question.

Poll #1372391
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

The above photograph depicts a figurine of:

View Answers

a woman
38 (33.0%)

a man
10 (8.7%)

WHO THE FUCK CARES?! I'D HIT IT!!
67 (58.3%)

Here's another angle of the said figurine. Pay close attention in particular to the curvature of the figurine along the left side, around the part the white vest ends.

Seriously, Bandai, what the hell. How does this sculpt manage to be hotter than the one with the garters and the red dress?Something went terribly wrong somewhere in your product planning stages, my friends.

I'm going to ignore my take-home work and stare at those childbearing hips for the rest of the night, thank you very much. You bastards.

RANDOM MINI PICSPAM TIEMZ.

Last night I skipped gym to rearrange the posters on the wall of my room. Took off a few old LOTR/Star Trek pinups, as well as a few dull-looking Death Note promo flyers, and put up a few new things, including a giant LaMB poster illustrated by the head dude @ IFS (aka artgerm on DA--he's apparently a huge hit there, I hear). His art is effin' gorgeous. Hell, the only thing I got when I went to AFA last year was an eighty-dollar artbook put up by IFS that I got him to autograph. Heh.

I'm quite pleased with the results (mmm, widescreen function on my camera):


Now. I've recently moved tables in the office, of my own accord, and have given up the iMac that I was using on the account of it being old and slower than a bowl of molasses floating backwards in a bathtub. As a result, the Virtue gunpla that was sitting in front of said iMac has been orphaned, and plunked on my neighbor's desk for the sheer amusement value.

Virtue has been having several... adventures on her desk.




Disney 1, Bandai 0!


ETA: THANKS TO A COMMENT BY french_noodles:

EEEEK MOM IT'S LOOKING AT ME MAKE IT STOPPPPPPP

ETA 2: THANKS TO A COMMENT BY piyomon:


IT WAS AN ACCIDENT :3

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Well well well. Look who's posting again. This time I need help from you guys. In the form of a POLL and OPINIONS and everything.

It regards Gundam b00bies! And the matter of some icons!

Under a cut because HELLO SPOILERS UP TO EPISODE 23:

( CUT CUT STABBY STABBY CUT CUT )

ETA: I've just thought of a question. Should I seek a psychiatrist's help if I find the gunshot deaths of several animated characters to be somewhat... erotic? I mean, this is just a hypothetical question, you understand, but in the event that I actually do, you know... should I?

I finally caught up on the last two episodes of b00bies. And then because Keyhole For Macs! is a thing of beauty, watched the 23rd episode streaming live.

Except that it was more like jumping pixels that sometimes coalesced into things vaguely resembling characters, or giant robots beating the shit out of each other. But since the audio stream was a constant comfort, it was not all that hard to figure out what went on (lots of explosions, mostly). 15 episodes' worth of watching the show raw has made me STRONG.

Here are a couple of gems from the discussion post that I decided to keep for posterity. Pruned and edited from various comment threads. Spoilers, obviously:

( MOEBOT OVERLORDS )

( ON THE MEANING OF CERTAIN PARTS OF THE PREVIEW )

Two more weeks and this insanity will be over!

(a.k.a. Oscars? What the hell are the Oscars?)

I have to say this, the last few episodes of b00bies have made me pretty happy on the inside, and has revived (hah, revived) my flagging interest in the series.

At this point, episode 20 out of 25, I can pretty much figure out how it's all going to end. Ribbons legalizes pot, distributes it, everyone smokes, and they all sit around in a naked circle, in a marijuana-induced haze, holding hands and singing "Kumbaya". Under the direction of Marina Ismail. Obviously.

All kidding aside, though, I'm liking the direction the series is headed, although considering that I haven't watched any subs since episode five, they could be talking about creating a master race of alien frogs to rule the planet and I would be none the wiser (and it's Sunrise, I'm totally not ruling out the alien frogs. Ever seen Keroro?)

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to seeing how the last 5 episodes play out with a lot of death and heartbreak and explosions as per Sunrise, hopefully.

Spoilery discussion ahoy:

( DEATH, HEARTBREAK AND EXPLOSIONS. AND ALL THAT JAZZ. )

ETA: Everybody has fabulous Innovator icons! I'm kind of jealous. Anyone want to point me to a rich source of good Innovator caps? Or show me their favorite Innovator caps? Revive, I think. Must make myself a Revive icon at least...

In other news, still relevant: b00bies merchandise sales post! I still have one flightsuited second season Allelujah PPP figurine available--any takers?

So this is how I spent my Valentine's Day evening. Getting drunk with a bunch of kids at my sister's 21st birthday chalet party.

In short: it was good eatings, and good fun. The chalet we rented, at Pasir Ris, was large and well maintained (except for the walls, which badly needed a fresh paint job), came with a functional kitchen and its own BBQ pit, and was all in all good value for money. My sister invited some dozen-odd friends, a small core of which--mostly the crazy anime-watching otaku geek gang-- stayed over and somehow managed not to burn things down.

Came back yesterday, spent the day alternatively uploading photos and videos to Flickr, napping to make up to the lack of sleep the night before, and prepping this post. (And catching The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button at the cinema, but that's a whole other story.)

Saturday evening to Sunday morning. The essence of madness distilled and bottled, to go with chips and cake. Good things come with age.

Here's the formula.

1. You take a bunch of otaku kids for whom default mode is preset to "crazy".


2. You add copious amount of this.
   


3. Shenanigans result.

Here are pictures of the mayhem, numbering 30-odd, handpicked out of the literal hundreds that were taken that night.

( The BBQ )

( THE CAKE WAS A LIE )

( CHOCOLATE HULK SMASH!!! )

( Games, games, games )

( The Crystal Apple Puzzle )


We also sat around telling ghost stories in the dark, which didn't work out because my sister had somehow expected the army boys she'd invited to not tell the scary army ghost stories that every army boy hears of during the two years he's serving his National Service. Then we progressed to sitting in a circle and telling lame jokes, dirty jokes, or lame and dirty jokes.

That went down a lot better.

(Unfortunately, no pictures or video of either event exists because everything I took with my camera during that period turned out pitch black, with huge red splotches all over. And there was this mysterious little girl in white hanging in the background....)

PRESENTS!
I feel obliged to share this, the most epic of gifts that my sister's BFF got for her. While I'm glad that I managed to capture down her LOLWUT OMFG!!!! DDDDDD: reaction for posterity, I am quite dismayed that after several months I still haven't figured out that flipping my camera horizontally while filming will result in video that will be irreversibly rotated.


I took photos of the inside as thurisaz83 flipped through it in utter bemusement. NSFW, unless pictures of two guys having buttsex while the bottom grinds against a third gagged & bound guy on the bed are par for the course for your office (in which case, where the hell do you work, and are you guys looking to hire a writer by any chance?)

( And from your lips he drew the Hallelujah... )

Other presents included a giant calculator you could kill a kitten with, phrasebooks for making out in Japanese, fluffy Mokona slippers, a SD Gundam00 doujin and A Brief History Of Time. Yes. Of the whole pile of presents, the only one that approached any semblance of normality was a book about quantum mechanics written by Stephen Hawking.

Also, we had a surprise frog invasion.

And now, I provide the concluding statements for my Alcohol + Geeks == MAYHEM thesis.

( Alcohol + Geeks == Mayhem )


My sister invited one of our cousins, who brought along a friend. They were the only normal people at the party, the poor things.

Their reactions for most of the night looked something like this.


Poor normals.

Happy Valentine's Day! It's the 14th of February already where I am, and I won't be online much this weekend (attending sister's 21st birthday chalet) so I'm popping the small gift I have for you guys now.

It's a scan from the March issue of Newtype-- Yun Kouga's illustration of the Meisters, which adorns the calendar page that comes with every odd issue of the Newtype. I haven't seen this shared in hi-res yet, so I thought it might come in useful.

Cleaning this up took me way longer than I thought it would, because the folded-in-half crease of the poster had to pass through, of all things, SETSUNA'S HAIR. And his eyes. And then Tieria's hair in its wavy little locks. THANKS A LOT NEWTYPE. *eyes bleed from overuse of the clone stamp tool*




I keep reading this picture as "the older Meisters have tied the younger two together with invisible rope with SHENANIGANS in mind". I cannot unsee this. I blame the "D: DON'T RAEP ME" expressions Yun Kouga seems to have drawn on Setsuna and Tieria's faces.

Send help.


(Potentially relevant: My earlier post where I put up photos of Yun Kouga's illustration book, after I was done annotating it with yellow Post-Its.)

Presenting: a pictorial essay on the annotation of Yun Kouga's illustration book for Mobile Suit Gundam 00 with Post-Its, as performed in public by misshallelujah and thurisaz83 (not into the show, just into the madness) a couple of Fridays ago.

Tools Needed:

• 1 (one) copy of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Yun Kouga Design Works
• 1 (one) misshallelujah
• 1 (one) small pad of Post-Its
• Appropriate markers & pens
• 1 (one) giggling thurisaz83 to hold the book open for (documentation purposes)
• 1 (one) mid-range (or up) compact digital camera for (documentation purposes)
• A well-ventilated venue with good lighting, a large enough table, and enough ambient noise to cover up the giggling (for this particular procedure, a McDonalds' was utilized)

( Actual annotation of the book under the cut )

( Also: Printer error gets transferred onto bus ad. )

I just want to celebrate because I finally figured out how to get the hovertext to work on Firefox. Yes!


Context and links:
Atheist Bus Ads
Christian Bus Ad Response
Bus Slogan Generator

I have not been so absurdly happy over an episode since #8.

And yes, I ship it. All of it. Quite happily.

*♥ show*


ETA: Possibly relevant. http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/05/a-contest-undying-lo.html (But please don't ask me to explain the joke behind 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 987 1597 2584 4181 6765 10946 17711 28657 46368 75025 121393 196418 317811 514229 832040 1346269 2178309. It's better for your sanity, anyhow.)

Last Friday, I dumped a couple of random b00bies figurines on my producer's table, just to traumatize him.

This week, I decided to continue the trend. Except that I took it further.

Surreptitiously setting it in place as he was carried away with his morning drumming ritual, I gifted him this.




"This is so you," he said. "A bloody murder scene on an A4 piece of paper. What would you do without red markers?"

"Improvise. With real blood. Naturally."

"Your own blood, huh?"

A blink, a tilt of the head. "Why would I do that, when there are so many other people in the office?"



And he was not even surprised.


UP NEXT: Photos of the Yun Kouga artbook thurisaz83 and I annotated with Post-Its while sitting in a McDonalds. Stay tuned.

Look, look, I still have a scanner, and it still works! I bring to you: a scan of a day's worth of workplace scribbles!


January 20th workplace scribbles!




All of them were sketched yesterday, with the exception of the dude going horizontally across the page (I'd started on him earlier).

One of them, in particular, bears drawing more attention to:


I woke up this morning to people giggling on about how Obama flubbed his oath of office because the Chief Justice messed up the second line of the oath. >w< (Obama's "WTF, man?" expression was priceless.) HISTORIC MOMENT IS HISTORIC.

I have so many, many thoughts about why this makes me so happy that I can't fully articulate them all right now, when I have a series bible to polish up and make omgLOLfunny! so we can send it to a potentially-interested broadcaster. So for now I'm just gonna leave it at: PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA TEH SECOND FTFW. AMERRRIIIKA, FUCK YEAH!!!

Now I'll end off with something completely different: STICK FIGURE INNOVATOR PORN.

( omg whut r u doin bring stabity )



(Be back to reply to comments on these last two posts later. Have lots of work to do nao. O SHIGOTO O SHIGOTO~♪)

Yesterday afternoon I got a long-coveted from Kinokuniya. An order I'd placed months ago had finally arrived! I told them I'd pick it up Saturday afternoon, on the way to class.

Oh yes. It had been something I had been waiting eagerly for indeed.


Okay, first off, I have to say: book is expensive. Barely a hundred pages and it set me back more than forty dollars. But, with price comes quality, and the pages are made of deliciously heavy matte paper, almost card-stock-like in its thickness, and the printing is excellent. The pages are laid out neatly and are fairly easy on the eye, giving the entire book a rather pleasing overall aesthetic.

Now, as for the contents.

( MEISTERS PINUP POSTER )

( COLOR SKETCHES )

( B/W CHARACTER DESIGNS )

Overall verdict: I love this book and I don't regret a single cent I spent on it. The book is beautifully made and designed, and I could never get sick of staring at Yun Kouga's gorgeous artwork, so this one's definitely a keeper. Hopefully there'll be a S2 edition of this, as I am dying to see her conceptual sketches for all the fan-fucking-fabulous Innovators.

And now, I get to my other point.

I want to scan this book. I really do.

Yet, at the same time, I don't.

See, the thing is, the scanning process has quite literally destroyed the bindings and in some cases the entire structure of every book I've ever scanned. The worst victim was the World Report, whose pages I had to literally cellotape back into place on the day I bought it because the glue came off the binding after I'd spent two hours pressing it flat to the scanner bed while scanning twenty pages out of it. And that's just with standard-thickness paper.  The paper on this artbook is really stiff-- from my white fingertips in the pictures above you can see how hard I had to press down just to hold the book open--  I can't even imagine how much force I'd have to use to convince it to stay perfectly straight flat on the scanner bed.

So. I'm kind of torn.

On one hand, it's a pretty book! And it ought to be shared! And collectively squealed over!

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that scanning any part of the book is going to royally fuck it up. Which is made of Do Not Want, and then some.

Decisions, decisions.

One thing's for sure, though: any scanning I do will definitely be limited to a small section of the book, probably no more than ten pages. In that vein, a poll to help me decide which part of the book I scan, if I eventually decide to do it. Pick one option!

Poll #1332777
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which part of Yun Kouga's artbook would you most like to see scanned?

View Answers

The pinup poster
7 (33.3%)

The color sketches (I will probably only do the ones of the Meisters which don't go over two pages)
6 (28.6%)

The character designs (Selected items which I think are particularly interesting)
8 (38.1%)

As a further caveat, I'll most likely not have the time to scan the book until the week after next, so it might be a while in the making anyway.

ETA After sleeping on it, I've decided that I'm not going to scan anything. I have discovered that I am no longer willing to spill the blood of books on the scanner bed to please others, as dramatic as that sounds. But it's true. There are plenty of others who are willing to make that sacrifice; I am no longer amongst their number.

Sorry.

In that same vein: Sorry, guys, but there's probably not going to be a Gunday Capfest this week. :/ I have work that needs to get done, deadline Monday, so everything else goes on the back burner, unfortunately. I kind of enjoy being employed, know what I mean?

On the plus side, aforementioned work is probably going to involve heavy references to LOLcats and Pedobear, so it all works out in the end.

Gunday Capfest #14!! The usual gravy of caps: recaps, subtitled screencaps and ABUSE OF CAPS.

But first off, I have to apologize for the lack of icons that I said I would make over the New Years' break. Suffice to say, things went Not As Planned, and therefore-- no icons. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I must say that I got very distracted while writing this because my Twitter feed was going crazy with the reporting of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza City. Holy ffffuck "hot mess" doesn't even begin to cover it. So excuse me if my humor is more off-color than usual today (that, plus I'm really tired, so my brain isn't even coasting straight down the tracks anymore).

Without further ado.




( THERE WAS SOMETHING IN THE AIR THAT NIGHT, THE STARS WERE BRIGHT, FERNANDO )

( Capzadistan! )

Why, hello, dearest friendslist.

Have I terrified y'all enough lately? No? Insanity been on the lacking? Fearing for the warpedness of my state of mind?

Well. Perhaps I ought to share with you some pictures I took of my desk at work today.



( GLORIOUS, JUICY, YUMMY MEISTERS )

Relevant To My Interests!pimping links:

I'm amazed by the amount of spazzing and chatting going on between people in the meme. Bawww, gundam00 always brings the love. Plenty of people on pages 2 & 3, so go say hi and make love! ....enh, I'm sure that was totally supposed to come out as "friends". What gives.


Mechaphiles Fic Exchange: FINAL ROUND All the finalist fics are excellent, so go vote, vote, vote! ♥

Gunday Capfest #13!! The usual gravy of caps: recaps, subtitled screencaps and ABUSE OF CAPS.

This one had about five minutes of plot and twenty minutes of explosions, so expect it to be a short and quick ride. Not that the episode wasn't sweet, mind you. Quality, not quantity!

...to be honest, I have no idea what I'm talking about anymore.




( S2E13: THE BATTLE OF THE MEMENTO MORI )

( Subtitle Screencap Theater )

( AAAAAND AN ICON POLL )

Again, the entertainment headlines on BBC this morning did as they promised, and provided me with a wonderful dose of entertainment.

As evidenced by the screencap:


HALLELUJAH MAKES THE NEWS WITH HIS SHENANIGANS

Dearest friendslist:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with the news story behind the headline, and I will attempt to illustrate one of 'em in time for Christmas!

Ought to be easy, right? I mean, b00bies is overflowing in doubles and twins and doppelgangers, if nothing else... ♥


The real article, for context

Gunday Capfest #12!! Here we go here we go here we go, back to the fun after a week's absence! The usual gravy of caps: recaps, subtitled screencaps and ABUSE OF CAPS. Did y'all miss me? Daaah, you don't have to fake the enthusiasm, I know you didn't. Well TOO BAD, I'm back now, whether you like it or not! HA!




( S2E10: Waaaaitin' on the world to change )

( Screencap Subtitle Theater! )

( Poll-- what's Divine's last name? )

See you next week! ♥