Tokyo International Anime Fair

A couple of weekends ago, I had a chance to have an awesome adventure and cross something off my bucket list. I went to an anime convention in Tokyo!! I was so excited to get this opportunity. What anime fan doesn't dream of the day when they can head over to a convention in Japan?! The convention is one of the largest in Tokyo. It's held on the island of Odaiba which is a man-made island off the coast of Tokyo but it's still a part of Tokyo proper.

I started the day by picking up my friend from Tokyo station. She took the shinkansen in from Sendai to join me for a day of anime fun. We crossed the Rainbow Bridge and were greeted by Tokyo Big Sight which is where the convention was being held. I think Tokyo Big Sight is hilarious. It looks like a docked space ship if you ask me.

So strange

We got our tickets very quickly which was super surprising to both of us since out experience with American conventions has always involved standing in line for hours if you buy your entry the day of the show. It was a wonderfully pleasant surprise. It could have also been because we came about 2 hours after opening though XD

Here we are!!

As soon as we walked in, we had a total geek moment. See, children here love this character and show called Anpanman. Being a teacher here means learning all about and loving Anpanman. We were greeted by a giant statue of Anpanman. We immediately had to be the only adults to take a picture with it.

YES! Love Anpanman!

 There was only one company's booth that I really wanted to see: Bandai. So as soon as we had taken our picture, I drag my friend over to the Bandai booth. It was everything that I had hoped in that it was covered with Gundam things!!

Awesomeness!

I lazed around the booth taking in the models and watching the trailers for AGE and Unicorn. It was so fun to see everything that is going on and coming up in the Gundam universe.

After I had that need met, we just kind of wandered around the floor. Checking out the booths and stopping to check out some art work or snap pictures of ADORABLE characters or booth babes. Some booth highlights: getting to see some original artwork from Miyazaki, the vocaliod booth where models were dressed as the characters and there was a life size statue of  Hatsune Miku, taking a picture with samurai, an adorable moving and giant Dentsu, Lupin movie promos and trailer, and a mobile shrine for an anime.

Vocaloid characters :)

Hatsune Miku

More awesomeness

What up Lupin the Third?!

Shrine?

So cute!!

Miyazaki sketches

Despite what I just listed, the convention was actually much smaller than I expected. We had pretty much seen and done everything in two hours. This was mainly due to the nature of the event. There was pretty much only booths from major animation companies. There was no merchandise area or anytyhing like that. The other problem was our lack of Japanese language skill. there were some panels and shows going on but it seemed pretty useless to attend since we couldn't understand them let alone read the schedule.

Another issue that I had with fair that made me extremely sad was that cosplay wasn't allowed. It didn't quite feel the same without seeing people all dressed up. I guess I can understand why it's not allowed. They didn't want people competing with or upstaging the many models that were hired to wear certain costumes from the shows. It was still a huge let down though.

Since we had finished with the day earlier than I had expected, we headed around to do some sightseeing on Odaiba. I also had an ulterior motive though. The to scale standing model of the Gundam is also located on Odaiba. It's scheduled to open on April 17th officially but you can still see it over the fencing. We went over to the park that it's located by. Even from the train, I spotted it. I had to literally bite my finger to keep from shouting on the train, I was so excited.

OMG there it is!!!

 I calmed myself down and as we left the train, I even allowed us to do the sightseeing first. I literally started skipping though as soon as we went towards DiverCity Tokyo where it is. We stood there and started at it for a couple of minutes as I lamented how it wasn't open to the public yet. Soon Gundam, we shall meet again soon...

It's so beautiful

Cosplay in Japan

As many of you know from my other post, last weekend I went to a gaming convention in Tokyo called Tokyo Game Show. I must admit, one of the things I was most looking forward to was the cosplay. For those of you who don't know, cosplay is when people dress up as their favorite video game or anime character typically for something like a convention. I wanted to point out what I thought were some major differences between cosplay in the USA and here in Japan.
Disclaimer: Theses are all my observations from going to ONE convention. I in no way am claiming to be an expert on cosplay in Japan. Enjoy!
1.) If they are going to cosplay, they are going to do it RIGHT! All of the costumes I saw were beautiful and amazingly well done which is not the case in the USA.
2.) Stopping people on the convention floor is a big no-no. In America, I do this freely. Stopping and asking for people's pictures as I see them. Doesn't work that way here. All cosplay photos are taken in a separate location.
3.) Cosplayers are rock stars. No, literally. There were fanboys asking for autographs and professional photographers set up everywhere.
4.) Manners, manners, manners. You have to make sure you ask before taking pictures as some of the girls are actual models. Also, people stand in a line to take the best photos possible. No group huddling.
5.) Sexy! So, I was really surprised by how revealing and overtly sexual a lot of the female cosplayers were. They were wearing next to nothing and even when fully clothed were laying on the floor with their fingers in their mouths or imitating other very sexual poses. I don't know why this surprised me so much but it did. I thought cosplayers here were classier than that...oh well!
These are just some of the major differences that I noted. Enjoy some pictures!

What up giant robot?!

Just hanging out

To start people off, they would have their friends take a picture or they would take a picture of themselves.

Tokyo Game Show

This story starts with one of my parent lessons on Friday. I asked my student what she was doing this weekend. She replied that she was going to a video game convention. I had to keep my poker face and not completely geek out at her. "Oh, really?", I coolly replied, "Where is this convention at?" I hoped I could get some details out of her. She told me in Chiba. I lit up on the inside. Only two hours away from here! I explained that I'm also a video game fan and would love to hear more about it. We ended up talking about video games for 20 mins. Parent lessons ftw!
Anyway, my first response was to quickly post my excitement on facebook. I instantly got a reply from a friend close by that he wanted to come as well. We made some plans and I now had a con buddy :)
I started the day off early, catching a 6:23 AM train. We made our way to Chiba on a crowded two hour train ride. Luckily, Japanese conventions are much more organized than their American counter parts so we got into the convention floor at 10:15 only 15 mins after it opened which was impressive considering we were in a line that wrapped around the building. When we entered, we were greeted by the booths of many a great video game companies.

Here we are!!

Konami booth

Bandai/Namco booth where we stopped to see a game announcement

Sega booth

Square Enix Booth

X-box Japan

Birds eye view of the floor

It was an amazing experience! I got to see a whole bunch of games that are about to come out including: the new Halo, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter X Tekken, Naruto, One Piece, and Dragon Ball games that are coming out, Battlefield 3, Project Diva, Sonic Generations, and many more. I also got to see and play with the new Playstation Vita!
It was more exciting to be able to play the games! I played Soul Caliber V, Mass Effect 3, Dance Central 2, Michael Jackson Experience, and (the highlight of the day) Ni No Kuni the new Studio Ghibli game which was incredible. It was stunningly beautiful. One of the things that got me was how wonderful the music was. It really completed the game and I look forward to buying once an English version is released!

A small picture of the game. Shhh...I wasn't supposed to take a picture :p

Another highlight was seeing a vocaloid performance. For those of you who don't know, these are Japanese pop stars that are not real. The girls "sing" using a computer program and "perform" using holograms. It was quite the incredible experience to see one.

The picture does it no justice, sorry.

Next time, I'll fill you in on my experience with cosplayers at the convention.