#and a few aidoru/idol songs

[suosteacup]

when u get this, list 5 songs u like to listen to, publish. then, send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers or moots (positivity is cool) 💖

Oooooohhh okay~

Gonna add some more (for good measure):

[charmingstage]

"aidoru suki?" "DAISUKI!!!" "aidoru saikou?" "SAIKOU!!!" - an idol stage guide

hello there!!!! are YOU a fan of: mankai stage???????? actors?????? butai in general???? perhaps you have been interested in idols but havent yet found the confidence to be absolutely shameless about them?????

LOOK NO FURTHER; IDOL STAGE IS FOR YOU!!!!!!!!

produced by nelke planning (who also produced things like haisute, esute, tourabu, etc. etc.), idol stage - known as dorste or dolste for short - is a series of original stage plays based on the concept of idols! very original name, i'm sure you'll agree.

each show comprises of two parts: STAGE x LIVE. the stage part shows the backstage of the idols: how they came to be, the drama and tea, and the inevitable power of friendship. the live part is the idols performing a concert for the audience, so you get that feeling of seeing how far the boys have come 🙌

there are 7 dolste units that appear over 5 generations:

1. Shounen Hollywood

2. Present◆5 & Mikazuki

3. CHaCK-UP

4. Un-Planet

5. Primoon & GS382

(each one will have a link to a post specifically about that unit!! coming soon, trust)

idol stage also has an interesting concept they call Another World (AW). it's a kind of inside joke/unspoken secret that the idols aren't played by any actors: they're just everyday people that look scarily similar to the irl actors. the actors refer to the characters as their 'friends', and all have varying degrees of closeness that can be pretty entertaining to see. it gets a little tricky in the 3rd and 4th generations (since the idols are played by actors played by actors) but it's not too hard to get the hang of!

HANG ON A SECOND! rhian, you said that idol stage is perfect for mankai stage fans! what the heck does esute have to do with this?

WELL WELL WELL HERE WE HAVE COME TO THE REASON THIS POST WAS MADE.

as i said, nelke planning produced both dolste and esute. if you do a little deep dive into twitter accounts, you can see that the scriptwriter for esute... is ALSO the director of dolste!

as a result, we have a good deal of esute actors in dolste (...or more like the other way around. dolste is old ♡). akazawa tomoru, honda reo, furuya yamato, and especially akigumi: akazawa ryotaro, yoshitaka shion and nakamura taro appear in Un-Planet and Primoon! (ryotaro and shion are main characters of their units, while taro is a guest in a few Un-Planet shows and a fan of CHaCK-UP ^o^)

where to from here??

hopefully that means you're interested!!

here is a youtube playlist of all 7 dolste mvs! they're pretty rough quality, but if you're looking for a laugh or you're just curious for a peek into dolste these are great!!

you can search for the groups' songs on spotify! try "アイドルステージ", and a playlist with songs from CHaCK-UP to GS382 are free to listen there! (unfortunately, since Present◆5 disbanded, they dragged Mikazuki down with them making all of their songs unavailable :( Primoon and GS382 did covers of some of their songs though!)

dolstedia is also a fantastic place to read character and unit profiles. it's a fanmade wikipedia and you'll have to use a translator if you can't read japanese, but it's amazing :D

if you look into it please let me know!! i would love to talk dolste with more english speakers, so feel free to message me about it!

[twatkcox]

[The Keihancarl Diaries: May 4-5, 2024]

Hi everyone, Keihancarl here. This is the fifth Pinoy Otaku Festival event that I attended, with the first one back in May 2017 (Danketsu), and the third POF event held at Robinson's Novaliches Trade Hall after Asobu (2019) and Shizen (2023).

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This year’s POF theme is Yume (which means dream in Japanese), and the focus of this event is mental health awareness. There are panel discussions about cosplay (as per the schedule), and one of them focuses on its benefits (along with anime and fanfiction) to one’s well-being.

Unlike the previous POF events, I somehow skipped the first day of the three-day event as that falls on a weekday (which is, obviously, Friday) and there won’t be that much crowd there. As usual, the Otaku Choice Awards is held on the first day of the event.

May 4th

And that was the beginning of the amazingly awesome weekend.

I decided to go mostly black on this one, featuring the khaki Naruto shirt from Uniqlo. As I didn’t want to stand out like in the previous POF events I attended, I chose to wear something less fancy, with some of my favorite accessories. Of course, my black fingerless gloves will always be part of my outfit, no matter how special the day is.

I really wanted to go there as early as possible so I did just that. I immediately head to the venue instead of taking a long walk from the adjacent malls first. Reaching the venue, I immediately bought a ticket and headed inside.

The Cosplay Idol Finals were ongoing as soon as I made it inside the venue. I began checking some stalls offering various merchandise, including anime shirts, action figures, collectible cards, stickers, anime and cosplayer prints, and accessories. There's also a booth selling English-language manga and a few other books. I get to see a demonstration of 3D printing at one of the booths, and a retro gaming booth where you can try playing some of the old video games (there's also a Tetris competition). The event’s advocacy partner Angat Buhay had a booth inside as well. And of course, a Godzilla display (like in the previous POF events).

I passed by an interesting stall (40 People In The World) selling cold brew coffee, but the computer keyboard-style packaging intrigued me. I tried a sample of one of their coffee blends. I bought a three-piece box. Kind of pricey, but I think it’s reasonable.

I get to witness some performances (including some of the idol performers for the Aidoru Hour), plus the karaoke battle where one of the contestants perform a Miki Matsubara song (Stay With Me), a Lolita fashion show (plus a discussion), and a SmackDown show (kind of a scripted wrestling type kind of show).

I decided to step out of the event area to have a chicken, Cajun fries, and mashed potato meal at Popeyes (SM Fairview). The mashed potato is finally back on the menu, or I just didn’t notice it earlier.

Going back to the event, I have a few selfie pics with some of the cosplayers. I stayed there for a few more hours until the awarding ceremony. An anime rave party followed soon afterward. I decided to upload the first batch of photos from the second day of the event before moving back to SM Fairview and checking some of the shops there.

Before heading home, I decided to have a cup of caramel ice blend coffee (no whipped cream, unfortunately) at the Coffee Bean And Tea Leaf and work on this TKD post. I stayed there for about 30 minutes.

May 5th

I was really determined to go back for the third and final day of the event. I decided on a wine-red stand-up collar shirt and a black Evangelion shirt.

I arrived around the same time as yesterday and bought a few more items, including pins, stickers, and a small anime figure of Kei Tsukishima (Haikyuu), plus a couple of manga books.

There was a karaoke competition (AniOke Idol), a series of performances by different idol groups and singers (Aidoru Hour Extravaganza), and a cosplay competition (Cosplay Competition League). I also managed to take more selfies with some of the cosplayers. I had an opportunity to take a selfie with AllYellow Joshua, who is one of the event's hosts (the pic is on the last part of the post). And I decided to have my photo taken at the photo booth.

Around 4:30 PM, I decided to leave the venue for a while and had some katsudon and brown sugar milk tea at Tamoya Udon (still in SM Fairview). I previously had an udon dish there two weeks after my birthday.

Heading back, the venue becomes a concert hall with performances by idol groups and singers. One of the special guests Misuru (all the way from Japan) also graced the stage during the Aidoru Hour Extravaganza as well, and she was also at the anime rave party last night.

The Cosplay Championship League (the finals, I think) began around 7:15 PM. Meanwhile, I decided to head to the restroom outside the event and did a little grocery shopping along the way. I headed back to the venue 30 minutes later and stayed until the end of the event. The Lolita Fashion Competition later commenced around past 8:00. The awarding ceremony for both competitions followed after that.

POF 2024: Yume concluded right after the closing message and that ends yet another awesome weekend. The question remains whether the next POF event will be held at the same venue.

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Despite missing the first day of the event and all of the panel discussions, I really enjoyed much of this year's POF event, especially the stage performances. I ended up spending a lot of money on some of the merch, including the manga books. It sure was an awesome weekend.

All right, I'm definitely looking forward to the next POF event next year. But of course, there's also a possibility of attending another otaku event this year. For now, it's back to normal for yours truly, Keihancarl. The upcoming mall-hopping trip will have to wait, though, as Mother's Day is coming up and I really planned on spending it with my mom (I never get to celebrate her birthday, which is a few days prior).

And that's all for the second week of the #TheFourWeekendPlan. Until next time!

P.S.: Choji TV did a Ninong Ry cosplay, too bad I never get to take a selfie pic with him.

All pics are from my Instagram account, @kcox_105.

[pretty-prism-hell]

idol land pripara, huh?

maybe me having more interest in the pretty series these past few weeks was a premonition. Anyways here’s my epic analysis post (also as i write this pripara is trending on japanese twitter. Epic)

starting out with the pre-registration image. this confirms we’re getting new coords in the game. pretty cool. also this image confirms the currency used in game, ai$ which i assume is a pun on “aidoru” because the dollar symbol is pronounced “doru” in japanese.

here’s a screenshot of the main menu/overworld? the entire game looks as if it was built using all idol perfect stage as a base which is likely. we see the photo studio directly behidn the player character, which i’ll get to in a bit. i assume the kuma that’s on the screen is the player’s mascot and will change depending on the player. we can see a shop wagon, which is how we’ll get new coord pieces i assume. it’ll most likely be a gacha system because it’s a mobile game and pripara already uses gacha systems in its non-arcade games but who knows.

mychara creation screen! we also get a glimpse of the rank up system above. considering this is a mobile game with a gacha system (probably) i assume this will work similarly to other mobile game level up systems but still using iines as exp. by this is mean itll reload whatever stamina system they have and also unlock new content.

onto the creation part. the sections here appear to be face type, hair style, hair color, eye color, voice, glasses, and Other™. anyways this means pripara is carrying over prichan’s “choosing voice separately from face type” system which is very cool. hopefully this also means they’ll have the new voices prichan introduced too.

coord select screen! (sorry for the youtube bar over it i took this screenshot myself). first of all the rank bar looks different here. the numbers displayed are different on both sides which leads me to believe yeah this is an exp bar and it resets when u rank up.

anyways onto the actual coord select screen. it looks sort of plain compared to past ones but in terms of efficiency it is much better because u dont have to scroll through coord items one by one. i assume you can filter things through pressing the search button on the right.

(only vaguely related but i do wonder how coord color will matter? it’s displayed so it means something.)

bad quality here but photo studio! this is personally a feature im very excited for. anyways at first i thought the sidebar was for choosing characters but i think it’s for choosing poses considering the character’s pose is identical to shion’s in the sidebar also the “pose” button is lit up”

ok my theories on what these buttons on the bottom are left to right:

- return. this is pretty straightforward you exit out of the photo studio

- flip. just flips ur character horizontally

- pose menu. u choose the poses.

- this one probably changes the orientation of the photo? who knows.

- background select. in another screenshot its shown that you have a gallery of photos to pick from but a lot of the backgrounds arent displayed on the menu so. idk whats goin on there. maybe a camera roll select function? the backgrounds do appear very realistic

- photo button. pretty straightforward

- video button. on the sidebar the characters on the right have video icons on them so i think there will be static poses and also video poses to take video of. pretty cool!

- log of photos you’ve taken? maybe.

back to the overworld! here’s the building you use to play songs. im really hoping the screenshot above is like... accurate to the features in-game because it means we’re getting characer hairstyles/colors for mycharas again (epic)

prism stone! this is also marked w/ a shop icon so it’s also a shop area. maybe it’ll work differently to the cart or something? idk

movie! this is very interesting because it looks like it’s a gallery for anime lives. i mean i’m certainly excited it’s kinda hard to find good quality versions of the anime lives on youtube nowadays

exit. it’s an exit. exits you out of the game

this is a very interesting screenshot! because it means we’ll have actual multiplayer? not just exchanging tomotickets but like.. actually playing together. also very cool stamps.

sorry for the horrible quality but it looks like there’ll be some sort of photo-taking function that isn’t the photo studio? in motion it looks basically the same as the prichan photo taking function so i think they just put that into pripara

anyways that’s all the content i have to look at for now.

other thoughts:

- at launch i think they’ll only have the mychara parts/coords from all idol perfect stage because i cant seem to find anything that wasnt in there. however this is a mobile game so it’s only natural that they will update it with new content over time

[tedlyanderson]

A Completely Incomplete History of the Magical Girl Subgenre in Manga and Anime, pt. 2

Welcome back to my occasional, completely unscientific, very self-indulgent look at the evolution of the magical girl subgenre! In my first post, I said that the subgenre can be loosely divided into three generations, starting with series like Sally the Witch and Majokko Megu-chan in the ‘60s and ‘70s. In this post, I’ll describe the second generation of magical girls: the new crop of shows starting in the early ‘80s that added some interesting elements that would transform the subgenre. Come join me below the break, gentle readers!

First, a quick recap. When talking about such a specific segment of pop culture, it’s helpful to have a definition to narrow one’s focus and keep things on track. In my first post, I attempted to define the magical girl subgenre as best I could; what I came up with was a series in which the main character(s) are girls, typically teenagers or pre-teens, who have access to magical or otherworldly abilities in what is otherwise a normal, real-world setting, which are used in conjunction with personal strengths and virtues to solve problems and/or achieve their goals, and which they must keep concealed from other people who aren’t in on the secret. Again, it’s not the most scientific definition—it’s a pretty broad net, including some works it probably shouldn’t and excluding a few it should—but it’ll do for this analysis.

Series like Mahoutsukai Sally and Majokko Megu-chan in the ‘60s and ‘70s were popular, running for multiple years and getting translated into other languages and spreading to other markets, but compared to other series they were modest successes. They didn’t have the cultural impact and staying power of other series from Toei around the same time—Cyborg 009 or GeGeGe no Kitaro in the late ‘60s, or Mazinger in the early ‘70s. And while Toei kept periodically making magical girl series—for example, Mahou Shojo Lalabel in 1980—the formula did not substantially change. The second generation of magical girl would come from a different studio, a newer contender in the world of anime: Studio Pierrot.

Toei Animation was (and is) one of the original giants of anime, having been founded in 1948. Studio Pierrot was founded in 1979 by former employees of other studios, and was trying to make a name for itself. It had already hit upon a pretty successful franchise with its adaptation of Urusei Yatsura in 1981, and was starting production on a number of new series. (Urusei Yatsura also sort of fits the “magical girl” definition, and has proved one of Pierrot’s most enduring and beloved properties, but I’d argue that it’s not nearly as important in the history of the subgenre as the series I’m about to describe. Material for a future post, I suppose.)

For one of these new series, Pierrot decided to use the strategy of “media mix,” an idea that’s been around in Japanese pop culture since at least the 1960s but which had only recently acquired a name. To quote Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan by Marc Steinberg, media mix is “the development of a text across numerous media, among which anime plays a key role in popularizing the franchise; the dependence on other incarnations to sell works within the same franchise; and the use of the character as a means of connecting these media incarnations.” Basically, the idea is to build a franchise by using characters or ideas across multiple media, something that would reach perhaps its ultimate form in the Pokemon franchise a decade later. In this case, Pierrot would promote the music of a newly-acquired idol singer, Takako Ota, by making her the voice of the main character in a new anime series, Magical Angel Creamy Mami (Mahou no Tenshi Kurimi Mami), which premiered in July of 1983.

The “idol” is a specifically Japanese celebrity type, a young female starlet who generally appears on TV shows, in magazines, and especially in pop music. They’re usually presented and sold on the strength of their cute, pure, “girl next door” image, which means that their image is tightly controlled and heavily managed. It’s sort of the Hollywood idea of the “ingenue,” turned up to eleven and corporate-controlled. Now, if you remember, in my first post I noted that you can trace the development of the first magical girl series directly to the American sitcom Bewitched. These shows were putting their own spin on a fairly simple narrative: a girl with magic powers in a mundane world, dealing with simple problems and the occasional, unthreatening, cartoonish villain. In the same vein, you can trace the development of the second generation of magical girls to the introduction of this new pop-culture figure, the idol.

In Magical Angel Creamy Mami, Yu Morisawa is a normal 10-year-old girl, until the day she helps a small alien in his giant, invisible spaceship. For her help, she’s granted a magic wand with a variety of ill-defined powers and two helpers: talking cat-like creatures named Negi and Posi. Yu uses her powers to transform into a glamorous 16-year-old version of herself, who is quickly discovered by a record company and turned into a pop star by the name of Creamy Mami. She must navigate the demands of stardom while also occasionally solving strange magical problems and helping her friends.

I can’t claim to have any special insight into the minds of the show’s creators, but it seems pretty clear to me that Creamy Mami was tailored to fit the image of Takako Ota specifically, and the pop idol in general. The idol must be fresh and innocent even while being perfectly at ease with the demands of celebrity—both naive and media-savvy simultaneously—so our heroine is ten years old, but able to transform into an older, more mature form. She must be talented, but not seem ambitious—she must seem as though she has been plucked from her home without any preparation or training—so Yu is literally discovered by accident and pulled on-stage without even knowing she’s expected to sing, and uses magic in order to perform. The lengthy process of makeup and wardrobe is simplified into a glamorous transformation sequence: instant beauty, no hard work required! The idol is part of a massive pop-culture machine, but must seem like a completely ordinary girl who is never pressured by stardom, so the series has a hefty dose of comical magic antics and wacky side characters without any major consequences for our heroine. (The only recurring antagonists in Creamy Mami are a rival singer who resents the new, younger, cuter Mami, and an unscrupulous paparazzi named Snake Joe.) The overall premise of the series, with our main character being an idol herself, meant that Takako Ota’s musical talent was heavily featured, with one of her songs in the course of most episodes, in addition to both the opening and ending themes.

Many of the elements of the modern magical girl already existed prior to Creamy Mami—for example, transformation sequences were a part of series like Fushigi na Melmo and Himitsu no Akko-chan, as was the main character being a normal girl given magic powers rather than an inherently magical girl, and the cute funny sidekicks have been around since as early as Ribon no Kishi—but I would argue that they acquire a new importance and resonance when combined with the image of the idol. The glamor and pageantry of pop culture synthesizes nicely with the fantastic elements of the magical girl, while the dual nature of the celebrity—and in particular the idol, expected to be both untouched child and glamorous star—becomes something literally otherworldly, an amazing other self given by a being from the sky. By choosing a pop idol as both the main character and chief voice actress for Creamy Mami, Studio Pierrot had created a fusion of pop-culture archetypes that would become a huge success. The second generation of magical girls had begun.

Creamy Mami ran for 52 episodes and several original video animations (OVA), proving quite popular for the new studio. It finished in June 1984, and Studio Pierrot immediately followed up with similar series, each lasting for about a year: Persia the Magic Fairy (Mahou no Yosei Persia), Magical Emi the Magic Star (Mahou no Suta Majikaru Emi), and Pastel Yumi the Magic Idol (Mahou no Aidoru Pasuteru Yumi). Each of these series had the same basic premise—young girl is given some kind of magic power by a magical being and uses it in her otherwise normal life—although surprisingly, despite the success of Mami (and the title of Yumi), none of these later series re-used the premise of the character being a pop idol.

(I hear some of you cry: “That’s it? Four series, each a year long, all from a single production company? That’s what you call a generation?” And it’s true! By the standards I lay out, the second generation of magical girls is extremely small. But I would say that these four series, Mami in particular, are crucial to the history of magical girls. Think of this as a vital transitional period for the subgenre, a relatively brief moment in pop culture that would soon be superseded by newer, more popular works—the equivalent of Archaeopteryx linking dinosaurs and birds, these series bridge the gap between Sally the witch girl and Sailor Moon. Additionally, I’m mostly talking about series and developments in chronological order; while this period in the mid-80s is the birth and peak of the second-generation magical girl, there have been later series that fit this category.)

So what are the new elements added by the second-generation magical girl? As I see it, there are two: first, the ordinary girl and the magical girl are two distinct characters which require a visible transformation. As I said in the final paragraph of my first post, while the magical girl has always had to hide her abilities, only starting with this generation does she hide her identity behind another full-fledged persona. The opening credits of Mami show Yu and Mami’s faces spinning around like opposite sides of a coin. Creamy Mami is in fact even more separate than most other examples in the subgenre; not only does she look completely different from Yu, she is specifically described as six years older than her “normal” self. Again, this is the archetype of the pop idol given a fantastic spin; the “celebrity” is a different person from the “person.” (Think, for example, of Hannah Montana!) Connected to this first point, second, an emphasis on costume, pageantry, and physical transformation into a more glamorous self. This is also at least partly due to improvements in animation allowing for more impressive spectacle, but the creators certainly made good use of it. Mami is dynamic and colorful, obviously far more so than its black-and-white precursors. It is also more toyetic than previous magical girl shows, par for the course for a media mix show; Mami uses a magical compact and wand to transform, plastic replicas of which could be bought as accessories, and stuffed animal versions of her fairy companions were available as well. (To be fair, Mami was hardly the only series from this period to be merchandised so heavily.) To what degree the pageantry influenced the desire to make toys, or vice versa, I can’t say, but they certainly go hand in hand from this point on.

There are also elements of this generation that have become staples of magical girl series—the cute sidekicks, the magic trinkets—but I think those are not truly essential, or rather, that what is essential about them is included in my second point above. To put it simply, the second-generation magical girl is surrounded by more stuff—a wand, some talking cats, magical accessories—all of which add to the pageantry (not to mention the merchandise).

There’s another element which I don’t think is necessary for or specific to the second-generation magical girl, but which also deserves a mention: Mami and other shows are aimed at a slightly older audience than Akko-chan or Sally, and the characters are children who often have to navigate adult worlds. Mami is in the music business; the main character in Magical Emi is a young girl who participates in her family’s magic shows. Even in shows where the character is not specifically participating in an adult sphere, they still find themselves in the position of having to act like adults: in her very first episode, Persia tries out her new magic by transforming into a policewoman and tricking her friends. These characters have a child’s perspective on adult problems, and while they can sometimes help the adults in their lives, they are still often flummoxed by the mysteries of the grown-up world. I think this is largely a matter of changing pop-culture expectations, a recognition that older girls—relatively older, that is, pre-teens and teenagers—were watching these shows, and would want to see characters closer to their own age, or at least dealing with similar problems. Again, I don’t think this is a defining feature of this generation of magical girls, but it’s something that will come up in other series and which should be noted.

That covers the second generation of the magical girl subgenre! And boy, are my fingers tired. Join me for the third installment, in which we finally reach the series that would define “magical girl” in both Japan and the rest of the world, and which would leave an indelible stamp on the genre—and anime as a whole—that has lasted to today. You know the one I mean.

[doodleniella]

Part 2 - Jikoshoukai (it’s looooooooong so please bear reading it at your own risk orz)

* I’m in my late twenties, but looks like a teenager; one time a jeepney driver mistaken me for a college student and gave me fare discount.

* Am a Taurus, I think iirc an A+? (have forgotten about it since high school, during our physical examination at the school clinic), and my birth date sounds like a Star Wars phrase pun.

* Height’s more or less a 5’5” (until that realization a month ago, I always go on believing that I’m a 5’3” lol).

* You can describe me as a (kinda) my-pace type of girl, but in my case, more like a girl who does things in a whim and more or less likely to regret doing them.

* Always bullied since childhood, that’s why I hold grudges until now haha

* First impressions (when I see one) are hit or miss. When a person did something that make me, say, cringe... 👎🏻 unless I can see some progress.

* Also cringed at wrong grammar and spelling (gdi so many apostrophe S’s I kennat—), no offense.

* Is a cat person nyaa~

* Always been drawing stuff since childhood, wherever I can set my pen/pencil/coloring materials/etc on....even on borrowed books at our university library. Shh~

* Speaking of books, since the age of two I frequently read and read and read lots of reading materials—ranging from novels to newspapers to magazines etc. Had a collection of them at home btw, paperbacks and US magazine backissues, mostly. Amongst them, had a few Jan Karon books (under the Mitford Years series) and some Lorna Landvik novels.

* Speaking of library, this is like second home to me... lots of books, computer stations, wifi (lol), air conditioning system (another lol), solo study cubicles to take a nap on whenever time calls for it, and you can borrow almost all of the books (max. 5-6 at a time).

* I’m one of the lucky few who are referred to as the Batang ‘90s (‘90s Kids)—because, unlike kids nowadays, we’ve experienced watching Tagalog-dubbed anime during weekday afternoons after school in the 1990’s and 2000’s-early 2010’s, for one.

* An anime enthusiast, always watching anime and reading manga, one of the reasons why I draw until this day—the other because of my dear aunt (may God always bless her soul~ Also am the Secretary of my college alma mater’s anime club for I guess two years idk? Ahaha~

* Cosplayed twice during college: the first one is a disaster and my second one is super goooood xD (One of my club senpais joked about the colors of the cloth used on our maid costumes—during my first year, we’ve managed a Maid Cafe during our annual University Days—being bright and vivid as the colors of the jeepney routes in our province; he called mine the Marisol, after the Marisol-Pampang route—ctto pic)

* Been fascinated with Japan and the Japanese culture since childhood: during Grade 2, I’ve purchased a Highlights Top Secret Japan puzzle set; during Grade 6, my older cousin who now based in Japan with her own family gave me CDs of Hamasaki Ayumi and EXILE, among others.

* Collected anime posters, laminated cards, and stickers during Grade 6 until all my high school years. Dunno where they are now...

* Am picky with what I watch and read, whether it’s anime, manga, or a novel/book/magazine. ‘Cause I have a damn refined taste lol

* I also have multiple fandoms across some of the genres. I’m an Hello! Project fan since 2008 (first oshimen was Morning Musume’s Kusumi Koharu, now it’s the 15th gen’s Kitagawa Rio from Morning Musume ‘20; also a BEYOOOOONDS fan—but I love all of the girls like my younger sisters....even though my real younger sister’s a pain in the arse sometimes), a casual 48G fan since AKB48’s Heavy Rotation hit the Oricon charts—and kinda supported its international sister groups too, like our very own MNL48...but kinda laylowed since late last year. Aside from MNL48, I also supported its similar (but related?) local aidoru counterparts, Aidoru Sozai and CH4U, since 2018. But, ever since that goddamn COVID-19 virus and quarantine started, the need to support the members had gradually lost in my hands (don’t worry tho, I still checked out on their SNS even if not on a daily basis).

* Before, I always listened mostly to idol songs (75% of which are H!P), but when my old phone broke (and we have wifi now) I tuned in daily to Spotify and listened to some of its playlists—to which I select a few songs and gathered them in my own playlist full of J-Tracks and old stuff.

* I’m a huge fan of Takaya Natsuki’s “Fruits Basket”, ever since I have watched the Tagalog-dubbed original/Studio Deen version on TV every Saturday morning during the early 2000’s. Read the almost-150+-ish chapters during my high school and college days, read some of “Fruits Basket ~another~”, and now currently watching the 2019 version. Also have a dog-eared TokyoPop copy of the ~Cat~ fanbook skl.

* Due to the influence of some of my artist collab buddies and a certain redraw challenge (#HaikyuuRedraw), at almost three? months, I’m basically new to the Haikyuu!! Fandom. In less than a month, I’ve watched Seasons 1 until the first half of On The Top!!—including the OVAs, read the full 400+ chapters of the “Haikyuu!!” manga non-stop (because, ‘it’s fast-paced’ as I have told one colleague before), and its spin-offs “Haikyuu-Bu” and “Let’s Haikyuu”, and watched all four compilation movies. (Now rewatching Season 2 btw...) *whispers low* Not to mention countless fanfictions and doujins...... FUN FACT: If you visited my Pinterest page, you’ll be annoyingly (imo) amazed at how many Haikyuu!!-related memes, comic panels, fanarts and stuff I have saved in my two boards. Also made some chibi fanarts (first one being Inarizaki’s Capt. Kita; will post Kenma’s later tonight) and some WIP sketches (one Hinata, one Oikawa—on an UFO, duh—and a Yachi... all of them chibified) that idk when the fuck will I start to work on them again qwq (Whew... my longest paragraph so far, sorry~)

* Created my Facebook art page and began sharing my doodles and drawings to the public since 2017 (more then three years ago), then since early 2018 started doing MNL48 and other local aidoru groups’ fanarts in trad (colored ballpens and colored pencils on cheap bond paper halves). Then early 2020, I started doing anime fanarts as part of a collab for I think half a year now.

* I have been a member of two artists’ collaboration groups on Facebook—MFA48 (specializing in mostly MNL48-related group fanart collabs) and Anime Art Collaboration Group (an exclusive-for-Filipino-artists’ collab group specializing in two-week anime collabs and other art activities, to which I’m a part of its Council as the Fukaichou/Council VP). Also a staff member at a memeposting Facebook page for more than a year now (belated Happy Anniversary to me lol~).

* Did make some padorus, a few memes—including an all-in-one virtual powerbank charger, ‘patent pending’—and stuff.

* WIPs old and new kept on piling up due to many distractions (namely, this phone I’m using rn and its many installed apps) and disturbances (my fam, on the top of the list). And I really hate it qwq hence the frustration and stress...

* A lazy person actually tee hee~ (and a big eater but kinda slim like Miaka from “Fushigi Yuugi”)

...well? Ahehehe~ hope you stick on reading all of these bullshit till the end, tho. Ja~ see y’all again! （＾∇＾）

(Hope it can fit within Tumblr’s character number parameters or something...)

[twatkcox]

[The Keihancarl Diaries: May 17-19, 2019]

It’s me, Keihancarl. And here comes another awesome weekend, the Pinoy Otaku Festival 2019: Asobu at Robinsons Novaliches Trade Hall.

May 17

It sure feels weird going out on a weekday, but I did it anyway. After all, I really can't afford to miss the first day of the event.

I decided on a pastel yellow polo shirt and a black knitted vest, as well as my black fingerless gloves. I was initially thinking of wearing my black fleece coat (again), but I’ll just reserve it for the weekend.

I left home right after lunch, but I didn’t head straight to the event just yet. I checked a few shops in Fairview Terraces and SM Fairview, mostly bookshops, before heading to the venue.

I then bought a ticket (a one-day pass) at the entrance. Alternatively, you can purchase a three-day pass or a VIP pass online, but they won’t be available onsite on the day of the event.

Anyway, I got inside the venue and checked some of the stalls. At Japan All-Stars stall, I bought a red anime T-shirt featuring Izaya Orihara of Durarara!!, the one I’ve been eyeing since last year’s POF event, as well as a couple of awesome pins. I initially wanted to buy an anime T-shirt featuring White Blood Cell of Cells At Work, but they don’t have large sized ones. And I did take selfies with some of the cosplayers.

There weren’t a lot of congoers on the first day of the event, The venue is expected to be jampacked on the second and third day (18th and 19th, respectively), as some of the biggest competitions (Battle Of The Bands, Fantasm Inter-School, Cosplay Championship League, and a few others) are held on these dates.

There were a couple of panel discussions: The Status Of E-sports In The Philippines and Sexual Harassment In Cosplay. There’s also a short video feature on the Japanese-Filipino anime, Barangay 143.

On the Otaku Singing Bee, the contestants must rearrange the words that appear on the screen, that is actually part of the lyrics that will follow soon afterward, as well as guessing the missing part of the song’s lyrics. The game features theme songs from Maid Sama!, The Prince Of Tennis, Mobile Suit Gundam Seed, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and a few others.

From time to time, auctions of various anime merch were held, ranging from posters, stuffed plushies, even soundtrack CDs. There are people playing board games on the Game Detective booth. And there’s the display of Godzilla figures, too.

I had an early dinner at Jollibee, which is not far from the venue. I immediately head back to the event after that.

And then there’s the Otaku Choice Award, where they award a nominee from each different categories. In addition, there’s also the general awards for non-Filipino and non-local things, such as anime shows, movie/adaptations, Japanese bands, console and online games, and seiyuus (Japanese voice actors). There were performances in between.

I decided to go home midway through the end of the awarding ceremony, even though I really wanted to stick around and catch the rest of it. And that’s how my first day at the event went.

May 18

It sure was a sunny day, perfect for a nice tall cup of cappuccino frappe. However, I decided to skip going to the café for now and head straight to the venue instead. I arrived at exactly 2:00 in the afternoon.

I decided on an all-black outfit consisting of my black fleece coat and my black Tokyo Ghoul shirt. I only decided to wear my black fingerless gloves later that afternoon.

There were more cosplayers at the venue compared to the first day of the event. There's also a slight increase in congoers as well. The event area will probably be filled later during the Battle Of The Bands segment, but for now, it is kind of spacious in here.

I didn’t catch Your Cosplay Sounds Familiar (I think it already ended by the time I arrived), but I did catch Fantasm Interschool Cosplay, where contestants from three schools perform a scene from anime series or movies.

There were performances by Hiro and Kazuki and aidoru (idol) group CH4U, as well as Gekitora and Yohgen. There's also a panel talk on piracy and anime fandom, as well as a guest appearance by Xavier Ray of January 24 Productions.

At around 5:30 PM, the Battle Of The Bands commenced. Around that time, I decided to have an early dinner of beef misono bowl (with a pair of chopsticks) at Yoshinoya SM Fairview. Back at Robinsons Novaliches, I bought a drink from OTeaHamaru (a cup of jasmine tea with rock salt and cheese) before heading back inside the venue.

I finished the drink inside while checking some of the stalls and watching some of the performances by competing bands. The winners of earlier competitions were later announced as well.

I bought four pins from Pixel Hero and took additional selfie pics with some of the cosplayers. I uploaded some of the pics to my Instagram account.

Last night, I left the venue early since someone's expecting me at home. This time, however, I decided to stay until the second day of the event ends. There's one more day left before POF Asobu wraps up.

May 19

And welcome to the final day of POF Asobu. I decided to wear the same outfit, but featuring my striped brown and white polo shirt instead.

I left home at exactly 1:00 PM and went straight to the venue without checking any of the shops. There were a lot of congoers at the event, as well as the cosplayers. Of course, I took selfies with some of them.

By the time I got there, Karaoke Battle Royale is still ongoing. There were also performances by Sofia The Artist, Aidoru Sozai, Pepper Keibu, Ivy! Musume, and a few others. There's a panel talk about how to become a successful game streamer.

Around 4:30 PM, there was a special guest appearance by Ariel Villasanta of the comedic duo Maverick and Ariel, promoting the upcoming first reality movie “Kings Of Reality Shows”. He also served as one of the judges of the Cosplay Championship League, which commenced right after showing a teaser of the said reality movie.

I decided to leave the venue in the meantime and crossed the footbridge to SM Fairview to check a few shops and had an early dinner at Tokyo Tokyo (which is now located at Annex 3, a.k.a. The Parkway). I had a donburi bowl, a pork katsudon, which is really good.

Heading back to the event, the cosplay competition is still ongoing. I get to see some awesome performances by some of the contestants. Later on, there’s another panel talk on what it takes to be an idol.

There’s actually a meet-and-greet event behind the stage, but I think it’s exclusively for VIP ticket holders. For a while, I stick around to watch the panel discussion until I saw Ariel heading out of the venue. I quickly head out of the venue and managed to catch up just to take a selfie with him. He was really nice. I immediately upload the pic to my Instagram account and head back inside the venue, in time for Poly-V’s performance.

I also posted some of the pictures to my Instagram account and had a few more selfies with the cosplayers. There were a few more performances (including Ivy! Musume) before the announcement of winners and the closing ceremony. They also teased next year’s POF event.

And yes, I bought just one more souvenir, a cute green dinosaur as my bag’s charm. A perfect match for the awesome pins I’ve bought from Pixel Hero during the first and second day of the event.

By the time the event finished, it started raining outside. I had to wait for the rain to gradually weaken before heading to Fairview Terraces to check a couple of shops, and then head home. And that’s how my awesome weekend went.

Postscript

Compared to the previous POF events, this one is satisfactory in terms of the number of congoers and time management, among others. The lighting is okay, but the event’s (rented) sound system isn’t at par with the ones at Fairview Terraces. The air conditioning at the event area is okay, though at times it does get a little stuffy, especially on the third day of the event. Also, there are some bystanders watching the event for free by the elevated hallway, blocking access to the restaurants and restrooms. This prompted the event organizer to tell the congregating non-paying bystanders to leave the area and even asked the guards for help in keeping the elevated access free from obstructing crowds.

Despite the problems, the entire event went pretty well and they somehow managed to stick to the intended schedule. The event area is incredibly spacious, and the crowd is somewhat controlled compared to the previous POF events. It actually feels more secure and comfortable in there. I also loved the booths and the choice of merchandises available. There’s also a dedicated area for meet-and-greet events at the back of the stage.

I really get to enjoy the event, and I bought some nice souvenirs too. I had fun taking selfies with some of the awesome cosplayers as well. I hope they’ll consider Robinsons Novaliches as the venue for the next POF event since this is very convenient for those coming from Northern Metro Manila and Bulacan areas.

It sure was a pretty exhausting weekend, but I actually had a great time there. Right now, I’m considering attending a similar event later this year, most probably Cosplay Mania 2019 at the SMX Convention Center. I’ll probably need to save up if I really want to go there.

All right, it’s time to wrap this up. Until next time!

All pics are from my private Instagram account, @kcox105.