Author: blueZhift

Next week I’m heading to Baltimore for Otakon for the 2nd year in a row. There’ll be about 20K anime, manga, and all out East Asian pop culture fans in attendance. Most of these people will be much younger than I am. But that really doesn’t bother me at all. Why should I give up the things that I love and that are fun to me, just because I’m older?

Well it appears that I am not alone in these thoughts! We are many, and now we have a name, Rejuveniles! I’m not sure I like the way that sounds though because it implies a lack of taking adult responsibilty. And that is certainly not the case for me, or likely most of those other kindred spirits. We pay our bills and work hard too. But who, better than aging adults, knows that time is short? I still believe in Heaven, but I want to have fun here too, just wanna have fun…

While one would hardly say that cosplay in Japan is mainstream, one could say that seeing cosplayers in various public venues is not unusual. In Chicago, seeing cosplayers in public is definitely unusual, even more so when the temperatures approach 100 degrees F as they did this past Sunday. Nevertheless, a hardy group of fun-loving cosplayers from the Chicagoland Cosplay Club, and friends, gathered in Chicago’s Millenium Park last Sunday.

When I first heard of this on the Anime Central Forums, I was very curious not only about the cosplayers, but what the general public reaction was likely to be. So I charged my camera, filled my water bottle, and headed to the park to check it out. When I caught up with them, they were gathered at the large “bean” sculpture and from that point made their way over to the fountains where some wet and wild cosplay ensued. I certainly had not expected this, but the people on the streets and the police were friendly and basically just took it in stride. Does this mean Chicago is ready for more cosplay? I don’t know, but I certainly wouldn’t mind!

Here are some pictures I took. Enjoy!

Saturday night I went to see Puffy AmiYumi play at the Park West theatre and was not disappointed. While I enjoyed last year’s show at the Vic, the change of venue definitely helped this year. The smaller Park West was a lot more comfortable and intimate than the ancient Vic. And we were lucky enough to have a great view. And since the crowd wasn’t as big as last year, it was pretty easy for anyone who wanted to, to go down on the floor to get closer.

The openers, Tally, played for about 30 minutes and were pretty good. You don’t find too many young bands these days who can really sing and have good voices! After Tally, Puffy took the stage and jumped right into a high powered set of songs featuring some new ones from Splurge. Like last year, I was greatly impressed by the energy of the band and how much fun they were having. And Ami and Yumi’s between sets antics with the audience were high camp. I especially liked the Japanese tutorial that included the Osakan dialect that Yumi speaks. Of the new songs, I think the one I liked best was Radio Tokyo. But most were old favorites like Jet Keisatsu and Puffy no Rule.

While there were plenty of young kids with their parents about, including a cute pair of little girls, one with bluish purple dyed hair and the other pinkish hair like the Puffy’s animated alter-egos, there weren’t as many kids as last year. That’s probably just because the Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi show isn’t this year’s hot new property on Cartoon Network.

So on the whole, the show was as good as last year with bonus points for the venue change. I’m looking forward to the new album release on the 25th. You can get it on iTunes now, but the CD release will have two bonus tracks that I want, so I’m going to wait. I’m hoping that now that Puffy is with Tofu Records, they’ll include romaji lyrics to the songs. With so many catchy tunes, Puffy AmiYumi is one of those groups whose songs work their way into your brain and won’t let go! So I’d at least like to be able to sing them with greater accuracy! 😀

Initially I had not planned on going to the Puffy AmiYumi show in Chicago on Saturday. It had been scheduled to play the Vic Theatre like last year, but honestly, the Vic is a very old building which just gave me this creepy “in someone’s armpit” sort of feeling. The show last year was great, I just didn’t like the venue. I changed my mind a few days ago when I saw a change of venue for the show on the Tofu Records web site. The show has been moved to the Park West which seems to have a better reputation and is a more intimate space. I’ve never been to the Park West, but I figured that as long as it wasn’t the Vic, that had to be an improvement.

It looks like Inuyasha is still cool. The Virgin store near my office has a display full of Inuyasha related plushies and clothing. I still love Inuyasha, but I really am looking forward to the conclusion of the story. One of the things that I like about anime is the finiteness of it. Typically a series will have a planned run of 13 or 26 episodes, beginning, middle, and end. I liked that closure and completion, rather than running a series until the life has been completely bled from it **cough***Stargate***cough***. I know Inuyasha has already ended in Japan, so the end should be near here too. And once it is all over, I hope and pray that a decent set of DVDs with some extras and song subtitles will come out. DVDs with 3 episodes and no extras at all are barely above the level of shovelware. Shame on you Inuyasha! I’m sure Kagome would sit him down good for this one.

The Chinese government has launched a web site to teach Chinese and promote Chinese culture. Unfortunately, many of the 30 million people studying Chinese around the world must be trying to access the site, www.linese.com, all at once because I can’t get through! I can’t wait to try this out once the traffic dies down or they get more capacity online. My interest in anime and manga drives my interest in learning Japanese and Japanese culture, but these studies really cannot be complete without learning Chinese culture as well. You find out very quickly how much of East Asian language and culture has its origins in China. Indeed the manga fan learns this the first time a kanji smacks ’em in the face! At that point you can either run, or embrace a whole new world. Wow! With China, Japan, and Korea’s growing economic influence and all actively promoting their languages and cultures abroad, this may be shaping up to be an East Asian century.