Kyoto Animation

Hello everyone. By now I think anyone reading this has probably heard the news, 5 days ago, on July 18th, a crazy person set fire to Kyoto Animation Studio 1's building, throwing gasoline everyone, even on the people, hurting 35 person and killing 34.

Everyone reading this probably already knows about it, but I wanted to make a post about how much KyoAni affected my life.

The first anime I saw from KyoAni was either Lucky Star or Haruhi, I actually don't remember in which order I watched them. But both of them were really influential in my life. I'll start with Lucky Star since it was clearly the one that inspired me the most, and the one I watched the most often too.

Lucky Star is really really good. It's pretty episodic, so you can just watch any episode any time and enjoy it, you don't really need to watch it every time in order. I used to describe it as a like a Simpsons episode, pick any episode, it's going to be funny, you're going to have fun. But Lucky Star was also the first inside view into real Otaku life that I saw. Konata, and Patty to a pretty big extent too, probably helped shaping the Otaku I am today. I re-watched it in the plane while coming to japan for my first trip, to note which shop were important to visit in Akiba, used it to prepare mentally to the Comiket hell. My first Seichi (holy sites) that I did a pilgrimage to was Washinomiya, the Temple were the Hiiragi sisters work, and where the Toori that Kagami is dancing in front of used to be (rip). I idolized Konata and Patty as being the perfect Otaku all my life, and also got influenced by them in my daily life, though, I don't have the money to do the "buy 3 of everything" thing that Konata does. The series is one of the main reason I moved to japan too.
Considering how important that series was to me, it's no wonder that the first doujins I made were about Lucky Star. I met a lot of great people in the Lucky Star fan community, people that I consider my friends now, that were also devastated by what happened 5 days ago.

Haruhi had a less direct influence on me, but it was just my favorite anime at that time. The story was very well made, the animation was great. The voices were awesome. I've often joked about how Haruhi is the true goddess for Otakus. I've wore Haruhi's logo on me for many years. and probably would have done for more if stuff actually fitted me (the hoodie I had was self printed with the print on thing that were in the DVD boxes). It's also what made me become a super fan of Hirano Aya. So while it didn't have a direct effect on my life, this work touched me a lot, and I still to this day, think it's one of my favorite anime. The movie being also in my top of all time movies. Nagato was my Waifu for a very long time too, she was my first Dakimakura. She's still my second favorite character all around. And ... while saying this right after this incident might seem bad, I still think that Haruhi S3 is the sequel I am hoping for the most out of any series.

I love K-On!. I did a full post on this already so I won't spend too much time talking about it here, since another post on K-On! is actually coming soon. But you know this is a work that was very important for me too. actually got me into drumming. Yui is so cute. Ritsu is so cool!

A Silent Voice was such a great movie, it brought me to tears right there at the theater. It was the best movie of that year from my view, and comes about at the same place as the Haruhi movie in my favorites. I have not yet done a pilgrimage for it, but I'm still planning to do it in the near future.

Of course there's more, I loved a lot of their other shows, but I just wanted to talk about the most importants to me.

Last week-end to pay our respect to the fallens, we went to the site of the arson, and prayed. There was a big media presence, of course as Gaijin we got interviewed. But everyone was pretty respectful, and the solemnity of the moment was respected by everyone.

I don't like to see people fishing for the deceased names on the internet, Kyoani was a studio that poured love into their work at every level, and all the lives that we're lost were equally as important. I do hope the studio can get back on it's feet after this terrible incident, and wish them the best.

Hatsumode at Washinomiya Shrine

First, Happy New Year everyone!
Did you all take good resolutions for 2015? Mine is to continue working on the one I had set for myself in 2014...

Today for the first time I did Hatsumode in Japan.
To know more about it, go read the wiki article linked or google it, but I'll give a simple explanation here.
Hatsumode is the first visit of the Shrine of the year. It is usually done in the first 3 days of the year, and is an important japanese tradition.
Most shrines are really crowded at this time of the year, even smaller ones.
I decided to go to Washinomiya shrine (the shrine in Lucky Star) once again, because it's kinda my favourite shrine, and I love Washinomiya, plus they had a special even with Lucky Star goods and cosplay.

I guess most cosplay was on the night of the 31, as I saw some on the first, but not many. Even without the cosplay, I still enjoyed this event a lot. The was a lot of things to see, a lot of smiling people, and a lot of food to eat.
For this kind of event, the food stalls that you can see during matsuri were out on the shrine grounds.

The great thing about Washinomiya is how the pop culture of Otaku, and anime mix so greatly with the traditional one. So while this specific shrine had otaku stuff going on, the shrine is still a very traditional place, and traditional rituals were performed.

(BTW, my normal lens broke, so I was using a zoom lens for all those shots, that's why some of them seem like they should have been taken wider, but I couldn't sorry.)

After lining up to the shrine, and doing our prayers for the new year, we got to draw our Omikuji, a paper that tells you how your luck will be in the next year. By mistake, the box I picked from was for love Omikuji, but I decided to go with it, and apparently I'll have great luck in love. That's just perfect!

After that we bought an Ema, a piece of wood used to write our wishes on, and attached it with the others.
Once again, this is Washinomiya, so the display of Ema didn't disappoint, with even the author of Lucky Star, Kagami Yoshimizu, leaving his own.

Ema by Kagami-sensei

Here are ours:

I can't draw without a draft D:

After that we ate some more and went back home. It was a relatively short time, but it was really fun, I really enjoyed Hatsumode in Japan. And I suggest that if you're in japan around new year, you should totally try it too.
And if you're a Lucky Star fan... do I need to say more?

Here's my loot from today:

The white arrow is supposed to ward off evil!

And here's the full album from today, with a little more cosplay and Ema pictures: (Google+/Picasa)

That's all for today, don't hesitate to ask questions about this event in the comments, I'm sure I forgot important stuff you might want to know.

Hajisai 2014

Last Sunday was Hajisai.
Hajisai is a matsuri in Washimiya.
This festival was probably the most fun festival I've ever been to.
It was so great to see a usually really calm city like Washinomiya being so full of people and so lively.
The really special thing about Hajisai is that it's not only a traditional Japanese matsuri, it's also an otaku Matsuri. At the same time that you have everything from a tradition Japanese matsuri; The yukata, the Happi, the Mikoshi (protable shrine), the hanabi and the songs and dance, you also have a big event with anime songs playing on a stage, special lucky star stuff being sold, people cosplaying. Tsukasa's seiyuu was also there and she sang 3 songs.

First a little lesson for those who don't know about either Japanese matsuri/culture or about wishinomiya.

Matsuri: A matsuri is a festival, I've talked about that am lot in the past.
Washinomiya: Washinomiya is the shrine where the Hiiragi sisters work in Lucky Star, so the city embraced this and is doing a lot of Lucky Star themed events.
Mikoshi: small portable shrine that people carry around the town during matsuri.

The really awesome point of Hajisai is the Lucky Star Mikoshi. You can see it being prepared on this picture I took soon after getting there:

Washinomiya station is between 1:30 to 2 hours of train from where I live, depending on which line you take.
I wanted to get there early to get the limited edition Happi they made for the event.
They even made it in the color I voted for on their website so I really wanted it, and there was only 300 made.
First thing I did was get it in the morning.

Most clothes don't fit me in Japan, but a Happi would fit anyone so there wasn't any problems there!
After that I waited for some guys from G+ that I was supposed to meet while watching the people on one of the stage singing anime songs.
It was raining in the morning so not many people where there at that point.
Also because it was raining and I had 2 umbrella (I had a K-On umbrella in my bag+ a cheap umbrella) I gave one to a random Japanese guy who didn't have one.

The songs were nice, after a while we went back toward the shrine, we saw the Day parade of the Shrine's mikoshi and a lot of people cosplaying as well as some Itasha.

During the day, only the Shrine's mikoshi are parading, the Lucky star one is only parading in the evening. this gave me the opportunity to take some nice pictures of cosplayer close to the mikoshi

 And some close to the shrine:

After that, the more interesting stuff was starting on the big stage so we went back there, along the way I crossed the OTAKOI-Soran, which was a radio parading in the street playing anime songs with people dancing around it, you can see one song here:


The Big stage had some musinc and dance going on again, this time with more famous people, the people from Dear Stage did some songs, there was a couple of people in cosplay doing dances, and an otaku dance contest.

After that the Voice Actress of Tsukasa came on Stage. There was a short interview game where people that were chosen from the crowd (i think) were asked to write on a paper what they tough Kaorin would answer to the question she was asked, and then they compared the ansers and gave points accordingly. The winner received a Happi signed by her (and maybe other people there seemed to be a lot of signatures on it)

After that she gave a mini-live of 3 songs. It was really nice but too short.
I'm really glad that she sang Nenigede Reset, of of Tsukasa's character songs, it was really cute.
She also did Motteke! Sailor Fuku! of course, and the crowd was really into it.

Once her live was over, it was time to go back to the Shrine for the start of the Night parade. Just before I left the stage area, the Japanese guy I gave an umbrella to in the morning came back to see me to ask to take a picture together

On the way to the shrine there was already one of the Mikoshi parading, and a car with Mascots in it. I also took some pictures of the stalls. I love the way the stalls look in Matsuri.

At this point the coolest part started. The night Parade with the Lucky Star mikoshi.
It was really awesome to see. I took a lot of pictures and videos, but you really have to be there to understand how great this is.

Halfway through the parade, they gave the mikoshi carriers Choco coronet (actually they were peanuts coronet but whatever) and asked everyone....
What side do you star eating a Choco Coronet from?
And
Which side is the head?

Then the mikoshi went back the way it came and we walked back to the shrine following it.

Here's a playlist with all the videos of the Mikoshi parade


If you don't feel like watching them all, watch at least the last one. The finale was so awesome, with both Mikoshi, the traditional one and the Lucky Star one, standing side by side, with everyone shouting and clapping. It was really great!

That concludes my Hajisai report.
It was a great event, and I'll be going back again next year!

You cann see all the videos I took during Hajisai here:  Hajisai 2014
And you can see all my pictures from Hajisai here: (lots of similar pictures because I wanted G+ to create gifs) (Google+/Picasa)