First post in a new series of post "As it Happened". These post will be posts about old things that happened in japan, and that I didn't talk about on this blog, but that I want to talk about, or at least I want to remember them. 2015/02/17:
My favorite ramen shop in shimokitazawa employed a couple of chinese students, and they decided to make a chinese new year party inside the shop on the day it's closed. I was invited because I was friend with the manager and some of the part timers there. It was my first time really celebrating the chinese new year. All the food was cooked by the students, and I think most of it was by my friend.
As you can see on this picture, there was a lot of food involved. If I remember well, a lot of it was gyoza (I love gyoza so I was very pleased).
The strangest one was a gyoza cooked with cola. I love cola so I was really looking forward to trying it, but if my memory is good, it wasn't actually that good lol.
That's all for this post. Hopefully this new series will get me to actually start posting more frequently again.
I want to tell you about things that happen here, but most importantly I want to post here to remember. When I go back in my blog, I'm filled with the memories that came with the events that each of these post were prompted from. It's really great, so why have I stopped doing it?
Normality? Everything I do now in Japan feels just like normal life, like everyday things that aren't worth talking about. I know they aren't but it's hard to actually get myself to write about it anyway. I have a lot of things I could talk about, but 0 drive to do so, so here I am again making a blog post about making blog posts.... I'll promise again that I'll write more, and I'll break that promise again.
I went back and had to import manually all G+ comments to Disqus, that a fucking pain in the ass... so all comment between this post and before the time G+ comments were a thing (don't remember when exactly) are manually imported comment. Some formatting might have been lost, and all tags and avatars have also been lost.
Fuck Google.
Also I'll be moving from blogger at some point in the near future, because I don't trust google to keep blogger alive much longer. 2 year max.
At that time though, importing the comments from disqus to the new blog will be easy, since I can just remap disqus urls, so no comments will be lost.
While I'm at it, I say this all the time and never do it, but I plan on posting a bit more from now. I'll go for a minimum of 1 post a month, and more if possible. Look forward to it please!
Once again this year this pôst comes late... 21 days late this time! As of September 6th, I have been drawing for 5 years...
This year has been pretty bad. I personally don't really see any real improvement. I believe I still haven't topped my best drawing from last year. I've been in an Art Block for most of the year and my doujin isn't progressing... I've still applied to comiket anyway, didn't win the lottery this summer, and waiting for the answer for winter, which should come at the start of November if I remember well.
Really I don't have much to say this year, since nothing really moved...
Here's this year in drawing:
As I did the previous years, I did a Poll to ask you which is your
favorite illustration among the illustrations I did last year, please
vote on it and leave a comment explaining your choice so I can use it to
improve! you can vote on your favorite drawing of the year here.
Once again, I'm gonna ask you all to vote on your favorite among my drawings this year (21 days late sorry).
Almost no full illustrations this year... mostly only small doodles, and even there, not that many.... I don't really see any progress either... I've spent most of the year in an art block.... I hope it'll pass, I still have a doujin to finish....
Let me know why you choose the one you did, if you feel like it, and I'll use the comments to get better!
Blanc's Halloween Costume
Faris in a Cake
Konata doodle
Random Girl Doodle
Neptune Staying Alive
Miki cake
Konata the Tourist (w/Gundam)
Nep Bikini Doodle
NepUzu
KagamInu
Happy Birthday Konata
Sayori
Uzume Doodle
Nadeshiko
Edit: it seems the poll doesn't show up on mobile (At least it doesn'T for me, so here's the direct link to the poll: http://www.strawpoll.me/16534936
Yuru Camp was, in my opinion, the best Moe anime since K-On! It's a classic cute girls do cute things, in their school club thing, but it's a very good one.
First the characters are really interesting, and cute. The show is really funny, and cute. But most importantly, it's really informative, and cute!
This post is not a review of Yuru Camp, but a talk about the power of anime, and in this case, the selling power of anime.
As you all know, I live in japan now, so I can see first hand how Yuru Camp has affected people here, but I can't say how it affected people outside of japan, so this post is only about Japan. I also have no numbers to base this on, this is all speculations from what I personally observed, from people directly, or on twitter from many Otaku groups, as well as from asking people in Yamanashi directly (and also some from other people asking, in other blog/reddit posts).
Very often, anime have at least 1 product that they put forward in one way or another, you can think about Lucky Star and the Choco Cornet, Shakugan no Shana and the Melonpan, Naruto and the ramen, this can also be an activity, like Amanchu and diving, K-On! and music, and of course, Yuru Camp and camping. Sometimes these are chosen randomly, just as a thing to help identify with the character, but sometime they are made specifically as promotion for the item/activity, and this is the case with Yuru Camp. But in Yuru Camp's case, the product isn't camping, it's the Yamanashi prefecture. Yuru Camp is a Yamanashi prefecture advertisement, and it's the best advertisement ever. When created, the Yamanashi residents were asked by the tourism board to scout for locations and places of interest, to show the beauty of the prefecture. The tourism board even has a special website and a map up for people who want to visit all the locations from the anime.
This advertisement worked, a lot. The only numbers I have are from the lake Shimarin and Nadeshiko meet at in the first episode, their visitors tripled because of the anime.
On twitter you can see Otakus from everywhere going to camp for the first time, and obviously the location of choice is the Yamanashi prefecture. Groups of Otaku from Oarai (mainly GuP fans) were seen posting on twitter pictures of themselves with brand new camping gear, camping in Yamanashi, eating at the restaurants in the prefecture, and eating the manjuu from the anime. Same things from the Washinomiya fans(lucky star fans). This anime reached a lot of Otaku, it's super popular, it got people into camping, and since camping is the perfect activity for moving to another prefecture, it got people to go to Yamanashi and spend money there.
Of course, myself being an Otaku with absolutely 0 will power, I bought for about 1000$ in camping gear, and started camping because of Yuru Camp. And of course, I did a camping trip to Yamanashi, and went around the locations of the anime. This is my blog, and this is the kind of post I do, sio here's my own report on my Yuru Camp Camping trip!
Me and a friend (who had not actually seen Yuru Camp, but I still convinced to come camp with me anyway) left from Tokyo Saturday morning, destination Fumotoppara camping site, in Yamanashi, Where Rin and Nadeshiko share a nabe in episode 2 and 3.
It's a 4 hours drive (avoiding the highway because fuck the overpriced tolls in japan) and I took my motorcycle to go there, while my friend rented a car. 4 hours on a Bike is a bit much so we planned a couple of stops along the way, first one being the Suwa shrine in Aonohara.
It's a nice little shrine, but I wouldn't really recommend anyone to go out of their way to go see it.
Next stop we planned was at Lake Yamanaka, but we actually stopped in the middle of the Doushi Road, at a driver's rest place, filled with motorcycle. We didn't plan for this, but the Doushi Road is actually a famous scenic view that is really fun to ride trough on bike, with lots of nice turns and a super cool view. There was a lot of people on motorcycles there, was pretty cool. I actually filmed parts of my ride, it's a pretty long video, you can just skim trough it to check if there's anything you'd like to see. Lots of interesting sceneries, the Doushi Road part starts at 15:14.
Next stop was at Lake Yamanaka, unfortunately there were clouds over Mt. Fuji, but the view was still really nice.
Next stop was in a Houtou restorant. Houtou is the meal that Ogaki prepares to Nadeshico and her family when Nadeshiko is sick. It's a Yamanashi specialty. The shop I went to had bear Houtou, so I tried this. It was delicious!
Finally the next and last stop of the day was Fumotoppara's camping ground. Once we got there, it had been raining a bit, so the camp was pretty soggy, and there were clouds all the time we were there preventing us from seeing the Mt. Fuji. It was still a pretty nice camp, super big, toilets are nice, clean, and in relative proximity of everyone. Running water near every camp spaces. There's nothing really to see except for Mt. Fuji there though, so nothing much to visit.
Because my friend was camping for the first time, he had no camping gear, he planned to rent it at the camp, but all their rental items were already handed out. So we had to getho camp, and he slept in his car, we also had to do a weird setup with a picnic tarp to cover the rain, but it was still really relaxing and a lot of fun.
We ended up making some curry while watching Yuru Camp on my tablet.
On the morning of the next day, my friend had to go back to Tokyo because he had to bring back the rental car. So I stayed in Yamanashi and did a visit of a couple of the locations from the anime. I used the map provided by the Yamanashi Tourism Board on the website I linked to before. The map also has other interesting points of the region like restaurants and onsens. I met a lot of other people doing the pilgrimage while going around too. was pretty cool.
First stop was Utsubuna station, the station that Nadeshiko uses to commute to school.
Around the station was a super good yakisoba restaurant (recommended on the map) which was also super cheap!
Next stop was the Manjuu shop where Nadeshio, Ogaki and Aoi go after going to an outdoor shop (the outdoor shop itself doesn't have a real model from what I understand).
The manjuu was delicious, and the staff at the shop was super nice. went to the bench where the girl ate their manjuu too, but it was too hot so I just ate mine inside the shop haha.
Next stop was The supermarket where Aoi works, next to the Liquor store where Ogaki works. The liquor store seemed like there was no store in the building, but the supermarket was as in the anime.
Next stop was the School used as the model for the School the girls go to in the anime. I went from memory on which spot to take pictures of, and I didn't go pass the gate. Apparently the school is closed now, so I should have went inside maybe...
The last stop of this trip was the first camp in episode 1, where Nadeshiko and Rin meet for the first time. I couldn't go on the beatch itself since there was some kind of event and I wasn't there to camp. I'll be sure to go camp there next time. They still let me on the camp site after I asked nicely and was able to get some nice pics of the place, and the most important part, I saw the toilet stall when Rin first saw Nadeshiko sleeping in the middle of the day!
That concludes my first, but certainly not last, trip to Yamanashii. Next time It'll probably be for winter camping!
