Otakon 2015!

Otakon!
Otakon!
The next-to-last Otakon to be held at Baltimore Convention Center has begun! I decided to take a leaf from others and take some photos around the convention with one of my anime figures, “Danboard” from the manga “Yotsuba and!”. There are a lot of people in Japan and other places that are taking photos of Danboard in various famous sites, so I thought “why not do the same?” Here are a couple of pictures I’ve taken so far, with more (hopefully) to come!

Enjoy!

Danboard checks out the Otakon "ice cold waterworks" sign
Danboard checks out the Otakon “ice cold waterworks” sign
Danboard waits patiently outside the main entrance
Danboard waits patiently outside the main entrance
Danboard meets a cosplayer
Danboard meets a cosplayer

“Gisoku no Moses”, a delightful anime short inspired by Gene Kelly

Screen Shot 2014-08-25 at 9.22.14 PMLeave it to Japan to combine a catchy Gene Kelly tap-dance number from “Singing in the Rain” with a cute anime ghost girl, to create one of the sweetest, cutest anime shorts I’ve seen to date. A lot of the world seems to agree, since the YouTube video is now over 300,000 views, and the comments section is filled with all kinds of languages from fans.

Screen Shot 2014-08-25 at 9.27.01 PMThe anime short starts off with a lonely, sad ghost girl, who happens to hear two haunted tap shoes singing and dancing to “Moses Supposes” from “Singing in the Rain.”

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She’s hesitant at first, but soon she starts trying to dance with them, and as the song goes on she breaks into a tap-dance routine just like Gene Kelly’s. It’s kind of bittersweet, as the shoes lose their movement, but in the closing we see a shopkeeper (Named Mose!) watching the ghost girl looking at a sign in his window for “Singing in the Rain”, and the last scene shows them in a theater where she’s enjoying “Singing in the Rain” with the shopkeeper!

Screen Shot 2014-08-25 at 9.31.43 PMThis is one to really enjoy!

(Update: I didn’t know this before but the other singer and dancer you hear is Donald O’Conner!)

Katsucon 2014 pics as promised

So, I said I’d post some more Katsucon pics from last week, and here they are! There are a whole lot more on my portfolio site, if you want to see more. These are what I think are my best of the best, so enjoy!

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J-Pop, old school – Hitomi Ishikawa

Surfing through some Japanese videos on Youtube, I found some videos by a J-pop singer from back in the 80’s who’s still performing (and still looks very nice, even if she doesn’t look like a high-school girl anymore) named Hitomi Ishikawa (石川ひとみ). She started out (looks like) when she was in high school in 1976, winning a Fuji TV singing contest. She had one big hit in 1978, she was a voice actress on an anime, but her career came to a halt when she contracted Hepatitis B in 1987. She recovered and started performing again in 1988, got married in 1993 (dang it!) and still performs on TV. She has a fantastic voice, even when she was just starting out.

Anyway, here’s a compilation video of some of her songs, and video clips of her performing them through the years.

From the Youtube page, here’s the playlist of songs:

♪ 1.くるみ割り人形
♪ 2.夢番地一丁目
♪ 3.Blue Dancing
♪ 4.ハート通信
♪ 5.君は輝いて天使にみえた

Enjoy!

Nerdtour 2012 quickie: Enoshima Girls

Be grateful you can’t hear me singing this! And I only did one verse so you can be even more thankful!

Enoshima Girls
(sung to the tune of “California Girls” by the Beach Boys)

Well Tokyo girls are hip, I really dig those styles they wear,
And Osaka girls with the way they talk, they knock me out when I’m back there.
The Tohoku farmer’s daughters really make you feel all right,
And Hokkaido girls with they way they kiss they keep their boyfriends warm at night.

I wish they all could be Enoshima
I wish they all could be Enoshima
I wish they all could be Enoshima girls!

Sun, sand, surf and cute girls, the Beach Boys would have loved Enoshima! =^_^=

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A little boogie-woogie from Japan!

Courtesy of the Japanese girl duo “Puffy” (in the US, “Puffy Amiyumi” to avoid confusion with the rapper). here is a video of their song “Boogie Woogie #5”, a really upbeat swing song from one of their older albums. Puffy made it big in the early 2000’s by doing the theme to a kid’s show, “Teen Titans” (even doing a Japanese version) as well as having their own animated show on Cartoon Network. They kind of faded away though, which is a shame because they were very good at high-energy J-Pop songs.

See for yourself! (unfortunately the video quality isn’t that good, but the sound is fine!)

Katsucon 2013 SuperUltraMega-Cosplay-Photo-Extravapaloozathonorama!

(Okay, it’s not THAT big, but there are a lot of pictures!)
Continue reading “Katsucon 2013 SuperUltraMega-Cosplay-Photo-Extravapaloozathonorama!”