It may have been a convention dedicated to anime but for me, it was a Takanori Nishikawa filled weekend. If the amount of Takanori events weren’t enough, I come to the convention to find out that the Ningin booth is conveniently placed next to the T.M.Revolution booth! I think Takanori came to stalk me instead! He’s all the way in Japan and I’m still being followed! Ha ha! I’m joking, of course. But in any case, it was all enjoyable. Everyone at the T.M.Revolution booth was lovely. I also saw some old friends there from New York Comic Con 2008. The merchandise there was also very nostalgic and reminded Jessica and I of our adventures that fateful weekend when we met Takanori Nishikawa in the flesh. But before I start getting all teary eyed, here’s the coverage of everything Takanori Nishikawa related!

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Today was one of those days when I hated my job and thought it was the worst job ever. But some bitch at work sent me this video clip and I decided, immediately after watching it, that my job was not so bad after all.

A train station in India is having a problem with some nasty monkeys bothering the passengers. So some genius who worked there thought of the scarecrow tactic. He hired a man and dressed him up as a monkey (a large one, mind you) to scare off the real monkeys. Couldn’t they have given him a friendlier looking monkey costume, instead of this evil demon looking one?! By the looks of it he’s probably scaring off the passengers, not the monkeys.

If you ask me, I think the monkeys are just sitting there and laughing their asses off at this poor fool who walks like he just threw his back out.  They probably think to themselves, “what a bitch job this is!”, and continue to eat their bananas before they set off to intimidate more passengers.

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Sunday’s weather for the 26th Annual Korean Harvest Fest in Flushing Meadows Park couldn’t have been better. The first day of autumn in New York, presented a true Indian summer of bright sun and warm breezes. The weather must have known to prepare for the attendees that came out in droves. Korean Americans from the tri-state area, and various other ethnicity’s local to New York came out to support local businesses that set up shop along a makeshift market in the middle of the park. More »

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For three days of the NYAF our Ningin crew met so many interesting people. It was great to meet you; the creative people that make a weekend like this a great experience. I wish all our Ningin members could have been there with us to see the these Animated characters come to life. It was truly unbelievable! Costume clad Anime fans came from all over the world to converge in New York. Anime has truly been a wonderful influence on us all. It is something that goes beyond languages and borders and brings us all together. Especially when you realize that you may have grown up with an Anime show that also played in Europe or Asia or Africa. More »

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Thank you to those that entered the Ningin-NY Anime Festival Cosplay Photo Contest. We were amazed by your costumes and enthusiasm. Galleries from all three days of New York Anime Festival are online now. We divided the galleries by Day 1 (Friday), Day 2, and Day 3 to make it a bit easier for you to find yourself. Don’t forget to check out other photos from the event.

We’ve gone through over 500 contest entries and chosen 50 finalists. It was quite a debate about who should make the top 50. We gave preference to those that made their own outfits and those that posed well. Well that’s done and now it’s time for you to vote for the winners! Voting will be open until 12pm (EST), Sunday, October 5, 2008 for all registered Ningin users. Each Ningin user can vote for one favorite costume so make sure you check them all out before voting! The winners will be announced 12pm (EST), Monday, October 6, 2008.

The top three cosplayers will be profiled and interviewed by our Ningin bloggers. The overall best cosplayer will also receive two super exclusive tickets to the private premiere of the Megaman Movie and two tickets to Comic Con next February.

Good luck and thank you for stopping by the Ningin.com booth at the New York Anime Festival! More »

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Wow. I can’t believe Lan and I took over 500 cosplayer portraits in three crazy days. This was our first anime convention and I don’t think any of us expected such an enthusiastic turnout. In case you didn’t meet our team, we had our bloggers Mia Lerda, Lara Visconti and Jessica Dawson meeting and greeting, Lan Nguyen and myself on photographer duty, and Hoc Poeng as master of ceremonies at the Ningin.com booth. Bloggers Andrew Lim and Stephen Chen were able to make brief appearances on Saturday (btw, that was a day of anime insanity!).

Special thank you’s to our NYAF booth neighbors T.M. Revolution (TMR and Abingdon Boys School management Koichi and Michiyo), Japan Society (who stopped by many times to check out our Cosplay Photo Shoot), Lady Heather’s Fashions (enjoyable harassment by gothic Sujia, and yes, we know it’s not cosplay), New York-Tokyo (film fest planners Taeko and Steve), Pierrot (Keiko from the Naturo producing team), MSS-New York (video producer Takuro), The NEO Show (hosted by Angie), the Yaoi boys (thanks for a paddling), Ichi-P (a special Wonder Girls dance off at the Ningin booth) and NYAF head honcho Peter Tatara who found a moment to stop by and meet us! More »

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It makes me so sad to write this as it is the last day of the New York Anime Festival. It was my very first time at an anime convention and it was an overall great experience. I can’t wait to attend another.

Recapping on today, it was easier than the previous 2 days as it was more relaxed (thank God) which left a lot of room to socialize with fellow attendees. I met a lot of new people in addition to running into friends from the anime community. I want to give a shout out to “Saka”, our booth neighbor TM Revolution, John and Jayelle from Otakuden, Zlade from Anime Meetup, Ichi-P and old friends from Cosplay Day at Kinokuniya; it was great meeting you guys.

About the Cosplay Photoshoot Contest, we did take a ton of photos again which are all uploaded to the galleries. I want to thank all the participants; you guys are amazing and I wish you luck! Details of the contest voting and winner will be posted later. Also, I will be posting coverage later on about individual cosplayers.

So, I hope you guys enjoyed yourself as much as I did. Here’s some photos from Day 3:

View Full Galleries: NYAF 2008 - Cosplay Photoshoot Contest Day 1 - Cosplay Photoshoot Contest Day 2 - Cosplay Photoshoot Contest Day 3 More »

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TVXQ has officially released their fourth album, Mirotic, only a few days ago but even before then it has hit number 1 on the charts. I’m glad they’re back in Korea again so they can put these fake talentless boy bands to shame.

The new album is title Mirotic which is the combination of a coined Korean word “miro” and the English word “tic”. The word “miro” means “lost or maze” which has lead people to believe the definition is the feeling of being wrapped in love with no way out.

Listening to the entire album, I was more of a fan of the slow songs (especially Jae Joong’s solo) over the upbeat ones although “Wrong Number” and “Crazy Love” were one of my favorites. I really enjoyed the entire album with its techno pop feel; definitely a hit for a comeback album. More »

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Hello everyone on ningin! I recently talked to a trailblazer by the name of Laurence Louie who is the editor-in-chief of the hot new Asian American newspaper, Native Tongue. I was first introduced to him through another friend of mine. I began viewing his website and his newspaper online. I noticed how he and his staff desperately wanting to make a change in the Asian American community on campus, locally, and nationally. The interview that I have had with this wonderful man Laurence follows. More »

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Ohayo! New York Anime Festival is coming to an end as we start day 3, but let’s recap on day 2. Even before the doors were officially open, the Javits center was packed with cosplayers; it was pretty intense to see so many people there. As such, we were able to take way more photos for our Cosplay Photoshoot Contest. There were a lot of memorable cosplayers as everyone seems to bring their A-game. It’s amazing to think that some of these cosplays are put together by hand! We also met some of the artists and other exhibitionists. They were all really friendly and had some interesting merchandise. The day was a lot of fun but I’m going to let these pictures speak for themselves.

View the entire gallery: NYAF 2008 - Cosplay Photoshoot Contest Day 1 - Cosplay Photoshoot Contest Day 2 More »

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At this point, I’ve all but given up on reasonable amounts of sleep. It is for the weak after all.

On to the important stuff. According to what I’ve been told, Day 2 of NYAF is the busiest of all the NYAF days. I’ve also been told that Day 1 is just industry/media day yet I found myself consistently occupied shooting cosplayers the entire time I was there. So if Day 1 is “slow” then we might be woefully understaffed with only 8 people from the Ningin crew. There’s so many stories, so many different things we can cover. The doors open to the public at 10am, but we’ll probably be there at 8:30am giving us a chance to talk to the other exhibitionist there and making new partners/friends.

Also, if anyone is interested in contributing a story, then come find us at booth 138. We’re very happily right next to the T.M. Revolution booth. Let us know that you’re a fan of Ningin and we just might give you free t-shirts or some other free stuff (while supplies last). Here are some noteworthy cosplayers from Day 1, taken from our NYAF Day 1 Gallery. More »

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Making this super quick as I am super busy! NYAF day 1 was amazing! All the cosplayers were so cute and luckily I could who most of them were regardless of my lack of Anime knowledge.

Can’t wait to see what tomorrow will be like since Saturday will be the busiest day of the convention. Sweet! I will have blog posts about today up later on so please be patient. We are all very tired but so pleased with the turn out.

Be sure to check out the gallery from the Cosplay Photoshoot Contest Day 1. Voting process will start Monday so get all your friends to vote for you! More »

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Hey just wanted to provide a super quick update on NYAF. We’re so busy here, so many great cosplayers. It’s pretty crazy. So far, about 5% of the photos are live. If the connection here was faster, we would have more photos. Check the gallery page for updates!

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Earlier this month, I posted an entry about the scandal surrounding the official 2008 Miss Vietnam winner, Tran Thu Thuy Dung. Apparently the 18 year-old beauty queen did not complete her high school education and the government insisted that all contestants must be high school graduates. Now the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s (MCST) inspectors are calling for her to be stripped of her title because they found proof that she did not finish high school and therefore has breached the contest regulations. Apparently bitch faked her high school end of year exam results to enter the pageant. The inspectors also suggested a hefty fine for the organizer of the pageant since they did not enforce the regulations.

I don’t understand why the government officials are being such hard ass about this. Perhaps they have seen the youtube clip of Sarah Palin’s long lost cousin last year and want to make sure that any Miss Vietnam winner will have at least completed high school in an effort to spare the country of any stupidity induced embarrassment. Perhaps one of the inspectors is a family member of the first runner up and bitch wants the crown badly. I bet she tried dousing pepper spray on Tran Thu Thuy Dung’s dress during the final round but the beauty queen was so focused on winning that she probably did not feel a thing. So much drama surrounding beauty pageants.. which is exactly why I love them!

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New York Anime Festival starts in less than 24 hours, hope you bought your tickets already!

As mentioned in several previous blog posts and emails, Ningin will have professional photographers come and take photos of as many cosplayers as we can with all photos being added live to our special NYAF gallery. First 500 cosplayers will get a one-of-a-kind Ningin/NYAF badge as a souvenir. What we didn’t mention was that we will also have a best photo/best cosplayer contest and Ningin users will have the power to decide the winner!

Sometime on Monday 9/29, the Ningin staff will narrow the choices a bit and select their top 20 cosplayers from the weekend for audience award voting. Audience voting will last until midnight Saturday 10/4 and announced on Sunday 10/5. The top three cosplayers will be profiled and interviewed by our Ningin bloggers. The overall best cosplayer will also receive two super exclusive tickets to the private premiere of the Megaman Movie and two tickets to Comic Con next February.

Special Thanks to, Shino, our award winning Japanese photographer friend; Eddie Lebron, Director & Producer of the Megaman Movie; and our friends at Reed Exhibitions. More »

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You know, we often talk about the success stories of our heroes without talking about their pitfalls, their struggles, their hurdles.

Pat Morita,  better known as Mr. Miyagi, from the movie The Karate Kid, taught a generation of young people how to block a punch with  “wax on, wax off” while coaching “Daniel-san” karate and catching flies with chopstick.

Moving on to what you did not know.

Doctors told Pat Morita that he would not be able to walk when he was diagnosed with spinal tuberculosis at the age of two. He spent the next nine years, enduring long periods in full body casts, in various Californian hospitals.

It took fusing four vertebrae in Pat’s spine for him to finally learn how to walk again at the age of 11. By this time, in the middle of WWII, his family had been sent to a Japanese internment camp in Arizona . More »

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So you’re an hardcore Anime fan… you collect the shows freshly from fansubbers anyway you can. You go out of your way to set your dvdr and tape your favorites, that are released in English dub. Oh! but whats this catchy J-pop song or J-rock song that you find yourself singing uncontrollably. You don’t understand the Japanese words but search for romanjithe lyrics anyway, than on top of that you’ll try your best karaoke pronunciation as perfectly as possible. You find yourself doing this more than once and now you ipod is mostly artists like Koda Kumi, Orange Range, Asian Kung Fu Generation, Tommy Heavenly6, L’arc~en~Ceil and Ayumi Hamasaki. Well! Congratulations you are now officially part of the theme song phenomenon. Don’t worry you are not alone, there are countless others that are just like you and use Animeas a likes to find new music. Just think the whole country of Japan has these infectious Anime themes as beloved radio tunes that top the charts. These opening and ending credit companions have reached the number one spot countless times. Even Europe has taken these Anime themes and have remixed them techno style and rerecorded them in thier own languages. If you ever go to France, Germany, Italy or Spain you will see what I mean. More »

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At first glance, Takanori Nishikawa looks like a short pretty boy. Don’t judge his talent by his looks! Takanori’s music career started in 1990 where he was the lead singer for the band, Luis-Mary. At the time, his stage name was Haine but little did he know, he would eventually be the famous Japanese music artist known as T.M.Revolution.

With New York Anime Festival coming up, why would someone introduce a singer? Isn’t this supposed to be about anime? Well, for the past twelve years, Takanori Nishikawa has brought more than just music. Whether it’s anime, music, or acting, Takanori has brought a revolution. More »

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You probably knew about Tiger Woods, Steve Byrne, and Kimora Lee Simmons. Yeah, they’ve got Asian in ‘em. But did you know that funny man Rob Schneider is half Filipino? Or that model Naomi Campbell had Chinese blood? Vladimir Lenin, the father of Communist Russia, was part Mongolian, and Bruce Lee had German ancestry. Here’s more from Frank Agostinelli and asiansofmixedrace.com.

Plenty of famous, and talented people have partial Asian ancestry. And good-looking people….well, maybe not Rob Schneider. Ann Curry of NBC News is Japanese and Irish. Eddie Van Halen is Indonesian and German. New York Yankee Johnny Damon is half Thai, and singer KT Tunstall is a quarter Chinese. But the tag line on asiansofmixedrace.com is, “Percentages Don’t Matter!” Even if you have only a tiny fraction of Asian in you, be proud of who you are. More »

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What do the moon; a magical tambourine, havoc-reeking tarot cards, and an alien makeup compact have in common? Well they all belong to magical girls that are main characters in Anime. Not many people realize that Magical girls or Mahōe shōjoh, are an actual sub-genre of fantasy when it comes to Anime/Manga… but without them Anime would not be the same. Your basic magical girl is about 12-16 years old; she’s fun, optimistic, creative, and misunderstood. There is usually a supernatural object like a wand, ribbon or pendant that she finds or is fated to be gifted that puts her on some miraculous path. Along with an incantation the charm helps the young heroine transform and harness her power. Most of the time her lineage has something to do with her new found superhuman abilities. More »

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