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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NaNa (ナナ) isn’t the usual girlie type storyline, this is mostly because the main character(s) are not fifteen year-old cutesy girls who get swept away or are given any magical objects. Instead the deeply dramatic arch is one most ordinary gals will sympathize with. Two 20 yr-old girls meet on a train, while riding they learn that they both left their small HoPunk towns to build their future in Tokyo. The irony is although these girls are total opposites they share their unknown future and first name “NaNa”.

We quickly learn that dark haired punk dressed Nana Osaki is a singer and that she is going to Tokyo to put her band, the BlackStones, back together. Nana Komatsu, the other Nana, is also going to Tokyo but to finally be with her boyfriend Shoji (aka The &!@#%&) . The two girls meet again days later and decide to become roommates at an apartment in a sub-neighborhood of Tokyo. The sign that they belong at this particular set of apartments is the number on the door 707, “NaNa” is a homophone for “seven” in Japanese. So we don’t get confused Nana Komatsu quickly gets a nickname “Hachi”, after the Famous dog statue in Japan. Most characters call her the name because of her puppy-like willing to please personality. Additionally, “Hachi” is the word for “eight” in Japanese making the names even more sensible. The girls become very close; there is even mention that their relationship is like a romantic couple without any sexual overtones. More »

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Inspired by the infamous Danny Choo’s “A Week in Tokyo”, I wanted to share with you a day in New York. Honestly, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be but it is a fun tourist spot. I spent most of this day just walking through visiting various Asian hot spots namely the Kinokuniya Bookstore and Ktown. Eek! More »

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