Tokyo Trip. Visiting friends

In Tokyo I was as fortunate as to be invited by the brother and the mother of my japanese teacher, who taught me japanese in Sweden.

My friend and I were invited to have dinner at the mother’s apartment and it was absolutely lovely!

She lives in the suburbs of Tokyo and it was so nice, to get out of the noise and the big crowds. Tokyo is really cool, but it is way too big and loud for me to be comfortable.

The food she made was typical japanese food and tasted so good! I wish, I had taken a picture. There was a lot and I didn’t feel hungry the rest of the day. Later on we took a walk to see the cherry trees at a closeby school. Yet again, I had to take lots of pictures.

It was so beautiful! And everyone were so nice! That might have been one of my favorite days in Tokyo.
And it was a good finish to my trip there. In the evening we went back to Kyoto and after having seen so many things. I had fund in Tokyo but it was also nice to be back.

Tokyo trip. Convention and Ikebukuro

So on Saturday it was finally time to go the convention! It was called “Anime Contents Expo” and is held annually. It is pretty big and supposed to have about 50 000 visitors.
This is what it looked like on the outside. It’s the building in the back.

And here it is on the inside. The blue and the pink entrances are for the dressing rooms for cosplayers. Apparently, going to a convention in cosplay isn’t only a faux pas. You HAVE to change into your cosplay AT the convention. And you have to pay for doing it too. I think that’s ridiculous. I mean, I had changed into my cosplay at the hotel but covered it up with my jacket! People couldn’t see that I was in cosplay until I unzipped my jacket! Luckily I had at least brought normal clothes with me. It was only later this day, that I found out why the japanese are so persistant with this rule.

So what was the convention like? Most people have asked me, how awesome it was. To be honest? I have never been to such a boring convention in my life. I am glad I went, because I always wanted to try to go to a convention in Tokyo but gosh… if you want to go to a good convention, then go to Anime Expo in Los Angeles. Anime Expo has everything. This convention in Tokyo seemed to only serve the interest of the companies producing anime. All the stalls seemed to be commercials for upcoming anime.

The merchandice they sold were also really expensive. This convention’s main point wasn’t, that the visitors should have fun or that people with the same interest come together and make new friends, it was about commercial. And I wasn’t even surprised, to be honest. I had see videos on youtube of japanese conventions and they had mostly looked like this one. The main reason I went, was that I wanted to realize my dream of cosplaying in Tokyo. Well, I’m still glad I made that dream come true.
Even though my expectations weren’t so high to begin with, the cosplay department was actually worse than expected. Not only is it a rule, that you have to change at the convention, but you aren’t even allowed to take pictures of cosplayers unless they are in some sort of “cosplay arena”. That is what I like to call it. It is smaller than it looks.

Only inside this area, you are allowed to take pictures of cosplayers, who don’t work at the anime commercial stalls. So if you cosplay, you go in, stand in a corner and wait for people to ask you for a picture. I personally am not a big fan of this system. I like it when people want to take pictures of my cosplay, but I don’t want to stand in a corner, almost begging for it. It is also crowded, the lightning isn’t very good and the background looks bad in pictures. I still went in though, just to take pictures of other cosplayers.

The last picture is of an american girl I met there. Of course we became friends really quickly. She has apparently lived in Tokyo for the past 3 years and she had so many intersting things to tell me about life in Japan and about the japanese conventions. According to her, japanese conventions can be really fun. Comiket is supposedly really good, so there is still hope. But even she had to admit that this convention we had attended was reeeaaaally boring. Also, she agreed that Anime Expo is more of an all around convention, while japanese conventions seem to be about one thing at a time. Also, it takes time to make friends at japanese conventions. You can’t really start talking to people unless you have seen them around more than once.

She also revealed the reason, why you can’t cosplay in public. Now this was really interesting!

Apparently there was this incident about 10 years ago, where an otaku killed people. I think it was in Akihabara. For those who aren’t familiar with this term, an otaku is someone who is obsessed with nerdy things like anime and manga. A nerd. And ever since that tragedy, people have become a bit scared of otakus. Cosplaying is really nerdy, so that’s why it isn’t ok to cosplay on the streets. People get anxious. It is only recently, now that ten years have passed, that the term “otaku” gets more accepted again.

To me, this explanation is still really weird. I don’t want to make fun of people being scared or ridicule their fear. Fear is something to take seriously. However, to reason, that the whole otaku community could be potential murderes is… It doesn’t make any sense! If a dog lover killed people, would that mean, that all dog lovers are criminal? That isn’t fair and downright absurd!
I like japanese sub-culture, but I really don’t like what kind of relationship japanese people have to it.

But moving on. The convention had at least some things that were amusing. For example this niconico stage. Visitors could get up, sing a song and get evaluated by people on the japanese website nicocnico douga.

And I loved the commercial for the upcoming third season of Code Geass

And they even had a stall for My little pony friendship is magic!

Another thing that was nice, is that most cosplayers were really good.

Well, we still left at 2 o’clock. We had only arrived at about half past 10 but there was just nothing to do. They had a concert of some sort but you had to pay extra for it of course and even if you did, there was no guarantee that you would get in anyway. Because they drew lots. If you were picked then lucky you! You get what you payed for! If you weren’t picked then you just lost money. Hm… sounds very fair, don’t you think?

So we went to Ikebukuro afterwards. That is also a place with nerdy things. Also, it is where the manga/anime Durarara is set.

We went into some sort of manga building and look at the poster I found!

The top picture is the commercial for the upcoming live action movie of Kuroshitsuji and the one beneath it is commercial for the musical! Kinda wish it was the other way around…

That was the only thing I was allowed to take pictures of. In that building they had galleries with original drawings from mangas such as Detective Conan and so on. You could also buy posters. But yeah, meeting this american girl and going to Ikebukuro made my day a lot better. I wasn’t in a bad mood at the convention, I was just really bored. So if you want to go to a japanese convention in Tokyo, you may want to try Comiket. It might be more fun.

Sorry, if I destroyed someone’s illusions about japanese conventions, but I didn’t feel like sugarcoat it. Also, this is my point of view. Maybe you would have found the convention more enjoyable than I and my friends did. Tokyo has other things to offer that are fun and interesting. Japan delivers good mangas, animes, clothes and music. Western countries deliver good conventions.

Tokyo trip! Hanami and Akihabara

The second day we first went to a park called “Shinjuku Gyoen”. My friend said, that it is supposedly the best place to view the Sakura blossoms here in Japan and it truly was beautiful. I took way too many pictures so I am really having a hard time choosing, which ones to post here.

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It was so beautiful when the wind was blowing down the petals. It looked like snow.

After relaxing in the park, we were headed for Akihabara but I couldn’t help but make a brief stop at the Shinjuku OIOI department store. I am so upset, that I only managed to take a tilted picture of their floor description but oh well… Crazy fashion lovers! Take a look at what they have there!

If you like alternative japanese fashion, then you should go to this store! And to Harajuku of course.

And then we finally went to Akihabara! For those who don’t know, Akihabara is supposed to be THE place for otakus. With maid cafés, figurines and other nerdy things. But it is mostly known for having a lot of electronic shops. You can buy good electronic devices for a cheap price. It was cool going there, but unless you actually have something you want to buy, it isn’t that exciting. You can buy all that stuff at other random shops in Japan as well.

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We met up with another friend of mine and we tried out a fighting game. Two people play against each other. Haha! I was actually really good at it! But I didn’t really know what I was doing.

Trip to Tokyo! Disneyland Sea

Me and a friend went to Tokyo for 4 days in order to attend a convention, explore some nerdy sides of the city and to visit friends of mine.
We took the shinkansen and were lucky enough to see the peek of mt. Fuji! The ride took about 2 hours.

We checked into our hotel in Shinagawa and then went to Disneyland Sea!

Yeah, not “Disneyland” but “Disneyland Sea”. Apparently you can only go to one park in one day, so you better choose carefully. We decided on Disneyland Sea in order to see the show “Fantasmic”. It’s an amazing show with fireworks, smoke and of course Disney characters! It’s really hard to describe so I would recommend for you to take a look at it on youtube. That is where I first found out about it:

We bought the after-6-o’clock tickets because they were a lot cheaper, but if I were to go again, I would definately go for the whole day. We were able to see the Fantasmic show and a firework show, but other than that we didn’t have time for anything else and there were still so many fun attractions! So if you go, go for a whole day!!! Unless you just want to see the fantasmic show. Also, a fastpass might not be such a bad idea. The lines for some attractions can apparently take more than 2 hours!!!

But it was really beautiful. They had built it in european style and it made me remember how beautiful Europe really is. I want to go to Italy or Greece or any southern european country again… A funny thing I noticed is that they actually played an instrumental version of the swedish song “Sankta Lucia”. “Lucia” is only celebrated in Scandinavia as far as I know, so I was really surprised to hear it.

EDIT: Ok, so my dad told me that the music is italian. Only the “Sankta Lucia” lyrics are from a swedish guy. I didn’t knoooow!

For this occasion I had styled my hair into Minnie Mourse ears! Took a lot of teasing and hairspray to do it and a lot of pain to get rid of it later on, but I think it turned out really cute! Don’t you agree?