Tag: anime swap meet

A really, really fast plug for the Anime Swap Meet and Hawaii Collectors Expo

The Anime Swap Meet, hosted by Kawaii Kon, is back for a fourth year at the Hawaii Collectors Expo at the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall. And after a year’s hiatus, tag-team partner in fandom Wilma Win and I are back to sell more of our stuff!

Here’s a sneak peek at one of the six(!) boxes we’re bringing.

ASM 2018 box
The sign still isn’t for sale. But I’m still bringing it for display purposes. Because it really is a cool sign.

So as you can imagine, we’ve been doing a lot of running around, gathering extra stuff to pack, taking care of a lot of other assorted life things in between and not having a lot of extra time to write a post about it for this here blog. Considering showtime for us is in a little over 12 hours from my writing this, we’re cutting publication of this post pretty close.

So here are the high points, in handy bullet-list form:

  • Collectors Expo 2018We have stuff! Come buy it!
  • A number of like-minded fans will be there to sell their stuff, too, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.
  • We have stuff! We’d like to think it’s all quite affordable!
  • Speaking of affordable, Kawaii Kon will be selling three-day passes to next weekend’s convention. (Holy cats, it’s next weekend already!) It’s your last chance to buy ’em at a discounted rate.
  • Did I mention that we have stuff to sell?
  • The Anime Swap Meet is just one corner of the 28th annual Hawaii Collectors Expo, which, in addition to housing vendors of any collectible you could possibly imagine, is also spotlighting the Costumers Guild of Hawaii and artists Jon Murakami, Roy Chang and Mog Park. You should buy stuff from them.
  • Although we’ll be happy and grateful if you buy stuff from us, too.
  • Admission is $5 general per day, $2 for senior citizens, and free for anyone with a military ID or a badge from last year’s Kawaii Kon or Comic Con Honolulu. You can also get $1 off by printing out or showing the image available at this link.

Hope to see you there! (And please buy our stuff. Lugging six heavy boxes into the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall and setting everything up in about an hour is going to take a lot of work. I should get some coffee chilled and ready.)

Anime Swap Meet’s back at Blaisdell

Around this time last year, tag-team partner in fandom Wilma W. and I took part in the rite of passage that dedicated otaku like us engage in every so often when we get tired of looking at our stuff: We packed a bunch of it up and sold it at the Anime Swap Meet at the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall.

20160220_090826It was a lovely little opportunity. We got a 5-square-foot space, part of a larger block Kawaii Kon gets from the Hawaii Collectors Expo. We made a fair amount of money, and we met some nice people, too. Like Marisa Gee of Kawaii Mono, who bought a number of my DVDs while exhibiting impeccable fashion sense wearing Fat Rabbit Farm T-shirts. Or the enthusiastic gals who snapped up a bunch of Wilma’s Ace Attorney goodies, then went on to host the Ace Attorney live-action roleplaying fan panel at Kawaii Kon. (The half hour I was able to catch before I had to rush off to another panel was quite entertaining.)

And it’s neat to browse through the rest of the expo, too … we were across from a retro-gaming booth that had the attract mode music from Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo looping all weekend, and I picked up an oh-so-cute Bellossom plushie from another vendor for only $5.

We aren’t going to be making a return appearance as sellers again this year, for various reasons. But there are going to be a number of similarly enthusiastic otaku who will be more than happy to sell you their stuff in our place.

hawaii-collectors-expo-2017This year — the Anime Swap Meet’s third, the Hawaii Collectors Expo’s 27th — promises to be an even bigger party. Artist Audra Furuichi’s kicking off the year for nemu*nemu at the event and will have her usual assortment of merchandise and original drawings for sale, and MidWeek cartoonist/Pepe the Chihuahua kalbi handler Roy Chang will be selling his books and drawing Funko Pop-ified sketches of anyone who wants them. Several artists from Comic Jam Hawaii will be hosting a drawing table for the little kidlets. Replicas of the Ghostbusters Ecto-1 and Jurassic Park Jeep will be on display for photo ops. And, of course, Kawaii Kon representatives will be on hand, although they’ll be selling three-day badges for the upcoming con on Sunday only.

The Hawaii Collectors Expo begins tonight from 4 to 9 p.m. and continues from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. The Anime Swap Meet will be open Saturday and Sunday only. Admission is free for children under 11 years old, military with valid ID, or anyone with a Kawaii Kon or Comic Con Honolulu badge from last year; $5 general per day; $7.50 for a three-day pass; or $2 for senior citizens. If you are going to be paying to attend, you can print out this copy of the image above, bring it to the ticket-sellers and save $1.

For more information, visit hawaiicollectorsexpo.com.

Ota-cool incoming: Sale-abrate good times, come on!

If someone were to write a book about local otaku culture — don’t look at me; I’ve already written my one book of a lifetime, and I doubt I’ll ever have enough free time to properly update that one, never mind writing another one — one of the chapters would have to be about how we manage to accumulate so much stuff. Plushies, figures, statues, toys, video games, assorted show merchandise, books, CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays — you name it, we all have some sort of stash stored somewhere. Some of you may be sighing over how you have waaaaaaay too much; others may be lamenting about how you don’t have enough. For those of you in the never-ending pursuit of managing and accumulating more stuff, these next two weekends — along with the ongoing 20%-off sale at Book Off Ala Moana that I talked about in my last post — offer several chances to score some sweet bargains.

One sale is part of the 26th Annual Hawaii Collectors Expo, happening Friday through Sunday at the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall. Saturday (from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and Sunday (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) are what matter for our discussion, as that will be when a bunch of people like tag-team partner in fandom Wilma J. and I will be selling off surplus parts of their collections at … well, depending on where you go, it’s either the Anime Swap Meet or the All-Genre Swap Meet, presented by Kawaii Kon and Comic-Con Honolulu, respectively. And when I say “a bunch of people like us,” I really do mean to say that in the interest of full journalistic disclosure, Wilma and I have purchased a space where we will be selling things. Here is a preview of my stuff.

Jason's ASM things

And here is Wilma’s.

Wilma's ASM things

… she always was more organized than me. (You can probably expect many more DVDs and even a few Blu-rays from me, for starters.)

Want to join us in selling? As far as I know, there are a few spaces remaining. One 5-square-foot space costs $25, with a maximum of two spaces shared by two people; the cost remains the same regardless of whether you apply to sell for one or both days, so if you can spare an entire weekend, by all means do so. Deadline for applying is midnight Thursday, check out the rules and apply at kawaiikon.com/anime-swap-meet/ or comicconhonolulu.com/all-genre-swap-meet-feb-20-21-2016.

If you’re in the market for buying, we love you! Please buy our stuff. (And everybody else’s, too, of course.) Kawaii Kon representatives will be on hand to sell three-day general-admission passes to this year’s show for $50 — $5 off the current online price! Keep in mind that admission to the Collectors Expo is $5, but if you present your badge from last year’s Kawaii Kon or Comic Con Honolulu at the box office, the cost drops to nothing.

The other sale worth noting here is the Nerds’ Garage Sale, which has proven to be the hottest ticket in town for sellers in recent weeks. (For the record, there is no more space for sellers, so stop asking on the Facebook page already.) Organized by cosplayer extraordinare Leah Rose, the sale will feature about a dozen self-described “cosplay nerds” selling off their extra supplies, costumes and other things. You can also check out Other Realms’ sizable collection of comics, games and other happy nerdy collectibles for sale as well. That’s happening from 3 to 7 p.m. Feb. 27 at the store, which is at 1130 N. Nimitz Highway, suite C-140. (It’s actually not visible from the highway; you have to go behind the buildings with New Eagle Cafe on one end and AAA Hawaii on the other end to find it.)

Elsewhere around town

Aiea Library Polar Bear Cafe & Friends Anime Club: Every month, I joke with young adult librarian Diane Masaki that she ought to change the name of the Anime Club to the Polar Bear Cafe & Friends Club, seeing as how the screening schedule for the past few months has consistently been two episodes of the 2012-2013 anime followed by two more episodes of something else. (This month’s “friends” are the ship-gals of KanColle.) This month didn’t garner much of a reaction, probably because Diane, the Face of Hawaii Ingress (tm) that she is, is really really close to becoming a max-Level 16 agent. The friendly neighborhood anime/manga/cartooning blogger in me is cheering her on, while the Enlightened side of me wants to put AXA Shields on every portal in Pearl City and Aiea. But I digress. At the library, 99-374 Pohai Place, where, yes, there’s still plenty of parking. For more information or to RSVP, call 483-7333 or email aiealibraryanimeclub@yahoo.com. 3 p.m. Saturday.

Mori & Steam

Mori & Steam: Steampunk Family Sunday: If you haven’t had a chance to check out the “Harajuku: Japanese Street Fashion” exhibit at the Honolulu Museum of Art yet, by all means try to stop by before it closes April 3; it’s a fascinating snapshot of contemporary Japanese fashion trends. And with the museum’s Family Sunday coming up, you can swing by to see it absolutely free, and enjoy some activities and entertainment, to boot. Kids can make a set of steampunk goggles at one station, at another, visitors can make their own Harajuku- or steampunk-inspired pins. Roy Chang, MidWeek cartoonist, Cacy & Kiara author and Pepe the Chihuahua’s kalbi feeder, will be doing live sketches of Harajuku fashion models from noon to 3 p.m., and featured bands include Hook + Line and Gypsy 808. There also will be a complimentary shuttle running between the museum and Spalding House, so you can check out the exhibits at both locations. Oh hey, and before or after you go, perhaps you might like to visit a certain Collectors Expo with an Anime/All-Genre Swap Meet going on down the street? *hint hint* *wink nudge* The museum’s at 900 S. Beretania St. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Kawaii Kon Karaoke Competition preliminary round #2: So you think you can sing, and you’re planning to go to Kawaii Kon this year? Give the annual Karaoke Competition a try. This year, the preliminary rounds will be held at Nocturna Lounge, the video game/karaoke bar just downstairs from our editorial/advertising offices here at Waterfront Plaza/Restaurant Row. Top three singers from each preliminary round move on to the semifinals at the convention itself. The fun starts at 3 p.m. Sunday; full details on what you need to do to prepare are available at kawaiikon.com/events/karaoke-kompetition/

Comic Jam Hawaii: This group of collaborative cartoon artists meets every first and third Sunday of the month at Pearlridge Center; locations within the mall may vary. Visit www.facebook.com/groups/ComicJamHawaii (Facebook login required). Next meeting: 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday.