manga – Page 7 – Otaku Ohana

Goodbye HEXXP, hello … Oni-Con Hawaii?!?

Back on Feb. 8, Ron Kaneshige, founder of the Hawaii Entertainment Expo (otherwise known as the Hawaii Entertainment Expo Experience, HEXXP, the “HEX-po,” and “the con that pretty much made only lateral progress over the years from this“), posted the following statement to his convention’s Facebook page:

For the past 3 years I have poured my heart and all of my finances into building HEXXP. I no longer have the funds necessary to keep it going. As of today, I am officially stepping down from HEXXP.

A handful of condolence messages ensued. But a proper obituary for HEXXP will have to wait for another day (and believe me, there’s much to say about the faults and ultimate failure of that con). It took all of eight days before a new challenger entered the local convention arena: This morning, a website and Facebook page launched for Oni-Con Hawaii … and unlike HEXXP and its nebulous “pop culture convention” designation, it looks like the people behind it are aiming squarely at the Kawaii Kon market, fans of anime, manga and Japanese culture. In other words, you, dear Otaku Ohana readers.

To solidify the transition, the following message was posted to the HEXXP Facebook page this morning:

Dear attendees of HEXXP,

First, we want to thank you for all your support these past three years. It has been a wonderful ride and an awesome experience for all of us. We also want to thank our great guests, vendors, and artist alley participants who have helped HEXXP grow over the years. We have had a chance to meet some amazing artist from Japan, Hawaii, and the mainland and the memories from these past three years will stay with us forever.

Unfortunately, it is time for HEXXP to say goodbye.

But, even as the sun must set on HEXXP, a new day is dawning here, in Hawaii, for fans of Japanese Pop Culture. A new convention will be coming in the Fall of 2013. A collaboration between the Hawaii, the mainland, and Japan, it promises to bring fresh energy to the fans of this genre, here in the 808. For more information please visit http://www.oniconhawaii.com as well as their official facebook page Onicon Hawaii http://www.facebook.com/oniconhawaii

And, for those who had already pre-registered for HEXXP 2013, you will be contacted in the next few days. Please watch for it in your email.

Mahalo and aloha.

There’s not much information to go on right now, but here’s what I do know about Oni-Con Hawaii so far:

The image above is pretty much the only official information that’s been released so far; indeed, there is no confirmation yet as to when and where Oni-Con Hawaii will be taking place. The timing of this announcement would suggest that the actual event is at least six months away … perhaps even around the old HEXXP window of sometime in the fall months of September and November.
This new convention does have an affiliation with Oni-Con, the Galveston, Texas, anime con that is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. How exactly this parent con will be involved, I’m not sure; I’ll be sending out a few inquiries shortly. Also involved: Babel Entertainment, the promoter that brought over many of HEXXP’s Japanese guests. It would not surprise me if other former HEX-patriates — minus Ron, of course — were part of this venture as well.
Yu x Me Maid Cafe & Host Club (home of the “Mune Mune Kyun!”) is the first group to officially sign on with this new venture, announcing via its Facebook page that Oni-Con Hawaii will feature its showcase cafe event for this year.

Stay tuned, folks. If Oni-Con Hawaii makes even a little bit of improvement over HEXXP, the local convention scene could get pretty interesting.

The Cel Shaded Report, 1/9: A familiar festival for the new year

It’s become a bit of a tradition here at Otaku Ohana to kick off the year talking about the annual Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii’s New Year’s Ohana Festival, and for good reason: Not only are there a bunch of activities that appeals to the Japanophile in all of us — mochi pounding and other cultural demonstrations! Entertainment! Games for the kids! Maximum ono grindage with food trucks and booths galore! — it also serves as the natural launching point for a number of groups and businesses with ties to the local anime and manga fan community.

There are a few notable gaps in this 20th annual edition of the festival — local art group Pen & Ink Works is taking a break until Kawaii Kon, and if the website (or lack thereof) is any indication, things aren’t looking good for another year of HEXXP (you’ll recall that Oahu Anime Explorer was handing out info at last year’s Ohana Festival … and yes, I have heard the murmurings that the show is kaput; I’m just waiting to hear confirmation on what’s next if that is, indeed, the case). But there’s still a nice lineup of people who will be attending, including:

Kawaii Kon: Staff members from the annual anime convention will be on hand for all your convention preregistration needs … and you may stand a good chance of winning a prize at their booth as well.

JN Productions and Generation Kikaida: Autograph sessions with Kikaida star Ban Daisuke and performances by Kikaida & Friends (at 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.) are the order of the day, along with the University of Hawaii Pep Band and the other usual trimmings that come with a Generation Kikaida party: picture-taking, Kikaida-oke and discounted merchandise. Spend $100 or more and get the Kikaida vol. 1 DVD for free; spend $200 and up and get a Kamen Rider V3 case for your iPhone 4 as well (sorry, cutting-edge iPhone 5 adopters and all of you with Android phones).

MangaBento: This group of anime/manga-inspired artists will be holding their first meeting of the year at the festival, sketching activities and photo booth props likely in tow.

Yu x Me Maid Cafe & Host Club: The group formerly known as Animaid Cafe Hawaii will have their giant Jenga set and other casual games set up at their booth. Also, I’ve said this before about them and I’ll say it again until the end of this blog, but as inevitable as death, taxes, and President Obama and his family vacationing in Kailua in late December, this dance will probably show up sometime as well.

nemu*nemu: Artist Audra Furuichi and her husband, Scott Yoshinaga, will be selling their line of super-cute plush pups and other assorted swag from the popular webcomic. (Side note: Read Audra’s “Heyo 2013! State of the Comic” post on the nemu*nemu website. Then support them in whatever way you see fit. It’s not easy to provide “free” entertainment in this day and age, and with their strategy of staying local save for the Toronto Comics Art Festival in mid-May, they need all the backing they can get.)

Journey of Heroes graphic novel: Author Stacey Hayashi will be bringing books, chibi T-shirts and other chibi goods based on the characters in this manga-style chronicle of the achievements of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team/100th Infantry Battalion in World War II.

Interested? It’s all happening from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at the center at 2454 S. Beretania St. and nearby Moiliili Field. Parking is available at the UH-Manoa lower campus parking structure, with a free shuttle running between UH and the center. (Tip: Get there before 1 p.m. to take advantage of free parking; there’s a Wahine basketball doubleheader at the Stan Sheriff Center starting at 2:30 p.m., and I believe the 1 p.m. cutoff is to allow the parking guards a 90-minute window to swoop in and charge the attendees for those games.)

For more information, visit www.jcch.com.

The great calendar of otakudom

New this year to the Cel Shaded Report is this weekly feature that will highlight all of the events on my radar that may be of interest to local fans. It’s kinda like “More From the Anime Desk,” except featuring events that are more than a week out (and with more of an emphasis on events, period). Don’t be surprised if the title of this feature changes next week, by the way; I’m … not exactly enthusiastic about it.

Otaku Fair at Shirokiya: Hosted by Hakubundo Bookstore with volunteers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa Anime Manga Society. Pick up art books, Japanese-language manga, posters and assorted character goods. (I swung by there on Wednesday, and it looked like there were a lot of things related to One Piece, Dragon Quest slimes and Hatsune Miku.) Now through Jan. 27.

Liliha Library Anime Art Contest 2012 Winners Reception: Fifty-five entries, 13 winners. Join Liliha young adult librarian Linda Mediati, Audra, Kawaii Kon senior administrator Roy Bann and myself as we honor those winners in a ceremony at the library, 1515 Liliha St. (And if you want to see the pretty artwork that we saw in this year’s contest, stay tuned … I’m going to be working on that two-part post immediately after I put this post to bed.) 10:30 a.m. Saturday.

Aiea Library book sale: Book sales are really a media treasure hunt — you never know what you’re going to find. There could be an out-of-print manga volume that you need to complete your collection, or a Pokemon strategy guide in Japanese, or something completely different that you totally want right now. Find your passions here. Presented by the Friends of the Aiea Library and the Aiea Community Association at the library, 99-143 Moanalua Road. 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Jan. 19.

“Friends, Books, Music … The Sale!”: You know all that stuff I wrote about the Aiea Library sale above? Apply it to this sale, presented by the Friends of the Library of Hawaii, except on a waaaaaaay bigger scale. Visit the Friends’ warehouse in Kakaako, which is ewa (west) of the UH medical school; just go makai (south) on either Forrest Avenue or Keawe Street to the end, and you’ll be there. Visit www.friendsofthelibraryofhawaii.org. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Jan. 19-20 and 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Jan. 21.

Madoka Magica double feature: Watch the magical girl saga unfold in one big four-hour, two-film chunk comprising Beginnings and Eternal, Doris Duke Theatre at the Honolulu Museum of Art. Tickets are $20 general admission, $18 museum members. Visit http://www.honolulumuseum.org/events/films/13340-puella_magi_madoka_magica_parts_1_2 . 4 p.m. Feb. 27 and 28.

The Cel Shaded Report, 11/30: Kawaii Kon ‘cross the Koolaus

The reasons for me to visit Windward Mall have admittedly dwindled over the past few years. First, the Borders store closed last year; then the Suncoast Video store followed suit earlier this year. Earlier this month, we learned that the Marukai Discount store there will be shutting down as well. That pretty much leaves Ben & Jerry’s, Ono Cheese Steak, the theaters and a GameStop … and it would take something reeeeeaaally good going on at one of those to convince me to make my way out there.

Or, of course, you could just put on an Anime Day, like the one that Kawaii Kon is hosting on Sunday.

“Basically, the idea is taking just a small ‘slice’ of Kawaii Kon and bringing it to the Windward side,” Roy Bann, Kawaii Kon senior administrator, told me in an email. Looking at the lineup of activities, it’s a small slice all right … if you think of it like a small slice of the lemon crunch cake at the Alley Restaurant at Aiea Bowl, which is a thick wedge packed chock full of awesome. And even better, it’s absolutely free to attend! Here’s a list of what you can see and do on Sunday:

A mini dealers room/Artist Alley will feature stuff for sale from idkwhat2wear and steampunk accessories from Mad House Mind Works, among others.
A stamp rally with select Windward Mall merchants will give you the opportunity to win special prizes, including a three-day pass to Kawaii Kon 2013.
Local artist group MangaBento will be hosting a photo booth with props to help you look like you’re in a living manga panel.
The other local artist group, Pen & Ink Works, will be offering a “make your own manga” activity as well as drawing contests throughout the day.
Comic Jam Hawaii will have artists collaborating on cartoons from 10 a.m. to noon.
The Hawaii Video Gaming League will be hosting a Tetris tournament.
Yu x Me: Maid Cafe & Host Club, freshly rebranded from their former identity as Animaid Cafe Hawaii, will be hosting a panel at 11:30 a.m. and performing several dances on stage. (“Mune Mune Kyun” performance? Probably a lock.)
Also on stage: “Cosplay Runway,” a showcase of several talented cosplayers in these fair islands of ours.
Kaneohe Library will be showcasing some of the anime and manga available to borrow there.

Add to that an anime theater where you can watch a few series and games to play throughout the day, and you have a whole bunch of activities guaranteed to please any anime fan and regular Kawaii Kon attendee. Special rates for con passes will be available, too. It’s all happening from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the mall, at 46-056 Kamehameha Highway in Kaneohe.

More from the anime news desk

Cacy & Kiara on tour: Author/Aiea Intermediate art teacher/MidWeek cartoonist/friend of the blog Roy Chang will be promoting his book Saturday on the Perry & Price Show live from Jade Dynasty Seafood Restaurant. Your friendly neighborhood blogger confesses that he had no idea that Perry & Price moved to Jade Dynasty, having last listened to their live show regularly back when it was in the Hanohano Room, 30 stories above the beach in the Sheraton Waikiki, then noting their subsequent moves to John Dominis and Jimmy Buffett’s in Waikiki. But I digress. No word on exactly when in the show Roy will be on, so you’ll just have to listen to the show on KSSK 590 AM or 92.3 FM between 8 and 11 a.m. and hope for the best.

Comic Jam Hawaii: This group of collaborative cartoon artists is going to be everywhere this weekend. Anime Day aside, they’re also going to be at Liliha Library (1515 Liliha St.) from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, and they’re going to be holding down their regular slot in front of Hot Unique Imaging, on the Uptown side of Pearlridge Center, from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. My hand would be falling off after just an hour of drawing, if not sooner, so I really have to give props to the artists who end up showing up at all three events. Visit www.facebook.com/groups/147779161986428 (Facebook login required).

Hello Kitty designer visits: Swing by Shirokiya at Ala Moana between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. today through Sunday, and you can meet, and get an autograph from, lead Hello Kitty designer Yuko Yamaguchi. Take pictures with Hello Kitty, learn how to make cute lunchboxes, get a cute character manicure and just bask in the glory of super-sugary Sanrio CUTE. Be one of the first 50 people in line each day, and you could even get a $5 gift card for Hello Kitty beauty products at Sephora.

idkwhat2wear: Terri Dux, Karl Miyashiro and the gang are sitting out this weekend’s batch of craft fairs. (So are nemu*nemu‘s Audra Furuichi and Scott Yoshinaga.) But they’ll be back in action Tuesday at Wabi Sabi’s Christmas in Honolulu Craft Fair from 5 to 8:30 p.m. at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii, 2454 S. Beretania St., in the fifth floor ballroom. Adopt a “musubi angel,” and you can get in early at 4 p.m.

Taking stock and giving thanks

I honestly thought I wouldn’t be able to contribute to this month’s Manga Movable Feast, hosted by Matt Blind over at Rocket Bomber. It was the same problem that doomed my participation in last month’s MMF: too much stuff to deal with in life outside of Otaku Ohana, not enough time to sit down and commit some thoughts to pixels. Last month, it was the ramp-up to the general election that kept me busy. This month? It was preparing for that garage sale with tag-team partner in fandom Wilma J. that I noted in my last post.

So I was pleasantly surprised to fire up Haruhi after the sale was over on Sunday — yes, if you remember a post from aaaaaallllll the way back in 2009, my home computer is still named Haruhi and my laptop is still named Yuki, although my iPad has inherited the name “Mikuru” — and find that Matt had delayed his wrap-up post for this month’s MMF to today and tweeted his intent to still accept links for it.

And then that wrap-up post went up while I was working on the post this morning. But dagnabbit, I’d already written 700+ words at that point. I wasn’t abandoning this post that easily.

Besides, this month’s topic is so intriguing: Rather than focusing on a single title, author or genre as it has in the past, the bloggerati were asked to take inventory of their manga blessings in this, the season of camping out in line for five days to buy a $199 50-inch flat-screen TV giving thanks. Check out his call for participation to see the inspirations we were given.

I meditated for a little while on what I’ve been thankful for in the world of manga. Those meditations, however, kept getting interrupted by thoughts about this one particular young woman who showed up toward the beginning of our sale. She was excited to be there. Virtually bouncing up and down. She dropped a bunch of money on a replica animation cel of Hitsugaya from Bleach, a few more dollars on Ranma 1/2 wall scrolls and an old Inu-Yasha bag and other stuff, then she came back with her friend and ended up buying a Vampire Knight journal and a pack of Bleach cards. Incredibly enthusiastic about the stuff she was buying, for certain. Heck, she even showed me a few volumes of Kare Kano — already tucked into said Inu-Yasha bag — that she had checked out from the library.

I love seeing fans like that. Reminds me of the enthusiasm I had when I first really got into manga in the late ’90s. Sure, I’m older now. Saw the rise and fall of Tokyopop and a bunch of other publishers, had several favorite series canceled on me before they were finished (hello, Nodame Cantabile and Moyashimon, may you return to our shores someday), looked on as publishers’ bottom lines have been ravaged by scanlation sites all over the Internet and the Borders shutdown. I’d be lying if I said all of this, plus the constant harping about problems with this publisher and that publisher and the publisher over there and so forth and so on, hasn’t dampened my spirits over the years.

All things considered, though? I’m thankful that the manga publishers that remain in the domestic market continue to believe that there are those enthusiastic fans out there. And that those publishers keep bringing over new series that they hope will garner the same amount of enthusiasm on the market as there was when the negotiations to license those series took place. There’s always that little thrill I feel whenever a convention rolls around, and a news item pops up on Twitter or Anime News Network or somewhere that “Publisher A has licensed this, this and this,” and there’s something in that list that sounds interesting enough for me to give it a shot when it finally shows up. And that publishers are willing to try new ways of getting manga out to the masses — I really want JManga’s digital-distribution model to succeed. I want publishers like Viz, Yen Press and Dark Horse to do well with their digital initiatives. I’m hoping that Digital Manga Publishing’s temporary suspension of print publication doesn’t end up hurting them in the long run, because they’ve seemed willing to try new things, like using Kickstarter for niche Tezuka titles to complement their print and digital offerings.

But above all, I’m thankful for the eternal hope of second chances. When you’ve seen as much manga as I have over the years, and when you’ve seen some of the really good series eventually start to fade out of print, it’s really nice to know that there are people making decisions for those publishers who think, “You know, that series did well for someone else, but it’s no longer around for whatever reason, so let’s bring it back.” JManga has a bunch of niche titles from the days of Aurora, Del Rey, Go!Comi and other such publishers that don’t exist in those forms today. Kodansha’s redoing Sailor Moon and Love Hina. Much of CLAMP’s body of work is seeing new life in Dark Horse omnibus volumes. Blood Alone and Gunslinger Girl sailed back with Seven Seas. Viz has 07-Ghost and Loveless. Vertical brought Paradise Kiss and Message to Adolf back into print. I mean, Message to Adolf! We hadn’t seen an English translation of that in more than 15 years, and those Cadence-published books were long out of print and nigh impossible to find! It keeps hope alive that a new group of fans can enjoy in the present what we long-time fans may have enjoyed in the past.

While this post has focused primarily on manga, keep in mind that what I’ve written applies to the anime industry as well. Recently, I received in the mail from Funimation the review DVDs for their reissued edition of Serial Experiments Lain. Lain, believe it or not, was the first anime I ever watched that I recognized formally as anime all the way back in 2000. Here’s the profile that I wrote about it in 2009. Seeing those discs in the envelope gave me a bit of a thrill. Maybe I’ll watch those again sometime when I have free time (which, as I’ve probably said before, has been distressingly sparse of late, but I’ll try).

The joys of being an anime and manga fan.

Yeah.

That’s what I’m thankful for, too.

The Cel Shaded Report, 10/19: Manga-style local style sale file

Let’s start off this edition of the Cel Shaded Report with a quick reminder: The Hawaii Entertainment Expo, aka HEXXP, is this weekend. Here’s a post summarizing pretty much everything that’s going on, here’s the schedule, here’s the website, I’ll be popping in and out maybe today, more likely on Saturday, definitely sticking around for a good chunk of Sunday. If you’re going today, by the way, please do stop by the “How to Survive Single-Day and Multi-Day Conventions” panel scheduled for 3 p.m.; it’s hosted by Ray Nagar of Project 760 Productions, who regaled me with tales from the California anime convention circuit Thursday during what started out as a lunch outing but ended up being a five-hour conversation. That’s right, people, five hours. And I was thoroughly entertained for every minute of it. Now, Ray’s panel won’t last for five hours, but I’m sure he can fill his allotted one hour quite nicely, thank you very much.

Not much more to say beyond that, except I hope to see you there and maybe, just maybe, I’ll have a few pictures of what goes on posted here sometime between Monday and the end of the age (and with the way my non-fandom-related to-do list has been lately, it’ll probably be closer to the latter than the former).

Today, however, our focus is on local books with a twist of manga (or, in the case of one of the books profiled here, MangaBento) that have recently gone on sale or are about to hit the market. The first book is one that I profiled in this space a few weeks ago: Journey of Heroes, the graphic novel recounting the story of the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Infantry Battalion and their service during World War II. Author Stacey Hayashi invited me to a reception held for the veterans and their families before the formal debut event; here’s a small gallery of pictures (as in seven!) that I shot while I was there.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=122138

One thing that I wasn’t able to answer with much certainty in my last post was where people could pick up a copy of this fine publication, whether locally or abroad. I recently learned that the book is available to order for $10 plus shipping and tax at 442comicbook.com/shop.html (please be patient, though, they have a lot of things to take care of at the moment). Those of you locally can buy the book in person at the Noelani Craft & Children’s Fair at Noelani Elementary School in Manoa on Nov. 10. (By sheer coincidence, the Noelani fair’s also going to be the craft fair season kickoff for the nemu*nemu crew, so that’s two reasons right there for you to go.) For the latest updates on all things related to Journey of Heroes, visit www.facebook.com/442comicbook.

As for what I think of the book? I haven’t had a chance to look closely at it yet, but I have given copies to a coworker as well as my esteemed tag-team partner in fandom. Wilma’s read it, and already she’s impressed enough to start working on a review of it. We may have a joint essay for y’all sometime down the line. My coworker, meanwhile, loved the art and the story. She also pointed out one panel that caught her eye in particular to pretty much everyone on our universal copy/design desk that night:

I think you can understand why she’d be giddy about it.

The second book is Cacy & Kiara and the Curse of the Ki’i, the new young adult novel by Aiea Intermediate art teacher, MidWeek cartoonist and occasional art portfolio/sketchbook reviewer Roy Chang. Cacy & Kiara is the story of two cousins — one a free-spirited public school gal, the other a rather buttoned-up product of a private school — who, while on a field trip to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, get flung together on an adventure of a lifetime involving an ancient Hawaiian artifact and a bunch of bad guys who want to get their hands on it. I’ve been reading through it in my spare time — chapter 8 of 38, so a more extensive review of this book will be coming down the pipeline soon as well — and my first-glance impressions are that Roy’s manga-style illustrations nicely complement the story.

You can check out Cacy & Kiara for yourself starting sometime next week at both Barnes & Noble stores; look in the children/youth “local interests” section. Or, if you’re more inclined to order digitally, you can find it at Amazon, The Islander Group and barnesandnoble.com. Retail price is $11.95. Roy also recently spoke with Pastor Danny Yamashiro on his radio program, “The Good Life Hawaii,” about the book, his story as an artist, and his newfound Christian faith; that hourlong conversation can be downloaded at ow.ly/eBkOw.

Finally, we have the book that’s worth mentioning simply for its connection to the anime/manga-inspired art group that’s mentioned frequently in this space, MangaBento. Adviser Devin Oishi has released a children’s e-book that gives a local spin to the classic “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” tale, Pualani and the 3 Mano. Pualani is the Goldilocks of this story, a surfing prodigy who, following a massive wipeout, wanders into the cave of three mano, or sharks. Full disclosure: I was one of the people who helped Devin copy-edit the book, so I’ve seen the advance proofs … and the watercolor images included within are quite lovely. Pualani and the 3 Mano is available for $5 on Kindle and its affiliated apps at ow.ly/eBnw5.

More from the anime news desk

Kawaii Kon: We’re in that part of the pre-convention calendar where guest announcements for next year start trickling out. The latest news came a few days ago, when it was revealed that the next guest joining the already announced Todd Haberkorn at next year’s event, happening March 15-17, is Colleen Clinkenbeard, a Funimation voice actor, director and line producer who’s best known as the voice of Luffy in One Piece and Riza Hawkeye in Fullmetal Alchemist. Clinkenbeard’s no stranger to Kawaii Kon, having last visited our fair island home back in 2008. For more information, visit www.kawaii-kon.org.

Hawaii International Film Festival: HIFF is wrapping up this weekend, and with it comes your last chance (for now) of seeing Eight Rangers (9:15 p.m. Saturday) and The Wolf Children Ami and Yuki (12:30 p.m. Sunday). Earlier this week, though, one screening was added to the schedule: the tale of the time-traveling bathhouse architect, Thermae Romae, now has a bonus screening at 8:30 p.m. Sunday. Readers in Hilo, get ready, because Thermae Romae is headed your way as well, at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 29. Visit www.hiff.org for most of your ticketing needs (Hilo folk will probably want to wait a few days, though.)

Rose of Versailles hits the Internet: And that’s legal, free streaming of the classic 1979-80 anime, too — no bootleg pirated uploads here. Anyway, to whet your whistle for their upcoming DVD release, Nozomi Entertainment has partnered with Viki to post the entire series online for free … in December. But the first episode, fresh off an advance screening at New York Comic Con last week, is now available, both on Viki and YouTube. Anyone who considers himself (or herself) a scholar of the anime classics owes it to himself to see this episode whenever he can.

The Cel Shaded Report, 10/4: Manga recounts 442nd heroics

File today’s featured Cel Shaded Report item in the “man, if only I had heard about this sooner, I would’ve written about this a whole lot more!” department: There now exists a locally produced manga-style graphic novel that tells the story of the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Infantry Battalion and their service during World War II.

And you can get your hands on it — and meet a bunch of cool people, including author Stacey Hayashi, artist Damon Wong and several 442nd vets — for the first time at an event downtown on Saturday.

The book is called Journey of Heroes, and it’s based on the experiences of several vets. From the book’s official site:

Stories are the foundation of our culture, the way we share our values and pass them along to future generations. Many of the documentaries and books about the famed 100th Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team speak to the enduring values, heroism, and truth of their war experiences. Few, if any, tell their story within a medium that appeals to the audience that most needs to learn from and understand these lessons: our youth.

We are producing a 30-page graphic novel that tells the compelling story of these young boys who, after battling racism at home and fascism abroad, literally saved the world.

Developing the story in this medium — a flexible, easily-consumed format — makes it eminently accessible to younger audiences (grades 7 to 12) who might otherwise never study or learn from this most important chapter in the history of Asian Americans and our country.

I haven’t seen the entire book yet, but judging by the images posted on the official site and on the book’s Facebook page, it appears that Damon’s rendering his characters in chibi (super-deformed) style. Here’s a sample page to give you a sense of that style.

This book has a limited print run of 10,000 copies, 5,040 of which are going to schools and libraries in two states. That number seems a bit odd until you consider that 5,000 were originally allocated to schools and libraries locally, but an email from Washington state resulted in an additional 40 copies being pledged to that school as well.

So about Saturday. You can buy the book (and get it signed, too!) for $10 starting at 3 p.m. Saturday in the courtyard of the Pacific Guardian Center — the address is listed as 737 Bishop St., but think of it as the block bordered by Bishop, Queen and Alakea streets, and Ala Moana Boulevard. Cute character swag will also be available for purchase — all proceeds will go toward further efforts to preserve and perpetuate the 100th/442nd’s legacy — and there will be a panel discussion of the stories featured in the book.

Learn more about the book at www.facebook.com/442comicbook — if anything, read through the project’s timeline (it’s available to read by Facebook members and non-members alike); it’s fascinating to see how this project has developed since January — and 442comicbook.com. With this and MidWeek artist Roy Chang’s manga-infused young adult novel Cacy & Kiara and the Curse of the Ki’i due this month, this promises to be a very good month in terms of this style of local literature.

More from the anime news desk

Pen & Ink Works: Group members Heather Matsuura and Brady Evans will be hosting “Expression Session KIDS: Drawing From the Masters of Manga,” 10 a.m. to noon Sunday at Spalding House (the former Contemporary Museum), 2411 Makiki Heights Drive. Participants ages 5-12 will learn how to create characters and lay out pages for their own manga, studying works from manga artists and pieces currently on display in the A Thousand Words or More exhibit. Cost is $15, or $10 for Honolulu Museum of Art members. Reservations required; call 237-5230 or email seng@honolulumuseum.org. Learn more about Pen & Ink Works at peninkworks.wordpress.com. And since this event ends at noon …

Comic Jam Hawaii: … you’ll have plenty of time to bring the kids over to this cartoon art group’s inaugural Comic Jam at Pearlridge Center. Sit down, draw a bit, collaborate with a bunch of talented people and have a fun art-filled afternoon. 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday SUNDAY (Update 9:45 p.m. 10/4: date corrected; blast my aged, addled brain >_<) on the Uptown side of the mall, in front of Hot Unique Imaging. Visit www.facebook.com/groups/147779161986428/ (Facebook login required).

JManga: School Rumble is now in the online manga publisher’s catalog. Yes, I know, it’s part of the bigger news that Kodansha’s signed on to provide content to Jmanga, and that also joining School Rumble will be Code:Breaker, Pumpkin Scissors, Princess Resurrection, Pastel and The Yagyu Ninja Scrolls, and that those six series haven’t been seen since the Del Rey Manga imprint morphed into the Kodansha Comics imprint, but … School Rumble! I enjoyed it! I have a copy of volume 1 autographed by Jin Kobayashi to prove it! So go buy some points from jmanga.com and read it already.

“Orchestra” manga plays to a different Beat

Today’s profile: Grand Guignol Orchestra vol. 1
Author: Kaori Yuki
Publisher: Viz
Suggested age rating: Older teen 16+
Availability: Suggested retail (print) $9.99; rare locally, available online. Suggested retail (digital) $4.99.

This month, the Manga Movable Feast — hosted by Manga Report blogger/Fake AP Stylebook “bureau chief” Anna Neatrour — is an all-Shojo Beat, all-the-time affair. While the Feast lasts just for a week out of every month, this one could theoretically last for an entire year if the manga bloggerati deemed it so. There are a lot of titles carrying the Shojo Beat banner these days, and clearly the imprint has moved on from “ill-fated monthly anthology in the vein of Shonen Jump” to become a lineup that could go toe-to-toe with the Shonen Jump lineup for bookshelf dominance (taking Shonen Jump’s current Big Three of One Piece, Naruto and Bleach out of the equation first, of course).

The problem was in picking which series I’d focus on for this post — would it be a proven mainstream favorite like Ouran High School Host Club, Skip Beat or Vampire Knight? A so-good-but-no-one-is-reading-it-other-than-us-manga-bloggers series like Otomen, We Were There or Kaze Hikaru? The wide-eyed sparkly shoujo that is Arina Tanemura? The enigma that is B.O.D.Y., stuck on its 10th of 15 volumes for two years now and presumably canceled? So. Many. Good. Choices.

And then the inspiration hit me. Or rather, my eyeballs. It had to be Grand Guignol Orchestra.

See, there was something about Grand Guignol Orchestra that struck me as … different, somehow. Sure, it’s by Kaori Yuki, who’s contributed titles both to the Shojo Beat catalog (Cain Saga! Fairy Cube! Godchild!) and Viz’s pre-SB lineup (Angel Sanctuary!). But … well, here, have a look at this cross-section sampling of Shojo Beat volumes from my collection. Or more specifically, the spines of said volumes.

SB titles

The majority of series, from Short-Tempered Melancholic on the left through Vampire Knight, use what, for lack of a better term, I’ll call the “SB Sans Serif” font for the titles and author names. Most of them are consistent on the number font, as well, although there’s some variety in the numbers for Dengeki Daisy and Butterflies, Flowers. Then you get a bit of variety with Oresama Teacher, Seiho Boys’ High School!, Kamisama Kiss and Natsume’s Book of Friends. Even with that variety, though, you still see one design consistency throughout: white background, pink Shojo Beat logo at the top. Quite consistent, easy to pick out on a bookshelf.

And then there’s Grand Guignol Orchestra. Look at it, all black and Gothic and alone on the right. If it was an actual person, it would have a dark cloud hovering over it at all times, sulking off in the corner with Depeche Mode playing on the stereo. Not even Yuki’s Godchild pulled off that feat. There are a few other times when Shojo Beat spines have deviated that drastically from the norm — Black Bird, Library Wars: Love and War, Jiu Jiu, Sakura Hime. But in general, you just don’t see the same kind of spine design variety that you do in the Shonen Jump line. I know I keep bringing up the Borders liquidation sales of a few years back and how I ended up picking up several good series by virtue of the fact that no one else would touch them despite the ever-plunging percentage cuts; this was another of those series. It looks that different, apparently.

But is this shoujo manga? Ohhhhhh yes. Take a good look at that cover up top, the person holding the accordion. That’s Lucille, the orchestra’s leader. Long flowing hair, rather dainty facial features, a person with a beautiful singing voice. All qualities of someone who’d make a lovely young woman.

Or so you’d think. Because Lucille is a man. A very pretty man, but a man nevertheless. He’s what’s known in this series’ universe as a philomela, or nightingale, “people who undergo treatments to eliminate their gender, in order to become people with voices like angels,” as some expository dialogue helpfully points out. To complicate matters further, the group’s pianist, Eles, the one who joins them in the first few chapters, the one who looks like a boy and acts like a boy … is actually a girl, commanded by her father to assume the persona of the brother that she had to burn to death a few years back.

Ahh, shoujo manga, with your androgynous pretty boys and headstrong girls. Don’t ever stop bringing the crazy.

Gender-bending hijinks aside, what we have here is a good, fun action-packed romp. The orchestra itself is a band of rogues — “made up solely of convicts and sinners with sinister pasts,” as their would-be employer points out in the first chapter — called upon to battle what amounts to a zombie apocalypse and taking all the jobs that the royally sanctioned orchestra simply won’t touch. These aren’t your garden-variety zombies, though — they’re “guignols,” once-normal people transformed into freakish living-dead dolls from the effects of a virus spreading across the land. The music the trio — or quartet, with the addition of Eles — performs together is powerful enough to eliminate guignols. And when you have situations like an entire town surrounded by guignols, or a duke who has a harem of obedient maids filling his castle for some strange reason, that special music will definitely come in handy.

With all that going for this volume, though, there’s one flaw: We learn much about Lucille and Eles in this volume, but the other two orchestra members just don’t seem to matter quite as much yet. We know the cellist, Gwindel, keeps a hedgehog in his top hat for some reason, and the violinist, Kohaku, is prone to solving every problem with a healthy dose of violence. But that’s pretty much it. There are clearly more mysteries to be solved in this five-volume series, chief among them a statement Kohaku makes: “We’re Lucille’s prisoners. We’re together by contract, not by choice.” Yuki demonstrates in this volume, through the way she reveals Lucille’s and Eles’ gender secrets, that she has a knack for making readers think they know what’s going on … and then pulling the rug out from under them and changing the rules.

It’s great. And based on its strong start, it seems like a series that’s certainly worth tracking down.

The Cel Shaded Report, 9/14: Franky goes to HEXXPywood

One Piece vol. 39. That's Franky behind Luffy. “Yao Kazuki.”

It was last Saturday morning, just a handful of hours before Manga Swap was about to kick off, when I first heard the name. At the time, my mind wasn’t really registering what it meant. Tag-team partner in fandom Wilma J. and I were busily setting up this and this. Plus my would-be information giver and name-dropper, Yoshiki Takahashi from the Hawaii Entertainment Expo (HEXXP), was wheeling his own cart of stuff from the elevators to the HEXXP table at the time.

“Wait, what? Who?” I said.

“Yao Kazuki. He’s the last guest. You know, Franky from One Piece.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh.”

And so, six days after the announcement debuted at Manga Swap — and with our wallets a bit fuller, our storage boxes a bit emptier, and our sanity lost and found again (well, sorta, on that last one) — I finally have the time and energy to write and confirm that, yes, seiyuu (Japanese voice actor) Kazuki Yao is one of the last guest announcements for HEXXP 2012. Yao is, as mentioned earlier, best known as the voice of One Piece‘s Franky, the cyborg leader of the Franky Family group of ship dismantlers who becomes a valuable member of Luffy’s Straw Hat Pirates. He’s also voiced the hypnotist Marine Jango and the cross-dressing Baroque Works agent Mr. 2 Bon Kurei in the series. Other characters he’s voiced include Koichiro Iketani in Initial D, Marco in Gunslinger Girl, Hideki Kurohagi in the recent Wolverine anime and Ginji Kawai, Sasami’s dad, in Magical Project S. (Yes, folks, if there is ever an excuse to shoehorn Magical Project S into a post, and doing so is actually relevant, I will do it.)

Yao will perform Friday night as part of the “Seiyuu Meets Visual Kei” concert … which, of course, means that someone with visual kei chops had to join him. And so the final final guest announcement is Sana, current guitarist for Kain, former guitarist for Mask and someone who’s a bit difficult to find any English-language info on via Google. This translated interview from 2007 on Shattered-Tranquility.net, however, would indicate that Sana enjoys Giorgio Armani perfume, French movies, Hayao Miyazaki and making stray cats run away. So there is that.

Recapping the rest of the guest list:

Angel Anatomy, musical duo with a style that’s “ambient, classical, industrial, and a touch of opera”
Akiakane, noted Nico Nico Douga/YouTube utaite (cover artists who perform Vocaloid songs and other anime/video game /J-Pop pieces)
Atelier Pierrot, a clothing brand known for its EGL (elegant gothic lolita) styles
Andy Lee, modern zen painter and illustrator who’s done work for DC and Marvel Comics
Livetune, music mastermind behind the Hatsune Miku Re:package and Tell Your World albums
DJ MaRia, Avex Entertainment’s resident DJ for House Nation, “the most famous house music party in Japan”
N.S.D.P., J-rock band
Royalvana, online purveyors of Japanese GAL fashion
Nobuo Uematsu, music composer for many games in the Final Fantasy franchise, who’ll be performing with his band, the Earthbound Papas
Joji Yoshida, local actor

Major events at HEXXP include the World Cosplay Summit regional qualifying round on Oct. 21, and a Macross 30th Anniversary exhibit and maid cafe service from AniMaid Hawaii throughout the weekend. For those of you who don’t quite feel like you have what it takes to enter the WCS qualifier, you can take part in the just-announced Costume Masquerade cosplay contest on Oct. 20. Want to know exactly what to do when? Why, the complete programming schedule just got posted Thursday night. (For starters, if you’re an Earthbound Papas fan, be prepared to have a late Sunday.)

HEXXP is taking place Oct. 19-21 at Aloha Tower Marketplace. Yes, that means that HEXXP’s Friday night will run right up against the Slopes of Diamondhead Hui’s annual “Crazy, Sexy, Ghoul” Halloween party/Make-A-Wish Hawaii fundraiser. Yes, contingency plans are in the works. Yes, with a reported 3,000 people attending CSG 2011, that will make getting navigating that area for the latter part of HEXXP’s programming verrrry interesting.

For more information or to preregister, visit www.hexxp.com.

More from the anime news desk

Aiea Library Anime Club: 3 p.m. Saturday at the library, 99-143 Moanalua Road. This month, librarian Diane Masaki will be screening episodes of Fruits Basket. For more information or to RSVP, call 483-7333 or e-mail aiealibraryanimeclub@yahoo.com.

Kikaida at Shirokiya: Aaaaaaaallllll the way back in 1662, Shirokiya opened its first store in Tokyo. Fast forward through 350 years of business ebbs and flows, and things have pretty much come full circle as far as the number of stores that exist in the world is concerned: There is one store left, and it’s the one with the Book-Off, the KZOO satellite studio, the yummy Saint Germain’s blueberry muffins and the second-floor foodie’s paradise at Ala Moana. (Raise your hand if you remember the Shirokiyas at Pearlridge and on Maui. Now, as I’m on the cusp of celebrating my birthday on Saturday, please join me in feeling old.)

The store’s been celebrating its 350th anniversary since August, but an event coming up on Sunday brings another anniversary into the mix: 40 years of Japanese superheroes in Hawaii. Which means it’s time for another recent Shirokiya tradition — a good old-fashioned Generation Kikaida party — to make an encore appearance. There will be stars (Kikaida‘s Ban Daisuke! Kamen Rider V3′s Miyauchi Hiroshi!) signing autographs, balloons, photo ops and “Kikaida-oke.”

For more information, visit www.generationkikaida.com. Oh, and if you have a moment, read Chad Pata’s story, “Kikaida: At Home in the Islands,” in our sister publication, MidWeek. It’s quite good.

Mini-Con 2012: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 22 at McCully-Moiliili Public Library, 2211 S. King St. I hope to post at least one post on the topic next week (and look for the Kalakoa brief in Saturday’s Today section!), but nemu*nemu artist Audra Furuichi posted this on the Mini Con Facebook event page, and I just had to share it because OMG SO CUUUUUUTE:

Mini Con 2012 flyer

Katamari Damacy gets webcomic treatment: Word out of ShiftyLook, the webcomics portal devoted to resurrecting obscure Namco video game properties, is that Katamari Damacy, that wonderfully quirky game that Wilma and I both adore that involves the Prince of All Cosmos rolling up everything in said cosmos into giant balls to be turned into stars, is going to become a regular comic. It debuts on Monday; Destructoid has a preview. Suffice it to say that with that, the upcoming Klonoa being drawn by The Big O/Mega Man Megamix manga artist Hitoshi Ariga, the upcoming Mappy web animation, and my current faves Bravoman, Dragon Spirit, Rocket Fox and Wonder Momo, ShiftyLook’s become quite the hotbed of artistic talent … and a must-stop site in my daily web wanderings.

A special “Delivery?” But of corpse!

Today’s profile: The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (12 volumes available, vols. 1 and 2 reviewed)
Author: Eiji Otsuka (writer) and Housui Yamazaki (art)
Publisher: Dark Horse
Age rating: N/A, but suggested for mature audiences 18+

It feels as if The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service — the subject of this month’s Manga Movable Feast, hosted by Philip over at Eeeper’s Choice Podcast — has had one foot in the grave for a veeeeerry long time.

You can’t really blame fans for being a bit nervous about Kurosagi‘s English-translated future. Here in the U.S., the only thing regular about Dark Horse’s publishing schedule has been its irregularity. If the publishing date records kept by Right Stuf and Amazon are any indication, fans so far have had to endure a seven-month wait (between volumes 1 and 2), a nine-month wait (between volumes 9 and 10) and, perhaps the one that really made their hearts stop beating and made them wonder whether the series had any kind of future or would just be quietly canceled, a wait of a year and seven months (volumes 11 and 12). Assuming things stay on track, it’ll be another eight months between volumes 12 and 13, currently due out in November.

As for finding a complete run in print? Good luck finding volume 5, which seems to have disappeared from the ranks of affordable volumes at every online retailer. (Fortunately, Dark Horse has added Kurosagi to the ranks of its digital comic offerings, so you’ll just have to endure staring at a screen for a long time in exchange for getting every volume for just $5.99 each.)

It would seem that Kurosagi is one of those series infected with a common manga malaise: the Great Series That Hardly Anyone Knows Exists And/Or Follows. When Borders was in its death spiral last year, I noticed that volumes from the series were among the last to go. (I should know; I was usually the one who’d pick them up.) It’s easy to see why it’s gone unnoticed: Just look at that cover image above. Stylish? Certainly. Does it say much about the story contained within? Who knows, considering the “Psychic,” main character Kuro Karatsu, is the only one facing forward. (Turns out it’s a running gag; the other covers in the series, featuring a similar layout with three members of the delivery service on the front and the other three on the back, all have Karatsu facing forward and the others doing something, well, different.) Shielded from “manga cows,” that breed of fan who clogs the manga aisle and turns any bookstore into their own lending library, much to the chagrin of people who actually want to buy stuff? Oh yes, definitely; the volumes are shrink-wrapped because of all the violence and nudity.

So it takes a fair amount of effort to ferret out the story … and what a story it is. What we have here is a “super team” of Buddhist students for hire, summoned to help souls trapped in corpses attain the eternal peace they desire, whether by clients or the dead themselves. (Seeing as how they’re college students, they’re also eternally scrounging around for enough money to keep the lights on.) We meet Karatsu, a guy who has the ability to hear the voices of the dead, just as he’s meeting the other main players: Makoto Numata, a dowser who can find corpses using his special pendulum; Keiko Makino, a rather young-looking gal who’s a licensed embalmer; Yuji Yata, a guy who has the ability to channel other beings but mostly channels a foulmouthed alien who manifests himself in the form of a hand puppet; and Ao Sasaki, the brains, businesswoman and buxom beauty behind the creation of the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.

kurosagi 2 Fair warning: Anyone grossed out by gore and/or in-your-face nudity would best steer away from this series. Six pages into the first chapter of the first volume, there’s a close-up of a hanging corpse, flies buzzing around its head. Many breasts get bared, many body parts go flying and much blood goes flowing from that point forward.

But it’s rarely gratuitous; in fact, it serves to enhance the sheer shock value of the tales contained within. Consider, for example, the story of that first corpse, who committed suicide after he was kept apart from his girlfriend, a budding pop idol, and now wishes to reunite with her. Let’s just say that the young lady committed suicide herself and throw in the phrase “patriarchal necrophilia,” and leave it to your imagination to fill in the gaps. (Just note, though, that you probably could never come up with the twists and turns that Eiji Otsuka devises on your own.) There’s also an elderly corpse who wishes to return to a place called Dendera, a stylist who cuts far more than hair, and an actuary who has the uncanny ability to predict the chances of someone dying. The team handles all of these situations with a splash of humor and a few meditations on what gives life (and death) its meaning.

But while the first volume with its various stories is certainly good in its own right, the story really hits its stride with volume 2, a seven-chapter arc that starts with a criminal’s hanging and ends up with — take a deep breath here — a girl who can raise the dead, a doctor gone rogue, a man with a mysterious marking on his fingernail, conspiracies piled upon conspiracies, Yata quitting the delivery service to take on a side job, a company that gives bereaved victims the opportunity to take revenge upon the dead, a merger proposal between the delivery service and this company, the tragedy of Sasaki’s past and a bloodthirsty zombie cat.

That’s right, a bloodthirsty zombie cat.

Trust me: When you can type the words “bloodthirsty zombie cat” as part of the description of a particular volume, and that’s not even the most messed-up thing to show up in that volume … you know you have to check it out. And then you’ll be hooked on the series. It’s to die for. Really.

The Cel Shaded Report, 8/30: Blue plush, Manga Swap rush & HEXXP’s flush

Since mid-January, Audra Furuichi has been drawing her nemu*nemu spinoff series, nemu*nemu: Blue Hawaii, every third Sunday for our fair publication. If you’ve been following along regularly (and you really should; it’s part of the free, non-paywalled content on our site), you know that the comic strip features Blue, a plush pup from a lost-and-found box sitting in an office somewhere, and his slice-of-life adventures with his friends — toy robot Gizmo, parrot Ross and goldfish Simon.

This, of course, begs the question: Blue, as I just mentioned, is a plush pup. Anpan and Nemu, the costars of nemu*nemu proper, are also plush pups. And there are Anpan and Nemu plushies for children (and the young at heart) to hold and cuddle in real life. Mini-plushies of intergalactic traveling pup Enchilada and his bird companion Pollo also exist. Surely a real-life Blue plushie wouldn’t be too far behind, would it?

Well, guess what: The Blue plushie is really real. Second from left in the photo below. He’s joining a larger version of Enchilada and new versions of Anpan and Nemu on sale in mid-September. And as that photo, which showed up on nemu-nemu.com earlier this week, also notes, you could score two of these cuties for free.

All you need is a dash of creativity. It doesn’t even have to be particularly good artistic creativity, just the ability to take one of these templates …

nemu template sampler

… and transforming it into your very own pup creation. Like, say, the examples shown below the Aug. 20 installment of nemu*nemu. (And it has to be your own creation, not, say, a pup dressed up in Sailor Moon cosplay.)

There will be two winners: One will be the “judge’s choice,” while the other, the “people’s choice,” will be picked by nemu*nemu readers from among 10 finalists.

Interested? Download your templates and get complete contest rules at www.nemu-nemu.com/2012/08/26/contest_2012_win_a_pair_of_pup.php. There’s no age limit for submissions (although there is a limit of two entries per person), and anyone worldwide can participate, so get to downloading and drawing already!

The deadline for submissions is at noon Sept. 8 … a day that also promises to have its own level of craziness, particularly for your tag-team partners in fandom. Why, you ask? Read on…

Manga/anime merchandise mayhem START!

One of the big reasons why I enjoy attending Fanime in San Jose, Calif. — unexpected presidential visits and six-hour line waits notwithstanding — is that it’s the only anime convention that I know of that has an anime swap meet attached to it. Basically, fans set up shop with their boxes and suitcases full of their extra swag, and fellow fans go around trying their hardest not to buy everything in the room, usually failing miserably. (Or maybe that’s just me.) Seriously, the number of bargains and hard-to-find-stuff that pops up at these sales are quite mind-boggling, especially for someone like me, stuck on a rock out here in the middle of the Pacific. Here’s a small peek at what it looks like.

Fanime anime swap meet 2010

It’s a great idea, and one that I’m surprised hasn’t caught on in more places. Heck, you’re probably looking at that picture, thinking, “Wow, I have extra stuff! I’d love to have a way to sell my stuff that way!” And then you remember that you’re not living in Gilroy or Cupertino or Alameda or Emeryville or any of the other cities in the San Francisco Bay area, and that it costs an arm, a leg and rights to your yet-unborn children to take even one 50-pound-or-less checked bag with you to the mainland these days, and you’re sad.

Until now. See, for the past few months at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii, there’s been a monthly bazaar in the first-floor courtyard. It was only supposed to last for the summer months of June, July and August, but, by the force of sheer otaku will (at least, that’s how I imagine this going down, anyway), it’s been extended into a date in September. And so, on the aforementioned Sept. 8, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., bargain-hunting otaku can buy and sell at the first-ever Manga Swap.

So why will it be sheer insanity for your tag-team partners in fandom? Full disclosure: We’re planning on being among the sellers there. We have … stuff, accumulated from at least a decade, probably more, of collecting craziness. For an example of just how crazy, I humbly submit to you this picture of half the music CD inventory that Wilma will be selling.

Yup, websites devoted to cataloguing Final Fantasy music and anime karaokes will do this to ya.

Half, people. Granted, most of what she’s selling are CD singles, but still. HALF.

If you want to join us and sell your stuff, spaces are still available (and free!), but limited. You can also rent either a 6-foot-by-30-inch table ($10) or an 8-foot-by-30-incher ($11) from the center. Or, if you want to just stop by to browse and buy stuff (and on behalf of all of us who are going to be selling there, for the love of all that is righteous and holy, please come and buy stuff), you can do that for free.

The Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii is at 2454 S. Beretania St. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/events/275137595933041/ (Facebook login not required) or email Jtkwlum@gmail.com for a sellers’ registration form.

Yet even still more from HEXXP, part 4,929,884,021

It seems like every time I turn my attention toward the Hawaii Entertainment Expo, the pop culture convention also known as HEXXP, they’ve been adding even more guests and events to their 2012 show. This particular update’s been revised several times over the past two weeks, in fact. So before things change even more, here are the newest guest announcements:

DJ MaRia, Avex Entertainment’s resident DJ for House Nation, “the most famous house music party in Japan.” HEXXP will mark her second U.S. convention appearance on the heels of A-Kon in Dallas earlier this year.
Atelier Pierrot, a clothing brand known for its EGL (elegant gothic lolita) styles. Debuting at HEXXP will be a new line inspired by the magical-girl creation of Go Nagai, Cutey Honey.
N.S.D.P., a J-rock band with members that include bassist Kuro (who’s performed with the rock band Sophia) and guitarist Yui (no, not that Yui, but the one who’s a member of the heavy metal band Cynthia). Here are samples of their music … and, umm, you might want to start off with your volume low if you don’t regularly listen to J-rock. For the record, “N.S.D.P.” stands for “Night Spit Death Pain.” I think it’s safe to say that they will not be doing a cover of “Lazy Harp Seal Has No Job.” They’ll be making their U.S. convention debut at HEXXP.
Angel Anatomy, the duo of Anya St. James and Lorelai Lyn whose new EP will be released under Babel Entertainment this year. Their music style is “ambient, classical, industrial, and a touch of opera,” according to their YouTube account; here are some free samples of their music. They’ll be opening for Nobuo Uematsu and the Earthbound Papas.

Also showing up on the HEXXP news radar are a pair of special events being hosted by the maid-cafe servers from AniMaid Hawaii on Friday, Oct. 19: an afternoon tea with an assortment of sweets and teas from 3 to 5 p.m., and a “One Piece Special Event,” a battle with pirates aboard the SS AniMaid with dinner, drinks and games, from 6 to 7 p.m. Tickets for $16.37 — that’s $15 plus a $1.37 processing fee — are available now at animaidhawaii.eventbrite.com; there were 28 tickets left for the afternoon tea and 29 for the One Piece event, so you’ll probably want to act on that sooner rather than later.

HEXXP is taking place Oct. 19-21 at Aloha Tower Marketplace; for more information or to preregister, visit www.hexxp.com.

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