Author Archives: Nargis

London expo: Magic, alchemists and karaoke!

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Magic performing alchemists, L singing Blur karaoke and Solid Snake vanishing into a cardboard box! This year’s MCM Expo had more magic (and mischief) than previous shows but mixed in with the same old regulars: the gaming section, manga artist alley, scandalous cosplay kids were a few extra addictions. This year’s expo included some of the best bits from Japan Ex, a convention which last took place back in 2007.

Ouran girls will yaoi for commoner food

Ouran girls will yaoi for commoner food

Including a Gothic Lolita fashion show, Japanese drumming, tea ceremony and origami. Although, rather amusingly, half way through the weekend the origami table was high-jacked by the cosplay kids as they made ‘Free Hugs’ signs. Talking of free huggers, I ran into a distressed L who had a ‘Please don’t give me free hugs sign.’ She was forced to make the sign as L received one too many unwanted hugs last year. Watch out kids, the resistance has started…

In terms of cosplay, Kuroshitsuji was surprisingly popular, with many teenage boys and girls donning up as demonic butlers. The usual armies of Bleach and Naruto fans were there along with some surprising outfits: Ronald McDonald, J-rockers Versailles and steam punk military cadets with vintage oversized goggles. Many people queued up to have their picture taken with a massive Hello Kitty and some even (posed?) as if they were being eaten by a giant yellow Pacman. Every expo has their own celebrities, the Ghost Busters crew and Scrubs guys were back. But you will never believe who had his own posse. This guy here:

Spongebob is hot...really

Spongebob is hot...honest!

Meanwhile in the Manga Alley I had a chat with an artist on the most popular drawing requests of the day. I discovered that yaoi-ness wasn’t confined to the realm of manga. Many fangirls (and boys) had requested he draw pictures of yaoi Spiderman and X-men. Somehow this shouldn’t surprise me but it did.  Alongside professional artists rested doujinshi artists, peddling their home made wares, but it was nice to see a mix of both manga and American comics side by side. A new attraction at expo was the Rock Band stall, where kids tried out karaoke. I heard that decidedly annoying Blur song, you know, the one that goes, “I got my head done, when I was young…” and turned around to see L behind the microphone. It was priceless.

I spotted a pair of worn out convention goers who were new to this whole expo madness. I probably should have directed them to the first aid area but instead I took them to the nearest stall and bought them chocolate. “What’s this?” they asked. “Pocky. Eat it. It’s the only way you will get through expo.”

Outside in the forecourt were cosplay outfits of every shape and description, ranging from Neo from the Matrix to Hei from Darker Than Black. Although computer game cosplays are nothing new, it was the first time I had ever seen Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid. (I knew those hours wasted playing computer games would come in handy one day.) I then watched him disappear into a cardboard box! Speaking of all things magical, this year’s masquerade included a routine with Edward Elric performing magic tricks, pulling this impossibly long rod out of a box. Expect it to already be on You Tube, go on, I dare you, go check it out! Another surprise hit was watching Bleach cosplayers performing the Hare Hare Yukai dance, it’s just way more funnier when non-Haruhi kids pull off this routine. That wraps up expo (or so I thought.) It wasn’t until I got home and checked my photo’s did I get an unexpected surprise. The seemingly innocent Ouran Host Club girls (or boys, depending on how you look at it) had a ‘Will yaoi for commoner food’ sign. Kids, really, whatever next…

The Genshiken dilemma: Clothes or Manga?

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Even manga and anime fans get credit crunched. I learnt this the hard way. Anyone who has watched the anime classic, Genshiken, will know the dilemma faced by an otaku when he walkes into a clothes shop, reluctantly, being forced to buy new clothes. I mean, seriously, being an anime and manga fan costs a heck of a lot of cash and a new cashmere sweater cannot… or should I say… will not win against the new volume of Fruits Basket. It’s an unwritten rule known by all manga fans. Okay, that’s a lie, but there should be one! This got me thinking about the peculiar realities about fan culture and how someone can go unknowingly from simply liking something to becoming a hardcore fan. So I compiled a light hearted list of the things that made me realise how I went from being a simple fan to an all out manga fangirl:

Strategically stacking your manga books on your book shelf to fit as many books as possible

It’s the kind of conversation you can only have with another manga fan. In the early days when I was new to the manga fandom, I went into a children’s book shop where the sales assistant was stacking manga. I asked for his recommendations and we ended up in a rather amusing conversation about Tokyo Mew Mew which went something like this: “How can you not like Tokyo Mew Mew? It’s so cute!”, “That’s the problem, it’s too cute.” “What do you mean it’s too cute?”, “……”

I lost that battle, but we then went on to talk about what to do when you have too many books and he suggested how to position books to get as many possible on a shelf. It was such a bizarre conversation, I even  laughed at him at one point, but when I left the bookshop he gave me a knowing smile, he just knew what was going to happen. Six months later I was surrounded by books and even though I had mocked him at the time, he had the kindness to help me even before I knew I would later have a manga storage problem.

Spending less on clothes to buy more manga…

I wasn’t even aware I was doing this until I watched Genshiken. Man, was that an eye opener! There’s another version of this that I’m embarrassed to admit. When I saw an expensive jumper, I automatically started calculating, “How many volumes of manga could I get instead?” Boys and girls don’t laugh, I’m sure this has happened to you. And if it hasn’t, just you wait, the next time you step into Gap, you will experience some manga arithmetic’s. No anime or manga fan is immune.

…But when you do buy clothes, it’s all things a manga character would wear

A friend dragged me out shopping a while back to look at clothes. Look being the key word here. Every so often I would see an item and go, “That’s what Yuki or Kyo would wear.” My friend, bless her patience, would smile and chuckle at me, she’s used to my manga-centric observations. But as I learnt to my peril, it soon gets addictive, from Kino’s military jacket to  Yuki’s Chinese style shirts, I woke up one morning to discover manga characters had suddenly invaded my wardrobe.

All your music is in Japanese

When people ask me who my favourite band is, I’m quite tempted to lie, to say some English or European band. Before I got into anime, my music taste was very alternative. Fast forward a couple of years later and let’s just say it’s even more obscure. I was used to people saying “Who?” when I name dropped my favourite bands, now that still happens but with even more blank expressions. Go on, let’s play name the celebrities below:

Keep making an excuse to eat Japanese food

I’m really, really, bad at this. Whenever I say, “Let’s go to restaurant,” my friends have now figured out what I really mean is, “Let’s go to a Japanese restaurant.” I blame those spinning carousel things, I could spend hours watching those plates go round and round.

Manga speech bubbles

By far, the most funniest moments have been when I’m having a conversation with someone and an imaginary manga speech bubble pops up beside their heads. The lady who ran the cake shop at the now closed Oriental City always looked at me with weird expressions when I walked in asking for random cakes I had read about in my manga comics. I still have yet to find warm bean jam cakes but my hunt continues.

Manga haircuts

This perhaps was the key give away that I am way into my manga. Two and a half years ago I walked into my hairdressers clutching the dvd cover to Last Exile and requested an anime haircut. This was perhaps the moment that set me on the road to becoming a manga fangirl. My hairdresser played along, as she had never had such a request before and since then I have had countless manga haircuts, everyone from Yuki, Akito, Kino, Light, Ritsuka and Yoite. If I ever walked in and asked for a normal haircut, she would be surprised, but with so many interesting hairstyles, I don’t think that will happen any time soon.

 

Would you want to live forever?

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Not the normal kind of question posed by an anime, but Galaxy Express 999 is no ordinary series. On my recent trip to Tokyo, I was lucky enough to visit the animation studio Toei, the people also responsible for One Peice and Dragon Ball Z. Whilst wondering around their gallery I stumbled across the above poster and on my return to London, I decided to investigate the movie.

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Cosplay madness at London Expo

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“We’re freaks,” “Get Sasuke,” and “Free hugs” are probably the three phrases I heard that best summed up expo this time around. I spent the entire queue waiting to get in next to a diabolically devilish Shigure from Fruits Basket. If you’ve been to an expo, you’ll know what to expect: anime, manga, gaming, cosplay and the usual amount of trouble. For this blog entry I will be focusing exclusively on the trouble end of that sentence, because let’s face it, trouble is always far more entertaining.

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Death Note Revisited: The eternal battle between good and evil

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Warning: Spoilers below

As if heroes and villains were so straight forward, if only the world was black and white. Anyone who reads comic books will know that a hero’s path is never a simple one. When I first watched Death Note, I always thought of Light as the villain of the story. Light is our narrator in to the crime ridden world in Death Note. In traditional storytelling, it is often the hero who narrates the story, but here much to my surprise, it’s the villain who tells the story.

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Death Note is one of those anime’s where you can’t sit on the fence, you have to pick a side. Some see Light as a hero, other’s as a villain, it all really depends on your point of view. I’ve seen a lot of anime but Death Note is one of those anime’s that kept me at the very edge of my seat. Never have I loved and hated the villain of a story so much. Every time L got closer, I kept wishing Light didn’t get caught, and every time Light killed I wished justice would prevail. This is the only anime that I have ever seen that has made me switch sides so many times. That is the power of Death Note.

I’m currently reading the manga and it’s nearly impossible to put down. The artwork reminds me of film noir. When Light meets Ryuk, I was surprised to see so many names were already written in the notebook, I remember being shocked. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I wanted to believe that he’s just a good kid really. A part of me didn’t really want to accept Light for what he really was – a serial killer.

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Many people gave up on Death Note after L’s death, but for me, already addicted, I had to continue. Light ends up believing his own ideology, that he is a god of this new world, claiming he is doing what others are afraid to do. But if you go back to the beginning you realise all this started due to boredom. Ryuk, the Shinigami in an endless existence. Light the straight laced high school student bored out of his mind.

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The most tantalizing question that Death Note left me with was: what happens next? Thinking back on it, Light had created a world with no war, and not even any government has ever done that. So what would a world without Light look like? I imagine crime would once again rise, society would resume and the world that Near would find himself in wouldn’t be that much different from our own. Somewhere along the way, many months after I watched the ending, I somehow came to the conclusion that perhaps Light really was the hero of the story after all. Was it wrong to want to create a better world?

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For Light to really change the world, he couldn’t play by society’s rules, in essence, Light had to become the bad guy if he was to do any good. Was there any humanity in Light? It’s hard to tell. Just as he could dupe the other characters, he also worked his spell on me. When I saw the ending, I just knew that I was watching something special. I’m not sure if we’ll ever see another anime this compelling again, but Death Note is an example of what a good anime can really do.

Beginners guide to shojo manga

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No one believes me when I say I used to be a tomboy, I read far too much fluffy shojo manga for anyone to believe that! Shojo for those who don’t know is girls manga with storylines about romance, friendship and er… a bit of scandal. As I get a lot of requests from AUKN forum members to recommend some good shojo, I thought I would mention some of the best titles I’ve read here:

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Chocolat – How far would you go to meet your favourite idols? Kum-ji takes this to a whole new level by joining a rival band’s fanclub in order to meet her idols, who always appear on the same TV shows. But as Kum-ji soon realises it’s hard to be a fan of a band you don’t even like. Extremely funny and flawlessly entertaining, Chocolat captures the trials and tribulations of what it means to be a fan. But this is fandom Korean style, so expect fan club fights, blackmail, angsty pop stars, rivalry and the surprising revelation that fanboys do exist! If you’ve ever been a crazy music fan (like I have) and travelled the country just to get a glimpse of your heroes, you will understand the feelings in Chocolat.

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Imadoki! – Country girl Tanpopo moves to Tokyo when she is accepted into a prestigious high school where she wants to make lots of friends. Surrounded by wealthy classmates who look down on her, Tanpopo tries to make friends by starting a gardening club, roping in the most popular boy in school and the class misfits. An interesting manga about friendships in the modern world, which questions what it means to be a friend in a place where money, power and influence is the norm. Yu Watase’s best story by far, in my opinion.

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Fruits Basket – This is the series that got me hooked on manga. About a girl named Tohru who lives with the Sohma family who have been living with a curse for generations, which transforms them into animals from the Chinese zodiac. You’ve probably seen the anime, so why check out the manga? There is so much more to the story that you never see in the anime. Heartfelt and moving, the young Sohma’s go through a lot of pain, but they also find the strength and courage to keep moving forward.

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Hot Gimmick – Hatsumi has gotten herself into a bit of a fix. While buying a pregnancy test for her sister, she runs into her childhood bully, Ryoki, who blackmails her in to becoming his slave. Can Azusa, Hatsumi’s childhood crush save the day? Telling the lives and loves of three friends who live in the same housing complex, it’s a real page turner with jaw dropping cliff hangers which will leave you shouting, “You can’t end it there!” Trust me, I should know. It’s the manga equivalent of a really scandalous soap opera, but I like it.

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Othello– “Have you ever thought about changing?” is Othello’s opening line. Many teenagers want to be someone else and Yaya is no different. Poor Yaya-chan is being picked on by her so-called school ‘friends.’ Enter Nana, the butt-kicking girl who doles out revenge with style saying, “Justice is done!” Nana’s approach to life is with a punk-rock spirit, doing whatever she wants. Worlds apart and polar opposites, can they have anything in common? For one thing – they are both the same person. Othello explores how people deny who they really are in order to fit in. It’s about finding the courage to be who you really are, even if it means going against the in-crowd.

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Hana Kimi – No shojo manga list would be complete without at least one cross dressing series. American-Japanese Mizuki transfers to high school in Japan so that she can meet her high jump hero, Sano, but there’s a catch, she will have to dress up as a guy just to attend his boy’s school. As Muzuki soon discovers, it’s not easy being a boy, as she finds herself in a love triangle between two best friends. There’s an excellent cast of supporting characters including the school doctor Umeda and Sano’s angry little brother Shin. It’s a fun story about love, friendship and finding your dreams after you’ve lost them. The series has recently been adapted into a rather shameless but excellent Japanese drama.