Category: General

Hello!

I am back from Japan. It was awesome. I actually woke up this morning and missed Japan, which matches my past record of it taking two days to miss Japan after I got back. Speaking of, the flight back was kind of fucked up. There were electrical problems with our plane (before take-off, thankfully) and so we ended up staying overnight at a mediocre hotel near the airport. We got a direct flight home the next day, which was a small consolation, but we lost a full day and it made us crazy-tired.

Which brings me to: Not going to San Diego. I’m skipping this year, for the first time in maybe 5 or 6 I think, because I’ve just been away for a month and I need to get some fucking work done. The guys did a good job of keeping the store from catching on fire while I was away, but I’ve definitely fallen behind on stuff, and another week away in a fantasy land isn’t gonna Get Shit Done here at home.

I’m a little sad to be missing it, the content of the show looks pretty amazing this year, but I have reconciled myself to the fact that it is all for the best.

…sigh…

Annnnnnnnnnyway. I think I’m going to hold off on blogging any more Japan stuff until after San Diego, lest my posts get lost in the maelstrom of S A N D I E G O B R E A K I N G N E W S ! ! ! ! I’ve got a few other surprises up my sleeve too, let’s say we’ll start on August 1st with that again? Give everyone a chance to chew on the big industry news for a while, and for me to actually stockpile some content. Until then I’ll just bitch about the comics industry and respond to the news of the day here at the blog.

Speaking of which! I gave a fantastically scathing interview to The Toronto Star the other day about Supergirl’s new costume. I’m pretty excited to see it in print. I’ll blog it when it does.

Until then, you can find me in this article that also ran in The Star about Viz’s sublime cooking/food/drama manga Oishinbo, Food For Thought In Comic Form by Corey Mintz. It is not as effusive about the series as I personally am, but it is hard for people to be as effusive about things as I am. Corey: I don’t hold it against you.

I really oughtta review Oishinbo, eh?

Hmm.

Anyway, content soon as I have 10 minutes to rub together!

– Chris

So it looks like I went and disappeared for the better part of two weeks… Whoops! Hah, it turns out that being in Japan is just a great time, and walking around Tokyo for 14 hours a day (no exaggeration) takes a lot out of a guy. Ah well, if I wasn’t out having fun, then I wouldn’t be able to write about it… Eventually…

On that note, we ended up travelling within Japan for the very first part of our trip, and I ended up with a different “feeling” for this trip. Andrew was much happier–we saw nothing but sacred, irreplaceable things and places for like 10 straight days (occasionally stopping in at the Tezuka Museum or whatever), but I felt a little bit like I was waiting “for the good part”… despite the fact that everything I was doing was fantastic, interesting, and amazing. I can’t help it, I just really like otaku shit. 🙂

Because of that, I didn’t really take a ton of photos for the first part of the trip, and so rather than organize chronologically I’m gonna end up doing posts on places, people, or concepts, rather than a chronological recap. And I’ll probably start working on the first one on the plane, hopefully that means I post it in 24 hours or so. We’ll see how tired I am when we finally board.

On that note, I’m just about to board my flight at Narita. Gotta run, see you soon, Toronto.

– Chris
Photo: Kinokuniya Bookstores Flagship Store, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.

Hey there! The post is now at this location: https://comics212.net/2009/12/21/japan-2009-tezuka-world-installation-kyoto-jr-station/.

Please update your links.

– Chris

Go Fujimoto is an absolutely incredible Japanese “bara” or bear illustrator. Big dudes, cute faces, and even his quickly-coloured pencil sketches (as above) look incredible. I’d recommend tracking down as much of his work as you might be able to, he’s really quite talented.

You can find Go Fujimoto online at his blog (Japanese Language Only, sorry!) http://japanimationbears.ti-da.net/, or at his online store Bear Grand, http://www7b.biglobe.ne.jp/~japanimationbears/BG/BGtop_E.html.

– Chris

The fine folks at Japanator have unveiled the screening schedule for the new Evangelion movie, Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone, and it looks like unless you live in Canada, you’re more or less out of luck. Luckily, I LIVE IN CANADA. So: yay! I’ll see you September 30th for the screening! The film will also be showing at Comic-Con in July. For the full schedule, visit Japanator.

Evangelion 1.0 is the first of four new movies that reimagines the 26 epsiodes + 6 episodes + 2 films that made up the original Neon Genesis Evangelion storyline. Said to cut out the filler, introduce some lovely new animation, and generally just bilk hardcore fans out of Even More money to feed their awful animation fetish, the films have been very well-received overseas. I imagine the same will happen here.

Hah, I just checked Wikipedia and the second film in the tetrology, Evangelion 2.0: You Will (Not) Advance will be opening in Japan June 27th… While I’m there. It looks like I’ll be able to take even more Evangelion photos while I’m there, and buy even more weird Eva stuff.  Whoo hoo!

– Christopher
Photo: I took a picture of a human-sized Evangelion statue last time I was in Japan. It was pretty awesome.

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