PMX Cosplay Contest at MPk CBF

PMX held their cosplay contest on Day 2 of the Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival. The contest was held inside this year, and Tomo Neko was invited to do the halftime show! A few of these photos were from outside of the contest, in case you get confused.

This picture of Sakura Kinomoto from Cardcaptor Sakura was taken out on the field by the anime swap meet tables. She was also in the contest. I’ve never seen this series but it comes highly recommended by both men and women I know!

Pokemon Trainer and Skitty. They ultimately won for Most Animated! I am one of the few who has never watched nor played Pokemon. ^^;

When she said she was cosplaying Prince Hibiya from Durarara!!, I was confused since I love the series but didn’t remember this version. Turns out that this is an alternate form of antagonist Izaya Orihara found on a CD cover. This cosplay came in third.

This was the winner of the contest, Skull Kid from Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Since I’m not a gamer, I’ve never played this game, either. xD;

These Final Fantasy cosplayers were Audience Favorite! They were pretty funny with their mustaches.

I’ve only seen a couple of episodes of Tiger & Bunny. Here are two cosplayers cosplaying the titular characters.

Hatsune Miku cosplays are a perennial favorite. This version is from Love Is War!

Victoria from the website Scarlet Rhapsody was one of the judges.

Ginger from Chocolate Covered Cosplay (C3) was the other judge!

After the contest, I went back to the anime swap meet area to help out with the folks at Tomo Neko Maid Cafe. Chloe wandered by and I just had to take her picture! She came in second with her cosplay of Sōshi Miketsukami from Inu x Boku SS (Secret Service).

While I did take video of the entire show, my terrible seat and the horrible sound pretty much made it unusable. :< If you're interested in seeing it anyway, lmk and I'll put it up on my YouTube Channel. In the meantime, be sure to check out all the pictures on my Facebook!

2012 04 22 Sun: PMX Cosplay Contest, MPkCBF Day 2

dolldelight Fashion Show at MPk CBF

On Day 1 of the Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival, dolldelight held a Fashion Show to showcase her designs. She designed and made all these outfits herself! I was pretty far back and to the side, and there were a lot of other photogs getting into my shots. I should prolly try to get closer next time. There was a bit of playing around with the photos in post, and I apologize for the blurries. -_-;

I think of Alice in Wonderland when I see this dress. The reds and blacks as well as the playing cards bring the Queen of Hearts to mind. Hope this model gets to keep her head, though. xD;

No idea this was Larissa until I went through my photos afterwards. DX

Not sure if that’s a wig or not, but it’s pretty awesome! Love the Jolly Roger print also.

Very interesting pattern. I’m not familiar with all the different Lolita styles, though. Not sure where this outfit would fall.

Risky Business poster or Lolita poster? Hmm.

Wow, such a sunny dress! Though that might be b/c I don’t know how to color correct. OTL

This girl is so cute, but I really didn’t notice until after I started going through my pictures b/c I was so far away. ^^;

Why am I reminded of Lunar New Year by this? Hmmm…

I love black and red in general, and the splashes of purple are a great touch.

Finally, dolldelight came on stage to say a few words before the end of the show.

I don’t generally go to fashion shows, but I’m really glad I checked this one out! It was very well done. Usually the models are amateurs and don’t really know how to pose or how long to pose for, but these models obviously practiced beforehand. Plus, the fashions were lovely and eye-catching. Looking forward to seeing more from dolldelight!

As usual, see even more photos in my Facebook album!

2012 04 21 Sat: dolldelight Fashion Show, MPkCBF Day 1

Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival 2012

As usual, Monterey Park held their Cherry Blossom Festival in late April. It’s always nice to get out of the house on a warm (*cough* HOT *cough*) sunny day after a long winter and enjoy the weather and lively crowds. In an attempt to tell kind-of-a cohesive story, these photos are a bit out of order.

Entering the field area, there were a great many vendor and exhibitor booths set up. This is typical of other local festivals, such as the Lunar Festival that Riverside had a few months back. The only difference is that Monterey Park usually uses its local park instead of shutting down local streets (though they actually do shut down streets for their Lunar Festival).

There was a food court and more vendor booths in the tennis court.

I’m not a fan of octopus, so I’ve never tried takoyaki. How is it?

Many different types of vendors in the Market Place. Time to accessorize!

There was a booth with all sorts of cute shirts, including this one!

Back out on the field, you could find this Domo by the swap meet area. It was made by a local artist. Nobody was actually in there… I think. ^^;

PMX hosts an anime swap meet during the CBF and this year I got to hang out in the cool shade of the booths since I was (kind of sort of) helping out with things due to Tomo Neko‘s presence there (as well as a couple of friends who also had booths). First dibs on hard-to-find and cheap anime goods? Yes, please! I love the anime swap meet! So many cool and hard to find things at bargain prices!

At the end of the day, of course PMX would be one of the last ones standing!

Ran into many photog friends during the festival. Either I’m starting to recognize/meet more folks, or Little Tokyo canceling/postponing their festival for the second year in a row has upped Monterey Park’s popularity. xD

Huge giant koi, same as last year! Wonder how much they’re worth? :3a

Inside the Exhibit Hall there were several displays and workshop areas, as well as the Indoor Demonstration Stage, which was where the dolldelight Lolita Fashion Show and PMX Anime Cosplay Contest were held. Photos coming soon!

Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement. There were workshops throughout the weekend, but I didn’t get a chance to participate. The results were quite lovely, though!

I believe this was the Nagauta performance. It’s a kind of traditional Japanese music that accompanies kabuki theater. The woman on the right is playing a shamisen, which is a lute with three strings.

Here are some wooden kimekomi dolls on display. I didn’t get a closer look b/c I was waiting for the cosplay contest to start! xD

I believe these are art prints for sale, most likely to support the Japanese American National Museum.

Awesome fun to be able to help out and to see a little bit of what goes on behind the scenes! See even more photos on my Facebook!

2012 04 21-22 Sat-Sun: Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival

Tomo Neko Maid Cafe at Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival

Tomo Neko Maid Cafe was at the Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival back on 21-22 April 2012!

On Saturday, maids were on hand to escort festival visitors over to the anime swap meet area. It was a very hot day, but they still served their goshujinsama (masters) and ojousama (mistresses) diligently!

On Sunday, Tomo Neko Maid Cafe had a booth in the swap meet area where they answered questions and sold tickets.

Thanks to Pacific Media Expo, the maid cafe was able to introduce itself to the general public. Here, maid Arch sings an original song during the PMX Cosplay Contest halftime show! (Contest photos coming soon!)

After Arch sang, maid Diana narrated a Good Maid/Bad Maid skit that demonstrated how guests to the maid cafe would — and would not — be treated!

Here, one of the “good” maids demonstrates the proper way to serve a customer.

Meanwhile, a “bad” maid shows how customers should never be treated. D:

While I wasn’t able to get too many photos, PMXtra did cover the festival and the contest! Look for the halftime show beginning at around the 8:00 minute mark!

The Tomo Neko Maid Cafe event is scheduled for Sunday, 6 May 2012, at Elegante Banquet Hall in North Hollywood! Right now, you can bid to sit at one of the two VIP tables. One of the tables will have Crispin Freeman, Rachel Robinson, Taliesin Jaffe, and Dino Andrade; the other will have Richard Epcar, Matt Mercer, Kaiji Tang, and Cristina Vee! You can even bid to sit next to Dino Andrade, Richard Epcar, or Cristina Vee! Visit eBay for all the seats available at the VIP tables and go to the Tomo Neko Maid Cafe website to learn more about the event itself! Hope to see you there!

Loots Backlog

Apologies for the delay in this week’s post, I know you all wait with bated breath. Been crazy busy the last week with maid café and other stuff that I haven’t gotten a chance to go through all the pictures I’ve taken recently. So here is a quick post of some of my favorite loots over the past year or so.

This is a pretty old picture of loots received during December of 2010. Since Thanksgiving is at the end of November, many of these items came in from Black Friday sales. There are loots from Toyslogic, Hobbyfan, Yahoo!Japan Auctions, and fellow MyFigureCollection.net (MFC, aka Tsuki-Board) members here!

Here is an e2046 Gathering version of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu)’s Yuki Nagato with a guitar and Kyon’s cat Shamisen. Gathering is basically a series of pre-painted and assembled recast garage kits. I’d wanted this figure for quite a while, and managed to get her off a fellow figure.fm/MFC member. Too bad almost all the keys are broken off the guitar. TT__TT

I went pretty crazy with the Yahoo!Japan Auctions (Y!JA) for a while, and got busy trying to collect figures that either came out before I started collecting or never really made their way stateside for whatever reason. I love Mai-HiME (My-Hime), Mahoromatic, Ichigo Mashimaro (Strawberry Marshmallow), and Midori no Hibi (Midori Days), so I bid like crazy! (That Misora Lucy Maria from To Heart 2 is there just because I thought she was cute, lol.)

Yeah, I bid super crazy. xD;; That Midori is actually slightly different than the one in the previous picture. This one was an exclusive release and has a different tie! I also still have not seen any of the Fate series, but I love Rider’s character design. I actually wound up selling this Maid Hallucination version of her, though; the offer was too good to pass up! I’ll have to track her down again at some point. The Misato Katsuragi from Neon Genesis Evangelion was one I hadn’t seen before and wasn’t even in the MFC database. While they make tons of Rei and Asuka figures, I can never really seem to find decent ones of Misato, who is waifu #1 from the TV series.

Ah, this one was a trade with my friend hiro4 on MFC. If you wonder where my R.O.D figures went, you’ll have to ask him. At this point I still wasn’t calling myself a Nendo collector, though I think it may’ve been obvious to everyone else. ^^; Shizuru Fujino in any form is awesome, so I had to get this hard-to-find Shizuru Viola blind-box trading figure from Mai-Otome (My-Otome), and I also love love LOVE Gunbuster and was sad I never got the exclusive DVDs and whatnot from dot-anime.us before they closed. TAT

More Y!JA damage and some figures from a figure.fm user who was selling on eBay. I love Noizi Ito, which is really the only reason I got the Peace@Pieces figures here and in the first picture. I also love large-scale figures, which is why I’d wanted that 1/5 Majikina Mina from Samurai Spirits. I don’t know anything about the character, though. Is she some kind of little person? ’Cause that’s a really small 1/5. *facepalm* I also finally got the complete set of Mahoro phone straps and another Midori (with a different face)! At least I know the 1/1 Midoris are supposed to be that small. :p

Wait, I’m only in April of 2011? lol I picked these up during one of Maridah’s visits to the area. We ran around to a Book Off, where my friend Dancing Queen saw the Noizi Ito/Shakugan no Shana artbook, and Marukai, where I got a box of my favorite snacks. :9 The next day I checked out the Cherry Blossom Festival where a vendor was blowing out his items for half off. When I asked to check the price on the Death Note manga box set (it was marked at $80), the vendor realized it was just manga and not DVDs. He sold the 14-volume set to me for $10. xD

May 2011 held a sad day for English-language manga readers in the USA as Tokyopop finally closed its US division. The closing sale started on a Saturday morning at 9am, and I got there a little after 10am. This, of course, meant I was in the last group of people allowed up. :/ Ah, well. I was able to get some complete sets of manga that looked interesting (including the great Dramacon and the not-so-captivating President Dad), some 24 graphic novels (I LOVE 24!), some awesome poster frames, and a bunch of free stickers! Luckily one of my friends was also there, since I couldn’t lug all this stuff down to my car by myself! <3

Some loots came in from Y!JA after I got back from FanimeCon 2011. Even though there were relatively few items, the damage was still pretty painful due to the final Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekisou (The Extravaganza of Haruhi Suzumiya) figure I needed to complete the set and the limited Midori figure. I’d also finished Toradora! by this point, and it’s one of my all-time favorites now. Not sure why I went with all timepieces this time; maybe it was subliminal, lol. The Haruhiko Mikimoto book Movement was a steal at 600yen! Robotech (based, of course, on Macross) was my gateway anime and he also designed the characters for Gunbuster, so of course I had to get it.

More Toradora! and Gunbuster stuff from Y!JA (that’s a lot of exclamation points, lol; even more if I go with the Japanese title of Toppu wo nerae! for Gunbuster ^^ ). Couldn’t decide which listing for the Gunbuster storyboard books was better, so I decided to get both. xD;; Doubled up on the Puchi Nendos just b/c they were on the cheap side and from the same seller so shipping (at least domestically) was cheaper by combining them. I also went ahead and got the Gunbuster LaserDisc (anyone else know what those even are?) box set even though I don’t have a player, and finally tracked down Gunbuster’s Noriko Takaya by Kotobukiya (one of my highest want figures). I could’ve gotten her years ago locally for around $50 but at the time I thought that was a lot to pay for a figure. :/ I also found an exclusive Aisaka Taiga Nendo Petit, which was being sold with a Toradora! clock. A Mahoromatic CD/DVD set (which hopefully isn’t a bootleg) and another Mai-HiME Shizuru figure (the others from the set were incidental, ha ha) rounded out the shipment.

Toward the end of the summer I found out about an anime swap meet on Facebook. It was kind of a bust and a rather long hike, but to make it worth the trip I bought the two pencil boards/shitajiki and a fan. I do like Lucky Star (Kagamin is another one of mai waifus, lol) and I love K-ON! I also couldn’t pass up more Noizi Ito art. Not bad for $3!

I’d started slowing my Y!JA purchases by this point, I think, since I’d finally started calculating how much they were actually costing me. DX But, I finally found a sealed Ichigo Mashimaro PlayStation 2 game with the exclusive figure, and it came with the poster and book, too! I think it may’ve even wound up being cheaper than the PS2 figure alone in the second photo. And no, I don’t have a console system. :I I’d also been eyeing the Toradora! Beach Queens series but really wanted the Dengeki Daioh exclusive versions. I’d given up on finding a complete set, so I thought I’d buy them individually, and this Taiga was the first to come in.

I don’t generally buy ecchi figures (or figures from Orchid Seed), but after I saw the Super Sonico my friend ddh4mster had ordered for a friend of his I knew I needed to get her! Of course, she was sold out everywhere and I would have preferred the red one, but beggars can’t be choosers. I got her off of figure.fm for a decent price. She’s gorgeous! My little cousin recently came over and saw her, though. She noted that Sonico didn’t have a shirt and asked me if that was gross. ^^;;

This was prolly my last Y!JA shipment. I managed to get a set of Toradora! Beach Queens, but only Taiga and Minori were the exclusive versions. I figured the price was cheap enough I could resell the regular version of Ami. Look for her soon. ^^; Finally, I was able to get a complete set but the listing said they may have been used. I can’t remember if they actually were, but I think I was just going to mix and match if they were, lol. I’d also been looking for the Natsuki Kruger figure to pair up with my Shizuru Viola. The Nina Wang was extra, since I can’t actually stand most of the Mai-Otome characters. :p The listing said they were new, but they weren’t. Unfortunately, by the time items make it overseas from Japan the time period for complaining is pretty much over.

More recently, I got this “Looks Like Rain” Walt Disney Classics Collection figure from an eBay seller in Canada. Most WDCC figures are very expensive, as they’re made from porcelain and come from Disney. :p But even with international shipping, the price was reasonable and the figure is larger than I’d expected. Donald Duck is my favorite of the Fab Five and this piece inspired by Fantasia 2000 also includes Daisy and some non-anthropomorphized ducks and mice. xD I’ve always enjoyed the “Pomp and Circumstance Marches” and the segment of the film that featured them was prolly my favorite as well.

This artist’s proof acrylic statue is the newest addition to my The Little Mermaid collection, and quite the possibly rarest and most expensive! Entitled “Worlds Apart” and sculpted by Lars Loma, it features Prince Eric above-ground looking at Ariel under the sea. I’d never seen one of these before and information is scanty, but I believe it originally retailed for $2500! :O Of course, I don’t think I could ever spend that much on something that didn’t have wheels or a roof, so I paid much, much less. It’s gorgeous, though, and quite large. It was taller than my lightbox, hence the weird angle I had to use!

I do spend my money on other things and even though I don’t have much time to read, I can’t pass up a good deal. These books cost about $16 shipped! A schoolteacher friend of mine recommended Laurence Yep, a Newberry Award-winning writer who writes stories with Asian-American characters and themes, so I thought I’d give him a try. I have a few of his other books so I will need to find some time to read them. I already have the first Haruhi book, and I’m hoping the place I got these from will have the others so I can continue the series, since I don’t really like reading things out of order.

This Black Gothic Lolita version of Ikki Tousen‘s Kan’u Unchou by Uart is the most recent figure purchase I made. Even though I’ve never watched the show or read the manga, I’d been looking for her for a while. She popped up on figure.fm a few weeks back as part of a set, but it was only just recently that the seller decided to sell them individually so I jumped! She’s great and I love the colors. If I have time, I might put together a review since I haven’t done one of those in a while. ^^;

This isn’t everything I got over the past year, obviously. There were loots from Fanime, AX, D23, and whatnot along with Christmas gifts and other stuff. Expect to see some of the duplicates up for sale soon! And yeah, this wound up not being a very quick post. xD;;

Big Laughs in Little Tokyo “Lucky Charms”

Kind of an odd post this week, hope it doesn’t throw you off too much. ^^;

Had been eying the Olympus XZ-1 for quite some time, since I haven’t really been happy with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7 I got last year. While there seem to be more and more pocket-cams capable of shooting RAW and offering a wide range of manual controls, I was intrigued by the super-fast f/1.8 lens on this one. Even though it got mixed reviews–especially with regards to video capabilities–when it dropped 70% in price, I snatched one up anyway!

The day after I got it, I decided to try it out in the wild. My friend D-Boy was hosting a comedy show in Little Tokyo, so I met up with some friends for some dinner beforehand. I’m not a huge fan of shabu shabu, but it was good to hang out!

Afterwards, we headed over to the Miyako Hotel, where the show was being held. I took a few test shots while we waited, and the results were promising. The pictures were way better than the ones that I was able to get with the ZS7.

I also took some test video while D-Boy started the show up. My old ZS7 really shined in this regard, as it can do 720p video in AVCHD until the card fills up; the XZ-1 only does Motion JPEG for 7 minutes at a time. Also, the XZ-1 kept adjusting its focus as it recorded, even when I attempted to set it to manual focus! DX

This was the first performer and the last one I took any pictures of, b/c I was too busy laughing!

Halfway through the show, Ashi-chan and Ginger showed up to check it out. At the end, though, Danny called them up to be stage babes! Here they raffle off the event sign with autographs from all of the comedians. Of course, I missed it by one! >_< If I'd only cut my friend in line, I could've taken home the prize!

The second raffle was for Rice Krispy treats. o_Oa Iunno, it’s a comedy show!

Apparently, somebody already ate the raffle prize. xD;

It was a fun night, and I was able to try out the new camera. It’s got some amazing capabilities, and while I can’t say I’m completely happy with it, I’m looking forward to playing around with it some more! At least until the next model comes along, haha.

RECAP: Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 Tournament

Tomo Neko Productions, the group behind Tomo Neko Maid Cafe, hosted its first video game tournament on Saturday, 31 March 2012, at Garden Suites Hotel and Resort in Koreatown!

Besides music, live musical and comedy performances, and a cash bar, there was also a surprise appearance by Final Fantasy XIII voice actor Rachel Robinson (Oerba Yun Fang)!

The tournament was run on Xbox consoles, with a first place prize pack that included two tickets to the May 6th Tomo Neko Maid Cafe event, 10 raffle tickets, and a picture with the maid or butler of the winner’s choice; in total, a $100 value!

The event was emceed by butler D-Boy and also streamed live on-line via Ustream.

Every year Tomo Neko chooses a different charity to donate to, and this year it will be Child’s Play. At the opening of the tournament, maid Anji spoke about Child’s Play, which donates video games as rehabilitative tools to childrens hospitals around the world.

After a few more opening remarks, the tournament was ready to begin!

Deejay Dub Cee (at the computer) helped prepare the tournament, which was held in a separate gaming area. While it cost just $10 to enter the competition, admission to the event was free!

There were plenty of off-the-cuff moments. Here, D-Boy films computer tech Megaman for the Ustream viewers.

Once the brackets were organized, the competition began.

Tomo Neko maids and butlers were on hand to serve those in attendance, but they knew better than to interrupt when gaming is going on! xD

Players and spectators alike really got into the tournament. With all the cheering and yelling, no wonder it was held in a separate area!

The field of contenders was finally whittled down to the final two entrants, to be decided by one last match!

Once the competition ended, it was back to the bar area for the post-show! The first order of business was announcing the winner and presenting him with a prize pack voucher. He did not get to keep the sign, lol.

Afterwards, maid Arch performed an original song. See her outfit when it’s unveiled at the maid cafe! xD

Next, a pair of comedians performed on-stage. I believe one of them performed at last year’s maid cafe event as well.

Finally, D-Boy led some of the Tomo Neko staff in an entertaining drawing game before concluding the event.

A good time was had by all, and it was just a hint of things to come at the Tomo Neko Maid Cafe event scheduled for Sunday, 6 May 2012, at Elegante Banquet Hall in North Hollywood. More photos from the event are in the Facebook album below, and more info on the maid cafe event can be found at http://tomoneko.info/!

2012 03 31 Sat: TNP Presents: Ultimate MvC3 Tournament

WonderCon 2012

WonderCon is typically a NorCal con, but since its home convention center was being renovated, it moved to the Anaheim Convention Center (right next to Disneyland Resort) for 2012! A bunch of friends were going and one of them was also going to have a birthday party in Downtown Disney, so I went down to check it out!

My friend was getting an autograph from the lovely Jessica Nigri, the new official Juliet Starling from Lollipop Chainsaw, so I ninja’ed this shot. xD

While I did pay for a 1-Day Badge, I was only actually there for a bit under two hours. ^^; The time was so short that for the first time, I didn’t even get to take any pictures of my friend Aoi Mizuno in cosplay! DX I also didn’t get my obligatory convention sign shots.

It was a rainy and sleepy Saturday so I took my time getting down there. Little did I know that there were cheerleading and volleyball competitions being held at the ACC as well, meaning all the nearby parking lots were full and I had to park all the way at Angel Stadium. OTL

lol, Star Fleet yeoman with an actual basket weave! She gutted the Tribble she’s carrying and turned it into a purse.

The lovely Vampy Bit Me (Linda Le) as Batgirl.

I (and by extension, my friends) waited like ten minutes for her to finish talking with someone before I asked for her picture. Then, before I could even thank her, the guy who piggybacked off my shots yelled out that he was from some website and she started talking to him. Nice. :/

Genderbent Joker! Would’ve been interesting to see her teamed up with the Harley Quinn above.

A shot down one of the aisles.

Kotobukiya had several display cases of their goodies. In addition to their superhero figs, they had the Bishoujo series of figures on display. Ooh, looks like there might be Harley and Power Girl Bishoujos coming up??

Frozen Han Solo selling ice cube trays. xD

I… don’t understand. :3a

Anime Books had a booth full of naughty artbooks and whatnot, as usual. ^^;

Another bit of the dealer’s hall. I’m not sure if these are publishers or vendors, as I don’t recognize them.

IDW, though, I do recognize, lol.

Not sure if this was part of Marvel’s booth or maybe a Disney booth or something else altogether.

While I didn’t get to see too much of the con itself, it was great hanging out with friends! Check out the rest of the photos on my Facebook!

2012 03 17 Sat: WonderCon 2012, Day 2

Japan. Endless Discovery.

The Japanese Consulate held an appreciation event called Japan. Endless Discovery. at The Grove LA, to express their gratitude for the outpouring of support in response to last year’s earthquake and tsunami. It was free and for all ages, so a few friends and I made our way over to check it out!

There were many booths–from pop culture and technology to food and tourism–set up! Too bad they were all closing up by the time we got there. :/

We did, however, get to take in part of the Japanese Street Fashion Show. There were allegedly Lolita, Mori Girl, Fairy Kei, Visual Kei, Gyaru, and Wa-Lolita styles but I think we only actually caught the Sanrio fashions part. ^^;

… and of course, this model and the previous one seemed to be wearing the same shirt, so… yeah. LOL.

Bubble Punch produced this fashion and pop culture showcase, with Tune in Tokyo providing the music.

Hello Kitty was the final model of the show!

The models retook the stage afterwards, so we were able to at least get a glimpse of all the other fashions that we’d missed. Not that I can really tell the difference. xD;

Walking around, I saw the fountain nearby come to life! I’ve been to The Grove a few times, but I don’t think I’d ever seen this water show before.

There were a few cosplayers hanging around, but I only managed to get pictures of these two. Most of the time was spent running into friends!

There was a short Kokura Gion Daiko taiko drum performance on the main stage. It was quite good, but very bad for drunken conversations in the nearby sake tasting area. ^^;

After screening a short biographical video, Yoshiki of X Japan took the stage to much applause. He had a few remarks and did a brief Q & A session. I noticed that he sure played with his hair a lot! xD

Afterwards, we headed back to Farmers Market, where we got some noms! It was a pleasant way to spend the evening, to be sure!

See more pictures on my Facebook!

2012 03 10 Sat: “Japan. Endless Discovery.”

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 Tournament

Wait, I’m posting about something before it actually happens? What?

Hey, it happens. :p

Anyway, thought you guys might be interested in an Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 Tournament coming up on Saturday, 31 March, in Los Angeles’ Koreatown! It’s being put on by Tomo Neko Productions, which runs an annual maid cafe event (Tomo Neko Maid Cafe, natch) that raises money for worthy charities. Last year, they raised money for the Japanese Red Cross through the Yoshiki Foundation; this year, it will be for Child’s Play, which donates games to children’s hospitals.

The actual Tomo Neko Maid Cafe won’t take place until May, so here’s your chance to win free tickets! Enter the Tournament, beat all comers, and you will win two free Maid Cafe tickets, ten raffle tickets, and a free photo with the maid or butler of your choice! They’ve already announced Crispin Freeman as a special guest at the Maid Cafe, plus the return of last year’s popular sword dancer Miyuki, so it promises to be a great time!

Book your slot for the Tournament now for only $10! Or, if you just want to cheer on your friends, you can watch them pound on folks for free! There will be music, a maid and butler performance, as well as a cash bar. Click the link below for more details!

Tomo Neko Productions Presents: Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 Tournament

EDIT: Recap here!