dannychoo.com - Danny Choo : Anime, Figures, Idols, Gundam, Otaku and Events from Japan

Hiromi Nishiuchi

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:15:00 +0900

Was doing some spring cleaning of the hard drive and stumbled upon these photos that I took of Hiromi Nishiuchi that I forgot to upload ^^;

Apart from the regular sightseeing, folks visiting Tokyo may want to give an Idol photo shoot a whirl.
The folks at Berry Waffle are great and will help you with your camera settings and also have one of those huge flash lights that sync with your digital SLR - forgot what they are called. You need a bit of Japanese language ability under your belt though.

You can have a look at the the previous Idols that I've snapped in the Idols category which include more pics of Hiromi-chan.

As for these pics - was playing around with cameras and lenses hence the difference in color and clarity in some of these photos.

Speaking of hard drives and Idol photos, how many GB's of health related material do you have on your hard drive?

I remember when I started computing over ten years ago - my first drive was a whopping 4GB's connected to the internets via a 56k modem.
Was downloading a ton of doujin images which took up about 3 GB's out of the 4 ^^;

By Danny Choo on 2008/03/24 10:27

Akihabara Shopping

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:33:00 +0900

My first memories of Japan were sunny afternoons walking around in Akihabara drinking some Calpis water while shopping for hardware - just like yesterday.

A display for the eroge ToHeart2 Another Days left over from a few nights ago.
The game went on sale at midnight and there were a load of eager otaku lining up in the cold.

The CGs for this game are quite nice ^^;

Idol Master L4U Live for you goes on sale. Trailer below. Namco-san > please release on PS3!

Get this PS3 and DMC4 bundle and get 20,000 yen off when you apply for a Flets optic fiber internet connection.

Was playing DMC4 last night - am currently just starting to use Dante. Still prefer Nero. Catch me online with my PS3 id = dannychoodotcom. Below is just a taster of some of the action.

A load of figures up for pre-order.

A load of eroge up for pre-order.

A load of folk stare at the screen of the new Street Fighter being played upstairs.

Apart from all the otaku stuff, Akiba is a great place to go looking for PC parts, hardware etc. I originally started out my otaku career as a Pasokon Otaku.

Was out looking for some memory - this shop near At Home Cafe has the cheapest hard disks.

How about some Oden in a can? Oden is a mix of warm vegetables and other Japanese food items.

Yes they sell kit kat in cans too.

Folk looking up the price of hard disks and memory.

No littering, No walking-smoking, no stub littering. No.

The eva girls.

About 3PM. Akiba is a great place to be on a Sunday afternoon.

Something going on in the middle here outside Toranoana - photos tomorrow + ^^;

How about some Milf?

At the electrical department store Yodobashi Camera. You could probably spend all day in here - I think thats what Yodobashi wanted. They want you to spend time in the store rather than trek about Akihabara. The arrival of Yodobashi has indirectly cause many small shops to close down.

At the Mac corner. When in the Apple store, me usually set the screen to dannychoo.com and watch how people browse the site when they first see it - most click on "idols" in the header ^^;

Alas, the Macs at Yodobashi had filters so no userbility studies for me ^^;

A photo printing machine.

Stick in your memory cards, attach USB drives etc and print your idol photos. Stick in parts of your body in the machine and nothing will happen.

And this is what I brought back with me. Some ultra thin 1000 Base-tx LAN cables.

50 Mitsubishi DVD-R's for 1,468 yen - seems pretty cheap to me. I remember the time when *ONE* of these cost the same ^^;
Cheap in your region too?

An SATA 200GB 7200RPM drive at 18,400 yen for the MacBook. Forgot to buy an adapter that lets me copy from the MBP to an external 2.5" SATA drive. Going back Wednesday to Akiba for a GoodSmile figure event - will pick up that adapter when I'm there again.

The girl in this leaflet is Rui Kiriyama who you saw in yesterdays article - she was handing them out. Japan the only place where young girls hand out leaflets with pictures of themselves showing their nice eyes on them?

Two sticks of 2GB memory for the MacBook Pro. Was using 2GB up until now but running Windows on the machine at the same time was a bit slow. Parallels enables one to run OSX and Windows at the same time. I run Windows to do QA on IE6/7 and Firefox.

Never used a machine with more than 2GB before ^^;

How much memory do you have in your machine and what do you use your machine mainly for? Is your memory enough for what you need to do?
I'm mainly programming and use the odd graphic package now and then.

By Danny Choo on 2008/03/04 13:45

Akihabara Girls

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:27:00 +0900

Just got back from a sunny afternoon in Akihabara and noticed more nice girls than usual. So what does one do when there are nice girls in Akiba? Do what everybody else does and take a load of photos ^^;

This is the sweet Rui Kiriyama who was out n about promoting Fist which seems like some sort of online mag.

A load of people crowd around Rui-chan. Somebody got a video of her a few weeks ago at Akiba below.

Took this at about 2PM and still saw a huge crowd around her at 4PM.

You are in Akiba and only have an hour before you need to leave for the airport. You can take pics of the Akiba girls or look for something to buy - what do you do?

The word to describe the side of a face is YokoGao [横顔].
Yoko [横] is "side."
Kao [顔] is "face."
The "K" in "Kao" is softened to a "G" and thus YokoGao and not YokoKao.

In this case you can say...
"Rui-chan wa kawaii YokoGao shiteimasu ne" [るいちゃんはかわいいな横顔していますね] meaning "Rui has a cute YokoGao."

More cute girlies at the entrance of Radio Kaikan handing out fliers.

ZOMG! A huge crowd around three school girls.

The muchi muchi girl on the left is cute (whats muchi muchi?)

A bunch of Otaku aim their piece.

Otaku aiming their piece in broad daylight.

More school girls on the march.

Double ZOMG! Billions (ok hundreds) swarming around Hatsune Miku!

A great way to do instant free promotion.

Most are equipped with a digital SLR.

Many live bands play in Akiba too. Not sure what the policy is but the police seem to shoo the performers or cosplayers away depending on their mood.
Sometimes they shoo everybody, sometimes they leave the performers be.

I notice more n more cosplayers in Akiba. Was going to go in armor today but its in maintenance mode right now.

More school girls.

The gorgeous kaho spotted at Yodobashi camera.
More from Akiba during the week.

By Danny Choo on 2008/03/03 13:39

Valentines Day in Japan

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 05:27:00 +0900

Have heard of chocolates being given to idols but never expected to receive chocolates *from* an idol ^^;
This is Ayumi Hotta from the Primaries giving me some valentines chocolates last Monday - to the folks who asked what was in the orange bag in the 4 hours in Akihabara article - now you know ^^;

So whats Valentines day like in Japan?
Just like Christmas in Japan, Valentines day is all about the monies.
The beginnings of Valentines day in Japan started in 1936. A chocolate maker called Morozoff Limited put an ad in a magazine for "Valentine Chocolate." Valentines day then traditionally became a day where women would give chocolate to men. 25% of Japans annual chocolate consumption is consumed around Valentines day.

To make more monies from Valentines day, the Japanese invented "White Day" as an excuse for men to buy candy to give to women in return for the chocolate that they received - theres even an official White Day site.

The reason its called "White Day" is because the color of sugar (white) is the main ingredient for candy which was traditionally given on White Day - source from Wikipedia. These days however, one does not have to give candy and can be white chocolate or marshmallows but not bukkake.

The term "Giri Choco" is used to describe chocolate that is given as an obligation - like to ones superiors or boss. If you are managing ladies in Japan and receive chocolate from them then its probably not because she likes you but because she expects a pay rise come next evaluation season.

White Day takes place one month after Valentines day on the 14th of March.

And this is what I got from Ayumi. Tasted lovely! Hope Ayumi doesn't mind that I shared these with my wife ^^;
Going to let White Day take advantage of me and get Ayumi-chan some chocolate.

Whats valentines day like in your region? Did you give or receive anything for valentines day? Are you spending it with somebody or plan on spending it being ronery with yourself in Mc Donalds?
If you are going to be ronery, don't forget that there are plenty of gorgeous girls who are willing and waiting for you here.

By Danny Choo on 2008/02/15 04:39

Primaries

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:09:00 +0900

At the begging of yesterdays 4 hours in Akihabara, I bumped into two of my idol comrades Ayumi Hotta [堀田あゆみ] (girl in blue) and Shiki Mochizuki [望月紫葵] - together they are known as the "Primaries" [プライマリーズ]. We decided to go do a bit of dancing in Akiba.

Was meeting up with some of the blog dinner mob at the same time - Lisa from Wired Magazine and Tokyo Mango, Aoki from Drikin, Nobi from Nobilog2 and Aoyama from Buru.jp. Decided to do the group-photo thingy.

You may recognize Ayumi from the YouTube Neta Battle.
Folks who are interested can get Shiki-chans gravure DVD from Amazon and you can see them both regularly on Dance Shuffle which is broadcasted on Kanagawa TV.

The girls tell me that they are still deciding what their uniform should look like and that todays gear is experimental - do you have any suggestions that I can pass onto the girls? Or do you like it as it is?
I'm personally quite fond of it ^^;

One more pic before we hit the streets.

We decide that the front of Radio Kaikan is a good spot.

The girls start to dance to a track that is still in production.
I then join in after looking like a prat ^^;
Footage of me dancing with the girls will appear on YouTube soon but all I have for now is the short clip that I took below on the Xacti.

By Danny Choo on 2008/02/14 03:21

Japanese Bikini Girls

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 10:19:00 +0900

Bikini girls...

...and bikini boys.

Bikini boy pic from Tokyo Times. I promise to upload this set of Hitomi pics soon - in the meantime you can have a look at the previous pics that I took of her.
By Danny Choo on 2007/11/24 09:31

Japan Bus

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 23:13:00 +0900

This is the small bus terminal outside Shibuya station. After getting on one of the buses, I got to see for the first time the uniform of a bus guide...

For some reason I missed my stop.

The most cutesome Sayaka Isoyama (磯山さやか).

By Danny Choo on 2007/10/03 22:25

Amano Ai Photos

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 01:18:00 +0900

Amano Ai released her first DVD and there were 2 launch events in Akihabara last weekend which Frankie and I attended.
And yes - this picture is in the wallpaper pool ^^

Images in this post are mixed with photos taken by Frankie and I.

Folks interested in her DVD can get it on Amazon or J-List.

The neko pose was as popular as ever.

Was the first time that I was invited along to an idol event as press. Press folks get to spend as long as they want taking photos when the crowd has left.

This was taken at Yamagiwa. Was the first time I went to an idol satsueikai at Yamagiwa and don't really recommend it. The lighting is terrible and the stage looks kinda battered.

Ai-chan in her Alice gear. Kawaii.

Just happened to be wearing armor on the day.

Amano Ai wannabe stormtrooper.

Taken at Ishimaru - this is the venue I usually choose for idol DVD launch events - you can see previous events somewhere here.

The atmosphere at Ishimaru is generally more lively too. If you are interested in going to an event, have a look at the Ishimaru schedule and click on the links to see a photo of the idol and decide from there.
Do remember that you need to buy at least one DVD to take photos of the idol. By two DVDs and you get to have a photo with her, by three DVDs and you get a smack in the face.

Back stage with Ai-chan.

More back stage with Ai-chan.

By Danny Choo on 2007/08/29 00:30

Amano Ai

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:47:00 +0900

I dont have reason to be happy knowing somebody working at NASA but for some reason I do feel happy knowing that I have a friend who is an idol ^^;

This is my friend Amano Ai - the last time I spoke about her was last October but I didn't personally know her then. We met through a mutal friend Frankie and then it dawned on me - one of my friends is an Idol! (shes even a member of this site ^^;)

Amano Ai is releasing her first gravure DVD and will have one of those release events in Akihabara this Saturday at Yamagiwa. I and Frankie will be there to bring you snaps of her. In the mean time, you can get yourself along to her site and see more photos of her like the ones below.

Folks interested in her DVD can get it on Amazon or J-List

By Danny Choo on 2007/08/24 04:59

Nana Kasai

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 23:57:00 +0900

While I preferred Miri, Hector preferred Nana which is why you will see more pics of her in his blog post.

Those who want to find out more about Nana can get themselves along to her blog and catch her in action in this video. Thanks again to the folks at Berry Waffle for being the best at Idol Satsueikai.
Related links:

Hectors post
Top 150 best selling Idol DVD's - updated daily
Top 150 best selling eroge - updated daily for those who prefer 2D girls
Buy Idol DVDs, photo books and eroge from J-List

By Danny Choo on 2007/07/27 23:09

Miri Hanai

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:26:00 +0900

Taken at the new Berry Waffle studios in Hamamatsucho.

It's just before noon in Tokyo which means lunch so how about a double portion of Miri Hanai (花井美理) ? The other portion has just been uploaded by Hector so check his photos out too.

Miri Hanai has been doing the Idol Gravure thing for a while now and has tons of DVDs out. Some of you may have (but probably not) recognized her in the Akibaman video by Nike - she gave the guy his costume at the end.

Miri has a ton O dvds out and you can check out her DVD ranking in the Ranking Charts.

You can see some of Miri in action in the Otavids section too here, here and here. YouTube keep deleting her clips so get em while they are hot ^^;

Nearly forgot to mention that she has a ton O photo books out too ^^;

The 1.32 GBs of photos where mainly taken up by the huge size of RAW files (about 10MB each).
Also got more Miri photos but are just similar poses.

Thanks to Berry Waffle for being the best as always.

This time round I took some photos in RAW. The photo on the left was converted from the CR2 format to a 16bit channel TIFF using Macs Preview and then converted to an 8bit channel JPEG in Photoshop.
The photo on the right was the original JPEG. My SLR saves in both RAW and JPEG at the same time (I think most do).
As you can see, the original RAW file looks much better in terms of color. The problem I have is that batch scripts and browsers seem to ignore embedded color profiles.

Played around with photoshop loads but couldnt find a way to adjust the colors to match the original RAW file without saving the embedded color profile. If anybody has experience converting RAW files and keeping the original colors for web use then any help will be most appreciated.

Leaving you with a shot of the other idol. While Miri was more my type, the other one was Hectors type ^^; Will upload soon.

Related links:

Hectors photos of Miri
Top selling 150 Idol DVDs (refreshes every 24 hours)
Get your idol DVDs at J-List
Top selling Miri hanai DVDs (refreshes every 24 hours)
Miri Hanai Ota video
Miri Hanai blog
Berry Waffle

By Danny Choo on 2007/07/10 01:38

Maya Koizumi

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:30:00 +0900

Said to myself that I wouldn't attend another DVD launch event because of the 60 second time limit for taking photos. Have always wanted to photo Maya however and went along last Saturday. I'm surprised that there are even Idol DVD launch events where you aren't allowed to take photos @.@
Getting good shots while sharing her with everybody who sat on my row with a 60 second time limit is tough. Very unlike a proper photo session where you take as many shots as you want.

Maya Koizumi has been around doing the idol thing for a few years now and is slowly but surely becoming more popular. The event hall was packed with just over 100 otaku (a good turn out). The event was for the release of her 3rd DVD which is currently in the top 5 of the Idol DVD ranking charts.
After you have finished wiping your nose of blood, you can get your booty along to Hectors site to see his photos of Maya. I've also put one of these images in the wallpaper pool.
The next idol we plan to cover is Miri Hanai next month at a proper photo shoot.
Related links:

By Danny Choo on 2007/06/18 23:42

Underwear Thief

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 00:23:00 +0900

The word for underwear in Japanese is "Shitagi" (下着(したぎ)) where the colloquial form is "Pantsu" (パンツ) or "Panchu" (ぱんちゅ).
Figures that cast-off are cute but for me it pretty much ends there (even though I complain when a figure cant cast-off ^^;) The occasional fanservice in anime is cute too ^^; But to some Japanese, panchu has much more meaning...

Lets take Kawamura-san for example. He was recently caught stealing womens underwear and when the police investigated his house, they found 8000 items of womens underwear stolen over the past ten years (check out the video too).

Another example is some bloke caught stealing underwear while dressed in a sailor school outfit (via Asahi News). I have always seen regular news on underwear thieves since my arrival in Japan.

You can even find BBSs where people upload photos of stolen or family members panchu. I only looked at the first page of that BBS so I dont know what the rest is like but previous search results showed BBSs with pictures of dirty underwear. Glad I already had my morning yogurt before stumbling on to that one @.@

The girl in the pic is of Maya Koizumi (小泉麻耶). Posted her pic here for a few reasons.
1. Couldn't find a decent pic of a bunch of stolen underwear.
2. Maya looks better than a bunch of stolen underwear.
3. Shes wearing a bikini which looks like underwear.
Also added a video of her to the Otavids section.
Maya is actually doing some idol photo sessions. I couldn't go to the previous one but will try to make the next one.
By Danny Choo on 2007/06/10 23:35

Ai Shinozaki Bikini Ver

Fri, 16 Mar 2007 23:19:00 +0900

Ai-chan in her battle gear and blaster ready to troop. I love this picture!
I do prefer her previous battle gear as I think it would be more effective in giving the enemy nose bleeds.

BTW, Japanese culture and nose bleeds - can you guess why men have nose bleeds when they are aroused?

Thanks again to the guys n gals at Berry Waffle.

By Danny Choo on 2007/03/16 22:31