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

Hmmm Nice Eyes 1

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:22:00 +0900

Was going to call this new series "Hand Full O updates" but decided that "Hmmm Nice Eyes" sounded more interesting.
First up is me on CNN again - was interviewed on the day of the iPhone launch but didn't know they used the footage. They cut me off just before I could say something decent ^^;

And you can see a higher resolution at CNN.

Below: Rick Trooper and dannychoo.com featured in Wired Vision - the Japanese version of Wired.

Below: Rick Trooper featured in Wired thanks to Waxy.

Below: Folks who read the Japanese version of dannychoo.com will notice a change of layout and content. Much of dannychoo.com content is geared to folks outside of Japan but Japanese folks want to know whats going on *outside* of Japan in your otakusphere.

Thus I have decided to write more Japanese only content which you may notice popping up here n there.
I will be mainly introducing stuff from your posts at Otaku.fm and in your News Items. You should be expecting more Japanese folks visiting your blogs soon.

Have a look at the Japanese version of dannychoo.com and let me know if you prefer that layout to the English version.

If you are learning Japanese then I encourage you to have a read. You can post comments in Japanese and I will answer in Japanese. It could be a great place to practice your Japanese with fellow comrades too.

Below: I'm now getting press kits from Goodsmile so you should expect even more exclusive figure news in addition to the coverage that I bring you directly from their offices.

This is Doala - the mascot for the baseball team Nichu Dragons. Folks outside of Japan will probably go "huh?" but many Japanese baseball fans will go wild.
This Figma is out September, retails for 2,500 yen and pre-orders start tomorrow.
When I lived in Seattle for a while, my colleagues at Amazon would always invite me to see a game - I never went ^^; Any baseball fans here?

You got the review of Nida before she hit the stores (and pre-production Nida too) and I've just been given the green light to bring you a review of another most yummy figure before she hits the stores nationwide. One of the cutest figures ever (she as the big eyes) - review tomorrow. Can you guess who it is ^^;

And here are the nice eyes from Mikeo sensei - download the original 100.6MB image from the left column at Moe Imouto. Would love to know how many actually downloaded the 100MB file ^^;

And before I forget, I saw a few comments from folks who said that it was the first time they heard my voice in the CNN interview - you may want to see a tour of the Good Smile offices below ^^;
Although there's not much left of the English accent...

By Danny Choo on 2008/07/17 21:34

Kylie Minogue

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 17:03:00 +0900

A follow on from The Early Years 1. This pic of me and Kylie Minogue was taken in the late 80's/early 90's near the BBC studios.

Hmmmm. Have not been to the BBC site for a while - like the design. Once I finish some DB work, I will make the top page of dannychoo.com a bit like the BBC site where you can drag and drop widgets to customize your top page.

My mate, Kylie and me at the Stock, Aitken and Waterman recording studios.

And knowing Kylie means that I get to know her sister Danni Minogue too.
Danni in action below.

Danni was not as popular as Kylie at the time so was a bit more easier to meet up with.

There were about 10 of us in a group who went around following Kylie, Danni, Sonia, Jason Donovan and other Stock Aitken n Waterman artists. Pics with Sonia and Jason are back in the UK. Some of Sonia in action below.

Jason in action below.

And the stuff hanging around me neck is a wad of backstage passes.

Me and Claudia Schiffer at Debenhams.

I and Danni at LWT studios. Danni's body guard would sometimes play games with us - he would stick Danni in the car and drive off at speed - we could get in our car and chase. The bodyguard would wait at the traffic lights when they where *green* and the drive through them when they were *red* thinking that we wouldn't follow - we followed all the time speeding through the oncoming cars from the left n right.

Together with Danni at her PR company at Picadilly. Pic of me handing her a prezzie.

With Danni at the airport. I is wearing a Mr Byrite top...
Being a groupie at the time, we always found out where they were going to be and had connections on the inside and with the body guards too who would often give us backstage passes.

I look back and think how it always has been a "its about who you know" which is especially true with Japanese businesses.

Me and Milla Jovovich outside her hotel.

Photos not in order ^^; Handing Claudia some flowers.
Also got a load more photos back in the UK including pics with the cast of Beverly Hills 90210 etc - will grab them when I visit the UK next time.

This was my life in the late 80's early 90's without the Internets. I seemed to have been able to make it through my teenage life without it but simply cant imagine life without the Internet now.

Back then, if I wanted to watch anime or Japanese programs I had to take a bus to a bookshop to get them on VHS.
If I wanted some health care material, I had to trek to the news agents and reach up to the top shelf.
If I want to look up a Japanese word I needed to spend a few mins flicking through a dictionary.
If I wanted to know what the population of Spain, I needed to either ask somebody or go to the library.

Ever since I started to pick up the pace in blogging during 2005, the longest I've spent offline is 24 hours - any longer and I start to break out in a sweat ^^;

Whats the longest time you've spent offline and do you think you could live without the Internets?

By Danny Choo on 2008/06/07 16:15

Maid Dry Cleaning

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 10:44:00 +0900

The otaku business mind continues to show us more maid monetization opportunities. This time its Maid Dry Cleaning and Locker Service.

NTK System was just a bog standard dry cleaners and locker rental place in Akihabara until they decided to have maids serve their customers.

Prices for dry cleaning don't differ much from other places but you get a maid thrown in so it must be value for money - especially when they pose like this for customers.

Suit - 840 yen (8 USD)
Coat - 910 yen (8.60 USD)
Skirt - 315 yen (2.98 USD)
Trousers - 315 yen

Apart from the Dry Cleaning, they also have a locker service where they lock you up for 3 days without food or clothes for a bargain price of 3,450 yen. They would occasionally show up and pour hot wax on your dolphin.

OK, I'm only jesting. They actually provide lockers for you to keep stuff in. Although there are coin lockers at Akihabara station, you may want to pay the same price for a locker and have the maid thrown in. They provide hourly lockers at 200 yen per hour and also monthly lockers for the otaku who has something to hide from the rest of the family.

The lockers range from 3,000 yen per month for a W：270 × D：310 × H：168 sized locker or 13,000 yen for a W：420 × D：475 × H：890 sized locker - may be able to fit a Candy Girl inside. Full price list at NT System.

If you are convinced that this service is for you then walk along Chuo Dori in Akihabara until you see this entrance. Photos and coverage by AkibaMap.

I know there are maid cafes in Shanghai, Canada and Thai but am interested to know if there are maid cafes or other maid related businesses in your region.

By Danny Choo on 2008/06/01 09:56

The Early Years 1

Thu, 29 May 2008 11:59:00 +0900

Yes - this is what my room used to look like in 1988...
All images in this article are enlargeable BTW.
And dont forget that we are waiting to see pics of your room in the Your Room category.

Used to be totally in lurve with Kylie Minogue and made my room a shrine dedicated to her. One of my fave Kylie tracks "Better The Devil You Know" below.

Wow, bringing back a load of memories as I dig through YouTube. "Got To Be Certain below." Shes so small n sweet.

All music I had was still on vinyl at the time.

The ceiling and even the curtains were made out of Kylie ^^; Another few fave Kylie tracks - "Wouldn't Change A Thing"

"Hand On YOur Heart"

"Made In Heaven" - check that heir style.

Notice the PlayBoy cover on the wall - being a young lad with no internets was tough - all health care material was paper based...

I think this was in 1990. Notice how the Japanese influence is starting to take over. Original Macross VHS on screen. The first version I watched was dubbed in Cantonese.

The Japanese influence started from games - specifically the Sega Mega Drive.

Also notice the Little Mermaid on the TV. Ariel is such a sweetie - my first figure.

I think this was in 1990. After the Mega Drive and incredibly crappy Mega CD Rom, I got a Super Famicom. Started to fall in love with 2D girls too. Used to get PC Engine magazine for the 2D girls - didn't have a PC Engine at the time though.

You will also notice pics of Claudia Schiffer too - will post the pics I have taken with Kylie and Claudia soon.

Tis 1992 and even more in love with Japan. Get hold of a PC Engine that you see below the TV on the left. Have no idea why I've got two TVs but remember it being useful for watching anime and playing games at the same time.

The transition from Kylie to Japanese Anime and Game Otaku is complete and by 1993 I finally make my first trip to Japan after saving up every year for a plane ticket. For those who are interested, I talk about what I was doing at this moment in life in my Learning Japanese article which explains how I went from wanting-to-live-in-Japan to actually living here.

The next love in my live was Nishida Hikaru - you may remember me chasing after her in roller blades from reading this article.
Im sure that it happens to most of us but how many of you are/were in lurve with celebrities or 2D girls/boys? Any ones in particular?

Got rid of the horrible wallpaper in 1994 and painted everything white. Kept up posters of Hikaru and other 2D girls.

I had to trek to a Japanese book store to get hold or Japanese TV recordings. I'm telling ya - learning Japanese and being an otaku without the internets was tough!

The brunette 2D girl is from Dangaioh - forgot her name but you can see how nice she is from the following vid.

This is the sort of pencil art I used to draw - pic of me and Hikaru in Akihabara - used to have these on the wall. So ronery...

Me and Hikaru by the beach (continues laughing).

By Danny Choo on 2008/05/29 11:11

Bern Switzerland

Mon, 19 May 2008 08:34:00 +0900

Member Melonpan has to be the bravest otaku that I've come across so far.

See melonpan take us on a tour of his home town in Bern Switzerland together with Nia. I was thinking of doing something like this in armor - guess I need to suddenly acquire a few dakimakura covers.

See all the full res pics at Melonpan's blog. Hmmmm, just had an idea. Maybe the next figure giveaway should be given to the bravest otaku - participants would take any figure they own and kiss it in public - capturing the moment on photo. I'd better get to work on finishing up the giveaway/competition tool.

By Danny Choo on 2008/05/19 07:46

Greetings From Germany

Wed, 07 May 2008 21:26:00 +0900

Been up since 2AM. Body clock still on Japan time.
Brought some Melatonin to help with Jet lag but its not working this time round. I know some lucky folks who never get jet lagged. Do you get jet lagged and if so what do you do to cope with it?

A few pics taken up to my arrival in Hamburg. This was taken at Narita airport. The translation in English for this one is quite bad - "Please respect our chefs and refrain from bringing food or drink into the table." What they actually meant is "don't bring food from other shops." Their translation sounds like you are not allowed to eat at the dining table ^^;

BLT for B'fast.

The lovely Kaho spotted at the airport bookshop. Kaho showing us her lovely smile below.

The Lufthansa food is rather yummy.

Catching up on backlog of shows - Ninomiya-kun, Minamike-okawari, Mop Girl, Macross and Geass. Macross is just so awesome.
The scene where Ranka does "Watashi no kareshi was Pilot" was so nostalgic.
Original "Watashi no kareshi wa pilot" by Min Minmay below.

Ranka version below.

Original remix below.

Hamburg from the skies.

Current Hotel. Will be staying at a few places including overnight on a train after the conference.

Pee, poo and wash area.

Haruhi will be on stage with me ^^;
Still tweaking slides for tomorrows talk.

Out n about for a few hours during lunch.

Gorgeous weather.

Fries and frankfurter for lunch.

Going back to hotel.
Will check out the venue tonight to go over electrics, lighting etc and then dinner with the other presenters. Other updates in the News Items.

By Danny Choo on 2008/05/07 20:38

Trend Day

Sun, 04 May 2008 20:50:00 +0900

I've been invited to Germany to speak at the Trend Day conference next week - currently rehearsing and tweaking my slides as I write this ^^;

The organizers Trendburo are an agency who research and identify/suggest market opportunities and point out trends for businesses. This years conference theme is about identity management and I will be explaining what Otaku is and touch on the different identities of the Otaku. I will also talk about my companys product Mirai Gaia too - the web platform that this site runs on.

Nervous as hell even though I've presented a few times at Amazon, Microsoft and at the Imprint Conference in Los Angeles last year. Each time was only a couple of hundred but this time its over 600 attendees. Need to think about something else to to keep me relaxed - some 2D girls? Maybe you can help by posting some cutesome 2D girls in the Member News section for me?

These are photos from last years Trend Day which include Muhammad Yunus who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize - presenting on the same stage make me even more nervous ^^; More pics at the Trend Day Flickr Stream.

Was looking up info on presentations and came across something that said out of dying, heights, water, flying and speaking in front of people, most were most afraid of the speaking ^^;
What are you most afraid of - does not have to be any of the above.

For me its "speaking in front of others" as I'm not good at it. Not particularly scared of dying as we all have to go sooner or later - I just make sure I make the most of it while I'm alive and focus on reaching my destinations while I'm at it.

The conference is held in Hamburg and you can see my profile page at the Trendburo site. Will be taking time out in Germany for a while too.

By Danny Choo on 2008/05/04 20:02

Flip Hole

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 11:12:00 +0900

Japan brings us the future. The future is here.

The Flip Hole is the latest product by Tenga. If you don't know what a Tenga is then Lookie here. Those who are familiar with Tenga will know that it is a health care product for pet dolphins. As you know, dolphins need to be waxed regularly to keep them alive and healthy.

Up until now, the previous versions of Tenga were single-use which meant every time one wanted to wax thier dolphin, one would need to need to fork out 1,000 yen per session. I'm guessing that some folks may have reused their previous Tenga more than once but that would have lead to an unhealthy dolphin which has no hope of saving sperm whales.

This Tenga however is different. Not only is the Flip Hole reusable, its cunningly disguised as a thermal detonator.

Below: The Flip Hole contains state of the art Japanese technology to ensure that ones dolphin maintains optimum health. For example, in the event that ones dolphin starts to foam at the mouth, the "Shield Flap" will ensure that the foam stays in the inner chamber.

When ones dolphin docks with the inner chamber, the "Vacuum Pump" will suck ones dolphin into docking position using turbine engines while the "Side Rib" and "Wing Gate" sensors interface with the surface of the dolphin to help with the process of waxing and check for structural damage.

Below: This is a cross section of the other side of the Flip Hole which contains more quantum leaping technologies. The "Quattro Wave" section ensures even lubrication of the liquid used with the device and emits a plasmatic "Quattro Wave" to communicate with the dolphin. As you know, its important that one regularly talks to their dolphin during the waxing process. Anybody here guilty of not speaking to their dolphins?

The "Lip Flap" applies constant pressure to the tail of the dolphin and when used after a while, the dolphin gains strength in the tail enabling the owner to control the dolphin guiding it left, right, up and down and extract/detract at will.

The "End Orbs" clamp on to the head of the dolphin which relay vital signs and that are transmitted by BlueTooth to your computer. The orbs also act as a motion capture unit and sends the motion coordinates in that BlueTooth signal. One can then use the motion capture data to make a 3D version of the dolphin and render it as a YouTube movie or even wallpaper - clever stuff.

The most advanced item of technology in the Flip Hole chamber is the "Click Orb" that is made of material mined from the fifth moon orbiting the remote planet of Taurus. It relays a telepathic image of the dolphins into the owners mind so the owner can be sure that the dolphin is alive and well during the waxing process.

And here are the instructions for using the Flip Hole.
Below: Remove main chamber from the mother dock. Apply waxing lubrication.

Below: Re-dock the main chamber and insert dolphin. Proceed with waxing.

Below: Once dolphin has been treated, remove dolphin, un-dock and wash the inner chamber of any foam that the dolphin may have emitted from its mouth due to the side effects of anti gravitational forces.

Once washed, the inner chamber can be placed on the mother dock in the satellite position to dry.

Below: When I first saw these holes I thought they were windows so that one could see their dolphin in the process of being waxed in the chamber but then realized that the telepathic Click Orb does that.

These circles are actually SPFP's or "Silver Plate Floating Pads." The middle plate increases vacuum pressure within the chamber, while the top and bottom plates apply pressure to the head or tail of the dolphin - again, one should consult with ones dolphin before using the plates.

Below: There are three types of lubricants available for to be used in the inner chamber - "mild", "real" and "wild" - consult with your dolphin before use.

And how much does all this technology cost? A mere $99 USD from Kanojo Toys. Are you ready to Bala Ba Ba Ba?

All information in this post has been translated as accutrately as possible from the official page for this product.
By Danny Choo on 2008/03/23 10:24

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

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

4 Hours in Akihabara

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:54:00 +0900

Today is another variation on the "A Week in Tokyo" where we take a look at what I got up to this time yesterday.
I just love Akihabara when the road is closed off to traffic. Yesterday was a public holiday when the main road becomes a Hokousha Tengoku (whats a Hokousha Tengoku?) A ton of cosplayers come out to play and some of them are really cute like this Shana.

This girl is cutie Rino-chan from the Pinkish Trick cosplay circle.

Girls from Office Miharu.

The maid to my right has a gorgeous smile.

Meeting up with members from the Blog Dinner (whats Blog Dinner?)

For some reason, Japans top bloggers (blogs that generate the most page views) are Mac users and gadget otaku. When we get together, the table soon transforms into a display of gadgets.
Two Macbook Airs, a few iPod Touches, a few mobiles and other wireless devices. And as you saw from the previous photo - one of the guys keeps his Macbook Air in a manila envelope ^^;

Then its back out to the main road which is Chuo Dori.
I thought I would do something a bit different this time and take photos of people taking photos of me ^^;
Here you can see the moment I step into Chuo Dori.

A crowd of people start to move in.

You may need to enlarge this pic to see that he has a rabbit (?) on his shoulder.

An interesting combination of neko mimi (cats ears), a bandanna and a light saber.

At this moment there is a circle of people gathered around.

Then they all take turns to have a pic with the armor.

A large percentage of the crowd are fellow gaijin.

The crowd of people starts to grow...

And grow...

Out of the many dannychoo.com readers that I've met so far, many are spending a few days at Akiba and seems like 40% of their time is spent here ^^;
How much time do you plan to spend in Akiba on your next trip to Japan?

And then I move on when I see the boys in blue looking over at the huge crowd of people.

MacBook Air pre-ordered for the CTO thats joining Mirai Inc next month. Will make an official announcement soon.

If you recognize the shops in Akiba you will notice through these pics that theres is a constant crowd that follows me towards the station^^;

Love this guy - a Phantom of the Opera Panda.

Then I spend an hour in Asobit Hobby meeting with the store manager and taking pics of figures and Gundams - will post later this week.

Evening approaches Akiba.

The afternoon actually started like this. I seem to be making quite a few friends of late who just happen to be Idols - more of this later this week.

By Danny Choo on 2008/02/13 06:06

Foot Spa Cafe

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:33:00 +0900

So we've seen interesting otaku services such as paying to go into a girls bedroom and having your ears waxed - whats next?

There is now a cafe type place in Osaka called Ashi Yu Ya where you can go and have a cuppa Japanese tea while soaking your bare feet in a tub of hot water with a traditional Japanese maid called a Jyochu [女中[じょちゅう]].

A foot spa is known as "Ashi Yu" [足湯[あしゆ]] and can also be found at many Onsen (hot spa) around Japan.

So what are they charging for this invaluable service?

Trial course - 1,950 yen: You get to stick your feet in a tub of hot water for 15 mins - *alone*. But the maid does give you a hand massage.
30 minute Basic "hand course" - 3,900 yen: Stick your feet in a tub of hot water together with the maid for 10 minutes. She then gives you a hand job (hand massage) for 20 mins and you get a cuppa Japanese tea.
Just like the Japanese girls bedroom, girls get a discount - two girls get the "hand course" for 3,900 yen.
30 minute foot reflexology course - 4,500 yen: Share the tub with the maid for 10 mins and get your feet massaged for 20. Cuppa tea after.
60 minute foot reflexology course - 8,800 yen: You would think paying more gets you more time in the tub with the maid but you would be wrong - 10 mins in the tub and 50 mins of foot massage.
90 minute ultimate course - 12,500 yen: 10 mins in the tub, 20 mins hand job, 50 mins foot job and 10 mins of punching your shoulders - cuppa tea after.

After 10 mins of soaking your feet in the tub of hot water with the maid, she then proceeds to pour some of the tub water in a traditional Japanese rice wine cup where she then drinks the water down in 3 gulps for good health.

For girls who are interested in working at Ashi Yu Ya, theya are looking for staff and are paying 1,200 yen per hour and you need to be between 18 and 25.

Not too sure about the hygiene aspect of this though. If I was a cute traditional Japanese maid, I certainly wouldn't want to share a hot tub of water with a hairy oily salary man.

Come to think of it, if I *was* a cute traditional Japanese maid, I probably wouldnt get any work done as I would be playing with my eyes all day long.

The 2D girl is a Jyochu that I found when searching for more pics at Noantica.

Ah - nearly forgot to mention - was joking about her drinking the post-foot-spa-water. Image and news via Sankei.
By Danny Choo on 2008/02/12 00:45

Japanese Souvenirs

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:49:00 +0900

When you visit Tokyo Tower, you will see miniature versions of the tower that can be purchased as a souvenir. If you visit Asakusa Shrine, you will find miniature versions of the main gates with that huge red lantern. So what is the typical souvenir that you should pick up when in Akihabara?

Well according to Asobit Game, the souvenir that you should be picking up for your friends are these different varieties of Tengas.

The table is labeled as "Akihabara Souvenirs" and has some eroge on the side which you may want to pick up at the same time.

And while deciding what you should buy for your boss/teacher, you can also grope the bottom of this "attraction."

I remember when I first started to visit Japan - I wanted to spend all my money on idol DVDs and photo books meaning that the only souvenirs I picked up for friends were from 100 yen shops ^^;

For folks that have visited Japan - what sort of souvenirs did you pick up for friends/family.
And for folks who are going to visit Japan - what sort of stuff do you think you will pick up for the folks back home?

By Danny Choo on 2008/02/06 00:01

School Mizugi

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 04:31:00 +0900

Could School Mizugi combined with shotguns be the latest craze to sweep the otakusphere?

This blue swimming suit is known as "School Mizugi" [スクール水着] and is commonly abbreviated as SukuMizu [スク水]. Basically means "School Swim Wear."
Its worn as part of physical education by girls (and some boys after hours) from primary to high school. The SukuMizu can be seen throughout the otaku subculture in manga, anime and eroge.
I'm not sure why there is a fixation on the SukuMizu in the otaku subculture - but rethinking a bit, I realize there is a fixation on anything worn by a girl ^^;

I remember swimming in physical education classes back in the UK. Pools were mixed but didn't remember seeing the girls wearing something this cute.

Is swimming part of physical education in your region? Did you get to mingle in swim wear with the opposite sex?

Get some pics of 2D girls wearing SukuMizu at Moe Imouto. Pic taken sometime last week in Akiba.

By Danny Choo on 2008/02/03 03:43