AmiAmi Giveaway - AegisI'm always late reading this stuff. :-( DC, I have a couple of old business cards lying around. I've toyed with the idea of getting new ones printed for years. If I e-mail you with a snail mail addy, what are the chances for exchanging cards acros...
Bootleg ToysI've grown up with seeing a slew of cheap mass produced toys over the years. I can remember back when this small backwoods country called Japan (*cough*) was producing cheap tin windup robots with silkscreened faces not much better than this gundam....
Living in JapanObviously there's a wide range of answers to the question. I fit in on several of them. I did briefly live alone. But during that time, I was always out with friends. So technically, I was never alone. I was renting a storefront as a studio at t...
Japanese Love HotelsBack during my time in Chicago, I knew of a "motel strip" that each establishment would charge regular rates, but you could rent by the hour, if you were so inclined. But they could not advertise as anything like a love motel. Otherwise it would be...
Sanya V. LitvyakDollfie Dreams are wonderful, but pricewise, I'd have to go with the 30cm figures. Then you can swap out all kinds of costumes from Barbie collections and the 1/6 scale items like the others said.
British Food in TokyoI'm not exactly in another country, but living in MI from IL, I'm really craving some German flavors I grew up with that you can only get in a multi-cultural city like Chicago.
Gatsby TrooperI remember seeing the original David Elsewhere viral vid on youtube. The kid is good! Gene Kelly would of had fun working with him, I'm sure!
Mirai no Mirai AnimeDC, you must be so proud, your buttons are bursting! Everybody has weighed in on whether there should be dubs or subs, but I'd vote for dubs. The artwork in all anime is so heartbreakingly awesome it's half the story. I'm so frustrated when I need...
VocaloidThe mech that runs the facial features is surprisingly pretty accurate. Although I'd have to agree that if they're going to use Hatsune Miku's voice (in some vids, I've seen them using Kagamine Rin's voice) they need to use an anime face. A traditi...
Anime CarsBicycles?! ME WANT!! uh... *cough* Sotty about that outburst. ^-^
About the only thing I've been able to afford in this catagory of otaku is a custom bumper sticker with Hatsune Miku's pic and her name, stuck on the back of my Subaru Forester. W...
Japan Train ServiceI remember my days in Chicago on the "L" fondly. Of course once it went into the subway, it was deafening. Open windows during the summer months. But now they've got A/C'd cars. My only gripe with them is that in my day, each train line was named...
Japanese SocietyThe "default world", or physical reality has always been harsh and unforgiving. Humanity has had to deal with making a living since humanity arrived on the planet. Men and women lived in villages, and had children before marriage was sometimes consi...
Japan Point Cards"After living in Japan for a while, more often than not, your wallet or underpants will start to fill up with point cards from shops n restaurants." So that means the picture of the guy ahead of you at the KFC was fishing for one of his points cards...
Japanese FestivalsBizzare Sesame Street indeed! Where's the Muppets? It's hard to believe that Hensen Associates would licence that! As for festivals in "my neck of the woods", we have the <a href="http://upstatefair.org/">Upper Peninsula State Fair</a>. It was re...
Mr DonutsAFAIK, Dunkin' Donuts and Mister Donuts two business models developed side by side through most of the 1960s and 1970s. DD went on to develop their coffee against Starbucks, while MD emphasized donuts exclusively. The health craze almost did MD in....
Headphone GirlsBleh... My art isn't appaling, but it will never match the quality of most manga and anime artists. I have a selection of Masamune Shirow prints that I'd like to frame, but they are odd sized, so it won't happen anytime soon. They are too good to j...
Toda ErikaHmm. Cup noodles, or Erika? What would give me a heart attack quicker? Probably Erika. The cup can be watered down appropriately after microwaving to reduce the sodium concentration. :-)
A Week in Tokyo 45In my home, I'm the short order cook. My wife makes the holiday meals. I run a fairly basic menu varying between pasta dishes and rice dishes all week long, and alternate with eating out when we go into Escanaba for shopping. I close the kitchen on...
Mirai-tan 04I've been in the workforce since I was 15 years old. Did odd jobs before that. At 50, my body says I'm ready for retirement, but Uncle Sam says not until 67 years old. The scare is that there will be no money left in Social Security by then. Pfft...
G4TVI just watched the G4TV video on YouTube a few days back. I made a kind of snarky comment there, but I'm not that much into G4TV, I guess. They say once you're on national television, you've hit the big time. I've nejoyed your channel on YouTube a...
Japan Railroad CrossingI can remember as far back as when the warning bell was actually a bell, and not a speaker. There is always going to be some loser that thinks they can move fast enough to avoid a train. Crossing gates in my area of the US are made up of 6 inch board...
Hatsune MikuThis isn't *so* bad. Scary is where someone has Kagamine Len dressed in a two piece girl's swimsuit dancing totally female in the church set from Project Diva, without even the benefit of a dolphin bulge in the bottom half of the swimsuit. Poor kid...
