Otacool

The AFA coverage continues and thought it would be a good opportunity to make this the post that I point folks to regarding everything Otacool.
For folks who are not familiar with the term, "Otacool" is a compound word made up from "Otaku" and "Cool."

A few moons ago, I asked readers at dannychoo.com to submit photos of their room which got picked up by an absolute ton of Japanese blogs and news sites who were interested in how otaku overseas had stylish rooms filled with anime goodies.

While at dinner with Kotobukiya one evening, they asked whether they could use the content to publish a book. I thought it was a great idea but I didn't have permission from the folks who originally submitted their photos so I asked them to resubmit their photos over at Figure.fm. Figure.fm was already on the Mirai Gaia platform which was geared towards CGM (Consumer Generated Media) - original images were stored on the server which was necessary for print.

A few months later and Otacool was one of the best selling books in Japan and made it up to the 75th best selling book on Amazon Japan.
Being the first of its kind to bring CGM content from around the world and published as a book, Otacool gained much media coverage including TV in Japan.

I'm proud to be part of such an awesome community where Japanese pop culture has brought people from all over the world together. It was great meeting a load of readers in Singapore for example and realizing that they all met through dannychoo.com.

Starting off with some Otacool coverage from the AFA09 where I had my own dannychoo.com booth which was split into the Tokyo Figure Show (Singapore Edition) and Otacool.

I had stats which show that 5% of traffic is from Singapore but was overwhelmed at how many of that 5% came to AFA ^^;
Thanks to all those who came along and see you soon prolly before April 2010 for Singapore CGM Night. I think I'm due to be giving some talks at universities around Singapore too.

Was great to meet so many lady readers too.

Cheeks start to ache after a while ^^;

Got swamped at times ^^;

Today's Otacool signing session was with the lovely Alodia.

Had to make sure I got some photos of my own of Alodia and Ashley in Mirai and Haruka gear.

Me trying to hide some photos?!

Photo time with Alodia. You can see more photos of her in the Mirai Cosplay post.

My manager for the afternoon was Maurice who was one of the key members in organizing the AFA.

Posted this photo for Yunamon's smile.

The queue going around the side.

All copies of Otacool sold out! They even took the remaining ones left in the display cabinet to sell ^^;
Alodia and I then started to sign the Tokyo Figure Show Singapore postcards instead ^^;

More photos with the Suenaga sisters.

Alodia looks even more gorgeous in person. Cant wait to visit the Philippines soon.

And here is the book that you and I worked on with Kotobukiya. In the middle sits Kotobukiya Asuka and if you remember, some of you get to win her. Kotobukiya chose the following 5 members:-

[copy paste job start]
OTACOOLサイト　オタク部屋応募当選者
『OTACOOL WORLDWIDE OTAKU ROOMS』＋アスカプラグスーツVer.　当選者５名
Miles（British）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/420/OiD+s+Room+for+Otacool.html
Joey（Dutch）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/409/yakumo+s+room.html
Alodia（Philippines）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/1372/Alodia+s+Desk.html
Julio Ruiz（American）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/809/Frijolito+s+OTACOOL+Room.html
Manuel Gonzalez（Chilean）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/556/Manuel+s+Room.html
[/copy paste job end]

And the following all get a copy of Otacool.

[copy paste job start]
『OTACOOL WORLDWIDE OTAKU ROOMS』当選者１０名
Joachim（German）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/370/De+JaY+s+Room.html
Jurgen Brutting(Feldi)（German）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/1067/Feldi+s+OTACOOL+Room.html
Tony Gilmour（American）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/727/Fumoffu+s+Room.html
GG＆EM（American）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/679/GGEM+s+OTACOOL+room.html
Julie（Canadian）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/466/Chibichibiusa+s+Room.html
Ed（American born Chinese）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/315/Asian+Ed+s+Room+Redux.html
Uriko（Spanish）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/824/Uriko+s+Room.html
Aya Kyunik（Australian）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/610/Aya+Kyunik+s+Room+-+updated.html
Tsubasa126（American）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/655/Tsubasa126+s+Room.html
PAM（Japanese）
http://www.figure.fm/post/en/760/PAM+s+Room.html
[/copy paste job end]

Congrats to all who won something above!
Please send your name, address and phone number to info at hobino dot jp and CC support at dannychoo dot com.
Please include the link to your original post on figure.fm and send mail within a week from now.

And here is a peek at the Otacool launch event at the Kotobukiya store in Akihabara. Here they are playing my Nikon commercial ^^;

I signed some stuff when I was in Singapore a year ago at the Animax Workshop but this was the first time I was officially signing anything. Wasnt used to it and noticed that my sign kept changing each time and was difficult trying to remember not to use my credit card signature ^^;;;;

Many folks from all over the world came including the Philippines, US, France, Spain, UK, Germany, Canada.

Photo with Paul and Amano Ai-chan.

Ai-chan was in Maid Mirai cosplay.

And a quick gander at the book itself. A full list of the members in the book was posted by Luki over at figure.fm.

Otacool was published in both Japanese and Engrish and was released worldwide.
Otacool sold so many copies that Otacool 2 is in the works. The concept about Otacool is how cool otaku are and showcases their lifestyles which can be rooms, collections or hobbies like cosplay. What do you think Otacool 2 should be?

Not everybody who was featured in the book got a free copy of Otacool - this was the publishers decision (Kotobukiya) and not mine.
However, I still think its a great achievement to be featured in a top selling book by an established figure maker and have themselves and website profiled. Not even advertisers could buy space in the book.

Interestingly enough that the people complaining about this were folks who didn't participate in the Otacool project at all.

Ah, nearly forgot to mention - Kotobukiya chose all the rooms that were featured and based their decisions on how users integrated their hobby into the interior rather than just having goods dumped in a corner.

Through member participation, we get to learn who are experts on the otaku field in their region. Most knowledgeable folks will be contacted in the future to work on bigger projects.

Going to stop babbling now and leave the rest of the photos to speak for themselves as I head over to the other side to write up the Japanese version of this post.

Just uploaded all original photos in this article to Mediafire.