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“When Will Anime Grow Up? A Look at Geek Culture’s Maturity”
Saturday September 14th, 3pm in Aspen Theater

“DYEL? Nerd Fitness”
Sunday September 15th, 10am in Aspen Theater

Be sure to check out the full Nan Desu Kan 2013 Event Schedule and Program Guide for a full look at all the panels and more. If you have a smart phone, download the GuideBook for iOS or Android. Everyone else follow the link to their Mobile Guidebook site.

See you all there!

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The press conference is kind of long at 90 minutes but worth the watch.

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1. Online Streams

One of the best ways to watch anime these days is directly through the internet. This wasn’t necessarily true 5 years ago, but the times have changed. Crunchyroll paved the way for companies like FUNImation and Nozomi to put their shows online for people to watch and pay for. They followed suit by beefing up their netflix, hulu, and amazon prime collections. Now, you can simply go to Youtube and find the FUNImation channel which as almost every one of their shows online to watch for free! What are you doing, YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING!™

2. Borrow from Friends

There is nothing wrong with being a mooch from time to time. The option of passing back and forth DVDs between friends works particularly well if you talk to them and make sure everyone buys different shows or movies. That way when your collections combine, you form Captain Planet, , you will have a very complete show library with so much that you won’t even know where to begin. If you have 5 friends, you can accumulate quite the massive collection by picking up older shows being re-released and it will only cost you $20-30 per series. Thanks FUNI!

3. Library

One of the more surprising places is your Local Library! The multimedia that these once forgotten relics have been loading up on is astonishing. At one point I had checked out every dvd that my library had to offer and was putting in requests for them to buy more. They didn’t get around to most of my suggestions, but they did listen to a few. Libraries are free and libraries are plentiful. In my area there are 3 different libraries I can go to. If you go to a University, drop by the schools library – you might be surprised!

4. Anime Club/Meetup Groups

This suggestion is a classic, people get together and all watch new anime. Every college I have looked into has an anime club and if it doesn’t then forming clubs is usually easy and encouraged. Where I go to school, there is a fairly large club called Anime Anonymous that meets every Friday. The nerds are out there! You just need to find them. The internet has really accelerated the ability for people to communicate and gather. There are multiple groups on the website Meetup, you can make a Facebook event, maybe a Myspace page? …Nah! That still leaves many ways to find people who like the same things as you and nerd out together.

5. Conventions

Hey I bet you forgot about conventions, didn’t you? This is one of my favorite ways to sample new shows. It is like speed dating meets anime, you go into a room and sit down. If you don’t like what you see, you can get up and leave. The only downside with this approach is the fact that you need to be at a convention itself but that won’t be a problem for a sick nerd baller like yourself. You go to them all the time! You might even be at one right now! Hi fans from Nan Desu Kan 2012! The list of shows that get played at NDK is astonishing. They even have some new stuff premiering like C – Control(A personal Favorite of mine!) and Aria – The Scarlet Ammo. So go forth, find a convention and get sampling anime. Also do other stuff but first the anime!

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Right now I have a few ideas for panels that I am writing a proposal for, which is due in a week. One thing that can be guaranteed is that I will be running around taking pictures of cosplayers and panels. I intend to do a few photoshoots on top of my comprehensive coverage. I have been covering NDK every year since 2005 and I intend to be there again this year to continue that tradition. To find some of the older coverage that I have helped create, check out AnimeRoot to find a giant cache of photos, videos and posts about. I have done some amazing interviews that you can find at the Youtube Channel. I will be working with them again this year, but this will be my first year producing my own coverage for my own site. I look forward to seeing all of my friends there! Keep your eyes up in the atrium for our banner!

Will you be at NDK this year? I want to take your picture if you are in costume! Share below if you are going to be there!

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Gijinka(擬人化) is literally defined as Personification but in Japan it is used to refer to the Anthropomorphism of things. This could be referring to any number of things being drawn as a human, usually girls. I have seen examples from tanks and cars to web browsers and operating systems. One of the more notable Gijinka is OS-tan where fans created characters to represent all of the Windows operating systems and later Mac OSX and various Linux Distributions.

Another popular example of this would be Hetalia. This web comic turned anime became insanely popular among cosplay communities for a number of reasons. In my opinion, this is because the character have such strong personalities. America is an ego maniac who devours hamburgers with reckless abandon while Japan is a very quite and polite.

My focus of this post however is on Pokemon specifically. Some of my favorite costumes I have seen at the many conventions over the years have been Pokemon related. I have seen them from every generation and every type. Some are very lightly inspired while some are complex and include key features that define the specific monster.

Regardless of the details, the fact is that these fans of the series are showing their love in the most creative ways possible. I have seen a large number of Pokemon trainers and a decent amount of fur-suiters, but the growing majority seems to be Gijinka style costumes. They allow the cosplayer to be as creative as possible by not being hindered by the small details of the creature and focus on the overall appearance. I hope this trend continues to spread across the convention circuit as more and more series’ get the same treatment. Lately the most Gijinka costumes I have seen has been My Little Pony inspired creations. Regardless of the series, go forth and have fun with your costumes!

Have you made a Gijinka costume? Do you have a favorite? Share it in the comments!

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The history of the festival is traced back to the Heian period. The tradition is inspired by a story that was borrowed from chinese mythology. As the story goes, there was a weaving princess named Orihime and a cow herder named Hikoboshi. The father of Orihime, King Tentei, arranged for the two meet. Upon first glance, they instantly fall madly in love and get married right away. The problem began when both began to neglect their duties of weaving and cow herding. The king was outraged by their laziness and separated the two onto opposite sides of the Amanogawa River. Orihime became depressed and begged her father to let her see Hikoboshi again. The king was moved by her daughters tears and decreed that they two could meet on the Seventh Day of the Seventh Month if she worked hard all year. In the first year, Orihime was attempting to cross the river but could not find a way across. When she began crying, a group of magpies showed up and promised to build her a bridge across next year.

This story has a more literal definition when using two specific stars as the metaphor. Orihime is representative of the star Vega, who is the weaving princess. Hikoboshi represents Altair, the cowherder star. The two were separated by the Milky Way galaxy and align only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.

One of the more popular traditions that happens annually at the Tanabata is the Writing of Wishes. People would write down their wishes on pieces of paper and tie them to pieces of bamboo in hopes of them coming true in the next year. More traditionally boys would wish for better handwriting and studying

If you live in a larger city in the US, you can find some things to do to celebrate this holiday and others. In Denver, the Botanic Gardens has a small celebration where you cam make a wish and tie it to Bamboo and storytelling. If I ever move to Japan someday, I would love to attend one of these festivals and experience the rich traditions that come with them!

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Many who move to japan are often blindsided by a tax collector showing up at their door and expecting to be handed money, even if they don’t own a TV. While there are ways around this tax, mostly by telling them that you don’t watch their programming, it is expected that you pay this fee or face legal trouble. Here is a Reddit thread about this very subject. Inside, redditors give ideas and suggestions for people planning on moving or who already live there.

For more official information regarding the NHK tax, head over to the official NHK Page about said fee.

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