Some time ago, I described about my local anime community, and how lacking Brunei is in terms of things related to anime and Japanese visual culture. Brunei isn’t known to be the best anime country out there after all. No Japanese performers ever, no anime events, and a severe lack of figures and merchandises on sale in local shops.

However, I’m glad to say that Brunei is slowly improving – all the problems mentioned above, are slowly being remedied even before I knew it. Over some periods, I managed to join a few of these Japanese culture events which I noticed recently I haven’t share with everyone besides a few mentioning of it here and there, so I decided to share my experiences and compile all the local events I had been participating in one post.

1. EACon 2012

Expressive Art Convention, or EACon for short, is probably the first ever anime convention to have emerged in Brunei. The event officially started in 2011, a year I didn’t even notice it’s existence. In 2012 however, I finally found out about it and joined it in December of last year.

The event took place on Saturday, starting from morning, and ending in mid-afternoon. I need to work on Saturday mornings so I wasn’t able to join the morning sessions, which is unfortunate, considering there are official cosplay performances in the morning. When I get there by afternoon, it’s already the closing sessions, though there are still a lot of people there. It’s more about walking around, checking the booths, and asking the still-not-leaving cosplayers around for some photos at the time.

Remember how in my new figure posts, I was talking about how a store close to my town actually started selling figures? Before that, it’s either an one hour trip to the city, or the plain old online shopping for my figures. The figures booth they set up, is probably my most favorite one. Aside from figures, they also have a lot of other merchandises on sale, ranging from calenders, posters, and so on. I actually bought another new figure from their booth, which I will save it in my future figures post.

Aside from that, other miscellaneous stuffs are also on sale from other booths, ranging from notebooks, keychains, comics, manga, cosplayer costumes, Vanguard trading cards and so on. The neko headband is definitely one of the highlights of the event, though cringeworthy when I saw random people wearing them.

Sad. That’s the only total amount of cosplay photos I was able to take.

Another one of my favorite booth, purely just for the sake of nostalgia. Games had been graphically improved nowadays, and seeing games like these on display once more does reminded me down the memory lane when I first started playing Super Mario on the Nintendo.

In another corner of the event, some game competitions were still taking place, Street of Fighter and League of Legends most notably.

Last but not least, there are tons of Gundam models on display, I only managed to take photos of a small portion of them however.

I think that’s about it for EACon. The event, although is a small event compared to true genuine convention, I had quite a lot of fun with it. I would had love to join the event in a less awkward timing however, since I wasn’t able to get the most out of it. In the end though, I won’t let this take my “virginity” of anime events yet – I would rather prefer my first one be a more major one. I guess EACon’s a good “practice” in that regard, before I go about with the real thing.
 
 

2. Japan Festival

Original name.

Anyway, the event this time isn’t that much related to anime, but still related on the Japan Culture majorly as a whole. This event actually took place from the 21st to the 24th of March. In each day, there are demonstrations introducing and showcasing Japanese culture, technology and lifestyle, ranging from Wadaiko (Japanese drum performances); to martial arts demonstrations like Kempo, Kendo, Aikido and Karate; and cooking demonstrations from chefs of established local sushi stores and a chef from the Japan Embassy and so on. Others like origami and furoshiki (cloth wrapping) demonstrations, cosplay are also part of the events.

As this is a 4-day event, like before due to awkward timing, I was only able to join one day of it. I missed out on quite some major things like the Wadaiko and the martial arts performances. Though I was able to join in the cooking demonstration by the Japanese chef, Tamaki-san, teaching us the art of making sushi rolls.

The origami display booth, though my eyes are attracted more to the Vocaloid nendoroids and plush dolls. Looks like it’s going to take a lot of work to do these however, especially the intricate designs of the black swan.

A Doraemon papercraft they put on the floor, had the urge to kick it for some reason.

The one and only figures I see in the event, at least, on that particular day. Obviously not for sale though, more for decorative purposes.

One of my favorite part of the event is definitely this however: the chance to wear yukata. Two workers will help out whoever wanted to wear it. I think it’s pretty much impossible to wear it by yourself after all, especially the tying of the obi. As you can see, the dressing area is “open”, so obviously, the girls don’t strip (will be a sight to see however). Instead, the yukata were worn over the clothes they were wearing at that moment, probably not the proper way since from what I know, yukata are meant to be worn directly on the skin. Not much to be done, since I can’t expect the girls to strip in public anyway.

The process of wearing it takes quite a while to complete, and had to be worn step by step to be able to don on it properly. It was pretty amazing, how a seemingly piece of cloth can be wrapped around and tied, and then be worn with such elegance. They don’t even need sizes as well, from the ones with a more shorter height to the ones with a taller height, the same piece of clothing can fit just fine – I guess the secret trick is the still the tying of the obi, tying huge bundles of cloth to suit a person’s shorter height, or perhaps loosing a few bundles for taller people.

This is an “artificial sakura trees area” where you can take photos on the girls after they had worn the yukata. Pretty nice, though a larger area would had done it more justice. The area is too narrow, and not much photoshoots can be done without actually clashing with other people. Fortunately, we were alone during our photoshoots, and made it just in time before the next group of people were done with their yukata.
 
 

3. Hanamas’s Concert in Brunei

For those uninformed, Hanamas is a duo of two young Japanese female musicians – Chie Hanawa and Natsumi Okimasu: a shamisen player and a violinist respectively. Here’s some background information on them:

“Hanamas” is a Japanese – Western unit formed in 2009 by Chie Hanawa (Tsugaru-Shamisen player) and Natsumi Okimasu (Violinist), graduates from the Tokyo University of Arts. Both have been playing active roles in a variety of music genres by bringing out the best characteristics of each instrument. “Hanamas” received the Prize for Encouragement at the 1st Neo Classical International Competition in 2010 and has been actively performing in Japan as well as at overseas.

On 14 December, they performed a medley of folk songs featuring the Tohoku region such as Tsugaru Jongara Bushi, Yagi Bushi, Akita Nikata Bushi and original pieces, LIFE, Kanon and Mozar-tokotoko -Koshinkyoku （A Variation of Turkish March） with the guitar and drums in the back.

Anyway, the concert took place at a particular school auditorium in the city. The whole performance was splendid, the two girls, backed up by a drummer and a guitarist, has great chemistry with each other, resulting in an excellent wave of harmonious melody between sounds originating from the East and West. There are some funny moments as well, especially when the girls are trying their best to speak in English, only to run frantically and shouting “Tasukete kudasai, translator-san!” moments later. Cute. When the guitarist and the drummer also made their introductions, I like the drummer’s sarcastic comment when asked about how he feels about Brunei. He replied “Brunei is hot on the outside, and cold on the inside.” Perfectly describing Brunei’s weather in one line, and got us a few laughs.

I’ll provide links to their official blog and also their live concert in Brunei here. Please note that for the latter, the videos are not taken by me. It was regrettable but I wasn’t able to take any photos or videos, since I hadn’t even bought my Galaxy Note at that time. I noticed someone took some videos for the concert and uploaded them in Youtube though, so I compiled all of them I can find in a playlist. Credits to spunkynazz, the one who took these videos himself.

Hanamas’s Official Blog
Hanamas’s Concert in Brunei

There are a lot of factors that effect our enjoyment in watching anime, be it internal factors like the appeal of the characters or the settings of the anime world, to external factors like the time and place in which we watch them, quality of the video and so on. One of the most important external factors is our current mental state, and how it effect our enjoyment of anime.

A human is capable of vast emotions, and since humans are such emotional creatures, it gets awkward, or perhaps even irritating when we are doing something in a contrasting mood. Attending courses while immensely ill, going on a vacation with lots of unsettled problems at home or work and so on. It will be alright if one had perfect mood when doing something, but as a person grows older, so does his responsibilities – which means being free of obligations when doing something is next to impossible. So, how do we fit anime in? Likewise, it can’t be helped that sometimes, the experience of watching our favorite anime can be a little awkward or unsettling due to one’s current mood, and learning to cope with that is essential.

Obviously, I myself tend to be okay with any types of anime whenever I’m feeling fine without stress or pressure. Since my mental state is okay, it is more open to anything. When I’m feeling depressed however, my choices of anime is a bit complicated. At times, I choose a lighter anime to soothe my mind, body and spirit: Aria, K-ON and Natsume Yuujinchou for examples, are all great anime for their thematic relaxation and gentleness. Some of them may be a bit awkward to watch due to their exaggeration of happiness, but that exaggeration is just what I need at the time.

However, there are also times of depression where I think the complete opposite. At times, I can’t relax properly, as my mind keeps wandering back to the future tasks and obligations I need to commit myself to. At such times, I embrace the darkness. Oddly fitting with my dark, depressing feelings, I finished anime like Elfen Lied, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and more recently, Hellsing Ultimate. Not limited to anime however, I never forget to impose myself on other violent medias, catching up with all 300+ chapters of Berserk (the anime is less gore from what I can see), and some time later I also finished one of the most disturbing visual novel of all, Saya no Uta. Quite recently, I also finished Kara no Shoujo in a similar fashion.

What goes into my mind as I watch anime? As you can see from the above, I go for the two very different sides of extremes, it is either I went for the more lighter, yet positive and meaningful anime – extreme optimism, or to the heavier and darker anime – utmost pessimism. However, both sides are a different kind of escapism. Watching light and peaceful anime awarded me an obvious route of escape for all the problems of real life and when watching dark anime, it also counts as an escapism of sort in a way that I can regard the dark world in the anime as a reflection of my real life societal enemy, and seeing the characters fighting against such a world gave me strength.

How does this relate to our overall enjoyment of anime? I feel it is important to know how to cope with one’s negative emotion, and to choose anime that you feel most comfortable with at one’s current mental state. Everyone will have their own ways of dealing with them however. Do you still watch anime when on a negative mood? Or do you prefer waiting for a better time?

The original Hellsing TV series was horrid – following an original plot different then that of the manga, with terrible visuals, low quality animations, but worst of all, it’s a degradation of characterization, which ruined the exotic appeal of the characters, which were obviously so much more then what was shown in the TV series.

A good remake is what the Hellsing anime badly needed, and fortunately, they actually made one, in the form of “Hellsing Ultimate”, a series of OVAs at approximately 50 mins long each.

Hellsing Ultimate first follows the leader of the secret organization based in Britain, Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, who uncovered and awakened the legendary vampire known as Alucard himself. Since then, Alucard had joined the organization “Hellsing” fighting off against ghouls and vampires. That’s not all the organization had to fend off against however, as there is another rivaling faction, the Vatican and also Millenium, a group of supernatural undeads and vampires controlled by a psychotic, enigmatic individual. Staged in a triple-faction war, who will survive in this vampiric battlefield?

I stalled Hellsing Ultimate for a long time, and decided to watch it after all the episodes had been aired, and it had been quite a maddening pleasurable ride throughout the badassery. The guns, the swords, the vampires, the devilish smirks – all is an epitome of badass. Actions in Hellsing Ultimate is one of the best, fast, fluid actions, paired up with gore limbs-cutting scenes. Having characters comparable to the legendary Alucard in strength is also a boon to the action scenes. His encounters and fights with Alexander Anderson is always one of the highlights of the show, and they also displayed one of the best rivalries ever.

Story may not be the most original since themes of vampires had been overused but the execution is amazing. Mixture of both vampires and military is a refreshing combination in an otherwise, overused idea. The story also makes use of certain themes to heighten the philosophical wonders of the show, specially themes like religion and Catholics, social hierarchy of monsters and humans and so on.

The complex presentation of the characters are another highlight. At the surface, characters like Alucard and Anderson are nothing but psycho killers, despite their legendary status. However, deep exploration of their characters proved that they are more then their facade exposes. In the TV series, the characters are only mostly shown at an exterior level, the cause of bland one-dimensional characters. New antagonists like the Major who reinforces the massive military impact and showed the extreme insanity and atrocity even “humans” can achieve, after all, he even led a huge army of artificial undead!

Hellsing Ultimate reminds me of Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, in the way that both are remakes of their respective predecessors, which follows the stories of the manga more strictly. They are of cause, a lot more superior then their predecessors, and likewise with Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, Hellsing Ultimate had pretty much earned the right in my list of 10/10 scored anime. Truth to it’s name, Hellsing Ultimate is definitely one of the best, an ultimate of it’s kind.

Note: I didn’t watch the original TV series, so my limited knowledge on it originated from other reviews, comments and wiki.

Kara no Shoujo, is a visual novel by studio Innocent Grey, The game is an investigative interactive visual novel, and implemented gameplay with traditional visual novel elements.

Set just right after World War II in Japan, it follows Tokisaka Reiji, a former cop, now a private detective. An old friend in the Tokyo metropolitan police force requested his help in investigating a case of brutal serial murders. He was also requested by an all-girl school to investigate a missing person case and was also requested by a mysterious girl from said school, Touko, to find her true self. Bizarre chain of events, but little did he know that all of them are connected much more then he thought – they are even related to one of the case six years ago where it caused the death of Reiji’s fiance.

Extremely mysterious, alluring yet grotesque at the same time, the story tells the tales of adults, unlike the usual high school settings. The slow foreshadowing script reinforced the mystery of the visual novel – The vague introduction to the series for example: giving us a quote out of an in-game fictional book is quite an interesting way to begin the series. Through playing the game, the way how each revelation manifested another mystery, and how each body counts keep increasing no matter how much you investigate, while brutal, is a chaotic beauty. The way how more questions arise no matter how much you investigate keep your eyes peeled as you attempt to figure out who is the mastermind behind the mass serial murders.

I also find it interesting how the story and some of the murders are based on several motifs; Dante’s Divine Comedy for one, and also some fictional in-game ones like the in-game book, The Egg of Neanis, and the painting, Kara no Shoujo itself. Kara no Shoujo tells a story of obsession; it becomes an omnipotent mindset for some of the characters, especially the antagonists.

And in order to let players immerse into the investigations of these chain of murders, it also has a fun interactive gameplay to boot, and it’s investigative mechanics remind one of the Ace Attorney series, as the gameplays are immensely similar.

During investigation moments, you will be prompted to move around the mouse and try to find evidences that will help you get closer to the truth. At times, you will be examining a room, and at times, you will be examining corpses. Reiji also has a notebook, where he will update any new information he finds, including any new incidents happened around the characters he interacted, list of evidences and testimonies and so on. There’s even a map; during certain point of the game, it will give you “free investigation periods”, so you’re free to choose a place of your liking to check out, triggering some side stories or to find out more clues for your cases. Needless to say, will also effect the story and ending to come, depending on the encounters you made during these periods.

One slight difference, is that Ace Attorney will not go along with the story unless you obtained all the needed evidences, for Kara no Shoujo, it’s possible to miss some significant clues and the story will go on regardless. The difference in clues possession will also lead to a different story or ending, or perhaps even a bad ending. In that sense, when playing Kara no Shoujo, a lot of factors can influence the ending, from something traditional as dialogue choices, to the encounters during the free investigation periods and also the evidences obtained. At that end, it’s extremely complex, and without checking the walkthrough, it’s very easy to lead to a bad end unnoticed.

Not accounting for the earlier endings and bad endings, the main ending and the true ending (which is basically an extension of the main ending with better closures) possess quite the shocking plot twist, where the main character decided to seek more of the truth caused an explosive amount of revelations. With a chaotic plot like the one Kara no Shoujo had, it’s surprisingly how well the unending questions and mystery are all tied up conclusively in the ending.

I said earlier that Kara no Shoujo is grotesque, and I meant that quite literally visual-wise. The corpses all die in gloriously brutal and bizarre ways – limbs dismembered, head twisted, eyes plucked and so on and so forth. The bizarre condition of the victims when they died, are there any special meaning in that? It’s of cause, for our detective to find out. And of cause, as a detective, you are forced to look at these nasty corpses straight in the eye, examining the piles of blood, flesh and even interior parts for any clues possible. In a way, the nature of the corpses are “visually stunning”, and at the same time, true to its R-18 rating, this is one of the games where it’s best to leave minors out of it.

The other graphical aspects of Kara no Shoujo is satisfactory. Being a visual novel with adult characters, it has graphical designs with dark and realistic outlooks akin to the atmosphere of the visual novel. Character designs are good enough, although the amount of sprites for each of them is lacking. The backdrops are detailed and beautiful, a majority of them are CGs of nostalgic traditional-styled Japanese houses and is a great reflection to the setting, since during 1950s, I would assume a lot of Japanese are still clinging on their older cultures – their housing for example. At times, the beautiful backdrops also create a contrast to the current disturbing scene at play.

The total amount of soundtracks Kara no Shoujo had is little disappointing; at certain points of the game, you can’t help but feel the repetitiveness of some of the songs. Whatever songs Kara no Shoujo had though, is good. The songs, composed by MANYO, all have simple melodies but each of them brings the atmosphere needed at the time.

The title song “Kara no shoujo”, a simple yet sorrowful piano ballad, is a great introduction track to the game: empathizing a sense of mystery and sorrow, perfect for the story soon to be unraveled. The track “Moon World” is a relaxing track fitting for the relaxing atmosphere of the cafe. The more upbeat “Pursuit” gives the realistic sense of rush that you are actually giving chase to the suspects, though the track is also cleverly used during some other exciting moments as well. As Kara no Shoujo is a mystery murder story however, the list of soundtracks isn’t complete without some dark, mystery-instilling songs like “Cruel night”, “Egg of Neanis”, “Despair”, “Discord” and so on. At that end, other then the meager amount, and the extremely simple naming of the songs, Kara no Shoujo has a great, satisfactory soundtrack.

Kara no Shoujo is fascinating tale of mystery, obsession, sins, religion and truth-seeking. While it’s not for everyone, especially for ones who prefer a more lighter story. One who loves mystery, dark and gore however, will definitely be stroke with a sense of intrigue and entrancement. If so, do try it out, as Kara no Shoujo is quite the unique, but great visual novel.

Rating
Story: A
Character: B
Visuals: B+
Sound: B
System: C
Gameplay: B+

Final Score
8/10

School uniforms had always been one of the most identifying outfits in the world of anime. Using the powers of imagination and escapism, school uniforms had evolved to the point that they had became a fashion in a sense. Some anime has very unique uniforms and some games like Persona, even had different variations of the same uniform within the same school.

School uniforms are one of the most important costumes in the world of anime, especially since most lead characters in anime tend to be of teen age, and would be no doubt donning on such an outfit. Each costumes had their own individualistic sense and style but by having every students wearing the same uniform, it prevents solitary and also induces oneself the feeling of belonging to a familiar group of society or organization, which is the school in this regard.

The above shows how a typical school uniform looks like. The “sailor” uniform is definitely the most normal look. A school girl would don on a regular sailor uniform, with ribbons tied around the collar. Of cause in some cases, the ribbons can be replaced with a neck tie, or a bolo tie. The students also wear uniforms with varying designs, depending on the seasons. The picture above definitely shows a summer version of a particular school uniform; in colder seasons, the uniforms would be long sleeves, and would probably be accompanied with a blazer of some kind.

While school uniforms are objectively important, people obsessed over them for different reasons. First would be that it maintain a girl’s innocence. School uniforms are outfits worn by students, as such, it is immediately assumed that they are worn by teenagers. School uniforms symbolize innocence, youth, education and is a representative of the younger society. I guess this is why so many anime seem to have a high school setting with characters in their teens. This creates a condition where the characters are “almost” adults, yet, are still kids who are nearing graduation and almost hitting that “adult age”. Especially in slice-of-life, this concept creates a solidifying development for their characters.

The school uniform is one of the most widespread clothing-oriented fetishes and as such, aside from various anime, they are highly sexualized in hentai as well. The clothing, when worn on a girl, projects a youthful, childlike disposition. In contrast, the girl’s partner in hentai is usually one of adult – an older brother, a teacher, a man and so on. Being an innocent child, the more adult partner shows a more extensive sexual knowledge as compared to the girl, who is more ignorant. As such, the partner slowly shows her the rope, leading her, thus breaking her youthful and virginic appearance – superiority and sadism, pleasures in which the male demography is accustomed to.

Persona 3 – One of the most diverse and best school uniforms designed yet.

Another aspect of school uniform, is the creating of identification by “modifying school uniforms”. Most of us wear school uniforms already at a very early age and as such, we begin developing our own in-school persona. Aside from casual costumes, school uniforms are something worn from “blank state”. Just before, I mentioned that they are games like Persona, which even improvise different variations of their uniforms, with the use of additional accessories like belts, headphones, or via uniforms modifications like with uniforms not tucked in, open blazers or shortened skirt. Metaphorically, this shows that students had already begun developing a persona in school, graduating from their blank state.

If you’re the diligent type for example, you will probably buttoned up all your blazers, if you’re the wild type, you will probably open up all the buttons of your blazer. For the girls, the length of their skirts is a debatable idea. I heard that some Japanese girls in real life even deliberately fold up their skirt so that they look better and more individualized, perhaps long skirts seem more old-fashioned, though I’m not sure if the guys prefer short skirts in a similar fashionable mindset or just perversion in general. I’m the former myself. In that sense, when girls pick their school of choice, the design of the uniforms and their tastes in fashion surprisingly comes into play as well. That, and also long skirts in Japan seem to be associated with female delinquents a lot, as you can see from so many “female gangster” girls wearing long skirts in Japanese media.

School uniform is one main aspect of anime culture, be it as a form of philosophy, fashion, art or even adult entertainment. What do you think of the school uniform?

Note: This post is inspired by one of AOIA’s older posts, Analysing: The School Uniform. Also, this is part of a series of posts where I talk about various anime outfits, so this post on school uniforms, will be just the beginning.