Karaoke Neon, Shimo-kitazawa 下北沢

マルディグラ (Mardi Gras)

Shimo-Kitazawa, Setagaya, Tokyo (February 8th, 2020)

"she should have been at the clubbbb" yeah... Shelter Live House in Shimo-Kitazawa, Tokyo

Here is my Comiket haul, for those who may care!

Arranged on the apartment chabudai for maximum weeb vibes. I won't go through all of them, just note a few to showcase the diversity of things that were on offer. If there is one someone wants a deep dive on, let me know, happy to take photos!

First up, the centerfold star - A Bocchi/Shimo-Kitazawa Fan Celebration doujin in the shape of a vinyl record:

Its extremely adorable, these guys went all in. It comes in an album case with "tracks", the vinyl-shaped doujin has an A side and a B side with totally different content when flipped, and when you are reading it the text slowly rotates page by page as if you are "playing" the disc.

Some of it is the circle's thoughts on Bocchi, but more is about their love for the part of Tokyo that Bocchi takes place in, Shimo-Kitazawa, with sections on show-accurate locations and favourite cafes and stores. They even included a map with all of the spots they recommend you visit in the area!

This one is to me the most "magic of doujin": we all have favourite parts of our cities, and if we sat down could maybe make a map like this. But why would we do that? Who would care? The joint power of a locally-set anime & Comiket, however, makes that personal map into a piece of art people want to own. This piece is pure creativity & passion, and its very special for that - a symbol of doujinshi.

Also one of their members spoke fluent English and aggressively upsold foreigners at the event ^_^ Successfully so! Good job.

For something a little less high concept, this tiny artbook of Rin from Laid-Back Camp as Ghibli characters is adorable:

A smol kiki, too cute. And look at her as Nausicaa! Full blue and ready to kick ass.

Its like 5 pages and each page is a gem, great buy.

This next one is a genre of book I really love - the photography/anime composite book focusing on scene locations, starring our girl Haruhi Suzumiya:

I appreciate how much fun this one has with its concept, lots of cute drawings on the margins; and the photographs are not all Haruhi related, instead it is just the author's own journey put through a Haruhi lens. This book is another great example of how "transformative" these works are, breaking the bounds of their source material.

"Hey, its me!"

Okay, now for some extreme Ash-brand doujin - Flowers for Yamada-san, a history doujin about Hiroyoshi Yamada, also known by the name Koji Kawamoto, a manga & magazine editor who played an instrumental part of the lolicon boom of the 1980's:

He passed away this year, and so this doujin is a memorial to him, an accounting of his influence and role in early manga, a wider discussion of the lolicon boom in general, and its own creative work; sandwiched between essays are comic depictions of moments of his career done in a mimicry the classic loli/bishoujo early 80's style:

This will of course take some time to read - I am excited to dig into it. As I have mentioned before, I am toying with the idea of a deeper research project on the "lolicon boom"; its, for understandable reasons, extremely neglected in western discourse of the history of anime & manga. But that moral aversion doesn't change how instrumental this period was, so I think a lot of good work could be done documenting and explaining its place. This book was an amazing find to stumble upon, and the creators are extremely well-researched on this period.

Anyway this is probably long enough lol. I did find some ero-doujin as well of course, though very few - as I mentioned, Comiket was a warzone, and I did not 'prep' for that side of things. I laughed at the idea of people doing days of research to prep of their porn buying adventure - I was the fool, they the wise, you absolutely need to do that if that is your goal. It wasn't really mine but I respect it now for sure - and I actually found the Comiket experience sort of liberating on that front, I "get it" now in a way I didn't before.

This is of course a tiny sliver of the book buys from Japan - hopefully I can make a few posts about the rest soon.

We’re in Shimo-Kitazawa today to continue the Bocchi Pilgrimage, the store you see them at sometimes (Village/Vanguard) has a full on Slam Dunk shelf. Also a lot other collections (including Dorohedoro)

January 27, 2023 / Shimo-kitazawa Tokyo

For those who might not know, I have a volunteer photography project called “Photohoku” where I gift photographs to people in need. It would take while to share all about it, but I just encourage you to check it out. But one of technical the aspects of it, not completely unlike Tokyo Record Style, is approaching (read: accosting) strangers, trying to diffuse their immediate apprehension with some welcoming, unthreatening charm and an honest smile (which, in a world filled with nefariously-intended people requires a certain finesse), and in a very, very short amount of time, seconds really, sell them on a genuine creative idea that basically involves their participation, and assure them that the result, and the connection forged from the shared faith and goodwill, will actually be an authentic human experience, and very well worth it. Absolutely, one of the most interesting aspects of this approach, is witnessing the very moment, the second in time, expressed in the face and eyes, when impressions change from suspicion to trust. It’s simultaneously a subtle and yet beautifully dramatic transition - a revelation of sorts. For them, it might feel like relief that the ticking time bomb’s red wire was cut, but for me, it’s quite the opposite, like that single first firework launched, rising higher and higher in the air, too high maybe, then the silence and suspense of wondering if it’s a dud, or if it will indeed actually explode, hanging in the sky… then BOOM!!! The heavens lights up, queue circus pipe-organ music, the show is about to begin! “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages…” Sorry, got carried away there, but now imagine for a moment being Aurelian pictured here, French expat living in Bali, running a restaurant called “O La La”, then coming to Tokyo, on holiday, for first time, walking alone in the dimly-lit back streets of foreign county, perhaps with a wallet filled of record-collecting cash for extremely rare and expensive collector Serge Gainsboug pressings, and encountering a fast-talking, obnoxiously dressed, over-enthusiastic national of yet a DIFFERENT country, speaking half-English, half Japanese to you, trying to chat you about about records. You’d be suspicious too. Hell, I’D be suspicious too! Well, lucky for both of us, Aurelian let his guard down, offered a warm smile, and both our hearts melted a little. Not only did were we made instant pals by music, but thankfully and reassuringly our mutual faith in humanity was restored, …and the occasion was marked with these photographs. Thanks, for sharing Aurelian. Congrats on the huge score. So happy we met! I listened to chanson all day yesterday and I’m better for it! Enjoy the rest of your Tokyo time! And more Tokyo Record style coming up! #Tokyo #record #style #tokyorecordstyle #records #music #recordcollector #recordstore #vinyl #vinylcollector #vinylrecords #vinylrecord #rock #latin #45 #pop #Chanson #shimokitazawa #france #bali #traveler (at Shimo-Kitazawa , Tokyo) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnvJA89vdxM/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

3/3/24 - Shimo-Kitazawa

Walked around Shimo-Kitazawa

Translucent, Shimo-kitazawa 下北沢

光波標識

BOCCHI THE ROCK × SHIMO-KITAZAWA ANTHOLOGY

Short Stories – 真鯛

Essay – 浅野皓生

Illustrations – 凝固川どろり / enden / あをもみじ

Photography – れんず / ちさとし / あをもみじ

Design – あをもみじ

Release – 2023.08.12（Comic Market 102）

Retail – Melonbooks

押忍 一KOBUSHI銘柄ー 暑気払い割引き券配布中！ よろしっ🇯🇵 20%OFFクーポンコード↓ 2022kbs8 拳衣店↓ https://kobushi.stores.jp/items/6279f612f4acdf290a32a3e6 #サマーセール #summersale #安売り #ポロシャツ #poloshirt #ネイビー #navy #タンカラー #tan #ベージュカラー #beige #黒 #black #速乾素材 #刺繍 #ガンメタ #夏コーデ #拳 #虎武士 #拳ブランド #拳brand #kobushibrand #無骨 #武骨 #sportwear #golfwear #warkout #拳太 #jgrenkenta #侍服 (Shimo-Kitazawa , Tokyo) https://www.instagram.com/p/Chq_FeIPmcB/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

かわいいライオン (Shimo-Kitazawa , Tokyo) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgbptJyvrt0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Alright, last batch:

The first half of these are "Official" Anime Books. We have the Official Guide Books for Yuru Camp & Bocchi the Rock, modern buys from a Kinokuniya. They are what you would expect: character designs, concept art, episode & story guides, cast & crew interviews, etc. I was very happy with the level of photography they have - Laid Back Camp of course has a ton of pages comparing photographs of the actual camp sites with their anime depictions, while the Bocchi book has a bunch of Shimo-Kitazawa scene spotting. The Bocchi book also has a page laying out all of the art used in its EDs, which I really love for their pastel-chibi style, very kino:

But I will admit how standardized this style of book has become is a little sad - these two unrelated anime have nearly identical layouts, because that is how it works these days. There is a reason I am drawn to the earlier history of anime so much, it was way more unfiltered. A minor note though on otherwise very fun buys.

Finally we have Haruhi-ism: The Art of Noizi Ito. This is a full-on waifu book, just a big collection of splash art of Haruhi being Haruhi and the rest of cast dealing with her bullshit with erotic flecks sprinkled throughout. A real whim buy as I picked it up for a few dollars; the used book market in Japan is truly amazing, I get now how people build such massive collections. What is cute though is that Noizi Ito is the illustrator for the light novels; she didn't work on the anime in any real way, and it shows:

Kyon and Mikuru have the greatest difference in design, but the style difference hits them all in some ways. The anime's visual design is of course far more omnipresent that the light novel illustrations are; it makes this book feel like its from a slightly parallel universe, where Ito was brought on to do the designs for the anime so its entire concept is shifted just a bit to the metaphorical left. The Berenstein Bears branch of Haruhi's multiverse, if you will.

The bottom three are more unique - additions to what I would call the "otaku studies" collection, books by otaku doing media or cultural analysis of anime or otakudom itself. First is A New Millenialist Perspective on the Daughters of Eve, by Mari Kotani, which is a feminist & post-modernist exploration of Evangelion. This whole genre of books...well, here is the back cover, in English for your convenience:

"Here, post-structuralist psychoanalytical theory will enable us to define Angel as the representation of 'abjection' in-" okay buddy, put down the weed and step away from the graduate studies applications, lets go for a walk. Seriously, stuff like this was absolutely in the water in 90's Japan; it was going through a huge wave of psycho-analytic sociology that broke into the mainstream. Back in the day there was a tendency to use this stuff as a way to "understand Eva" - that is backwards, Evangelion is not that deep. But instead, you can see works like these as a byproduct of fandom and the media mix - how Evangelion's brand as the "intellectual's show" was propagated and reinforced over time, and how a certain kind of fan related to it. Eva-as-show does not need these texts, but Eva-as-cultural-event was built from bricks like these. Its not the biggest "Eva philosophy" book but was well-enough known in its day, so it should be fun to read.

Okay, I'll be quick on the others: next is Kurahon, by Hideyuki Kurata - manga author of works like Read or Die. This books is a bunch of autobiographical-style essays about him being a complete hikikomori shut-in otaku collector maniac, complete with 2D Girl supremacy tracts and manifestos for the life of the outsider. Its extremely 2000's in its genre, this kind of ideology would die down as otaku culture transitioned fro- NOT NOW, deep breaths, whew, back on topic. Anyway, this books is insane, this is literally the first in-line image in the book as you go through his text:

Kurata is a lunatic, but he is my kind of lunatic, and this text has a level of raw, intense honesty and cultural reflection in it that really makes it stand out.

Last book is an edition of the print series Eureka! Haruhi Suzumiya Edition, which was a literary & cultural studies joint that collected essays on topics. Wait, one sec...sorry, not 'was', 'is', they are still at it! They have an upcoming collection on Tolkein, cool. Anyway, this of course falls into a similar genre of the Eva book as being quite high-concept, but is from a more diverse set of authors and is a bit more grounded. It has a whole section on Doujin and meta-textual elements in the anime fandom of Haruhi, excited to read that.

Okay okay, that is the Japan books, generally. Though I did realize that I had imported a few things before that I never posted about when they arrived, I might throw those on the stack and do a post about a few...

Since you're in Tokyo you have GOT to get down to Kanazawa-Hakkei, or at the very least Shimo-Kitazawa since you're in the Shinjuku area

What’s in there! I don’t think I’ve heard of it!