Visual Media

In the past few years, the most people visited Comike on the last day of Winter Comike last year (2007). And at the last day of Winter Comike 2008, doujin shops was crowded the most. Toranoana 1st Branch, Melonbooks Akihabara, and Messe Sanoo 3rd Branch limited the number of people entering the stores. At Tora 1st Branch, people once lined up from the 1F to the 4F to enter the 4F, doujinshi floor for men (which mainly sells adult doujinshi).

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I'm gonna report about "Paper Bags came from Comike" I saw in Akiba on the 1st and 2nd days of Comic Market 75. Let me mention that I do not report the whole paper bags I saw in Akiba, and the number of photos is not proportional to frequency of paper bags I saw. Because of a recession (?), I felt like less people had lots of Comike paper bags this time. Also, I thought the number of huge Comike paper bags decreased.

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Doujin shops in Akihabara on the 2nd day of Comic Market 75 reached the peak before 5pm. Last year (2007), Tora 1st Branch limited the number of customers entering its whole building on the 3rd day of Comike, but this year, Melonbooks Akihabara had a limitation on the 2nd day of Comike. Pictures below show what was going on at doujin shops in Akihabara on the 2nd day of Comic Market 75.

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Comic Market 75 began! The number of participants for the first day of Comike was 150,000; 10,000 more people joined this time compare to the last year . Maniax-Z-san reported about Shimapan & Comike in here. In Akihabara, I saw so many people probably came from Comike, having Comike paper bags. At doujin shops, some new doujinshi released at Winter Comike were out. Pictures below show doujin shops in Akihabara and Comike paper bags I saw on the first day of Winter Comike 2008.

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Comic Kairakuten -February Issue- , which comes with an illustrated card, was released on the 26th. According to the information of the magazine, "all starts of Kairakuten gathered! Hanaharu Naruko wrote the cover illustration and a colored story. On top of that, Iori Nishi, Tuzuru Miyabi, Linda, etc, every illustrator who wrote Kairakuten's cover illustrations gathered grandly for the New Year issue!" On the cover, "Bukkake special issue for the year-end and a New Year" was written.

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"Golgo 13 Anime Selection 1 WOMEN," which said "female as its theme, selecting carefully," was released on the 26th, and K-Books Akihabara sold it. According to the comic's information, "we selected the masterpieces from different kinds of themes that were used in anime 'Golgo 13.'" On the cover, "first time for me" or "sex of Golgo 13 is that selfish" were written.

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A bishoujo game by Leaf, " Kimi ga Yobu Megiddo no Oka de " was released on the 26th. Before it was released, a clerk at a store said "we can't get as many as we wanted. On the release day, probably, refugees would appear?" In Nipponbashi, Osaka, it was sold out right after a store opened. In Akiba, " Kimi ga Yobu Megiddo no Oka de " was sold out at many stores by the evening.

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Original artist: yajima Today it was revealed on Crypton’s official blog that CV03 (character voice) will indeed be performed by seiyuu/singer Asakawa Yuu (*Motoko of “Love Hina,” Sakaki of “Azumanga Daioh”). It was believed by many that she would be the voice base due to her affiliation with Arts Vision…

Very cute fan art of Moo Mirai spotted at kaizeru's.
I want some of Mirai's milk.

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Some more Hikikomori news.

A mother leaves home with their eldest daughter after not being able to bear life living with her 35 year old son who has become a hikikomori.

The father of the household (aged 64) had been making dinner for their son for ten years.
The son started to become a hikikomori after graduating from university. He was able to get to interviews but never actually employed by anyone. The son would get angry after getting home - "Why does it never go well for me?!" He broke the TV, smashed glass and threw their pet around the garden.

The sons anger would always start with dinner being served to him. He would complain about the taste, throw the table and demand his father to kneel down before him to apologize.

After his father made the sons lunch and left for work, the son would call his father at work and demand that lunch be re made for him.

On a day off, his father seeked places like the horse racing grounds and the seashore where he would go to watch the sunset. He would also stay away from home in a manga cafe and wait until his son slept before he went home.
In the end, his father started to rent another place to live and only went back to his real home to make food for his son...
The depressing news from mainichi.

What advice would you have for the son and father?
Tidy hikikomori(?) room image from a previous post

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CanCam model Ayumi Sakai will be making her debut as a singer next month. Her song, "Kanashimi wo Itoshisa de," is being used as the theme song of the new "Tokumei Kakarichou Tadano Hitoshi" series on TV Asahi, which officially starts on Thursday.

"Kanashimi wo Itoshisa de" is written by well-known producer Yasushi Akimoto. The single is set to go on sale February 11, but the song has been available as a chaku-uta since Saturday.

image ID#24006 A stock of photos taken by night that were being back logged so this article contains pics from all over Tokyo. image ID#24007 As we take a walk around the metropolis, I wanted to cover one of the most important topics to be covered in the motivational series so far. image ID#24008 We've already talked about one of the biggest barriers in life being "ourselves." We build walls of excuses around ourselves which prevent us from fulfilling our passion. Whether its dormant or discovered, most humans have a passion. image ID#24009 But apart from these walls of excuses that we build around ourselves, there is another thing that prevents us from reaching our destinations - fear. image ID#24010 I previously talked about the fear of asking or proposing but the "fear" I want to talk about today is a different "fear." image ID#24011 The "fear" I'd like to talk about is the fear that something bad is going to happen if one makes a leap - a leap that will contribute towards reaching our destinations. image ID#24012 In my life, there have been a few occasions where the fear of something bad happening has prevented me from making decisions in life which would lead me to my destinations. image ID#24013 As discussed before, humans natural instinct is to protect themselves. When an object is hurled in ones direction, a human naturally raises their arms over their head to protect themselves.
Fear is another natural instinct which we have to protect ourselves.

Some folks fear water because they associate it with drowning. Some fear heights because they associate it with falling to their death. The fear prevents these folks from going near water or high places and thus protects them. image ID#24014 Humans basic needs are to eat and to have shelter - steady income helps with making sure that these needs are covered.

The fear I commonly see among friends is the "I want to start doing blah but if I do so then I risk loosing my current steady income" - could be the case of somebody in the comfort zone but sounds like somebody who is letting their natural instinct of fear protect them. image ID#24015 The fears I personally had prevented me from doing something I wanted to do for a very long time. That "something" would get me out of the unhappy situation that I was in and would enable me to start to fulfill one of my goals in life.

For a long period of time, I let the fear consume me and felt my life wasting away. I was going nowhere fast.
Then some events took place which made me realize that doing nothing would never change that depressing feeling that I had each morning when getting out of bed.

With my new found realization, I took a leap over the valley of fear and I found what I was looking for on the other side - something I would have never found if I never took that leap.

The feeling I had just before the leap was invigorating. Like being released by chains which I imprisoned myself with.
The feeling of traversing over the valley was exhilarating - like literally flying unaided over a huge chasm.

I wish I had come to the realization sooner instead of ending up wasting time being depressed. But life is a learning process and I may not have made the realization that I was consuming myself with fear until it was actually happening to me. I wish for folks reading this to make their realization sooner rather than later. image ID#24016 Fear may come in the form of what you read on the Internets or from what you hear from others.
For example you are told by a friend that she came to Japan to look for a job but had a horrible experience.
Her stories generate visions of the same happening you if you continue to follow your dream of wanting to live and work in Japan.

You are not your friend. You are a completely different person who behaves a speaks differently and your circumstances are completely different. You are special. You are different. The same thing could happen to you but you never know until you try and even if it does, you always see events that don't go according to plan as learning experiences. Life is about learning - don't let fear stop you from learning. image ID#24017 So wrapping up with a very short but simple and important take away - don't let fear consume you.
Fear will prevent you from realizing your dreams and keep you bound by your own chains. image ID#24018 This photo and some others from this article in the Wallpaper Pool. All pics taken with the Lumix LX3 - love that camera.

Some are taken on P setting and some are full manual. The Lumix takes decent pics at Low ISO settings which I usually set to 100 or 200. Always take 3-5 shots at night - one of them will be sharp and the rest blurry ^^; No tripod used for these but do try to find a lamp post to lean the camera against if there is one. image ID#24019 image ID#24020 image ID#24021 image ID#24022 image ID#24023 image ID#24024 image ID#24025 image ID#24026 image ID#24027
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A "Fukubukuro" [福袋[ふくぶくろ]] is a bag full of goodies that goes on sale all over Japan from the 1st of January. "Fuku" means "fortune" and "Bukuro" (pronounced "Fukuro" on its own) means "bag."
15000 people queued up outside a department store in Ikebukuro to get their hands on one.

The tradition of the Fukubukuro goes back to the late Meiji period where it was invented by the Matsuzakaya department store in Ginza (source.)

The bag is sealed and the person buying one doesn't know whats inside. Its usually filled with stuff that the shop couldn't get rid of the previous year - but nobody would buy them if they were called "Shite-we-couldnt-get-rid-of-bag." So what store owners do is put a highly valued item inside some of the bags - brand name items which make some of the bags worth buying.

There have been spinoff bags called Fukoubukuro [不幸袋[ふこうぶくろ]] meaning "bag of misfortune" where the contents are literlly full of shite - example here ^^;

Are you a new years sale junkie? Did you buy anything nice or end up with a load of crap?
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Comic Market 75 (Winter Comike 2008) was held from the 28th to the 30th, and in 3 days, the total of about 510,000 people participated. And on the last day of Comike alone, about 190,000 people visited. On the last day of Comike 75, doujin shops in Akiba started to sell new doujinshi and stores limited the number of customers to enter. Many people came to Akiba with Comike paper bags. I'm gonna report about Akihabara on the last day of Winter Comike like how Ore-news-san reported.

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Please make one for my Dollfie tooooo!
A few more pics at dolly broggu.

Noticed thousands of incremental users who joined dannychoo.com over the holiday period - welcome desu! If you don't know who Mirai is then check out the Mascot page.

Original text from chun below.Spent the last afternoon of my vacation sewing lol! I had fun tho! ^O^

It's still a test sewing at the moment so I had to photoshop some flaws out :P and also sleeves need some work + back and the underskirt ^^; added the "d" logo in photoshop too ^^/

couple more pix on my dolly broggu :3

Thanks for looking!

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EXILE's latest collection, "EXILE BALLAD BEST," is on its way to becoming a double million seller. Released on December 3, the album sold nearly a million copies just in its first week. As of Saturday, the album reached 2 million copies shipped, which is a first for EXILE.

The last album to reach the two-million mark was Kobukuro's "ALL SINGLES BEST," which was released in September 2006 and eventually went on to ship 3 million copies.

More work commissioned from the talented Chun - RSS Mirai.
Feel free to use her on your site to promote your RSS feed.



If you want to use a CSS mouse over then the code you need is

/*mirai roll*/
.mg_mirai_roll a {
display:block;
width:100px;
height:100px;
background: url( http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3256/3166442042_d60fce706d_o.gif ) no-repeat;
}
.mg_mirai_roll a:hover {
display:block;
width:100px;
height:100px;
background: url( http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1145/3166442064_1393e03721_o.gif ) no-repeat;
}

If you do use the images then it would be best to upload to your own server as if I replace them then the link will break.

Will think of a better placement for her.

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Mudazumo naki kaikaku - The Legend of Koizumi is a mahjong manga by Oowada Hideki, also known for his work on gag manga Dai mahou touge. The manga is about how the top heads of each country battle it out with each other in the game of mahjong.

Koizumi Junichiro

Aso Taro

George W. Bush

Papa Bush

General Kim

Vladimir Putin

This is real legendary hardcore action featuring the highest level games of super mahjong that decide the fates of entire nations.

Also the story continues in Kindai Mahjong Original where the Pope has made his appearance now.

PIAPRO source Last year we had a donation drive going for Moetron which proved to be quite a success. That was actually the first time I ever had to ask for such a request, and the result was just so overwhelming. I’m still very grateful for all the support then and now. With the site nearing [...]

Actor Hiroki Narimiya was the victim of theft during a private trip to Brazil. According to his agency, he lost a bag, which contained his cell phone and passport, just after he had put it down. Fortunately, he still had his wallet on him.

Narimiya had left for Brazil on December 28. On January 2, he wrote an entry in his blog about the New Year's celebrations there. In the same entry, he mentioned the theft and explained that he was using the cell phone of a friend he was traveling with so that he could continue to update the blog.

Narimiya filed a police report about the theft, but he will have to apply for a new passport through the Japanese embassy. It is said that it should be ready in time for Narimiya's flight back to Japan on January 11.