- tokyo chapter: jump dattebayo!!! part 2 -

currently listening to - ningyohime (koda kumi)
mood - relaxed

my posts are still way behind time.... memories fading away too. bwaaah..

*****

1st of all... pictures. which i didnt post earlier...

^ allen!!! this picture's definitely more than 2m ^

^ goods section. had to wait in batches before we could reach the booths.. ^

^ naruto dattebayo!! ^

^ ichigo giant figure! ^

^ gin-san what are you doing on the screen... ^

^ giant kyubi head... ^

^ luffy giant figure! dont know why but it's been segregated to exhibition hall zone 3 ^

*****

thought of waking up earlier in the morning, so that we could attack more stuff in the fest the next day (17 dec). unfortunately (yeah yeah..), it was too cold outside (hey, everyone was "smoking" okay..) and the futon was too warm and comfortable (not as comfortable as my bed but well..)............

this *approximately* one-week stay in tokyo really made me realise that transportation fees will eat up a lot of money from our monthly allowances when we shift to kanto district next year. dont really know how much will it cost to travel to another state by train back home, but going to chiba from shinjuku is definitely not cheap to me. 620 yen from shinjuku to kaihin makuhari (where the anime fest was). which is about... S$10. a round trip will cost more than S$20. and we went to chiba twice. furthermore, we planned to go to disneyland and disneysea as well, each cost 620 yen too.

ah, what else can we do. we've already known that the living expenses for tokyo will be much higher than that of osaka, well at least, compared to gaidai.

good thing is, we managed to familiarise ourselves with the train system in tokyo, which is much more complicated than that of umeda. the 1st time when we went to kaihin makuhari, all we could do was to follow the crowd blindly (which was probably going towards disneyland. kaihin makuhari is like.. next to it) and watch out for signboards. after arriving at the station, we had to take another long walk to finally reach the exhibition halls. this experience, to those who didnt rest well thanks to the night bus, definitely contributed to the weariness.

alright enough of ramblings. let's get on..

our main purpose of the day: take loads of pictures with the cosplayers. so we headed towards the cosplaying section straight. on the way, we were obstructed (eh?) by this huge crowd gathering around a small stage. on the stage there stood the voice actors / actresses for Luffy, Sanji, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, and a guy with funky (?) silver hair who had a raspy / hoarse voice (who, later on, appeared to be the voice actor of Jango, Mr. 2 and Franky). since it was something to do with one piece, we had no choice but to postpone our jouney in search of cosplayers and find out what's going on there.

apparently it was a promotional event for the newest one piece movie which will be shown next year. for one piece movies in previous years, the storyplots were not based on any part of the manga and they were all original. whereas this time, the producer decided to re-make the Alabaster arc, in the form of a movie. according to the producer, this arc is one of the best arcs in one piece and is loved by everyone in the production. that's why they wanted to present it to the fans in a different point of view. the voice actors seemed very excited on the new movie too (aiya obviously la hor..), especially Mr. 2's voice actor, who declared that he will transform himself into a real okama for the movie.

before the promotional event ended, each voice actor was asked to leave a message to all who came for the event. and the yamaguchi kappei did it again, by leaving really a message for all of us.

"chinko desu."

hai, next....

the time has come. for us to intrude the cosplaying section. as i've mentioned in the previous post, dgrayman and gintama are becoming real popular. so wherever we went, we saw gin-san and company and allen and company..... whatever it was, we succeeded in attacking most of the cosplayers, including those for dgrayman, gintama, one piece, naruto, reborn, bleach, death note and even rurouni kenshin... it was freezing cold at the cosplaying section (coz it's not indoor), still everyone ran around chasing after their "idols" with cameras.. i myself wasnt that crazy over cosplayers (and i probably wont be), so i guess this must be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. unless i start going to anime conventions in japan every year...

^ reborn cosplayers. scarily a lot of them.. realise there are doubles in this picture. ^

^ dgrayman cosplayers. dont need me to explain who's who, right? ^

^ akatsuki members, unite!! ^

^ lame manga produce lame cosplayers, huh? (i meant the pose) ^

^ how i wish i had her costumes.. ^

^ rare cosplayers spotted! vivi, luffy, nami and chopper in alabaster. ^

^ rare alert!! franky!!! no idea why sanji's in the middle among the CP9... ^

^ speechless.... ^

^ i like this cross marian. ^

^ it took me a while to figure out whether they're male / female in disguise... ^

there were very mezurashii cosplayers too, not to mention. on the 16th there was orochimaru, but i didnt get to see him with my own eyes... then on the 17th there's a very mafia-boss looking crocodile (the one piece villain) in his expensive-looking grey fur coat, and there's a tall nico robin in white (with her white cowboy hat of course). and we didnt expect to actually see a franky too. the exact franky that we see in the manga. yes. salute for his bravery (brave enough to show his thighs, and brave enough to withstand the cold). also, there was the sogeking.... but he was running around the exhibition halls so we couldnt take a picture of him...

lastly, we returned to the jump stage to watch the final show of the day. a one piece show. again, the voice actors / actresses showed up, as well as odacchi. this time, they actually came in obasan outfit (all of them, including sanji and zoro, AND odacchi), with AFRO. some of you might know how they look like if you have watched / read the once piece "obasan time". by the way odacchi's afro was pink, and zoro wore beige-coloured tights under his apron which is supposed to make him look naked (and sexy?). the others were wondering why he had to wear like that, and he answered something like this, "why. isnt it obvious? if you wear an apron, surely you'll think of going naked underneath!"

in addition to these noisy people, there came the voice actor for Mr. 2 too. initially he was only wearing this hawaiian shirt (unbuttoned) with *tight* brown underpants. he couldnt stop doing the HG waist-shaking thing, so in the end he was forced to dress up as an ojisan. 2 important voice actresses couldnt come to the event, nico robin and chopper. they appeared on the huge screen and entertained the crowd for a while, though.

first it started with reminiscing their (the luffy gang's) time with the Going Merry (their ship). suddenly the whole stage (and the audiences) became so serious and gloomy that even some audiences (to be exact, one of those CP9 cosplayers in front of us) started crying. oh, come on...... ah, by the way, sogeking came to jump stage to watch one piece too..

then they moved on to the variety-show-like section, where the voice actors are asked to stand up and sue anyone whom they werent happy with. 1st, zoro was sued by luffy for farting on the chair earlier on. he protested that he has been acting in one piece for 8 years and he had only farted once (before luffy and company entered the grand line), and he didnt fart at all this time. "it's the chair that was squeaking!" next, mr. 2 got sued by sanji because he could act for 3 characters (jango, mr.2 and franky) and currently in the story he's even joining the strawhat family. somehow the arguments got more complicated and everyone ended up sueing odacchi. however, things settled down (?) when odacchi said, "maybe i should consider re-shuffling the voice actors for the one piece roles next year..."

though christmas was still way ahead, the event came to an end with everyone (people on the stage and the audiences) singing one of the famous one piece songs "Family", which, at the end of the song, Tanaka Mayumi (Luffy) shouted "Go! Go! Going!!"... and everyone answered..

"Merry Christmas!!!!!"

that was a very touching ending... (TmT)

to think that it's been so many years, and manga / anime like one piece havent lost their fans... and many promising manga are coming up as well.. i must say, to me, jump comics is the best. im not an otaku, to be honest. but how do i live without these manga? how do i li~ve witho~ut you.. i want to know.. how to i brea~the witho~ut you.. if you ever go.. how do i ever~ ever survi~~~ve....... ahem. yeah. im 20. going on 21 in a month's time. but i doubt that i would stop reading japanese manga for the time being.

i was right to stay in japan for the winter holidays.

*****

1) futon - mattress / quilt.
2) okama - homo.
3) mezurashii - rare.
4) obasan - japanese auntie. stereotype: has curly hair. wears apron and carries a basket around all the time.
5) ojisan - japanese uncle. stereotype: bald. wears white singlet, stomach-band, ragged shorts and slippers.