I require dumb excuses
As tends to happen, I haven't updated lj in quite a while. ^^; And the only reason that it's happening right now is because I have a couple new icons, and I want to show them off like burning. XD Be mesmerized by the squiggling hips of Kane-chan!Sanada!!!
But I guess I should give a real update now that I'm here~.
A couple weeks after my last post, back in September, I had an awesome long weekend in Tokyo. First I got to watch the second Kuroshitsuji musical in a theater in Ikebukuro. The DVD doesn't come out for a couple more weeks, but I can assure you that it has CRAZY AMOUNTS OF FANSERVICE LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE!!! Lots of men in dresses and canonically gay shinigami. Hopefully, Paula will have her summary of it up soon (once she gets her internet working again).
The following Monday was the best birthday ever!!! It was Paula's birthday, not mine, but it was a holiday (Celebrate your Old People Day) and we went to 2 other back-to-back birthday events for some of our beloved Tenimyu boys that day. So much fun! The first event was for 5th gen Kikumaru's actor, Takasaki Shouta. He was all kinds of adorable but got crashed on by Kubota Yuuki (newer Atobe) who kinda totally stole the show. XD The guy brought a bottle of wine for Shouta's birthday, and then proceeded to DRINK THE ENTIRE THING ON STAGE IN THE SPACE OF ABOUT 15 MINUTES. XDDD;; A full report of that event can be read on Fencer's blog here.
The second event was for Bancho aka Kitadai Takashi aka Tenimyu's Tachibana B. The main MC was his "best friend" Ryuuko. Things I took away from this event were the fact that all of his fans think Bancho and Ryuuko are totally gay for each other, and also that Bancho is absolutely adorable in a "he cries a lot and looks like a gorilla" kinda way. XD ♥. After I got my 30 seconds of talking with him, telling him who I was and how much I enjoyed the event (in Japanese, mind you) he stared at me like a deer in headlights but smiled and thanked me, and as I was walking away he screamed "KINCHOU SHITAAAA~" (basically "GOD I WAS NERVOUS!") to the room. XDDD He's shy with new foreigners, it seems. X3
The week after that I got a drastic hair cut at a place in Shibukawa that's really nice to foreigners. For the first time in my life, I have bangs! *o* Here's my hair before. Here's my hair after. And here's my hair in that awkward transition phase where I accidentally dyed it purple. XD;; Seriously, that's not a trick of the light. I would have kept it for a while if I weren't working at various schools in a rural Japanese town where purple hair is definitely not okay. ^^; Oops!
The next weekend I went to Nikko for a day trip with a bunch of high school boys from New Zealand. We visited the Toshogu Shrine, built to house the spirit of Ieyasu, and then saw the Kegon Waterfall. Pictures from that trip can be seen in my facebook album starting with the red pagoda about halfway down the page.
And finally, this past weeked. Paula had another event to go to in Tokyo, so I tagged along and made it into a cosplay trip! I got to debut my Kamen Rider W cosplay at the Girls' Festa in Ikebukuro's Sunshine City. I was Shoutarou and Paula was my Philip. It was pretty funny, because at least 3 times, we heard people recognize the Philip cosplay and twitter happily, but not a single person had an "Oh! Shoutarou! ♥ " moment. xP I got really half boiled and started ranting about it in Japanese the second time it happened. The girls who'd pointed out Philip most definitely heard me and seemed to think it was funny, at least. ^^;
There really wasn't much to do at the event besides look at promotional booths and new pretty boy merchandise, so we left after a couple hours of browsing and taking pictures. We didn't feel like we needed to go back the next day, even though we'd brought along some Junjo Egoist cosplay. Instead we took pictures of those back in the privacy of Paula's apartment. It was hard with just the two of us, no photographer, and not even a tripod, but we managed. :Db!
This weekend we're going to some sort of German village here in Gunma for a cosplay event. It seems there's actually a really active cosplay community around Gunma, which holds events a few times a month! *o* ♥ Hopefully, we'll get to know some more Japanese cosplayers this way. We've even made business cards to try and help people relate back to us. ^_^
And next week I get to start teaching a big mass of lessons about American Halloween. Which for me means more dressing up! I asked permission, and all the teachers said it was okay for me to wear costumes to my Halloween lessons. XD ♥ We'll see if any of my students recognize the Tenipuri, the Kamen Rider, or the MaguMaria cosplays~.
But I guess I should give a real update now that I'm here~.
A couple weeks after my last post, back in September, I had an awesome long weekend in Tokyo. First I got to watch the second Kuroshitsuji musical in a theater in Ikebukuro. The DVD doesn't come out for a couple more weeks, but I can assure you that it has CRAZY AMOUNTS OF FANSERVICE LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE!!! Lots of men in dresses and canonically gay shinigami. Hopefully, Paula will have her summary of it up soon (once she gets her internet working again).
The following Monday was the best birthday ever!!! It was Paula's birthday, not mine, but it was a holiday (Celebrate your Old People Day) and we went to 2 other back-to-back birthday events for some of our beloved Tenimyu boys that day. So much fun! The first event was for 5th gen Kikumaru's actor, Takasaki Shouta. He was all kinds of adorable but got crashed on by Kubota Yuuki (newer Atobe) who kinda totally stole the show. XD The guy brought a bottle of wine for Shouta's birthday, and then proceeded to DRINK THE ENTIRE THING ON STAGE IN THE SPACE OF ABOUT 15 MINUTES. XDDD;; A full report of that event can be read on Fencer's blog here.
The second event was for Bancho aka Kitadai Takashi aka Tenimyu's Tachibana B. The main MC was his "best friend" Ryuuko. Things I took away from this event were the fact that all of his fans think Bancho and Ryuuko are totally gay for each other, and also that Bancho is absolutely adorable in a "he cries a lot and looks like a gorilla" kinda way. XD ♥. After I got my 30 seconds of talking with him, telling him who I was and how much I enjoyed the event (in Japanese, mind you) he stared at me like a deer in headlights but smiled and thanked me, and as I was walking away he screamed "KINCHOU SHITAAAA~" (basically "GOD I WAS NERVOUS!") to the room. XDDD He's shy with new foreigners, it seems. X3
The week after that I got a drastic hair cut at a place in Shibukawa that's really nice to foreigners. For the first time in my life, I have bangs! *o* Here's my hair before. Here's my hair after. And here's my hair in that awkward transition phase where I accidentally dyed it purple. XD;; Seriously, that's not a trick of the light. I would have kept it for a while if I weren't working at various schools in a rural Japanese town where purple hair is definitely not okay. ^^; Oops!
The next weekend I went to Nikko for a day trip with a bunch of high school boys from New Zealand. We visited the Toshogu Shrine, built to house the spirit of Ieyasu, and then saw the Kegon Waterfall. Pictures from that trip can be seen in my facebook album starting with the red pagoda about halfway down the page.
And finally, this past weeked. Paula had another event to go to in Tokyo, so I tagged along and made it into a cosplay trip! I got to debut my Kamen Rider W cosplay at the Girls' Festa in Ikebukuro's Sunshine City. I was Shoutarou and Paula was my Philip. It was pretty funny, because at least 3 times, we heard people recognize the Philip cosplay and twitter happily, but not a single person had an "Oh! Shoutarou! ♥ " moment. xP I got really half boiled and started ranting about it in Japanese the second time it happened. The girls who'd pointed out Philip most definitely heard me and seemed to think it was funny, at least. ^^;
There really wasn't much to do at the event besides look at promotional booths and new pretty boy merchandise, so we left after a couple hours of browsing and taking pictures. We didn't feel like we needed to go back the next day, even though we'd brought along some Junjo Egoist cosplay. Instead we took pictures of those back in the privacy of Paula's apartment. It was hard with just the two of us, no photographer, and not even a tripod, but we managed. :Db!
This weekend we're going to some sort of German village here in Gunma for a cosplay event. It seems there's actually a really active cosplay community around Gunma, which holds events a few times a month! *o* ♥ Hopefully, we'll get to know some more Japanese cosplayers this way. We've even made business cards to try and help people relate back to us. ^_^
And next week I get to start teaching a big mass of lessons about American Halloween. Which for me means more dressing up! I asked permission, and all the teachers said it was okay for me to wear costumes to my Halloween lessons. XD ♥ We'll see if any of my students recognize the Tenipuri, the Kamen Rider, or the MaguMaria cosplays~.