Ah, after 3 months of somewhat summer vacation, it's finally that time again to start the new year of campus. But that's not worth to talk about since nothing out of the ordinary had happened yet.
What I'm trying to elaborate in this post is the fact that I spent 3 months of my vacation indulging my self in the ever famous Japanese animes and mangas.
Gachapon (ガチャポン)! I bought lots of these cute things
Yes, basically I've filled my supposed to be productive vacation with lots of anime watching and manga reading. So far I've finished watching Ao no Exorcist, Another, Persona 4, and started watching Bakuman and Beelzebub. As for the manga I've re-read Katekyo Hitman Reborn, D.Gray-man, Yakitate Japan!, Bleach, and also I started to read Ao no Exorcist, Beelzebub, and Bakuman. So much shounen battle stories!
And after reading Bakuman I came to a further understanding on what mangakas do actually. A manga about a mangaka's life is pretty interesting, really. It somewhat lit a fire on my old dream to be a mangaka. But considering my tendencies to procrastinate, that basically put the fire out.
From the manga Bakuman, I've come to have a huge fondness towards Niizuma Eiji, the eccentric-genius-young mangaka who is also the rival of the protagonist, Ashirogi Muto (pen name for Mashiro Moritaka and Takagi Akito). His multiple personalities intrigue me. Basically his a nutshell that you can fall in love with. The fact that the seiyuu (voice actor) for Niizuma Eiji in the anime adaptation of Bakuman is none other than Nobuhiko Okamoto (who is also the seiyuu of my favorite Ao no Exorcist character, Okumura Rin) makes me ten times loving Eiji!
Look at his face, it's just priceless! スピーーン！
I highly recommend this manga to you! I love it to the extent of buying the Jump Comic volume ones although I don't even know a lot Japanese. I can learn my Japanese through the manga also since they have the hiraganas written beside the all the wiggly kanjis.
And on top of that, my love for Niizuma Eiji has brought me to purchase the Nendoroid figure of him! Now I have my own mini Eiji in my room.
It's Detective Trap and Azuki-chan!
Oh I can ramble on about anime and stuff, but I know it'll never end. So if you wanna talk about anime or manga, or if you have interest in Japanese culture in general, let's have a chat sometimes.
The crème de la crème of my sudden anime addiction over the summer is the Anime Festival Asia Indonesia 2012 (AFA ID 2012) that I went to with my sister yesterday. We anticipated this event ever since the commercial airs in Animax and couldn't even believe that we were actually going. I mean, it's not the kind of environment that we usually surround ourselves with. I do like Japanese culture, but I never went to things like these before. So it was a really great experience when we got there. The queue for entry tickets was an ass though. We had to queue for an hour or so around 9.30 am.
After we got in, it was already crowded (for my standards). We visited the Good Smile Company booth and saw lots of Vocaloid Nendoroids! I don't know why but I only saw mainly Vocaloid characters though. Oh, and Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica characters!
There was also lots of other booths selling anime merchandises such as from One Peace, Kamen Rider, Bleach, and more. But what caught my eyes was this astonishing display of Persona 4's Inzanagi! Oh I'm in love.
There was lot's of people I couldn't even comprehend. My brain usually doesn't work in crowds since I can't focus. So I didn't take a lot of pictures. I ended up only buying few things too, like more gachapons. However, my goal on coming to this event is not only to experience the world of figures, cosplay, and anime, but also... drum roll..., the Atelier Royale Butler Café! Yes, you didn't read it wrong, it definitely said butler café. This, of all the things that I can't imagine having in the event, is the sole purpose I came. To experience being served by charming butlers. Unfortunatly, that goal had to be shared by numerous amount of girls in there (there were also Moe Moe Kyun Café for the boys to enjoy).
Yet another queue was in order. The longest queue that I've experienced so far to be exact. It was about 2 hours or so. My legs were basically dead after one and a half hour. But the pain had been washed away after we got in and sat down on our table. We were greeted by the head butler, Haru, and accompanied by our own butler, Ren. He was a nice fellow, a hint of shyness was portrayed in his demeanor. None the less, he was handsome. We had a talk got to know him a bit. But maybe he wanted us to talked more since he was a bit out of his head when we asked him something. I guess having to serve lots of squealing girls for hours and hours is a tad tiresome. When we asked him that, he smiled and said he was alright with it. I salute you butlers (and maids on the other side).
The situation looked pretty hectic, butlers were coming and going. Despite all that they still prioritize keeping a good conversation with their costumers. Another butler came up to us and start up a chat. His name was Takuya. Takuya was a bit more talkative than Ren and cheeky. We talked about animes and stuff also. He somewhat resembles MBLAQ's Joon (from the picture above, he's the first person from the left). And to top it off, Takuya has a surprisingly familiar background. I'm just gonna keep that to myself. Teehee.
Basically it was a great experience, aside from the cost and the effort, it was really fun. We also had our pictures taken with the butlers. My sister took hers with Ren and I took mine with Takuya since they were the butlers that served us. It was like a dream, a too good to be true kinda thing.
These are all the things I got from the AFA and also some that I bought from SCOOP/スクープ. I got myself a couple of gachapons and the GazettE's DIVISION album. After AFA we went to the nearest mall to move away from the hustle and bustle we experienced since morning. We went there using a bajaj. Another epic experience to add on that day. At the mall we visited SCOOP, a really cute stationary and trinket store. I seriously love the store, but was too tired to take a picture of it. Maybe another day I'll have to take a picture of it. I bought lots and lots of postcards, especially the polaroid ones. The cards have pictures of Japan environments. It's super nice! And that cute fan is also from SCOOP.
Ah, this is another version of impulsive week. This is more like an impulsive and also sudden Japanese themed vacation. But even though my supposedly productive vacation became like this... I don't regret anything.
あなたは一度だけ生きる。
