If you’ve attended an anime, videogame or comic convention in the last two months, chances are you’ve seen someone wearing a Spirit Hood. The irresistibly soft and stylish nature of the Spirit Hood locks and pulls attention in like a tractor beam on a Star Destroyer. Not to mention Spirit Hoods are sexy to boot. With that said, I am going to go on record and say that Spirit Hoods have officially crossed the moat, broken down the gate and are taking the geek, otaku and nerd nation by storm.

A few days prior to this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) I received a press release announcing MMORPG publisher/developer Nexon’s first foray into the the industry-only event. The release also gave mention to Spirit Hoods, and stated that Nexon would be handing them out regularly to booth visitors in effort to promote their forthcoming title, Vindictus. Now, truth be told, the first thing I though to myself after reading this release was “what the hell is a Spirit Hood?” However, I found my interest peaked and decided to do a little research. One Google search later and I found myself shooting off an email to set up an interview.

My efforts proved fruitful and I managed to catch up with Spirit Hoods co-founder, Alexander Mendeluk at E3 to talk Spirit Hoods, fashion and being wild at heart.

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It’s been six months after we first saw pictures of Kirsten Dunst in Akihabara wearing a bastardized magical girl costume. First puzzled with the mystery of it all, later on intrigued when we found out that it was a music video that would be part of a much larger documentary about Otaku culture. Now it’s finally here on the interwebs for our enjoyment.

I must say I’m pleasantly surprised at the diverse picture of Akihabara they displayed. Normally when the mainstream west approaches the Otaku world it’s with a very biased perspective, but this video has it all. From pachinko parlors to maid cafes, from idolm@aster to eroge figures and posters. While I’m no fan of the song, Kirsten’s performance was good and we’ll certainly be on the lookout for more information once the full documentary is out.

My only regret? That the happy flower guy we saw back in October appears only a couple of times. What’s your take on this video?

P.S. More Kirsten Dunst panty shots… HHHHHHNG…

Miku fans rejoice, after the first 2 successful ‘live’ concerts by Hatsune Miku there’s, you guessed it, going to be a 3rd one. This time on March 9 of next year and it will be the first solo concert, completely Miku centered. Sadly they are sticking with the giant projector screen format instead of the holographic route. A pity, but I cant see the experience of going to see a computer program sing getting any less real.

[ANN]

This is quite disheartening, it really is. Robo-One just took place in Japan, you’ll remember it as the place were Japan practices for the giant mecha battles of tomorrow. The best in Hobby and semi-pro robotics are in display and it’s usually a great place to go and see what the future holds.

Well, my friends, if this dancing schoolgirl robot is what awaits us… I don’t see what the hurry is. This poor thing just wobbles around like a coat hanger come to life. These are not the robo girlfriends our forefathers promised. This isn’t why they spilled their blood in war. It’s a dark day.

[Tokyomango]

Tokyomango’s Lisa Katayama gives a report on this past Sunday’s wedding of a Japanese man and his virtual girlfriend, Nene Anegasaki, from the DS game Love Plus. This is not the first time we’ve heard of Otaku trying to get hitched to their true 2D loves, but it’s certainly the first that’s been this ceremonious. They give it a performance art twist but come on. When you think Japan, do you think of edgy performance artists making social commentary? Or do you think sad lonely men obsessed with fantasy characters?

Congratulations to the groom, I heard he spent the wedding night reading erotic doujins, how romantic.

Who hasn’t had one of those days where a super hero team starts harassing you for no reason? I know it happens to me at least twice a month! This is also the story of Katori Shintaro, who never thought he was a good guy, but never thought he was a bad guy either. Especially not one bad enough to destroy the earth.

This skit came out years ago, before DDN even existed, for completition’s sake and due to the request of Sanime over in our chat, we’re posting it.

We’ve seen lots of people do their own renditions of Videogame themes but it’s much more rare to see someone do a remarkable anime music performance. Much more remarkable is it when it’s a whole marching band performing an anime theme!

Such is the case with Towson University’s TIGER Marching Band and their rendition of Cowboy Bebop’s Tank! a couple of weeks ago. You can almost imagine the geek fervor it must have taken to get the whole band to go along with it. It’s an arrangement for marching band so there are subtle differences with the original theme but this is something we definitely want to see more of!

These above are all of the voice clips included in the Nanami Madobe, Windows 7-tan, theme for Windows 7 included in some of the Japanese editions. Sounds for all your basic windows actions, including the dings, the beeps and the system errors. Boy oh boy, I don’t think I’d mind constant system errors with this. This is the official complaint deterrent for obscure errors only found by geeks, it turns errors into features and nerd rage into a moe-induced trance.

At last, a little update on that whole Kirsten Dunst doing mahou shojou cosplay we reported on a while ago. It has emerged that the shooting was indeed a music video. In fact she was singing the much cliche’d and ad hoc song ‘Turning Japanese’.

What’s more though is that the video is to be part of a much larger film based on Akihabara culture directed by Takashi Murakami, who long time readers might remember as the director of this excellent superflat Louis Vuitton video we posted back in 2007. The film is titled “Akihabara Majokko Princess”. Above you’ll find a couple of images of Muramaki, the first being him in front of a giant print allusive to the film, you can even see the legs of a giant Kirsten Dunst in her infamous cosplay, terrorizing the city. The other image… well lets just say it’s quite titillating.

[Arrested Motion]

Sure the US has a cool president right now but it doesn’t hold a candle to Japan’s Ex-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Not only did he impersonate Elvis on his last trip to the US but now he’s going all superhero on us by voicing Ultraman King in the next big Ultraman movie, Giant Monster Battle: Ultra Galactic Legend. He’ll be voicing the iconic Japanese superhero at the urging of his son (cool dad points too). His raspy deep voice fits perfectly to the King of the Ultramen. Perhaps Obama should take a passage from the book of Conan Obrien and try his hand at anime dubbing. Perhaps he can voice himself.