The western world has renaissance fairs, which mainly attracts men wanting to play with swords and live an idealized and unrealistic fantasy of a cruel and chaotic time. In Japan it’s women who are attracted to the feudal era of Japan, wanting to play with swords and live an idealized and unrealistic fantasy of a cruel and chaotic time.

Rekijo, or female history geeks, are a new trend in Japan that has seen tourism at historical sites increase by up to 30%. They are looking towards a time when people had stronger resolves and beliefs, a harsh contrast to Japan’s ever docile society. From the video it seems a bit odd that this is happening but one you stop to think about it, it’s no different than knights, pirates, soldiers or cowboys. Armed Douchebags.

See, it holds true that the mean guy always gets the girl, and in these cases, the dead mean guys from several centuries ago get the girl.

[Japan Probe]

While we’ve featured much weirder self-shot videos from Japan this one excels in the sadness category. Here’s a man who wears not one, but three different skimpy girl outfits while playing slap bass to a Hatsune Miku song. A song about having small breasts and pondering if drinking milk would fix it. He then performs breast increasing exercises on screen with amazing prowess, it’s clear he has vast experience in self-treatment.

There are men who see a moe character and are overcome with a lust and longing for the little girl. This man? This man wishes to be the little girl.

Also, Nice Boat reference at the end.

It appears the guys at Crypton were holding out on the technology for Miku’s live appearance on Animelo a couple of weeks ago. This time for Miku’s 2nd anniversary concert they pulled out the big guns and we finally got our 12 feet holographic Miku on stage. She even teleports around the stage which beats the hell out of jumping from speaker walls. Now all that’s left is a full motion android Miku and I wouldn’t put that that far off into the future.

Japan keeps pushing the line on what constitutes a live performance but all of the flesh and blood pop stars nowadays are manufactured anyway. If you ask me this just makes the process more efficient!

Well it turns out the only thing I got right about the ‘live’ appearance of Hatsune Miku on Animelo was the fact that it would be a giant Miku on stage. No holograms, no animatronics, no smoke and mirrors, just a big-ass LED screen and a video of Miku playing to some live musicians, a bit underwhelming if you ask me but then again Miku doesn’t have the budget that maybe Gorillaz had. She sang a couple of songs, both from her own repertoire and from Black Rock Shooter, good stuff but it really lacked more Miku on-screen time, after the middle of the performance you might as well had been watching a video.

Thanks Julie!

There’s no real reason to add functionality to cat ears, they are functional enough by themselves. It would be like adding a cell phone to a blender or good games to the Wii. It doesn’t need them and it would just feel wrong. But this case is a brilliant exception because it makes sense. See someone took a pair of cat ears and fitted them with earphones allowing you to 1) better ignore the mob of sweaty nerds stalking you and 2) do some caramelldansen in your own, very private rave.

It is also a marvelous addition to the USB maid cosplay from 2006, the one with the USB camera in the tail and the keyboard on the apron. This is a fashion trend that’s taking a little too long to catch on.

[Thanko / Via Boing Boing Gadgets]

My friends and I were due to go back to Kyoto to check out the thousand red gates and more of the area that we didn’t get to see on our first visit. But one of my friends and I made no effort to rush and get ready that morning, having clubbed it up the night before. So I said I’d hit the other fella’s up on the keitai when we reach Kyoto, and then rendezvous with them here. As we were getting ready to leave, my friend couldn’t find his Japan rail pass. So Kyoto was a no go. I could’ve left him, but I’m not that much of an bastard (despite what some of my friends say), so I said I’d stick around with him. We decided to make a day out of checking out the local area, mingling with the random people we come across and head back to Den Den town, seeing as we didn’t get to see the best of it the first time we went a couple of days ago.

Two purchases in an Adidas store and one wrong subway stop later we finally ended up at our destination of Den Den town. We doubted ourselves at first and started to curse and cuss we’d gotten off at the wrong train stop (again) because the area looked NOTHING like the Den Den town we’d visited before. But after asking a local in the nearest shop where Den Den town was and being told we were in it, the exclamation mark appeared above both of our heads like a Genome soldier: we hadn’t been to Den Den town before, and we were in it for the first time! Suddenly our second trip to Kyoto didn’t seem like something we’d badly missed out on.

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While the above image of a 15 feet tall Miku on stage might not be true, at least the stage part is. Japan’s Animelo Summer Live, an annual series of concerts dedicated to anime music, has announced that Hatsune Miku will perform live on august 22.

While ‘live’ is a pretty ethereal concept nowadays we’re pretty sure they wont bring her to life in flesh and bone. Holograms perhaps? It worked for Gorillaz a few years back. Maybe motion-tracked 3D on a screen? Who knows but this will certainly be an event to remember, specially if it turns out to be a 15 feet version of Miku.

I, for one, welcome our Vocaloid overlords!

[Animelo / Via ANN]

Continuing our delayed and trickling coverage from Comic-Con here’s a small chat we had with Peter Payne, J-list’s big boss, we talked about J-list, what’s hot this year and a whole bunch of porn.

I don’t think either of us expected the video to go in this direction but hey I asked what was popular and well, hentai is always popular. They do have a bunch of other stuff like t-shirts, traditional japanese items and schoolgirl uniforms, a ton of specialty magazines, etc. But yeah, smut as far as the eye could see, it was glorious.

Toshio Okada, founder of Gainax, a prominent figure behind some of the most important shows and movies in the anime world. He even calls himself the Otaking. He’s lectured on universities worldwide about japanese pop culture and written many books for and about the otaku. The otaku community is very much indebted to this man, but that’s not enough for good ol’ Toshio, he had to do more. So he went ahead and wrote a weight-loss book for the otaku.

Sayonara, Mr. Fatty!: A Geek’s Diet Memoir is precisely that, a chronicle of Mr. Okada’s own struggle with his weight and the very geeky way he found to beat it. The book just recently went on sale in english, so if you are struggling with your weight and the tips from all those jocks on late-night infomercials aren’t cutting it’; why not turn to the Otaking himself for some advice?

He found a way to make every otaku feel like an intellectual with Evangelion’s crammed symbolism, I’m pretty sure he can at least make you feel skinny.

[Sayonara, Mr. Fatty! At Amazon / Via Tokyomango][

Two undeniable truths: otaku will buy anything moe and people will do anything for a quick buck. Put two and two toghether and what do you get? The MoeCamera! This iPhone app adds the moe your iPhone was lacking, even when your background image of choice. It does this by putting a lazily drawn, generic maid character on the screen while you take a picture. She can spill out a few phrases like “Look at me please” and tell you when your image is saved and also… no wait, that’s it. I’m serious that’s it.

So this is what its come down to, an overlay of a bad drawing covering up nearly half of your screen while you take a picture. Even moe rice had more merit than this. I’m sorry, this is neat and all but its a cheap shot. We can and should demand more. There’s no way we should fall for generic patronizing shit like thi… What? It’s only $1.99? I’ll take a dozen, now!

[MoeCamera]