Day:

Tokyo Anime Fair

/ carlenetan / 1 Comment

There’s something for everyone and like the rest of Tokyo, quite the sensory overload. Doesn’t matter who you are, what you fancy or how old you are. If you’re into animation, there’s something for you. Kawaii? Check. Action? Check. Comedy? Check. Dark? Check. SD? Check. Boys? Check. Girls? Check. Kids? Check? Adults? Check. It had everything anyone needed 🙂

The first couple of days, it’s opened to the industry players and I heard come the weekend, the suits disappear and it’s cosplay heaven. Not quite Harajuku but the booths are manned by characters rather than suits 🙂 Wish I was there for that but I was already back in Singapore by then.

cutedarkfor me

Going to a market as an officer from a government agency is a little different from a player of the animation industry, being surrounded by all that different shows, sure did, make me reminisce about the good old days of development, production and selling of our own products. Concepts, pilots, series that we spent hours developing and producing. It was hard work, not that what I’m doing now isn’t hard work but how do I say this … it’s a different kind of hard. When you believe in something with every bit of your being, hard work becomes … becomes worth it. Yet I still remember very clearly the time when every bit of being was so worn down and the day I realise I had to take a break from it all before I started to resent the things I so love to do and the people I care about.

boys?actionthe boys, for sure

As I walked through the halls of the fair, it got me thinking if it was time for the break to be over. In all honesty, I don’t know. What I do know is that, just when I needed it, the opportunity for the break made itself evident and hunting for the perfect opportunity to go back is not my style. The perfect opportunity doesn’t quite exist … not now anyway.

cute and action

Meanwhile, I scratch my creative itch by enjoying the work of other people, let them kick start my creative engine and think about as far as I can possibly go in my head. Hey, if I can’t enjoy conjuring up my fantasies how will I ever go back to creating them. I’m just saying 😉

Quaint Japanese Coffee Places

/ carlenetan / 1 Comment

I always thought the Japanese were more a tea drinking culture rather than a coffee one. I guess I was wrong, they sure do drink a lot of tea but I’ve learnt that they do drink coffee and quite a bit too. Probably too weak for the regular Singaporean coffee drinker, which means it’s perfect for a coffee softie like me. So I thoroughly enjoyed the quaint little places we stopped at for our regular breaks but my favourite is this little one that is apparently dedicated to Edgar Allen Poe, Coffee Ranpo, that’s coz the Japanese refer to him as Edogawa Ranpo.  Although that refers to the name of a Japanese author who was seriously into Edgar Allan Poe and had changed his name to sounds like his favourite author.  Yah, whatever, it’s still a homey little place to stop and charge up.

jules and me in coffee ranpo

A little hole in the wall type place with its own cat that rules the roost. Yes, Tessycat would feel completely at home 🙂  We wrote in their little journal for customers, maybe some other Singaporean will chance on this place and read what we were thinking about that day. I’ve forgotten already :p

drinks afte a long walkjules and me again

Anyway, that’s what I also loved about Tokyo. Despite the crazy hype energy that consumes you, there are little Mum-and-Pop spots like this one that makes you feel completely at home in a foreign land.