17/01/2009

Afro Samurai vs Danny Choo


I had a fun night at Danny Choo's place the other evening when he invited me over to have dinner with our mutual friend Takashi "Bob" Okazaki, and a few of his Afro Samurai colleagues. Turned out to be quite the otaku gathering, with Bob dressing up as Darth Vader and all us lads going gaga over Danny's figure collection. I'm not sure what kind of expression I was trying to pull in this photo, but you've gotta at least try and look a bit tough when you're standing next to Vader! In the photo are:

From left to right:
Fuminori Kizaki (Director of Afro Samurai)
Mrs Bob Vader, Minna (hiding in Vader's cloak!)
Danny Choo
Takashi Okazaki (Original creator of Afro Samurai) as Darth Vader
Myself
Hiroya Iijima (Afro Samurai Character Design/Animation Director)
Will Feng

You can see more pix over at dannychoo.com

13/01/2009

Seijin no hi


Yesterday was the Seijin no hi (Coming of Age Day) holiday in Japan. It was beautiful weather and I headed out with my new mate Danny Choo to take a few pix for his blog. The plan was to get photos of him in his Storm Trooper costume with as many cute twenty-year-old girls we could grab.

The official age for adults in Japan is twenty and on this day each year, young men and women gather at their local city halls (or somewhere else if the hall is too small) to be officially welcomed into adulthood. The new grown-ups dress in their best formal wear, which for girls means beautiful kimonos, called furisode, and fluffy fur stoles. This style of kimono is distinctive because of the bright colours and long flowing sleeves that signify a girl is both an adult and single, which is a handy thing to know ;)



Danny and I visited the CC Lemon Hall in Shibuya where gaggles of giggling Shibuya gals wore a sensational mix of their normal "gyaru" hair-styles, makeup and traditional kimonos. The addition of "decora" accessories and outrageous nail fashion completed the look.