(Ms.) Tomo Kimura’s Translation/Tokyo Notes

I received an invitation from 6%Dokidoki to attend their event Tuesday, so I went to Harajuku Quest Hall. H.U.G. stands for “Harajuku Unlimited Generation”, and it’s a series of events held for young people starting in fall of last year.

This event was titled “Kawaii! Saves the World”. 20 yen from each ticket sales will be donated to buy polio vaccines. The hall had booths for characters such as Blythe and Koedalian, and gallery booths where various artist goods were sold. Kiddyland and the Rilakkuma-only store that opened in Osaka this month were selling stuff too.

A gallery booth:

The “Odeko-chan and Nikki” booth had customized dolls made to look like 6%Dokidoki shop girls. I saw the shop girl the doll in the middle is modeled after, and the doll looked exactly like her!

The talk show had guests talk about “What counts as kawaii?” “What sorts of characters are kawaii?”　　Some of the things that were mentioned as being kawaii were haniwa (ancient Japanese clay figures) and kokeshi dolls. So maybe character goods that have been around for a long time are kawaii to Japanese eyes?

There was an announcement from Junie Moon that Blythe will soon have a “cool new friend”.

A few words about the Hangry & Angry article.

I first met the girls last October at an event in Harajuku Kiddyland. I pitched them as a possible story after reading the VIZ press release about the live-action Death Note movies being licensed in the U.S. In the movie, Misa is a girl who likes h.NAOTO and H&A, so H&A plushies appear in her room, and she uses a H&A pen to write in her Death Note. (h.NAOTO was in charge of Misa’s costumes and room decorations.)

The animal suit H&As were taken at a “designer visit” event at the hEAVEN store last December. (h.NAOTO has these days when their designers visit the shops. If you buy enough stuff, you get to have a polaroid taken with them, and get it stuck on an autographed card.) This was the first time I met Gashicon-san. Since then, blood and H&A have swapped stores, and H&A stuff are now sold at the H store.

I submitted the article in January. Unfortunately, the band disbanded in August. I did notify SB right away, but I guess it was too late for corrections to be made.

My hair dryer is a “minus ion hair dryer”. The negative ions are supposed to prevent your hair from getting too dry. My air purifier produces negative ions for relaxation effects. There are even small USB gadgets that produces negative ions so you can alleviate your stress at your workplace.

I was at Studio Cube 326 yesterday for this gothic & lolita club event. A friend and I went dressed in black, but when we got there, we realized we looked…uh, plain…compared to the majority of the audience. There were lolita-chans wearing mounds of lace, gothic madams and aristocrats, couples wearing futuristic cyber costumes, and girls wearing feathered corsets. A lot of them were the “did you take the train here wearing that?” type of clothes.

There were several lives with DJ times in between. The stage had a runway sticking out in the center, so during the DJ time, you could climb up on the runway and dance. The special guest live was HeavensDust, and this was their last live in Japan before they head for an extended stay in the U.S. Pudding Alamode, a girl duo that the company that runs the event is producing, did their debut live. I saw five bands, and one was goth-rock (poetry reading was combined with the songs), while Seileen was goth/classical.

There was a Dangerous Nude fashion show as well. The shop specializes in corsets, so most of the fashion featured corsets in various colors.

If you search the Japanese youtube with “Neko Funjatta”, you’ll find enough videos of people playing this song. The song is relatively easy to memorize, because a lot of it is played on the black keys.

The “gloomy song” Kyoko’s singing is a parody of of a song composed by Yoshinao Nakata called “Memories of Summer”.

The opening lines go like this:

When summer comes, I remember
The faraway Oze, the distant sky

(Oze is a national park.)

Yesterday I went to see h.NAOTO’s 2009 Spring/Summer collection at the Laforet Museum in Harajuku. I’d just gotten some GRAMM stuff for the first time, so I wore that to the show.

Here’s the invitation packet. The artwork included this time is a copperplate print.

And a summary of the invitation text:

“Things beyond imagination happen nowadays in Tokyo. The living instantly becomes the dead. Why do people commit crimes? Is that the only way they can express themselves? Why do people need to express themselves?
…
300 letters. 300 evidences by copperplate prints. We engrave words on metal surfaces with sharp needles like tattoos carved on skin.
…
Small words give birth to small evils, and small crimes are committed.
The theme of the 2009 Spring/Summer collection is ‘Crime’.”

(A shop staff told me that the company president created 300 copperplate prints, a different one for each of the 300 invitations.)

At the Laforet entrance:

At the elevator hall:

The show started with narration based on the GRAMM world over music. The first group of clothes were GRAMM clothes. Then came Hangry&Angry, with the models wearing bright-colored clothes and holding H&A plushies. There were white+pale pink/pale blue clothes which looked very springy. The skimpy bondage-like clothes looked like swimwear. The models were wearing stockings made of metallic fabric that covered the leg up to the thigh.

The goth clothes were also light, with thin layered black fabrics. Last came models in pairs. The model in front was wearing white, and the model behind her was wearing black, barefoot, and was walking like a shadow, eyes lowered.

At the last collection, there was a model holding a bag with “negi” in it. This time there was a model holding a bag with “negi”, and another with “celery” in it.

The souvenir was an A3-size booklet of photographs used in 2008 ads.

A number of GRAMM goods went on sale yesterday. I got the catalogue, because it contains the prologue and Chapter 1 of the GRAMM story.

I happened to catch the second half of the first episode last week (it was the scene when Keito and Momiji first meet in school). The drama is a 6-episode series of 45 minutes each, and today’s second episode covered the story up to most of Volume 2.

Some things have been changed from the original. Koichi is explained as having quit school because of intense bullying, and there’s an original boy character instead of Rei.

No clues in the credits about the brand of lolita clothes Momiji is wearing, but the actress playing her appears in the latest issue of KERA wearing Angelic Pretty, talking about her role.

I finally finished work on my last tankobon of this summer yesterday.

After I got back from SF, I worked on a total of 7 books in 3 months.

☆ヽ(o_ _)oﾎﾟﾃｯ ……((((o_ _)o)))ﾌﾟﾙﾌﾟﾙ

↑ my condition after I was done

So starting today, it’s a late summer holidays week.

And this one as well.