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

The shop manager of 6%Dokidoki invited me to visit their store before I saw the show. She showed me around the store, and showed me some of their popular items.

This candy necklace had sold out after Shokotan (the idol Nakagawa Shoko) had mentioned it on her blog:

These candy clips had appeared in KERA:

These ribbon clips were items made for the Visual Show:

And a photo of one of the shop girls who was working that day:

You can see more photos of the show from here. Click on the “アルバムバージョンはこちら” to see larger photos.

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.

And this one as well.

Since this was announced at the San Diego Comic Con, I guess I can write about it now.　I’m translating/adapting GA - Geijyutsuka Art Design Class by Kiyuduki Satoko. It’s a 4-koma about five high school girls who’re majoring in art.

Two volumes are out so far, and the series is running in the 4-koma monthly magazine “Manga Time Kirara Carat”.

I just happened to be looking at it and saw three Vampire Knight volumes and a Skip Beat volume in the top 20. Ureshii ne!

Bookstores with large foreign book sections here do sell translated manga, but the only shojo manga I’ve seen there are NANA and Nodame Cantabile. The rest are all shonen manga. So when I saw most of the books I’ve translated actually being stacked on the shelves in San Francisco last month, I was finally able to really feel that the books I’ve worked on are…well, actually being SOLD.

I’ll be dropping by Friday afternoon and Saturday after my visit to VIZ.

Since the item is available on amazon now - I’m translating/adapting WANTED, Hino Matsuri’s manga about pirates.

I hope people found the yakuza article informative.

I find it amusing that the tabloids always seem to have the latest information on what’s going on with the major yakuza organizations. They’ve got reports on changes in “upper management” and the ceremonies that were held, which gangs are fighting each other and why, and such.

When I was watching some late-night TV, I happened to catch an interview of an ex-wife of a yakuza oyabun. For various reasons, she’d ended up cutting off three fingers of her left hand (@_@) then ran away from the kumi.

This seems to be out already as well.

I hoped people enjoyed the Okinawa article. I’ve been there twice (a senior high school trip to the main island, sort of like in Azumanga Daioh), and to two remote islands (Ishigaki-jima and Iriomote-jima) last year. Some of the photos in the article are from last year’s trip.

Hmm…maybe I could post photos that didn’t get used in the magazine…