Fall Trip: Namba and Umeda

It has been a while since I last visited Japan, so when I had the chance to travel to Asia earlier in the month, I added a side trip to Osaka as part of my itinerary.

Osaka is the third largest city in Japan, and known as a center of commerce. I stayed at the Hotel Nikko Osaka in Namba, very close to Dotonbori, making access to eating, shopping, and transportation very convenient.

Bodyline on Shinsaibashi-suji

Kigurumi

NMB48 Theater

Book-off Plus

Whatever could be going on in here?

Arrow namBa HIPS

It's not far from the Mandarake Grand Chaos Store by Ame-Mura, near the Shinsaibashi Sun Bowl.

Overlooking Ame-Mura

Sun Bowl

Dotonbori

A monument to [the mythical] Yasui Douton whom the canal was named after.

Billiken

The canal

Yummy fugu

Yummy tako

Yummy kani

Street vendor selling anime figures.

Plasmagica and Shingan Crimsonz
hawking okonomiyaki!

Nipponbashi

The highlight of any trip to Osaka is of course Nipponbashi, particularly the area known as Den-Den Town – a place that comes in second only to Akihabara as one of the three otaku holy places.

I started from the north (near Nankai Namba Station), and headed south on Sakai-suji, the main avenue of the shopping district.

Eventually you'll see Jungle, Joshin Super Kids Land, Toranoana, Volks Hobby Square, Joshin Super Kids Land Character Shop, etc. and realize you have arrived at Den-Den Town.

The first store I went to was Jungle.

More nendoroids than you can
shake a stick at!

I made a couple of purchases, but I really had to restrain myself. If you pay with credit card, make sure you have your passport or driver's license, because they may ask you for some form of picture ID.

The Volks Hobby Square is another must visit store.

Half of the first floor of the Volks Store is a rental showcase shop. Looking at all of the displays, I recalled Kagami-sensei's lecture from Denpa Kyoushi, and thought it was a very accurate description of what I saw in the store.

Unfortunately they did not allow photography in any of the stores in the building, but I did take a picture of the directory since it was in a stairwell, and not technically inside the store.

The electronics and used media (CD, DVDs, game) stores of Den-Den Town can be found towards the southern end of Sakai-suji.

The Toranoana on Sakai-suji is the Namba B store.

Toranoana Namba B

If you go through the back door of Toranoana Namba B, you'll end up in an alley facing the rear entrance of Toranoana Namba A.

Toranoana Namba A

The street in front of Toranoana Namba A is the center of most otaku activity from what I can tell, and the location of  the Kotobukiya store, K-Books, Yellow Submarine, Animate, and various maid cafés.

Yellow Submarine Game Shop

Yellow Submarine Hobby Base

Get☆s is a rental showcase shop with many cases full of figures inside, but overall, the displays were not as imaginative as the ones in the Volks Store.

It was unfortunate, but the meido of Nipponbashi seemed keep a wide berth from me, and and always seemed to be walking or looking away whenever I was around...

Umeda

I didn't visit the Mandarake in Umeda, but I did go to the Umeda Sky Building and take some pictures of the city from the Floating Garden Observatory.

TouhouCon 2015

I just wanted to capture some thoughts about my experience at Touhoucon before they faded. I only went on day 2, since I had work on day 1, and I didn't feel like driving up to Anaheim again for the final day.

Attending was kind of a spur of the moment thing, so I wasn't really prepared with either my cosplay, or in figuring out what panels I wanted to see. I'm not sure when the panel descriptions were added online, but I didn't actually see them until after the con was over...

The con was relatively small, so it allowed for some interaction with other fans that I haven't experienced in quite a while (I personally tend to be a bit standoffish).

Two experiences at this con were really memorable for me. The first was of a young lady dressed as Marisa who wanted to get a picture with me. I put my arm around her lightly, as her mom (?) took a picture of us, when I suddenly felt young Marisa give me a big squeeze. She seemed so happy that we were taking that picture together, and I could feel all her joy and enthusiasm in that hug. I hope that she never looses that spark.

The second experience was when a lady dressed as Ran asked me to pose for a picture with her. I agreed, and she started to speak to me in Japanese. I could understand a word here and there, and the jist seemed to be that she thought I was kakkoii, which made me feel rather gratified (as I mentioned, I didn't get to spend much time on my cosplay, and I had to get dressed in my car – I didn't get to practice any appropriate poses either, so I was worried that I would look like a total dork).

Luckily my friend was able to speak Japanese, and do some translation for us. Ran-san was a big Touhou and Marasy fan, who decided to visit her daughter (who is going to school in So Cal) as a pretext to attend the con.

I really should make an effort to study Japanese properly. I would have liked to speak to her directly, but I couldn't dredge the words up to say what I wanted. I felt like a child, shyly hiding behind a parent who did the speaking in their stead, chiming in here and there when there was something I understood.

I feel I could have enjoyed TouhouCon more, but there was a lot of stuff going on in the back of my mind, so I was distracted and not really in con mode.

I didn't take much in the way of photos, but below are a few of the shots I took of the cars on display from the California Itasha Alliance:

A couple of photos from the Touhou cosplay gathering:

Stage 5  bosses

Taiko drum workshop held by Senryu Taiko:

Here's a video of one of the songs they performed uploaded by Utsuho Reiuji:

Here's a great cosplay music video produced by the guys at DZTV.

I was asked to be in the video, but I had to decline – I'm reluctant to have my picture exhibited in highly public places. If that makes people curious, the best I can do is to offer this picture I found on the Touhoucon Twitter page. I'm actually in the background of the draw battle between Kozou and Henry Liao. I'll leave it to your imagination to guess which person is me.

Henry Liao vs こぞうさん

I'm walking by in the background near the very end of this clip as well...

山寨

邪神セイバー

Almost all figure collectors use the word "bootleg" to refer to figures that are surreptitiously produced by various [Chinese] manufacturers, but I think that a more proper term taken from the Chinese would be "shanzhai".

Shanzhai is a term that has recently started to be used in English, and is literally translated as "mountain village" or “mountain stronghold”. It is said that the name is an allusion to the Water Margin (水滸傳), a classic 16^th century novel about outlaws who establish their own mountain society in opposition to the central government.

The term was originally coined in Cantonese to refer to small family operated manufacturers who made various types of generic low-end or counterfeit products.

Since then, shanzhai has evolved to acquire new definitions that also connote imitation, parody, and improvisation. A couple of sites that have interesting articles on shanzhai include the Pacifica Literary Review, and IDEO.

Patchi (パッチ) is a similar term from Japan used to refer to knockoff products based on tokusatsu shows.

I like the use of the term shanzhai as opposed to bootleg because the manufacturers of these figures do not try to hide the fact that the figures are not authentic. The context is similar to the use of shanzhai to refer to celebrity impersonators. To me, true bootlegs attempt to disguise their origins.

The line between shanzhai and bootleg are blurred because of sellers (not manufacturers) who try to pass off both types of unauthorized products as authentic, but for most people I guess the point is really moot.

★ ☆ Sader ♡ ♥

The most [in]famous version of a shanzhai figure is "Sader", which was bundled as a bonus with an equally unauthorized Fate/stay night magazine. Aside from the crude appearance, there is no way the 3" tall figure would be confused with the original 1/6 scale Clayz figure, even if Sader looked more like her prototype.

True to the "so bad it's good" trope, Sader has gained a loyal following, and I have a feeling that her figure may even be more in demand than the original Clayz figure.

Sader Sentai

On eBay, shanzhai figures are described in the product description as "China Version", and are a fraction of the cost of an authentic figure. If you think the price is too good to be true, then you are probably looking at a shanzhai figure. Sometimes, the cost of the figure will be in proportion to how close the shanzhai figure is to the original in terms of materials and production quality, but the buyer will have to verify with pictures of the actual product.

I will often buy shanzhai figures for use in making conversions, or for replacement parts.

Miku is missing a hand and needs a replacement.

They are also good for use in gaming, since certain players can be heavy-handed or just plain jackasses when they handle figures.

Shanzhai figures are typically more robust than authentic figures, as they often are pre-assembled and glued together. This is an advantage, since figures like early Nendoroid Petits are not really suitable for gaming, because their limbs fall off at the slightest touch.

In any event, the producers of legitimate figure do not lose a sale when I buy a shanzhai figure. By the time I typically envision a conversion, the figures I want to use are already OOP and only available in the aftermarket.

Speculators and re-sellers may complain because shanzhai figures can lower prices in the aftermarket, but I could care less. If you want to invest in something, get into the stock market. The appreciation in value of an anime figure will do nothing towards your retirement plan.

Palace of the Silver Princess

Palace of the Silver Princess was originally the project of Jean Wells, and later rewritten by Tom Moldvay. The module was, and continues to be embroiled in controversy for a number of reasons. I do not know the truth of the matter, and can only present some the information that I have been able to find on the interwebz along with some of my own commentary.

• An article from the Acaeum that details the events surrounding the creation of the module, and the editorial complaints against the original version.
• Podcast interview of Jean Wells at Save or Die!
• Part deux of an interview with Jean Wells at Grognardia, which describes some of the events surrounding the development of B3 from the view of the author.
• Some information about Duchess and Candella, two of the NPCs found in the module.
• A post from Old School FRP on some of the differences between the orange and green cover modules.
• A short paper by Chris Danielson at acadamia.edu that proposes some theories about why things turned out the way they did for Jean Wells.

It has been claimed that Palace of the Silver Princess was known internally as Phallus of the Silver Princess, but it is not clear how widespread this name was used, or why it was selected.

Was it because "palace" rhymes with "phallus" (to this day, I know gamers who make up silly names like this to make sport of other players), or was it because of the artwork in the module?

Adventurer offering a bear cub his "meat"?

Statue of t-girl replaced with statue of dragon?

The issues with the artwork seem more like people seeing things that are not actually there because of their own hang-ups, but to this day I read comments claiming how the author (Wells) had some sort of weird [sexual] obsessions - most likely from people who did not even read the original module or see the "offensive" pieces of art (many of which were not even drawn by Wells).

Finally, the various puritanical comments quoted in Danielson's paper by various TSR staffers seem rather ridiculous, since a year after the publication of the sanitized B3, TSR went on to approve production of a children's toy that looked like this:

Is that a dagger in your belt or are you just glad to see me?

If someone was offended by the Roslof or Wells illustrations,
what would they make of these?

Toy Gaming

You have only to play at Little Wars three or four times to realise just what a blundering thing Great War must be.

Great War is at present, I am convinced, not only the most expensive game in the universe, but it is a game out of all proportion. Not only are the masses of men and material and suffering and inconvenience too monstrously big for reason, but — the available heads we have for it, are too small. That, I think, is the most pacific realisation conceivable, and Little War brings you to it as nothing else but Great War can do.

– Little Wars

Although H.G. Wells notes that other wargames pre-dated his Little Wars, I think that most historical wargamers are willing to credit him with being one of the early founders of their hobby. Wells made no pretense that he was doing anything other than playing with toy soldiers, and to this day, there are wargamers who continue the tradition of unabashedly playing with toy figures.

Lego Minifigures are probably the most popular due to their versatility and customizability. Rules systems such as BrikWars, YALUGS, and others have been specifically created for Lego wargaming.

Playmobil figures are also popular, but probably come in at a distant second place. These figures are the closest in appearance to classical toy soldiers, and are suitable for both historical and fantasy gaming. The only Playmobil specific system I've seen is Three Inch Glory.

Petite figures differ from Lego and Playmobil figures in that by their nature, the majority of them are personalities. This makes them more suited for skirmish level gaming, unless you ignore some of their unique characteristics and assign them generic roles in a large army.

In any event, two of the systems that I think would go well with petite figures would be SBH from Ganesha Games for skirmish level rules, and HOTT from Wargames Research Group for larger scale battles. Neither system has anime specific rules, but they are flexible enough to simulate the genre with a bit of work.

見ないと呪うぞ！

Fear Kubrick (フィア・キューブリック) is a character from the series C³ (Cube x Cursed x Curious). She is the personification of a fictional torture instrument of the Inquisition known as "Fear-in-Cube".

I don't think the anime was particularly popular, but it was not horrible. I liked it enough that Fear became the first Niitengo figure that I owned.

Fear is just a tiny bit shorter than Miku, and I kind of wish that she was even shorter, but that's just my scale OCD acting up.

She is a bit atypical for a Niitengo figure in that she is roughly the height of one of the more current figures (Maho), but has proportions of an early Niitengo figure (Mio). The difference in height between Mio and Fear is perfect for representing her loliness, but it is not particularly apparent that she is supposed to be a loli character when posed next to other 65mm figures.