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Tadashi Agi and Shū Okimoto , author and artist of Kami no Shizuku (also known as Les Gouttes de Dieu in French), respectively, will visit Taiwan and hold a press conference and wine tasting party on June 25, followed by an autograph session on June 26. There will be a charity auction of a bottle of 1999 Château Palmer to be signed by the authors; the auction money will be donated to World Vision Taiwan . The bottle of 1999 Château Palmer to be auctioned: Being a teetotaler can be problematic when reporting an event like this one....

Dang, I just realized that I haven't 1) posted links to photos of PF12 day two 2) updated my blog for almost two months! For the past month, poor weather and busy day job kept me away from taking outdoor photographs. Anyway, digital photos of PF12 day two are here and film photos are here , respectively.

Photographs of PF12 day 1 have been organized. At first I was about to sort them out on the same day, but there was a memorable moment on Saturday, a friends' meeting on Sunday, and a wedding feast on Monday night, delaying the process till now. So what exactly was that "memorable moment?" It is now well circulated on the web; for the lesser informed, the picture above has the hint: Aya-chan (cosplaying Tianzi-sama from Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 at right) accepted the wedding proposal from her boyfriend right at PF12; to be specific, not in the costume above, but as Haruko Akagi from Slam Dumk , while his boyfriend cosplayed Hanamichi Sakuragi. The secrecy was kept tightly and she had no idea at all; when she realized what was going on she broke into tears in joy. It was a pity that I wasn't there witnessing the moment of truth. Other pictures are available at her web diary . Aside from the Slam Dunk group, I thought this Athena Glory from Aria pict

Established in 2005, Atheist Agenda is an atheist group organized by students and teachers of the University of Texas at San Antonio. It has been reported by the mass media several times because of its (in)famous "Smut for Smut" campaign i.e. trade in your religious books for pornography. Trade in your Bible for porn, atheists urge college students Texas College Campus Divided Over Bible for Porn Campaign What does it have anything to do with anime or manga then? Watch the following news footage: From KABB Fox San Antonio Look at the female student fujōshi who was saying "Homosexual porn!" while taking the book she got from the brown envelop: it was Ijiwaru na Kuchibiru (意地悪な唇) by Ryou Sakurai ( 桜井りょう ) As far as I know, none of the manga by Ryou Sakurai has not been licensed in North America yet, thus the news footage has become an unexpected advertisement. Thanks to ANN user The Xenos providing the news and screencaps.

Click here for the photo album. The weather of the second day was much better; not only the temperature rise up, it even became sunny (despite only occasionally), and I brought my Konica Auto S1.6 film camera with me. Unfortunately the film would not be developed until this Thursday (sigh). When taking the picture above, I only knew this pretty girl was cosplaying a character from Touhou Project but didn't know exactly who she was. Instead, I was attracted by the camera she held: a Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro. As a supporter of Fujifilm, I seldom see female using this camera, let alone using it for cosplaying (too bad it was not her camera either; she borrowed it just for posing). After looking up Wikipedia, I am now certain that she was cosplaying Aya Syameimaru (射命丸 文), first appeared in Touhou Kaeidzuka ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View. Being a paparazzi reporter, S3 Pro fits her character perfectly, but I'd say Tamron 18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 would be much more useful than Nikko

Click here for the photo album. The weather of FF15 / CWT24 this year was the coldest one I had ever encountered; a strong cold front brought the temperature below 10 degree Celsius. I had to wear my thickest feather jacket when I return to Taipei on Friday. While Saturday morning was not as cold as Thursday and Friday, cosplayers were fewer than previous events; lighting was far from satisfactory either. Tiger × Dragon groups were the most prominent among grouped cosplayers (four or more groups), probably because of the Year of Tiger; SOS-dan, which had been dominating cosplaying for the past few years, were significantly reduced. By the way, it would be fun if the three cosplayers in the picture above showed up at Rie Kugimiya's autograph session at Taipei International Book Exhibition. While it's cold outside (literally and figuratively), it was a complete chaos within the stadium: due to the events were held after the Chinese New Year, many young people have extra cas

Three weeks have passed since the end of Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) 2010. Due to some personal factors I haven't had my album organized and uploaded, and I feel terribly sorry to cosplayers and friends whom I promised to give photos to. This time I tried to use the built-in Flash direct linkage to my album at Yam, but it was buggy and could only display resized pictures using Internet Explorer, not with Firefox, forcing me to re-upload the title picture to Photobucket. For larger pictures (960 x 720 pixels) please click here . A cosplayer stole our attention: " yakiisis " (Naruto Uzumaki in the picture above) from the invited cosplay circle " 304 " which came all the way from Hangzhou. Her "Nobody Dance" (for the uninitiated: it came from Wonder Girls ) was not only well-memorized, but each beat was full of strength and speed, yet her body figure remained soft and flexible. Since she has "dancing" as a skill in her personal p

News source: Comic Natalie Shirley , another classical loli maid manga by Kaoru Mori (famous for her Emma ), will appear as an two-shots sequel on June issue years after its completion. Mori-sensei's current serialization on Fellows! is Otoyome-Gatari (乙嫁語り The Bride's Stories ), a story about a 20 year old young woman married to a 12 year old delicious shōta boy somewhere between Middle East and the Silk Road. Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Oh yeah!

ユニークな新看板で啓発/福島南消防署杉妻出張所 Billy Herrington, a.k.a. "Aniki,"Mori no Yōsei" ("Forest Fairy"), "Shinnippori" etc. on Nico Nico Douga, appeared on a "watch out for fire" poster at Sugitsuma office of Fukushima Fire Department, Fukushima Prefecture. According to the report, the poster was illustrated by a Mr. Manabu Hirata (25 years old), who has been providing illustrations for the fire department since 2008, and this is his 4th contribution. Assistant Chief Kazuya Shishido (top picture, left) thanked Mr. Hirata for his efforts in fire prevention. "Sunny male," "powerful illustrations," my, I don't think it could extinguish fire; instead it would burn more intensely.

The honored guest of the first day of Taipei International Book Exhibition was Kazuo Umezz (official transliteration; most sources spell his family name as "Umezu"). Unlike most shy mangaka, 73-years-old Umezz-sensei is well known for his love of stage performance and attention. In addition to have danced at the opening ceremony , Umezz-sensei added two additional dances before his autograph session started! The first dance had strong Middle Eastern feel, and Umezz-sensei had long white robes to fit in the theme. At the moment I felt deja vu of his outfit but couldn't name it, only to have realized the likeliness of this colonel . Finishing the first song was far from the end. Umezz-sensei took off the long white robes, revealing his trademark red and white striped shirt. Umezz-sensei said hello to his fans with yet another trademark of his, the gwashi gesture. Umezz-sensei dancing with the music of "Gwashi!! Makoto-chan," related to the 1980 animate

More than three weeks have passed since the first wave of publicized guests of honor of Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE), and we've got some new updates: Kazuo Umezu, master of horror manga, will visit TIBE 2010 and hold an autograph session. d/books taipei has posted "Range Murata 2010 Combo Pack," thus confirming their role in inviting Murata. Coincidentally, Mardock Scramble , a novel by Tow Ubukata and was planned to be animated with Murata's character designs four years ago and meant to be the 15th anniversary of GONZO , later canceled abruptly in December 2006, was miraculously resurrected as a theatrical movie . I wonder if Murata still taking parts in the new movie edition. Update: Line art of a "China-dress girl" illustrated by Murata exclusively for TIBE 2010. Mighty Media has licensed Pandora Heart and CANAAN but didn't bother to announce at their own official website. Rather, their related merchandises are on sale now.

Click here for the album (digital). The anniversary gathering of Bahamut (www.gamer.com.tw) is a real challenge for photographers: heavy overcast and drizzle outdoor; the gaming area is completely packed; the anime/manga area, while backgrounds and lightings were provided for photographers, the arrangement of those equipments were hastily prepared and I'd rather it had none. The most valuable experience I learned from this event was comparing digital and film photographs under the same composition and sensitivity (ISO). Surprisingly, the combination of Konica Auto S1.6 and Fujifilm Superia X-TRA 400 produced very high saturation and contrast (see below): Pictures taken by S100FS had to be increased 15% contrast and 30% saturation, respectively, in order to produce similar results.