A.I. sold in Japan?!

Is Anime Insider being sold at newsstands in Tokyo? Really??

Actually, I don’t know. This pic was actually taken at Kinokuniya, a Japanese-language book seller across the street from Bryant Park in New York City (they also have a location at the Palisades Mall in West Nyack, NY, right down the street from our office!) It’s pretty awesome that we’re given a place among the all the other magazines published in anime’s native tongue.

ーマット

Game Boy becomes a man

This Game Boy has got some stories, let me tell ya. He has seen some things, man. Things you wouldn’t even freakin’ believe, man.

So anyway… after Comic Con I came across this display at the Nintendo World Store at Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan. This smashed-up original model Game Boy belonged to an American soldier who fought in the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91. When his position was bombed by enemy Iraqi forces, his barracks—and everything inside—went up in flames. When the fire was put out, he found that his Game Boy was still there and, despite the exterior casing being burnt to oblivion, still functioned, and it even works now, nearly two decades later. (This mad lo-fi cell-phone-camera pic can’t really do it justice, but the little screen still had a game of Tetris going on.) Still, all these years later, I doubt my Nintendo DS would be able to handle getting dropped from a table, much less bombed…

-Matt

Bath time

The multi-story Animate store in Akihabara is an awesome but sometimes scary place. Every time I go, the dazed stupor in which I exit the building has as much to do with the amount of money I just dropped as my inability to understand some of the things I just bought.

Just like here in America, Japanese companies will approve a shocking variety of sometimes incomprehensible product tie-ins for TV series. I picked up these packets thinking at first that they were themed teas for the different divisions of Soul Reapers in Bleach. I mean, each division has an official flower, so tea would make sense, right?

No. After some time with Jim Breen’s excellent online Japanese dictionary, I discovered that they are…bath salts. Which is okay for the 6th Division packet (flower-scented). But 12th Division’s is wasabi-scented. Ew.

–Summer

A first time for everything

I’m not the newest member of the AI staff, but I am the only one who hasn’t yet been to Japan—I know, it’s unfair, right? A ticket overseas should come with the job, to make sure one is properly culturally attuned.

In any case, I’m about to remedy this gross error. I’m not going for work, but I am finally making it to Japan in two months. One of my best friends and I are checking out plane tickets and planning our itinerary now, and I’m extra excited because the trip finally feels like a real thing. (Just don’t ask my wallet how it feels. Ouch.) There’s plenty to look forward to—the ryokan where we’re staying, chowing down on actual Japanese food, buying anime toys without the markup of import dealers..

But I’m not sure how to deal with the crazy-long plane ride. I suppose I could try to sleep through it, but even on my laziest day, I don’t manage to sleep for a full 12 hours. My Nintendo DS should be handy, and I can probably brush up on my Japanese. (Which is…not good.) Or maybe I’ll just sit there in jittery anticipation, waiting to take that first step onto a new continent.

We’re not leaving until late March, so I’ve got a while to figure it out, I suppose. Except…all I want is for the time to pass so we can be leaving now!

-Angela