It must be real tough to be an average cosplay photographer (or ‘Freelance Phographer’ as this profile indicates) in this country. It’s not enough that everyone accuses you of groping tweeners and taking surreptitious upskirt photos. Now you can’t even have a good laugh at other people’s expense, like this guy who just wanted Ondoy rains and Milenyo winds because it’s pretty outside his window. I mean, who wouldn’t want to go back to killing hundreds and displacing thousands of people, destroying property and livelihood, especially if you have the luxury of watching the whole thing from the distance of a TV screen?

(more…)

In the forum post I allude to in the comic Divide By Zero, I get accused of politicizing the cosplay scene when all anyone wants to do is ‘have fun’ — but apparently everyone’s idea of fun is bashing other people while furthering their own agendas for supremacy.

Now, I like to think that cosplayers aren’t dense or stupid. (If you disagree, bear with me, I like my rose-tinted glasses.) So how can people who are deeply immersed in the backbiting and name-calling that pervades local cosplay claim that everyone is one big happy cosplaying family?

(more…)

So a friend and I were shooting the shit the other night and he was going on about the ‘Amateurism vs. Professionalism’ clash he observed in the local cosplay community. This particular friend allied himself firmly with the ‘Professionalism’ camp, saying that people who work long hours for low pay in costume are just as deserving as the ‘Amateurs’ of the term ‘cosplayer’.

(more…)

It’s Friday night at Little Tokyo, and I’m hanging out with friends, some old, some new, all involved one way or another with the otaku scene. Cosplayers, anime and manga fans, gamers and GMs.

(more…)

Danny Choo recently stated on his blog that he was adopting the term ‘Japanese Pop Culture’ to refer to what was previously known as the Otaku Subculture. He said that this was because: (more…)

So many of you are aware of the Christopher Handley decision by now, where apparently customs officials opened up a package from Japan addressed to Mr. Handley which contained manga depicting minors ‘engaged in sexually explicit acts and bestiality’. Last week our intrepid manga fan was handed down a six-month sentence for violating the US Protect Act, which which outlaws cartoons, drawings, sculptures or paintings depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, and which lack “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

(more…)

During the past year or so, upon returning from the hallowed halls of the Judicial System to the Wild West of Otakudom, I have been subjected to many arguments from people who think calling someone “GAY” is equivalent to scoring some sort of metaphysical point. Coming from a line of work where precision of argument is of the utmost importance, I would like to disabuse these people of their delusions.

(more…)

So I ran across a public Plurk the other day that said:

“People who started later then me in WoW [World of Warcraft] are now higher level then me. ^^; Guess that’s the price of having a life. Good thing there’s a level cap.” (lol)”

(more…)

So the other day on Plurk Magnetic Rose, who always has her finger on the pulse, called my attention to the recent Anime Expo mass resignation fiasco. A couple of days later another friend of mine gave me the inside scoop into the whole Alice and Rabbit Multiply mess.

(more…)

(more…)