Scandinavia is not the most exciting place in the world but it has some beautiful sights. I spent ten nights last month in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland with my trusty Canon 400D and these are the results.

Helsinki, Finland

From an outsider’s perspective, it’s kind of weird to me that Finland is not officially considered part of Scandinavia, especially when many souvenir shops in Norway were selling this shirt.

I guess it’s because Finland took a break from Sweden and had a century-long fling with tsarist Russia, but then Russia got addicted to Marxism and by the time Finland realized the whole thing had been a huge mistake Sweden had moved on. I may or may not be butchering Nordic history here.

Objectively speaking, Finland is probably the most boring country of the four. Helsinki, the capital, is about 1/3 the size of Singapore excluding water and has a population of just six hundred thousand compared to Singapore’s five million. On the weekends, many parts of the city (e.g. office areas, schools) feel deserted and wouldn’t look out of place in a movie about a post-apocalyptic or post-Rapture world. There are next to no tourist attractions in the city and the biggest one is probably the department store Stockmann in the city centre. Not quite impressive if you are used to Asia’s modern mega-malls.

I think this is the only LV boutique in the country

There is an abundance of statues though

You know your city is dull when a bunch of steel pipes is considered a tourist spot

Based on a casual observation, life in Helsinki seems slow and small-town even though it’s really one of the larger Scandinavia capitals. It feels like the kind of place where the tour guide would point to some unremarkable house in the woods and say, “That’s our Prime Minister’s home” as if she were talking about the mayor of Springfield (which she really did). Not really my cup of tea.

The unique part of Finland compared to the other three countries is probably the Russian architectures left from its hundred-year history as a part of the Russian Empire. This includes numerous Orthodox churches in a country with a Lutheran majority.

Nice Russian architecture though

The stall owner said they are real

Senate Square was built so that tourists may have a convenient location to board their coaches. True story

Statues of men carrying balls — it’s what all train stations need

The colour and font reminds me of JR East

An ageing relic of glories past

It’s like Japan but with more green stuff on the salmon

Wait a minute… Did I upload the right photos?

Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm felt a lot… bigger than Helsinki, but it’s really about the same size in terms of land. I suppose it does have a larger population so maybe it feels bigger because things look busier.

Stockholm City Hall, where they give out all the Nobel Prizes other than Peace

The most hideous thing I’ve ever seen made from gold flakes

I was in Stockholm for barely a day and didn’t really get to see much of it. It did feel like a much more cheery place than Helsinki, probably because it was sunny when I was there, but perhaps also because Helsinki’s Russian-influenced buildings project an aura of Soviet-esque dreariness I automatically associate with Cold War movies. I mean Helsinki-Vantaa Airport’s arrival hall feels like a prefab military prison from some Bond movie.

Stockholm Palace

Stockholm on the other hand is much closer to my idea of a scenic European city with nice idyllic riverfronts and neo-classical buildings. Plus Sweden is a kingdom so it has all that crazy European royalty shenanigans that tourists adore. Finland totally missed out on this lucrative business when it decided to become a republic after breaking up with Russia.

Now that’s the Europe I had in mind

Interesting that many of the palace guards are female

This shop sells yaoi manga imported from Japan

Don’t mind me, I’m just a stupid tourist. I’m not a suspicious person. No madam

Oslo, Norway

Travelling around Scandinavia really helps an outsider put into perspective just how huge a clusterfuck the European Union is. Finland, Sweden and Denmark are EU members but only Finland uses euro as its official currency. Norway, Sweden and Denmark all have their own version of krone as their currency and they are worth almost the same except not really.

Shops in Sweden and Denmark accept Euro (notes only) but give change in local krones. Shops in Norway don’t accept euro at all and even though Norway is part of the European Economic Area and uses the same tax-free system for foreign tourists. Sweden is technically obligated to eventually adopt the euro, but there is no deadline so they can hold it off for eternity, which many major politicians and the voters are fully in favour of.

Oslo City Hall

And amongst the Scandinavian countries, Norway is probably the most exceptional one when it comes to (non-)participation in the EU because it has a huge buttload of offshore oil and can do whatever the fuck it pleases. This is probably also why things are insanely expensive in Oslo.

A bottle of coke costs 20 NOK or 3.70 USD at a normal store that is not even in any tourist area, which is almost twice as much as it goes for even in central Tokyo. A regular meal at McDonalds cost 90 NOK (16.60 USD). The same meal cost 60 DKK (11.40 USD) in Copenhagen, 490 yen (6.40 USD) in Japan and 6 SGD (5 USD) in Singapore. The huge difference between Oslo and Copenhagen is what boggles my mind. Really makes Japan prices seem like a bargain in comparison.

For god’s sake, the road in front of the palace is not even paved! It’s a bunch of dirt!

While Norway is technically a monarchy, it only became one after separating from Sweden in 1905. Its king (a random dude they found on the streets…almost) is therefore rather poor, money-wise, and his palace looks really sad and is probably out-matched in extravagance by many government buildings in numerous third-world nations. Still, I was told by the tour guide that the people love the royal family very much, unlike those ungrateful Brits.

There was an election when I was there

Live TV coverage of the elections

Before there was Louis Vuitton

Man vs. evil babies

Norway Countryside

I spent most of my time in the countryside of Norway where there are tons of mountains and the clouds look like they are right above your head.

Passing by Utøya

Friendship is magic?

At a pizzeria run by Turkish brothers

Think I saw this in Thor…

Interestingly, I met a young Japanese lady on a working holiday manning the counter at a family-ran hotel in Lærdal, a small town in the mountains. Did not expect that. Apparently many Japanese visit Norway and Scandinavia in the summer. There was also always a female Japanese crew member (who only works there during the summer) on every cruise ship sailing between the Nordic countries.

I suppose if you think about it, Norway is kind of like Japan so maybe Japanese tourists enjoy the familiarity. They both eat whale and tons of salmon, have tons of mountains that are a pain to drive around, have among the lowest in Gini coefficients in the world and… well I guess that’s about it. Still it’s pretty surprising how many times I got to put my Japanese to use in rural Norway (three).

Norway is famous for its fjords, but I think they are overhyped. Sure, they look beautiful and all, but most of the time they don’t look all that different from regular lakes to me.

Entering warp speed

Bergen, Norway

Bergen is the second largest city in Norway behind Oslo. It’s a port city that reminds me of Nagasaki: city centre at the bay area surrounded by mountains with houses built of their sides.

Despite being located next to the gigantic body of water known as the sea, Bergen had a lot of trouble with city fires in the past and built to the ground numerous times, so even its buildings are all relatively new. Its most recent destruction took place during WW2 when a German warship carrying explosives blew up in its harbour by accident and flattened a whole bunch of wooden houses around the bay area. Those people just can’t get a break.

Bergen is a major source of dried cod and for hundreds of years, a monopoly over cod was given to the German Hanseatic League. The Hanseatic League’s presence in Bergen was limited to male traders who were sent there as teenage apprentices and were forbidden from having contact with local girls. They lived together for many years in a bunch of wooden buildings near the docks (some of which are preserved on the World Heritage list) and presumably drank beer all day as I imagine Germans do when they are stuck in a foreign country and not allowed to have fun. Basically it all sounds rather homoerotic.

Glad they are taking fires seriously now

Copenhagen, Denmark

I really liked Copenhagen even though it didn’t like me that much — it rained hail the first day (even though it was technically summer) when I was trying to take a photo of the Little Mermaid statue.

Those white spots are hail

The Danish royal family has a much longer history than both Sweden and Norway (which both used to belong to Denmark) and it really shows in their castle décor. The designs at Rosenborg Castle look like the extravagance you would come to expect from royalties, with treasures from foreign lands and gold everywhere.

The Danish kings knew how to decorate shit

The castle has an underground treasury vault with modern security doors and the whole works.

I like taking pictures of election posters every country I go…

Konservative with a capital K

Tivoli is an amusement park in the middle of Copenhagen and it is the second oldest amusement park in the world. It is nowhere near Disneyland, but definitely way better than Hanayashiki, Japan’s oldest amusement park. The shitty part is that it charges for every single ride in addition to the park entrance fee of 95 DKK.

I suppose oriental buildings in theme parks are their equivalent of Sleeping Beauty’s castle in Tokyo Disneyland…

Surprisingly, the Chinese writings in the park are all pretty spot on

I took the S-Train from Copenhagen central station to my hotel two stops away. It cost 24 DKK (4.50 USD), but the interesting thing was that there was no gantry at either station! In fact, no one asked for the ticket at all for the entire journey. Either Danish people are all extremely honest or the train companies are losing a ton of money.

Panoramas

Made a few panoramas with the photos I took using my l33t Photoshop skillz.

Helsinki harbour

Fagernes, Norway

Fagernes, Norway

Fagernes, Norway

Laerdal, Norway

Oslo harbour

Copenhagen

Conclusion

My Scandinavia trip went okay.

Next up: Should I take CS106A or CS106X?

EDIT: Here’s a story I forgot to include. The immigration officer at Helsinki was being kind of a prick, probably because the queue was full of impatient Asian tourists. I couldn’t catch a sentence he said and he acted like I was retarded. He then stamped the immigration stamp on the LAST page of my passport. One week later, when I was departing from Copenhagen Airport, the Danish immigration officer couldn’t find the stamp and started flipping through my passport.

Me: Ummm… It’s on the last page.
Him: Last page? Huh? *Flips to last page*
Him: What an idiot. *Flips back to stamp on an appropriate page*
Me: LOL
Him: Those Finnish people, eh? *Shakes head*
Me: :D

So I am moving soon and I have been spending the past week stacking things (mostly books) into boxes. Sifting through all the stuff I have accumulated in the past ten years really takes me back.

It’s been just about 10 years since I first watched Evangelion, which was kind of how everything began. I would link to my old blog post on it, but I wrote it on my old b2/cafelog (WordPress’ predecessor) blog and it’s stuck somewhere in my site database inside an unconverted b2 table. Just as well, since the post was probably shit.

Games and DVDs. An R1 Evangelion box set is buried somewhere underneath

I’m off to Stanford in just about a month or so and the house-moving will actually take place after I leave. The next time I set foot on Singapore, I’ll be walking into an unfamiliar room with all my precious stuff stacked in boxes covered with (at least) one year’s worth of dust. That ought to be fun.

Crap ton of Haruhi stuff

I am still hanging on to the slim hope that one day pristine limited edition Haruhi goods from the series’ golden age will be worth billions of dollars. But I think the chance that I will make a profit on this collection is probably only slightly higher than this guy’s long-shot investment.

Crap ton of Maaya Sakamoto stuff and other CDs

Honestly speaking, I think my Maaya collection can objectively be described as pretty darn sweet, especially considering I do not live in Japan. I basically have all her singles and albums (including her releases from when she was half of the teenage duo Whoops!!), often two copies of each, plus limited edition and all that jazz. I also have a bunch of posters that CD shops in Japan put up to promote her new CD releases, some related DVDs (including the short movie 03+ she starred in) and some concert memorabilia.

Bunch of manga and Japanese books

I am kind of a compulsive hoarder, but mainly in the sense that I like to collect more things. I don’t actually mind throwing away stuff I don’t need. Not shown in the pictures is a rather large mountain of old magazines and books that are destined for a glorious second life as rolls of toilet paper.

Random English books

Mahoro packed in her box

I actually do not own that many figurines in spite of my urge to collect stuff. PVC figures in particular do not preserve well in Singapore’s hot and humid weather unless you keep them in the box, so I had to throw away some over the years. But the few I keep around are pretty awesome. Maybe one day I’ll finally get a proper dust-proof display case for them and save them from the cruel fate of spending eternity in their boxes.

Kan’u Unchou and Tony Taka’s C73 releases

Haruhi Bunny and Tony Taka’s C75 releases

Going through my collection makes me feel old. I can’t believe that it’s already been a decade since Evangelion first raped my mind. A few days ago, I heard people on the radio reminiscing over 90s pop songs, referring to them as “retro”. Moments like that really turn your perspective upside down.

Speaking of Evangelion, check out my sweet new Esc key

I guess house-moving and college in the States are two huge changes waiting right around the corner that will mark an end of an era for me personally. I have no idea what the future will hold, but things are definitely going to be different soon. Part of me is feeling uneasy (and lazy) about the changes ahead, but mostly I am looking forward to California. Hopefully I will retain the essence of who I am, even as I grow into a new environment.

Manga and CDs

But no matter what happens, I’ll definitely still find time to finish the occasional volume of Kimi ga Iru Machi. That damn thing has more twists than a Taiwanese soap opera. I wonder if the San Francisco Kinokuniya is any good. I hope Maaya performs at Anime Expo again some day…

Anyway, I’ll be in Hong Kong from the 4th to the 10th and spend ten days in Scandinavia towards the end of the month. Things are getting kind of busy around here, but I’m sure I’ll be able to find the time to post some photos from the trips, even though I have yet to finish posting all the photos from my last trip in April…

This is the post about my visit to Kagoshima in southern Japan. I am really pushing out these articles at the breakneck speed of a limping three-legged turtle, considering that I was in Japan in early April and so far have written on barely two places. At this rate I should be done around the time I graduate from college.

The central train station

Kagoshima is not a super hot travel destination for foreign tourists, but I really loved it. It used to be rather inaccessible as you had to take a slow-ass 7-hour multiple-transfer train ride from Hakata, Fukuoka unless you take a direct domestic flight there, but now it’s a short 1.5-hour ride on the new Kyushu Shinkansen’s Sakura service.

Trams

Kagoshima prefecture is rather rural and the popular tourist locations (mostly natural sceneries) are spread quite far apart. You really need a rental car or a cab to access many of them, both of which are terribly expensive.

Fortunately, most of the places of interest (mostly historical sites) are located in Kagoshima City itself between the main Kagoshima-chuo station and the old Kagoshima station. There are multiple bus and tram lines serving all the tourist sites in the city, including the aquarium, the Tenmonkan shopping arcade, the Museum of Meiji Restoration and the ferry terminal to Sakurajima.

Kagoshima is similar to Nagasaki in that they both played incredibly huge roles at certain pivotal points of Japanese history and served as vital gateways to foreign influences, but are today rather small and laid-back cities that are not particularly well-known outside of Japan.

Kagoshima was once part of Satsuma-han, one of the many fiefdoms Japan was divided into before it was properly united. Satsuma-han led the Meiji Restoration in overthrowing the Tokugawa shogunate, restoring power to the emperor and uniting the Japan under a modern (for its time) constitutional monarchy modelled after Prussia, the first of its kind in Asia. As a result of Satsuma’s success, a disproportionate number of the important figures of government in the young Meiji government came from Satsuma, despite its relatively small size and its location far from the capital.

Saigo Takamori, one of the leading figures of Satsuma and the Meiji Restoration, and his dog. A statue of this can be found in Ueno Park

Satsuma-han was also the reason why modern Japan had a close relationship to the United Kingdoms up till WW2. During the reign of Tokugawa, Satsuma had a rather nationalist anti-foreigner streak and its members once assaulted and killed a British nobleman in Kanagawa (Namamugi Incident) for blocking the way of a feudal lord’s path. The British demanded compensation, but the Tokugawa shogunate was powerless to compel Satsuma to do anything. The Brits took things into their own hands and sailed from Yokohama to Kagoshima and bombarded the crap out of Satsuma’s technologically inferior coastal defences. After this large-scale equivalent of a drunken bar brawl (Anglo-Satsuma War), the obvious outcome was that Satsuma and the UK became Best Friends Forever.

Pew pew

After the battle, the UK saw in Satsuma a strong political faction that might grow to overthrow the corrupted and faltering Tokugawa government, while Satsuma realized that foreign barbarians had some good ideas after all, such as the technology to make cannons that could actually hit anything farther away than a fat guy standing in front of the barrel.

Statue outside Kagoshima-chuo station commemorating the 17 Satsuma scholars who studied overseas

This begrudging mutual acknowledge soon blossomed into a beautiful full-blown bromance. In a time when travelling to foreign countries was still forbidden by the Tokugawa shogunate, Satsuma secretly sneaked its people out to study at top universities in the UK, hence giving it a virtual monopoly of Western educated elites ready to run the government after the Meiji Restoration.

Interestingly, the Japanese national anthem “Kimigayo” was composed by a British military band officer who was helping Satsuma-han to train its own military band.

Gravestones of loyal Satsuma retainers

Okay this is turning into more of a history post than a trip report, but really the history is what makes Kagoshima so awesome in my opinion. There’s just something magical about how a bunch of people from a small geographically insignificant corner of Japan left such a great mark on the country’s history. And there are many historical and memorial sites scattered across Kagoshima City related to these figures. In particular, the Museum of Meiji Restoration is definitely worth a visit. It’s a rather small museum but its displays are all very informative. Of course, the English descriptions tend to be rather incomplete and you need to read Japanese to get the full details.

The Kagoshima aquarium was actually rather disappointing. I expected better given the city’s proximity to the sea and its location closer to the tropics, but Osaka’s Kaiyukan is many times better. Still, it’s worth a visit if you are into such things. There’s a regular dolphin show.

Similarly, the Tenmonkan shopping arcade is nothing to write home about. It’s a typical cluster of Japanese shopping arcades whose claim to fame is being situated on the ruins of an old 18th-century observatory, hence its name Tenmonkan (literally “Observatory”). Well, there’s an Animate located there too.

Animate is everywhere

Outside of the city, the only place that is really accessible without a car is Ibusuki, a small coastal onsen town about an hour by train away from Kagoshima-chuo. It feels basically like Hakone but next to the sea instead of mountains. Although you get to try sunamushi onsen, which is basically getting your whole body buried in hot volcanic soil for 15 minutes. It’s like onsen without the water. I tried it and it’s not nearly as exotic an experience as it looks.

My room in Ibusuki

A park outside the inn at Ibusuki

Many people can’t figure out what this picture is showing

Awesome dinner

And of course, there is Japan’s southernmost JR train station for those who are as dorky as me.

Come to think of it, Kagoshima is the perfect location for an anime. It has the small-town feel, plenty of scenic spots, electric trams, an aquarium and that huge ass volcanic Sakurajima in the background. Wonder why it doesn’t show up more often…

So not too long ago, I was in Kagoshima, the southernmost prefecture on Japan’s four main islands. It is a rather backwater place despite the abnormally large role it played in Japan’s contemporary history, but it is very beautiful.

Kagoshima is also the location of Nishi-oyama Station, Japan Railways’ (JR) southernmost train station.

Located in the southern part of Kagoshima with a latitude of 31.11 degrees north, Nishi-oyama Station is not much more than an sheltered slab of concrete with a single wooden bench.

Some JR maintenance people were there doing some work

8 train services per day in one direction. Woot

Facing west at the station gives one a pretty grand view of Mt. Kaimon, a perfectly conical dormant volcano that apparently has the exact same silhouette no matter which direction you view it from. (Taxi drivers are pretty helpful when it comes to sightseeing.)

JR also placed a helpful signboard that indicates the location of its easternmost, westernmost and northernmost train stations. There were actually two Japanese tourists taking photos at Nishi-oyama when I was there. Being a train otaku in Japan is serious business.

There is also a yellow post box that lets you send letters and postcards to your friends and families with a special postmark indicating that it was sent from Nishi-oyama. You can probably send one to yourself and win the race home.

The surrounding area is nothing but farms and hills. Presumably many of the farms grow a variant of sweet potato known as satsumaimo, a speciality of Kagoshima. I bought some satsumaimo-flavoured Kit Kats at the central train station.

A farm right next to the station

The southern part of Kagoshima is divided into two areas by a deep inlet forming the Kagoshima Bay and is hence shaped like a crescent. The left side is known as the Satsuma Peninsula (薩摩半島) and the right side is known as the Osumi Peninsula (大隅半島).

Most of the tourist stuff, including Kagoshima City, Sakurajima (the volcanic island) and the onsen town Ibusuki, is on the Satsuma side, while Osumi is mostly an inaccessible jungle of weird boars and demons. At least that’s what I think it’s like, considering there are basically zero train lines running through it.

But Osumi does play host to Cape Sata (Japan mainland’s southernmost point) and JAXA’s Uchinoura Space Center, which would probably be cool to visit if they were ever made reasonably accessible. Woot.

But I digress.

Scenic spots on the Satsuma Peninsula

Much of Satsuma Peninsula itself is also rather inaccessible and rural, but it does have a single JR train line serving its southern parts. So I guess that is something.

And when I say “train”, I am not talking about JR Yamanote or even your typical subway train. The local Ibusuki-Makurazaki line is served by tiny two-carriage trains that are operated by a single person. JR call these trains ワンマン, literally “one-man”. There are usually two trains per hour.

The white one-man train on the local lines. That’s basically half the train right there

The tourists who take this line are generally headed for Ibusuki (指宿), a small onsen town by the sea more than an hour away from Kagoshima-chou Station. And by “tourists”, I mean old Japanese couples from other parts of Japan.

I could not identify a single foreign tourist during my stay at Ibusuki and my train rides there and back, although I did spot a few in Kagoshima City itself. This can also be observed from Japan Guide’s wholly inadequate section on Kagoshima, which I feel doesn’t do the prefecture/city justice.

But I digress again.

Yamakawa bills itself as “JR’s Southernmost Manned Station”

Scenic spots along the Ibusuki-Makurazaki line between Yamakawa and Nishi-oyama stations

The regular trains on the Ibusuki Makurazaki line terminate at either Kiire (喜入) or Yamakawa (山川). Unforunately, Nishi-Oyama, the southernmost station, is located father down the line and is served by just two direct trains a day from the central station. Due to a lack of prior planning, I did not have time to actually take a train there, sadly.

I want to say that I was hardcore enough to navigate 6km over mountainous terrain to get from Yamakawa to Nishi-oyama (which I almost did because I thought it was at most 2km away in a straight line) armed with only my Android smartphone’s Compass app and no data access, but I was a pussy and took a cab instead (which in retrospect was not such a bad idea).

It turned out to be impossible to follow the track on foot as I had originally planned because it is fenced off and goes into tunnels.

All the stations on the line passed Yamakawa are unmanned, so the train driver has to also act as the conductor at every stop. It’s pretty cool.

The title of this post is kind of a lie because Nishi-oyama is no longer Japan’s southernmost station after Okinawa prefecture built a local monorail line in Naha due to what I presume to be immense spite for JR that I am sure has nothing to do with making life more convenient for its residents.

Hence, Nishi-oyama is now “Japan’s Southernmost JR Station”. You can see the faint red “JR” spray-painted onto the top of the landmark.

Apparently, JR originally changed the sign to “Mainland’s Southernmost Station” in response to the construction of the monorail, which incurred Okinawa’s wrath because it implies that Okinawa isn’t part of Japan mainland. (And I thought the Ryukyu separatists would be happy about that…) JR then changed it back to the original sign with the red word “JR” appended to the front. People fight over everything.

I really loved Kagoshima. Will blog more about it in a future post.

The section of the Kyushu Shinkansen that extents to Kagoshima-chuo Station only came online less than two weeks before my trip to Japan, so it was really lucky that I got to visit Kagoshima with my JR Pass.

P.S. This JR Kyushu commercial celebrating the full opening of the Kyushu Shinkansen is really awesome. Brings a tear to my eyes. Pity they had to stop airing it and tone down the celebrations after the Tohoku quake.

So I am finally back in Singapore. Experiencing post-trip lethargy as usual. I figure I should get started on blogging now before it becomes impossible for me to return to my usual weekly schedule and I fall into the eternal dark void of procrastination.

Nagasaki was the first city in Kyushu I really visited, not counting a short transit at Fukuoka, and it was pretty awesome.

Nagasaki is a great place to visit if you are interested in Japanese history. The port city played an important role in the development of Japan leading up to and beyond the Meiji Restoration because it was more or less the only place in Japan that permitted foreign presence during more than two centuries of self-imposed isolation under the Tokugawa shogunate. Influence from Dutch and Chinese traders can be seen in many parts of the city’s culture and history.

Dejima

Dejima was an artificial island used to house Portuguese traders and later Dutch traders after the Portuguese were barred from the country because their missionary efforts were stirring unrest. The island is more well-known for the period of time when the Dutch inhabited it and therefore it is also called the “Dutch Factory”. The senior Dutch trader in charge of Dejima was called the chief factor. lol.

Dutch bottles for transporting sake and soy sauce

Formal European dinning room…with tatami

The chief factor’s quarters

Wonder if they wore shoes on tatami

A more traditional room inhabited by Japanese Dejima officials

Model of Dejima

A Lefaucheux revolver found at Dejima

I learnt about Dejima in school and thought it was kind of cool. In an age with limited means of communication, a physical moat was all it took to restrict cultural exchange between the foreign traders and the rest of Japan. But despite the forced isolation, Dejima and its Dutch inhabitants still managed to eventually influence the development of academia and knowledge in Japan, to the point that 蘭学 (rangaku, literally “Dutch study”) became a term for the study of science.

Still, I was kind of disappointed to find out that the original Dejima had been long gone by the 20th century after the opening of Japan. The sea around it was reclaimed into the modern harbor area and Dejima itself became just another plot of land. The current Dejima is a reconstruction that resulted from post-war excavations and research and it is a work-in-progress with many buildings not yet fully restored.

Also, I am reminded of that Dutch ambassador character from Samurai Champloo. Heh.

Gunkanjima

What is it with Nagasaki and squeezing people onto tiny islands, I wonder? A mostly artificial coal-mining island-city that once boasted the highest population density in the world, it is today a huge urban ruin and a nice sightseeing spot. Read more about it in my earlier post.

Chinatown

Nagasaki was a port for trading with China for centuries and features plenty of Chinese influences such as its specialty dish Champon. Therefore, it came as quite a surprise to discover that the city’s famous Chinatown is really just two short streets joined in a cross. Although I didn’t really like Yokohama’s Chinatown because it felt like an artificial gathering of tourist traps, at least it was pretty big.

On hindsight, this shouldn’t have been unexpected given that Yokohama has a population of more than 3 million while Nagasaki has fewer than 500 thousand. There are quite a number of wards in Tokyo that are more populated than that…

Not Chinatown, but there’s a Confucius temple nearby

Christianity

Although Christianity landed in Kagoshima first in the form of Francis Xavier, it was in Nagasaki where it really took off due to Portuguese’s mixing of missionary work and trade that eventually led to their expulsion. Initially permitted, Christianity was subsequently banned by the shogunate for inducing subversive sentiments. The converts went into hiding and became known as Kakure Kirishitan or hidden Christians. After the Meiji Restoration brought Western-style religious freedom, these communities came out of hiding and built various churches and Christian monuments in Nagasaki.

Oura Catholic Church

During the years of persecution, many of these Kakure Kirishitan carried with them small statues apparently depicting the Buddhist goddess Kannon carrying an infant in her arms. This was meant to be the Virgin Mary but made to look like Kannon in order to fool the authorities.

And in a somewhat ironic twist, the Urakami Cathedral, built after 30 years of hard work by former Kakure Kirishitan enjoying their newfound religious freedom and the largest church in East Asia at the time, was completely destroyed by the plutonium atomic bomb that detonated just a few hundred metres from its former location.

Peace Memorial

Unfortunately, Nagasaki always seems to play second fiddle to Hiroshima when it comes to atomic history, perhaps because Hiroshima was bombed first or perhaps because Hiroshima today is a much larger city. This difference is also reflected in the resources dedicated to their respective peace memorials. That said, the Nagasaki memorial and its associated museum are still very educational and interesting places to visit.

A replica of one of the statures at Urakami Cathedral

A 1:1 model of Fat Man, the plutonium bomb

Singapore falls

The hypocenter/ground zero

For some reason, the Peace Park near the memorial features a cluster of statures donated by countries that formerly belonged to the Communist bloc, including China, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic. Perhaps it was some kind of Cold War up-yours attempt at reminding the world that as crappy as Communism may be, at least it wasn’t the side responsible for using nuclear weapons against civilians.

This slightly-weird looking stature is the main stature in the park meant to commemorate the bombing. It is rather huge. Its Japanese sculptor intended for it to evoke the features of both Jesus and Buddha. The stature’s right hand points at the threat of atomic bombs from above while its left hand gestures for peace.

Mt. Inasa

Nagasaki’s night view from on top of Mt. Inasa is widely known as one of Japan’s top three night views alongside Kobe and Hakodate. I originally didn’t plan to go up there because the mountain is rather far from the rest of the locations, but a friendly taxi driver offered to take me and my friend up there and to a few other scenic spots for quite a good price. It was quite lucky of us because the view was really breathtaking.

Nagasaki city is located in by a bay surrounded by mountains. Other than the harbour area built on reclaimed flat land, the entire city is built on slopes. This is why almost nobody in Nagasaki rides a bicycle compared to most Japanese cities. Imagine the typical claustrophobic Japanese suburban streets that can barely fit one car. Now imagine them swirling around across the side of a mountain. Many of the houses in Nagasaki are not even accessible by cars and the inhabitants have to walk home from the nearest bus stop.

The flip side of this inconvenient city layout is the awesome night view. From atop Mt. Inasa, you look down towards a flat bay area, where the taller commercial buildings are. Other than the exit to the sea, the bay area is surrounded by mountain ranges and the sides of the mountains are littered with tens of thousands of household lights. Quite a different experience from the usual city night view comprising of high-rise buildings. Unfortunately, my crappy photos don’t really capture the awe-inspiring feeling.

More photos

For some reason, western Japan loves electric trams

The Kinokuniya is smaller than Singapore’s…

Ate soba with wasabi so fresh you have to shave it yourself

The scourge of AKB48 corrupts even Kyushu

Former British consulate

This person seeks election on an anti-Shinkansen platform

A nearby all-girls school…

My only real complaint about Nagasaki is that it is a bloody pain to access. The nearest Shinkansen station is Hakata, Fukuoka and it takes more than two hours by regular express train to get to Nagasaki station from there. The train ride is pretty bumpy and uncomfortable.

Still, a pretty awesome city to visit. Probably not so great to live in considering how hilly it is.

Gunkanjima, officially “Hashima”, is a tiny island just outside Nagasaki Bay. Consisting mostly of man-made concrete-covered landfills, the island was a coal-mining operation run by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry and once boasted the highest population density in the world. Today, the only way to land on the island is by forking out 4,300 yen for a cruise tour that departs twice everyday from Nagasaki Ferry Terminal.

I was there a few days ago and took some pictures.

Hashima is an amazing place in many sense. Today it is known as one of the legends of urban exploration, but not too long ago it was a miniature city with permanent dwellers comprising the coal miners and their families.

The first high-rise concrete residential building in Japan

The population density of the island at its peak was 83,500 people/km^2. In comparison, Tokyo’s is 5,874 people/km^2. It was the site of the first ever concrete high-rise residential building in the whole of Japan owing to its extreme lack of space.

The island is 320m long and 120m wide. It was originally 1/3 its current size. From 1897 to 1931, six separate reclamation projects brought it to its final size. Concrete wave barriers and structures surround the original island, creating the silhouette of a battleship when seen from afar. The island’s nickname “Gunkanjima” means “Battleship Island”. Apparently, the island also resembles an American aircraft carrier when seen from above.

The white building contained the schools

Surprisingly, life was actually pretty good on the island. It had shops, a Shinto shrine, a primary school, a secondary school, a 60-metre swimming pool and high-rise residential apartments with facilities that wouldn’t look out of place in modern Tokyo. The reason is because everything on the island was subsidized by Mitsubishi. For example, every household paid only 10 yen per month for utilities and Mitsubishi covered the rest.

Swimming pool

In the 1960s, every family on the island owned a television and air conditioner in a time when such appliances were rare even in Tokyo households. The annual salary of a teacher on Hashima was about 130,000 yen when the average across Japan was 50,000.

In a way, Hashima was an incredible and extreme example of the vertical natural of Japanese conglomerates and the way they take care of (and/or exert control over) their employees. Even today, when such life-time employment systems are showing their cracks, there are salarymen who never had to file their taxes because their companies have a department that does it for them.

A modern Mitsubishi heavy shipyard nearby

Of course, the Hashima story is not totally sunshine and roses. Coal mines are not pleasant places no matter how much benefits the worker receive. Also, during the war, Koreans were forcefully made to work in the mines just like in many other wartime industries in Imperial Japan.

Still, there is something romantic and almost surreal about the community that once thrived on this mostly artificial island. It is one of those unique crossroads between small-town Japan and the high-tech modern industrial Japan. Kind of like Soukyuu no Fafner or the original Macross really.

As petroleum replaced coal in energy production, the island gradually emptied out and the mine itself was officially closed by Mitsubishi in 1974. The former residents were relocated to all over Japan and various associations exist for them to keep in touch.

Incidentally, most of the information here were covered by the tour guides for the cruise. For those considering the tour, please note that absolutely none of the tour material is available in English. Unfortunately, this is a location that attracts mostly Japanese tourists.

More pictures:

Travelling to Nagasaki was quite a pain due to the lack of Shinkansen, but it turned out to be worth it. I’ll do a write-up for the rest of the city soon.

It seems like I’ve been going to Japan every year for the past few years due to various reasons, so I guess this should not come as a huge surprise. Yes, I am flying to Japan again. Yes, I will be there for Maaya’s “You can’t catch me” 2011 tour, specifically the one in Osaka.

Come to think of it, this trip makes my waxing lyrical last year seem a lot less meaningful. Heh.

I will be in Japan from 26 March to 16 April. As this will be my final romp in Japan for the foreseeable future, I have gone all out in an insane attempt to cover as many locations as possible in one trip.

My confirmed itinerary so far:

• Osaka
• Kyoto
• Nara
• Hiroshima
• Miyajima
• Fukuoka
• Nagasaki
• Kagoshima
• Ibusuki
• Nagoya
• Ise Shima
• Tokyo
• Kamakura
• Nikko

Still trying to squeeze a few more places in, but this more or less covers every place I want to go to in Kyushu and Kansai.

The sheer logistics of this epic journey is mind boggling. I have been spending a good portion of the past week tabbing between Hyperdia, Google Maps, Japan Guide and Hostel World in order to craft the most complicated tour itinerary the world has ever seen. And they said I was mad.

The awesome thing is that most of the transport costs are covered in a lump-sum I paid for a 14-day Japan Rail Pass. This pass allows you to take unlimited rides on any JR railways, including the Shinkansen bullet trains (but excluding Nozomi trains), for a flat 45,100 yen. This is quite cool because I will need to take the Shinkansen at least ten times to cover that many places in just two weeks and each ride can cost more than 100 USD by itself.

The Japan Rail Pass is so awesome that permanent residents and Japanese citizens are actually banned from purchasing and using it because JR would go bankrupt in a matter of days otherwise. You have to purchase it from JTB or a tour agency in your home country.

Japan Rail Pass purchased from JTB

A tip I picked up from booking my accommodations is that in many parts of Japan it is actually possible to find private single-room business hotels that are similar in price or even cheaper than backpacker hostels in the same area. The catch is that these business hotels are mostly used by locals and bookings are done online in Japanese.

But 2,900 yen a night for a private room with proper facilities does make spending 2,500 yen to squeeze with 5-9 other people in the same dorm room seem like a scam.

Of course, the trade off is that you don’t get the interesting mix of characters one finds in a backpacker hostel nor the tourist-friendly English-speaking counter staff. My own itinerary includes both foreigner-centric hostels and Japanese-centric business hotels. It’s nice to mix things up a bit.

Really looking forward to setting foot on Gunkanjima. It’s like the Disneyland of urban exploration. Already booked my 4000-yen guided ferry tour.

Also hoping to crash a lecture or two at Toudai before I leave. Preferably political science or sociology. I blame too much Tokyo Daigaku Monogatari.

Do drop me a PM on Twitter or an email if you happen to be in Japan around that time and want to meet up for tea. I will be in Tokyo from 9 April to 16 April and Kyushu/Kansai before that. I can show you around Akihabara/Asakusa, which, sad/happy to say, I know like the back of my hand.

I was in an apartment somewhere in Malaysia, sitting on the floor of an under-furbished room with two vicious felines plotting the death of my sleeping bag. The stench of cat feces permeated the air, but fortunately my nose was blocked.

You have read the event coverages of DaiCon, the anime convention held in Cyberjaya, Malaysia last weekend. Now you can read the exhilarating story of how I spent my weekends at DaiCon and saw Minori Chihara live, based on the true story of the past three days of my life.

July 10, Friday – 1330 Hours

It is D-Day. Our destination is the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, a world-renowned airport recently rated best in the world (in the 15-25 million passengers category). Bring it on. But not too hard.

I am meeting up with TJ Han at Changi Airport’s relatively-new budget terminal. In the dark and seedy underbellies of Terminal 2, I board a shuttle bus with ridiculously low ceiling. As it approaches the budget terminal, I take a moment’s pause to marvel at how closely this humble airport terminal, built to serve the budgetary needs of cheap-ass American backpackers and third-world virgin flyers, resembles my factually-baseless mental image of what airports in Cuba look like. It is awesome beyond my wildest imagination.

July 10, Friday – 1445 Hours

The “boarding gate” or, as I like to call it, the “featureless corridor that leads to a door which opens up to the tarmac”, has a grand total of 5 plastic seats, the kind you find in the waiting lounge of rundown public health facilities. Our plane, a Tiger Airways Airbus A320-200, stands motionlessly on the tarmac like a stuffed dead bird (thank the secular cosmic forces of the universe it wasn’t an A310). The machine that reads our boarding pass is, on closer inspection, basically a cheap computer on wheels with a USB (or god forbid, serial) barcode scanner.

And that is the exact moment when I fall in love with the budget terminal.

July 10, Friday – 1520 Hours

Watching How I Met Your Mother on my venerable iPod touch. Barney is upset that his friends call him Swarley when in fact he should be upset with his mother for naming him after a gay dinosaur.

A homely-looking (budget) flight attendant takes orders for overpriced beverages served in styrofoam cups made of pure environmental rape. The exorbitant price tag of three bucks for a cup of coke is really Tiger Airway’s self-sacrificing initiative to save the world.

Aww, Robin and Ted would make such a great couple. I take a moment to reflect upon the cruel realities of life before dozing off for a bit.

July 10, Friday – 1700 Hours

We are stuck in this long immigration queue in this building that looks like a poorly-refurbished warehouse. Every other queue is moving faster than ours, an unexplainable phenomenon waiting for its Nobel prize-winning theorem. New faces mysteriously appear in front of us in the queue from time to time. Apparently the queue is moving so slowly that the people in front of us got married and gave birth to two daughters and a son during the time it took for us to turn the last corner.

July 10, Friday – 1730 Hours

It took us a while to realize that this horrible place we are in is actually KLIA’s equivalent of our budget terminal. That was a close shave. My impression of Malaysia rebounds significantly from the abyss of negative infinity.

July 10, Friday – 2100 Hours

After many various other trials and tribulations involving a long bus ride around the entire rural outskirts of the airport runways and a ride on the KLIA Transit rail service, we found ourselves in Putrajaya, a planned city in the middle of nowhere that perfectly juxtaposes its modern amenities with the vast areas of trees and hills that surround them, reminiscent of China’s many new industrial parks and universities. It’s like finding a Hilton Hotel in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Or one of those Soviet-era mega-projects that never go anywhere.

Finally, we reach Kurogane’s house, where we are to spend the next two nights. I find myself sitting on my sleeping bag in an unfurnished living room inhabited by two cats. Aww. How cute. I love cats.

July 11, Saturday – 0030 Hours

One of the cats has just killed a moth on my sleeping bag and is slowly mutilating its dead carcass into dozens of pieces. Not so cute. I am sleepy.

Chewing on a juicy moth. Yum

July 11, Saturday – 0400 Hours

I am still not asleep. The cats take turn to pretend rape each other, a violent and noisy process which involves them jumping onto my sleeping bag from time to time. Aww… How… cute… I… love… cats… Sleep… Murder… those… fu…

DaiCon

Now, instead of going into the boring details of what did or did not happen at DaiCon, I shall just give my general opinions of the whole event and whatever else results from the random firing of my neurons because the entire experience kind of merged into one continuous march of the living dead who lacks sleep. So let’s do this PowerPoint style, doubleplusquick.

Commendable efforts.
Before I get down to business, let me first start off by saying that the event was better than I expected, mainly because I didn’t expect much. It was quite incredible for an event organized by a school anime club. Now on to the unpleasantries.

The location of the event was terrible.
I hold the urban elitist belief that such events should always be held in the city centre so that you can pad the crowd numbers with curious onlookers and lost tourists who make the event area more lively.

TJ Han had to climb a mountain just to get his media pass

There was not much to do.
The event items clearly catered to existing fans of anime, and yet at the same time did not provide much in-depth content for the truly dedicated. The lack of real industry support is glaring, with the only professional presence being maintained by Hotlink Youth Club, a local mobile service whose name sounds a lot like a dating chatline, and Dell, a faceless multinational PC manufacturer who seeks to ruthlessly crush its oppositions like many East-Asian ruling political parties.

Mass-produced PVC figurines were pretty much the only things I took pictures of

Too much focus on Minori’s concert.
I’m probably not expressing a very popular opinion here, but I believe that the vast sum of money spent on Minori’s concert could have been used for a lot of other things. Half of the event hall was taken up by the concert area and the other half felt more like a sideshow than anything. Of course, given Malaysia’s weaker anime industry presence, it may very well have been the case that even throwing more money at the problem wouldn’t have solved anything, but still… Does a seiyuu concert opened only to ticket holders (and fake bloggers with media passes) really serve the purpose of promoting anime? Hmmm.

It’s Minori

Minori sang well.
Unfortunately, she has bad songs. This is a sad reality for many J-Pop singers with great voices. Just look at May’n before her stint under Yoko Kanno…That’s what she said! (Although I kind of liked “Crazy Crazy Crazy“) Also, the sound system was bad. The lack of proper acoustic design in the event hall did not help either.

Moving stage lights were made of Satan’s hellfire.
They burnt a permanent pentagram onto my retinal. The disclaimer at the bottom of DaiCon’s large banner made so much sense after the concert.

“EMINA will not be responsible for any epileptic seizures caused by the extremely exciting nature of our events.”

The MC tried too hard.
I felt embarrassed on her behalf. How noble of me.

TJ Han finds Minori’s hairdresser attractive.
Unfortunately, someone else hit on her first. Smooth.

Event-organizing involves a lot of politics.
It’s a stepping stone to becoming the next Obama, really. What do you think he did as a community organizer in Chicago? He ran an anime convention, duh.

Indirect kiss is only cool in anime.
In real-life, it’s just a way to spread H1N1. It’s also kind of creepy, but whatever floats your boat. Still, it was probably not the best idea in the world to make a blog post about your first indirect kiss with a somewhat well-known mid-tier voice actress. Hell hath no fury like a seiyuu otaku scorned. They can do terrible things to you, like leave angry comments on your blog or sign your email up for porn mailing lists. The horror. *click*

The Rest of It

That’s about all my thoughts on the subject matter of DaiCon actually. I have plenty more on Malaysia and its transportation system, but you know the kind of blogger I am — I just hate digressing from the topic at hand… Oh, did I tell you how I only found out last night that one of the cats that had been terrorizing me in my state of semi-comatose was actually a male? Yeah.

Oh yeah, we actually met up with Owen S and Faye during DaiCon. I didn’t know them before that since I am not an anime otaku and I don’t run an anime blog; I am just a lost soul walking though this surreal world that exists beneath the surface of what most agree to be reality.

Also had supper with Silencer, who happens to be the president of the university’s anime club. This is what we ate:

In addition to my Comiket 75 shopping spree, I also contributed diligently to the wider economy of Japan in numerous ways, no doubt single-handedly helping the island nation escape the brunt of the on-going global recession and the collapse of our century-old debt-based financial institution. I’m kidding of course: the economy has long passed the point of no return.

Jokes made in bad taste aside, I didn’t actually spend much this trip. In fact, on the whole, I probably spent in my one-month stay about as much as I used to spend in a week-long stay. This is particularly amazing when placed in context with the yen’s current exceedingly high value.

How does this amazing mathematical hocus pocus work? Well, firstly you stay in cheap shared dormitories, and secondly you wait for the daily 50% discount at the supermarket for bento nearing their expiry hour. Also, you learn to not buy every piece of mass-produced fan goods that Gamers stocks. I mean, gee, do I really need another key chain when the same amount of money could be used to buy four second-hand CDs from Book-Off.

And oh yes, the cardinal rule of otaku shopping: second-hand shops are your best friend, your fairy godmother and Santa Claus all rolled into one.

Second-hand

90% of the items you see in the pictures are second-hand. This means that someone’s sweaty overweight paws have touched them all over, but it also means that they are cheap. Fortunately, Japanese generally treat their belongings better, especially when resale value is on their minds due to the thriving second-hand industry.

Every CD in the left pile costs 100 yen

100 yen (slightly more than 1 USD) is the magical number when it comes to second-hand goods. Newly-released items and rare collector’s items are graded according to physical condition and market demand by the second-hand dealers, usually selling for slightly less or even more than the original retail value. (For example Final Fantasy Dissidia retails officially for 6,000 yen, a dealer buys your old copy for 4,000 yen and sells it for 5,000 yen.)

However, older items that don’t sell often sit on the shelves for years until finally they are sold off in the discount bin for 100 yen. These items may be too old, too crappy, too over-produced or too niched, but whatever the reason 100 yen is a good deal and generally the heavily-discounted price tag is not an indication of the physical quality of the product but rather the lack of demand or overstocking.

I bought 15 volumes of Zipang and 5 volumes of Tenjou Tenge for 105 yen each (5% tax).

This copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban cost 105 yen

Of course, you don’t have to just aim for 105 yen to get a good deal. DVDs for example seldom sell for that low no matter how low in demand. I saw a complete Kimi ga Nozomu Eien DVD set selling for 6,600 yen at Trader‘s Akihabara branch, when each of the DVDs retailed for 6,000 yen.

The infamous DOA Hand Maid Mai and under-appreciated Seikai no Danshou

If you have the patience and time to dig through poorly-organized shelves of used stuff, you can always find a few gems. Those of you Singaporeans in the late teens to twenties might recognize YAT Anshin! Uchuu Ryokou above. Ah, nostalgia, thou art a money-sucking bitch.

The top left CD is a Nami Tamaki single. I had no idea what it was but I just bought it anyway since it was one buck. Also, Sega Saturn copies of Sakura Taisen!

And I added a few more Pactio cards to my collection. The Chiu single is actually an unopened copy. Also, I think this is my third copy of Evangeline’s card. Fanboyism isn’t cheap either.

And above is possibly my best find in a second-hand shop ever. It’s the first press of the limited edition version of my favourite Maaya Sakamoto album Nikopachi. The cover is different from the regular one (somewhat). First press of the limited edition is like getting double jeopardy or something, except the latter is against the law whereas the former is just milking the fans.

If real-life were World of Warcraft, I’d have earned the “Maaya Fanboy For Live” achievement about five times over by now.

Shiny Things

And of course I didn’t just buy second-hand stuff. I’m not that cheap. Close but not quite.

The only thing I bought at Gamers this trip

Tony Taka’s C74 release

PLANETES manga

And prepare yourself…

Cloning technology put to good(?) use

Yes, I bought LIVE FIGHTER dammit. And the Blu-ray version too. I don’t even own a Blu-ray player! There’s a back story to go with this expensive purchase. It’s kind of long, so here’s the short version:

Every fricking anime shop in Japan was playing the LIVE FIGHTER recording and for some reason I liked it a lot. There was this exhibition at the Animate main branch in Ikebukuro where they displayed all the costumes Nana wore during the concert. There was also a lucky draw promotion for LIVE FIGHTER purchases.

So yeah. I am heavily susceptible to the right kind of targeted advertising and ended up coughing up 9,450 yen for LIVE FIGHTER despite not being a huge Nana fan.

And not just that…

I also picked up the CDs for Suddenly ~Meguriaete~ and Dancing in the velvet moon, my two favourite Nana songs. For what reason? Because Animate gives people who buy over 2,000-yen worth of Nana CDs and DVDs (but not Blu-ray) a limited edition photo of her in a kimono. Kind of creepy if you think about it. Heh.

My current long-term plan is to somehow leverage this photo to recoup my monetary losses from Moyism (the Nana Stalker) somehow. The plan is still in the conception stage.

Keitai

And finally, I bought these…

That looks like 2,000 bucks worth of mobile phones right there. But in actual fact, they cost four dollars in total.

They are actually one-one models used in mobile phone shops in Japan to promote phones. They weigh and feel exactly like the real thing but are otherwise useless. I found a shop in Akihabara selling these off for cheap because it no longer needs them.

zaku towa chigau no dayo!

And of course, a little slice of Gundam thrown in for those G00 fans who are still reading my blog for some inexplicable reason.

P.S. I really need to finish my Comiket report some time before C76…
P.P.S. Yes I am torrenting the HD encoding of LIVE FIGHTER now to make my money worth.

I’m finally back in Singapore. It’s really hot even in my air-conditioned room. Gah. But anyway, here’s my damage report for Comiket 75. I didn’t buy much. Really.

Basically I had only three things on my wishlist for Comiket: Heart Work, Afterschool of the 5th Year (5年目の放課後), and T2 ART WORKS.

Coincidentally, the three circles have their booths on different days, so I ended up queuing for one item a day, a rather relaxed and stress-free arrangement that meant that I did not have to do any overnight queuing or prior planning.

5年目の放課後

Day 1 was Gonenme no Houkago (or as the circle translates it “Afterschool of the 5th Year”). It is a relatively obscure circle probably best known online for its drunken Haruhi illustration. I wrote a post on 5年目の放課後 before.

Their C75 release information can be found on the blog. It’s basically a coloured illustration book, a monochrome ero-sketch book, and a mini poster.

Heart Work

Day 2’s queuing was for Heart Work, Hiro Suzuhira‘s one-person doujin publication. It is a compilation of her recent illustrations and sketches.

Heart Work release for C75

She is probably best known for her character designs in various Navel games such as Shuffle! (Asa, Nerine, Sage) and Soul Link. She often collaborates with her good friend Aoi Nishimata, whose doujin publication is called JOKER TYPE and who designed the other half of the Shuffle! cast (the crappier half that includes Kaede).

Incidentally, the illustrations found in the recently-desecrated Akikan! novel series are among some of Hiro’s older works. They still look better than the anime.

Heart Work phone card

Hiro is my hero(ine).

T2 ART WORKS

The final day of Comiket brought T2 ART WORKS, the awesome release from Tony Taka. His latest release (NSFW) is Clannad-centric with a fulfilling dosage of Tomoyo, hands down the best character in an otherwise overrated generic Key franchise. *Ducks for cover*

Tomoyo megane moe

Tony is probably one of the most successful doujin artists and runs a rather commercialized operation. Personally, I don’t really care about the distinctions between indie and mainstream as long as the art/song is good, but a direct result of Tony’s popularity is that his releases are more costly than most.

Back and front covers of the doujinshi (NSFW but too late)

He also sells his own product sets that change in design every Comiket but are generally the same things. I bought them last year too.

Goodie bag content

In fact, these Comiket-exclusive goods are basically the only reason why you would want to queue for T2. The doujinshi itself is always available brand new from any Toranoana outlet, albeit for 50 yen more due to tax. In fact, I picked up his C74 release (Macross F) at the Akihabara branch. The goodie bags on the other hand can only be found in collector stores at jacked up prices after the event.

Others

Those were my planned purchases. Now for the rest of the random splurges that are the natural consequences of wandering around the Comiket event halls filled with shiny stuff.

Bought for the cover art

Kyonko

Doujin Little Busters! calendar

Rather nice art

Although I’m not really a LB fan

My only purchases from the commercial booths

And some other stuff I won’t go into details about… *cough*

And finally, what might arguably be my most awesome Comiket purchase ever…

IKINOKORITAI!!!

P.S. I have multiple copies of T2 and Heart Work releases… (When you’ve already queued for 2 hours, you might as well.) I wonder what I should do with them.