One of my favorite site is Cake Wrecks. In Japan, we may order some message on chocolate plate on cake but we hardly order such designs! It’s hard to choose [...]
Tags: Beef, Cake Wrecks, Chicken, Commercialism, Food, Japan, Mammoth, manga, manga meat, Meat
When I saw a girl who wears clothes like a doll sometimes, I thought it would be a sort of cosplay. But I realized that I misunderstood. THAT is a [...]
Tags: Age Jo, Ahiru guchi, Casual, cosplay, doll, duck mouth, Fashion, Fluffy, French Doll, Gyaru, hair, Hime, Hostess, Japan, Jesus Diamante, Koakuma Ageha, manga, Mori, Mori Hair, Peace Sign, Princess
Intro
Green Day open the EMAs on a rockin’ note. Dressed up like hometown heroes Tokio Hotel – think total black, with red and white accents – they looked very Germany. [...]
14 years ago, Kobe area had big earthquake. 6,434 people were killed and around 300,000 left homeless. Damage was huge, over 200,000 building and highway were collapsed. Kobe city build [...]
Tags: anime, Earthquake, Giant Robot, Japan, Kobe, manga, Tetsujin
This article from the BBC is hot on the Internet. “Is Japan a dying nation?” I agree that aging is an issue.
Actually I think current Japan is not dying–but only [...]
We have “spo kon manga/anime.” It means sports and tough spirit manga/anime. The main characters of these stories try hard and get to be a winner in some sport. You [...]
Tags: anime, Chabudai, Chabudai Gaeshi Game, comics, Japan, Japanese, manga, Rocky, spo kon manga, Sports, Star of the Giants, Taito, Tokyo Toy show, Tomorrow's Joe
Hong-Kong-born Canadian artist Howie Tsui had a weird slate of influences for his latest sublime, psycho-fantastic project:
“Asian ghost stories, Buddhist hell scrolls, Hong Kong vampire films, neo-conservative propaganda, and twentieth-century [...]
Here at MTV Iggy we were very disappointed to learn that this pic of Kirsten Dunst, all dolled up a la Manga, is not just a snap of her on [...]
Tags: Akihabara, anime, Fashion, Harajuku, Japan, Kirsten Dunst, London, Lost in Translation, manga, Sailor Moon, Tate Modern, Tokyo, Weird Outfits Explained
Team Iggy has touched down in Japantown, San Francisco for this weekend’s J-POP Summit and grand opening of VIZ’s NEW PEOPLE shopping and entertainment center.
In classic Iggy fashion, the journey [...]
Otakon 2009 has come and gone. The otaku, cosplayers, anime and manga fans are all back to their daily routines and lives, no longer rocking their wildly imaginative and colorful costumes (at least I would think so, but who can say…?).
Tags: anime, Baltimore, conventions, cosplay, crossplay, fandom, manga, Maryland, Otakon 2009, Otaku, rave, sci-fi, steam punk, United States, yaoi
I think the longer one stays at Otakon, the closer one approaches true otaku-ness. It’s become a game among the Iggy team to see who can guess the assumed identities of the more obscure cosplayers. This type of mindless focus on minute trivia and details, of course, is the definition of otaku behavior.
At least it is for the original Japanese definition of the term. However, I’m not certain original Japanese otaku would acknowledge the thousands of attendees that converge on Baltimore every year as being “true” otaku. It’s an interesting illustration of how pop and sub cultures often transform when they cross cultural and territorial borders.
Otaku, in the original Japanese sense, were/are reclusives obsessed to the point of eccentric solitude with their infatuation of choice – often it was anime and manga, but there are also j drama otaku, idoru (idols) otaku, gaming otaku and so on.
Tags: anime, Baltimore, conventions, cosplay, fandom, manga, Maryland, Otakon 2009, Otaku, sci-fi, United States
Every year, the downtown harbor area of Baltimore’s regular crowd of summer tourists is transformed into a colorful spectacle as a cast of anime & video game characters, lolitas and general sci-fi fanboys (and girls) take over the whole neighborhood surrounding the Balt Convention Center — yup, it’s Otakon!
Otakon has been the most popular event of its kind on the East Coast for more than a decade. Team Iggy is on the scene and will provide updates, interviews and of course, photos throughout the weekend and in upcoming days as part of our ongoing J-pop, otaku and anime coverage.
Tags: anime, Baltimore, conventions, cosplay, fandom, Halo, manga, Maryland, Master Sergeant, Otakon 2009, Otaku, sci-fi, United States
Blood: The Last Vampire opens in select theaters today. The film marks the English-language debut of South Korean actress Jun Ji-hyun, of My Sassy Girl fame. For her leap [...]
Tags: anime, Blood: The Last Vampire, Cinema, Entertainment, Film, Gianna Jun, Hiroyuki Kitakubo, Jeon Ji Hyun, manga
It seems pointless to paraphrase the splendid musings that Murakami wanders through, video clip after clip, in the online exhibition of the © Murakami retrospective that has been making its [...]
Tags: AI, Animation, Art & Design, Bilbao, Brooklyn, Frankfurt, Gaming, Lo's List, Lo's List: ♥'s Murakami Party, Los Angeles, manga, Otaku, Shigeru Mizuki, Takashi Murakami, ©Murakami Retrospective
Bryan Lee O’Malley is our hero. He’s also Canadian. He is the artist/writer/brains behind the Scott Pilgrim comics, which is currently being adapted for the big screen by Edgar Wright [...]
Tags: anime, bryan lee o'malley, comic con, manga, megaman 2, michael cera, ramona flowers, scott pilgrim
Unless you’ve been subletting under a rock for the past three years, it should come as no surprise when I say that Asia’s artists have gone international. Takashi Murakami teaming [...]
Tags: 2nd Annual Asian Contemporary Art Fair, ACAF, Akira Kurosawa, Almagul Menlibayeva, Asian Art, Beijing Olympics, Cai Guo-Ziang, China, Dai Guangyu, Dang Xuan Hoa, Guggenheim, Gwen Stefani, Harajuku, Hiroji Noda, Hype Williams, Kanye West, Kim Jimin, manga, Mariano Ching, N*E*R*D, New York, NYC, Pharrell Williams, Pier 92, Ratna Gupta, Recession, Ren and Stimpy, Robert Smigel, Seifollah Samadian, Seven Samurai, Takashi Murakami, The Grudge, Zhang Peng, Zhang Xiaogang
