2013 New Years Greetings!

POSTED BY DANNY CHOO On Tue 2013/01/01 14:02 JST in Mascot
Happy new year folks! Hows your new year celebrations?
But before you answer that, have you ever thought to yourself why we celebrate the new year? Is it because we want to celebrate what we have achieved in the previous year? Is it because we are celebrating what we want to do in the up n coming year? Is it because we are celebrating the fact that most of us get time off work/school?
If you are celebrating, then please take time out to think about why you are doing so. Have you made a list of what you achieved in 2012? Does the list look good to you? If "yes" then that's great! You certainly have something to celebrate!
If "no" then do you really feel comfortable celebrating even though you have not reached your goals in 2012? Make sure you do everything to ensure that the future you can look back at your 2013 list so that you can have something to truly celebrate this time next year.
As for me - I think my team and I achieved and learned quite a bit in 2012 - but will list that up in a separate post because I dont have time right now - heading into another meeting in half hour ><
And here is my new years prezzie for you - starting from now, on the 1st of each month, I'll be distributing parts of the MoeCalendar which we sold as a poster at Comic Fiesta. This month is Eiji Seiun, Retrokyu and Mirai Suenaga in their new year gear. The 2560px x 1600px image lives here - should be big enough to cover the majority of desktops and also big enough to print on your home printer - only for your personal use please!
New years in Japan is typically celebrated over 3 days from 1st - 3rd of January. Many folks travel back to their home town to spend time with family. Folks also traditionally visit a shrine or temple to make a prayer for the up n coming year.
We are still in Malaysia at the moment and is our first time in 13 years we spent new year outside of Japan. From here we travel up to Penang to have Culture Japan Night and have meetings with the Penang Tourism Board. From there we fly direct to Bankok where I will be giving a keynote and have a booth at the Thailand Game Show. I return to Tokyo mid January.
Have been in Kuala Lumpur for about 2 weeks now and have been going through back to back meetings with various folks regarding TV, logistics, investment, legal, transportation, banking, manufacture an so on - and yes its all about Mirai Suenaga ^o^
Meanwhile back in Japan - this is what we would have been doing if we was in Japan right now - at the local shrine to make a prayer for the next year and say thanks for the previous one.
You can see how folks in Japan spend new year by taking a gander through the following photo articles:-
-Japanese New Year 2006 (Meiji Jingu in Harajuku)
-Japanese New Year 2007 (Sensouji in Asakusa)
-Japanese New Year 2008 (Meguro Fudouson)
-Japanese New Year 2009 (Meguro Fudouson)
-Japanese New Year 2010 (Meguro Fudouson)
-Japanese New Year 2011 (Meguro Fudouson)
-Japanese New Year 2012 (Meguro Fudouson)
Thank you for your continued support - it always means a lot to me and is one of the things that continues to drive me. Here is hoping you had a great 2012 and an even better 2013!