Life in Tokyo through photos covering the past few weeks. Tis been a while since the last installment of A Week in Tokyo. Usually takes me a day to sort out the photos and write up the English and Japanese version of these posts - its been difficult to get a day off to do so of late.
Today we cover my 2011 Summer which is been mostly consumed by production of my TV show Culture Japan Season 2.
During late Summer, its festival time in Japan. The first photo is taken outside my local train station - the Ryosha festival is about to take place where a load of Omikoshi are carried about our town.
Off to Osaka to spend two days filming with voice actress Mimori Suzuko. Shinkansen bullet trains run at various speeds - the faster they are, the more you pay. I think we took the Kodama which took about 3 hours.
First stop in Osaka is a visit to the offices of eroge maker Yuzu-soft. If you like anime titles like Kore wa Zombie and Hidan no Aria then you will like the girls in Yuzu-soft's games done by Muririn-sensei and Kobuichi-sensei.
Tis been a few years since I visited Osaka - I should go more often! Photos from the trip in the Osaka Namba post.
Filming at Osaka's equivalent of Akihabara - photos in the Otaroad post.
When we arrived at Shinagawa, 2.5 thousand girls crowded around what appeared to be the group Arashi (?) who were surrounded by Mr Smith type body guards. It really was commotion!
JC Staff producer Ohashi-san on my left, reader Dan's, Nakamura-san from Ascii Media Works and DMYO-sensei who is shy.
Treating the lads to some Indian food outside the JC Staff studios. Did I mention that Indian food always reminds me of my past?
Saving money tip - if you are in Japan and want to save every penny on shopping in Akihabara, buy food from a supermarket instead of a convenience store. Go to the supermarket at about 8PM and you will start to see stickers on food products like this one - 20% off at the register.
Many bento boxes and perishable foods will also be discounted as they want to get rid of them as soon as possible.
When you are in Japan, where do you go to stock up on food? When I first visited most my food was from a convenience store ^^;
DMYO-sensei's iPhone screen. What do you have as your phone screen?
These boxes are supposed to be used for trading card games but I use em for business cards. Endo Saya here from the eroge Kisaragi Gold Star.
Quick curry before heading back to base. figma Mirai in the background needs a change of clothes.
Filming at the offices of Cybernoids who worked on the Oreimo iPhone app. They done an incredible job with Mirai-chan! Sneek peek here - that pose wasn't drawn by anybody but by the powerful rendering tools that Cybernoids have.
Weather around the typhoon was pretty lousy.
Occasionally I would tweet my whereabouts on my Twitter and readers would come along. I'd treat everybody to dindins if not too many show up ^^;
About to film with AmiAmi at the office.
Helping Elly Otoguro get some ninja girl training at Edo Wonderland.
Mr Brown getting a bollocking from his producer asking him not to talk over my sentences ^^;
Mr Greg Penny - a record producer for folks such as Elton John and k.d. lang. Greg was over in Tokyo for some work and we hooked up. We've known each other for quite a bit ever since he reached out to me from discovering my writings about Japan.
My fave cereal ever - Cinnamon Toast! My producer for Culture Japan Jun in the US sent some over - but its all gone...
Jun!
Skan Srisuwan is the guy who is responsible for the design of Mirai's Solar Marine uniform and the Retrograde Suit.
He was the lead designer at Square Enix for the Front Mission project and was in Tokyo recently for the Tokyo Game Show.
Looks like I'm in the middle of editing the ED for Culture Japan. I use Teleport which enables me to control the iMac with the MacBook Pro mouse.
Filming at the offices of Good Smile Company for Culture Japan - photos taken on the day in the Carnival Phantasm post.
The first sample of the Mirai Health Mousepad had quality issues - been working with the factory to iron out the issues but its taking a lot of time! I think we are nearly there. Hopefully the next sample to arrive should be perfect. As you can see from some of these - some of them hardly have any cleavage. A mousepad without a cleavage means that you cant rest your.... arm on it properly.
Voice actress for Mirai-chan is doing the narration for Culture Japan.
Production of the Mirai Millennium OP took just over a month and involved many hours on Skype with my man in Singapore - Pinakes.
And before I knew it - Culture Japan went on air. The first episode of season two was broadcast in Japan last Saturday. Hope to finish off two more episodes this week. Have already filmed 9 episodes of the 13 and am trying to get everything handed into Tokyo MX before I head over to Singapore for AFA 11. Mnet America should be prepping season 2 soon.
Anyway, before I leave you, many folks have been telling me how I put too many photos in one post and that a page takes 2.5 years to load. How is loading speed on your end for a post like this one with 80 photos?
More life in Tokyo through photos in previous editions of A Week in Tokyo listed up below.