Tokyo International Anime Fair 2012 in Odaiba

I totally forgot to post about my adventures when visiting the annual Anime Fair located in Odaiba, Tokyo. It was the last day together in Tokyo before our friend Susann left again for Berlin! Since she and my roommate Pachi are great fans of anime we decided to visit the fair. Tickets were only 800Yen in Lawson pre-sale as far as I remember. I personally am no great fan of any visual media; neither film nor anime really ever caught my attention. I love going to the cinemas since they have nachos with cheese sauce and pepperoni there LOL! 😀 But I barely sit at home watching movies. I find it really boring, I’d rather go out take some photos or read or draw or do anything with my hands. Just sitting and watching bores the hell out of me.

To be honest, I expected it to be bigger. Whoever went to Japan knows that anime is one of their biggest cultural influence here. You find anime everywhere: advertisement, games, books, cover, food, TV… it’s just EVERYWHERE. Therefore I was kinda surprised how small the actual fair was. But I guess since it’s such a vast field they have more than one and maybe the one we went was just a small sidekick. It also seemed like they tried to recruit new people for the anime-business since people from various animation schools were everywhere. I think we spent two or three hours there before we decided to head for Shibuya again to do some last-minute-shopping with Susann (she’s coming to Japan 6/4 for work, so glad to see her soon again! ♥)

Although I am not the greatest fan of anime as such it was quite a fun day! We got looooots of goodies, like small bags, postcards, stickers and clear files for university! I collected so much clear files that I didn’t need to buy any for university xD Now everybody in my class thinks I am a huge fan of anime lol. Hope you liked the pictures, I didn’t take that much since I was busy collecting all the goodies and hunting cute person-stuffed-in-giant-plushies! ♥ Oh and I thought maybe some of you like to see the trailers for the movies I mentioned earlier, so here you go!

The six year old Yuuta, whose father just passed away, decides to spent the summer holidays in the name of his father at a place where his father used to spent his holidays. When he meets a strange old man in the forest a time slip happens and he finds himself in a place 30 years before the present time. He meets the old man again in the forest and he tells him that Yuuta has to live the summer vacation once again for a month in the year 1970….

 This movie is about 11-year old Momo who finds out that her father, who passed away, tried to tell her something by writing her a letter. She’s meeting some strange kind of beings when waiting for the bus in the rain which are turning her life into chaos. When she finds out that the human beings might interact with those passed away she begs them to transport a message to her father.

These movies are very „Japanese“ when it comes to the content. The motif of cherishing the family seems to be very strong in both movies, though there are some several fantasy elements added to both of these films. I’ll definitely watch the second one, maybe even the first when I have enough time and nothing to do (since I’m no great fan of watching movies, remember?)

So now, I have to get ready for some cooking adventures with my roommate, see you next time! (:

– Sam.