Hyper Japan Christmas 2016

So I am going to fill in the last few months not quite in order! I will start with all the Christmas related things as that makes most sense to me as we are still only a few weeks after Christmas. Matt and attended Hyper Japan Christmas Market again this year. You can see previous Hyper Japan fun here. What with all the lovely train problems we are having here in the UK we decided to drive up and I would happily do it again as the parking was so reasonable. We got there pretty early as there were some live performances we wanted to see and we wanted to make a whole day of it.

We started off by watching the The Hoopers live who describe themselves as “eight girls dressed as beautiful boys,” and they are an androgynous J-POP band. They were amazing and I really need to download their album as I REALLY enjoyed their music! 

We then did lots of shopping, much to my dismay most the Yuri!! On Ice things were sold out, but I got a badge. However I bought plenty of other things! I really enjoyed looking around. We watched some live performances and thoroughly looked over all the stalls and shops. I also had the most amazing waffle cone thing that I have and expect will ever have again. Seriously it was just heaven in a waffle cone thing. mmmmmmmmm........

We then ended the day by watching The Tomboys, who were a sort of Japanese/English punk band influenced by the Sex Pistols. Although the music wasn’t to my taste they were amazing! They were also the happiest looking girls I have ever seen ever. They were fantastic to watch live!

One thing I do really love about the Christmas Market is when it gets dark and all the Christmas lights come on, so we stayed long enough to see those. Seriously they are sooo pretty and really get you in that Christmas mood! After that we jumper back in the car and then headed home after a very long tiring day. 

I was rather happy with my haul! I managed to get my first dōjinshis (Makoharu and Kurotsuki) I also got a lovely Free! (Makoharu and Reigisa) Christmas decoration. Along with a Victuuri badge, sweets, a choker and a Himouto Nendroid. All in all a good haul if you ask me! I also picked up some Christmas gifts for people that went down VERY well! 

Anyhow, I cannot wait for the summer one now! I MIGHT even cosplay for that one but we shall see as I never got to wear my Totoro dress I made. 

Hyper Japan 2016

This Sunday Matt and I headed up to Hyper Japan. We attended the Christmas one and also the summer one back in 2014. Matt is a  huge fan of Japanese culture and Anime and Manga so I thought it would be a great day out for both of us.

We got Sunday tickets and headed up to London for about 10am stopped for a huge breakfast on the way there. The trains were absolutely manic on the way up there and the weather was really warm too so we were a little frazzled by the time we got there. However we got in there quickly and it was nice and quiet inside.

I picked my little green foxy dress from Hell Bunny and paired it with a green cardigan I picked up from New Look. 

We got to have a really good look around all the stalls before it started to get crazy busy. There were a lot more stalls and art stalls than previous years and I really enjoyed looking around those. I picked up some really cute Firefly badges and Matt was the one this time round that got some POP! Funkos and a Gundam figure.

We mostly spent the day wondering about and attended a talk by Kihara Hirokatsu, who showed us some original sketches from Studio Ghibli films. They were awesome and I really enjoyed that. Mostly we did shopping and I demanded Matt take lots of photos which I shall share! 

Matt and I, I demanded a selfie. 

DOMO

My favorite candy ever.

The clawwwww

Domo dancing was pretty awesome

We always spend too much money on Japanese candy 

At the end of the day we also attended IA 1st Live Concert in Japan -PARTY A GO-GO and that was really fun to watch too. 

I really did have a fab day out, Matt and I haven't had much to the last few months so I was super excited for this. The weather was absolutely amazing which also made a nice change as here in the UK the summer so far has literally been a wash out.

Like all conventions I go to the atmosphere was great and I really do wish there were more out that as this is my favorite way to spend my free time.... although it also seems to be my favourite way to spend my money too so my purse probably thanks the lord that it isn't an every week thing.

I also have found a whole new obsession that has sprung to life very quickly. I found an Illustration Collection art book for the Anime Jyunjo Romantica. I didn't know what it was but Matt had watched World's greatest first love which is by the same author.... and it just reminded me so much of how I picture Charles and Eric when I read my Cherik fics so I bought it and started watching the Anime as soon as I got in and I am now 100% hooked. Oops... 

My little fan girl heart is beaming right now and I just want to stay at home curled up on the sofa watching these back to back. BUT ALAS, I have to get up and do adult things. Luckily I have a whole week off next week so I will be over indulging it then.

ALSO Star Trek is next week too, I am going to watch it at the BFI IMAX which I am sooo excited for... 

I hope you have a lovely week ahead and can concentrate more than I can at the moment! 

Hyper Japan 2014

This weekend has indeed been a busy one! I will start briefly with a friend of mine Jenna and her fiancé Mike. They opened up their own comic book shop and we went down at on Saturday. It is a really beautiful shop and it was rammed in there! I really hope they do amazing! They had some guest there too and I got my photo with a Dalek!

Then on Sunday we had tickets for Hyper Japan. We’ve never been before and talked about going last year but didn’t. This year however Matt has really gotten in to Japanese stuff and Manga and Anime, so we went. It was only £24 for 2 day tickets which I thought was pretty cheap. For all the other conventions I go to, I know to get there as early as possible as the queues can wrap around the building so we planned to get there for 8:30ish and the doors opened at 9:30.

I got up at 6am!! Which is a crazy time for a Sunday morning and got ready. We didn’t actually have to leave until 7:15 at the latest but I ended up being ready by about 6:30am oops. After being late for comic con I took no chances but I was ill then so I think they had a big part to play in my lateness.

We stopped of course at Clapham for our pretzel and got to the venue for 8:30am. The queue however was tiny!! I think next time we can get up a little later and get there for about 9:30-10am!

We got in pretty much bang on 9:30, they had a much better system than LFCC and it was much smoother. The hall was fab there were many stalls but there was tones of room to walk in-between them. The first thing I spotted upon entering was TOTORO! So I ran over like an excited school girl and got my photo taken with him!

We then ended up going to 3 talks in a row. The first was a little strange and was a Secret Ninja, the next was a pretty cool robot talk and then the third was a software called Vocaloid which meant they could make music with human voices with humans! They mixed this with a traditional puppet performance and previewed an exclusive 30minute film using it. I will admit I did not know what was going on but it was really cool!

We then literally ran for food as we were so hungry! We had NO IDEA what we were ordering and joined a queue that were selling noodles as we knew what noodles were! We picked noodles that came with dough ball things and prawns. I have to admit that the price was pretty steep for the amount you got £14 for two. Then it didn’t help that we did not like the noodles very much at all, but we were so hungry we ate it all!

Next we just went round and had a look at all the stalls. I have to say I was a little disappointed (although don’t take that as it made the day any less enjoyable!) there weren’t as many stalls as I thought and not that may manga stalls for Matt. I thought it would be a little more like comic con stalls. They had lots of individual sellers too but the stuff was very ‘cute’ and pink and a little too cute for my taste!

However I did have a great time, and the atmosphere was great and we stayed from 9:30 till 5pm and the time flew by!  I also got some pictures with other cute characters! No for a picture spam!!

Domo came out to say hi! and had a photo opportunity which of course I got excited over

This Panda was sooo cute and I wanted to take him home. 

You can see how excited I was by him haha!

I wore my space dress (it actually fits perfectly now) 

I got Matt to snap a picture of it!

Me and Matt waiting for the talks to start!

I had a great day out and I think will go again next year. I think MCM is going to be the bigger one for us this autumn for Matt to get his Manga stuff, but I would say it is definitely worth going to Hyper Japan! There were a lot of traditional culture bits than I thought and I really enjoyed that too! There were also some BEAUTIFUL cosplayers… less than I thought but there were some amazing dresses and wigs!

We were home by 6pm and got a Dominos on the way home which was a bargain (any size £6.99) and that was just delicious! Now much to my dismay it’s Monday and now I have a quiet August

Nothing much now until September/October!

27^th September is Euro Gamer 29^th September off to France 18^th October is LFCC Winter and 25^th October is MCM! So that is a busy month to look forward to!

Hope this week goes quickly so I can sleep all weekend as today I am KNACKERED!