Brighton Japan Festival - 23rd June to 1st July

The Brighton Japan Festival will be returning again this year, and their website has been updated for the 2012 event. The festival will be running between the 23rd June and the 1st July, so is 8 days long (much longer than most of the other festivals in the UK).
  
The festival events will be launched with a Moshi Matsuri on 23rd and 24th June, which will include "Japanese music and performances, traditional children's games, workshops and street processions, as well as a profusion of shitamachi-style stalls selling all sorts of street food and Japanese goods".
It will also include an Asahi Anime Festival, 30th June and 1st July, which is "A delirious and colourful celebration of all things anime, with Cosplay contests, manga drawing and karaoke competitions galore".
Lastly, there will be evening events at the Festival Hub, 22nd June to the 1st July (the official site states the 22nd June, yet the event starts on the 23rd June...) which will include "A series of classy, quality evening events held in a specially erected tent next to Moshi Moshi in Bartholomew Square"

For more information on the event please check out the official site. Performers, sponsors, stallholders and volunteers who would like to be involved can apply here.

Japanese Culture - Hinamatsuri

Hello All, and welcome to first lesson in Japanese Culture (one that I have been promising for quite some time now). This first Japanese Culture event takes place on 3rd March every year, and is called Hinamatsuri, or Girls Day. It is also called Momo no Sekku, but it is called this as much as it is called Hinamatsuri.

Although I have learnt about this previously in a Japanesepod101.com lesson, for this post I have been looking up bits and pieces from Wikipedia, and the lesson notes from JPod, to rattle my brain to bring back the information to pass on to you.

Hinamatsuri is a festival to celebrate all the female children in Japan (boy's get their own day later in the year, called Kodomo no Hi or Childrens Day, and is technically to celebrate both genders but is recently more for boys). The festival is to celebrate the birth of girls and their future happiness.

The reason it is sometimes called Momo no Sekku is that Momo means 'Peach Flowers'. In the old Japanese lunar calendar 3rd March signified the season of Peach Flowers, hence the name of the festival. The festival is believed to have originated from the Heian Era (794 to 1185AD).

One of the major parts of Hinamatsuri is displaying a set of dolls, which are dressed in ancient court costumes, on a 5 to 7 tier set of shelves called Hina Ningyo. The main dolls for this set are the Emperor, Empress, Courtiers, Court Ladies and Imperial Musicians. All of theses dolls are collected for girls as they are believed to protect them from illness and evil spirits.

 

 The dolls are displayed in a specific order, and each doll is meant to be put on a certain level of the tiered shelves. The emperor and empress are placed on the top shelf, the court ladies are displayed on the second shelf, and the court musicians are placed on the third shelf.

These dolls are displayed for a few weeks prior to the 3rd March, but must be taken down immediately after the 3rd March. This is another superstition, as if the dolls are not put away quickly then it will delay the daughter getting married.

As with the majority of the Japanese festivals there is special food associated with it. In the case of Hinamatsuri the 2 foods mentioned on the sources are Hina Arare (a type of sweet rice cracker) and Hishi Mochi (a 'rhombus shaped rice cake'). A drink associated with this festival (seems a little odd to me as the day is celebrating young females...) is white sake , or Shirozake.

Hina Arare

Hishi Mochi

Shirozake

 Lastly, there is a song associated with the festival, and the lyrics are as follows:

Akari wo tsukemasho bonbori ni
Ohana wo agemasho momo no hana
Gonin-bayashi no fue taiko
Kyō wa tanoshii hinamatsuri

(English)
Let's light the lanterns
Let's put peach flowers
Five court musicians are playing flutes and drums
Today is a joyful Doll's Festival

Hyper Japan 2012 - My Day In Pictures

Hello Everyone, and welcome to my post (finally) of my visit to Hyper Japan 2012.

This Japanese festival has been held in February for the last 3 years (the last time I attended it was it's first year, 2010, when the venue was in Brick Lane, London) and celebrates all aspects of Japanese culture, unlike the MCM Expo which is more concentrated on Anime and Manga. The new venue for this event is now Earl's Court, London, and is literally across the road from Earl's Court tube station.

Just to let you know in advance, i forgot to take that many pictures of wandering around, but the venue was a lot larger than the Brick Lane venue, and had many different stalls all over the place.

Life Size Hatsune Miku Statue at Sapporo Snow Festival

There will be a special guest at this years Sapporo Snow Festival, in Hokkaido, which will be a life size statue of vocaloid singer Hatsune Miku. The statue will be on display at the festival between the 6th to the 12th February.

Hatsune Miku will also have a line of Snow Miku goods produced that will only be available at the festival. These will be co-created with the Hello Kitty company Sanrio. This will include two plush dolls and a limited run of 3,000 Nendoroid Snow Miku Fluffy Coat Ver. figures.

Another collaboration with this event is a special railway service called Yuki Miku Densha (which translates as 'Snow Miku Train') which will be running between 19th December and 30th March. This is completed by Hokkaido Prefecture Sapporo City, who also redesigned the trains last year with Hatsune Miku.

K-ON branded Pet Food bowls and Golf Club Covers

The online shop of Japanese production company Pony Canyon, Canime.jp, have begun selling new K-ON! merchandise, including branded cat and dog food bowls. These will be selling for 1,500 yen for the smaller bowls, and 2,000 yen for the medium sized bowls.

Another novelty item they have started to sell are Golf Club covers, which are plush dolls of the girls with the cover behind them:

I personally am quite tempted to get my dog one of the food bowls, but am not too sure how my wife will take it ^_^

Akihabara Cafe has Idol's Serving You Instant Ramen

 A shop in the 'Electric Town' of Tokyo, Akihabara, has started to hire Idol's as waitresses, who will serve any customers their instant ramen. The cafe is called Noodol Cafe and is due to open tomorrow (Wednesday 25th January). For 800 yen you will be able to get an Idol to pour boiling water on your instant ramen, and they will then talk to you for 3 minutes whilst the ramen is prepared.

The idols are all signed up with the Platinum Production agency, and you can choose which idol you would like to perform this service from the vending machine at the entrance of the store. This is a very common way for Japanese food establishments to get orders, but they have never been used to request an idol as well!

In the news report (below) one of the customers actually points out that it is cheaper to eat at the Noodol Cafe than a typical Maid Cafe, also found at Akihabara, as they usually charge 1000 yen for a similar service.

'Dragon Ball Kai' Postage Stamps on sale January 2012

The Japanese Postal Service have announced that they will be selling stamps inspired by the Dragon Ball Kai anime series, and will be on sale from 23rd January 2012.

The stamps will feature well-known characters from the series, such as Vegeta, Son Goku, Son Gohan, Piccolo and Trunks. There will be 1.5 million sheets of these stamps on sale, and each sheet will include ten 80 Yen stamps. Also, every branch of Japan Post will stamp envelopes with a special Dragon Ball Kai date stamp, featuring Son Goku.

This is not the first time that Japan Post have released Anime postage stamps. The Dragon Ball Kai set are actually the 17th set released, in a series of stamps including Pokemon, Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

In case you are not aware, Dragon Ball Kai is another version of the Dragon Ball Z anime that more closely follows the original Akira Toriyama Dragon Ball manga. It also included scenes from the Dragon Ball Z series that were remastered and updated, along with a re-recordeded soundtrack.