Otaku Dan: The Life of an Anime Fan

You all know that I'm big manga fan but there is one thing that rubs me the wrong way, censorship. We all know that manga in Japan is mostly uncensored which is cool but in the United States, it's a different story.

When is come to the United States, it is up to the companies to decide it they are going to edit stuff out. Viz media is well known for censoring nudity(Claymore), really extreme violence(Jojo's Bizarre Adventure) and any religious references(Full Metal Alchemist) from their manga. I know that Viz has a policy to censor their manga just so they can reach a wider audience and to meet the demands of some mega-stores like Wal-Mart. However, Viz did try releasing an uncensored version of Dragon ball but it was not successful.

Tokyo Pop and Dark Horse do release their manga uncensored but at a small price; they use a parental advisory logo on the front cover. I know that book don't have an actual age rating system so they adopted the P.A. logo from the music industry. I personally find it to be a double edge sword, the reason why is because it does inform the parents of what their children are reading but at the same time it's very annoying. Old Tokyo Pop and Dark Horse use P. A. sticker which can be removed but it may damage the cover. Newer Tokyo Pop makes the P. A. logo part of the cover artwork which bothers me.

I really hate that sticker.

The real reason why companies censor manga and use the P. A. logo is to cover their butts from being sued. In the U.S. people will sue for anything. I can imagine some angry mother suing a manga company because little Bobby saw some "disturbing" images in manga at the bookstore. So, what do you think about this topic?

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It has been over a month since I have done a figure photo shoot. I'm doing my return to the scene with Figma Tsuruya-San School Festival Maid version by Max Factory. I was originally going to get the regular version of Figma Tsuruya-San however, I was captivated by the cuteness of this figure. I do like that this figure brings some great accessories but to keep them on the tray, I had to use glue dots. What I notice about both variations of Tsuruya-San is that if you are a hardcore figma fan, you would have to buy 2 of each. I say this because the first Tsuruya-San brings Emiri's head and the second one brings a hair piece made for Mikuru, meaning that you need a body meant for those parts. Well, let me quit the chit-chat and give you this great Photo shoot.

If you are interested in buying this figure, Hobby Search is selling her for 2,261 Yen.

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If you have been reading my tweets, I posted that I found Portrait of Pirates Series 4: Nami Version 2 for a low price. She was being sold at a high price but I managed to haggle the price down due to there was not box and the figure was covered in scratches. When I got home, I did some further inspections. Those where not scratches but paint that got rubbed on her.


I used some cotton balls and rubbing alcohol to remove some of the paint. The paint that was hard to remove, I use my trusty orange box cutter. I slowly and carefully peeled away that unwanted paint.

I'm happy that I made the decision to get this figure because she is very hard to find at a cheap price nowadays. If you are planning to clean a figure in that sort of way, rubbing alcohol works well but you must use a little force. Don't be afraid that some of the original paint comes off.
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We gather here today to morn the pasting of an very special friend. This friend has been there with me during the good times and bad times. I knew he was going to past away due to old age but I was not expecting for it to happen so soon.

I'm currently using my sister's crappy desktop for the time being(until I steal it from her) and I won't be able to make posts every day. It seems that I have to buy a computer soon.

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I have not bought anything anime related in the last couple of months. When I got to Metrocon's vendor's room, I had to wait in line for about an hour. When it was finally my chance to get in, I saw heaven's door. What you see below is the treasure I managed to acquire this year.

Figures:
Figma Tsuruya-san cultural festival maid version
Figma Rin Tousaka
Max Factory Haruhi Suzumiya
Banpresto Neliel Tu Oderschvank
Megahouse Nami version 2(the one in the bag)

Manga:
Battle Club vol. 1-6
Old Boy vol. 1 & 2

Anime:
Berserk complete collection
Ergo Proxy complete collection

I did not spent as much money as I did last year, but I'm pretty happy with what I got. I pretty much focused on figures, anime, and manga. I did buy more manga than anime because Borders had 20% off on all manga. I did notice that ADV did have a stall but they where only selling discontinued anime and manga for a very cheap price but nothing got my attention.

I may do a couple of figure photo shoots, if I don't feel lazy. That is it, this is my last post that is Metrocon related until January of next year.

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Since you all know that I was at an anime con, I took pictures of some great cosplay. This year I did feel a little lazy when it came taking pictures. I'm sorry that some of the pictures are little blurry, I just did not have my tripod and some people bumped into me. Enjoy.












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For the last few days, I was attending Florida's largest anime convention, Metrocon. Let me just say I had such a great time but I'm so tired right now. So many awesome things happened at this con and let me tell what happened from the start.

Friday:
I left home and drove for about 3 hours. I got to my hotel around 10:00 AM and calmly waited to register. While I was in line to get my badge, I met some really cool people and hanged out with them during the con. I did some shopping and spent A LOT of money there. I did some volunteer work(human traffic cone) at the vendor's room. Late in the evening, I hosted my Gundam panel. That panel was so much fun and I had a blast. Special thanks to my 2 co-hosts, you guys helped me so much.

Saturday:
I woke up at 5:00 AM because my right leg from the knee down was in so much pain. It must of been from the driving, all the walking, and standing I did the day before. The pain did not wear off until around noon. My blogging panel went very well but not that many people attend it because my panel has schedule at the same time as the highlight of the convention, The Metrocon cosplay chess match. I did met the sweetest and nicest girl at the con, she was one to the few people who was at my panel.





not much happened on Sunday, it was mainly parents taking their really young children to the con. I ended up leaving early due to the fact that I was feeling very tired. This year's Metrocon was so much better than last year and I so much fun. I made the decision that I'm going to be attending next year's Metrocon.

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I was looking for a special reflector that can be mounted on a camera. I did find some but they are pretty expensive and it was only for DSLR cameras. I found a pretty sweet DIY Camera Mounted reflector over at Tsuki Board. All you need for this little project is a Styrofoam plates, masking tape, pen, and a boxcutter.

This is pretty easy to make this reflector, just figure out the diameter of the lens and cut. After you're done cutting the hole, use the masking tape to hold plate reflector on the camera.

If you can see in the pictures above, it does work very well. Since now that I'm using a light box, this helps a lot by removing unwanted shadows. So, do you find this tutorial helpful?

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What is this, Otaku Dan made a post even thou he is away for 3 days. Did he pay someone to do it or did he master the black magic spell Bloggera. Nope, I scheduled ahead of time 2 posts for my great readers. As you can tell by the title, this is a 2D girls Chinese dress gallery. I hope you enjoy.

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