Animerca Volume 1

Here’s something a little different from my usual posts – I have an illustration in a doujinshi! I got involved in the project via one of the editors, who studied at my university on exchange last year. It’s called アニメルか (Animerca) and it’s a magazine with articles and essays (in Japanese) about anime, with some illustrations included, one of which is mine. The website for it can be found here, and contains a full list of the contents (in Japanese). Some of the articles have been submitted by foreign fans, including David Cabrera (whom followers of the American anime industry might recognise as the new Astro Toy columnist at Anime News Network) and a kouhai of mine from the UK.

I think it’s quite different from what most English-speaking anime fans think of when the word ‘doujinshi’ comes to mind, but I think it’s a great project and a good counterpart to most of the stuff sold at doujinshi events.

Animerca Volume 1 will be sold at Bungaku Freemarket in Tokyo this Sunday, and also at Comiket in the summer, so keep an eye out for it if you’re appropriately located for either of these events!

Here’s the basic info on it:

アニメルカ vol.1
(Animerca vol.1)

Published by Project Animerca (アニメルカ製作委員会)
Publishing Date: 23 May, 2010
Place: Bungaku Freemarket (文学フリマ）in Tokyo
Price: 800 yen

And the list of contributors in English:

Nobuyuki Izumi
karimikarimi
Yuichi Murakami
Edoya Neko800
Kokone
noir_k
Sakasa Donburi
Sugitau
n_euler666
Kain
Jennifer Fu
David Cabrera
Brett A Smithson
mitsugo
kotohatoko
Kia Akita
Itsuya Shinooka
Robin (Me!)
EPISODE ZERO
ill_critique

I’m glad I was able to draw for the magazine. The majority of my experience with comics has been as a webcomic artist, so it was great to get an opportunity to try something different. It was also an interesting challenge for me, as I don’t have my scanner with me in Japan. I could have borrowed one from a friend, but instead I’ve been practicing drawing digitally in full (instead of my usual hand-drawn lineart with everything else digitally) since coming to Japan, and I decided to try doing the whole illustration with my tablet and copy of Photoshop. I was pleased with how it turned out, and while I won’t be giving up drawing by hand any time soon (I can’t imagine reproducing the cityscape I’ve just finished digitally), I’m can be more flexible with drawing now.

Dolpa 23 Report

I couldn’t miss the opportunity to go to a Volks Dolls Party event while I’m in Japan, and the Tokyo Dolpa 23 was held in Golden Week so I made sure to attend. I got my copy of the guide book (which serves as the entrance ticket) in advance rather than at the door, which allowed me early entry to the event. While most events go on during the day, two of the most important ones require you to turn up early: the Tenshi no Sumika shop and the limited edition lottery. The Sumika shop the Volks official store for the event, and sells various things like regular edition dolls, stands and also a whole range of new, limited-edition clothes and accessories. This is what attendees turn up early to the shop for. The Sumika event outfits are only sold at the Dolpa event, and then at the after-events online and in their stores, always in limited numbers so you have to be fast to get what you want. The limited edition lottery is for attendees who want to get hold of one of the limited dolls Volks is releasing for an event. This time there were two YoSDs, an SD girl, an MSD boy and three DD girls. Attendees had to line up to get a ticket with a number on, and the lower the number the earlier they could go and try to buy a doll so the better chances they had of getting what they wanted.

Note: this post is very image-heavy. As usual, click on any image for an enlarged version.