Hi everybody,

With the event flying by I am finding it tough to balance the crazy work schedule and finding time to get in a blog entry but this one will be for our last full day in Tokyo.  We had a big press conference in the morning at the newly built Anime Center in Akihabara.

Media coverage of Anime/Manga related events is unlike in any other country and there were 6 TV crews and 26 newspapers. From there we went for a walk through Akihabara with cameramen taking pictures everywhere and back to the hotel. 

A TV crew interviewed the China team directly after that and a different TV crew asked the German team to show their rooms and what they brought with them from Germany.
The final event for the day was a visit to the Ministry of Foreign affairs. The 4 teams Germany, France, Brazil and China sat down with Vice Minister Kaneda and then took a tour of the Ministry.  Media recognition of cosplay is one thing but recognition by the government for cosplay as a part of pop culture is something that would not likely happen anywhere else. It was big of the Vice Minister to pose with everyone here:

Stay tuned,

Ed