I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season and best wishes in the New Year, the year of the Mouse. If you are a fan of Manga/Anime then there is a great classic that you should know about: Lupin the Third.

As a Manga this series first came out in 1967 and it was released in Anime form in 1971. Created by Kazuhiko Kato (a.k.a. Monkey Punch) this series has been enormously popular over the years in Japan with video games, musicals, toys, pachinko machines, TV series' and movie spin offs. There was even a hip hop version by Seamo that got regular radio air-play last year. (You can listen to it on YouTube, search for "Seamo - Lupin the Fire") I don't remember seeing the TV show when I was a kid, how about you, have you heard of Lupin III where you are?

Lupin III is describe as a sort of "national star" in Japan. The general story theme revolves around this master thief and his band of associates getting into some trouble and trying to escape the authorities. He is assisted by Daisuke Jigen the sharpshooter, Goemon Ishikawa XIII the swordsman and the beautiful Fujiko Mine.

I have seen cosplay of Lupin III in Japan but not abroad. How about you? A notable Lupin III cosplay is the Nakamura family who were Central Japan representatives in WCS 2005 and won the Brother Prize for their full family performance. Their youngest son is dressed as Lupin III and their performance was a lot of fun. Here is a picture of them:

Damien and Isabelle were the France representatives for World Cosplay Summit 2007 they won the championship with a presentation that was a brilliant interpretation of the concept of "Otaku". I caught up with them yesterday before they were left for school, below is a part of our conversation.

Upon returning to France life has returned to normal and both are quite busy with studies, Isabelle is studying philosophy at university and Damien is attending an audio-visual cinema school. They did get a chance to participate in a manga/anime event in Paris last October however. They worked hard on their presentations and Isabelle came in second place in the individual cosplay event while Damien finished in first place in the short film event, winning a trip to Japan! That means Damien at least will be coming to Japan 2 times in 2008, lucky guy! Things were low key for the pair on their return to France after WCS 2007, they received congratulations from friends and family and a certain amount of media attention. Hearing that the couple were persevering with their passion for cosplay to continued success was reassuring.

I asked them about their memories of their time in Japan last summer. They said they were impressed with the event itself and the work put into it. Overall the concept of manga and anime in Japan is far beyond what they see around them in France so experiencing that was very special. Isabelle said she missed the taste of melon bread and loved the azuki ice cream.

They will have a chance to eat them again very soon. Having won the WCS event last year the pair will be back next year to be present for the event in 2008. No matter how long a trip is however there are always things that you don't have a chance to do, I asked them what else they are looking forward to doing when they are back in Japan. Besides being there for WCS 2008 they have not have a chance to go to Kyoto yet so they want to do some sightseeing there. Of course returning to Akihabara is another thing on their list. Going to an arcade, playing some video games and shopping for a variety of manga and other goodies are all on their list.

Damien will be in Tokyo in February for about a week so I hope to be able to meet up with him there. If I do, you will see the pictures here! All are looking forward to seeing the dynamic duo over the summer. Damien and Isabelle send out a big hello to their fellow participants and all cosplay fans!

Damien is active on youtube and you can see a video put together by him if you do a search for "Cosplay au Saturn de Rennes, 15/12/2007". He has put together quite a few videos which can be found under his alias "pompedli" so take a look at some of his work!

Setsubun is a traditional holiday in the Japanese calendar that is held on February 3rd every year. It is said to fall at the point in winter where there are more warm days than cold days coming up and it is usually pretty accurate. I don't think its a national holiday but it sort of gives you something to look forward to with the cold of winter being half over. On TV you see singers, TV personalities and Sumo wrestlers go to temples where large crowds gather as the the famous people throw beans to everyone. The tradition is that people take beans home, throw them into their house from the front door and say "Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi!" which translates as "Devils out, good luck in!" I have never actually thrown beans in my own house, I am afraid that I would be stepping on beans all year :) They are selling packs of beans and other related items at stores now and I took a picture for you below.

Brother Company - like the WCS - orginated from the central Japan area and was a strong support in promoting the event with the build up to the Aichi Expo in 2005. This relationship continues to this day with eyes set on the Expo in Shanghai in 2010.

Over the summer last year I posted the first two parts of the Brother tour series, here I will continue with a very interesting part of Brother's making which is their stint in making motor bikes. In the 1950s Brother started diversifying its business, moving into home appliances like the fan and washing machine. The "Darling" line of motor bikes was another diversification that took place during this period.

Branching out business practices seems to be more common in Japan that in North America at least. Mitsubishi is famous for cars around the world but in Japan also has banks, sells air conditioners and conducts chemical research. The same branching out for say General Motors or General Electric would be unimaginable. In this sense expanding into the motor vehicle realm was a realistic option for Brother.

There was a fateful turn of events which convinced Brother Company to stop this venture business, that was the Ise-wan typhoon of 1959. This typhoon was arguably the most catastrophic storm to hit Japan during the 20th century and more than 5000 people lost their lives. Still today you can talk to older generations who experienced the catastrophe and people will have strong memories of dealing with the event. This damaged many businesses as well and the Minato factory which fabricated the "Darling" line of bikes was completely destroyed. This was seen as a sort of sign by company members and the motor bike branch of Brother was not revitalized after that.

Who knows, if the Isewan typhoon hadn't struck Nagoya we may be seeing Brother motor bikes on the road today!

Next - Tour of Brother Part 4: Current Products

TVA staff are gearing up for the Mexico round of the World Cosplay Summit preliminaries at TNT GT2 in Mexico City. It will be held from Feb 2nd-4th and among the guests is WCS 2005 Italy representative Francesca Dani! I will do what I can to keep you informed with how things go. Below is a picture of the shy staff member who will be going this year. Gauging by the hairy knuckles, I imagine that is Mr. Iwanaga? (^o~)v

Last year it was the webmaster DJ Kissy who went and it seems like he had a life changing experience. He received a really warm welcome from the TNT staff and I think he fell in love with pro-wrestling.

This is the first part in a new series to tell you a little about TV Aichi and what is happening there. I will also try to inform you about TVAs relationship with the World Cosplay Summit event, other partner organizations, a little about the staff and even myself.

TVA is one of the major television companies in the Central Japan area. It has branch offices in Tokyo, Osaka, Mie and Gifu prefectures and was founded about 25 years ago. To commemorate the anniversary they have just released a new image character called "Toiro" which you can see above.

Along with news, dramas, variety shows and movies there are a great number of anime programs such as Gundam, Cutie Honey and Deltora Quest which are broadcast on TVA. I think if you asked anyone in the company if they like anime or manga you would get a near 100% positive response.

The World Cosplay Summit is managed by the Events Department. It would be unimaginable that a TV company in North America manage an event such as the WCS but as mentioned in a previous entry, Japanese companies stretch these boundaries rather easily. Other events organized by the department are the Pokemon Winter Festival, the quarterly Mammoth Flea Market as well as Rakugo presentations and Ukiyo-e art exhibits. Unfortunately these pages are only in Japanese but along with these events there is a wide range of other projects which really gets TV Aichi involved with viewers and fans in the Central Japan area.

I will make this an irregular series and you will see it from time to time. This is your chance to say hello to your favorite staff member or if you have any questions, you can ask it here and I'll do my best to answer them for you.