Anime mugs

 I got this amazing Shingeki no Kyojin mug as a Christmas present. You can find mugs like these in the Bulgarian shop "Na Tumno" (На Тъмно). They are pretty awesome and were made, because my friend ShiningShadow, gave the idea to the shop owner.

 I think that there only these two types and I'm not sure if there will be others. 

For more info on the cups visit the following links:

Shingei no Kyojin

Kamisama Hajimemashita

 PS: Aniplay will be held on the 26th of April! Too bad I won't be able to go and see it, but if anyone does, I would really like to hear how it went. 

 If you're interested in the event visit the following links:

Aniplay's facebook event page

Aniplay

Announcements!!!!

  I am in Japan right now, but I follow closely of the anime and manga events that are happening in my home country, Bulgaria. so I decided that it's the right thing to do to write about them here, since this was the original idea of this blog - to follow the development of anime and manga culture in Bulgaria. 

  First of all, the dates for Bulgaria's biggest anime convention Aniventure are out - the 7th and the 8th of September. It will take place in Sofia again. The exact place is Sofia Event Center at Paradise Mall. Of course, there will be the typical Cosplay contest, AMV contest, Manga contest, Artist's Alley, FanFic contest, Exhibition and many many more! Too bad I will have to miss it this year, because I will be going home at the end of September. But if you can, go and see the event. I'm sure it will be awesome. I would really love to see at least some photos and read some reviews. 

  For more information about the event you can visit the following links:

Club Nakama's web page

Aniventure's facebook page

Anivnture's facebook event page
  The other announcement (which I should have made a few months ago) is about manga.
  Right after I came to Japan, Art Line Studios started publishing Naruto and One Piece in my home country. They have also promised to start publishing Death Note this autumn, and I'm really looking forward to seeing Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba's  work on the Bulgarian market. And if everything goes well they might even start publishing Bleach.
  For now we have volumes one to four of Naruto and volumes one to three of One Piece. They are the typical Japanese size volumes (which is awesome, because I love this size) and they have these protective covers that the Japanese manga have, which is just amazing. I don't thing that any other non Japanese publisher is doing that with manga volumes. The price of one book is 9,99 levs, which isn't really that much and I think that it's the perfect price for a volume of manga. Of course, the cheaper the better, but our market is still too small for us to demand cheaper manga. I still haven't seen them or read them, but I'm hearing some mixed opinions from my friends. I will certainly get my hands on them when I get back home in September and I'm pretty excited to see what they have done with the translation and the edition as a Japanologist and as an Otaku. 
  If you're a fan, go and buy them and tell me what you think. I would really like to hear as many opinions as possible. I'm also pro sponsoring Bulgarian comic and manga economics so go buy them, for the sake of our manga and comics market! 
  For more information about the volumes of Naruto and One Piece visit the following link:
Art Line Studios 

Aniventure 2012 - artwork and books

There was a lot of artwork and many artists on Aniventure 2012 and here are the ones who were most interesting for me:

The Artist's alley

At the Artist's alley I saw four of my favourite artists on deviantArt. Here are links to their galleries:

http://tenzeru-chan.deviantart.com/

http://moon-valkyrie.deviantart.com/ 

http://xbunnylace.deviantart.com/

http://vegigi.deviantart.com/

I bought a lot of stickers and bookmarks from them. They are ally awesome. Be sure to check them out.

 This is the book, where the winners of the Manga contest and the winner of the Fanfic contest were published.

First place of the Manga contest was taken by Kalin Popov and his story Endless Darkness (Безкрайна тъмнина). It was interesting to read, although there were some things that weren't very well explained. The artwork is not bad, but this guy definitely has some trouble shading and every panels looks kind of unfinished and reminded me more of a sketch. 

Second place was taken by Yana Lyapova and her story Graveyard Stories (Гробищни истории). Actually, this was the one I liked the most from the contest this year. The story is interesting and well told and her artwork is really cute. There are some panels that look kind of unfinished, but as a whole it's really well made. 

Third place was taken by Alexandra Stryaskova and her story Little London Witch. The artworks is pretty average and the story is cliche and I think that she might have had some trouble with the scanning, because the pages of the manga look weird. To see more of her artwork you can visit her gallery - http://friendlyassasin.deviantart.com/

The award of the Fanfic contest was given to Nadejda Ivanova Georgieva and her story Dreams and Reality (Мечти и реалност), which is based on Naruto. I am not a Naruto fan, but I really loved this fanfic, because it's so different and well written. 

In this book you can also find artwork by the following artists:

http://the-dolphins-cry.deviantart.com/

http://eyesofsuffering.deviantart.com/

The white haired female mascot on the cover of the book was drawn by http://engells.deviantart.com/

 Co-Mixer is a very interesting project, that features Bulgarian comics, which i really liked. It has only two issues for now and every issue consists of a number of comics on a certain theme, for example the theme for number two is second hand.

For more information on the artists and Co-Mixer itself, please visit their blog - http://co-mixer.blogspot.com/

Bulgaria Cosplay Book was created by Lyubena Fox and Georgi Teofilov. It features five Bulgarian cosplayers:

Lybena Fox as Megurine Luka  from Vocaloid and Inori Yuzuriha from Guilty Crown

Irina Tsapreva as Hatsune Miku from Vocaloid

Alexander Hawkins as Akira from Togainu no Chi and Zero Kiryu from Vampire Knight

Ayame Midori as Ling Xiaoyu from Tekken

Kalina Marinova as Tira from Soul Calibur

I hope they make more like this with more pages and more cosplayers in the future, because even though this one is well made, its too short.

You can find some of the pictures, which were in the book in Lubena Fox's gallery - http://lyubenafox.deviantart.com/

For more information about Aniventure you can visit the following web pages:

http://www.aniventure.net/

http://nakama-bg.com/

Aniventure 2012 Day 2

Ok, so as I said in my previous post, the main event of the second day of Aniventure is cosplay. And this year all of the cosplayers were really great. The ones I really liked are - The Lord of the Rings group, Hizaki from Versailles, Miku, Pyramid Head, Inori and Shuu from Guilty Crown, Vash the Stampede (I've wanted to see a Vash cosplay for years and this came as a really pleasant surprise for me), but the ones I liked most of all were Loki and Lady Loki. In my opinion they were the best. 

The only thing that kinda ruined my experience and left me with an unpleasant feeling was the constant screaming of the people who were sitting in front of us and behind us, who really wanted to offend some of the cosplayers. They were really loud and annoying. One of my friends even constantly covered her years, because of that. And my conclusion of all that was that even though the event progresses and becomes better and better with every year, the audience still hasn't learned how to behave. 

So after the review of the cosplayers there were three scenes, played on the stage by three groups of people - Naruto, a mash up of gender bender Avengers and some anime characters like Luffy from One Piece (who was also a woman), Rin from Ao no Exorcist and many others, and the last one was the group of Lord of the Rings. All of them were really funny and everyone was in character, which was awesome! The one I liked the most was Naruto.
There were also many many cosplayers in audience and when I was walking from hall to hall I felt like I was in another world and it was really great. 

And here is a list of the winners:

Chosen by the jury:
- Best costume - Hizaki
- Same as original - Loki
- Best of show - Vash
Chosen by the audience:
- Best costume - Loki
- Same as original - Loki
- Best of show - Miku
Award for requisite - Pyramid Head

Going to EuroCosplay - Pyramid head
Best game cosplay:
1st place - Bayonetta
2nd place - Zero
3rd place - Glados
Best scene - Naruto

As you can see Loki won a lot of things and I really wished that lady Loki had won something too, because she was amazing.

I am really sorry that I didn't take more pictures, but I was too busy watching :D

Me with the two Lokis

Suzuki and Sebastian

I will finish this post with a link to a channel where you can see videos from the cosplay - http://www.youtube.com/user/CosplayBG/videos
I plan to do at least one more post about Aniventure 2012, because there are more things I want to say, especially about the artwork, so check in a day or two, if you're interested.
Comments are always welcome :)

Aniventure 2012 Day 1

Aniventure is the biggest anime event in Bulgaria, organized by the National Anime and Manga club Nakama. It has been held for 7 years in a row and this year was my 5th Aniventure. Today was the first day of the event, tomorrow is the second day and I decided to do separate posts of the two days, because they are very different. 

Aniventure 2012 is held in party center 4th kilometer, which is a very convenient place for conventions, because it has enough and spacious rooms for everything to fit in. Tickets are 10 lv (~5 euro) for one day and 15 lv (~8 euro) for the two days. 

Ok, so this is my personal experience from day one.

I woke up at about at about 5:00 in the morning, because I was very anxious since I didn't know who will be with me during the day and I was worried that I might end up going alone. That didn't happen and I am very glad of the fact.

I went to the party center very early so that I could get inside earlier and buy some merchandise, which I eventually did :D You will see what I got below. After I bought what I liked I went to the opening ceremony, which was very amusing and they had chosen my favourite hosts - Hipi and Dora. They really know how to entertain the audience. During the day I visited the Pixel art workshop and the Kirigami workshop, which were fantastic. I also visited some of the lectures and I really liked the one about Wonderflex - a material, from which you can make cosplay armor and other things. At the end of the day was the AMV contest and I really enjoyed the AMVs this year.

I want to thank especially to my colleges Rali, Ili and Suzuki, who were with me during the day. 

 Gathering before the event starts

 The opening ceremony. Really funny sketch! And very witty too.

The lecture about Wonderflex. The woman, who lead the lecture is a Romanian cosplayer, who is known as Shinju. 

The Art exhibition. 

Some stands 

 Shodo (calligraphy)

Kazami Mizuho from Onegai Teacher
6x5 cm

You can take her skirt off :P

 Chii from Chii's Sweet home
3,5 cm

 This is the little Totoro I made at the Pixel art workshop

 Totoro wood carving, really awesome!

Three books I bought, still haven't looked them through.

The kirigami I did

Tomorrow I will post my experience from the second day, which is all about cosplay, so stay tuned! :)