I got an invitation from the Japanese-German Center Berlin, to take a look at their newest Exhibition, “Looking at Asia“, a selection of different puppets created by Furuta Aya a puppet creator from Nagano/Suwa.
Furuta Aya earned many awards since she created her first puppet in 1977 and was also featured at the TBS Doll Show in Tokyo this year. Now, for the first time ever, she brought her puppets to Germany, to celebrate the “150 Years of Friendship between Germany and Japan”.
So if you have some time to spare, the exhibition will be held till January 6th 2012 and the entry is free.
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To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the relationship between Germany and Japan, light was used to project the word “Peace” in languages from around the world on Berlin’s most representative landmark, the Brandenburg Gate. One program, 2 different Parts, with orchestral music and an amazing art-light-show, enchanted hundreds of visitors for about 30 minutes.
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Another trip, another Cosplay Convention, another Concert, this time, in Bonn. The Japanese Eurodance group Shanadoo was on stage on one of Germany’s biggest annual Anime Conventions, the AnimagiC with about 13,500 visitors in 2011.
Shanadoo is an all female group made up of four young Japanese women, which were quite famous in Germany in 2006 with their singles King Kong and My Samurai and it seems like they are trying for a comeback in 2011.
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I’m in Munich right now at this year’s Animuc in Fürstenfeldbruck. The Animuc is a cosplay convention for the southern part of Germany. This year’s special Guest is the japanese singer and writer Yuuki, today she gave a little concert for a few hundred visitors and I was really lucky to get some amazing shot of this great show.
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The Künstlerhaus Bethanien has a new exhibition, the Proto Anime Cut – Spaces and Visions in Japanese animation, with original drawings of the most important directors and illustrators of Japanese animated films.
The exhibition includes work by Hideaki Anno (director, Neon Genesis Evangelion), Haruhiko Higami (photographer), Koji Morimoto (director, Dimension Bomb), Hiromasa Ogura (art director), Mamoru Oshii (director, Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell, Innocence) and Takashi Watabe (layout).
It was fascinating to see how an anime artist has to draw an amazingly detailed picture on a really tiny piece of paper.
Sadly, all the descriptions were written in German language only, but I think if enough people ask for an English description, they will add on in the future.
Update: Descriptions in English language will be available from February the 3rd 2011.
The exhibition will be held until the 6th of March 2011 at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Kottbusser Str. 10 Berlin.
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The Japan Festival 2011 took place during the last 2 days at Berlin’s Urania with many stands, artists and two stages with non-stop-live programs such as Taiko Drums, Aikido, Karate, Kendo, Cosplay, Ju Tai Jutsu, and many more.
Even an authentic Japanese cuisine freshly made by Japanese chief Takao Udagawa such as Sushi, Udon and Misu.
For me, it was a really funny and interesting festival, maybe because it wasn’t all about cosplay and mangas but more about the culture, the food and the lifestyle of the japanese people.
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The third and last part of my Connichi 2010 coverage, a bit of everything.
The beginning, the large sales area, the park, the Halko Momoi concert, some pictures from this years World Cosplay Summit Qualification, the winners of this years World Cosplay Summit Qualification and this years special guests from Japan: OLIVIA, Rumi Shishido, “Halko” Momoi, You Higuri, Hiroyuki Yamaga, “Noir”, Yutaka Uemura, Gakuto Mikumo, Kumiko Uehara.
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So here is the second part of my Cosplay Photo Collection. I was asked to show some convention shots, sales area, concerts, japanese guests, I’ll see if I can get some together, stay tuned for part 3.
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I’m back in Berlin, back from this years Connichi in Kassel, a city about 360km away from Berlin and all I can say is, it was amazing.
The Connichi is an annual, 3-day Anime convention in Germany and one of the largest of its kind in the German-speaking world with over 15,000 visitors in 2010. Apart from Japanese artists that go on stage, Connichi hosts a variety of amateur performers showing plays and musicals, singing and/or doing standup comedy with anime-related themes.
Like the Leipzig Book Fair, the Connichi is also a place for many thousands of cosplayers and because that’s the only interesting reason for me to visit such a convention, I will show you some of the best cosplays I saw during my time in Kassel.
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I bought a Danbo from amazon.co.jp the Japanese version of Amazon. I wanted to test how long it would take to send a package from Japan to Berlin and I was pretty surprised after it arrived in less than 2 weeks, considering that I have to wait up to 5 days to get something from amazon.de.
Danbo is the anime figure Miura Hayasaka in a cardboard box suit from the Japanese manga series Yotsuba&!. The plastic figure, from the Revoltech line by the company Kaiyodo, has movable joints, light up eyes and stands around 8cm tall.
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