Is AKB48 coming back IN AMERICA?

At last year’s Anime Expo I was approached by a staffer who was doing, by the looks of it, a little “market research.” It was just your basic customer questionnaire about stuff like “How long have you been going to AX,” “What kind of AX events are you interested in,” “Who were your favorite guests at AX,” “Who is your favorite Doctor,” actually no they didn’t ask that last one because when I go to an anime con I expect to engage in the hobby of ANIME and not be surrounded by freaking cosplays of DOCTOR WHO. Anyway. Last week I got a follow-up survey where AX is trying to figure out what kind of music acts they should be bringing to this convention.

To be succinct, the survey was asking which music guests, among Anime Expos of the last few years, were of greatest interest TO ME. So like they wanted to know if you like Kalafina or Hatsune Miku or [hold the punchline] Animetal USA. And if they brought back THAT guest, would you be interested in seeing them again.

YES, we could be once again be graced by Yasushi Akimoto’s shit-eating grin.

SMTown NYC: Chasing the Dream

The biggest difference between my SMTown experience IN LOS ANGELES and the one IN NEW YORK was that, in the intervening months, I had finally made some Internette Frandz who were into The Whole Korea Thing but were (1) not complete loons; (2) able to look at different styles of pop music with an thoughtful, critical eye.

At the same time, I was also making a sincere effort to understand the physics of the Korean Wave myself, without freaking out over ridiculous fan behavior or the spammings of bored English-as-a-second-language kids all over the social web. The fact that my Internette Frandz also thought poorly of these psycho-fans was a big help, I think. It all came down to being on a similar wavelength: worship your idols, but don’t be a doof about it. And if you must spaz, spaz with dignity.

So it was with that reformed mindset that I woke up on the morning of Sunday, October 23, and … made sure to go to church first.

THEN it was time to make the trip to my true place of worship: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, IN AMERICA.

SMTown NYC Day 2: Bring the Boys and the Girls out

WELL I have about ten bajillion fancam videos to upload from the concert, and I have to wake up in another 4 hours for the Good Morning America fan-spammage where psychotic Soshi nuts are going to crash American network television with signs saying “SMTOWN IN INDONESIA INDONESIA INDONESIA INDONESIA” how much they love SNSD.

So instead I will pad this out into a thousand-word post by including a picture:

Hi girls!

A more thorough write-up to come once I have calmed the hell down.
(And uploaded the videos.)