Nisei Week Part II

Last Sunday, I paid a visit to the second weekend of Nisei Week in LA’s Little Tokyo district.  The atmosphere of the final day of Nisei Week resembles that of a traditional Japanese festival.  The main events for this day are a taiko festival, and a summer festival complete with games, singing, and eating contests.

I spent the day with two of my photographer friends from the anime convention circuit, Tony and Bobby.  Contrary to popular belief, a lot of anime convention photographers actually get along.  We went around Little Tokyo taking photos of the various events, including an old friend, Stephanie Yanez, performing at the summer festival.  Along the way, we managed to sample a few of the ramen restaurants and yogurt shops in the area and even meeting up with a few cosplayers, including Cosplay Underground v. 001 cover model, “Shiya”, who took time to join us for lunch and watch a portion of the taiko festival with us.  Nisei Week ends with a bon odori in the streets of Little Tokyo.  I didn’t get too many photos of that event since I was too busy participating in it.  I actually learned a lot of the dances at a summer festival earlier in the year.  It’s not too difficult to learn.

At the end of the day, all of us agreed that Nisei Week seemed so much smaller this year.  Since a lot of Little Tokyo businesses rely on Nisei Week to bring in a lot of revenue, the upcoming weeks and will show the effects of the decrease in Nisei Week attendance.  On this day, we noticed that Kamikaze Anime, an anime shop in the Japanese Village shopping center, was already closed down permantently.  Last weekend, it was still operating.  Perhaps this store was Nisei Week’s first casualty.  On the bright side, a Johnny Rocket’s hamburger restaurant is being built in Little Tokyo.  It’s right next to the Robek’s juice shop and across the street from the Quizno’s sandwich shop.  For better or worse, Little Tokyo is changing.