Sure, I have yet to put together v. 002 of Cosplay Underground, but I’ve already begun shooting v. 003.  For Cosplay Underground, it’s nice to have some photos in the bank and work on issues when I get the chance.  The first issue that I completed this year was shot entirely at Fanimecon in San Jose.  The second issue will feature photos taken at an organized cosplay picnic, Nisei Week, and Mikomicon.  Basically, the first two issues were shot at conventions or cosplay events.  Issue 3 is going to venture away from the conventions and organized cosplay events, at least in part.  Basically, I’ll be going to various locations in Southern California with a few adventurous cosplayers and seeing what happens.

Over this past weekend, I travelled with a group of photographers and cosplayers to the Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum in Vista, CA.  In the back area of this museum is a truck, tractor, and farm machinery graveyard.  There’s a lot of old rusty vehicles and random pieces of junk.  It was a very interesting and colorful location to take photos of cosplayers.  On this day we had several cosplayers dressed as characters from the video game Persona 3.  I actually had enough cosplayers on this occasion to finish a whole edition of Cosplay Underground and have it completely devoted to this group.  It would have been the biggest issue so far, but the weather did not cooperate and I was only able to work with three cosplayers on this day.

The photos appearing above are cosplayers “Sushi Monster” as Ken, “Shiya” as Fuuka, and “Susan” as Aigis.

Greetings everyone! Please check out our latest music interview with SUGIZO by J!-ENT’s Wynne Ip. Also, featuring coverage at the fan meet and autograph session via photography by J!-ENT’s Angelo Delos Reyes (San Francisco), Nergene Arquelada (Los Angeles) and Mimi Ko (New York City).

Also, stay tuned for a special concert writeup by Wynne and also the concert photography of SUGIZO on tour with JUNO REACTOR by our three photographers in SF, LA and NYC coming soon!

As far as video games go, no game takes up more of my time than Rock Band.  I’m not much of a fan of the guitar playing, but I’m addicted to the drums and vocals.  I think those are the two skills in the game that are the most realistic.  For the vocals, you at least have to hit the notes.  The lyrics don’t matter, but it can be difficult if you naturally can’t do it.  Sadly, for the first installment of Rock Band, vocals was the only skill that I was able to complete on expert level.  For everything else, I at least got halfway through the tour on hard level.

Rock Band 2 was released for Xbox a few weeks ago and I bought it the same week and I’ve been playing it frequently trying to unlock all of the songs.  I chose to start out on drums even though anybody who has had previous experience with the Guitar Hero series and easily unlock all of the songs using guitars.  I really enjoy the non-linear progression through the tour section.  You can find songs randomly by playing “mystery sets” or you can play a set with pre-determined songs.  Either way, you unlock the songs once you successfully finish them.  As you unlock more cities and venues, you have a lot of freedom to simply wander the map and play a gig anywhere.  Unlocking 84 songs takes awhile, but I was able to accomplish it sometime during the weekend.

I’ve been big on accessorizing the game.  I have guitar stands for all of my guitars.  I also have a microphone stand, which makes it easier to play and instrument and do vocals at the same time.  I have a drummer’s throne, which is a lot more comfortable than a dining chair.  With Rock Band 2, I’ve actually put some money into downloads and licenses.  I purchased the license to import the original Rock Band songs into the second edition.  I have a few downloaded tracks, but by far the coolest thing I’ve purchased for this game is the premium drum kit built by Ion.  The big problem with the standard Rock Band drum kit was its flimsiness.  It was loud and you could easily break the kick pedal or drum pad.  The premium drum kit is a lot more sturdy and is built to take a beating.  The drum pads are a lot more solid, but are a lot quieter than the pads on the standard kit.  The kick pedal is metal and fairly heavy.  It makes a very loud click when it’s activated, but if you’re used to the old kit and learned to delicately use the kit pedal, it isn’t much of a problem.  You can also add an actual electronic drum brain and a kick pad and pedal and it becomes a functional electronic drum kit.

Gameplay doesn’t change at all with the cymbal pads.  The game graphics don’t magically add new parts to add cymbals.  The look of the drum track stays the same.  Basically, your yellow cymbal serves the same function as your yellow drum pad.  The game doesn’t know the difference.  You don’t have to use the cymbals at all and just play the premium kit as if you were using the standard four-pad kit, but what’s the fun in that?  The retail price on the premium kit is $300.  There is also an add-on kit for a third cymbal and future plans include an add-on kit for a second kick pedal.   I guess crazy people like me are too eager to spend that kind of money to have something cool to play a video game with, but after having played with it for the past two days, it’s an awesome toy to play Rock Band with.  The only criticism I have is that it takes a long time to set up.  It took me over two hours to put it together and adjust everything to where it’s comfortable for me.

For more information visit www.drumrocker.com.

A photo of guitarist SUGIZO performing with trance band JUNO REACTOR last Tuesday in San Francisco.  J!-ENT is currently covering the artist’s performance in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City.  Article to be written by Wynne Ip with photography by J!-ENT’s Angelo Delos Reyes (SF), Nergene Arquelada (LA) and Mimi Ko (NYC).  The following photo above was taken by J!-ENT’s Angelo Delos Reyes.

I’m spending this weekend at Mikomicon, which is a small anime convention held on the campus of Cal State Northridge.  My goals for this weekend are to do basic convention coverage for my personal website as well as gather more material for the next issue of Cosplay Underground.  Friday was a little hectic with registration opening about 80 minutes late and a 2 out 3 musical performances either being rescheduled for another day or not showing up for some reason.  Otherwise it was a typical convention Friday, which is normally slow because people have school or work.

It’s one of the smaller conventions in the Los Angeles area, and I knew that, but I like to go out and support the smaller events.  It’s good to have options instead of having only one or two large conventions in the area each year.  The reason I wanted to come here to take some photos for the next Cosplay Underground was because despite being such a small convention, it’s the best convention location in Los Angeles for taking cosplay photographs.  Since it’s a college campus, there are many very picturesque locations.  Many conventions in Los Angeles have opted either for indoor locations, which typically get too crowded to do the type of photography that I want to do, or extremely urban locations which aren’t really appropriate for some costumes.  It’s becoming increasingly difficult to be creative with cosplay photography at most of the Los Angeles area anime conventions.

After the first day, it looks like I have enough material for a new issue of Cosplay Underground.  Anything I get for the rest of the weekend will be a bonus.  It was definitely worth it to come to this location.  For this issue I will also have a few male cosplayers.  Look for this issue in a few weeks.

Mikomicon continues through Sunday September 21.

Earlier this month, I went to a friend’s birthday party.  She said that she wanted to do purikura this year.  This was one of those crazy Asian trends that I’ve never quite gotten into, but it was her birthday and she should choose whatever activity she wants.  I didn’t quite understand the appeal of taking a photo and putting strange graphics and artwork to it and then sticking that photo on one of your worldly possessions.  But I was game and so, a big gang of us met at Diamond Plaza in Rowland Heights, CA for dinner and purikura.

I was used to seeing those small Neo Print machines at arcades and small shops, but a few months ago, I went to an event put on by SoCal Gatherings called “Cospix”.  It was held at a store in West LA that had several enormous machines that you can stuff several people in and have a mini photo session.  It was the first time that I have seen purikura machines of that size.  It looked interesting, but I spent that night playing video games and socializing.  This store was even larger than the one in West LA and had about twice as many machines.  It’s interesting to see the differences in the machines.  Some can hold two people.  Some can hold many people.  You can listen to music in some of them.  In others, you have to imitate a sample photo.  Others were pretty basic.

I really don’t like having my photo taken at all.  I’m more comfortable behind a camera, but eventually I got dragged into one of these booths.  Of course, I hung out in the back.  I couldn’t believe that we stuffed eight people into that thing.  That isn’t everybody who attended the party, but I’m sure that if we could have fit everybody, we would have tried.  I didn’t really know what was going on until somebody told me that “We have to imitate the photo.”  Because I was in back, I could barely see that there was an example photo.

After the photos were done, there was the part where you add artwork to it.  I left that up to other people because I would have no idea how to work any of that.  All of the instructions are in Japanese and I had no clue how to do any of it.  Some people get really into it and it can take them quite awhile to do the artwork and graphics.  The above photo was one of the photo stickers that resulted from this session.  Would I do this again?  Somebody would have to drag me into one of these machines again.  On this night, I was just taking one for the team.  It was fun, though.

In Los Angeles, one of the great things about summer is the many cultural festivals that occur.  A few weeks ago, I wrote about Nisei Week.  This past weekend, I went to the Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture (FPAC).  This was the 17th year for this festival and I’ve been attending this event since the mid 90’s.  I can’t remember what year exactly because it’s been so long.  Back then it was a small festival, but in recent years, this festival has been able to draw 20,000-25,000 attendees over the weekend.  This probably makes it the largest Filipino-themed festival in the U.S. 

However, this was the first year that I’ve actually seen some downsizing to this festival.  In past years, there would be a culinary arts pavillion, where cooking demonstrations and cook-offs would take place.  This pavillion was missing this year.  Also, the children’s area would usually have a few rides and those were also gone this year.  There seemed to be a little less of everything.  Over the years I’ve also seen it go from being a free festival to $5 for the whole weekend to $5 a day and finally to its current price of $7 per day.  With the downsizing of the festival, one has to wonder where this money is going.

Part of the downsizing could be attributed to another group’s decision to stage Pinoyfest on the other end of town, less than 1 hour’s drive away.  This decision puzzled many in the community.  Putting on such a similar festival on the same weekend divides the talent pool, sponsors, vendors, and attendees.  Why a first-year festival would choose to go up against a festival in its 17th year and draws a huge amount of people is still a mystery to me.  With that said, even though FPAC was physically smaller this year, it still seemed to get the usual amount of attendance.  As for Pinoyfest, I really haven’t heard anything about what happened over there.

Headliners for this year’s FPAC included Latin-soul legend Joe Bataan and former American Idol contestant, Camile Velasco (shown above).  For me FPAC is one of those events where I learned a lot of show photography.  It’s easy for anybody to simply go in there with a camera and get as close to the stage as you want.  I learned a lot about angles and photographing musicians and singers in action.  Even now, I still love coming to this festival to do some stage photography and enjoy the atmosphere.

TsuShiMaMiRe jamming in Los Angeles.  Photo by J!-ENT’s Nergene Arquelada

I’m currently working on another edition of Cosplay Underground.  Before I joined J!-ENT, I was a big fan of the original Cosplay Underground section.  At that time, I was already doing a lot of cosplay photography at conventions.  Some of the people that were interviewed for that were people that I had photographed and knew.  I still see some of those people at local events.  A few months ago, I thought that it would be a fun idea to bring that section back to life in a new way and to try new things with regards to my cosplay photography.  The result was v. 001, which was done at Fanimecon.  It was fun project and I’m definitely going to try and get more editions out before the year is up.  I’ve done a few photoshoots done for the next edition.

Cosplayer “Susan” will make her second appearance in Cosplay Underground dressed as the character Minagi Tohno from the video game and manga, Air.  This series of photos was done at a picnic for the local anime and cosplay community at William R. Mason Park in the city of Irvine, CA.  The event was held in early August and drew over 100 attendees.

Also returning to Cosplay Underground will be cosplayer “Shiya” dressed as Princess Kairi from the video game, Kingdom Hearts.  New to Cosplay Underground will be cosplayer “Celestial Aurora” dressed as Aerith from the movie Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.  These photo sets were done at Nisei Week.

Progress has been fairly slow on this edition.  I was at Comic-Con in San Diego in July and wanted to do some photo sessions there, but it was so crowded and congested there that I was simply discouraged.  There simply wasn’t a lot of room to be flexible and everybody was so busy and didn’t seem to have time to do a long photo session.  Most of the time, I’d be working with people that don’t know what I’m taking photos for, and that’s how I want it to be.  I like to drag cosplayers out to less crowded areas where there is room to be a lot more creative.  The cosplay picnic in Irvine had a lot of possibilities, but the midday sun was harsh and I didn’t want to start taking photos until later in the day, after a lot of people had already left.  A lot of cosplayers also showed up to Nisei Week, but were busy with the cosplay contest and parade.  The two cosplayers that I managed to photograph at Nisei Week weren’t interested in participating in either.  It seems easier to work with people that I’ve worked with before and have them bring in more cosplayers to the project.

In three weeks, I’ll be attending Mikomicon, which is a small anime convention held on the campus of Cal State Northridge.  It’s probably the most picturesque location for any convention in the Los Angeles area, so I should be able to finish shooting for Cosplay Underground v. 002.  There are also a few other cosplay events on my schedule in September and October, so getting v. 003 by the end of the year is also a possibility.

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.