Waku Waku +NYC Day 2 [Pic Heavy]

Hey y'all, I hope that had a wonderful Christmas or holiday if you don't celebrate it^^ I had a relaxing day with my friend at his apartment in Queens with his two cats Ali and Boom. I'm back to finish my adventures at Waku Waku +NYC.

Day 2
On Sunday, the first thing on our list was to attend a panel called Introduction to Manga and Anime Studies and it was really interesting. We both are writers (Tiff more so than me), so we figured it would be cool to go to a panel for a career or hobby we are interested in doing. Since I'm a big fan of the humanities (particularly literature) I spent a lot of my time reading in school and analyzing texts. I haven't analyzed manga or anime yet, but I think it would be something I could be potentially interested in doing. The panelists talked about looking at anime and manga under the same lens as film and other contemporary media. They discussed why such a field should exist and one of the reasons being that mainstream American pop culture has been influenced by anime and manga. You can see its influences in shows like Steven Universe and Adventure Time to name a few. Putting these texts and films into context is a great way to explore why these influences exist. I wonder if one day the US will be like how it was in Blade Runner.

It's interesting that for manga and anime to be such a huge influence on American pop culture that there is no such thing in schools as an anime/manga studies major or minor. There are a few schools that has Comic studies as a minor. But students that want to examine Anime and Manga are usually studying it under a Japanese literature or film studies major.

The also pondered what is categorized as manga and anime citing for an example that Miyazaki does not like his work to be called anime. I had no idea he felt this way because he is often heralded as a major front runner to the popularity of anime in the West. His work is usually synonymous with the word anime. They also brought up shows like Avatar the Last Airbender and RWBY and how there are debates about whether or not shows like this can be considered anime. It was a really informative panel^^

After the panel we headed back to the Brooklyn Expo center to grab something quick before lining up for the Baby the Stars Shine Bright fashion show. We remembered how long the line was the day before for the PUTUMAYO fashion show and figured it would be even longer for Baby whose show we did not want to miss. What I grabbed to eat was so scrumdiddilyumptious like oh my word! I got a chicken katsu sandwhich from Katsu-Hama and my life was changed.

My First Sakura Matsuri | Cherry Blossom Love

I hope everyone is enjoying the warm weather! I attended my first Sakura Matsuri at the Brooklyn Botanical garden with Tiffany. I only attended on Saturday, but next year depending on the events I would love to go both days. Geek Girl Brunch was holding a Lolita themed brunch where we brought on our food. The weather started out a little chilly, but gradually warmed up as the day went on.

I decided to spend the weekend with Tiffany. It's also nice to kick it with her and relax at her crib. We got up and helped each other get our coords on. For some reason I always hate pulling things like dresses and tight garments over my head lol It's like I'll always panic a tiny bit midway through like I'm gonna get stuck lmbo Been doing it since I was a kid lol Tiff always thinks it's funny because it's the second time she's seen me do it haha One day I'll master it!

Our journey was very interesting compared to the last time we wore Lolita together for the Novala Takemoto meet up at Baby. It was a lot more positive not that we cared either way haha A lot of people gave us nice compliments. I had a few older black women tell me they thought I looked really nice. We did receive interesting comments, too haha A guy asked if we were attending a tea party, a lady walked past us telling us we were in the Parasol Society. It's interesting having people talk about you when you're right in front of them. It's like uhhh I'm right here lol

We arrived right on time at 10 for the meet up. Geek Girl Brunch was giving away a few free tickets, and Tiff was able to win one :)

Tif's coord

I really love her Innocent World dress! I checked out there website and I love pretty much everything they have. I'm hoping to buy a dress from them to make a country Lolita coord with me being a Southern girl and all. I gotta represent!

My coord

It was the first time I wore my coord from my lucky pack from Baby. I like everything, but I'm not  a big fan of the blouse. I'll be looking for a new blouse at AnimeNEXT to replace it. I'm also hoping to buy a new dress while I'm there^^

Meeting Novala Takemoto and Wearing Lolita for the First Time

Hello loves^^ January has flown by so fast; it literally felt like it was December yesterday. The one perk is that hopefully we can experience Spring weather soon. Earlier this month Tif and I found out that the Baby the Stars Shine Bright/Tokyo Rebel store in NYC would be having an event with Novala Takemoto. I'm super mad that I missed AKIRA when she came, so I def wanted to meet Novala. Being new to the Lolita fashion, I'm still learning, but I had already heard that Novala, Mana, and Misako Aoki are very revered in the Lolita fashion community.

I decided to spend the night at Tiffany's house on Friday after work so we got get dressed together. Her family's house is really warm and relaxing, and it was nice to meet her family members. Saturday morning we woke up a little late since the event wasn't until late afternoon. Boy, did we have some outfit shenanigans lol We changed outfits a few times due to fitting issues on both sides and were both semi-frantic and frustrated. Eventually, we both let the other know that the other looked fabulous. We both were just overthinking our individual coords but that the other looked awesome. It just goes to show that people tend to be hard on themselves. Tif is really the bomb, I'm so happy that we became awesome friends. My previous job was very toxic for both of us, but she is one of the best things that came out of it for sure.

We made it to the store around 3:15, 3:30 and luckily there wasn't a line which surprised us. Novala greeted us as soon as we walked into the door and shook our hands. He was very nice :) He even complimented me on my hair and took a picture of it on his cell phone.

We took a picture together and I got his autograph ^_^

LINE PLAY vs. CocoPPa Play

Hey bun buns! Hope you aren't freezing in this weather. It's gotten pretty cold here in NYC, but that hasn't stopped Boba and I going on mini dates. I discovered a new cell phone game called CocoPPa Play, and I absolutely love it! It reminds me of Line Play which I started playing back in 2013, but stopped in March. I wanted to take the time to compare both games.

First up is Line Play^^

Line Play is an avatar game made by LINE Corporation. This company also made the super popular messaging app LINE. Tiff and I visited their holiday pop up shop in my last blog post. You basically create an avatar and can buy items and clothing to decorate your avatar and your room. Some items included furniture like beds to Gacha items that can be character themed like Sailor Moon, Hello Kitty, and Rilakumma. They also have rooms for famous Asian stars like Lee Min Ho. The game of course has lots of J fashion and super cute items.

You travel to different rooms and can perform tasks that will give you gems. You use gems to purchase items in the game, you can also use your real money to purchase gems.  There's also mini games and other places you can visit.

Couple Outfits or Nah?

Hello baby loves! I hope you're having a great week. I'm personally super ready for the weekend. My last few nights have been spent dreaming up outfits. And not only outfits for me, but Boba as well. You may have guessed it; I'm swooning over couple outfits! I kinda like them, fine I'll admit it I really really realllyyy like couple outfits which is kinda awkward because they're very popular in some Asian countries and considered pretty obnoxious here in America. My mom (who's technically my grandma) told me that couples her age and older wore matching outfits all the time when she was growing up. I think that they're super cute when they're well done.

I first heard of couple outfits when I watched the Taiwanese drama Devil Beside You. I thought it was really adorable when Yuan Yi and Qing Zi wore purple matching jackets on one of their dates. I also saw couples wearing matching shirts like this and shoes when I lived in China, but I didn't know that the trend was also popular in South Korea and Japan. I'll admit that wearing a matching shirt or complete outfit isn't really my thing, so I never thought about doing it. I ran across this article on Drama Fever a few nights ago and fell in love with the trend all over again. There's even a married couple in South Korea that has a clothing brand for matching couples called Ggumddakji which is slang for inseparable couple. I liked quite a few of the outfits and liked how you could see each couples' style. I decided to do a search and see if I could find anything that I would like to wear with Boba. I found an article from a blog I follow called "A Texan in Tokyo," in one post she talks about her secret love of couple wear, but how it was awkward at first. It was refreshing to read another American's perspective; I really liked how she and her husband started off small with matching watches.

I decided to see if my favorite Asian fashion website, Yesstyle, would have any items, and lo and behold they have a whole section devoted to couple outfits! I really like the style in the picture below. The matching shirt/dress combo is a nice take on the couple outfit trend. This set can be found on Yesstyle here.

This couple below has got to be my favorite from the Drama Fever article. I feel like you can tell that they are a couple, but it's not over the top. I like that they match, look super stylish, and you can see each person's individual style.

These photos have convinced me to give it a try. I don't think it will be too hard to convince Boba to wear a couple outfit with me. We've done it accidentally before, I have a red plaid shirt and he has a blue one. We both met up for a date one day and realized were had wore our plaid shirts lol He also dressed like me once on purpose, too lol He saw that I had wore the red plaid shirt again, so he put on his blue one. I'll take pictures if we end up doing it!

What do you think about couple outfits? Would you do it with your partner or nah? I've decided that I'm willing to give them a try despite the fact that they aren't so popular here. Let me know your thoughts! Thanks for reading^^