KrisZ on Anime, Manga, Cosplay and Video Games

Lunar Fest shoot with my friend Richard There is a fairly large Asian population in the Inland Empire, which is why the Riverside Lunar Festival was started. This was an event in the beautiful downtown area of Riverside that was a celebration of Japanese and Chinese culture that culminated in a fireworks show. For its inaugural year it was a great event that had a massive turnout from the Inland Empire. For its second year I have been tasked with getting more representation from the Southern California cosplay community. I will talk about the serendipitous coincidence of events that led to me heading the cosplay aspect of the events, it was a perfect storm on many levels. My connection with the event first started back in the Riverside Lunar Festival. I went to the event with a couple of friends to the event who were Anime Expo staffers. We were pleased at the huge turnout and the events highlighting both Chinese and Japanese culture was impressive. I expected the Lunar festival...

Shopping, it is an occurrence that happens on a regular basis as people obtain the necessities and the luxuries in life. Once a year, an occasion transforms from a mechanical, almost routine event into something unique, it is called Black Friday. On this day, stores have loss leaders that sell under the retail price with the hopes that they can attract huge crowds of shoppers. This term has been popularized because it is when many retailers would move from the “red” where the lose money to the “black” where revenue finally exceeds cost in financial statements. For the longest time, I have not participated in this annual excursion due to a lack of interest, or because I didn’t feel the need to whether long periods of waiting for little reward. Due to a perfect storm of a family conversation with my cousin, I decided to try my hand at Black Friday to say that I have done it. Here are my thoughts on this day.

In Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2 you get to play as the human versions of the PSP, DS, and the Game Gear(?) Today, the day right before Thanksgiving, Nippon Ichi Software America has announced the released date for Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2 . Per the press statement, the game will be released on February 2012 in the first quarter of the month. While it is a sequel to one of my favorite games, it will be in very good company due to an avalanche of releases right after Christmas. I have noticed it for a while, but gaming publishers are slowly transitioning from the heavily holiday-dependent cycle to releasing a steady amount of interesting games over the course of the year. Highest selling game of 2011 In the past, the January to March period after Christmas was ignored. It was with good reason, the Video Game Industry in the past had a very cyclical cycle. With the cycle, game sales were low and steady from January to around October. From that point the game sales would accel...

Cosplay is a hobby for people to express their love of a certain franchise, character or design. I noticed that lots of cosplayers that I am friends with like shooting out ideas for the stuff they are considering cosplaying as for the next year. If you have been reading my blog for some time, you have probably noticed that aside from being a cosplay photographer that I am quite a big fan of many series within the media of anime, manga, and video games. Normally I don't do self-indulgent articles like this, but I do feel that we cosplay photographers don't get to express what we would like to see as often as we would like. Without further ado, here are 15 cosplay characters that I would like to see get some cosplay in the future. Layla Hamilton - Kaleido Star Even better: a shoot with Layla and Sora (picture below) In the beginning of the anime, Layla Hamilton is the Kaliedo Star, the lead performer in the Kaliedo Stage. She is beautiful, charismatic, and very passionate ab...

Anime Expo 2011, look at all the people I have been attending anime conventions for a long time, since I started attending anime conventions my convention cycle would pretty much start and end with Anime Expo. Ever since I got on the SPJA Board of Directors and delved more heavily into cosplay photography my convention cycle has started to become bigger and bigger each year. It now starts in January with Anime Los Angeles, and it ends in November with Pacific Media Expo. In the year 2011, I have been in more conventions than I have ever been in the past with Anime Los Angeles, Anime Conji, Anime Expo, Comikaze, and Pacific Media Expo. Here is a look back on the year in review for Anime and Comic Book Conventions. Anime Los Angeles - LAX Mariott ( Con Report ) Went: Saturday, January 8th, 2011 Attendance: 3,598 unique attendees Looking back at Anime Los Angeles 2011, there are a few things that come to mind that I think of when I think of the convention. Anime Los Angeles has ...

Today Nippon Ichi Software America has announced a USA release of GUST's  Atelier Meruru ( Press Release ). The game will be out for the PS3 for North America and Europe in spring 2012, around the same time period as Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2. Atelier Meruru, features Mel Kishida's gorgeous artwork, an incredible cell-shaded game engine, and the incredible musical quality that GUST is known for.It is the last game in the Arland saga for the PS3, following Atelier Rorona and Atelier Totori. For those of you unfamiliar with the Atelier franchise, it is a unique game that focuses on alchemy. The cast of characters go around the world searching for ingredients in dungeons. They use these ingredients with alchemy to create new items. The exploration and strong focus on alchemy provides the franchise with a unique experience that most other games cannot really compare to. I gave a glowing review of Atelier Rorona and Atelier Totori   earlier this year. With its cha...

Of the 200 or so cosplay shoots I have done to date, this Gentleman Alliance Cross shoot is one of the my favorite photoshoots. I first attended Pacific Media Expo in 2007, I was intrigued by going to a different kind of convention after exclusively going to Anime Expo for many years. After attending PMX in 2007, I didn't attend the convention until 2010. Part of it was because I was intrigued by the location change, part of it was because I delved deeper into cosplay photography and would like to attend more conventions to know the cosplay community better. While Pasadena was a good location, the hotel was too small for PMX. For PMX 2011 they moved back to the hotel that has housed PMX for many years, the LAX Hilton. Here is a convention report on my adventures in Pacific Media Expo 2011. I left my house early because I held a gender bending panel on Saturday at 10am. Arriving at around 8:55am, it was very difficult to get a parking spot. The parking lot was full, and after ...

Arina Tanemura has written on her blog that she is ending her exclusivity contract with Shuiesha's Ribon Magazine. As expected, her twitter and her website has been inundated with emails from her loyal fans all over the world with her decision. Her last series in Ribon Mascon Comics is her current series Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura . Arina Tanemura has quite a following of manga fans within the USA, being one of the rare manga artists to get a huge chunk of her series released in English. Her big debut manga release was the USA release of Full Moon Wo Sagashite , where she had cemented herself as one of the most admired and respected shojo manga artists. Many of her works would eventually be published, including Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne , Time Stranger Kyoko , ION , The Gentleman Alliance Cross , Mistress Fortune . As many of you know, I am a HUGE fan of Arina Tanemura. I love her gorgeous character designs and her unique storytelling. Of her series, my favorite h...

I am hosting my third panel at Pacific Media Expo on Saturday, November 12th. Gender Bending Presenter(s): Bryan Yang, Kris Zoleta When: Saturday, 11/12/2011 Where: LP3/Video 3, Room Los Angeles B Time: 10am - 11am Description: Genderswaps, crossplay and traps, oh my! We cover the niche yet popular topic of gender bending in anime, manga, and more. Whether you're new to gender bending or not, please come by and check out PMX's Gender Bending panel.

Comikaze Expo 2011 Los Angeles Convention Center November 5-6, 2011 For a very long time, comic conventions were attended mainly with a small audience of dedicated fans. Hollywood's heavy involvement in Comic-Con International moved the comic convention past the small dedicated fans of comic books into a larger, more mainstream audience. Los Angeles is home to the largest anime convention in North America, Anime Expo . What the city of Los Angeles was missing for the longest time was its own dedicated comic convention. A pair of siblings, Regina and Mario Carpinelli saw the need for a convention dedicated for this market, and created Comikaze Expo. In the convention's inaugural year they had a very impressive turnout due to the low daily badge price of $12 and an impressive list of guests. As a person who has been heavily involved in running anime conventions, here is my critique of Comikaze Expo. I first arrived at Comikaze Expo at around 10am, it felt strange going to...