What follows is the official press release from the three organizing teams of the Halloween J-Music Party, pertaining to the change of venue for the event:

Akai Panda, Nozomi Ongaku and Umi to Sora Events are teams involved in the active propagation of Japanese culture, focusing mainly on the organization of Cosplay and J-Music Parties. So far they have a number of such events under their belt, not the least of which was a hugely successful 3-day event at The Mall’s fnac, near the end of October 2009.

The next event was the scheduled Halloween J-Music Party at MAD Club, on the 13th of November 2009. However, for reasons unrelated and not falling under the purview of the organizing teams, this event has been subject to a number of changes, following the cancellation of the arrangement on the part of MAD. The aim of this press release is to explain the current situation, as well as announce the changes effected.

Initially, members from the organizing teams met with the event manager of the club, around the end of October 2009 and after the necessary discussion and negotiations, agreed upon the aforementioned date of the party. Following continued contact, the poster was prepared, approved, printed and hung inside the fnac’s forum space (the Cosplay and Maid Café, for the duration of the 3-day event, as well as posted all over the internet (MySpace, Facebook, fora etc.).

However, suddenly and without prior warning, all communication with the club manager was lost, while it itself remained henceforth closed. At the site, there was only a poster announcing its transfer to a new space, on the 20th of November 2009. During the only conversation over a 4-day san, we were assured that the event would take place normally, which assurance was later withdrawn.

The reason given by MAD Club’s event manager was the change of ownership, with the new owners demanding immediate delivery of the club and postponing and / or cancellation of all scheduled events.

The organizing teams were never informed of the possibility that there might be ownership issues, nor were they called upon to make their case. Although we do not believe in any way that this was done on purpose, this development is the sole responsibility of MAD Club, for making contradictory arrangements and even more important,for informing us unacceptably late.

Although none of these issues could be foreseen or resolved by the organizers, we feel we owe a sincere apology to the prospective attendees of the event. Following these events, we have contacted another venue in the immediate area and are pleased to announce that the party will take place as scheduled at Art House, situated on 46, Konstantinoupoleos St.. Gazi, again with access from Kerameikos Metro Station.

Halloween J-Music Party at New Venue!

We thank you in advance for your understanding and are still expecting you for the craziest J-Halloween ever!

Akai Panda         Nozomi Ongaku         Umi to Sora Events

Evidently, the video production is still going strong and I am having a hard time keeping up with it all. The following video was tweeted around 05:30 this morning by Asaph-chan, which means she probably uploaded it at some ungodly hour (get some sleep neee, oneko-tomo). It’s a sequential photo video, with her as L and Andreas Tselman as Light Yagami, edited with music from Mike Oldfield’s Electric Light Orchestra. The photographic material is credited to Myth D.

I hope you DID watch it up to and including the credits (a popular crowd-pleaser for those possessed of humor these days).

Minna, prodyusu wo tsuzukete kudasai! (Keep producing everyone!)

Speedgrapher

Hello again dear readers. Yes, I know I have vanished once more but have no fear: I am cooking up some real sugary treats for you all. However, until the sugar meshes into caramel, I wanted to share with you yet another cool video of the event, this one edited by Akihisha-kun, following the line of his previous installments. You have probably already seen it around, either on Facebook or Anime.gr, but as always, it helps to have it here for completeness’s sake, along with a helpful link to the two previous Cinemascope posts (#1 aaand #2).

In the interest of fair credit, I must point out that this video contains a lot more photographic material by Vegetasmate than it does by me and she is to be congratulated for her excellent photo and video coverage of the event. Just treat all references to me as a tendency to be made the community’s mascot (Lord help us all). Well, enough from me. I will talk to you again real soon, with another big batch of photos.

Stay warm,

Speedgrapher

Over the past  week or so, I did the occasional monitoring of the blog’s stats, as I always do, in an effort to assert what I did wrong, right, both or none, in order to try and improve the content. The days at the end of each month are always the most important because, in essence (and on average), you can gauge you readership without constantly hitting the stats’ refresh button. Well, this time around it was quite the opposite and I confess to clicking the aforementioned button unto oblivion (again, not the game, though that too has destroyed me). My WordPress timer records the change of date at 02:00 after midnight, whereby it starts logging stats for the next day (and depending on the day and date, the next week and / or month).

The essential point of all this babbling is this: From October 1st to October 31st, the blog reached a heretofore unprecedented number of 20214 hits! It’s the highest monthly count since the blog made its virgin appearance (July 2008), so I simply wanted to thank you for your continued and growing support of Otaku Lens. It helps convince myself that I am not doing this just for my own geeky pleasure (and if I am, well, at least I am far from alone).

Therefore, I will keep posting, so please keep reading and we’ll see where this whole fun and freaky ride takes us.

Sincerely,

Speedgrapher

Interesting bit of news, concerning the 31st of October (which is um… today in fact) and the 1st of November: Salonika’s PHILOXENIA Expo, in which the Japanese Embassy of Greece participates, will feature a presentation on manga, anime and cosplay culture, both on Saturday and Sunday, for 1 hour each. Episodes of well-known anime will be on display, while people will be informed both on the spot and via a brochure provided at the stand (Kiosque 15 – Stand 17).

The official program is as follows:

Saturday, October 31st

13:00-13:30 IAIDO
15:00-16:00 ANIME & COSPLAY
17:00-18:00 ORIGAMI
19:00-19:30 AIKIDO

Sunday, November 1st

13:00-13:30 KENDO
15:00-16:00 ANIME & COSPLAY
19:00-19:30 JODO

Perhaps most important of all, members of the Salonika J-community will be there in costume, in order to provide both accurate and visual information to the visitors. The list of those participating is as follows:

Anny_yachiru_chan
Cassiel
DarcRose22
Ginius
Laiste
Lily
MitHuNa
MyDeadBrother
X-LpBleach

Ginius and Sakura Syndrome are the ones who took the initiative to contact the Embassy and propose the whole idea, so kudos to you people! PHILOXENIA Expo takes place at HELLEXPO (154 Egnatias St., Salonika). Last but not least, many thanks to Cassiel for providing this information originally in Anime.gr.

Keep expanding,

Speedgrapher

OK, admittedly the title is a bit of a Shinkansen in size, but I try to be as accurate as I can. This post continues where the Very Early Edition left off, which is to say, right at the moment when the Maid Café of the second day opened its doors (well, curtains) to the  astounded visitors. As it turned out, the day I was most worried about (which worry I kept to myself), for a number of reasons (somewhat alienating for otaku to see maids in the flesh, fear of getting arrested for having so many and so sexy girls on public display and a number of other, weirder things), had the most impressive net attendance of the three days (remember, Day 3 was 8 hours versus the 3 hours of Day 2), somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 people.

When we first opened shop, it was very funny seeing the reaction of bystanders, from both inside our community and out, as was watching them trying to work the courage to enter the café and / or talk to the maids. I suppose quite a few girls looked doe-eyed at the butlers too, but their reactions were not as impressive (with the exception of realizing that one of the butlers was Marilou-chan).

Before going any further, some acknowledgments are in order: to Samuryan for going through Traffick Hell in order to help us with a number of things, such as materials, transport and ice, to Estorial for pimping out the electronics in the DJ booth, so that we could mix songs from the second day onwards and to Malvaggia for lending the Maid & Butler team a much needed hand of help. Last but not least, great praise goes to the team itself, who probably spent 3 of the most difficult hours (more in fact, since they had to come earlier, get ready, etc.) of their lives, fun though they may have been and were quite terminally beat by the time we closed.

As for me, well, I believe I have never before been that exposed to lenses of all sorts, the result of which exposure I have seen crawling around the net: well, so be it. I still think I come out horrible in most pictures but the Neko hat and RayBans DID help (once again, thanks to Nerethil and Samuryan respectively). Enough babble though. We all know why you’re here, so have at it!

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and look forward to the tons of material still in the works.

Over and out,

Speedgrapher

I know you have seen it elsewhere, I know you are already anticipating it and are in the process of sewing / clay-modelling / carpenting / etc. but I simply MUST announce it here as well: Friday the 13th, November 2009, after The Mall, we take Gazi!

This is Halloween! BWAHAHAHAHAAAA!

Akai Panda and Nozomi Ongaku co-organize and Umi & Sora lend their support to the first ever Halloween J-Music Party, at MAD Club (53, Persefonis St., Athens – access from Kerameikos Metro Station). Although not a cosplay party per se, it has become evident through forums and social networking that people will be dressing up for the occasion anyway. For their part, the teams (especially Akai Panda) will see to it that the inside of the venue is appropriately decorated. The decks will feature KrizD, Namida, myself and a friend as a special guest DJ, who will remain secret for now.

The party starts at 21:00 and entrance is free.

Stay Undead,

Speedgrapher

Yup, the otaku community has really been boiling over with excitement over the 3-day event and material keeps piling up – even I am having a bit of trouble keeping up with you people. Stop whining: I know you are eager to see more pictures from Days 2 and 3 (Day 1 was covered in full on that very same night) and you WILL. TODAY. In fact I am posting the second batch from Day 2 in a couple of hours, so hold on to your collective underwear a bit longer. Meanwhile, Vegetasmate has provided us with more hilarious videos from all 3 days of the event, so I am also collecting them here for easy access. Here goes:

Day 1: Haruhi Dance (I think).

Day 2: Maid Madness and Assorted Chaos (this one also features myself, disturbingly, as well as a cameo of Kyoshiro).

Day 3: Otaku Break (a few of our friends taking a break and calling names).

Thank you Vege-chan! Can’t waiti to get to your Rika Furude photos. *ahem*

More in a little while people,

Speedgrapher

Hello once more and yes, I know you are all still trying to reset your brains after the 3-day event (I know I am). I have not had time yo edit enough photos yet, but I have scoured a number of great videos from people who attended the event and so I am posting them here collectively for easy access. Just a bit more patience…

So then, two from our lovely Vegetasmate…

…and my personal favorite from Ramone.

A million laughs, methinks.

Talk to you again real soon,

Speedgrapher

There it goes… It’s come and gone and it was great and Day 3 was chock full of great cosplays, great company, great and fun people. Well done, one and all, for now we have taken a huge step forward and probably opened a very interesting door. I believe that in the coming weeks and months there will be many discussions, as there will be a multitude of posts to cover all that was seen and all that’s happened. Day 3 was predictably the most crowded, although the attendance was comfortably divided over the 8 hours before the screening of Rurounin Kenshin: Requiem for Patriots (where more than 100 people attended as well). I believe it is safe to say that over the 3 days we reached the 1000 mark in total.

As I am incredibly sleepy and unable to take the necessary steps in order to post photos, I am leaving you with one of the most heartwarming images and the best conclusion anyone could hope for in this event. Needless to say, Days 2 and 3 have tons of material to be posted still, so look forward to it (I will do my best to rush it).

Enjoy and good night,

Speedgrapher