Venus Fort at Odaiba – Now an outlet mall

Well, not completely – but it seems like they did convert most of the stores into outlet/factory stores offering 50-60% off of the regular prices. Mind you, the Venus Fort is still a relatively high-end shopping mall (there IS a huge indoor fountain after all) so in some of the stores bargain prices are still in >$100 range.

It seems like this big change happened around January but as Odaiba is not exactly next door to Mitaka, it was only today that I actually saw the new mall. Outside is changed as well and the inner decor now has more lights – though, they kept the “streets of Venice” look. It used to be that the Venus Fort was worth checking out at least once just because of the design but now the possibility of finding a brand item for 60% off the price you would have to pay in Ginza/Shibuya or Shinjuku means regular visits every once in a while may well be worth it.

Security and Safety Expo 2009 at Tokyo Big Sight

Today I made the trip to Odaiba (well, more specifically Kokusai-Tenjijo) to attend the Security and Safety Expo (Riscon 2009) today. From robots to  signaling equipment to hazmat suits, there was something for everyone  but I was most impressed by the Tokyo Fire Rescue team who showed off both a rescue robot and more importantly, let ordinary people be "firefighters” but I get ahead of myself so let me try to make this more interesting and do it in a “album” kind of way again.

You can see the album here. I also uploaded two movies I made of the demonstrations I watched. I am embedding them below:

 

Comic Market (ComiKet) 2009

I haven’t had the impetus to write for a while now – blame it on the humidity, the one month gap I had to take while in Cyprus… I am definitely not short on possible reasons I could quote. Well, finally I managed to convince myself that  I should come back and write more since if I don’t start anytime soon I will never get back to this blog.

It is no secret that the Japanese market for comics, or Manga (漫画/まんが) is huge. There are hundreds of series followed by millions of all ages and genders. In fact, it is a pretty usual sight to see businessmen reading manga on the train home or stacks of manga from different series in any convenience store. Many of the animated series start their lives as mangas and as they gain in popularity a spinoff animation series gets developed. The manga usually keeps going even after the animated series concludes but there is a completely different type of manga that has almost a cult following – doujinshi or fan manga.

Fan manga can exist because of Japan’s very liberal “fair-use” clause for copyright (at least for manga) in that readers are allowed to draw their own stories involving characters from famous well established mangas. Not only can they draw these they also get to publish them and sell them for prices much higher than the original manga since usually the amount printed is very limited. Comic Market, or ComiKet for short, is where one can find hundreds of such artists, reinterpreting other stories or creating completely new stories, and selling the comics they produce. These events take place twice a year and the limited number of the prints make these extremely popular amongst manga fans.

The last ComiKet was actually on Saturday and I made my way to Tokyo Big Sight in Odaiba to check it out for myself. The sheer number of people there was a sight to behold on its own but as I was there in the afternoon, long after the prime stuff is already sold out, the wait was just 30 minutes or so (which was not very pleasant I should add since the corridors of the building was not a/c’d enough to handle so many people) before I could go into the exhibition hall. The manga selection was interesting – ranging from stories introducing romance between characters who are not normally in a relationship in the actual manga (both same and different sexes and all ages, some R rated, some PG) to just new storylines. There was supposed to be an area reserved for cosplayers but I did not get a chance to check that out. I did see some people in costume though… The way back was an interesting endeavor with the train stations being completely swamped by the people returning from the exhibition.

It was definitely an interesting experience for me.  I don’t know if I would do it again seeing how I don’t really follow a certain manga with passion but hey maybe I will do it again just to people-watch… :)

20 meter tall robot in Tokyo

The love of the Japanese people for robots is a pretty well known phenomenon and it is easy to see artifacts of this all around Tokyo but this latest happening pretty much takes the cake…

There is now a “life-size”, that is about 20 meter/66 feet tall, model of a “Gundam” robot in Odaiba. It looks like it is not completed yet with the workers still on site and in fact you can see one of those workers in this picture on the bottom right corner so you can get a better idea. At night they also turn on the lights on the robot and it can also move its head. All in all, pretty impressive I would say. I unfortunately did not get the chance to look at it at night or walk right up to it because of the construction but I am hoping I will get to do both before they move the robot – I heard it will not stay in that spot forever. That gets me thinking – where are they going to move it to afterwards?

Japan Security Show 2009

Last Friday, which as a day was not a very pleasant one as the amount of rain was, well, unreasonable to say the least, I had a chance to visit the Japan Security Show at Tokyo Big Sight. The show was a lot of fun though and I saw a lot of interesting stuff even though the commute there and back was painful at times. I even managed to snap a few pictures though only after did I see a sign loudly announcing “No photographs”. This is the second time something like this happens to me in Japan – the first case being at Akihabara trying to record a video of maids singing on a stage… That … was embarrassing.

First off, lets start with getting to Tokyo Big Sight. I blogged before about this since I went there before in order to see the robots exhibition last year and that time I used the Yurikamome Line (which keeps on referring to itself as the “New Yurikamome Line” but it is not so new I am told) which not only can get one much closer to Big Sight than Rinkai Line which we took this time but it also offers a really nice view including the Rainbow Bridge. Heck, it even goes ON that bridge. The catch? It takes longer to get there AND it is more expensive and since we were pressed for time we took the Rinkai Line (臨海線) from Shinjuku.

What was on display? Well, quite a few different things I guess. Not just alarm systems etc. when one thinks of security but also components for such systems such as improvements on camera technology, motion sensing, as well as research related to security such as automatic detection of suspicious activity or automatically counting people in a given area. You could see big hitters of the security world like Secom as well as more general electronics manufacturers like Sony and of course key makers – physical security is as important as ever and it shows. Actually one of the coolest things I saw at the show was a key which has a “Did I lock the door?” indicator which automatically lets you know whether or not you forgot to do just that.

This is something I could definitely use…

Toyota iWalk (and Captain Commando)

Who said all the prototype transportation vehicles had to have wheels? What if you are disabled and have to go up the stairs or what if you had to carry something really, really heavy? Toyota's iWalk seems to be coming straight from this arcade game I used to play called "Captain Commando" where a little baby and some bad guys were riding these things and using it to lift and throw others :P I think it would be amazing to see this one in action - and no I don't mean throwing bad guys, I mean walking and helping people with movement issues. For all those interested to see it in person - this can be found in Odaiba/お台場 in Toyota's museum.

And for comparison, this is what I was talking about when I mentioned the game - similar no? :)

Some "future vehicles" from Toyota Showcase

Toyota's showcase "museum" in Odaiba (お台場) is a pretty fun place to roam around in and it is free to get in too! They have a whole bunch of cars from actual race cars to current models, hybrids, and of course different models of Lexus including one that costs upwards of $125,000. For me the most enjoyable part was the "future vehicles" section featuring futuristic single person and multi-person vehicles. They even have a demo of one of the individual-ride models which I think deserves its own post so for this one I will just put photos of the others ;)