Wonder Festival is held at Makuhari Messe(幕張メッセ), which is the represent of event sites around Tokyo alongside Tokyo Big Sight. It takes about one hour from central of Tokyo by train.

People, people…

…and characters!

Wonder Festival is divided into amateurs’ area and commercial area. You will be amazed at the great plastic figures displayed proudly on the amateurs’ booths.

Kyaaaaa♡ Keith Goodman from Tiger&Bunny!!! They look real!!

Shizuo Heiwajima from DRRR!

Asuka from Evangelion. Kawaii^^*

Handmade dress-up dolls.

This is also from T&B… Amazing…

Found Ren Jinguji♡

Commercial section. So many new figures were released!

Life-size Dio from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

The Prince of Tennis♡ Kawaii^^*

This Ryoma remain in a development stage, but it’s perfect!!

Blue Exorcist. I want to buy this Rin Okumura.

HUNTER×HUNTER.

Wow!!! Gintoki in childhood!

Kuroko’s Basketball♡ Super kawaii!!!!

You can see also wonderful cosplayers at Wonder Festival.

Wonder Festival will be held in August next time.

Tiger&Bunny section.

Hetalia goods.

Magi is rapidly gaining in popularity with starting the TV anime series.

Current hottest genre, Kuroko’s Basketball section.

Other manga goods from Weekly Shonen Jump.

Hakuouki section♡

Do you know about this? A popular otome game “Hiiro no Kakera (緋色の欠片).”

Starry Sky.

The biggest section in the girls’ floor is for Uta no Prince-sama!

I want to this one! Sho-chan’s earphone jack for iPhone.

SO MANY MANY UTAPRI POSTERS!!!

Let’s take selective buying at Yaoi manga section♪

Kyaaaaa!! How kawaii boys!!! I decided buying this one♡

Umm… this one looks nice as well…

Animate staff’s recommendation message helps us.

Actually I love “Megane Danshi (眼鏡男子; boys with eyeglasses)”… so this one should be nice…

Fumu fumu… “Ao Haru Ride” is current popular shōjo manga.

★Today’s catch at Animate Akihabara

Yaoi manga “RUSH!” by Aoi Hashimoto, and “Katakoi Sokuhou” by Mayami!

↓ “RUSH!”

↓ “Katakou Sokuhou”

Recently, Japan’s railroad companies are active in improving Eki-naka with various shops and events. Stations are special places where large groups of people congregate, so companies that open up stores can also benefit. Large train stations like Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, and Shibuya are filled with interesting shops. Especially, Eki-naka of Ikebukuro station is now rapidly spreading. You can find many many kawaii things there!

The west exit of Ikebukuro station.

The underground, Eki-naka of Ikebukuro station is just like a huge maze.

You can often see Japanese original brand shops like MUJI and UNIQLO on many stations in Tokyo.

This is normal station stand.

Confectionery shops are popular.

Mini cakes in the shape of owls, which is the symbol of Ikebukuro city.

Guess what! Chocoholic is my recommendation. This shop sells so kawaii cakes and sweets.

Kawaii goods shop for a limited time.

Sometimes you can buy vegetables and fruits at Eki-naka.

A station building “Esola” is popular with young girls.

Lottery stands has been a staple of train stations in Japan.

“Echika” is a part of Ikebukuro station’s underground.

There are many stylish cafes.

Soup Stock Tokyo is very popular suop stand in Japan.

★Today’s catch at Ikebukuro Eki-naka
Super kawaii macarons by Chocoholic, and reasonable fleuret pierces.

The Chuo street in Akihabara (秋葉原中央通り) is a “pedestrians’ paradise” every Sunday.

Kotobukiya Akihabara is within easy reach of the Akihabara Station.
Let’s hurry inside!

Girls’ section is on the second floor.

Ah, Creamy Mami’s keyboard! That takes me back.

Utapri section is most popular. Personally, I want to Satsuki Shinomiya’s cushion. I do love meany character♡

Utapri trading card.

Mini cushion. Otoya kawaii!

The Prince of Tennis section. Japanese girls love “prince”!

And everything else.

　
★Shop data
Kotobukiya Akihabara (コトブキヤ秋葉原館)
TEL: +81-3-5298-6300
1-8-8 Sotokanda Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 101-0021 JAPAN
Official Website: kotobukiya.co.jp

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In Japan, having hand-made lunchbox called “bento (弁当)” for lunch is common from kids to adults. Most of kindergartens and nursery schools don’t have cafeteria, so mothers with little children wake up early and make bento for their kids every morning. They have made various efforts in order to promote kids’ health, and chara-ben is one of them. Little children find their favorite characters in lunchboxes, and forget their least favorite food.

Today, I would like to introduce one of popular chara-ben blogger, Momo and a piece of her amazing chara-ben! Momo makes chara-ben for her two little sons every morning, and upload the photos and how to make them on COOKPAD, which is popular cooking SNS is Japan.

Anpanman chara-ben.

Kirby chara-ben.

Mickey and Minnie chara-ben.

Stitch chara-ben.

Pooh chara-ben.

Hamutaro chara-ben.

Relakkuma chara-ben.

Mario chara-ben.

Pokemon chara-ben.

Hello Kitty chara-ben. How cute!!!

According to Momo, it takes about from 30 minutes to one hours to make chara-ben every day. The secret to making well is in seeing. Now you want to make chara-ben, don’t you?

★Momo’s chara-ben blog “キミと一緒に〜太郎・小太郎・お弁当〜” (Japanese)
http://ameblo.jp/mahiro-mama/

★How to make Momo’s chara-ben (COOKPAD)
http://cookpad.com/kitchen/2400839

This is it! Let’s hurry inside!

What you can see in Animate at first is “otaku souvenirs.”

Let’s go up to the floor for girls.

Found Kumamate at girls’ floor. You can play dress-up with teddy bears. These bears were sold out last time! At this time, I got full range of bears!

A thousand of anime and manga goods… I’ll not get bored looking at the shop until morning.

Commercial Manga and Books section. There are so many kawaii yaoi manga that I can’t decide what to buy! I think that yaoi manga artists have great skill in painting.

Of course you can find “not yaoi” at Animate.

Today’s catch at Animate Akihabara
Kumamate with Case Closed and Uta no Prince-sama’s costumes, and three commercial yaoi manga! All of these manga are really nice! Especially “Best Ending? (ベストエンディング？)” by Junta Mio (三尾じゅん太) is so cute. I became huge fan of this manga artist!

In addition to bearing a design featuring characters from the franchise, the card will come with various extras related to the series, including the opportunity to purchase tickets for Hakuōki-related events in advance of regular sales, an original card case, and the ability to exchange points generated by using the card on original items such as CDs, cushion covers, and face towels.

The official Press Release is here (japanese Only).

Besides this, Japanese credit card companies have been releasing various anime and game character cards. You may find just the card for you.

Gundam Visa Card

The Idol M@ster Visa Card

Lucky Star Master Card

VitaminX Visa Card

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Master Card

Danbo arrangement contest was held. Danbo from “Yotsuba&! (よつばと！)” is recent hot character.

The staple for figures, Rei and Asuka from Evangelion.

Petit Sengoku BASARA (戦国BASARA). Which character do you like the best?

There are various kinds of Nandoroid.

BLEACH! This Ichigo Kurosaki is so cool.

You can buy anime character’s outfit for dolls!

Tiger&Bunny section. T&B goods are popular with girls.

WAHHHH! My favorite, Kamui from Gintama (銀魂)! I hope the new season of Gintama anime to start…

Found the figures of Tales of Vesperia. Kotobukiya has started to accept orders for Flynn Scifo figure.

Weekly Jump goods section. Gintama is popular!

Akira from Togainu no Chi (咎狗の血). Aww I love this!!!

Petit Hakuōki (薄桜鬼) characters.

Uta no Prince-sama (うたの☆プリンスさまっ♪) is the hottest topic here too.

Many fans leave the messages for Tokiya Ichinose’s birthday on Augusut 6.

Relakkuma (リラックマ) section. Rilakkuma is a longtime seller.

★Shop data
Kotobukiya Akihabara (コトブキヤ秋葉原館)
TEL: +81-3-5298-6300
1-8-8 Sotokanda Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 101-0021 JAPAN
Official Website: kotobukiya.co.jp

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The current hot topic is Uta no Prince-sama (うたの☆プリンスさまっ♪). The special campaign is being conducted to mark the release of the new character song CD “Shining All Star CD.”

In front of the cash register is also completely full up with Utapri!

Utapri characters’ cookies. Is Len Jinguji the most popular?

The school seal accessory. Kawaii!

OH! Keigo Atobe (跡部景吾), the popular character of the Prince of Tennis (テニスの王子様) is picking up girls!
“俺様の美技に酔いな！ (Be awed at the sight of my prowess!)”

Unfortunately the anime of Gintama (銀魂) ended, but it is still very popular.

So many character goods are here…

Now we focus our eyes to manga for Otome & Yaoi fans.

Recently, Kuroko’s Basketball (黒子のバスケ) is hot.

One of the big bestseller, “Junjo Romantica (純情ロマンチカ) series” has won enthusiastic support from many fans as a leading manga of Yaoi category over the past 10 years. The author, Shungiku Nakamura (中村春菊)’s other manga are very popular as well, especially “Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi (世界一初恋)” is recent hottest one. It is partly linked “Junjo Romantica.”

Shungiku Nakamura’s illustrations are really attractive.

Today, my interest was “Iyayo Yameteyo (いやよやめてよ).” The author, Lalako Kojima (小嶋ララ子) is a new yaoi manga artist, but her illustrations are very pretty and the story also looks interesting. You can see her blog here. >> mim.vivian.discotica

These days you can often spot “Shirokuma Cafe (しろくまカフェ)” as well. (This is not yaoi manga!)

The anime has been on the air since April.

I found very very cute cosplay bears, “Kumamate (くまめいと)”! You can dress the bears in your favorite anime character’s costumes. The bears and costumes both are for about 800 yen. I wanted to buy a bear and Utapri’s costume, but bears are sold out because it is now becoming popular. What a pity!

K-On! (けいおん！) cosplayed black bear.

Nintama Rantaro (忍たま乱太郎). I could see only black colored bears, but there are other colored bears.

WOW! Various costumes! OHH I REALLY WANT THE BEAR!!!

Kumamate Official Website: くまめいと (Japanese only)

For your information, you can get your costumes in Animate Akihabara as well.

You can order your favorite character’s decoration cakes. (This service is now very popular, so maybe there is approximately few weeks wait to get them) Why not give it as a present for your precious one?

★Shop data
手作り菓子 Torte
TEL: +81-27-329-5747
667-8 Nakaizumi-cho Takasaki-shi Gunma 370-3524 JAPAN
Official Website: ぐるめぱど (Japanese Only)
Official Blog: Characters cakes creator, Aki’s blog (Japanese Only)

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