Japanamerica Night at Kinokuniya! Tokyo! Paula! Chairs!

Last night, Kinokuniya Bookstore in NYC held Japanamerica Night, featuring authors and artists including Roland Kelts, Hiroki Otsuka, June Kim, James Barry, and Melissa DeJesus speaking about Japan, their work, how Japan's influenced their work, and signing a lot of autographs. The night also featured special guest appearances by folks like Ali T. Kokmen from Del Rey Manga, Newton Grant from The Escapist Magazine, Anime News Network founder Justin Sevakis, NEW YORK-TOKYO creator Taeko Baba, and me. It was a great evening, with the crowd overflowing from Kinokuniya's event space into their manga section -- making it impossible for me to pick up a copy of the newest Soul Eater.

I've got to immediately thank every one who came out, and I hope you all had a good time. Special "shout outs" to Paula and the Yajai Thai waitress. See, Paula, I remembered your name. I also loved the tie. And, Yajai Thai waitress, I should learn your name. I also didn't know you liked anime.

It was amazing seeing so many NYAF volunteers, NYAF maids, and fans in NYAF T-Shirts at Kinokuniya and I hope I wasn't a total disappointment. Anyone who glomped me or just said hi early in the evening got one of the last New York Anime Festival 2007 mascot plushies. (If you didn't get one but are craving a chibi Statue of Liberty, I made sure to leave a few at the office so you can still pick one up at the NYAF Shop at newyorkanimefestival.com.) And anyone in cosplay got New York Anime Festival calendars as well as previews of Del Rey Manga's Faust courtesy of Ali.

Ali and I go back a few years to our time together at Be Beautiful Manga. (That's right, girls.) I think I was attracted to Ali's signature bow tie, and I think he fell in love with the fact that I knew how to work the fax machine. Ali's a good friend. (Girls, that means secret lover.) Last night, though, we had a bit of a tiff. See, Ali writes for the Del Rey Manga Blog (activeanime.com/delreyblog), and he was complaining that one of MediumAtLarge.net's upcoming features -- "Peter's Tie of the Week" -- seems based on from his "Ali's Tie of the Week". He charged that I stole his idea. I, admitting I did, told him it didn't matter because it was a blog and no one really reads it anyway. (But maybe people would if there was more shounen ai innuendo.) He countered by reciting some manifesto about blogs being the next generation of journalism. I said that nothing written in blogs was true. I then hit him with a chair.

I'll talk to Ali today to make sure the swelling's gone down.

Getting back on track, talking with the Kinokuniya team, everything went off beautifully and a few folks actually bought some of their zany Japanese funny books which always makes the store happy. I, of course, didn't actually get to see too much of the formal Japanamerica Night presentation. Instead, the evening was filled with me dodging questions about who's coming to NYAF '08. Had Newton (also a Be Beautiful alum) snuck in some beers, I may have let a few names slip, but because he didn't all I put out there was...

"I'm talking to a band that has something to do with Bleach. They're not confirmed, but I'm talking to them."

Have fun speculating until summer.

Oh! I forgot the superbonushappy gift I was also giving out. While I started the night passing out plushies, once they were exhausted, I pulled from my pocket a small stack of tickets to the Tokyo Anime Fair. The New York Anime Festival will have a booth at TAF, and the event sent me a few extra tickets. People were happy. People were very happy. People were very, very happy. When I explained the tickets were just to get into TAF -- and they didn't cover airfare and hotel rooms -- people were still superbonushappy.

My favorite part of the tickets is actually the back. The rear of all of TAF 2008's tickets is an ad for Soul Eater. Soul Eater is a manga that's half Bleach, half D.Gray-man, and half naughty. No one's releasing it in America yet, but Kinokuniya has the Japanese version. Also, it's being made into an anime that's premiering in Japan in April. When's it premiere in America? New York Comic Con. Maybe. I'm working on it. My connection to the whole thing is T.M.Revolution sings the opening theme, and since T.M.Revolution is performing at New York Comic Con, wouldn't it make sense for Soul Eater to be there with him?

Once Japanamerica Night wrapped, Newton, Justin, and I headed on out for dinner at Kenka. Kenka's an izakaya (a low-class Japanese bar) on Saint Mark's Place specializing in deep fried bull naughty bits and $1 Sapporos. Justin and I go there more often than we should, and this was Newton's first time. He'll be back. In between pondering how I won't know what to do if my eventual kid isn't a nerd, explaining why Justin should teach Newton's kid about girls, and halting all conversation when the Cutie Honey theme started playing over the establishment's tinny speakers, we actually talked about a fair amount of business that I'm not going to share with you all right now. Once the stuff I can't talk about wrapped, we got cotton candy and watched Korean cartoons.

I ended up in bed around 3 AM only to find my radio had died and because I can't fall asleep without the cold, unfeeling lullaby of NPR, I stared at my ceiling until morning. And I've got a meeting with the CEO at 8:30 AM.

What have we learned from all this? Not much. So, let me try to pin a conclusion on this train wreck.

I'm terrified whenever staging events -- big or small -- because there's always that fear that no one will show up. This trepidation then swells exponentially when you bring in partners, especially partners you're a fan of, and because I have a total crush on Kinokuniya, I really, really didn't want to screw up 'cause if I did Kinokuniya wouldn't call me any more. (Did that joke connect? Not really? Yeah, I thought it was pretty lame, too.) What I'm trying to say is thank you all for coming out.