YOKO KANNO! X JAPAN! HAPPYFUNSMILE!

It's 2:04 PM on Monday, February 18th. I'm blogging live from the BookExpo America / New York Comic Con / New York Anime Festival booth at this year's Toy Fair in New York City. I grabbed breakfast from Dunkin' Donuts at about 6 AM -- a bagel and totally underwhelming Milky Way hot chocolate -- and haven't had anything since. I'm getting hungry, but it's kinda sorta difficult to go out and get lunch if you're the only one staffing a booth. Which I am. Odds are I'm not going to eat until the show closes, and then I'm going to get the closest, crappiest pizza I can find. Thing is, I love cheap, crappy pizza.

I think I just met the President of Toy Fair.

Anyway, talking more about food, I had lunch with Justin Sevakis on Saturday. Justin's the founder of Anime News Network and a friend of mine. We went to Yajai Thai, Justin's favorite Thai place in New York City. Needless to say, it was good. Yajai Thai is at 33-10 30th Avenue in Astoria if you'd like to give 'em a bit of business. Justin recommends the taro pancakes. I do, too.

Justin and I spent two or three hours at Yajai talking about all sorts of top secret stuff I can't share just yet. We also talked about music. I greatly admire the breadth, depth, and reach of Justin's aural appetite. Anyone who knows me knows I'm completely musically illiterate if it's not manufactured in Japan for 12-year-old girls. Justin, also from an anime background, started with the Japanese bubblegum pop, too, but his tastes have expanded to include anything and everything in the world that's "good."

There's a dog barking somewhere.

I was talking about music, right? One of the groups we spoke a bit about was X JAPAN, one of Japan's most-beloved and longest-running rock groups. They're holding an upcoming concert called "X JAPAN TO RESUME ITS ATTACK 2008 I.V. ~Towards Destruction~" at the end of March in Tokyo. It's a three day affair, with one of the days, March 29th, geared toward international fans. If you'd like to check out X JAPAN and live outside of Japan, head over to tix.com now. Tickets went on sale Saturday and will probably sell out today if they haven't already.

If Tokyo's too far away, one of my favorite groups -- and the only group not based in Japan that I'm even conscious of -- is putting on a little show on Tuesday, February 19th in New York City. They're called HAPPYFUNSMILE and basically perform high energy covers of traditional Japanese and Okinawan festival songs. Really. I love 'em, had 'em at the New York Anime Festival last year, and plan to have 'em back again in 2008.

Tuesday's concert is at 9:30 PM in Aruba, a Japanese-style piano bar inside the Peking Park Chinese restaurant at 100 Park Avenue. Honest. If you don't believe me, check out Aruba's website at www.hpnewyork.com/aruba/, and while you're there, take a look at their upcoming schedule, as there's something there that's currently vexing both Justin and myself.

If you look through Aruba's list of upcoming performances you'll see a "Yoko Kanno" is set to play March 20th. Who's Yoko Kanno? If you even tangentially like anime, you absolutely adore Yoko Kanno. Ms. Kanno is the composer to the scores to animations including Macross Plus, Cowboy Bebop, Vision of Escaflowne, and Ghost in the Shell: STAND ALONE COMPLEX.

But, the Yoko Kanno playing at Aruba couldn't be the Yoko Kanno, could she? I mean, legendary composer Yoko Kanno wouldn't come to NYC to play a few songs at Japanese bar inside a Chinese restaurant? Surely not. Surely, this is a different Yoko Kanno. I mean, there's no way. It couldn't be. It wouldn't be.

But what if it is? What if?

I'm going to be giving Aruba a call and am trying to make it to HAPPYFUNSMILE's show there on Tuesday. I'll have an answer about Yoko Kanno by Wednesday.