Time To Go All Otaku On Your Ass

First, I would like to make you all aware of a new podcast out on the podwaves: the Weekly Anime Review Podcast. Which just so happens to be produced and hosted by one Aaron Schnuth.

Every Friday, Aaron will be reviewing a different anime; this week, he reviews Genshiken. He’s been trying to get me to watch this short series for some time now, but his podcast review was what finally drove me to drag it out of the stack o’ anime and watch it. (That, and coming to the end of my Muppet Show Season One DVDs.) I’m on episode three, but only because I’m pacing myself and not letting myself have a crazy Friday Night Genshiken-a-thon.

If you want to find out what it’s all about (both Genshiken and the podcast), check it out! Better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed in the podcast aggregator of your choice, and you’ll never miss a show.

If you’re at all interested in Japanese animation, I would highly suggest checking it out. And not just because my husband is the host. ^_^

Now that the WARP plug has been covered, on to Otaku topic #2: I need a cosplay idea for Youmacon in November.

See, Aaron’s anime podcast has gotten me back into anime (not that I ever got away from it exactly… I just got busy with other things and forgot how much I like it). I have a few ideas, but I still haven’t done a major sewing project, outside of my marginally-cool t-shirt surgeries.

So here are my ideas:

I could go as a haibane, or “charcoal feathers,” from the anime Haibane Renmei. This will probably be the easiest, as I found some wings at a Halloween sale last year, and I could wear just about anything with them. I might need to do a little wing surgery, though, to make them look right. I’ll need to make them gray, at any rate.

After watching a couple episodes of Genshiken, I thought I could have fun with being Ritsuko from the anime-within-an-anime that the members of Genshiken watch, called Kujibiki Unbalance.

In Serial Experiments Lain, Lain wears the best bear pajamas EVAR. You might recall the one girl from Ohayocon with the Lain bear pj’s — but if I did it, I’d want to be a little more anal about matching the exact details. Her pj’s look a little pleathery, IMO, but are otherwise pretty cool.

This is my current ultimate goal, though: Totoro pajamas. More like a pajama-like fursuit — I certainly wouldn’t want to sleep in what I’m planning. Super thick-ass fuzzy gray pile, footies, mittens or gloves with totoro claws… it’ll be so cool someday. I just can never get myself to work on the prerequisite Lain bear pajamas, so I can figure out exactly what the steps and problems will be when making my totoro outfit.

If it comes down to it, though, I may just work on making a better Totoro fleece hat and just wear it with my Totoro t-shirt. I may do that for one day of the con, anyway, whatever costume I end up making.

Of course, I’m also planning to help Aaron with whatever cosplay outfit he plans, assuming it will require fabrication of some sort. Come to think of it, though, he’ll probably want to do his by himself. Can’t say I blame him. I think it’ll be fun. ^_^