Neko Nation

Top 10 Moments of 2011

2012-01-07T22:26:00.000-08:00

2011 was an amazing debut year for Neko Nation, we put 7 shows on and we've met an amazing bunch of people and had an amazing amount of time and experiences. While the whole trip has been amazing, there were a fair few standout moments of the year and we're going to count them down.

10. Neko Nation launch! (Purrth, February 2011)

Our first show in Perth may have only had 4 DJ's and 2 catgirls but nonetheless it was enjoyable night as the very first Neko Nation took place when it was launched in at Bar 138 in Perth on February 5th 2011. The turnout was around 100 people, maybe it wasn't as big or amazing as our most recent shows but we had to start from somewhere but there was enough love and demand to put on another show and another one and another one!

9. Cheeseburger Sushi (Purrth, September 2011)
While many people reading this might be in shock at such a creation everyone at Neko Nation Purrth was. Iku Sushi ended up providing up with cooked cheeseburger sushi and the end result? It was the most fastest sushi run any of our catgirls had ever done, there was no need for taking laps around the room as this was virtually gone by the time they got from one end of the venue to the other. This stuff was amazing and those who tried it at Purrth definitely thought so.

8. Neko Nation Upgrades! (Various shows)

While our launch was special, watching Neko Nation grow was quite an amazing thing to watch throughout the year, Adelaide saw the launch of an 8 catgirl show, 12+ DJ's, stalls and a mini stage. Things were a massive improvement in Adelaide after our first show in Perth. Things did get a lot better in Perth soon, once we worked on our next setup in the Bakery which featured a decent sized stage with DJ booth, projectors and dancers as well. However we definitely saved the best till last in Adelaide which saw the production ramped further with a bigger stage, lazers, snow machine and a speedy music format which featured 14 DJ's which caught the attention of AV-Con and I Got Superpowers.

7. Giddy Kong (Various shows)
Giddy Kong is our most famous, interesting and controversial DJ on our show, touring around to as many shows as possible out of his own pocket, he comes to play extremely bizarre sets that aim to please our fans, make them dance and also possibly mortify them with his insane trolling. We've seen antics such as his Pedobear outfit, his hacked guitar and DDR mats and his love of random speedcore.

6. Less than 3 but more than 50?! (Adelaide, September 2011)
Saccharine had her first bubblegum pop set in Adelaide and it was an amazing success and the crowd certainly got crazy right into it. Of particular note was when Saccharine played "Less than Three" which ended up creating a conga line which we estimated got to around 50 people, this was not the last which we saw off it, later on we saw a smaller but still impressive Nyan Cat conga line on the night.

5. Putting the win in twincest! (Perth, Various events)

Saccharine and Kae were the first two catgirls for our first show and they kept coming back for more being well known as our two most famous catgirls on Neko Nation. Kae and Saccharine didn't know each other before the first show but ended up getting along quite well to routinely pull off their twin act, which may have gone a bit too far at the first Adelaide show which lead to many friends getting the two mixed up!

4. Damage Dollz (Adelaide, May 2011)
This was Neko Nation catgirls at it's sexiest and finest. Saccharine's go-go dancing group the "Damage Dollz" put on a sexy performance which included 4 of Adelaide sexiest and hottest alt models in some pretty sexy, tiny outfits getting pretty close and wrapped up in string. It made for one amazing show and in the end it was a once off as the Damage Dollz went their separate ways later in the year.

3. Pedobear (Perth, September 2011)

Neko Nation's beloved Giddy Kong came up with an epic idea to wear a pedobear outfit for a Neko Nation event. While he didn't end up playing in it due to the heat and lights on stage he was seen wandering around the entire show with the outfit which created quite a few interesting pictures, especially when the catgirl twins Kae and Saccharine were around!

2. Still Alive Finale (Various Shows)
Giddy Kong accidently started a tradition which ensued at most shows which saw a bizarre celebratory dance for the final song "Still Alive", the first Perth show saw a singalong, Adelaide ended up seeing ballroom dancing to "Still Alive", while the last Perth show ended up seeing a variant of the circle of death, where we saw people running around in a circle only for the circle to collapse at the last minute, Perth certainly had a lot left in them by the end of the show.

1. The Kiss (Adelaide, December 2011)
Adelaide's cosplay scene two well known popular if somewhat controversial figures, Adnan and James ended up pashing on stage at the last show of the year during James' set. The lead up for this moment was often "joked" about for a very long time and people certainly were pretty shocked, surprised but also very excited to see it happen as well too. It's certainly one of the highlights that everyone remembered from that show.

2011: The finale

2011-12-27T01:25:00.000-08:00

As 2011 comes to a close soon, I'd like to thank everyone on board with Neko Nation from all the cities we've been involved in, no role has been too small and I'd like to think that everyone has played a huge part in helping make Neko Nation what it is today. What was a small project during my university break pretty much forced me to leave university to carry on doing this and also Tokyo Hardcore as well.

It's been a huge year with ups and downs, thankfully most of the downs were behind the scenes and more or less to do with the workloads but greatly outweighed by all the ups with how this year ended, I'm absolutely over the moon with how things have been gone with Neko Nation in 2011.

The last show in particular with Adelaide was just phenomenal and mind blowing, I pretty much planned for a massive overhaul to the Neko Nation show and my god did it work out spectacularly in the end, with over 30 staff on board I thought it was going to be a nightmare to keep things all under control but I've got a great team who helped out a lot.

We've had a lot of spectacular fun with all our shows but this time around we managed to get some video footage and coverage through both AV-Con TV and I Got Superpowers, which I've put a link too below for both the videos and the article which featured us as well.

http://igotsuperpowers.com/events/pull-anime-themed-party/

Expect a lot more posts in the upcoming weeks in regards to some of the highlights over 2011!

Neko Nation - Tour Updates for November

2011-11-26T20:16:00.000-08:00

Got some pretty exciting updates in regards to Brisbane and Adelaide plus some details in regards to all the other shows we're working on, let's get started with what's happening!

Melbourne
We have got plans for a Melbourne show in 2012, we are currently in talks of teaming up with another local production crew who have been involved in Manifest to combine for an uber Melbourne show. We will have more updates soon.

Sydney
We have started getting some catgirls and DJ's on board and have almost got everything almost ready to go, more details in the near future. ^^

Perth
We've got a new venue lined up and just waiting to sign the contract any day next week to go ahead. Things have gone a lot slower than we would have liked due to figuring out the best options in regards to an event on Wai-Con weekend. We do have something and details will be announced soon. ^^

Adelaide
We've recently had a meeting with AV-Con on Friday. To cut a long story short, we're working together with AV-Con for this show and in future shows which we are really excited about. The biggest news is that we are having the AV-Con media team coming down with their video cameras to film the event for their latest project, AV-Con TV!

We're working extremely hard on making it the best event ever with a lot of work done on every detail that we can to make the event better. Remember the overheating issues, air conditioning sorted. Want more prizes, extra sponsors obtained. We've got some amazing music producers such as Korw and Neko Theory plus interstate DJ Giddy Kong coming in from Perth. We've got a huge AMV set up organised and arranged. A brand new lighting setup we're working on as well, the amazing new music line up and our biggest staff list yet, (close to 28, our average show usually has 10-15 in comparison!).

Brisbane
Our debut show is getting very exciting over in Brisbane with our most massive demand seen for an Eastern states show ever! We've recently just sorted out our DJ line up for Brisbane and my god is it one of our most amazing DJ line ups yet. We've got big local names and interstate DJ's coming down for our debut Neko Nation Brisbane show.

DJ Triex (Owner of Ruffbeatz Records):
We've got the owner of Ruffbeatz Records, the biggest J-Core record label in Australia! His label includes the likes of DJ S3RL, Helblinde and Shingo DJ just to name a few. Bringing his amazing array of J-Core and a couple of surprises on board, we're very excited to have our biggest name yet join Neko Nation!

DJ Agr1ppa (Bitch Brigade)

Well known for her work behind Brisbane industrial band Bitch Brigade, Agr1ppa will have a DJ set featuring all things pink, cute and PVC (or is that kawaii?). Famously well known as well for her love of all things Japanese which will feature plenty of Japanese pop and club tracks, we are extremely excited to have her on board for Neko Nation Brisbane.

DJ Giddy Kong (WA)
If you think that DJ's are overhyped jukeboxes, then you obviously have never seen one of Giddy Kong's sets. Neko Nation's most famous and craziest DJ is well known for his insane and crazy antics, ranging from hacking toy guitars and DDR mats to his DJ equipment to various sound samples to make for an interesting set. With his music variety being quite erratic, from Rickrolling to 600bpm madness, he is a unbelievably unique DJ that will have you either dancing, laughing or ragequitting. Did we mention that he has a pedobear outfit as well? XD

Get excited Brisbane, this promises to be one of our best shows yet!

Neko Nation Adelaide - v3.0 - Ready for Mega Update!

2011-11-20T05:34:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, less than 4 weeks to go till the next Neko Nation in Adelaide. Looking forward to our third one and it's in our hometown Adelaide. Extremely exciting since the Adelaide show is the biggest on the entire circuit (at least so far anyways!). Neko Nation Adelaide is a lot of fun for us being in our home town since we're treated a bit like mini celebrities and are quite well known over here and we're friends with quite a fair few people involved with the show.

Neko Nation Adelaide is special in the sense that we get to bring on our revolutionary new show with plenty of new changes to our last two which we are extremely excited to work on! Here's a bit of a preview of what we have planned.

New venue
We are moving our premises to Higher Ground which we are extremely excited about moving to a new venue. Higher Ground promises an exciting new setup similar to that of Neko Nation Purrth which saw a massive stage and dancefloor in comparison to the last show. The new venue has exceptional staff on board to work with us to help bring you an amazing new show.

Located not too far away from the previous venue, it's away from the usual Hindley St crowd and easy to get too. Featuring a much more spacious open area and also a drinks line that won't take over 10 minutes like in our previous shows!

New Music Format

We're scrapping the unpopular rave room and trying out our new speed "speedycake" DJ format system, featuring 14 DJ's over a wide varieties of genres. Featuring our usual, J-Rock, Anime, Gaming, J-Core, Gaming, Meme plus some of your favourites such as J-Pop, K-Pop, Bubblegum Pop genres, now we're going to feature debuting some new genres such as J-Trance, Touhou and Disney, yep, expect a pretty amazing new musical experience that you will not find anywhere else in Australia.

Expect some pretty amazing and incredible DJ's with plenty of new DJ's making their Neko Nation debut, including producers, Neko Theory and Korw. We've got Neko Nation's favourite and most famous DJ on board once again, DJ Giddy Kong hailing from Perth, well known for his unpredictable and crazy sets which saw his last set involve a hacked guitar and DDR pad to make music out of while coming as Pedobear! Although overall, expect an incredible soundtrack across so many Neko Nation music genres of the musical nyan cat rainbow spectrum!

Graphical Updates!

I've done my best to work on improving Neko Nation's image over the past few months in particular with the use of our lovely new mascots who are absolutely adorable. XD

We're working on various new things such as our new advertising campaign featuring A1 sized posters. We'll also be working on some new stuff for the show, including some pretty impressive graphics plus a new AMV setup with a projector that we struggled to get working at our previous venue.

Themes
Have a merry Christmas, expect a slight Christmas theme in this show, say goodbye temporarily to prize bags and say hello to presents wrapped up! Plus expect a catgirl or two to be in Christmas theme!

Catboys
We've had a few Catboys but more or less as substitutes in the past for other catgirls. This time, Adelaide has demanded catboys so we've picked a pair of epic catboys for the Adelaide show who will definitely dress and serve to impress!

Cocktails
Working on some pretty awesome new drinks and cocktails on the night, we have a new venue which is going to help us go ahead with this.

After Party
Think the party stops at 3am? WRONG!

We've setup a free after party from 3am-6am at The Pimp Pad. Adelaide's awesome gaming joint, featuring unlimited gaming on PS3 and 360, lounges to chill on, food and drinks available throughout the night plus your chance to chill out with Catalystic and Saccharine the two behind Neko Nation!

Get ready Adelaide we're ready to bring on one hell of a show for Neko Nation Adelaide, this is going to be our biggest and best show yet, get your tickets now from Tokyo Hardcore @ Shop 144 Adelaide Arcade. We're excited and we hope you are too. ^___^

2012 Tour!!!!

2011-11-09T21:13:00.000-08:00

Neko Nation is extremely excited to present a Neko Nation 2012 tour!

Within half a year of putting on the event back and forth between Perth and Adelaide, we have received an insane amount of interest on the East coast and extremely excited to be bringing Neko Nation to Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Plus of course we're not forgetting about our birthplace in Perth and also our home in Adelaide!

We will be looking to return to Perth very soon in the first show with a special event taking place during Wai-Con weekend, we are very close to getting something sorted and we've been a bit spoiled for choice with options so we're deciding on a final decision soon!

Brisbane has recently been booked, despite the dramas of last time where we had to cancel the show due to the venue shutting down, we are back bigger and better than ever with a huge response from Brisbane Supanova for February 11th @ St Pauls.

We will be making our first show in Sydney after a lot of demand for a show we're finally making it down next year and are very excited to start getting to work on their debut show!

We had our first show in Melbourne recently and sadly wasn't our best show and didn't go to plan, we're very excited to bring a brand new show which will be absolutely better than ever, with support from some special up and coming DJ's, stay tuned for more information!

We will finish our tour with a home show in Adelaide, we have got an interesting show planned with quite a nice surprise but you will find out soon!

<3 <3 Catalystic <3 <3

Behind the scenes at Neko Nation

2011-10-30T06:54:00.000-07:00

So a bit about what I actually do with Neko Nation. Neko Nation since September has ended up turning into a full time job, along-side running Tokyo Hardcore with Saccharine. Also I work every night for ANZ so as people know I'm generally quite got my hands full with being busy but I'm very much used to it. XD

While a show may only last 6 hours, there's sometimes up to three months planning for a show and for some shows in the future possibly a lot longer!

We deal with lots of people, from catgirls, DJ's, photographers, venues, fans, helpers, models, sushi caterers and a lot of people in general, while putting on a party can prove to be tricky, when there is so much going on it can prove to go completely in over your head, although in more recent times and with experience (although I've had a lot of event experience before I started Neko Nation) I've nailed it down to around a 100+ point process. So there's always quite a bit to do and when you multiply that by multiple shows there's an insane amount to do at times!

So what sort of things happen behind the scenes?

While selling the show to hundreds of otakus isn't too terribly hard, trying to impress the venue owner can be a nightmare at times who generally are completely mythed at our concept and take quite a lot of convincing to do. It used to be quite tricky when starting out, although it's become a lot easier having got multiple events behind our belt. Some venues are easier than others and there's always a venue or two who have difficulty grasping our event in terms of explaining to them what catgirls are for example!

There are other fun things such as organising photoshoots, working with sushi caterers and dealing with a lot of our event staff who are always a lot of fun to be around, watching the catgirls arrive with their outfits and hearing some of the stuff the DJ's play always makes for a lot of fun surprise which makes another show a lot more refreshing on my end.

Managing the show on the night is a crazy thing, you've got people who want to ask all sorts of questions on the night and I actually don't get much of a chance to party at my own night because I'm dealing with so many people and everyone wants to talk to you, let alone get a chance to party. However I always do find time to enjoy myself and I do get to talk to fans outside of shows. Plus Saccharine always helps out insanely and helps keep the show in control and looking amazing as usual.

There's a lot of work in the way of managing all the online media (Facebook, website), accounting, e-mails and all the things that come with running a business and while time consuming it's all part of the joy and the love of doing something I really love. Being able to talk to people about what I do is quite an enjoyable part and while it can be stressful at times, I seriously love the show. As the last picture proves, I'm not doing it for the money, but for the love. XD

Tour Update - Melbourne

2011-10-15T19:34:00.000-07:00

Neko Nation had their debut event in Melbourne this month and it turned out to be one of our more interesting events that we had done.

Melbourne was looking to be a very exciting event, some of our sexiest and most colourful catgirls yet were ready to serve at the beautiful ABODE. We had interesting DJ's, including Kimochii with a Perfume and Capsule filled J-Pop set, FryRice with some interest anime themes and remixes, special guest and famous Australia lolita icon Melodydoll famous for her "Put It In The Bag", played a special Visual Kei and Vocaloid mash-up. While Catalystic had a bizarre mix of J-Rock, J-Trance and Industrial which went all over the place but somehow it worked!

For Melbourne we had our largest marketing budget yet, spending more money on Facebook, posters, fliers and our promotion at Manifest, we did our absolute best to get our name their to create a huge show! Yet it was our smallest show yet. Those who did go gave us tremendous feedback.

It was a night where things didn't go to plan, with Neko Nation being shut down early for poor attendance in Melbourne which we hope will never happen again!

We did our best and we do hope to be back in Melbourne with a completely brand new show as it was a difficult show and we are looking forward to bringing one amazing full show next time, since we have so much more to offer!

Tour Update - Perth

2011-10-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, will be doing my best to actually update the blog, I've just been extremely busy with the tour and the launch of Tokyo Hardcore!

We recently had two shows on our tour, the first show was held in Perth on September 23rd and it was easily the best and biggest production show we had done yet, mega thanks to all the staff involved, the venue who were amazing to deal with and helped up put one amazing show and of course all our fans who helped make it one of the most enjoyable shows yet.

It was an amazing show which saw many crazy and unique aspects, we were able to introduce Perth to Saccharine's very popular Bubblegum Pop set which brought a mix of meme's, 90's pop music and well known songs in the anime scene. We had sexy schoolgirl catgirls who did an amazing job despite the pressure of one of our DJ's dressing up as Pedobear for the night and chasing after them in some amusing photos. Our free sushi was kicked up a notch thanks to Iku Sushi, with possibly some of the tastiest sushi yet and a new surprise for our guests cheeseburger sushi, which may sound a bit odd to some but those who had it were very blown away!

Perth was an amazing show and was our biggest one yet, in terms of the venue, projector size, number of stalls and even number of people attending as well. We're glad it went well since we were determined to take Perth up another level and in the end it was an amazing show and I'm so looking forward to coming back!

Epic Thanks

2011-09-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

Once again an epic thanks has to go out to all the people behind the Adelaide Neko Nation for what was our biggest and best show yet. While me and Susannah put a fair bit of time into the show we had around 25 other people involved that made this show happen.

We had 8 absolutely stunning catgirls on board Carrie, Kelly, Katja, Saccharine, Bethany, Lenii, Nana and Jimmy. 14 DJ's on board, with a special thanks to our new DJ's Shy, Visual-Kei-ra, Super BC Kid and our favourite, Giddy Kong who flew over from Perth again! Our photographers, James, Thanh and Ashlea and when you include our doorman, venue staff and our awesome sponsors, Gametraders Marion, Freq Entertainment, Tokyo Hardcore, Miss Pixies and of course our huge favourite Shin Tokyo who have been epicly generous with prizes!

Seriously mega thanks, this was by far our biggest show yet and it was the most successful yet. <3

Manifest

2011-08-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

Just to let everyone know that we're going to be at Manifest at the Tokyo Hardcore stall, we'll have plenty of fliers for Neko Nation's debut in Melbourne plus our special, 2 for $30 ticket Manifest exclusive offer as well!

We'll also be doing a special promotional panel which includes talks on a variety of topics:
- What to expect at Neko Nation Melbourne
- A brief history on Neko Nation
- The future of Neko Nation
- A sneak preview of Nekomimi!
- How to get involved with Neko Nation
- Meet and greet the owners and founders!
- Question time

We're looking forward to coming down to Manifest and checking out Melbourne!

All Ages Events

2011-08-20T08:17:00.000-07:00

One of the most commonly asked questions we get is whether we are going to put on an all ages event. Quite simply we would love to but people have to understand the difficulty of the situation of putting on an all ages event.

First of all, putting on an 18+ event anywhere in Australia isn't too tricky well at least for experienced event promoters, however an all ages event varies not just from city to city but from council to council. According to governments there's a whole stigma against the under 18 crowd, apparently they're seen as dangerous, irresponsible and shouldn't be out late. Then we've got the problem of venues, there's few venues that like the idea of having teenagers partying and on the other end, venues aren't really keen on putting on events when they can't make their money on alcohol.

There's a lot of work that gets put into an 18+ event, however there's an insane amount of work that gets involved before being able to put on an all ages event, let alone all the work that happens afterwards like with 18+ events.

Having said this, it is not something I'm completely keen on giving up on, I remember how frustrating it was not being able to attend events I thought were awesome when I was underage and wished that my favourite events were all ages events. So with that said, it is something we will look at and will investigate if there are any opportunities for us to do so. ^^

Neko Nation Updates - July 2011 and Tour

2011-07-27T00:31:00.000-07:00

Neko Nation Radelaide
Saturday, September 3rd 2011
Live on Light Square
The latest Neko Nation Radelaide has been released. We had tickets on sale at AV-Con and we've hit the record for pre-sale tickets already, despite the event being 6 weeks away!

Expect all the craziness you have come to love from Neko Nation and prepare for one hell of a party, especially if you're still suffering from post AV-Con depression this is the perfect cure for you!

If you missed your chance to get tickets you can get tickets from Venuetix.

Neko Nation Tour
Perth - Friday, September 23rd 2011 @ The Bakery
Melbourne - Saturday, October 8th 2011 @ Geddes Lounge (The Basement)
Adelaide - Saturday, October 29th 2011 (TBC) @ Live on Light Square
Brisbane - Saturday, November 12th 2011 @ Step Inn

I would like to personally apologise for the lateness in bringing the information for the tour, unfortunately there has been delays due to Tokyo Hardcore, moving from Perth and unfortunately it takes a long time to deal with venues for our event, (not many clubs are used to our very strange demands for the night!). None of the events have been 100% confirmed, we're still 90% confirmed with all the venues and are getting lots of little last minute things sorted out with all the venues before we work on creating the fliers.

Staff Search
If you applied for the staff search, we're getting back in contact with as many of you as soon as possible, I haven't been able to properly get back to you all until the venue has been booked, things such as venue size, closing times have a huge effect on the numbers we need staffing wise. We have got a good number of staff helping out for all the events, although we could use a few more in Brisbane and we've ended up having to cancel the Sydney show due to virtually minimal applications for roles.

Manifest
We will be in the Tokyo Hardcore stall for Manifest Melbourne in August. We will be selling tickets and will have fliers for the first Neko Nation in Melbourne taking place in October. We will have special discounts for those who buy tickets through our store at Manifest like those who bought tickets at AV-Con. We will also be putting on a special presentation about Neko Nation and more about the event in a special panel. Feel free to also talk to us in the stall to give us your feedback about the event and get involved!

Consensual

Our most popular suggestion and request is when we are going to do an after party for a anime convention. We are getting involved with our first convention at Consensual in Melbourne in November 2011. Consensual is Asutralia's first yaoi and yuri convention and we are very excited to get involved with Avi and the team behind consensual to throw one hell of an amazing and potentially sexy party!

The future of our industry

2011-07-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

It's quite an epic time to be a geek in Australia, there are all sorts of new cons and events popping up everywhere. Our regular cons are growing epicly and I've been told that Supanova hit some pretty epic crowd numbers recently throughout the events.

We're also seeing all sorts of new cons and festivals popping up, some of these include Consensual and the K-Pop festival in November. The growth of smaller subcultures of yaoi and yuri and K-Pop is showing a massive expansion all around.

The likes of Shin-Tokyo and Empire Toys, geek stores have been growing in size and popularity this year, despite all the online competition which has seen many retail chains around close down this year. They're still rising above the challenge as fans remain loyal to their businesses.

The Mana Bar has launched recently in Melbourne after it's success in Brisbane, news was that the owners got into trouble with the council for blocking the footpaths due to the insanely long lines on launch.

For those on in Perth and Adelaide, we've had Neko Nations here instead which the last one managed to hit capacity and the announcement of our tour, there is no shortage of us slowing down any time soon either.

This week also sees the soft launch of Tokyo Hardcore at AV-Con (Adelaide), which has come about due to a high demand in Japanese fashion. There's been a lot of interest and hype surrounding it's launch and it is going to look quite spectacular once they have their soft launch a few months from now.

It is a great time to be in this industry. For those thinking about entering though, a word of caution, everyone in this industry works damn hard to strive for perfection, including myself, however it's because we love what we do and from my end, I can't wait to expand Neko Nation, kick start this tour and help our industry grow massively. ^^

Japan!

2011-07-01T20:48:00.000-07:00

The Neko Nation owners recently went to Japan to get started on our next business project Tokyo Hardcore, a Japanese lolita, gothic and cyber fashion store featuring the best brands from Japan. We had a blast meeting a lot of the brands in person and went really well with the meetings, we will have more details and a proper blog for this soon as well. We're working on getting a stall at AV-Con as well too!

More details at: http://www.facebook.com/we.love.tokyo.hardcore

On my own personal blog I've done a more serious blog about the things and adventures I had in Japan which you can check out at: http://hyper-catalystic.blogspot.com/2011/07/trip-to-japan.html

This is more a light hearted look into some of the things we did and saw in Japan that I personally thought was quite amusing. XD

The JR (Japanese Rail), system. Might be a good idea to start learning this before you go, to say it's a bit confusing is an understatement. Choose to not learn it at your own peril or you'll never get to anywhere you want to go in Japan!

Found outside a hotel in Osaka. It's just to freakish to properly caption. :S

McDonalds are never far away in Japan! XD

Naomi (our translator), took us to this really awesome gothic restaurant located in Shinjuku, the menu is written in a big chunky gothic bible, this place looks amazing! Also holds the Tokyo Decadence events as well. ^^

Found at a temple in Shinjuku, notice how the wooden part at the top looks exactly like a giant penis. XD

The one game everyone wanted to play in the Sega Arcade, the Vocaloid game, I totally did not try to glomp the poster here. XD

Reasons why Japan is awesome, you're discouraged from wearing Crocs as soon as you get to the airport. XD

DOS compatible floppy discs. Japan is so far ahead in technology that you can't possibly fathom the amount of power these discs can hold!

Shinjuku, very clean thanks to their anti-elephant policy.

This is what the ads for the new Zelda game look like, seriously.

Cubic Mouth, as Naomi quoted, "it looks like clown porn". Somehow Disney gave approval for this brand to exist. Click on the picture to see it zoomed in, we saw this merchandise everywhere around Japan, seriously, wtf?!

Cat relaxing cafe, think catgirls serving free sushi is awesome, what about cats serving coffee! Ok, that's probably not what this place was about but the sign is somewhat quite misleading. XP

Edward Cullen is so last decade, Nyanpire is the new vampire for the new decade. Does Edward Cullen drive in a cat shaped car that looks exactly like himself? Didn't think so, hence why Nyanpire is just too damn awesome.

Last but not least an ad for phone company SoftBank, they're the only phone network you can get iPhone in Japan. They've got a bizarre advertising commercial involving a family, I originally thought the family didn't have a dad but our translator actually pointed out that the dog is the dad! There are kids in the family and to be honest it's all sounding a bit Azu Manga Diaoh (think Chiyo-Chan's father). The ads lead to some very interesting merchandise for this character and this is just another case of whacky advertising in Japan and why we love how strange Japan really is. ^^

Bring Neko Nation to your city!

2011-06-04T22:42:00.000-07:00

Due to the roaring (or is that meowing?) success of Neko Nation we are looking to expand, not just more shows in Perth and Adelaide but we're looking at touring into the Eastern states soon! To put on a Neko Nation event requires a special team featuring unique individuals who love their anime, sushi and catgirls and can bring their own unique strengths, skills and passion. We would love for our fans to get involved so we can bring Neko Nation to your city!

Here's where you can help:

Recon Team

We need people who can help us find people to get involved with the event, the more people we can get involved, the bigger and better we can make the event! We need people who know people who can fill in the positions below and can help us with any information you may think might be helpful or any information we need to get the event to getting one amazing Neko Nation in your capital city!

Street Team

We are looking for people who can help put posters and fliers into stores and relevant places, you don't necessarily need to hand out fliers to randoms, just plug and promote the event to your friends on Facebook and make it big so it can be one hell of an event that we will put on again and again!

Door Kitties
We need someone to work on the door at each Neko Nation event. This position requires you to keep a track of ticket and door sales and to politely greet and welcome patrons to our event. This job will require you to miss out on the Neko Nation event however we will properly pay and compensate you for your time.

Photographers

We need photographers that can help with both the photoshoot for the flier and also at the event. Photographers will need be of at least a semi-professional level to be involved in the Neko Nation event and must be able to get good photos in low light conditions. This is a fun job that allows you to have lots of freedom in your role and to have lots of fun in the process. To apply just submit a small portfolio of your work (links to Facebook albums are fine). Preference will be given to people who have done cosplay or nightclub events.

Sponsors
Want to get your business involved and associated with Neko Nation. As a fast growing Australian anime, gaming, otaku club night, we will get you lots of interest and exposure not just in your capital city but also across Australia. All we require is for sponsors to donate prizes for our competitions that we have on the night. In some cities we will also be looking at having sponsors set up their own stalls to sell their products during the night, if you are interested in this please let us know! In return you will receive plenty of exposure which will include getting onto fliers, posters, Facebook promotion and we are more than happy to consider other ways to have sponsors involved with the show itself.

For all the above roles:
Please contact Saccharine for Adelaide, Melbourne: silkys_anthem@hotmail.com
Please contact Catalystic for Perth, Sydney and Brisbane: hairlucination@mail.com

DJ's

Experience not required!

We are looking for people who are interested in DJing, no experience required and we can provide training if you are interested in the following genres.

J-Rock, J-Pop, K-Pop, Anime Anthems, Gaming Anthems, Chiptunes, Trollstep/Lulzcore

What is most important is music knowledge, we want someone who loves the genre that they wish to apply for and play on the night. We want people who will dress up, dance around, interact with the crowd and really have fun.

Experienced DJ's are also encouraged to apply in all sorts of genres, however we obviously would prefer DJ's that can play music related to anime, gaming or Japanese music.

If you're interested please contact Catalystic: hairlucination@mail.com (All cities)

Catgirls!

As you know the catgirls are the main stars of our show and are there to greet the guests, fill them up with sushi, look sexy and help everyone have a great time!

Think you've got what it takes to be a Neko Nation catgirl? It takes good looks, a cute and bubbly attitude, and a strong interest in anime and Japanese culture. Good luck in applying, it takes someone special to fill this role! However be prepared to be extremely loved and worshipped if you do get to work as a Neko Nation catgirl! Plus one absolutely amazing catgirl will get the glorious recognition of being the Neko Nation poster kitty for their city!

If you're interested please contact Saccharine: silkys_anthem@hotmail.com (All cities)

We're looking forward to expanding and having many new awesome members on our team!

Prize Winners - Neko Nation Purrth May 2011

2011-06-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

Presenting the prize winners from Neko Nation Purrth, May 28 2011. We originally planned to announce it on the night but considering how crowded and loud it was, it was going to take far too long to make the announcements, so we ended up doing it throughout the night instead. So for those who are curious, here are the prize winners from Neko Nation Purrth!

Best Cosplay: Cara

Best Dressed (Original Outfit): Michael

Superstar (Best Dancer): D'arcy

Fan Service Prize: Ashleigh

DJ Line Up: Neko Nation Purrth: May 28th 2011

2011-05-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

7:00-7:40

Chiptunes

Giddy Kong

Neko Nation Purrth opens up the night chiptunes crazy. Giddy Kong is going to be starting up on the decks for the night with plenty of retro awesomeness and fun to be had by gamers and music lovers alike!

7:40-8:20

J-rock

Catalystic

Neko Nation's J-Rock veteran and founder of Neko Nation Purrth returns to the decks with a variety of J-rock and a few surprises from some of your favourite video games!

8:20-9:00
K-pop

Nyu Kid

Time to get your K-Pop moves on! Nyu Kid is our master when it comes to playing really danceable and fun K-Pop. Not afraid to get his cosplay and dance moves on, he's one hell of a DJ and dancer too!

9:00-9:40

Game-step

Leviathan

New to Neko Nation Purrth, Leviathan made his debut in Adelaide and is here to play a special "game-step" set. Mixing lots of your favourite gaming tunes into some very interesting dubstep tunes that will satisfy your cravings for bass and gaming tunes alike

9:40-9:45

Prize Announcements

Best dressed and Cosplay

9:45-10:25

Anime anthems

Saccharine

The well beloved catgirl Saccharine and owner of Neko Nation Radelaide is here to hit the decks in Purrth with her special anime anthems set. Expect nothing but an entire set dedicated to theme songs from all of your favourite animes, get your groove on because the dancing and fan service prizes are awarded after her set!

10:25-10:30
Prize Announcements

Superstar and Fan service

10:30-11:10

Bubblegum Pop

Catalystic

It's pop for otakus, gamers and geeks alike as Catalystic will be introducing the first ever bubblegum pop set at a Neko Nation event! If you love Japanese, Euro and Swedish pop like Aqua, Basshunter and Caramell, you're in for one special treat and expect a dash of J-Core just to mix things up a bit!

11:10-Close

Lulzcore-trollstep

Giddy Kong

Nobody knows what to expect when we let Giddy Kong loose for one last set on the decks. It's always one crazy and amazing unpredictable last set that either sends people leaving in disgust or the crowd wild. Expect many surprises, expect awesomeness and expect to be trolled!

Prizes and Sponsors

2011-05-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

Everyone who comes to Neko Nation is highly encouraged to dress up, dance and have lots of fun. Not only do we just encourage this but we heavily reward all this as well. The original Neko Nation had two competitions and one sponsor. This time around we've got four competitions and not one but we have at least ten sponsors on board now!

Thanks to Empire Toys our main sponsor who have overloaded us with an insane prize package which we've had trouble fitting into the prize packs, let alone all the other prizes to give away too! Our other sponsors include Miss Pixies, Steam Generation, Trash Glam, EVM Productions, Graver Clothing, Black Parasol Designs, Prince Photography, Wednesday's Photography, Hairlucination and Saccharine Desolation.

Throughout the night we are planning to announce the prize packs, each prize pack contains a variety of prizes from our various sponsors and it's safe to say that some of these prize packs are valued at around the $100 mark each! So what does it take to win the prizes?

Best cosplay
We encourage everyone to dress up and cosplay if possible and for those who can do it well you might be in the running to win an amazing prize pack. We have a few expert judges around on the night who will be analysing all the outfits and the amazing effort put into the outfits. Even if you don't win the thrill of being able to party with cosplayers will be one awesome experience!

Best dressed
For those who can't and don't wish to cosplay, dress up in your best outfit, whether you want to dress lolita, visual kei, ganguro, cyber, goth, rave or whatever crazy outfit you can muster. Like above we will be having a look at all your amazing outfits, however we are looking for a mix of style, creativity and effort here. Dress to impress and you shall be rewarded

Best dancer prize (Superstar/J-Idol)
Dance, dance, dance and you could win the best dancer prize. This is a prize that will go out to the best dancer on the night although what does it take? We're looking for people who are open minded to dance to a variety of different genres and styles, can come up with some creative moves and have lots of fun!

Fan service prize
What's anime without fan service? Impress staff, fans, photographers and everyone! We'd like to say that this prize speaks for itself, get creative and maybe you could win this awesome prize pack (or two!).

To be eligible to the win prizes, you must be in the venue between 9:30-10:30pm, we will be posting up the exact timetable for the event soon!

Neko Nation Purrth: Update and Upgrade

2011-05-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

Oh hai, we’ve upgraded your local anime, otaku and gaming party! Want to know what this whole "bigger and better" thing we've been talking about is? We're making it so much better then the first one!

An epic new music format!
We’ve got more DJ’s on board including a chiptunes DJ and a catgirl on the decks! We’re also launching a new speedycaked music format, featuring shorter sets, meaning more variety and more DJ sets!

Anime Anthem Set!
We're going to be launching our anime anthems set in Purrth after being a successful smash hit in Radelaide. Basically we've got a catgirl on the decks who will play nothing but anime theme songs back to back throughout her entire set, plus you get a pretty catgirl to look at!

More Catgirls and Sushi!
Due to the overwhelming popularity on the door, we’ve come prepared with a lot more sushi and catgirls this time. We’re introducing more new sexy catgirls (and possibly a catboy!) and bringing back our catgirl twins, Kae and Saccharine!

New Visuals
We’ve reworked the AMV playlist and currently looking at getting some anime artwork on the walls for our event. Even if you’re not dancing, there’s going to be a lot more to take in around the club.

Drink Specials
Expect extremely cheap energy drink specials from Bar 138 this time. We’re also working with Bar 138 to introduce “Mana Bar’ gaming themed cocktails this time!

More prizes and competitions!
Adelaide saw the introduction of two prizes, best original dressed and also the fan service prize on top of the original best cosplay and dancing prize. Thanks to awesome sponsors on board, we have many more prizes to give away, so dress up, dance hard and party hard to win some of the awesome prizes we have on board this time!

Neko Nation History - Part 2

2011-05-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

There isn't a part one as such but it's been written earlier in my first thank you post that Neko Nation was started by Catalystic in late 2010 as a side project out of pure frustration that nobody had created his vision for years, so Catalystic went ahead and put on Neko Nation in Perth on February 5th 2011 to great success. The story after that night got quite interesting, (if I go into personal details this will go for ages!).

Here's the story on how we took the event to Adelaide

Saccharine was taken on board as a catgirl for the first event and was also providing a lot of support and was also on board as an adviser as well and flew out here with her own money, Catalystic never asked for Saccharine to fly over, she flew over on her free will. Having seen success of the first event, Saccharine told Catalystic on how she would put on an event in Adelaide,. Over the next few days the plan got developed further and Saccharine took every point out of the Perth event and made sure to expand on it big time. We officially decided to become partners in business. Not only that but we became partners personally as boyfriend and girlfriend, despite the long distance.

Work got underway on both events and along the way things have been picking up momentum fast, this event just kept getting more and more potential and it expanded into the absolutely mindblowing event you got to see in Adelaide. This time the roles were suddenly switched around this time with Saccharine taking on the event manager role while Catalystic played an advisory and assisting role. The event in Adelaide rocked, there was no doubt that we had to put this on again.

Now we move onto the next event in Perth and it's an emotional one since it's where the magic all began again but if you're expecting a repeat of last time, think again, having taken lessons from the last two events, it's going to be an epic new show in Purrth this time around! It's also emotionally in terms of Saccharine and Catalystic falling for each other here and it's also Catalystic's last show before he moves over to Adelaide for good, meaning our new official home will be in Adelaide.

So make it a big one Perth, so we can return back here in the future! <3

Neko Nation Thank You Post

2011-05-20T07:54:00.000-07:00

Originally taken from Catalystic's personal Facebook notes.

6 months ago the original vision for an anime themed night club was born as a side project for in my uni break. An event that was created just for the pure fact that I got tired of waiting for someone else to put an event on that I decided to put it on myself. Basically it was a simple idea, create a night that not only played Japanese music but also music from animes and video games, present an interesting environment that catered to anime fans, gamers and geeks alike and add in nice little welcoming touches such as having catgirls serving sushi.

As the original founder of Neko Nation, this event was beyond my wildest dreams, I originally created this event as a small fun one-off side project in my university holidays to have a bit of a small fun party but Adelaide was definitely a lot more then that! This was one hell of an event which I’m so immensely enjoyed, not just as an event promoter but also as an actual fan of the event.

Neko Nation Adelaide may have lasted up to 6 hours for those who went, for the people behind the event; it has taken 3 months to put on the event and a total of 6 months if you include the original planning behind the first Neko Nation in Perth. There is so much work that happens to make this event possible and it takes a lot of people to put an event like this on and I’m extremely thankful for everyone’s help.

First of all, to everyone in Perth who made the first event a success which encouraged me to put on another one (well actually, two since the next Perth event is coming up soon!). It was such an amazing night and we felt that it was a great event that we would put on again on a bigger and better level. The support you gave us made Adelaide happen.

Live on Light Square provided us with an amazing venue and they took a huge risk with our event. It’s hard to convince venue owners to put on an event that has never been done before and they were more than happy to not only take on our event but help with so many of our demands to make this event happen. They went above and beyond and did everything it took to make the event work and even lots of small touches such as the Princess Peach shots which I found absolutely delicious! I'd also like to give a special shout out to all the guys who helped set up the lighting and DJ equipment in the venue as well too.

To all the photographers at the event who capture the amazing images of the event, you have mdae myself and many others so very happy. I have so many good memories of the night which have been summed in photos of myself and capturing many memories of others and there were so many amazing outfits and moments that got captured which I thought were truly special. The professionals have done an amazing job but even the fans and staff members who brought digital cameras or their phones to share their pictures on Facebook, thanks a lot, everyone and myself included loves going through the pictures from the night.

The DJ’s did a stunning job and really make our event very interesting and unique. We had amazing DJ’s for our event, they all did an amazing job and I’m impressed they looked the part and really had lots of fun interacting with the crowd. The DJ’s made the night special and Neko Nation has got an amazing line up of DJ’s, we’ve got some experienced veterans in the rave scene pumping out a variety of hardcore, hardstyle, dubstep, electro and industrial. We’ve got some amazing DJ’s who pumped out a nice variety of songs from all sorts of Japanese genres. While there are too many to name, Giddy Kong was a highlight flying all the way from Perth and paying for our resident catgirl Kae to comeover too who was playing a variety of dirty electro, dubstep, hardcore, gabba, speedcore, splittercore, hip hop, trollstep, lulzcore and Nyan Cat. We had DJ’s playing lots of fan service songs, in particular tracks such as Sailor Moon, Caramelldansen, One Winged Angel, Nyan Cat, Still Alive and the crowd really went off for the Pokemon theme song! My only gripe was that the DJ’s were too good and I was often torn between both rooms and had to miss some amazing sets due to DJing or having a good time in one room.

The catgirls need a huge mention, originally included as a small diversion in the original plan, they’ve become the stars of the show. I originally planned for the idea to get catgirls serving sushi but once Susannah got on board, she made it her mission to take it even further. She got 7 of the sexiest and cutest catgirls (and one catboy!), to serve sushi and my god, the outfits they were all wearing were incredible. These people were specially chosen due to their amazing looks and personalities. Just having them there, they looked amazing and really added to the atmosphere and yeah these are seriously the hottest alternative models in Adelaide and Australia for this show! The personalities brought them to life, not just while serving sushi but interacting with guests, dancing, DJing and just having fun! The icing on the cake was the Damage Dollz performance. I was so blown away, they put on one hell of an amazing show, for those that weren’t there you missed out, imagine having four extremely hot sexy catgirls brought to life playing with each other. It was one super sexy show that really emphasised how great catgirls really are.

A very special thank you must go out to Anthony, Julia, Kerry Anne and Giddy Kong. We had 4 other people and 5 including myself who chose to come to Adelaide and help out with the event out of their own free will, I never asked for anyone to come over at all. It’s one thing to get people helping out with your event, it’s another to get people who are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to help out and in the cases of the DJ’s get called up to play sets at the last minute. Believe it or not, the majority of the time, we used interstate DJ’s rather than local ones since between the three of us we played almost 7 hours!

Of course, without the fans, this event wouldn’t have happened. We got a fair bit of praise in Perth but in Adelaide, you guys have really shown your love for this event. It’s a huge risk to start a new project and until the event, we had to do our best to sell our event with just ideas alone and we were glad you supported it. At and after the event I’ve seen a lot of praise the event and it really means a lot to us since we really do put it on for you all and it helps us get through what is a very tough times in the lead up to the event.

I’ve had a blast, some of my highlights include playing my anime and gaming 180bpm set which featured J-core and hardcore remixes of tracks such as Sailor Moon, Neon Genesis Evangellion, Pokemon, Zelda and Caramelldansen to name a few. Getting to join in the mass caramelldansen, dancing to the anime theme songs set from Saccharine. The super sexy Damage Dollz Catgirl performance. Nomming on lots of sushi. Meeting all the catgirls and hanging out with the DJ’s. Seeing some epic outfits and talking to a few of the awesome fans (I worked and danced at a lot of the event so I didn’t get to socialise as much as I would have liked again!). Drinking Princess Peach shots, playing One Winged Angel. Tricking people with my trap outfit and being tricked by Susannah and Kerry Anne’s twin outfits! If I had a favourite moment when Pokemon was played and everyone joined in a circle and started singing along was quite magical.

However this event happened all thanks to Susannah, the head promoter of Neko Nation Radelaide. Susannah actually helped out with securing a venue for the Perth event and decided to fly over and become a catgirl for the Perth event. She loved the event so much the day after the event we got to work on an Adelaide version of the event and just before she left we had a draft plan for the Adelaide event ready to go. From this moment on me and Susannah become partners, not only in business but personally as well.

Susannah saw the original ideas and wanted to make it huge. We ended up going late, it got put into two rooms, we brought in six new stunning catgirls over the original pair from the first event, we had new DJ’s in many styles of music which had people learning about new genres that never thought existed. We saw new concepts coming along such as the gaming and anime anthems hours, the catgirls were given new life and their very own show, new prize categories which rewarded people for having fun as well as looking great and overall just making the show even better than the original.

The result was mindblowing, I loved the event so much, half of it I had fun working and helping out, while the other half I spent actually having fun and enjoying myself. The only downside was that the concept was so big was that often at times there was so much going on I didn’t know what to do, which room to dance in, who I should talk to, which outfits I should look at (I missed the epic Nyan Cat outfit!) and just deciding what to do, there was just too much to do!

I had so much fun and despite all the work, late nights, risk and stress involved in putting on events, I love it and it’s thanks to all of you who have made this event truly amazing. I can not wait for the next one in Adelaide (and also the others around Australia too!) and trust us it will be bigger and better than ever. <3

Top Ten - Adelaide

2011-05-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

Decided to make a top ten list in regards to my (Catalystic's) top ten list in regards to some of the highlights from Neko Nation. It's kind of like the David Letterman show, except our show is actually more fun than planking. XP

10. Being asked if the DJ really did play “Rick Astley”
9.   Seeing the whole room singing along to the Pokemon theme song, talk about epic karaoke!
8.       The whole front room caramelldansen in unison
7.       Certain people perving on Catalystic then realising he was a trap. XD
6.       Trying to count which was played more often (including remixes) Caramelldansen or Nyan Cat, both were at least played three times from memory!
5.       Cosplaying, some bizarre ones included Troll Face, Master Chief, Diglett and even Nyan Cat!
4.       Saccharine’s anime anthem’s set, Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Panty and Stocking, so much epic anime awesomeness

3.       The door person having difficulty finding a place to stamp Master Chief!
2.       The Damage Dollz uber-sexy catgirl performance, the Youtube video does not do this performance justice.
1.   Sexy catgirls (and our first cat boy!) with free sushi, epic win.

Next Neko Nation Purrth - 28th May!

2011-02-21T07:59:00.000-08:00

Neko Nation held its first event in Perth on the 5th of February, intending it to just be a small experimental event to ‘test the waters with’, and we ended up with even more people than expected! Well we were so impressed with the positive response and how much fun everyone had that we had no choice but to announce a second event in Perth on the 28th of May @ Bar 138. We’ve also had enough interest to announce our first interstate show in Adelaide, which we'll announce the details soon!

For the first event we will admit that we were more than happy just to make it through the night, and being an experimental event, we tried lots of things. Some things worked great, and there were some areas where we want to improve. So this time around you can expect the same Neko Nation you know, only bigger and better!

So what are we doing differently this time?

Moar catgirls, moar sushi!

We thought we had this sorted, but a Zerg rush of South Korean proportions meant we didn’t have as much to go around as initially planned. This time we will be ordering a lot, and we mean A LOT, more sushi to keep you going throughout the night!

We are also be getting more catgirls, keeping the super sexy Saccharine Darling and Kae-Chan but finding them more kitty sisters to play with! We will also be giving the catgirls more of a hostess role, making them more approachable, friendlier and fun to hang out with. They are our mascots for this event, and we want people to remember the awesome experiences they had with our catgirls!

Music/DJs

We are working on a brand new intense music format on the night that sees shorter sets and more styles of music. We’ll be throwing in a chiptunes set and encouraging the DJ’s to play more anime and gaming tracks, as well as just generally having more DJ’s and a lot more fun. We’ve also got a twitter that you can tag us in and request all the songs you want to hear on the night!

Sponsors and Prizes

It’s hard to get interest, sponsors and support for a brand new experimental event. This time around, we’re aiming to get a lot more sponsors and prizes, and we’re looking at keeping our competitions for “Best Dressed” and “Superstar” (dancing, cosplay performance) as well as adding a brand new category, “Best Fanservice”!

Experimental Art

While having the AMV’s playing in the background certainly helped give it an anime feel, we’re looking at having much more fun with this and expanding it more! We will be contacting local artists to display their anime and manga artworks to give the venue a better atmosphere.

Giddy Kong will also be getting involved with his “Bent Toy Project”. This will see your childhood toys evolve in a way you never thought possible. They will be given new life, names, "upgrades" and soul devouring capabilities. More info about this project and how you can get involved is available here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=193954910624404

Drinks

If all goes to plan, we’re going to be serving anime and gaming themed cocktails! Now you don’t have to go all the way to Mana Bar in the eastern states to experience the taste of anime and gaming and have a great time!

As you can see, there’s a lot of ways that we will be making this event even better than last time! The official flyer and tickets will be available online in a few weeks time, and we’re also looking into possible retailers to sell our tickets as well. We’re doing a lot of hard work behind the scenes, and we are all very excited and looking forward to the 28th of May for Neko Nation Purrth!

About Neko Nation

Our event is a chance for people to enjoy their interests in anime, gaming and Japanese culture in a different, more exciting, nightclub environment. Neko Nation features DJ's playing j-pop, j-rock, visual kei and j-core, chiptunes and 8bit, as well as anime and gaming themes. We have screens playing AMVs all night, cosplay, gaming tournaments, as well as what makes the event really popular, our special team of sexy catgirls who serve free sushi all night! The catgirls really are the heart of the event, playing the role of hostesses who help to break the ice, interact with guests, dance and are just a lot of fun to look at.

We strive to create a totally immersive and interactive experience for the anime/gaming/otaku community of Australia.

http://www.nekonation.com/

Adelaide

If you have the money, try to make it down to Adelaide. There will be 7, I repeat 7, of some of the hottest alternative and Lolita models in Australia as our catgirls for the night, as well all the other awesome things that will be happening there across two massive rooms packed full of fun!! More details soon!

Neko Nation Job Search - Purrth

2011-02-21T05:01:00.000-08:00

Are you interested in joining the awesome team behind Neko Nation? Do you think you can handle hanging out with like-minded otakus and gaming geeks? Can you handle lots of sushi and anime? Can you deal with being around cosplaying DJ’s and sexy catgirls? Do you have a problem with getting free entry, free drinks and attending an exclusive staff pre-party?!

If you’re still here, read on and find out if you have what it takes to join our awesome Neko Nation Purrth team!

J-Rock DJ

Love your J –Rock, Visual Kei? Do you rock out to awesome gaming and anime rock tunes? Then we’re interested in hearing from you! We’re looking for someone who is interested in playing a J-Rock set near the start of the night for around 45-60 minutes.

Inexperienced DJ’s can apply, since DJing ability and talent only plays a bit in getting this role (leave you uber scratching abilities at home, please). Neko Nation DJ’s are required to dress up, dance, jump and sing along to their tracks and to have a good knowledge of playing fan servicey tracks from animes and video games. DJ’s are to keep an open mind and have as much variety as possible, as any track that is slightly rocky (metal, hard rock, rock, j-rock, 8-bit, whatever works!) and we’re happy to have epic orchestral tracks too (think Halo, Smash Brothers, One Winged Angel) .

More importantly, we need someone who just wants to have fun and make others have fun too. We are more than happy to train up inexperienced DJ’s if you have the right attitude and enthusiasm.

Catgirls!

At this stage we have one position available for a catgirl.

As you know the catgirls are the main stars of our show and are there to greet the guests, fill them up with sushi, look sexy and help everyone have a great time!

Personal Thank You

2011-02-12T17:05:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone

I just wanted to say to the bottom of my heart a huge thank you to everyone who came down to Neko Nation.

My motivation to create this event was basically having seen similar events around the world and thinking to myself for years, when is somebody else going to put an event on like this? Having been involved with event promoting in the past, running my own business and having got the funds to put an event like this on, I said that if nobody else was going to do it then I would.

I was hoping there would be other like minded people and in the end there were on the night, what seriously made my night wasn't the number of people there or how much money we made, it was literally going around seeing the smiles on people's faces and all the fun you were having. I do mean this because I could have easily made lots of money with some boring RnB event instead but I have no motivation to do so. However, enough money was made so we can put on another event.

There are so many amazing highlights for me but things such as seeing everyone Caramelldansen or the Still Alive sing along at the end made me very emotional and it's moments like this that I will personally hold onto for the rest of my life.

It wasn't all my show, a lot of people were involved and were a massive help, Cassius, Matthew and Giddy with their DJing, Wednesday and Madman or the camera and video camera respectively, Milleh and Ryan on the door plus our wonderful catgirls Kae and Saccharine.

There is a huge special thanks to Saccharine, for giving me lots of advice to get this event going and this event would have never started if it wasn't for her. She personally chose to flew all the way from Adelaide from her own personal expenses just to help out and visit this event and she has lots of amazing memories from everyone she met on the night. She is now my new business partner and is putting on Neko Nation in Adelaide and she's really, really pretty to look at. XD

It's thanks to people like you events like this can exist, there's a lot of love, time and effort that goes into putting on an event like this and we are so glad there are other like minded people who are willing to support this sort of thing as we truly enjoy putting on these events. Your support keeps us going and motivated to put more events on and make them bigger and better, there's a fair few things we're working on in terms of improving next time for our Perth show and if you're in Adelaide it's going to be hell of a show, hell it's worth flying over for!

I say all this looking back on all the photos and videos of the event, revisiting all the memories, it was something special which I hope you all enjoyed and I seriously can not wait to do this again (and again and again)!

<3 Catalyst!c
Neko Nation Founder

Venue Choice

2011-02-12T16:27:00.000-08:00

We're currently considering to put another Perth event on and the first job is securing a venue and the date that comes with it. While we are open to new venues, our venue choice has been an absolute no brainer, with Bar 138 becoming our new home with good reasons.

Finding a venue isn't easy, it was my first event and it was an experimental event never done before making it hard for myself to find a venue. Many clubs and bars put on house and RnB (yawn) nights because they know it will work and always attract lots of people wanting to get drunk. It was very easy for clubs to dismiss our idea and Bar 138 were completely open to our idea and gave us lots of support and really put their faith in us. They have asked us to come back even though they admitted we weren't their most profitable event, although they know we will do better next time. We've seen clubs such as the rave club Rise close down and the goth club Sin kicked off their long term venue recently, for financial reasons, the fact a place like Bar 138 exists is becoming a rarity these days which just lets us put events on for the sake of it is great.

The venue had a laidback atmosphere both inside and outside. I don't know how comfortable people are walking around the main clubbing district Northbridge at night but I felt a pretty horrible drunken and aggressive atmosphere in there (I'm not even running around in cosplay either!). The fact Bar 138 was outside this area was not a coincidence and we eliminated all clubs in Northbridge out of the equation to begin with. Plus it was easy to get too, I've been surprised many times how close the place really is to the train station.

I really would like to stress the laidback atmosphere as well, I've had many clubs question my appearance, arguing about platform shoes, flared pants, shorts, some slightly questionable shirts (people don't get tentacle sex jokes) and it's been a battle for me to get into clubs in what I feel isn't too different. I warned Bar 138 about what people may have worn and they didn't bat an eyelid, they didn't mind cosplay, they didn't mind guys in shorts (seriously, so many bars will turn you away), a few people stripped down a bit and some people had their faces covered the whole night and this venue was completely fine about it.

Bar 138 has proven to be highly negotiable as well, not just in dress sense but overall. They didn't mind I was playing J-Core (a genre, nobody has ever played in Perth), they didn't mind a lot of the messing around with the audio equipment and they were open to Sake and they're likely to be open to a lot more newer ideas we have planned.

People may argue that it's not the best venue but the reality is right now, it is by far the most suitable venue there is for our event. We will keep you up to date when we can confirm the next event in Perth (and also in Adelaide). <3

A Success

2011-02-12T15:58:00.000-08:00

The very first Neko Nation was a complete success! We ended up getting a good crowd down for the first event and from what we've heard the majority of people there had an excellent time!

We are pleased to announce that thanks to all of your support, we are able to put on a second event and we've got a third event in the works as well. A very special thanks to Bar 138, Neko Nation staff and all the fans for making this happen.

We will see you in Adelaide soon!