Neko Nation Updates - July 2011 and Tour

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

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!

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.  ^^