Kawaiietly Please

Since seeing Kawaiietly Please for the first time last summer, I have been wanting to write about the Lolita noise project. Last weekend, I had the chance. The story went live over at the LA Weekly last Monday and so far, the response has been tremendous. Please take the chance to read it when you have the chance.

If you're reading this because you like my stories about weird music, American otaku goodness and other slightly geeky (just slightly) interests, check out my Twitter page, as I tend to update there first.

Anime Los Angeles

By the second day of Anime Los Angeles, it was clear that the angle for my LA Weekly coverage had to be the amount of incredibly talented, young artists are emerging from the convention scene. In some ways, it reminds me of the goth and klub kid scenes of the mid-1990s, the creativity knows no boundaries. In terms of fashion, clothing isn't determined by gender and the more fantastical (and impractical, by the standards of our unfortunately casual society) the outfit, the better.

The dresses above were created by Megan Amo. The hat are by her sister Cecilia. I loved the steampunk elements in top Lolita look (the mechanical clock parts and the use of brown and cream). The model, Michele McArthy launched her accessory line Cute Land at the convention. It consists of little clay candy and cakes that you can wear on your fingers or in your hair. Since I wasn't photographing the event, I forgot to get some pictures of her table (bad, Liz).



I loved the back of Jonelle Abitong's samurai princess dress. If I didn't hate my upper arms and fear leaving the house without a bra, I would wear this to M/R/X. It's so cool.

Oh, and the dolls were amazing too. Check out this unicorn boy.



And these are pretty amazing too.

Lolita Aftermath

Monday's Lolita story garnered a really amazing response, even making it to the front page of Digg.

I couldn't help but become a bit obsessive over reading the comments (an example is here). Having done the bulk of my professional writing for print before the past few months, I never really knew what people thought of the stories, so having the opportunity to read responses is really fun. It's similar to the point when I moved from radio DJing to club DJing, instead of being holed-up in a booth waiting for the phone to ring, I could see the reaction immediately. And I appreciate that reaction whether or not I actually agreed with the sentiments (which is more or less a moot point). I do, however, admit to getting a bit irritated when people mention the story as being in the LA Times. It's the Weekly! It's way cooler (at least in my humble opinion).

I thought Erin's slideshow was amazing. Usually, when you see Lolita photos, everything is posed like a fashion shoot. These were pretty spontaneous, giving the look of a massive birthday party, complete with the giddiness and even the exhaustion, which helped to really capture the spirit of the event.

Long Day, Fun Day

Yesterday, I headed out to Little Tokyo for Cosplay Oneesan's Lolita event at the Kyoto Grand Hotel. You can read the story at LAWeekly.com.

The day began early, I had to meet up with Erin, our web editor who also shot the story, at around 10 a.m. There was music and a fashion show and a tea party and a skit and, of course, shopping. I spent most of the day interviewing people, probably talking to about 20 girls on the record, in addition to the designers and the musicians.

I got home at about 7 p.m. Grabbed some dinner and went to work. I don't know how I managed to transcribe all of those interviews, but I did. Then I remembered that this was supposed to be a short story, so I trimmed everything down to the most basic elements and finally finished at around 12:30 a.m., whenever it was that The Oblongs was on last night. Before 4 a.m., the story was live.