At some point in the career of every otaku - whether newly budding, coming into their own or full blown obsessee - a deliciously foreign sounding place comes into conversation.

In fact, I recall my own experience with this fabled word.

Sitting with a group of like-minded geeks, we talked about anime we had just seen for the first time (Vampire Princess Miyu! OMG!) and what we were hoping for from our favorite anime studios. And some kid piped up and said that there was a place in Japan that he dreamt of going to because it was the coolest place in the world for people who loved anime.

And that place was called Akihabara. FULL POST

It's been just over a year since the death of Satoshi Kon, one of Japan's grand masters of animation.

Famous for films including "Millennium Actress", a story of a renowned actress and the story of her life across her films, "Paprika", a futuristic fantasy that dabbled in dreams and the ability to enter the subconscious mind, and "Perfect Blue", a psychological thriller about a pop star who descends into Hitchcock-flavored madness, Kon was courageous in his storytelling, taking an unflinching look at worlds both fantastic and commonplace.

Bringing broad, memorable characters to life and leading them down impossibly twisting pathways was Kon's specialty. With the help of animation studio Madhouse, Kon was able to bring his vision of these unforgettable stories to the world.  FULL POST