An update on what I'm doing with Facebook. I've hit my 5000 friend limit and Facebook wont let me add anymore but I have over 1000 friend requests waiting in the wings ToT.

Gave MySpace a whirl but didn't really get into it. Do you use both and if so which do you prefer?
Questions to those who use Facebook and MySpace - which do you prefer? Facebook
0% MySpace
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As I cant add any more friends, I've resorted to using what FaceBook call "Fan Pages." - I say "resort to" because I'm not too keen on the naming. I would prefer "Reader Pages" or something else. > Danny Choo Fan Page.

Fan Pages can have zillions of readers which will enable me to keep in touch with more of you.

Also, Fan Pages allow you to converse and start discussions with other readers across the world or in your region. You can also post your fanart there too.

My Twitter updates are fed into the Fan Page so you can keep yourself in the loop with what I'm up to.

Have managed to make a custom tab in FaceBook which uses FBML (FaceBook Markup Language). Will be beefing up up as I learn more.

Looking forward to hooking up with you at the Danny Choo Fan Page.

Are you a FaceBook user? Yes
0% No
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No more rounds! we have all 10 winners of the Google Android Giveaway.

As you can see from the EXIF data, the answer was [10:10:52]. The closest 5 to guess correctly are:-
Chun [10:10:44]
Chrouya [10:10:27]
Whipcracker [10:10:15]
Anihevol [10:11:25]
nbreath [10:11:35]

Congrats to these 5 winners who join the previous 5 winners!
Send me your mailing address to [support at dannychoo dot com]. I will stick all mailing addresses in a mail and forward onto my man at Google.
Please send me your details by Tuesday JST. Your mail must be titled "Google Android Giveaway."
If I don't have your details by Tuesday then you forfeit you Android.

Android done, next up is the Google x GSC x Hatsune Miku strap up for grabs - stay tuned.

Finalized the look of my 5th daughter with blue eyes and light pink hair. Was going to call her Haruka but decided on "Karin" - kinda like the sound of it ^^;
Karin-chan's hair is kinds messy here - need to get some of that hair oils for Dollfies.

Its always great to see the Dollfie community growing - a ton of owners have posted their daughters photos on figure.fm - if you are a closet Dollfie owner then don't be shy and post away!

And if you are thinking of adopting - don't think - just do. Life is too short to think too much about things that you want to do. While a certain amount of "thinking" is good, its the "action" that makes the difference.

Karin's eyes are 22mm Ruru Blue available from the Volks store for 1,029 yen.

Karin's wig is Peach Pink and from Miruya costing 3,400 yen.

Karin is a quiet girl and doesn't speak to the other girls much.

She seems to like playing with guns...
She also pays with them too.

Went out for a bit and came back to find Karin with Aoi-chans head in her hands - turns out that she was a nice-boat-style yandere...

A look inside her head confirms the yandereness - its all messed up.

On the 20th November, there will be a B2B event called the Animation Asia Conference that will take place in Singapore.

Held in conjunction with Anime Festival Asia 2009 (AFA09), the one-day business conference aims to nurture a regional IP ecosystem by tapping on the expertise of the renowned speakers and talents from Japan and the region.

Titled ‘Globalization of Asia's Soft Power', this year’s conference is focused on three themes: Create, Manage and Engage. Speakers will share their expertise on how they have created content that have mass universal appeal and will share their experience on how their content have successfully engaged the 21st Century’s digitally connected youths. The conference will target marketers and advertisers seeking new ways to work with popular culture content to launch successful branding or marketing campaigns.
The line up of speakers are as follows.

• Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Kadokawa Group Holdings
  
• Mamoru Hosada, Director of anime blockbuster hits ‘Summer Wars’ and ‘The Girl Who Leapt Through Time’
  
• Danny Choo, Chief Executive Officer of Mirai Inc. and Professional Toilet Cleaner and part time English blogger on Japanese popular culture
  
• Edmund Shern, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Storm Lion and Senior Vice President at Radical Publishing
  
• Shiro Sasaki, Chief Executive Officer, Flying Dog Inc. and Producer for many Anime Music Blockbusters
  
• Kotaro Sugiyama, Senior Vice President and Head of Solution (Strategy) / Creative Department for Dentsu Inc.

Also, more great news for those who are going to attend the Anime Festival Asia - you will also get to see Hatsune Miku and the K-ON! seiyuu as they will be heading over to Singapore too!
Looks like I'm scheduled to be the MC for the K-ON! girls ^^;;;

Mentioned before but we are trying to build a replica of my office at the AFA. I cant bring Saber, Aoi, Nanoha, Ryomo or Karin with me so if there are any SG Dollfie parents who are willing to have their daughter guard my desk then give us a shout ^^;

I'm also bringing Good Smile and Kotobukiya with me. GSC will bring some Decoration Masters including Figma Mirai and Kotobukiya will bring some OTACOOL related stuff.

This time I would like to have a get together - maybe we'll have some grub at the Moe Moe Kyun cafe at the AFA?

First photo was taken by Steve Nagata I think at the Tokyo Figure Show - wonder if hes coming to Singapore too.
Question to folks in Singapore - Will you attend AFA09? Yes
0% No
0% Dont know yet
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I'm sure you remember the Mirai no Mirai Promo illustration that I posted the other day.
Well if you read the Mascot page or have been following DC for a while, you would have known that the anime was an April Fools a few years ago ^^;

The illustration was posted by a DC reader known as KL at Figure.fm which I hid ^^;

While the illustration wasn't originally for the anime, it prompted me to start thinking about a pilot PV for the anime and I have been contacting a few folks in the industry to explore possibilities.
Interesting how April fools turn out to be a reality after a while. It was a DC reader called Ionized who made the 3D Mirai Figma where the 3D data was used for the April Fool model which was then used as a reference to make the first prototype displayed at the Tokyo Figure Show ^^;
Figma Mirai is tentatively due for a Spring 2010 (no not April!) release with a "be gentle with me" facial expression, black hair and an SLR accessory. Hope to start pre-orders in Nov using Mirai Gaia.

I still need to get round to fleshing out the first installment of the Mirai Manga that I'm working on with Ayu. So much to do!

KL has kindly given us the original sized version of this illustration which you can find on Flickr - its a huge 3300 x 2400 px.

Take a lookie at KL's work on Pixiv - if you don't have an account then shes got some up on Deviant too but not as many.
Her Pixiv has a couple of ecchi ones so beware ^^;

This post contains a collection of her work. Incredibly talented lady. Shes already done stuff for a few Japanese companies and looks like she will be doing more. I look forward to working with her on the pilot.

So a quick summary of who does what:-

-Azami Yuko - Character design of Mirai and Haruka.
-Ayu - Character design of Kanata and manages the Manga.
-Chun - Wardrobe design and illustration for web/printed material, design of Mirai's Dollfie outfits.
-SG - Character sprites.
-Kyourin - Mirai Tan.
-KL - Mirai no Mirai pilot PV
-Kurot - TBA.

Am so proud to have so many talented DC readers ^o^.

Which brings me to a question - how many of you doodle manga or anime type characters? If you do then post em on figure.fm - you never know what it may lead to - especially if its something you like doing.

I sometimes think I would give up my programming skills to be able to draw 2D girlies all day - so envious of folks who can draw.
Do you doodle anime or manga type characters? Yes
0% No
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Mirai Gaia is a multilingual publishing x CGM x e-commerce platform that my company licenses to corporations in Japan.
Currently adding functionality to accept online orders for pre-order goods and would love to get your feed back.

Some of you have played with this before at figure.fm. This screenshot however shows how pre-orders would be displayed.

Lets say you add two items to your cart. One item is in stock and the other is a pre-order item. Shipping would be calculated based on your shipping preferences (SAL/EMS/ETC) and the total cost + shipping is displayed under "Items available for immediate delivery."
This amount will be deducted from your Paypal or credit card just before the item is shipped.

The pre-order item will go into your pre-order list. The item is reserved for you and when the item becomes in stock, a mail informing you of the cost of the item + shipping cost will be sent to you. You will be provided with a way to authorize the payment.

As you may be ordering many pre-order items, they will stack up and be displayed in your Order History tab of your Account Management settings. Items that are released in the same month will be automatically combined so that you save on shipping.
I know that Hobby Search gives you the functionality to manually combine orders but I'm not sure if you really need that functionality - do tell me what the use case would be.

Sellers tend to buy figures in a huge batch - they pay upfront for the figures or when it arrives at their warehouse. Understandably, they want to cover the costs of the figures as soon as possible so cant hold items for months to wait for future releases to arrive in the warehouse.
For this reason, they will want to send you your stuff asap and generally wont want to let you combine an order thats released in January with an item released in March.

Once a figure becomes in stock, if none of your other pre-orders are being released in the same month, you will be sent a payment request or if you have established a Paypal Billing Agreement or have a credit card registered with a client using Mirai Gaia, payment will be deducted just before the parcel is sent out.

You will still be able to cancel any orders as long as they are not in stock. If users continuously order and cancel (I mean really going over the top) then they will be banned and will not be able to make any more purchases.

Mirai Gaia will initially accept Paypal orders for folks overseas and credit card integration will follow after.
Folks in Japan can pay by Daibiki (COD - Cash On Delivery) or Ginkou Furikomi (Bank Transfer).

Please note that not all of my clients will provide multiple shipping options and some of them may choose not to allow cancellations.

This is the current Order History screen that you can play with if you order the test products on figure.fm.
Here you will be able to see the status of each product and soon it will show pre-orders and their release date too.

Have a read through the above and lemme know if this is the flow that you expect and if not tell me what to change.

From my time as Website Manager at Amazon, I know their Order Pipeline well but rather than build it similar to Amazon, I want your feedback as a consumer who regularly buys from Japan. Many brand names that you are familiar with will be using Mirai Gaia. If you like figures, anime, apparel then the likelihood that you will buy from one of my clients is extremely high ^^;

Also, registered users on Mirai Gaia will be able to use the platform to upload and sell their products - then have payment settled by Paypal. You could even set up your own figure/anime shop on figure.fm for example.

Out of all the online shopping sites that you use to get stuff from Japan, which in your mind has the best user experience and which has the worst.

Look forward to your feedback ^o^
How often do you buy stuff online from Japan? Once a week
0% Once a month
0% Few times a year
0% Prefer to buy from local physical store
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Its been a year since Google's Chrome browser launched in Japan and I was invited along to the birthday party in Aoyama yesterday to celebrate with a load of industry folks including Good Smile Company, Sega and TBS (K-ON).

Here with the big boss of Good Smile Company - Aki-san. And what is Good Smile doing at a Google event?
Google first met up with Good Smile Company at Tokyo CGM Night 1 and have been doing great things together ever since. They previously worked on the Google Android and today the Good Smile Company theme for Google Chrome was announced.

The Good Smile Company theme is part of the Artist Themes project where artists and license holders get their very own Google Chrome theme.

Secret tip: The Mac version of Chrome is not officially released but if you use the developer build of Chrome Mac then you can use the themes.

Once you have downloaded Chrome, go to the Themes page and just click to install - completely painless.

The background of the GSC theme looks like this.

And they have a K-On! Theme too. Video below introduces the Artist Themes.

At the entrance with the Google Girls.

Event hall slowly starts to fill up.

Decide to help out the Google Girls rather than just stand there looking like a wally.

Google Chrome drinks that will turn your pee purple.

Extremely healthy looking Chrome cake.

They had tables full O Chrome colored food.

More Chrome food stuffs.

There is a Tenori-On Chrome theme too. Tenori-On is a device invented by Yamaha which lights up and pusates to the touch. It plays music and games - video below may (?) give you a better idea of what it is.

Mr Yamaha. This pic was taken by Steve Nagata and you can see more photos that he took last night at his Flickr..

Toei animation have their own Chrome theme too.

Some Toei cute character goods.

Folks waiting to be branded with a Chrome tatoo.

My man John Fu at who manages marketing at Google.
John previously lived in the US and had the opportunity to spend a few years in Japan. Before he came over, he googled some living-in-japan terms and came across dannychoo.com.

John contacted me shortly after he arrived and have been good comrades ever since.

Apart from John, there have been folks at Disney Japan, Apple and many other companies who have contacted me just after relocating to Japan upon discovering dannychoo.com through a search.

If you are somebody who is thinking of or already has relocated to Japan then get in touch and we'll hook up if I'm not being swarmed by killer camels.

John with the Chrome logo.

Cute girl spotted - who I just happen to have already met at the Good Design Expo press event ^^;

Another Google Girl.

One of the rooms had a load of presentations going on filled with press and industry folks.

Would probably make a good venue for Tokyo CGM Night.

Ion canon control.

Hatsune Miku poster in the Good Smile corner.

Sergent Akiyama setting up figures.

Time for John to hit the podium.

Nendoroid Saber Lily is so cute!

Mostly Nendoroids and Miku stuff on display.

I will be bringing Good Smile Company with me to AFA 09 in Singapore and will set up some figures for you to look at including the Mirai Figma in the area that has been allocated to me.

Very sweet. Have you got hold of yours yet?

Time for all artists to get up on front.

A load of networking going on tonight.

Akiyama-san is in charge of the Figma Mirai project.

Aki-san and Akiyama-san take their turns with the Chrome thingy.

As with most networking events in Tokyo, there is the paper, scissors and stone battle otherwise known as "Junken."

Me not good at these at all and hardly ever win anything. Know folks who win all the time though.

Finishing speech and then its time to head out to do some filming.

As always, armor is jettisoned at the entrance and left there until the morning.

And a peek at whats lying around on the desk from the Chrome party.
This is a Hatsune Miku x GSC x Google strap - only a few hundred were made.

And yes - I got a bunch just for dannychoo.com readers - will announce giveaways soon.

This is Aki-sans new business card! Must be a pain to carry around a bunch of these though ^^;

And this is what it looks like on the back.

Our Google Chrome passes for the night.

And a bunch of business cards to get through - luckily its a public holiday on Monday which will give me time to catch up while most businesses take time off.
Google Chrome? My main browser
0% Use occasionally
0% Tried and disliked it
0% Never tried before
0% Never heard of before
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Whats your browser of choice? Firefox
0% Chrome
0% Safari
0% Opera
0% IE
0% Other
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BTW - you can now add multiple polls to your post - find out how.

Looks like we are in store for a Haruhi movie due out in theaters across Japan in Spring 2010.
Following the last episode - Someday in the Rain - of the Haruhi Suzumiya renewal season, Kadokawa and Kyoto Animation announced that a Haruhi movie will be released in theaters this Spring 2010. Details are sparse on the production but the movie is to be based on 'The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya' arc from the fourth novel which follows the Brigade in a "Haruhi-less world of normalcy".

Hijacked from Raz at figure.fm via ANN.

I pretty much missed most of the last Haruhi season ToT. Maybe can watch it on the plane over to Singapore.

If you are feeling lonesome tonight then how about popping around the corner to the nearest UFO Catcher to pick up either a Hatsune Miku or Konata dakimakura?
In this case you don't pick up the physical pillow but the red things with the hoops - hand it to the arcade attendant and they will hand you your bride.

Folks at Current.com say that this Hatsune Miku android is an "Evil Singing Robot Of Death" and that she "Should Be Smashed With A Hammer."
Do you agree with Current.com?

Thanks to TurningOtaku for the tweet.

Mirai no Mirai [未来のみらい] is the name of Mirai-chan's very own anime series that you read about when we first mentioned it and recently in the Mirai Suenaga mascot page. Mirai no MIrai means "Mirai of the future."
This is an illustration from the anime by the most talented artist known as K L ^o^
Will give you more details as soon as I have it ;-)

And for those who still dont know who Mirai, Haruka and Kanata are, check out the mascot page ^o^

Featured Feeds are back and its better than ever with improved algorithms and wot not - the best thing about it however is that the approval process is now fully automated.

For those who don't know, Featured Feeds is a program where we place each others feed on our sites to share traffic which is what the Internet is all about. My users get to discover more great content (your blog/site) and your readers get to discover my sites. Win x Win all round.

dannychoo.com is regularly featured in broadcasted and printed media such as CNN, BBC and G4TV. You can see a full list of media coverage in my profile.

I also regularly collaborate with makers and companies like Bandai (Bandai World Gunpla Competition), Good Smile Company (Tokyo Figure Show), Kotobukiya (Otacool), Google (Favorite Places) and there will be more in the future.
These collaborations alone bring in a load incremental users who will discover your content. My collaborators are obviously reading the site and will discover your content too.

If you blog about figures, anime, Japan and related topics then Featured Feeds is the program for you to not only help increase exposure but also readership of your blog. Its also a great program for folks who have just started a blog and would like a boost in readership.

On dannychoo.com, posts from your RSS feed will appear in the footer of all pages across the site.
Feeds appear randomly and you can click the "refresh" link to see other partners. As feeds are displayed randomly, it could be a while of clicking before you see your bits n pieces ^^;

Posts from your RSS feed will also appear thumbnailed on Otaku.fm. You can read about the news aggregator in this previous post.

You can click "Grid" to get the grid view and get an instant overview of what treats are available from all Featured Feed partners.

If you click on a username, you will see a list of posts that have been aggregated so far. This is a screenshot of feeds belonging to Ultimaknight.

This is a screenshot of the blog belonging to member Ultimaknight. Have a lookie at his blog. You will see the RSS feed of dannychoo.com showing up in his right column. He has the dannychoo.com feed on his top page and post detail pages.

Being a Featured Feed Partner is simple. All you have to do is follow Ultimaknight's example and place the dannychoo.com RSS feed on your top page and all detail pages.

There are plugins for you to easily do this for folks using Wordpress, Blogger or other blogging platforms.
Remember - to have your posts displayed on Otaku.fm and all over the site in the footer, you need to have the dannychoo.com RSS feed registered on your site and be showing at least 5 items.

"Featured Feeds figure.fm" is a different program. If you want to have your feeds show up on the top page of figure.fm, you need to have the figure.fm RSS feed registered on your site just like Ultimaknight has done.
More details at figure.fm but remember that it is a completely different program to "Featured Feeds - danychoo.com"

As soon as the dannychoo.com feed is showing up on your site, proceed to edit your dannychoo.com profile and click on the "Featured Feed" tab.

You will see "RSS Feed URL" and "Your Website URL" which both should be self explanatory.

It is your responsibility to make sure that your feed is valid. Also, the Website URL should be the location of your site or blog like http://lightningsabre.blogspot.com/ for example.

On the right you can see "Feed Category" - choose what you feel fits your blog content. If you cover everything under the rising sun then just categorize as "Otaku." You can change your category at a later date but your feed needs to be re-approved.

Once you are done, hit "Apply."

Once you hit Apply, the button will change to "Cancel Application" and you will see "Pending Approval" under "Featured Feed Status."

What happens now is that the Mirai Gaia Bot will then visit your site and check to see if the RSS feed of dannychoo.com is showing up.

Many moons ago I used to do this manually but now have Mirai Gaia do all this automatically.

Once the Mirai Gaia Bot has confirmed that you have the dannychoo.com feed on your site, the Mirai Gaia Spider will then proceed to spider your feed which will then start to show up on Otaku.fm and in the footer of dannychoo.com.
This is *not* instantaneous and may take up to 24 hours - but usually within 30 mins.
You will see "Application Approved" under your "Featured Feed Status." If you see any other message like "Application Rejected" or "You Smell" then its most likely that Mirai Gaia Bot could not discover the feed on your top page and blog detail pages.
You can place the dannychoo.com feed on your pages and re-apply.

You will also see a link under "Application Approved" to a list of posts that Mirai Gaia Spider went to fetch. The spider usually runs once an hour and fetches the latest couple of posts from your feed.

A few things to note:-

• Mirai Gaia Spider looks for the first <img src="/moo/someimage.jpg"> in your post and makes a thumbnail from that. At this moment in time, only jpegs are supported. If your image tags are malformed then the spider will not be able to fetch images.
  
• Images over 1MB will be ignored.
  
• If there is only a YouTube video to be found in your post, the spider will attempt to make a thumbnail from the video.
  
• Posts without any images or videos don't show up by spec - sorry!
  
• If your application has been approved but your posts are not showing up then check the validity of your feed at W3C Feed Validator.
  
• Check to see if your server or blog settings don't have leeching settings turned on or we wont be able to grab your image to make a thumbnail.
  
• Check your profile settings to see if your feed has been approved. Remember that it is your responsibility to ensure that you have a valid feed registered.
  
• You will not receive any notification at this moment in time regarding your feed status - you need to check back under your profile settings.
  
• Mirai Gaia Bot will regularly visit partner Featured Feed sites. If it cant find the dannychoo.com feed anywhere, it will deactivate your feed and it will not be spidered anymore. In this case, your posts on dannychoo.com and otaku.fm will disappear. Need all partners to play fair which is why the Mirai Gaia Bot was programed to be Tsundere.
  
• However, we understand that there are technical issues from time to time and Mirai Gaia Bot will check a site a few times before deciding to deactivate a Featured Feed partner in the event that the dannychoo.com feed cannot be found.
  
• Please display at least 5 items from the dannychoo.com feed.
  
• Mirai Gaia Bot does its rounds when it feels like it and usually goes out during low traffic periods.
  
• Hmmmm. I thinking that the Suenaga World needs a new mascot robot or pet called "Mirai Gaia Bot" ^^;
  
• If you need some banner material then you can nab some from the Suenaga World page.
  
• Finally, If you are trying to grow readership of your site, do be careful with other "Featured Feed" programs which have you placing their feeds on your site which constantly contain many adult type words which will reduce your Google Page Rank and affect your search engine rankings. Read this post for more details. The idea of a feed share program is to increase readership of your blog - not reduce it by having your search engine rankings reduced.

The dannychoo.com RSS feed is here - look forward to working with you!

Otaku.fm is back and now on full auto pilot.
For folks who don't know, Otaku.fm is a news aggregator which polls items from dannychoo.com member feeds who are part of the "Featured Feeds - dannychoo.com" program. Have a look at Otaku.fm and you will see many gems in there.

Otaku.fm is running on the default theme of Mirai Gaia - will change it soon. Do you want a dark theme or a bright theme and which color sets would you like - pls provide urls as examples.

Mirai Gaia has a Core called Feed Fusion which not only aggregates news from feeds but also makes a thumbnail from the first image or video in the post.
All items are archived and you can see what the feed of Japan Probe looks like.

Folks who are too busy to visit the site can subscribe to the RSS feed instead.

If you would like to have posts from your site show up on otaku.fm then follow the instructions in the Featured Feeds - dannychoo.com post.

If you like otaku.fm, let your readers know its back ^^;

A huge typhoon has landed on the southern tip of Japan and is making its way up to Tokyo.
According to all the news on the TV and media (like Yomiuri), Typhoon 18 (or Melor as its called in the West) resembles Typhoon 24 that hit Japan in 2004 which left 98 missing or dead. The Kinki region was flooded in under 50cm of water. Programs this morning also asked citizens to stay at home and implement measures against flooding like building barricades around ones entrance and taking a note of where manholes are as sometimes the cover comes off during floods.
Short report of the current typhoon by ANN lame-embedding-disabled http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TmYnX2B-YQ

The program from a year ago shows what would happen if a huge typhoon hit Tokyo and shows Shibuya and other places under water - incredible 3D CG effects and academy award winning acting - especially by the old lady in the train station.

Do you experience any flooding in your neck of the woods. Hmmm, I can only manage to swim 20 meters or so ToT.

Ah, speaking of floods - really want to see 2012. The CG effects are not as good as the previous Tokyo simulation video but acceptable.