My girlfriend and I were at the MCM Midlands Expo, which took place on Saturday 20th March - was great to see loads of people that we'd met before. The Midlands expo is the smaller twin of the London Expo that takes place twice a year and is very popular with anime fans in the UK. It's a shame that there was less in the way of things orientated towards the Japanese enthusiasts other than traders but the MCM was originally a sci-fi expo and the Midlands event is smaller. Somehow though I prefer the Midlands Expo - perhaps it's the fact it's not so large that makes the spirit feel more homely and it's an easy place for people to get to at a reasonable price.

There was a really good turn out of people, including cosplayers. There seemed to be a lot more from the more popular series such as Bleach than at other events - I was suprised that the girlfriend and I were the only Code Geass cosplayers!

There was quite a large group of cosplayers dressed up as undead Disney characters... certainly different.

My loot for the day consisted of two Gunsmith Cats manga, a Sgt Frog anime DVD and the KagaMiku Nendoroid. Very pleased with them and hope to get round to reading the manga soon!

Was slightly disappointed to see at least two stalls with fake Nendoroids and Petit Nendoroids though. It's heartbreaking to see them with keyrings through their heads...

All in all we had a good day - as mentioned before, it'd be nice to see more in the way of things to do for anime fans. Hopefully the MCM group will improve this in the future! If you're in the area next February, make sure to add it to your calendar.

Japan mocks us once again with another WonFes full of great figures. WonFes Winter 2010 was just over a week ago now and whilst there's a lot of figures that deserve to mentioned, I've picked out a select few that I would love to add to my collection.

First up are some of the barrage of Black Rock Shooter figures that we'll be seeing with the anime production in the works. I reckon the Figma will prove extremely popular, offering an affordable and quality alternative to the larger figures we've seen so far.

And as to be expected, a Nendoroid version of Black Rock Shooter - maybe Good Smile Company liked my artwork?

Also from Good Smile Company are the K-On! cast in Figma form, following on from the Nendoroid versions. A lack of space and pace means that I'll just be sticking to the Nendoroid versions, especially after shelling out for the Live Band versions of Mio and Ritsu... those looking for something cheaper could stick with Azu-nyan instead.

Also from the works of Kyoto Animation are further Haruhi Suzumiya figures to tie in with the upcoming launch of the Haruhi movie. And yes, more Nendoroids! I really adore Haruhi with the long hair.

Good Smile Company get round to producing Evangelion figures, with Asuka looking especially nice in her test plug suit - both the girlfriend and I will be wanting this one!

Also long overdue from Good Smile Company is another Strike Witches Nendoroid. They've been teasing us for ages with just the release of Yoshika and pre-production casts. Looks like Francesca Lucchini is ready for production. When will we see her? Also love the Strike Witches statues but again cost and space are against me.

Dramatic statue of Aegis from Persona 3. Have got the Figma, but never played the game - have you? Played Persona 4 though, should finish it at some point when I get the time!

More Fate/Stay Night releases. Whilst I like the Saber Nendoroid, the Saber Lily Nendoroid I have will suffice - not forgetting the Konata Petit Nendoroid in the Saber cosplay as well!

And we finish up with a couple of odd ones - mini-figures from the mahjongg series Saki and Queen's Blade Revoltech that isn't ecchi at all (much...).

Images were sourced from: Danny Choo, AmiAmi Blog and Thumbnail of Life.

I'm extremely pleased to announce that the website which I've been working on for Alcon 2010, a UK anime convention taking place 9th to 12th September 2010 in Leicester, has now gone live and open for registrations! The website can be visited at http://www.alcon.org.uk/.

It's been a bit of a labour of love and a great learning experience putting the website together. Work started early December and in the process I've been expanding my web development skills greatly, as well as getting to grips with jQuery for the first time. Everything that I've learned will feed back into future work and you can expect to see even more interesting things in the not too distant future.

Highlights of the Alcon 2010 website include:

- jQuery enhancement of the registration form which includes input styling, visual styling of completed and uncompleted mandatory fields, images which act as checkboxes, on-the-fly totalling of the subtotal and the jQuery UI dialog box.

- Uses embedded Google Maps to show how to get to the convention and embedded Youtube player to show the Alcon video playlist.

- Number of places remaining displayed in the header automatically refreshes via AJAX to show you the countdown of places.

- Uses the Galleriffic jQuery plugin to display a photo gallery of previous convention photos.

- Use of CSS3 browser implementations to visually enhance the style of the site whilst minimising additonal HTML code and images.

- Memberlist that shows member statistics and list of members attending, which can be filtered by and reloads via AJAX. The list also uses the Scrollfollow jQuery plugin to keep an alphabetical list always in view, inspired by the iPhone OS, allowing quick and easy navigation through the list.

On my last visit to Cardiff, I took the opportunity to visit Otakuzoku. They are a relatively new independant shop selling a mixture of things, primarily anime-related. Haydn and Russ, the guys behind Otakuzoku, kindly accepted to be informally interviewed for kyokohunter.net.

Otakuzoku started to come about March 2009, although the seeds of the idea have existed in their minds for almost 10 years. Although the aim was always to have a shop, they dipped their toes in the online market first to test the viability of the business. Their online shop started up in May 2009 with the initial idea of leaving a year before deciding whether or not to set up physical premises. Things didn't go as planned - though in their case, it was for the better. The online shop received a much better response than expected and so at the end of September 2009, Otakuzoku opened their store in Cardiff.

Otakuzoku explained that they had originally hoped to have a central location in Cardiff but the as the prices were too high, settled for their current location just off the beaten track from the centre. It's an area popular for student accommodation, so already Otakuzoku are in a great area to appeal to customers.

Otakuzoku sells an eclectic mixture of things. They've got a wide range of manga in particular with many titles that you won't find at your average Waterstones and at a price that's much more palpable - the cheapest start from just under £3. They also sell a variety of console hardware, games, DVDs, CDs, merchandise and Warhammer.

They are extremely passionate about the genuinity of what they sell - they work hard to ensure that what they sell is genuine and licenced. Although they primarily source stock from UK and French suppliers, they are working on their Japanese connections and hope to have a regular supply from Japan. I certainly welcome this, having seen the wide and fantastic variety of licensed merchandise in Japan for myself. Otakuzoku also wants to stock licensed cosplay, although this will be a far trickier market as it's awash with unlicensed manufacturers.

Otakuzoku certainly seem to be doing well and in the future said they would love to set up a chain of franchised stores. It's a bold goal, so at the moment they're concentrating on building up their range of stock and revamping their website.

It was a pleasure to speak to them, as they're extremely passionate about what they sell, and I wish them the best of luck on their ventures. If you're ever in Cardiff or happen to live nearby, don't forget to pop in sometime! And even if you're not, you can visit their website at http://www.otakuzoku.com/.