All stories about "Anime"

Japan has created a bizarre new government post to promote animation. Yesterday, the country named Doraemon, a popular cartoon, the official ambassador of anime. At the celebratory ceremony a life-size Doraemon doll was on hand, as were his favorite dessert: "dorayaki" red bean pancakes. There, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told the mascot, "I hope you will travel around the world as an anime ambassador to deepen people's understanding of Japan so they will become friends with Japan." [MSNBC]

Anime and comic book geeks from all over will descend on the Javits Center this weekend for this year's New York Anime Festival from December 7-9. Tickets are $33 per day and $55 for the weekend. [NYC Agenda]

Cosplay (costume + play) is a massive Japanese subculture centered around dressing as characters from anime, manga, and video games. Cosplayers attend the major comic event Comiket, hold costume parties, and more often, hang out at cosplay cafes. The most popular neighborhood for cosplay cafes is Akihabara in Tokyo, home of the world's cutting edge technologies and Mecca for Otaku (geeks). These fantasy obsessed, socially awkward, manga-lovers crowd the streets here and frequent the cafes with waitresses dressed as their favorite characters or as English-style maids.

Cure Maid Café: One of the most popular and widespread types of cosplay cafés is the maid café. Here waitresses are dressed as traditional maids and treat their guests as their masters. The geeks come for the role playing and call it therapeutic. Cure Maid is one of the first maid cafes opening in 2001, and the women wear long Victorian costumes instead of the typical kinky French maid outfit. Waitresses also hold live performances where they play musical instruments.

Cos-Cha: A cosplay tea house, Cos Cha is one of the most popular cosplay cafes in Akihabara. The room is set up like a classroom with wooden desks and a blackboard, and the guests are asked to refer to their waitress as Angelu-san, or Miss Angel. The "angels" wear all kinds of revealing costumes and change them regularly depending on what games are popular at the time. They also hold a widely popular swimsuit costume competition.