Discovering Austin’s Otaku Culture
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On Thursday, November 19th, the Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFB&D) Studio in Austin opened its exhibit of Lily Rosa’s “Dreams Do Come True – My Journey through Japan and China” photo tour. Photos included images of the “Winding Road of Toriis” and the Forbidden City, and framed copies of the images were (and still are) available for purchase.
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Drop by the RFB&D Studio on 45th Street to see and purchase your very own copy.
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As my last post indicated, there were some really cool events available for Austin-area otaku to plug into this weekend, starting on Thursday with the Austin Anime Meetup Group’s Thursday Night Manga meeting and culminating on Sunday with the beginning of the San Antonio Museum of Art’s month-long tribute to the genius of Hayao Miyazaki. Well, okay, that last event wasn’t in Austin, but San Antonio is only about 1 1/2 hours south on Interstate 35 … so it kind of counts. Right?
So, without further ado, I’ve compiled some pictures from all the events I went to, along with some descriptions.
About 9 people showed up at Mozart’s Coffee Roasters next to Lake Austin on Thursday to peruse some manga and talk about things that otaku talk about.
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Manga couple Kohei Nishino and Tsugumi Nishino, known collectively as Konohana Sakuya, presented a lecture on manga on Saturday, October 7th. This event, sponsored by the Japan-America Society of Greater Austin and the Japanese Consulate in Houston, attracted roughly 40 people of all ages.
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In addition to receiving the wonderful postcard image shown at the beginning of this post (which they handed out to attendees of the lecture), I had the honor of joining the Nishino’s for coffee and dinner afterwards.
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And after dinner and drinks, I drove the Nishinos around to show them the Texas State capital building and the UT bell tower, which was lit with orange lights.
On Sunday, October 8th, anime scholar and author Frederik Schodt helped the San Antonio Museum of Art kick off their month-long celebration of the work of Hayao Miyazaki with his lecture “The Allure of Hayao Miyazaki.”
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Afterwards, I headed upstairs to the Asian Art Wing to check out SAMA’s collection of Japanese art, including their current display of Yoshitoshi’s Ukiyo-e.
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Overall, it was a great weekend. I made three new friends in Kohei Nishino, Tsugumi Nishino, and Frederik Schodt, not to mention the all the other folks I got to meet at all of the events. Stayed tuned in to AustinOtaku.com, and I’ll keep you up-to-date with any events in the future.
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On October 25th, Jorge, the sushi chef from Kenichi, came back for a second sushi workshop for the Japan-America Society of Greater Austin. Roughly 20 people showed up, equipped with razor-sharp knives, to learn how to slice up some raw fish. (Well, actually, it’s a little known fact that fish for sushi isn’t raw. It has to be frozen for a minimum of 36 hours before it can be thawed and prepared as sushi or sashimi in order to kill off bacteria.)
The lesson plan for the day was learning how to prepare rice for sushi, properly slicing the fish, making nigiri sushi, and preparing a Rainbow Roll.
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Here are the recipes from the class:
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While you can use these recipes to prepare your own sushi, you should probably attend one of these sushi workshops in the future to pick up on some of the nuances of making sushi. I’ll keep you posted on any future workshops you can attend.
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