#tokonatsu

[chibiranmaruchan]

Found another drawing I made while I was at the Tokonatsu camping festival back in 2023. The prompt was the Sengoku Period, so I knew I had to draw something based on Yotoden. This character can be thought as a son between Ayame and Sakon. It was just a quick sketch, since we only had 45 minutes. It was for a competition, but I didn't win. I gifted it to one of my friends I went to the camp with afterwards.

[danielsz18]

Tokonatsu and nika!! Bey blade!! This drawing looks so cute!! Follow this awesome artist!! By:@eli_kurenai_art_ 🎆🤜💥🤛🎇 Partner pages: @feat_arts @jatmon_arts @feature.arte @anyone_can_draw_ @kawai_art.features ✌🏾☺️✌🏾 My main acount: @dsz_art Hashtags: #tokonatsu #nika #beyblade #tyson #beybladeburst #beybladeedit #DSZANIMEART #iloveanime #otakuanime #art #anime #otakudrawing #animeart #mangadrawing #mangaart #anime🌸 #awesomedrawsome #boceteando #artist #artwork #drawing #illustration #dibujos #iloveanime https://www.instagram.com/p/CD8LmY9BGEX/?igshid=pw8lxrqo87hv

[mostbeautifulgenji]

From the series, "Ima Genji Nishiki-e Awase" (The Color Print Contest of the Modern Genji). Chapter 26. "Tokonatsu", Kunisada Utagawa 1786-1865

Not sure I’m feeling this depiction, Genji and Tamakazura look...not so great lol but the colors are really pretty! I want to really make an effort to find some art of Genji where he looks as hot as he’s supposed to be

[incorrect-bbb-quotes]

Tokonatsu: I grew up in a house with Valt and Nika, okay? If you didn't eat fast, you didn't eat.

[by-ethan-fox]

Thoughts on Tokonatsu 2018!

Tokonatsu 2018 has been over for a few weeks now, but I only just found time to go through all my gear to pack it away for my next camping trip, and in the process, I found my camera, so this is a great time to talk about how it went!

This post is from the perspective of an attendee. I’ve already done a post about going as an exhibitor, which you can find here.

Tokonatsu is an event that I attend every year; it’s probably the main fixture on my con schedule (I go to a fair few, but Toko’s the one I do my best to never miss). The con is unique, in that it’s an anime & Japanese culture convention that takes place on a campsite, with events etc. in marquees and plenty of outdoor activities.

This was our home, including myself, @squidgesqwadge, @starwulfen, along with a few of our friends, for the 4 days:

The weather this year was fantastic. Dry, hot, perhaps even too hot sometimes, but I wouldn’t want to complain - I would certainly take this over rain! However, the sun made us really glad we’d managed to scrape together the cash to buy a cheap gazebo in the weeks running up to the event. The table was also a new addition, but I had that already - I bought it to exhibit at Wyntercon 2017 and future events where exhibitors have to provide their own.

This was our 5th year at Toko, and after our somewhat disastrous first year where we used borrowed and throwaway camping gear, we decided we didn’t want to ever go through that again, so on each subsequent year we’ve bought a few more bits-and-pieces to making it a bit more glamping than camping.

Tokonatsu used to run Fri/Sat/Sun with attendees leaving the campsite mainly on Monday morning, however, in recent years, they’ve opened the site on the Thursday night for an extra charge, and we’ve taken this up. However, this first night is just a chance to set up and relax, so no con activities, but that’s actually a good thing - it gives you a chance to meet people and get together with friends you may not have seen all year.

We arrived in the evening and got set up. We had a mini-crisis involving a bunch of flying ants in the tent, and we had to fumigate it and seal it for an hour before we could actually use it. That being said, before the sun went down, we were all settled and had the chance to go to a local supermarket to stock up on ice, beer and food.

On the first day of the con proper, the opening ceremony was a blast, though due to the heat, we ended up doing more chilling out this time around and fewer activities than usual. This was our choice though, and puts me in mind of how Toko is such a relaxing 4 days; some cons I’ve attended it’s all go-go-go, which is great if that’s why you’re there, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to chill out. 

A later treat was the Kimono panel, held in one of the tents by two volunteers. This was actually a panel covering the wider topic of traditional Japanese attire. I know a fair bit about this topic, but the guys who ran it were real experts, demonstrating some particularly complex attire like furisode garments and different obi knots.

Day 2 involved the dealer’s tent and the bring-and-buy, so I spent much of this day at my stall. During this time, @starwulfen and her friends were in the cosplay masquerade; fortunately I was able to see them from my place at the dealer’s tent (they looked awesome). However, I sold through my entire stock by 6pm, so I was able to pack up early and get back to the festivities!

Saturday at Tokonatsu involves one of the event’s unique draws; the Toko Matsuri. The staff at the event assemble tents with typical Japanese Matsuri-style games and attractions. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of this but...

... this is what a Matsuri looks like in Japan; if you’ve watched any slice-of-life anime you’ve almost certainly seen one. These festivals happen all over the country, and during my time living in Japan, I attended several, including the large one in my home city during several summers.

Toko’s Matsuri is naturally smaller than this example, but the staff do a great job of trying to recreate the “liminal” feeling of the event, with the glow of the lanterns and lights strung between the trees. The traditional games are fun, especially after a few beers.

My time in Japan has left me with a few garments that I rarely get a chance to wear; one of them is a traditional yukata, with obi, zori and tabi socks. Some of these items were gifted to me by the Japanese that I worked with (mainly the older women who seemed thrilled at the chance to dress up a foreign guy), but I don’t get many opportunities to wear these in the UK. However, the warm, balmy evening provided a great chance to put these on for a bit of personal nostalgia.

During the event, we were also able to attend a tea ceremony demonstration, which was wonderful, given the outdoor setting. @squidgesqwadge also entered the writing competition, in which she placed 2nd (we had joked about if she placed first, as signed copies of my first two books were the prize!).

As the evening drew on, the event set up their official outdoor cinema. On this evening they showed episodes of Disgaea and Tenchi Muyo, the latter of which was a big part of our group’s early anime experiences, so it was a fun throwback for us.

Once the official cinema had finished, we went back to our tent and set up our own portable projector:

We bought this on a whim from Amazon a number of years ago, when it was in something of a fire-sale. My original intent was to find some use for it as part of my stall at indoor events. It runs off a USB battery and I have it plugged into a bluetooth speaker and mounted on a tripod, with a large bedsheet for the screen. It’s a no-brand model and was inexpensive, but the great thing about Toko is that the countryside gets really dark, so you can still get a pretty awesome picture.

One of the highlights this year was finding out we could run a SNES Mini off a USB battery, so we were able to have a bit of outdoor Street Fighter II Turbo:

By the late evening we were watching random abridged anime episodes, and with the sell-out of my books and everything else, I decided that was the night to get trashed, so I did.

I spent much of the final day of the event in the manga tent. Toko Retreat, which I guess is Toko’s sister event that runs alongside the con, operate this (and some of the other attractions). Essentially a large marquee that contains a manga library and places to sit. I read a bunch of El Hazard and a few other things, until it was time for the quiz.

Quizzes are a staple of anime cons (at least here in the UK) and this year, they tried a more “pub quiz” style format. The quiz made us realise two things; firstly, my hiragana is faaaaar more rusty than I thought (seriously I need to study that again before I lose it) but also that @starwulfen is amazing at anime music rounds (seriously, it’s like a gift). It was a pretty difficult quiz; the guy running it did a great job in terms of having a wide variety of questions - but we won!

After this was the closing ceremony, which followed a lip-sync performance of I’ll make a man out of you (which has become something of a Toko tradition), and another night of projector, beer and campfire, with many of us staying up until approaching 4 in the morning to try and drag out the last few hours of the best Tokonatsu so far.

And it was! There were many changes this year to the layout of the events, but I would be the first to say that I think this was the best Tokonatsu ever, and I really hope those changes persist to future years.

The committee, gophers, the staff, everyone did a fantastic job. Stuff seemed to run on time, the events and attractions were great fun, and I know from my event planning experience that this only comes about from a lot of very hard work from a number of very dedicated people.

Thanks for reading, everyone! We’ll definitely be going next year!

If you want more info about the Tokonatsu festival, you can find it here. The site has yet to be updated as the event is so recent, but it was announced at the closing ceremony that the 2019 event will take place at the same location, on the same weekend (first weekend in August).

[by-ethan-fox]

Back from Tokonatsu 2018!

I’ve just got back from the @tokonatsufestival anime convention in Henlow, England, so I thought I’d give you guys an idea of how it went.

Tokonatsu is quite a unique con experience that combines both an anime and Japanese culture festival. It does most of the things anime cons do, only out in a field using tents and marquees. They also do a one-night “matsuri” festival, with traditional Japanese games and activities.

I’ve been going to this con purely as an attendee for a number of years (like other cons at which I exhibit, except for those which are very new). I exhibited last year too, but just took a few bits and pieces to do a small-scale stall along with my attendee stuff; however, for 2018, the con made significant improvements to their dealer’s tent (and generally their site layout), and had record-breaking attendance, so I thought I’d go the whole nine yards:

That’s my current full stall (if it looks quiet, this is because I was among the first people to arrive - not all of the dealers were also attendees so it was easy for me to set up early in the day).

The highlight was that this was the first live event at which I had brought paperbacks of The City and the Dead.

Anyone who has followed me for some time (BTW you’re awesome) will recognise most of the pieces on the table, featuring my banners, key art and a number of other bits of equipment. All in all, I was very happy with how it turned out.

So here’s a rambling run-down along with a few bits of advice for any other authors who are considering live events:

Pre-event

Before the event, the con’s liaison for dealers got in touch with me months in advance to sort out payment etc. for the table. They were very good in terms of responsiveness and listening to my requests. This also ties into the first bit of advice I’d give indie authors; don’t hesitate to ask for reasonable things.

If you really want a place with natural light, or you want to be at the back of the room, or near certain dealers (e.g. you’ve got a mecha comic and you want to be next to a Gunpla stall) - any of these things could be workable with enough advance notice. It’s worth asking, because all the con can say is “no”.

In my case, for this event, I had to give measurements for the height of the banners, so I could be placed somewhere that would make it possible to fit in the tent. I also wanted to be somewhere where the banners would be visible on approach, though admittedly this wouldn’t have been a problem with any table at the event (it was a good layout).

Second bit of advice; if you’re in the con-book, make sure you get your stuff in early. I actually screwed up here and delivered my stuff really late; however I was fortunate - other delays meant I was able to get in regardless, but I might not have been so lucky.

I should probably state, here, that only one person actually approached me with the con book during the dealing hours. In retrospect this was obvious; I mean many con attendees only read the con book during the ride home. I tend to do that. So another piece of advice - if you put a flier in the con-book, it should address attendees in the days and weeks after the con, rather than during it.

The dealer’s room was open for setup the night before the session, so I just offloaded all my kit and left it there ready to set up the following morning.

On the day

The room was open from early in the day for setup, though the actual sessions were from 2-6, then 7-11. I was booked in for both sessions but only stayed for the first (more on that later).

I think the photo above was taken at around noon, and leads me onto my next bit of advice. It might seem obvious, but once you’ve completed your stall, walk around the dealer’s room like an attendee and “approach” your table from different directions. The key things you want to cover are how your table looks from either direction (i.e. are you only going to catch the eyes of people on the table’s left?) and how it looks from a distance.

The session started at 2pm, and right away, it was extremely busy. The tent had multiple entrance and exit points, so filled up quickly with attendees. I made my first sale at 2:23pm; something I know because I have a transaction history on my card machine. This ties into my next bit of advice; get a card machine, ideally one which supports contactless payments.

You can do this via Paypal and iZettle these days, probably others (I use iZettle). My reader only cost about £40.

As little as 2-3 years ago, it was quite rare that stalls at cons would take cards, but in 2018, it’s pretty much expected. Things have moved fast. You will make many, many more sales by having one, purely due to the convenience - as everyone who has been to a con knows that the first thing to run out is always cash at the ATMs.

Tokonatsu’s staff did a great job of updating the attendees about the dealer’s room (literally with a guy walking around the site with a megaphone) so we had a steady stream of people throughout the day.

Next is a bit of good news: I sold out of stock during the session!

Given, it’s an anime and Japanese culture festival, and I was selling an anime-esque Japanese myth inspired urban fantasy book, so the crowd and content were pretty aligned. I didn’t bring a huge number of books as I wasn’t certain how many I would sell (that’s always an estimate) but I paid off the table and a big chunk of my expenses for the con!

What matters more was that the attendees were of a demographic who I felt would like the book, so I’ve hopefully picked up a bunch of new readers - ultimately that’s my goal with every live event (if you’re reading this and you’re one of them, hi).

The main bit of advice I’d give with this for other authors is if in doubt, and if it’s feasible, at least bring enough stock so that if you were to sell all of it, you would pay off the table and your con expenses. This is mainly because if you don’t do this, you’re guaranteed to lose money, and that’s not a great mindset. Naturally you may come home with most of your stock, but I suppose you should at least aim to do well.

Also, the con requested a copy of both books, signed, to be given away as the top prize in their onsite fiction writing competition. This was a wonderful gesture from them, and I was honoured to fulfil that request!

For next time

As things went pretty well, my “for next time” notes are pretty few. There’s the aformentioned point about the con-book flier, but other than that, I think I’ve got everything tuned pretty well.

I think, if I’m to pick one thing, it’s that I didn’t also take mailing list signups. I intended to do that, but it was so busy and I just completely forgot about it on the day. Mailing list stuff is really important, so I dropped the ball in that area; I think for the next event I’m going to ask everyone who buys a book to consider signing up; obviously some will, most won’t, but it’s still a useful exercise.

In summary

Dealer-wise, Tokonatsu’s service was exceptional; I have only good things to say. That being said, for dealers, my experience highlights how important it is to consider whether your products are relevant to the crowd at a given event, as obviously the anime/Japanese culture audience isn’t necessarily on-point for all indie fiction authors.

To wrap this up, Tokonatsu is an awesome festival, thanks to the hard work of some really dedicated people.

I will, at some point soon, have a post about what it is like as an attendee (as this post was quite dealer-focused) but for now, I’ll just add that I’d recommend attending it to anyone if you’re a fan of anime & Japanese culture.

[miyotesse]

Bought Million Dollars But and the first expansion from a convention bring and buy sale. I’m basically living the dream, getting Rooster Teeth products without actually giving Rooster Teeth any money

[by-ethan-fox]

Awesome day at the Tokonatsu dealer's room! This is my current setup.