Tekko

Official tumblr for The Pittsburgh Japanese Cultural Society featuring information and fun tidbits about Tekko, the KuroKiiro Festival, and the Sangawa Project.

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Tekko 2015 Is Proud to Announce the New Art Contrest!

Good Afternoon, I know it's been a long time since we updated! Sorry about that. Tekko 2015 is proud to announce the new and improved art contest! Bust out your crayons and colored pencils, because this year Tekko is splitting the art contest into three, distinct parts: the Cover Art Contest, the T-shirt Contest, and the Rockstar Contest. Artists may submit to any and all of the offered contests, and with chances to win awesome prizes! The Cover Art Contest offers artists the chance to illustrate our Tekko 2015 program book and the 2015 badges! The winner of the Cover Art contest will win a free general admission badge to Tekko 2015 and and a free table in our Artist’s Alley! Every attendee will see the winner's artwork, so submit your entries today! ! We are also proud to announce the Tekko 2015 T-shirt Contest! Have incredible graphic design skills or an unparalleled sense of fashion? Enter our T-shirt designing contest and design the Official Tekko 2015 T-shirt! Winner receives a free general admission badge and a T-shirt of their own design Finally, Tekko is proud to announce the new Rockstar Contest! The Rockstar badges are the hottest most coveted pass into Tekko, and Tekko's amazing concerts draw huge crows every year. Help us celebrate by designing amazing, incredible art for Tekko 2015's official concert T-shirt and special Rockstar badge in the theme of "Rockstar." The winner of the Rockstar Contest will win a general admission badge to Tekko 2015, an official Tekko 2015 concert T-shirt, and a signed CD from the musical act! All art submissions are due by 11:59pm, December 15th, 2014 so begin crafting your art now! December 15th will be here before you know it! Head over to www.teamtekko.us now!

[teamtekko]

Mexiclown Standoff!

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Tekko Kennywood Day!

Hey guys! There is less than a month till Tekko Kennywood Day on July 5th at Kennywood Amusement Park! Register now to ensure your ticket! Registration is $27 and includes: -Park Admission to Kennywood Park, for $14 cheaper than purchasing at the gates! -Access to the Tekko pavilion, where paid attendees can leave coolers and wagons while they enjoy the park! -Access to fountain drinks and frozen treats at the Tekko pavilion! -Kennywood firework night! Come join us at the end to watch Kennywood light up the sky! Head over to teamtekko.com/registration to buy your tickets!!

[teamtekko]

Get ready for KuroKiiro Festival 2014!

Greetings Tekko and KuroKiiro Festival fans!

We have a lot of news to share with everyone today. We have everything from the dates of this years KuroKiiro Festival, to the complete guest list and even new and exciting home that everyone will love.

The KuroKiiro Festival will be Aug 29-31 at California University of Pennsylvania in their wonderful new Convocation Center. Their beautiful state of the art facility mixes the feel and setting of a school festival with the size and flexibility of a convention center.

This year's guests include Tyson Rinehart, a voice actor known for Itsru ‘Daru’ Hashida in Steins;Gate. Other credits include Hugo in Attack on Titan, Matsuda in HighSchool DxD, Georg in Eureka Seven: AO, Oimo in One Piece, and Squeak in Space Dandy.

We are also excited to welcome back Nancy Kepner! Nancy Kepner writes comedic songs about Otaku and Geek culture. She got her start in 2011 when she performed “The Weeaboo Song” at KuroKiiro Festival. She now has two Albums: “Album for the Weeaboo,” and “Fodder for the Fandoms” available on iTunes and Cdbaby.

We are also excited to have the enigmatic Charles Dunbar at this year's KKF! Charles Dunbar is an anthropologist. He studies a lot of things, be it fandom, anime culture, the supernatural or mysterious men in blue boxes. He received his MA in Sociocultural Anthropology in 2011, after utilizing ancient Mayan techniques to hypnotize his department into believing that he was, in fact, the reincarnation of Victor Turner. His thesis, entitled “Pilgrimage, Pageantry and Fan Communities,” was published soon after, and focused on anime convention participation, including stereotyping, spending habits, cosplay and con culture.

Finally, The KuroKiiro Festival announces our fourth and final guest; Leah Clark! Leah Clark is a Random Force Of Nature working as a voice actress and script adapter for FUNimation Entertainment and voice artist for DuArt Films. She has also worked as a director for FUNimation as well as a stage actress in the Dallas-Ft Worth TX area.

Some of her most memorable voice roles include Nodoka in Negima; Suzuka in Suzuka; Rin in Toriko; Fuyuki in Sgt Frog; Blair in Soul Eater; Minatsuki in Deadman Wonderland; Saki in Eden of the East; Nora in Spice and Wolf; Minami in Baka and Test; Jiji in Princess Jellyfish; Noah in Full Metal Alchemist—Conqueror of Shamballa; Coby and Miss Doublefinger in One Piece; Paris in Shin Chan; Eri in School Rumble; Maron in Dragonball GT; Carlita in Pokemon the Movie: Black/White—Victini and Reshiram; and Maru in XXXHolic.

PreRegistration is even open! For one week only, we offer a $20 per registration rate. On June 2nd, that rate goes up to $25 per registration. We also are excited to announce our Buy 4, Get 1 Free registration deal! If you preregister four people together, the fifth registration is free! So load your car up and preregister now!

We also have a new KuroKiiro Festival webpage where will be posting all new information. Here you can preregister you and your friends and save money. Click here to go to our new website and learn how.

Also, head over quickly to our new Facebook Page and like us to keep up with all the latest KKF News and Updates! Like us now!

[teamtekko]

Grell in Wonderland

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Natsu and Happy(Fairy Tail)

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Lightning returns...again!

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Introducing Submissions

We have now opened submissions for people’s 2014 Tekko experiences! Submit your photos, cosplay pictures. Videos, or anything you feel appropriately captures your 2014 experience! As long was from 2014 and around a PG-13 rating, we will post a few a week!

So head over and submit now!

[teamtekko]

Batter up!

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Our friends at The Hollywood Theater in Dormont are having another anime screening! The anthology, Short Peace, produced by Katsuhiro Otomo, will be showing next weekend. We’ll be there to promote all of our upcoming PJCS events at the 1 PM screening on May 3. There will be an encore screening at 7 PM on May 4. Tickets are $8.

So come on out this weekend!

[teamtekko]

UPDATE: we will also be offering preregistration to all of our events! Including KuroKiiro, Sangawa, and Tekko 2015!

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Vocaloids on parade...

[teamtekko]

Introducing Submissions

We have now opened submissions for people’s 2014 Tekko experiences! Submit your photos, cosplay pictures. Videos, or anything you feel appropriately captures your 2014 experience! As long was from 2014 and around a PG-13 rating, we will post a few a week!

So head over and submit now!

[teamtekko]

Our friends at The Hollywood Theater in Dormont are having another anime screening! The anthology, Short Peace, produced by Katsuhiro Otomo, will be showing next weekend. We'll be there to promote all of our upcoming PJCS events at the 1 PM screening on May 3. There will be an encore screening at 7 PM on May 4. Tickets are $8. So come on out this weekend!

[teamtekko]

Introducing Submissions

We have now opened submissions for people’s 2014 Tekko experiences! Submit your photos, cosplay pictures. Videos, or anything you feel appropriately captures your 2014 experience! As long was from 2014 and around a PG-13 rating, we will post a few a week!

So head over and submit now!

[teamtekko]

[teamtekko]

Introducing Submissions

We have now opened submissions for people’s 2014 Tekko experiences! Submit your photos, cosplay pictures. Videos, or anything you feel appropriately captures your 2014 experience! As long was from 2014 and around a PG-13 rating, we will post a few a week! So head over and submit now!

[teamtekko]

This year's Tekko was the best one yet!

This year was the best Tekko yet! Thank you each and every one of you for attending! We broke every attendance record of any PittJCS or previous Tekkos! This year, we hit a record 5,111 number of individuals at Tekko! That’s over a 1,000 increase from last year. So thank you all for attending and making it the best year yet! Incase you were unable to attend, here’s a quick recap of the weekend! For our industry guests: We had Charles Dunbar, an anthropologist, who studies everything from fandom culture, the supernatural, to men in blue boxes.

Uncle Yo also made an appearance! From Otakon to Anime Expo, Karl “Uncle Yo” Custer teleports to anime, comic book and video game conventions performing his unique brand of geek-specific stand-up comedy!

And returning to Tekko for the first time in years was Greg "Greggo" Wicker! He is known for producing and hosting game shows at anime conventions since 1999.

We were also excited to introduce Nancy Kepner, a local Pittsburgh musical comedian who specializes in music about Otaku and Geek culture.

Our list of voice actors included: Caitlin Glass, known for Winry from FMA, and Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club.

David Vincent, whose credits include BLEACH, Code Geass, Gun X Sword, Fate/Stay a Night, and many others.

Finally, we also had Brittney Karbowski, known for Soul Eater, FMA, Angel Beats!, and Fairy Tale, among many other credits.

Finally, we had two amazing musical acts! Lolita Dark

Lolita Dark is an Epic Rock band with roots in Southern California and Japan, who formed in 2011. Their sound weaves together crunching guitar riffs, progressive bass lines, lush harmonies, and complex melodic structures in songs that reflect both angst and optimism in an increasingly interconnected world of disconnected residents. Gacharic Spin

Gacharic Spin was formed in 2009 by high school friends bassist F Chopper KOGA (ex. THE PINK☆PANDA) and drummer Hana. F Chopper KOGA began recruiting members through her personal blog, and guitarist EITA and vocalist Armmy were selected to join the band. Choosing their band name from the unique combination of their clattering (“gacha-gacha”) personalities and high-energy performance style. It sure was an amazing year at Tekko! Preregistration for next year should be public any day now, so please join us next year on April 16th-19th for Tekko 2015, which will once again be at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center! Expect it to be bigger and better than ever before!