25+ Days for Rie Kugimiya

So I am feeling a major sense of regret right now.

Otaku Queue 25 Days Early to Meet Queen of Tsundere

Otaku desperate to meet with tsundere seiyuu queen Rie Kugimiya in her first visit to Taiwan are said to have staked their places in the queue a staggering 25 days prior to her actual arrival.

The otaku in question are queuing in anticipation of Her Highness’ January 27th arrival at the 2010 Taipei International Book Fair, having begun on the 3rd in order to be absolutely sure of gaining the all important audience, thought to be a record.

By the 13th 20 people had established a small camp at the site, with the Kugyuu-maniacs joined by other less eager strains of otaku.

Organizers are said to be concerned about disruption to other uses of the space, and police are ready to warn them should the supplicants become a nuisance.

Rie Kugimiya’s presence is believed to be the only cure for a thankfully rare condition known as “Kugimiya-byou,” or “Kugimiya Disease,” also called Kugimiya Virus Hypersensitive Cerebral Corticalitis, known to result in uncontrollable glossolalic utterances, most famously “kugyuuuuuuuuuuu.”

As some of you might have known, over the months of December and January, I was in Taiwan/Japan/Hong Kong for my regulatory family visit. My travels to Asia-land are in other posts, so if you’re interested in those you can go read them (1 2 3).

Anyways, my personal chance to see the Queen of Tsundere has gone down the drain, as I was informed way too late about her presence in Taiwan. Had I known much earlier that she would be at the 2010 Taipei International Book Fair, I would have booked my return flight to the United States, AFTER this event.

Having just finished school and in the market for job-hunting, queuing 25 days early sounds very decent and possible to me. I would totally do it. I hate to say it, but I would gladly trade my Aya Hirano / Yuko Goto / Minori Chihara autographed poster ANY day to see Rie Kugimiya and obtain an autograph.

With Anime Expo going through an internal shit-storm, my dream and hope of ever seeing Kugimiya in the United States has all but evaporated.

Now the only thing to appease my pain is to listen to this on loop:

My annotations for the ANN report:

To acquire Kugimiya’s autograph at the exhibition, fans could either buy one of 50 NT$2,680 (US$85) Shana ceramic plate online, or line up at the convention hall for one of 100 more plates. The online plates sold out in just 30 seconds on December 30, as 80,000 order attempts almost brought the server offline. Fans then began lining up for the remaining 89 plates. (11 of the plates originally reserved for the line-waiters were reallocated for the online buyers, due to the overwhelming number of orders that came in simultaneously before pre-orders were stopped.)

For a ceramic plate, that guarantees an autograph by Rie Kugimiya, NT$2,680 is an extremely decent price (cheap as shit).

Fans wanted to wait in line since New Year’s Eve in front of Taipei 101 (the second tallest building in the world), but authorities discouraged line-waiting due to other events being held there. So, the fans regrouped and began lining up outside a nearby mall complex. As of January 13, the outside nighttime temperature was 10 °C (50 °F).

10°C (50°F) does not seem like a lot, but Taipei is pretty humid, and if the weather says 10°C, it feels more like 5~7°C.

Three fans in line, who identified themselves as “Pony,” “Zi Yu” (literally “violet melancholy”), and “Fire Inamitsu,” agreed to be interviewed by ANN. All three came from the Taipei area, although there is another fan who is driving back and forth from 367 kilometers (229 miles) away to take shifts in the line. Pony has been in line since January 3, but there were actually people in line before he arrived. Due to the authorities’ discouraging of overnight lines, the fans in line have been looking for different sleeping spots to avoid security patrols.

I wonder how they keep any sense of queue. Unless they are ALL friends, having the need to constantly move around to avoid patrols or take shifts in line, any random person wanting to get in could easily slide in unnoticed as the numbers increase. Of course, they would probably call him out, but otaku these days seem to have less dignity than your average Joe.

Pony and Fire were introduced to Kugimiya’s work via Zero no Tsukaima (Fire has the autographs of the light novels’ creators Noboru Yamaguchi and Eiji Usatsuka), while Zi Yu’s part-time co-worker showed him Shana one day. Zi Yu said that he spent more than NT$220,000 (US$6,929) on Kugimiya merchandise in the first year he starting collecting, and he has now been a collector for three years. Fire acknowledged having all the Zero no Tsukaima novels, manga, anime, and Louise figures, while Zi Yu has every single Shana mug, the title character’s uniforms and casual wear, and life-sized pillows. Pony collected the limited-edition Shana bed sheets and Kugimiya’s moe bubble-wrap-popping keychain (“The tsundere version of course!”).

I wonder how they are allowed to even queue for so long and not have the need to do anything! These guys obviously have had jobs.

Here are the fans on Saturday morning, before it started raining. Image taken from ANN. Provided by dormcat.

Oh…how I could have been in this picture *sigh* This whole event does nothing for me, except prove ‘once again’ that if you aren’t living in Japan, Taiwan is probably the 2nd best choice for otaku sub-culture.

Via Sankaku Complex / The Liberty Times / ANN