As I’ve mentioned before, the reason I started AustinOtaku.com was to try to make the best of wherever I live, even deep in the heart of Texas. I think this is a pretty good philosophy to have, and in most large cities in the U.S., I think this is possible, even...
This past Labor Day weekend, I took an opportunity to drop in to check out Austin’s only coin-operated Japanese arcade, Arcade UFO and chat with co-owner, Ryan Harvey. Then quite coincidentally, world-famous otaku Danny Choo posted his article on Japanese...
I visited the Taniguchi Japanese Garden at Zilker Botanical Gardens this weekend with my good friend, John Lowe. Despite a very long drought, the garden appears to be in reasonably good shape. The garden was designed and built by Isamu Taniguchi, who worked for 18...
I started AustinOtaku.com as a way to allay my own restlessness, living in the heart of Texas, far away from Tokyo or any of the three Japantowns (nihonmachi) in the U.S.. It’s one of the annoyances of adulthood that you have to settle into a job and worry about...
If you think about it, otaku in Austin are quite lucky by comparison. We could be living in a city where the only places to purchase manga are the big, national chain bookstores. Or worse, we could be in a small town without even a Borders or Barnes & Noble...
