Ryokucha Workshop Report

At the beginning of the month we hosted a SOLD OUT tea workshop in Downtown Baltimore and it was a great success! The weather that day started out quite wet & dreary but the clouds lifted just as the workshop got underway and we spent the next 2+ hours preaching about Japanese tea and serving a dozen different varieties along with some snacks.

Here are some photos taken by photography Van Ngo:

It was a bittersweet event as this was Darrell’s last NippMo activity in the US, as one week later he departed for Japan to begin a teaching position in Tottori Prefecture. We appreciate everyone who came out to this event though - it was a fantastic day that we hope to repeat again at some point in the future.

Thank You and keep following us for future events/projects!

Status of Operations - Summer 2022

Hello World, believe it not… Nippon Motion still exists!

As our core business activities revolve around organizing in-person events, it should come as no surprise that the global COVID-19 pandemic put everything on ice for us. Luckily our business model does not require we generate annual income and we have been “keeping the lights on” with existing funding funding during the past 2+ years. However, we apologize for not providing regular updates during this period. To be quite frank, we had nothing to advertise though, and we never set out to exist solely via our social media accounts… hence the silence. That being said, if you are reading this now, and/or still follow us, thank you very much for your continued interest in our prior and future endeavors!

While we don’t currently have any announcements regarding large-scale events (ie. Baltimore Japan Art Festival), B•A•D has been active and growing since 2020 with the start of our Twitch channel (twitch.tv/bad_desu) and Discord server (discord.gg/sEDPGUsWPu). In April 2020, our monthly screening event B•A•D Night transitioned to Twitch and continues to happen there (usually) every 1st Sunday of the month. In late 2021 this screening event did irregularly happen as an in-person event (in addition to the Twitch stream) in Baltimore City, but is set to officially return to The Crown starting next month (September 2022). Join the Facebook group (www.BaltimoreAnimeDenizens.org) to get updates on all of our upcoming in-person events, as we hope to get back to additional non-screening events in the near future.

Just last month we, and members of B•A•D, hosted several panels at Otakon 2022 in Washington, DC. After a two year hiatus at the convention, Rob & Darrell were once again able to host a Japanese tea panel to a “sold out” audience, which was a great feeling. Despite some significant growing pains, the convention broke all previous attendance records by welcoming over 40,000 people - quite an achievement in our “post pandemic” world.

Again, thank you for your interest in Nippon Motion and keep a tab on our social media accounts for upcoming news. [Spoilers: we are currently working on another big event for this fall… or early 2023]

BJAF 2019

2019 has been a hectic year for NippMo, but we are proud to announce the Baltimore Japan Art Festival is returning this October! Our featured guest is the Tokyo-based illustrator Utomaru, known for her work with the electro-pop group ORESAMA. Check out www.BaltimoreJapanArtFest.com for more details!

BJAF Update

Even though it might not seem like it, 2018 has been an extremely busy year for Nippon Motion

Back in February we traveled to Japan and took a business meeting with the manager of a potential guest for Baltimore Japan Art Festival 2018. We strongly hinted about this during a live stream we did immediately afterward but then spent the following weeks/months trying to iron out the details and keep it under wraps until everything was confirmed. Technically the status of this guest's involvement has already been made public, but even so we wanted to officially announce it here.

Baltimore Japan Art Festival 2018 is extremely honored to welcome...

Yusuke Nakamura

illustrator

For over 15 years Mr. Nakamura (Osaka, JP) has been working as a freelance illustrator, gaining much notoriety for his work with musicians (ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION), authors (The After-Dinner Mysteries), anime (Night is Short, Walk on Girl), and more.

For more information about Mr. Nakamura's involvement as well as the rest of the festival, please visit www.BaltimoreJapanArtFest.com.

Japanese green tea panel featured in AnimeNYC coverage

The blog Otakus and Geeks featured Rob and Darrell's Japanese green tea panel in their coverage of AnimeNYC 2017. Head on over to their site to check it out. The panel received favorable coverage right next to the NYC Ramen Summit, featuring noodle legends Ivan Orkin and Jack Nakamura, how's that for a little validation? Thanks to Young from Otakus and Geeks for his enthusiasm and his great photo (and audio!) coverage.