Maru Designs

My Aesthetic right now is cry baby ukes. <3

One does not simply manage to survive Salmon Run, and not spam the “booya” button. If you're not mashing “Booya” your kinda a butt lol.

The two cuties. :3

>:c Bummed that I can’t play the ARMS demo this weekend. ///

So I drew Minmin instead. <3 

My current favorite overpowered Fire Emblem hubby. :D ~ <3

Remember those days when you would read/watch really vanilla shounen ai like Loveless or Gravitation and your heart would go a flutter just from seeing two guys kiss?

BOTW Link has literally the cutest eating animation and whenever I see it I imagine him gorging on mounds of food. <3

Hiya everyone! (^ ^) ...Does anyone still remember me anymore? (Don’t answer that.) Anyway it’s Hannah from (Formally) The Taven 旅籠屋

After moving to Japan I pretty much spent all my free time in my studies, daily life, and friendships (and BL and video games and anime and arcades...but yah know...) that I kind of abandoned my art for the most part. In the time that I did make for art, I was doing a lot of experimenting, and trying out new styles. (But nothing really felt good enough to post.) 

After returning to Canada, I've been thinking a lot about what I wanna do for my future, and I want to bring my art more to the forefront of my life and work, rather than just having it as a side hobby to my graphic design career.  So I decided to rebrand myself to include my art and design into one entity. Although I liked the concept of my old logo, the name was just... something I never really fell in love with. I was tired of having two different logos and branding for my illustrations & design.

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From here on out, my name has been changed to “Maru Designs” for all my social media. (^ ^) “The Tavern 旅籠屋” has been completely pushed out. I’ve updated the designs of everything to reflect this new branding too.

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Because of my inactivity over the last year, I’m sure I’ve lost a lot of followers. But I just thought I’d let some of you know that I’m around again. If you’ve stuck with me this long, you have no idea how much it means to me. ^ ^ 

Thanks everyone~! アザッスっ～！

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I think a lot of people know about Comiket that happens twice a year in Tokyo. It’s the biggest of it’s kind in Japan, and I won’t be going.

Not that I don’t want to go, but I’m living at the most north part of Japan, and with plane tickets being there most expensive this time of year (A good $200 - $450... ONE WAY....) I’ll be passing.

But what I think a lot of people don’t know about, is that tons of smaller doujinkai happen all throughout the year and all throughout Japan. I went to my first one today, and I thought I’d share some similarities and differences to the anime conventions back home. (in Canada at least.) 

On the way to Sapporo’s Community Dome from the train station! It was kinda cool seeing so many woman heading out there. :D (And a few normal families heading there to see a plane show or something.)

THE EVENT: I went to Odekake LIVE. I invited a friend to come with me, but she was busy today so I went alone. (TwT) It cost me 800 yen to enter and one of the main differences is that these events usually only focus on a few series, rather then in the west where it’s just all anime under the sun. At the event I went to, the main series’ that were focused on were Tokenranbu, My Hero Academia, Assemble Stars, Osomatsu-San, Jojo, Yowamushi Pedal, and Border Line. Osomatsu-San deeefinitely had the most merch. It’s still ridiculously popular here. This event was very yaoi centered, but it didn’t feel like walking into the BL section of Animate. I expected balls, half-naked ikemen,18+ stamps and gasping uke faces everywhere, but it was fairly tame to be honest. Just a lot of cuteness everywhere. (Not to say that that stuff wasn’t there, but not nearly to the degree that I was expecting. Not that I mind ether way. ;) YEHHEEE~.)

I honestly thought the event was gonna be a lot smaller. Heh.

THE MERCH: What surprised me the most, was the fact that there wasn’t as many doujinshi as I thought there would be. I thought it was JUST gonna be manga that was sold there, but no actually - there were people selling keychains(There were a lot of keychains), jewelry, stickers, postcards, shirts, tumblrs, etc. (EXCLUDING POSTERS. Unlike in the west where EVERYBODY sells posters, that is definitely not the case here. Everything is a lot smaller in size with no huge displays like you’d see in the west.) I also thought everything was gonna be very constricted to just the series I mentioned above, but there were a few people who branched out and sold other things too, which was cool to see. There was even some original designs and art. It was sooo much fun to walk around and look at everyone’s stuff. Everyone had such fantastic art.

 I’m kinda poor at the moment, so I couldn’t buy much, but everything is CHEAP AF HERE. In total I spent 900 yen for everything below. (A doujinshi, 6 stickers, and a tote bag.) Everything is very inexpensive, and I just don’t know if printing costs are cheaper here, or people just aren’t trying to make a profit. (*- * ); But for my poor self, I appreciated it.

THE PEOPLE: Obviously the vibe is entirely different from a western convention. In North American conventions, people are very energetic, excited, hugging strangers, squealing/screaming, and just having a good time being themselves. People are twice as outgoing as they normally are. (Sometimes people get a little too crazy, but I digress.)

Obviously, it’s not like that here. Japanese people just generally aren’t outgoing in the same way westerns are, but I freaking LOVED the atmosphere here. It’s something so different from normal Japanese society. So many girls were so visibly excited, chatty, fangirling over their favorite characters and being so open. There was this overwhelming sense of acceptance. Being there just felt like, “Oh, THIS is Japan.” I felt like I was seeing a new side of this country that I hadn’t seen before. I’ve heard some people talk about Comiket, and say it feels very cold, and nothing like a western convention. But here, it felt very warm and familiar. I wish I talked to more artists and people then I did, but for the ones I talked to - there was so much warmness and passion. Maybe it could just be how the people of Sapporo are, but either way I loved it here.

THE COSPLAYERS: I’m not gonna say much on this, because I didn’t really stick around to look at the cosplay shoots, but the quality of cosplays was definitely high here, and as time went on more and more people were dressing up. What I found interesting though, is when I was going to the event, I thought maybe I’d see some cosplayers on the subway - but there was none. I saw some people carrying props in bags, but that was it. But inside I saw a sign that said you can’t enter or leave wearing the building wearing a cosplay. Which I thought was interesting. Maybe it’s considered an annoyance to have someone dressed up on the train? I dunno, but it seems like a bit of a pain.

In conclusion, it was a really great experience. BUT HOLY SMOKES IT WAS SHORT. ONLY 1 DAY FOR 4 HOURS. I went alone and just looked at all the merch, so I was done within’ an hour and a half. But if I was cosplaying with a bunch of friends, and trying to buy a bunch of stuff... it seems a little short. But maybe I’m wrong.

Was watching some Grumpcade and heard that Ross had designed a cute character for his original animation Gameoverse - AND LIKE WTF ROSS. IT WAS TRUE. AND SHES SO DARN CUTE. Had to draw her. HAD TOO.