Since the explosion of the fair in the streets of Lucca (before it was inside an indoor sports arena, then with some pavilions added out of it) we have a palace dedicated to Japan stuff. It is called Japan Palace and this is the queue to enter in it!

Thanks to organisation I had a staff pass so I could enter quickly. Inside, on courtyards and two storeys, various stands related to Japan in various ways. Here a view at the 9 o’clock in the morning, at the opening. After It was almost impossible to walk.

A well known vendor specialised in kwai dresses.

More traditional stuff, but with a sexy touch. Japanese people love Italy, Italians love Japan.

Kokeshi. They are very cute.

Traditional Japanese curtains but with cats instead of humans.

Japanese sexuality is more complex than Italian and Occidental ones. They seem as perverts to us.

However these paintings are very beautiful. Next year we will have something different for this place because of overcrowding. Maybe there will be even a Japan district…

Obvious presence in the fair for something related to Go Nagai creations. This year there was the preview of a new line of models available in newspaper kiosks. They are in metal, previously painted and almost 14 centimetres high.

More detailed these plastic models. I like the flying fists a lot. I don’t know well the Mazinger with bat wings, more modern and demoniac versions of the old classics.

Gashapons are an easy and cheap gadget that you could find in the fair. Here some of Go Nagai’s giant robots. I wonder about all the female ones variations. I have to watch more anime and read more manga to know better…

The Lucca C&G report will follow the next year with 93 more photos!

This year we had two Romics. It is the main comics fair in Rome. It is always nice to walk around huge piles of comics and gadgets. Together with Andrea (Ganesha Games) we came here for a full day (10.00-19.00), watching stands and buying stuff. We met some people too, and we had interesting chats with a medieval style fencer and with a games vendor. It is a 4 days long fair, but I visited it the first day because I will be very busy for work in the weekend. Moreover the fair is pretty overcrowded the other days.

A blast from the past: once upon a time comics fairs were populated mainly by middle age people.

Nowadays this kind of fairs are full of young people with costumes. And half naked young girls with exhibitionism symptoms.

I like so much this world of cosplayers, a touch of colour in life, comics and animes in the real world.

A big organised group is the 501th Legion, local imperial forces inspired by Star Wars.

The usual Nintendo stand with young girls as hostess.

Among comics a huge presence is for gadgets and statuettes. These are very nice!

A choice of pillow-cases for lone people pillow to hug during the night.

More gadgets and another kind of pillow among them: the pizza pillow!

The food choice in the fair were good but we opted even for a more exotic flavour as these Japanese sweets.

Really a beautiful day, the time fled away smoothly and we had fun.

I’m a comic reader before I could reader: I watched only images at that age. Another Romics edition in my city. A big business because from this year we will have a spring and an autumn edition. And this time the organisers thought to add more trains for the location, the same nowhere place among ex-swamps.

I understand why I came all the times to this kind of fairs. It is not only comics or sparse game stands, it is principally about girls. Here you can watch lots of young and very beautiful females in their best age. Half-naked females with imaginative dresses. Exhibitionism is the rule. It is called cosplay… Sometimes the situation is really embarrassing. Among girls that practically wears bikinis with some fabric variously added, one of them with one D size bra on put herself on all fours on a car to show better her boobs to a crowd of males.

As I always say, this is a place where to show your costume, and your corpse. Everyone take photos of everyone, it is an infinite play of images based on fantasy worlds better than crude and monotone reality. Mine was a really fast trip, I stayed only 5 hours inside the fair on the 4 days duration. So I didn’t take lots of photos. You can find more on Flickr.

This time among cosplayers I noted more male and female homosexuals than usual. Some famous drag queens played to this costume thing too.

More sex talking. This Japanese statuette impress me. Only 110 euro to have a sex slave on a bookshelf of yours.

Something more polite and childish. My partner in the trip while is buying a Spiderman nice puppet.

In the very old times you cannot find a Gundam model, they were a chimera. Now the usual wall of models, everyone with their price tag made by post-its.

Another fair view. Some gadgets around and the upper entry of one of the 3 pavilions used for Romics.

I have to show even some comics, otherwise you could think that there weren’t comics in a comic fair. Here my partner while is buying from the author a comic that I don’t like at all about a fat panda… Instead I bought a Belgian/French school comic about airplanes in the WWII. I have got a better style of life…

The next appointment for comics is in autumn here in Rome and a month after there will be the Lucca madness. Instead, wargaming speaking, the next appointment is Hellana, this Sunday. I will be present with Ferrum et Gloria.

Here we go! This is the begin of my full reportage about Lucca Comics & Games. I’m a bit late but I had to choose among lots of photos so I spend time doing it. Moreover I’m very busy these days and another big convention (Ludica Roma) is on arrival. Let’s go.

This is the queue of the first day to enter in the Lucca Games pavilion. The entry is at the tent at the end. There were a lot of pavilions in Lucca, even an ancient palace, because the fair is shared on various places. Everyone with its queue. 180000 paying people in 4 days.

A partial view of the rear side of the Lucca Games pavilion, the biggest pavilion in the fair, among the huge Lucca medieval fortified walls. These walls are all around the city constituting a park in the form of a ring.

An empty corridor between stands at the end of a day.

The same corridor, almost at the same position, during the day.

A larger area where you could breath.

A typical gadgets vendor stand at the end of a day. I haven’t photos of comics stands because there were too many people and you could take photos with only heads and no comics.

Some vendors were cosplayers too. At the restaurants in the city you could see cosplay waitresses! This city gone mad when it is Lucca C&G time!

A new computer headphone for my friend Paolo. Only 100 euro.

A wall with information about people caught in a zombie emergency. Messages to search loved ones…

Fantasy and sci-fi book area. A real one throne made of swords was available to take photos. “Sword Throne” (il trono di spade) is the Italian name for “A Game of Thrones”.

The traditional illegal market inside Lucca Games area. Yes, illegal is legal in Italy… In the background, on the walls, you can see the cosplay area pavilions with the stage for cosplay competition and music concerts.

Paintings made during the fair to sell them in a public charity auction.

A great backpack! Imperial Stormtroopers eat Jedi Knights scum for breakfast!

The Citadel is the fair armoury area. A couple of small pavilions where you can buy your sword and your medieval dress.

These people from Germany had got lots of useful steel objects…

Real swordsmanship. Two handed swords. They are studying each other.

Now the action!

An art installation around Lucca.

We all think that Lucca is a rainy city because we visit it always around the first of November for the fair. Year after year we remember the rain that drench us, the yellow leafs, the moats full of gurgle water, the blue clouds defined in the sky. Even this year we could have the same physical feeling. It is so romantic, and so wet indeed.

Every a couple of months there is a Japanese market here in Rome. And now is Christmas time so Sunday we hoped to find something as gift. This market is organised by two brothers form Japan with their little shop here in the city. It is an opportunity to find something from that far land, near to us thanks to anime and other cultural interests.

You can find a lot of things, not only from Japan. It is a little fair of nice handmade stuff too. This time Andrea from Ganesha Games was with us looking for some gashapons for Samurai Robot Battle Royale. He bought a couple of them. I bought some small gifts for my sister. As starter for the lunch we ate a Japanese sweetie with jam made with red beans. And we all watched some cosplayers and a beautiful retailer with fake reindeer horns…

Someone think that Lucca Games is a fair for gadgets, boardgames or videogames, but there is a large attention to miniatures and modelling, you have to look better to realise it.

Here we have a heir of Blood Bowl: another ruleset, different miniatures, but the same result. I like this playing field, it has a a refined taste, with the square subdivision only suggested on the ground.

I like original ideas. These ones are skeletons on a tracker, but with a baywatch theme! Great!

Huh, the Doctor is in the fair. Old Black Tree miniatures brought to life in the painters section of the fair. They passed all the time painting. The next time I have to bring a miniature with me for them, just to have something well painted to remind the fair. This year there was a Sandokan miniature as miniature of the event, but I didn’t buy it, maybe because I don’t have plans for a pirate set. I’m stupid, I could buy it and have it painted just at the desk in front of Ganesha Games stand…

Cosimo Auricchio is the sculptor of TB Line miniatures. He is a free lance, a real artist, which sometimes sculpt even in 28mm format. Here you can see this skeleton pirate. Great miniature and great painter who highlighted the piece.

Cosimo sold dummies for sculptors, but there were others. I have not expectation on my skills as sculptor so I didn’t buy them. Narciso instead wants to try.

Inside Lucca Games there is Grogg, a coontest about modelling and painting. Here some examples of the historical type.

Do you want a bust of Thor? Every house must own its Thor bust. It is only 800 euros, limited production I suppose. Not so discreet.

WOG is the new incarnation of WOW. From the sense of wonder to an insult. Now Ares Games produce these aircraft for the popular game that was Wings of War, because Nexus Games went bankrupt. New production, some new fighters and bombers, a lot of bombers.

Preproduction models from China, that bomb us with cheap plastic toys.

Yamato in space. Huge ship, more than a simple model, it is big as a small torpedo…

Pikachu in a human form, as Japanese puppets imitate human forms. A play of mirrors…

Saint Seiya are puffs. I like only the temple in this scene, but a lot of people like these gold puppets more.

Let’s start with a view on stands around.

Here my friend Narciso frozen among comics. There were a lot of old and new comics. Too many for a life.

I wonder if a human being can have the space to store all this stuff inside his house. And I wonder as mini-skirt change the way we perceive the world.

Manga ARE the comics. They are read by boys and girls, when other type of comics are read only by males. It was a great thing when girls started to read comics. It will be a great day when females start to play historical wargames.

A smart and funny comic about boys, girls and sex. Great drawings too.

A comic about William the Bastard. Well done. Here the author while was signing my book with a sketch.

Personalised prints by Frezzato, a great comic author.

Gay Zombies in Vatican City! This diy comic went sold out.

Ashley Wood paintings for sale!!! I’m a fan, I like his robots very much but I cannot afford a painting for 3000 euros. I have them printed in a book. I will continue to see them on a book and not on a wall.

Ashley Wood, Jamie Hernandez, Jack Kirby, Crumb… where is my bank account?

Linings for long pillows to hug. A sexy help from Japan to lone male geeks. Exists the same thing for females.

Mouse pads with tits. I bought that one down on the right. I have problems with my wrist so this can help.

Tanto Cuore (a lot of heart) is a card game about Japanese maids. Yes, it is weird as it seems.

T-shirts that hailing to bisexuality. However in the fair there were a lot of manga about homosexuality. I don’t know why.

Diabolik is the Fantomas or Arnesio Lupin of Italy, the king of thieves. Only that he is more dark. Since some years they lunched a line of gadgets. The note says:”Steal from Diabolik stand cause misfortune”.