• The always lovely Ladybeard shares his beauty tips in English. If you’re going to be in New York City this October, you can attend his U.S. concert, and I am jealous!

• It takes a lot of work to run an anime convention, and a lot can go wrong. This story on Anime Matsuri should be required reading for convention runners about what not to do.

• In other news, I spent a month reaching out to anime cons to figure out gender demographics. The main thing I learned is that these are really hard to find. Not everybody conducts them, and those who do haven’t been doing them for very long. In the future, I’d like to do a comparison infographic indicating how gender demographics have changed over time.

• On the note of plugging my own articles, here’s a really basic tutorial for building Gundam models, even more basic than anything I’ve written on Gunpla 101. For example, this one doesn’t even get into panel lining! I plan to write many more Anime News Network features in the future! Anything you’d like to see me write about?

• Dispirited but not defeated—one freelancer outlines the lengths she has had to go in order to get paid. It’s frustrating but true that you spend a lot of your time as a freelancer trying to get paid.

• There Are No More Good Panels at Anime Conventions. Alain of Reverse Thieves discusses today’s fan discontent with the panel selection at cons. Which reminds me, I should sign up to offer more convention panels on otaku journalism and Gunpla topics.

• Just for fun: Quality Anime. We love anime because it’s cheap and weird. Here are some of the Easter Eggs you may have missed.

Photo via Mitake, a Harajuku street snap model.