This probably isn’t the first time you’ve seen a review for Boomslank‘s otaku-catnip t-shirt line.

Boomslank’s marketing tactics would make my SEO expert proud:

1) Pick a nonsense name that nobody else has and trademark it.
2) Send free t-shirts for review to every anime blogger you can find.

Now, any Google search for “Boomslank” leads to nothing but happy bloggers and their positive reviews, because everyone loves free stuff.

Obviously, I’m not exception. Let this be my statement of transparency: I’m reviewing this company in exchange for a free t-shirt. But before I agreed to that deal, I made sure to do my homework. I wouldn’t be recommending a shirt from a company I couldn’t get behind.

Boomslank is an independent “anime clothing line” out of Raleigh, North Carolina. It’s run by three brothers, the youngest of whom designs the shirt graphics. While the designs are anime inspired, each one is original. The one thing I couldn’t figure out was why Boomslank needed a review from a small time blogger like me—they have 30,000 Facebook fans.

The thing I liked most about Boomslank was its women-friendly designs. Not just the fact that it carries women’s sizes, something my feminist t-shirt article concluded that any geek company or convention can do easily. These shirts go above and beyond because their graphics are neither obscured by nor designed to highlight a woman’s chest.

I picked the Pisces design, currently the shop’s fourth best-seller. I may be curvy, but both the design and cut of the shirt mean my figure doesn’t warp or hide the image very much. In the photo, I still am stretching out the t-shirt to show off the design as much as possible.

As you can see, the cherry blossoms have reached their peak here in the DC area. John took these photos of me after the rain, and the wind must have shaken the blossoms right off the trees. It’s too early for this pond to be filled for the summer, but it’s already filled with petals.

When’s the last time you waited in line for an hour to get into a fine art museum? That’s how I, John, and a couple hundred other geeks spent Saturday morning. This weekend was the opening of The Art of Video Games, an exhibit which showcased everything from Pac-Man to Mass Effect.

The last time I’d visited the Smithsonian American Art Museum had been for a dressy Online News Association cocktail party. Several miles from the better known Smithsonian museums on the National Mall, it’s a place you expect to see fewer tourists and more established patrons of the arts. Its classical paintings, puzzling modern art, and live jazz performances in the orchid-filled courtyard feel highbrow to me.

However, this exhibit showed me that I was wrong to assume there was anything snobby about this open-minded museum. The organizers arranged The Art of Video Games with the same reverence for the subject as any fine art display. I particularly appreciated their regard for video game fans—since early 2011, I’ve been voting along with 19,000 other people to choose which games would be exhibited.

In fact, I think other art museums can learn something from the Smithsonian. Rather than seeking to please a few wealthy patrons, the Art of Video Games looked to the crowd for its funding. Here’s my name in the scrolling list of donors to the exhibit. It took around ten minutes for this video to cycle through, which gave me plenty to look at for the thirty minutes I stood in line trying to get in.

However, before I could get inside to even wait in line to see the exhibit, I waited outside for an hour before the museum opened to see Hideo Kojima. A couple weeks ago, the organizers gave a few of us the chance to see Mr. Kojima in person—if we could click fast enough. The free Eventbrite tickets sold out in less than two minutes! You can bet I had set an alarm in order to snag those. Kojima stepped outside for a photo-op with Pac-Man while we were still in line.

At the conversation, Kojima still seemed to be surprised to have his games exhibited at a fine art museum.

“My games are displayed around the world, but to have them at the Smithsonian is truly an honor,” he said through a translator.

In 2006, Kojima once insisted during an interview that “games aren’t art.” During this interview, he conceded that while he still does not think his games are art (at least in the traditional sense), the fact that the Smithsonian thinks otherwise has caused him to rethink a bit.

“I’m not going to come to the Smithsonian [where my games are being displayed as art] and say they’re not art,” he said, prompting appreciative laughter from the audience.

Kojima said he’s been busy working on a project he can’t say anything about. Could it be the previously alluded Metal Gear Solid 5?

Outside of the exhibit, most of the activities taking place were in the courtyard. Visitors could listen to chiptunes, have their photo taken in a video game setting, craft “pixel art” or take part in a live action game with Spontaneous Art. And of course, there were plenty of screens for actual gaming, both in the courtyard and in the exhibit itself. Plus, Pac-Man cookies.

For a complete set of the photos I took, check out my Flickr photostream. They’re mixed in with photos of the cherry blossoms, since during these unseasonably warm times we’re nearly at peak season. (Last year, the blossoms weren’t in full bloom until mid-April.)

Since the exhibit was so crowded, I’m planning to make a trip back after the hype dies down. Until then, I’ll be paging through companion book John picked up, also titled The Art of Video Games. If you can’t make the real thing, it’s a complete round-up of every game featured in the exhibit.

Whether you call it “Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou,” the English “Daily Lives of High School Boys” or the simple, punny “Nichibros,” I think we can all agree that this show slipped through the cracks. I’ll never understand why shows like YuruYuri get legally streamed while this one gets turned down.

I picked up Nichibros hoping for a spiritual successor to Nichijou, and I wasn’t disappointed. In both comedies, characters react to quirky and absurd situations without skipping a beat. The main difference I can find is that the Nichibros guys are much more meta, willing to break the fourth wall at the slightest inclination.

There’s one aspect to Nichibros that confused me at first—have you noticed how most of the female characters don’t have faces? Except for one or two notable exceptions, the eyes of the protagonists’ sisters, teacher, and female strangers are concealed in shadow. Even when we first meet Literary Girl, the most interesting female character in the series, her eyes are also covered up. (By the way, for a fascinating take on Literary Girl, check out AJTheFourth’s analysis.)

At first I thought this meant that we’re supposed to see the girls as antagonists. Perhaps that’s a holdover from an earlier period—when I used to try drawing manga in middle school, I always drew villains like this. Now, however, I’ve developed a theory.

It’s not we, the viewers, who can’t see the girls’ faces. It’s the teenage, male protagonists themselves. I can’t speak from experience, but I’d guess that to high school boys, women are a mystery. They can’t read their faces, or tell how they’ll react. For example, when Hidenori agonizes over pointing out a hairy mole on a female stranger’s neck. Or when Motoharu can’t gauge whether his sister will pick on him or make him curry for dinner.

This would also explain why Ringo, the socially inept female class president, never has her face concealed. Her awkward mannerisms are no mystery. And it’d explain why we always see the faces of the three female protagonist in “High School Girls are Funky,” the clip after the credits which mirrors the events of the main episode, but with women.

One thing my theory doesn’t explain—Toshiyuki’s baseball cap. But at least with him, his eyes are always visible.