MasQueRadeの発表日はフランスに着いて2日後の4月4日（水曜日）でした。学会に到着して、展示会ブースの準備が終わった後一生懸命練習しました。佐藤先生と何回も発表内容を確認したり、練習したりしました。発表日にはフランス国鉄の労働争議があったため、2人のプレゼンテーターは参加することができなってしまいました。その上初めて一人で国際学会に発表するので、少し緊張しました。発表中に参加者は私の話に集中して、発表が終わった後沢山質問があり、プロジェクトを進むための助言をもらうことができました。今回の発表は大体うまくいきました。

以下はReVolution発表の際に得られた助言の例です。バーチャルリアリティーHMD用に衛生仮面を環境にやさしいものに変更できますか？同じ仮面を使って、別の展示会にQRコードだけ変更してもいいですか？来客者の識別番号を記録して、将来の展覧会でまた来客様のデーターを続けて記録してもいいですか？出来れば将来に従来の評価システムに代わってMasQueRadeを使いたいです。

口頭発表後は、ReVolutionのワークショップに参加して、様々な研究者とバーチャルリアリティーについて課題を議論しました。今回のワークショップは3つの課題を様々な研究者と議論しました。

1. バーチャルリアリティーの社会についての影響
2. バーチャルリアリティーの経済についての影響
3. そしてバーチャルリアリティーの技術

ワークショップ参加者は16人ぐらいおり、代わる代わる3つ課題を考えて、議論しました。最終セッションですべての意見をまとめました。

From April 1st to April 10th 2018, I participated in the largest Virtual Reality conference in Europe, Laval Virtual 2018. This year we celebrated the 20th anniversary of Laval Virtual. As the name implies, Laval Virtual takes place in a small and ancient town named Laval, which is about 2 hours south of Paris by Train. Since this time the submission was done together with Akiyama-san from PLACID, we shared the same booth in Laval Virtual ReVolution.

MasQueRade is an onsite Virtual Reality evaluation system used to evaluate and obtain data from exhibition attendees. Comparing to conventional evaluation systems which requires an extra worker to ask the attendees answer survey questions, MasQueRade allows the attendees to simply scan the QR code on their Virtual Reality hygiene mask and gain access to the online questionnaires, thus allowing the exhibitors to save the much needed man power and financial resources during evaluation as well as speed up the evaluation process. Before Laval Virtual 2018, MasQueRade has already been exhibited in conferences such as Anime Expo 2017, SIGGRAPH 2017, NicoNico Choukaigi, and GTMF 2017.

The MasQueRade presentation was scheduled to take place on April 4th, which was a mere two days after my arrival in France. Due to this time constraint, I revised my presentation slides and had multiple check-ins with my professors: Sato-sensei and Shirai-sensei after I am done setting up my exhibition booth. On the day of presentation because the French workers on strike unfortunately two of the presenters are unable to attend the presentation. Despite of all this my presentation was able to go smoothly more or less as the listeners paid close attention to my speech and after the presentation I was bombarded with many good questions. Some of the questions and suggestions my fellow ReVolution presenters have for me include: 1)Why not find a more environmental friendly hygiene mask instead of using the usual disposable one-time usage only masks. 2) Instead of changing the entire mask after each exhibition, how about encouraging the attendees to keep the same mask and only changing the QR code in separate conferences. 3) Is it possible to record the attendees’ data on your server and analyze the same person’s data in multiple exhibitions?

Overall I am quite happy with how the presentation turned out as I obtained many useful feedback that will undoubtedly aid me in the development of next generation MasQueRade. Right after the presentation we had the ReVolution workshop where the attendees are split into three separate groups and made to discuss the following three issues concerning Virtual Reality: 1) The social impact of Virtual Reality. 2) The economical impact of Virtual Reality. 3) The technology of Virtual reality. At the end of the workshop we compiled all the opinions gathered from the attendees, organize them into graphs and charts, before sharing them online.

Pythonはオランダ出身のGuido Van Rossumで開発していて、1991年大衆に提供している、汎用なプログラムです。PIL(Python Imaging Library)はPythonに追加して、画像を自由自在に加工したり、変更が出来るの画像のデータベースです。

Pythonは色んなインストールする方法があります。私が選んでいる方はJetBrains PyCharm Community Editionです。PyCharmはチェコ共和国の会社：JetBrainsでPythonプログラミング言語をプログラミングし、分析するために開発したプラットフォ―ムです。こちらはJetBrains Pycharmのウェブサイトです：https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/

PyCharmをインストールした後に使用者はPythonでプログラミングをできますが、PIL画像データベースはまだ使いません。PILを使いたい場合はpipをパソコンのCommand Promptで使うは必要があります。以下はpipをパソコンで使える方法です。始めてPythonのインストール場所を見つけて、場所のアドレスをコピーします。後でWindowのControl Panelを開いて、システムへ行って、詳細設定（Advanced System Setting）へ入って、環境変数をクリックして、そして新しいPathを新規します。新しいWindowの中に変数値の中にPythonのインストールをする場所を入力します。その後Window Command Promptでpipが使えます。

以上の手続が終わったらCommand PromptでPipを使えます。現在Windows Command Promptを開いて、pip install Pillowを入力します。その時点でパソコンが自動的にPillowをインストールしています。その後PythonでPillowを使えます。

今まで私はPillowで画像の色や、解像度の変更をできます。例えば現在画像のRGB値に基づいて変更しました。以下のプログラムは上記の条件を実現します。#の後ろに文章は前にコードの説明です。

from PIL import Image #このコードはPILデータベースから、Imageをプログラム中にインポートします。

im = Image.open("画像の位置")＃imの機能は画像を開きます。
rgb_im = im.convert('RGB') #im画像色のフォーマットはRGB(Red, Green, Blue)に変更します。
size = rgb_im.size #sizeはrgb_imの大きさを声明します。
im2 = Image.new('RGBA', size)#im2のフォーマットはRGBA(Red, Green, Blue, Alpha)、そして大きさは先に声明したsizeの同じく大きさです。

for x in range(size[0]):
    for y in range(size[1]):
        r,g,b = rgb_im.getpixel((x,y))#画像中にすべてのピクセルの色の資料をもらって、r, g, bに保存します。

        if (r >= 200) and (g <= 100) and (b <= 100):
            r = 255 - r#Redの値を反転します。
            g = 255 - g#Greenの値を反転します。
            b = 255 - b#Blueの値を反転します。

        else:
            r = 255#Redの値を255になります。
            g = 255#Greenの値を255になります。
            b = 255#Blueの値を255になって、色が白になります。

        im2.putpixel((x, y), (r, g, b, 0))#imのサイズをxとyの最大点になります。色をr, g, bの新しい値になります。

im2.save("新しいファイルの位置")#新しく変更された画像を保存します。

そして以下2枚写真は元の写真と上記プログラムの結果です。

他の結果は写真を合わして貼り絵。以下三つの画像はプログラミングと貼り絵です。

from PIL import Image

list_im = ['第一画像の位置', '第二画像の位置', '第三画像の位置']#配列の内容は三つの画像の位置
imgs    = [ Image.open(i) for i in list_im ]#imgsは配列中に三つの画像

# 以下のコードは一番小さい画像を選んで、他の画像のサイズは一番小さい画像サイズになります。
min_shape = sorted( [(np.sum(i.size), i.size ) for i in imgs])[0][1]
imgs_comb = np.hstack( (np.asarray( i.resize(min_shape) ) for i in imgs ) )

#横画像を出力します。
imgs_comb = Image.fromarray( imgs_comb)
imgs_comb.save( '横の画像の位置' )

# 垂直画像を出力します。
imgs_comb = np.vstack( (np.asarray( i.resize(min_shape) ) for i in imgs ) )
imgs_comb = Image.fromarray( imgs_comb)
imgs_comb.save( '垂直画像の位置' )

こちらは画像変更の他の例です：

今回私が展示したプロジェクトはProject JARVISです。プロジェクトのチームメートはJARVISのメインプログラマー：山口聖也です。Project JARVISは最新世代のメガネが要らない多重化可視化技術：ExFieldを使用しています。この研究は白井研究室と日本の会社：富士通アドバンスドエンジニアリングとの共同研究で作成した作品です。VRSJで展示したのは不完全バージョンでしたが、体験者達はProject JARVISを楽しんでいました。

私は今回Project JARVISの展示以外では皆さんの発表のビデオを撮ったり、自分の研究のインスピレーションを得るために様々な研究作品を見ました。VRSJは日本国内で有名なバーチャルリアリティの学会なので、沢山の高水準な研究があります。例えば：ビデオからコントローラーで体験者に触覚フィードバックを与える技術、体験者が敵からダメージを受けた時に電撃としてフィードバックを受ける技術、そして食べられるトラッカー：「食べられる再帰性反射材による食べられるARマーカーの提案と試作」等がありました。それ以外の展示は企業からの最新製品です。その中に一番印象深い製品は日本バイナリー株式会社からの8K HMDシステムです。

Rex here, here to give everyone an update of what I have been up to. Just recently I have participated in the Japan VRSJ conference held in Tokushima at Kansai Japan. This is the first time for me to travel to Kansai and also the first time to go on a trip without my mentor Shirai-sensei so naturally I was both nervous and excited at the same time.

This time the project that I was involved in was Project JARVIS, the newest version of ExField. This project was a joint research between Shirai-lab and Fujitsu Advanced Engineering. Despite of the team only showing a partially incompleted version of Project JARVIS, we received relatively good comments and remarks from the visitors. Other Shirai-lab projects that were exhibited alongside with Project JARVIS is the Real Baby Real Family team.

Aside from attending the exhibition as an exhibitor, my other duties involve taking photos of Shirai-lab members’ presentations and check out researches and products in order to get inspiration for my own research. Luckily for me VRSJ is a very famous conference in Japan thus colleges from all over Japan exhibited their newest researches here. Some of the interesting researches include: Edible AR tracker that were meant to be put into food to track their positions, a system that automatically delivers electric shocks to players once they received damage from VR opponents, and a system that automatically generates haptic feedback to VR controllers from videos depending on the detected ground condition in the video (if there is a hole on the floor inside the video, the VR controller will shake violently once the car passes over the hole). All in all I got many new ideas from the many researches and am glad to be here at VRSJ.

SIGGRAPHはアメリカの最大コンピュータグラフィックスとインタラクティブ技術の国際会議です。SIGGRAPHは有名な会議なので、世界中の有名な研究者と開発者と現役のCG製作会社の社員や研究者と会うことができ、色々な先端技術が見れます。そして、SIGGRAPHの中に様々なイベントがあります。例えば：Birds of a Feather、Electronic Theater、Real Time Live等です。SIGGRAPHと同時に開催された国際会議「Expressive 2017」はデジタルアートやコンピュータグラフィックス画像を生成と加工についてのシンポジウムです。

Birds of a Featherは、コンピュータグラフィックスの興味を持つ人々が集まる非営利事業についての会議です。白井先生が主催するBirds of a FeatherはフランスのLaval Virtualの方と日本のIVRCの方が参加していました。私と望月宥冶もBirds of a Featherのセッション内でReal Baby – Real Familyの内容と経験を発表しました。

SIGGRAPHのElectronic Theaterは今年一年の中で最も優秀なComputer Animation Festivalに投稿された動画や、ビデオが紹介されるイベントです。このイベントの長さは2時間ぐらいありましたが、とても楽しかったので、イベント中に私はまったく飽きなかったです。それに、今回の動画は前年のElectronic Theaterより素晴らしかったと思います。

またReal Time Liveはその場でお客さんの前で新しいコンピュータグラフィックスのシステムをデモしているイベントです。

私が参加したの他の重要なイベントはSIGGRAPHのレセプション（懇親会）とアートパーティです。今回のSIGGRAPHレセプションはカリフォルニア科学館で開催されました。カリフォルニア科学館の中には本物のスペースシャトルと衛星があったり、様々な展示があるので、私は良い時間を過ごせました。それに、科学館の中で、自分の友達と会えて、昔話をしました。アートパーティはSIGGRAPH Art Galleryの参加者を集めて、挨拶するパーティーです。私は1年前にSIGGRAPH AsiaでArt Galleryをボランティアして、Art Galleryの友達に会いに行きました。

BabyチームはSIGGRAPHのEmerging Technology部門で展示していました。今回の体験者は技術開発者とコンピュータグラフィックスの専門家たちですから、私達は沢山有用な助言をもらいました。これはBabyチームの進歩にとても有益だと思います。

VRScoutという有名なメディアにも扱われました。

www.facebook.com/vrscout/videos/1389039444484406/

So Rex here back for another report on my most recent activities. Also a special thanks to Takaya Asano for helping me editng my Japanese version this time. On July the 26th the Real Baby – Real Family team went to American once again for the SIGGRAPH conference in order to exhibit the latest version of our product.  Aside from SIGGRAPH I was also scheduled to attend Expressive conference, a 2 day conference co-hosted with SIGGRAPH in the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Just in case people do not know what SIGGRAPH is, it is the largest computer graphics conference in the world and attracts thousands of researchers, developers, and company employees per year. This is actually my 4th time in SIGGRAPH, with my first time being 2014 as a paper submitter but not on-site attendee. My first in-person SIGGRAPH was back in 2015 when I participated as a student volunteer.

As expected from the biggest Computer Graphics conference in the world, SIGGRAPH is full of many different kinds of talks, demonstrations, and gatherings for people to attend. Some of the most significant ones include: Birds of a Feather, Real Time Live, Electronic Theater and so forth. Birds of a Feather is non-commercial gathering of developers who got together to share their ideas and projects. All projects are non-commercial in nature and any talks regarding advertisements are forbidden. This year people from Laval Virtual Reality and Japan’s IVRC are also present. Electronic theater is the showing of the best computer graphics animations that are submitted to SIGGRAPH. In my opinion this year’s electronic theater is much better than previous years with the story plot and emotions conveyed more genuine and realistic. Real-Time Live is the live demonstration of newly developed computer graphics software. All demonstrations are done in real time in front of the audiences.

Other events that I attended include the SIGGRAPH opening ceremony and the Art Party. This year’s opening ceremony is hosted at the California Science Museum. Inside the Science Museum are a retired space shuttle and several satellites. Furthermore since I got to see many of my old SIGGRAPH friends I had a very swell time. The Art Party is a party hosted for the attendees of the Art Gallery participants. Since I was a volunteer leader in the 2016 SIGGRAPH Asia, I was invited to attend and there I got to see many other old faces.

Regarding the exhibition of Real Baby – Real Family, since most of the players this time are professionals with much experience in virtual reality and other technologies, we received many valuable feedbacks. We also made some potential network connections. All in all I believe this year’s SIGGRAPH is a resounding success and I am looking forward to next year’s in Canada.

江ノ島クリーニングキャンペーンとは毎年一度、江ノ島の環境保護をするために、ロータリーの会員たちが浜のゴミを集め、ゴミを分別して捨てるイベントです。また、この活動は、ロータリー会員同士の挨拶パーティーも兼ねています。

当日、私と神奈川工科大学に所属する別のロータリーの奨学生2人とは午前7時に本厚木駅で合流して、電車で江ノ島へ向かい、そこで他のロータリーの奨学生と集合し、九時半に会場に到着しました。

この日はとても暑く、日差しも強いので、私は日焼け止めを塗って行きました。

私達奨学生はクリーニング活動を始める前に、挨拶パーティーの準備をしました。食べ物と飲み物、机や椅子を車から運び終わった後に、他のロータリー会員と一緒に江ノ島のクリーニング活動をしました。

その後に開催された挨拶パーティーでは、奨学生の全員は給仕係となり、お客様に食事を持っていきました。このパーティを通して、私は様々なロータリー会員と話すことができ、いろいろな面白い話を聞くことができました。ロータリー会員とお客様は、たくさん私に話しかけてきてくれたため、とても楽しい時間を過ごすことができました。

また先週の金曜日には私は初めて「ロータリー例会」に出席しました。その日は、私は午後5時に研究室を出発し、藤沢駅近くの会議室に行きました。例会では、6年前に起きた福島の東日本大震災の支援活動についての話をしました。そして、私も日本語で自己紹介をしました。

In this blog I will be discussing about my recent activities at Rotary Yoneyama Memorial Foundation.  Before doing that I would like to give a big thanks to Yuya Mochizuki, a fellow Shirai-lab member. He helped me correct a lot of my Japanese sentences and made them more beautiful. Even now I am studying his corrections in an effort to improve my Japanese. Also thanks all other students in the lab: Higashida Marika, Watanabe Sho, Asano Takaya for their proof readings.

As a Rotary Yoneyama scholar it is my duty to attend monthly meetings one per month as well as participating in other mandatory activities the club has.

Last Sunday on July 16th, 2017, me and the other Rotary Yoneyama scholars gathered around Enoshima station to participate in the Enoshima Cleaning Campaign. It is a yearly event where current and past Rotary Yoneyama scholars as well as students who are interested in the club get together and pick up the garbage at Enoshima beach. I was very excited about this event since it has to do with environment protection so naturally I had a lot of fun.

The event started at 9 AM in the morning where scholarship recipients gathered at Enoshima station and walked towards the event location which is at a beach house right beside the ocean. We started setting up the event by taking food, drinks, as well as furniture from a car belonging to another Rotary staff. The sun was pretty intense that day but thankfully I bought my sun screen with me so all is well.

I was able to meet many different past Rotary scholars and together we performed a quick sweep around the beach area. My Rotary contact person, Takagi-sensei was also present at the beach. We talked about my recent activities and researches. Soon afterwards current scholars began cooking and serving lunch to well over 15 tables of guests. It was busy and work was demanding but the end result was well worth it as the atmosphere was joyful and full of laughter.

Near the end of the activity the current scholars participated in a post-event discussion, a common Japanese practice to discuss what could be improved upon for next time. Afterwards we resorted garbage into their respective bags and hauled the bags into a nearby dumpster.

My second Rotary event this month happened just two days ago on Friday July 21st when I participated in my first progress report. Instead of reporting my research progress however, I was asked to do a brief introduction. The Rotary staff also talked about the Great East Japan Earthquake that happened six years ago back in March 11 2011 and the Nuclear Reactor accident that happened afterwards. Other topics include growth of Rotary Yoneyama world wide and the growth of female members within the club. All in all I was very touched by the amount of activities Rotary Yoneyama Memorial Foundation is involved in and am hoping to get more active within the club myself.

6月28日から、7日4日まで、白井研究室のManga GeneratorチームとReal Baby – Real Familyチームの6人はアメリカ最大のアニメ展示会：Anime Expo 2017(AX2017)へ参加するために、アメリカのロセンゼルスへ向かいました。今回のAX2017での展示「日本キャラVR祭」は集英社が東京近郊のVR会社を招集して、共同で出展した展示です。Manga Generatorの共同展示者は株式会社プログマインド(ProgMind)です。

私達は6月28に羽田空港でProgMindの安藤さんと合流して、6月29日の午前1時の飛行機に乗って、6月28日午後6時ぐらいにロセンゼルス国際空港(LAX)で着きました。そこから、展示会場近くのAirbnbへSuper Shuttleで行きました。今回のAirbnbは中心市街窓から、ロセンゼルスの摩天楼や道を見ることができます。屋上でも綺麗な風景が見えます。

出展の準備は6月29日から、6月30日までです。準備は疲れるし、時間が沢山かかりますが、私は展示会場で働いていた係員と話せて、大きなナルトの気球を膨らませるところを目撃できました。それに私と宥冶は有名なスーパー：Targetへ展示に必要な機械を買いに行きました。

今回は展示中に色々なコスプレイヤーがいました。例えばドラゴンボールのトランクス、人造人間18号、ナルトの暁、ワンピースのルフィなどです。展示会場には、他の展示も沢山ありましたが、私は毎日11時から、7時まで自分のブースで働き、休み時間は1時間だけだったので、他の展示を体験する時間がありませんでした。しかし、Manga Generatorは1日で200回ぐらい体験され、4日間合計で711回も体験されました。体験者からの評価も上々です。ブースで働いていた渡邉翔と安藤歩美もとても嬉しそうです。

展示の最終日はアメリカの独立記念日でした。その日の夜に屋上で美しい花火を見ました。

私達は最終日の晩御飯をOculusの会社の創始者Palmer Luckey氏と一緒に食べました。Palmer氏は今24歳ですが、彼はもう国際的に有名な会社の社長です。私も頑張ります。

Alright, so it’s been a long time since I have updated this blog. Things have been very very busy and I was left with little time for myself. This update is a long one however, as a lot of stuff has happened in the past month.

On June 28th, 2017, me and 4 other Shirai-lab members along with Shirai-sensei and Ando-san, an alumnus of Shirai-lab travelled to the Los Angeles International Airport to attend the Anime Expo 2017. Anime Expo, or AX for short, is the largest Anime exhibition in the entire North America. This time the exhibition, “Japan Character VR Matsuri” is a joint exhibition between Shueisha, the parent company of Shonen JUMP and  the Tokyo VR startup companies. Together our group consists of some 20 people from Japan and we occupied a large area in the Anime Expo’s Entertainment Hall. This is the first time for me to attend an Anime convention in America so naturally I was very excited.

Our Airbnb is located in downtown LA some 20 minutes of walk from the Los Angeles Convention Center, the hosting site for AX 2017. The Airbnb is actually a penthouse located on the 20th floor of a building, giving us very good view on a large section of Los Angeles. From my bed which was located right beside the windows I can see neon signs such as U.S. bank on top of the other skyscrapers. To make things better the penthouse has a pool located on the 5th floor and from the top of the penthouse one gets to enjoy beautiful sunset and sunrise.

The setup of the exhibition lasted for two days from June 29th to June 30th. The setup is tedious and long as we have to build an entire exhibition area from scratch but after much hard work the team managed to get it all done. Afterwards I accompanied my two teammates: Sho Watanabe and Ayumi Ando to Target to get some printers and TV sets needed for the exhibition tomorrow.

During the entirety of Anime Expo 2017 me and my teammates pretty much stood in front of our booth, Manga Generator VR JUMP and advertised our interactive comic generator system. This being said I still had a blast mainly because how well received our system was. Throughout the day we had an endless amount of guests just dying to play our game. The waiting line literally never stopped and I actually wished I had some time to catch my breath but that never happened. In fact, I had to ask visitors to stop coming into our booth at the end of each day because we simply can’t accommodate everybody and still pack up on time. As an experienced exhibitor I know that we have broken our previous attendee records and turns out I was right, everyday our game Manga Generator was played almost 200 times when the previous record was a mere 100 times on a good day. Despite of how tiring the whole experience is we all had a tone of fun.

The last day of the exhibition was the American Independence day. That day me and other Tokyo VR startup guys got to eat lunch with Luckey Palmer at a nearby restaurant. We also get to enjoy fireworks on top of our penthouse.

先週の木曜日に私と同じ研究室の東田茉莉花はTechShop Japanのワークショップに参加するために東京都へ行きました。TechShopは本来に2006年にアメリカのカリフォルニア州のメンロパークで開所しました。今まで世界中に4ヵ国、合わせて14箇所あり、世界的に有名な工房です。最初に私達はTechShopと富士通の方と自己紹介したり、TechShopの案内をしたり、そして色々な機械を使いました。後に私と茉莉花は富士通の方に取材しました。ワークショップを終わった時に、私達を自分で作った作品を持って帰りました。

先週の金曜日に私とBabyチームのチームメートを一緒にTokyo VR Startup開所式へ参加しました。その開所式はスタートアップ企業した方の集会です。集会中に私は別の会社の方と喋れたり、名刺を交換出来たり、そして将来の目標についての意見交換ができたので、私はこんな集会が好きです。

Alright so I know that it’s been a long time since I updated this blog and my apology for the recent lack of new contents. Truth is I’ve been very busy with all kinds of company visits, gatherings, and meetings thus I barely have time to myself let alone updating this blog. This being said, I will be discussing about two of the events I have attended recently.

Last Thrusday me and a lab friend of mine Marika Higashida went to the TechShop Japan located at Tokyo in Japan. TechShop is actually a DIY workshop that started back in 2006 in Menlo Park, California. Now it has expanded all over the world with 14 offices spread across 4 countries (the other two countries being United Arab Emirates and France). As the name suggests, TechShop is a work space with many different types of equipment allowing people to use for a fee. The different types of equipment include textile machines, plastic molding machine, electric saws, and spray painting equipment just to name a few.

We began our visit by a brief self introduction between me and Marika, people from Fujitsu (since Fujitsu is involved with funding TechShop), as well as people from TechShop. Afterwards we are lead around TechShop and introduced to all different types of machines as well as brief demonstration on how to use some of them. The TechShop and Fujitsu company employees are even kind enough to let us create our own tool kits to take back as souvenirs. At the end of our visit me and Marika interviewed two of the Fujitsu staff about their career and what they do as well as some of the projects they are currently working on.

The next event I am going to describe actually take place just a day later when me and the rest of baby team members visited Tokyo VR Startup New Company Welcoming Ceremony. It is a party dedicated to new VR companies that will be starting their own businesses soon. During the party I was able to talk to many of the startup staffs such as MyDearest, EXPVR, the makers of Sushi Bar, as well as sponsors such as Tokyo Game Show, Microsoft, and HTC. All in all although these events can be busy and tiring, I still had a lot of fun talking to people from different backgrounds and exchanging ideas.

集英社の入り口が様々な漫画についての製品がありました。例えば：ワンピースとナルトのポスター、そして夕崎梨子の等身大プラモデルです。集英社の中の廊下もたくさんのマンガプロダクトがありました。記念にお土産までいただいてしまいました。好きなマンガのキャラクターグッズを1つ選んでくださいと言いました。私選んだの製品はナルトのジャケットです。

その後、大きな会議室で、プロジェクトの提案を行いました。会議中に皆、色々な話題を喋りました。例えば集英社海外のマンガ展示、アメリカでの市場の可能性、それにVRとマンガの可能性。最後に、私達は近くにのレストランへ行って、遅くまで、関連の分野の仲間と喋ったりしました。後に私と浅野は一緒に電車で本厚木駅へ着いて、歩いてアパートへ帰りました。

This Thursday on May the 18th, me and the rest of Shirai-lab went to Shueisha. inc, the most famous manga magazine “JUMP” and its company . As a big manga fan myself, I am naturally very excited to have the opportunity to go on this pilgrim as Shueisha can easily be considered as the holy place not just for Japanese comic fans, but for any Japanese pop-culture enthusiasts.

Shueisha is located near Jimbocho station in Tokyo. At the entrance are various manga related products such as One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach’s posters, a life sized anime character wearing a two piece swimsuit, as well as many other goods. What’s more, the entire Shueisha is filled with manga posters, anime character board cut outs, and more life sized Jump characters. At the end of our tour we are all allowed to pick one Jump Anime merchandise and the one I picked is a Naruto Jacket.

Afterwards we went inside a large meeting room to discuss possible collaboration between Shirai-lab and Jump. Some of the topics we discussed include Shueisha’s exhibitions in England, France, America, and other countries as well as future opportunities abroad. After the meeting the entire crew went to a nearby restaurant and partied till well over midnight. Me and Asano left the place around 11:30 PM where we traveled by train back to Hon-Atsugi and then walked on foot back to our apartments.

この旅行のガイドさんは鎌倉市市役所で35年に働いたの磯崎さんです。彼は今は幼稚園の先生です。それに私のロータリー米山団体の連絡者、高木先生も鎌倉市出身です。今回の旅行中に彼らと鎌倉市の歴史を話ました。

最初に僕たちは鎌倉文学館へ向かいました。あの文学館は丘上にあり、大きくて、綺麗な洋式な建物です。文学館の中に色々な鎌倉市出身の作家と美術家についての紹介があり、鎌倉市の歴史も沢山がありました。文学館を参加した後に、私達を晩御飯へ食べに行きました。晩御飯を食べたの場所は和食と洋食があるレストランです。後に近くの道路を散歩して、うちに帰りました。

On May 13th 2017, me and the other members of Rotary Yoneyama Scholarship Foundations member went over to Kamakura City for a sightseeing trip. Since it was raining heavily on Saturday, I was the only student who can make it to the meeting but because of it, I get to talk to many Rotary Yoneyama officials. Overall I had a lot of fun with the exception of getting myself all wet from the rain.

Our tour guide for that day used to work for the Kamakura City government for 35 years before retiring and becoming a kindergarten teacher. What’s more, my contact person, Takagi-sensei also came from Kamakura. Together the two of them kept on telling us all sorts of stories and lore about Kamakura the ancient city.

Our first destination was the Kamakura Cultural Center which is a western styled house on top of a hill. The cultural center exhibits all sorts of culture related documents about Kamakura ranging from historical scripts to art works and books done by authors and artists from Kamakura. Afterwards we ate out at a restaurant serving both Japanese and Western styled food. Since I do not have to pay for any of the food I had a good feast and during the dinner gets to know the officials a lot more.

私は先週、沢山自分のアパートで眠たり、研究室でプログラミングしたり、Book Offで漫画を読んだり、そして厚木市の至る所で散歩したり、しました。先週の土曜日に白井研究室は厚木市の山で野営ゼミが催されました。白井研究室の卒業生、現役四年生、他に研究室からの四年生、それに白井研究室に入る志望の学生を、三十人の学生が野営に出席しました。火を焚いて、肉と野菜を焼いて、バーベキューを食べて、ハンドヘルドゲームを遊んで、そして野営隣の川中に水で遊びました。皆は午前十時から、午後五時まで無休に遊びました。あの日の天気はとても暑いですが、全員はとても楽しそうでした。それに私は日本人の友達と日本で沢山話し合いました。概ね、野営は良いし、楽しいのイベントなので、とても満足です。

Hello everyone, Rex here, I just got back from the Japan Golden week, which is a long vacation resulted from combining several national holidays together. The holidays that were packed together to form golden week include the Showa Day, Constitution Memorial Day, Green Day (environmental protection day), and the children’s day. This is one of the most important and longest vacations in Japan and because of this Japanese people tend to take their entire family out on long vacations within Japan or abroad. As for me I didn’t go anywhere, simply slept a lot, went to comic shops to read manga, did some programming in my lab, and walked all over the Atsugi city. I actually walked around the city so much that I got bored of it.

On Saturday, May 6th, Shirai lab held a big picnic up on the mountains of Atsugi city. That morning me and a couple of my lab friends met at the Hon-Atsugi station, purchased all the meat we need for the party, and then drove back to the university to organize our supplies before taking off for the camping ground. In total around 30 students attended the event as not only are current lab members invited, but also students who graduated from the lab, other 4th year students, as well as students aspire to join Shirai-lab. We had a lot of fun at the camping ground and I got the unique chance to practice my Japanese with other Japanese students. It was also a joy to meet previous graduates of Shirai-lab and ask them how they are doing now that their job has started.

Lastly this time my Japanese was checked by Takeda, I am surprised by how little mistake I made this time! Overall I made only about three of them.