How Did A-indie Staff Spend the Holidays? Manga, Walks & More

Last Updated on 2026-01-24 by a-indie

Hello, this is the BELONG Media editorial team.

In the previous article, three staff members talked about manga they wanted to recommend. This time, right after the New Year, we gathered again to discuss “How did you spend the year-end and New Year holidays?”

This time, our fourth member, Wakiki, has joined us. When one more member is added, the range of topics expands significantly…

This time, episodes full of variety emerged, from bulk-buying manga, a Showa-retro udon shop, spending New Year’s Eve at an almost-stranger’s family home, to a New Year’s Eve event full of irregularities.

As usual, music talk is kept moderate, and we bring our individual “likes” together to chat casually. We’d be happy if you get a sense of “Oh, so these are the people making BELONG Media.”

Participants: yabori (moderator), Takita, Maririn, Wakiki Illustration: Furidashi Taro

Did you read the previous manga feature?

⏩️“From that masterpiece to ‘grotesque’ buzzworthy titles!?” BELONG Media staff discuss manga they want to recommend

yabori

Wakiki-san, did you read the manga discussion from last time?

I skimmed through it.

Wakiki

yabori

How was it? Was it interesting?

Honestly, I was jealous… I couldn’t participate this time, but I also love manga, so I was reading it thinking “that’s nice” while everyone was talking about their favorite manga. If there’s a second round, I’d like to participate!

Wakiki

yabori

Is there any manga you’d like to introduce?

First of all, the one in my hall of fame is 『うしおととら』.

Wakiki

yabori

Ah, that’s nostalgic! I read it at a friend’s house!

I love it so much I want it in my coffin, and I’ve memorized almost all the lines. Sometimes I replay scenes in my head during work and get teary-eyed… I love it that much. There’s also 『大阪ハムレット』 and manga by 紡木たく, among others.

Wakiki

yabori

Oh! Then this time, let’s start with Wakiki-san, Maririn-san will be third, and I’m thinking of having Takita-kun go last.

I’m like the punchline guy or something (laughs).

Takita

Wakiki bulk-buys 『Dr.STONE』

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yabori

So, Wakiki-san, what did you do during the year-end and New Year holidays?

I went back to my parents’ home. During long holidays, everyone has time, so free trial reading portions of manga increase, right?

Wakiki

yabori

Ah, the app ones.

So I was reading various free ones, and 『Dr.STONE』 was incredibly interesting.

Wakiki

yabori

What kind of manga is 『Dr.STONE』?

In a word, it’s a manga about science. Suddenly all of humanity turns to stone. The protagonist is a modern high school boy who’s extremely knowledgeable about science, and he also turns to stone, then wakes up 3,700 years later when the petrification wears off. By then, civilization has been destroyed. But because he has extensive scientific knowledge, from an environment that’s gone back to the Stone Age, he uses that knowledge to recreate various things once again.

Wakiki

yabori

Oh, that’s the story.

The scientific aspects are interesting. The story too, but also how things we have around us today are made through these combinations.

Wakiki

yabori

I see. Did you read it too, Takita-kun?

I read just the beginning. The protagonist counting numbers the whole time he’s asleep in stone became a meme.

Takita

Even while petrified, consciousness is still working. The protagonist is smart, so assuming this petrification will eventually wear off, but if civilization is destroyed at that time, and it’s winter, he’d be screwed right then. He predicted that from the start. So he needed to know the date and time and wake up in spring, which is why from the moment petrification started, he was counting every second for 3,700 years.

Wakiki

yabori

I see. So that’s how it is. That became a topic.

Because he kept counting, when it wore off he knew the exact date, like year 5000-something… That’s the kind of manga it is. I bulk-bought it and read all volumes, and also, the year-end and New Year holidays always mean gaining weight.

Wakiki

yabori

There are so many opportunities to eat.

Wakiki awakens to Billy’s Boot Camp

Right. So sometimes I was doing Billy’s Boot Camp like crazy.

Wakiki

yabori

You were doing Billy’s Boot Camp (laughs)!?

I did it for about 3 hours, to the point where my mom was like “You’re still doing it?” And despite doing it, when the holidays ended I’d gained 2 kilos (laughs).

Wakiki

yabori

Now that you mention it, I was looking up Billy’s Boot Camp lines recently (laughs).

Why were you looking up the lines (laughs)?

Wakiki

yabori

Billy’s Boot Camp lines are funny, aren’t they? He suddenly says “Victory!”

He does. I do the English version. The Japanese subtitles are probably funny too.

Wakiki

yabori

Oh, there are two patterns.

Yeah, he says things like “airplane zoom zoom”…

Wakiki

yabori

Airplane zoom zoom… (laughs).

Yeah (laughs). So I was reading manga and doing Billy’s Boot Camp like crazy during the year-end and New Year holidays.

Wakiki

yabori and the mysterious udon shop incident: “Two copies of 『ドラゴン桜』 volume 6”

yabori

Now for my story—I went back to my parents’ home during the year-end and New Year holidays, and we decided to go out to eat somewhere. Since it’s a special occasion, we decided to go to a local shop, and there was an udon shop I’d known about but never entered, so we decided to go there.

You went back to your parents’ home.

Takita

yabori

Yeah. So that udon shop looked pretty old and I thought you’d need to brace yourself to go in. First, when I opened the door, I could already see opened cat food. At that point, I thought this is a crazy shop. And right in front of me were three grandmas who seemed very familiar with the place.

Sounds chaotic…

Wakiki

yabori

One grandma said “This way,” so I figured one of them worked at the shop, but I wondered what those other two grandmas were.

Mysterious grandmas (laughs).

Maririn

yabori

Anyway, I was shown to the back room and ate there, and the food itself was normal. But the room felt like a time slip back to the Showa era, and there were three clocks. Timewise, I thought it was past noon, so I looked at the first clock, but it was clearly stopped. I looked at the second clock, and this one was clearly showing a different time. For the third one, I thought surely this one would show the correct time, so I looked, and it was around 5 o’clock. What is this shop, I thought!

That’s an amazing shop (laughs).

Takita

yabori

Those rural eateries have manga, right? I wondered what manga they had, so I looked at the bookshelf, and it was all manga like 『サラリーマン金太郎』 and 『島耕作』, and none of them had volume 1—they were all scattered volumes.

I see (laughs).

Wakiki

yabori

I was looking for any manga I knew, and found 『ドラゴン桜』, but as expected there was no volume 1, and they had volumes 6, 7, 11, and 13. I thought that’s pretty scattered, and felt like there were 5 volumes total, then realized volume 6 was there twice for some reason. Really, what is this shop (laughs).

That kind of shop seems like it would suit your personality, yabori-san.

Wakiki

yabori

It’s super funny, but it wasn’t delicious enough to make me want to go back and eat there again (laughs). If the food had been good, I’d go again, but (laughs).

Maririn’s year-end live event with all-special-lineup irregularities

yabori

What did you do during the year-end and New Year holidays, Maririn-san?

At year-end, I went to an event where Francis from SCHOØL was coming to Japan.

Maririn

yabori

I wanted to hear about that!

That day, I think there was an announcement that Sisters In The Velvet would perform in a special lineup due to a member being sick, but other performers were also sick. It seems many people got the flu that day.

Maririn

yabori

Oh, that’s what happened.

I hadn’t seen most of that day’s performers. Except for Sisters In The Velvet, all the artists were ones I was seeing for the first time.

Maririn

yabori

Oh, it was like that.

So, the next band was originally a 5-member lineup, but I’d seen a tweet earlier saying they’d be 4 members today due to flu, so I moved to the venue and went to watch the live performance that had started, and for some reason there were about 8 people on stage (laughs).

Maririn

yabori

Why did that happen (laughs).

I came in midway, so I had no idea how it came to that. Gathering information from the MC, it seemed the band that went first was from a friendly label. And those members were appearing as support, so everyone blended in so well that I really couldn’t tell who the original members of this band were…

Maririn

yabori

They blended in that well?

Yes. I’ve seen quite a lot of live shows, but I thought I’d never experienced this situation before…

Maririn

yabori

Too mysterious a lineup (laughs).

Right. For the band that performed after that too, I kept asking people nearby “This band doesn’t have a member out sick, they’re originally a 2-member lineup, right?” to confirm each time…

Maririn

yabori

So everything was irregular and confusing (laughs). Francis was originally a band, but came to Japan solo, so he was performing alone.

Exactly. Sisters In The Velvet was originally supposed to be just the vocalist, but they found support members and performed as a band, so really, everyone had a special lineup that day, I think.

Maririn

yabori

So it was actually rare (laughs).

Takita spends New Year’s Eve at his friend’s wife’s family home

yabori

Finally, the long-awaited Takita-kun. What did you do during the year-end and New Year holidays?

Well, I have three things I did, so which one are you interested in?

Takita

yabori

You have three stories?

I had time off from December 27 to January 4, and the first story is about doing crane games and shopping, drinking in Ikebukuro until 2 AM, then walking for 2 hours from there back to Koenji. The second is that I watched 10 movies.

Takita

yabori

You watched 10 movies?

Yes, I went to the theater and watched at home on streaming, just watched movies like crazy. That’s the second one. And the third is spending New Year’s Eve at my childhood friend’s wife’s family home—we’ve been friends since kindergarten.

Takita

yabori

Hm? What’s that situation? Let’s hear about spending New Year’s Eve at your childhood friend’s wife’s family home. That sounds interesting.

That childhood friend, we even lived together for 2 years during college, and he lives in Tokyo now. Before he got married, we’d been spending New Year’s Eve together since high school, and that continued.

Takita

You’re really close.

Wakiki

Yes. After moving to Tokyo, we’d spend it together, and that continued. My childhood friend got married a few years ago, so I thought we naturally couldn’t spend New Year’s Eve together anymore since he has a family, but he invited me saying “I’m spending New Year’s Eve 2024 at my wife’s family home, want to come?”

Takita

yabori

That’s quite an invitation. For you, Takita-kun, it’s like going to a stranger’s family home.

Right. My childhood friend and his wife’s family are so close they go on overseas trips together, so they’re very close. They even had their wedding ceremony in Hawaii, which I couldn’t attend, but they had someone read my best man’s speech there, so the wife’s family knew of my existence as Takita.

Takita

yabori

From the wife’s family’s perspective, there’s this guy called Takita who’s friends with the husband.

So they wanted to meet me once, and invited me to New Year’s Eve the year before last, so I thought I’d just drop by to say hello and jumped in, and we became really close. The wife’s family consists of her mom and dad, two sisters, the mom’s younger sister, and the sister’s husband who’s German but speaks Japanese—a German guy.

Takita

There are a lot of characters (laughs).

Maririn

About 10 of us watched the Kohaku song contest, just drank alcohol and spent time laughing. I thought it would be a one-time thing, but they seemed to really like me, and they were like “Takita, you’re coming this year too, right?” so I was invited again in 2025.

Takita

yabori

Takita has been reserved.

Yes. So I only see that family once a year, and we have complicated feelings (laughs). But we say goodbye like “see you next year” (laughs).

Takita

yabori

The wife’s family is too friendly (laughs).

Right. They’re very friendly and like drinking, so they have no resistance to guests coming. That said, the wife’s younger sister also got married, and her husband was there too, but his friends didn’t come. I’m the only one with no blood relation.

Takita

Friendly but also kind of awkward (laughs).

Wakiki

Well, I’m single, so I spent two consecutive years of New Year’s Eve not feeling lonely.

Takita

yabori

You’ll probably spend 2026 there too.

Right. Since it’s become a conversation topic like this, if they invite me this year I think I’ll participate.

Takita

Takita, Chainsaw Man figures, and getting lost

Takita-san, how was the crane game thing?

Wakiki

yabori

Here we go! Crane games!

For crane games, it was the release day for a noodle stopper of Reze, a popular female character from Chainsaw Man.

Takita

yabori

What’s a noodle stopper?

It’s what you put on top of cup ramen lids, the thing that holds the lid down is called a noodle stopper, and there are figures for various anime characters made for that purpose.

Takita

yabori

Oh, that’s what it means!

It was the day the Reze noodle stopper, a popular character, was being stocked in crane games. It’s popular enough that you have to go first thing in the morning or there’ll be a line, so I went to a Shibuya game center and they said they hadn’t stocked it yet, so I did some shopping in Harajuku and went back to the game center in the evening and there were already 3-4 people in line. I waited in line planning to get it when my turn came, so up to that point it was just enjoying crane games normally, but then at night we were drinking in Ikebukuro. I realized it was past 2 AM, and I said I’d pay for everything.

Takita

yabori

Yeah.

Then my friend said they’d wait outside, and went out. I came down late on the elevator and they weren’t there. They weren’t there, so I looked for them, but couldn’t find them anywhere. My phone battery was dead too, so I couldn’t find them and there were no trains. What should I do? So I walked for 2 hours from Ikebukuro to Koenji back home.

Takita

yabori

Here it is! The walking home pattern.

Walking for 2 hours was no problem, but I’d only walked home from Ikebukuro to Koenji 2 or 3 times, so I didn’t know the way. And I couldn’t use my phone, so I just went by instinct and got home around 4 AM. When I recharged my phone, I was drunk so I didn’t remember, but they said we’d talked about going to Don Quijote after the izakaya to buy eye drops, so they were waiting there.

Takita

yabori

I see.

It was cold, so I walked home for 2 hours desperately.

Takita

yabori

For you, Takita-kun, walking for 2 hours is easy. You’ve even walked for 24 hours (laughs).

What do you mean walking for 24 hours? Is that like a 100km walk?

Wakiki

Yes. There’s an event called Tokyo Extreme Walk twice a year, and I’ve walked 100 kilometers about 5 times in my life.

Takita

yabori

Without dropping out, you completed 100 kilometers, right?

Yes. It’s held every year around May and October, so I’ll probably participate this year too.

Takita

Next preview: ChatGPT and Us

yabori

Alright. Finally, what should we talk about next?

How about the one we talked about before? The ChatGPT one.

Wakiki

yabori

Oh, the “ChatGPT and Us” one.

Lately, I’ve been really enjoying interactions with ChatGPT, so I think I have content I can talk about.

Wakiki

yabori

Then next time will be “ChatGPT and Us”—looking forward to it!

Editor’s Note

This time too, we had lively discussions about topics you wouldn’t expect from music media staff.

Bulk-buying science manga, a mysterious Showa-retro udon shop, a live event with all bands in special lineups, and spending New Year’s Eve at a friend’s wife’s family home…

The moments when everyone’s “likes” and “interesting finds” intersect are truly enjoyable times.

Next time, with the theme “ChatGPT and Us,” we’ll discuss episodes about how we each use AI for fun.

Please continue to follow BELONG Media!

BELONG Media Editorial Team

A music media specializing in indie rock, covering music from Japan, the US, Europe, and Asia. Published 26 issues of “BELONG Magazine,” a music magazine themed around “roots rock.”

In 2021, appeared as a guest on J-WAVE’s SONAR MUSIC. In 2022, launched English sister site A-indie.

Editorial team members draw their nourishment primarily from shoegaze and dream pop.