The scene seemed straight out of a Japanese comic book: a young maiden swathed in a kimono stood demurely under a row of blossoming cherry trees, her long hair flecked with pink petals. Next to her, a samurai warrior wielded a wooden sword.

But this was no manga page: The setting was Brooklyn.

“I’m playing Naminé from Kingdom Hearts!” declared college student Michelle Folvar, 19, as she strolled the Brooklyn Botanic Garden recently.

Folvar is not a performer or movie extra – she’s a dedicated “cosplayer.”

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Farmers in the Midwest have more than doubled their profits since 2005 by selling grains like corn and soybeans, thanks to the country’s biofuel craze.

But Northeast farmers, who primarily raise livestock, have ended up on the wrong side of the tipping scale.

The agricultural shift is having a direct impact at New York City’s Greenmarkets, where farmers are struggling to keep prices down as their fuel and feed costs skyrocket.

Many blame high food prices in the U.S. on the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which called for the amount of biofuels produced in the country to almost double in six years.

The price of corn, the main ingredient of ethanol, soared. Wheat and soybean farmers devoted some of their acreage to corn. In response, the price for those crops also rose.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, soybeans prices have more than doubled, and corn and wheat prices have tripled.

At the same time, gasoline and diesel fuel prices have risen by about 30% and 50%, respectively, since 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Meanwhile, farmers at the Union Square Greenmarket are holding their breath – and trying to hold their prices steady.

It’s far from the national pasttime. But netball, an English-born sport played by 20 million people worldwide, is gaining a foothold in New York.

The Manhattan International Netball Club, which practices in a Chelsea gym, recently played in a national tournament in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

The team members are largely expatriates from England and some of the 70 other countries where netball is played. While women have historically played the non-contact sport, that is changing. The Bronx has its own men’s team.

Bizarro Basketball

To the uninitiated, netball looks like bizarro basketball meets Ultimate Frisbee.

The court is slightly larger than a basketball court, and there are baskets but no backboards. Players can’t dribble, either – it’s a passers’ game. And while each position is zoned, players shadow their counterparts up and down the court. A defender must leave three feet of space once an opposing team member catches a pass.

Netball has long been a mainstay of the Commonwealth Games, and there’s a push to make it an Olympic event.

Locally, Matthias Wilkie, president of the USA Netball Association, hopes to expand the game beyond the expatriate community, by bringing it to schools.

CD sales continue to plummet. Digital downloads are rapidly climbing. And an old musical format is steadily making a comeback.

Audiophiles in search of that warm, grainy sound are getting into the vinyl groove again.

Last year, 990,000 records were sold – a 15 percent increase from 2006, according to the Nielsen SoundScan.

Brooklynphono, a small mom-and-pop vinyl record manufacturing company in Sunset Park, is profiting from this nostalgic musical resurgence. In 2001, husband-and-wife team Thomas Bernich and Fern Vernon-Bernich established a plant on 42nd Street where they press vinyl for independent artists and New York City-based record labels for $1 a record.

For many teens, the prom is one of the most important dates in the high school calendar. However, the excitement is often tainted by financial worries. With costs often running in excess of $1,000, the prom is a big deal in more ways than one.

While some high school seniors are fortunate enough to afford the splurge, many don’t have the money.

That’s where Operation Fairy Dust comes in. Now in its sixth year, the program is designed to help selected young women offset prom costs by providing free gowns.

A ‘Big Impression’

“[It’s] the last year that everyone will know you as that person, in your last dress,” said Saavedra Jantugh, 18, of The New School for Arts and Science, in the Bronx. “It’s a very big impression you got to make.”

Saavedra chose a long black dress with a gem-encrusted neckline that she hoped to make shorter.

Not having the perfect dress often means opting out of the prom.

“Sometimes if you don’t have a dress you don’t even want to go to the prom,” said D’Asia Greathouse, 18, of Catherine McAuley High School in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. “You know the other girls are going to be dressed really elegant and nice.”

60-Minute Scramble

Desha Hagler, 18, also a student at Catherine McAuley, said she had no idea what she would have done had she not been given the opportunity to shop for free at the give-away.

While some girls spend months shopping for the perfect prom dress, Operation Fairydust participants have about 60 minutes.

Most were confident they’d recognize “the one” when they saw it.

“I was looking for a simple dress with a back that showed,” said Ismalis, 18, a Manhattan Occupational Training Center student who decided on a sleek red frock with thin straps. “I just wanted to look pretty.”

With gas prices at a record high and environmental awareness growing, bike use is on the rise in the city. Since 2000, the number of riders has increased 75 percent, according to the city Department of Transportation.

Some new businesses are popping up to help meet the demand. Meet the self-proclaimed “Drug Dealer of Bikes” – a bus driver whose side business is also in transportation. Meanwhile, the folks at Recycle a Bicycle in the East Village are taking donated bikes, fixing and selling them – with profits going toward the group’s education programs.

The city’s tortilla makers are in trouble: Their profits are as flat as their product.

In Brooklyn, where a cluster of factories on the Bushwick-East Williamsburg border form what’s known as the Tortilla Triangle, owners say high sales aren’t enough to help them keep up with rising food and fuel prices.

“We are trying to survive, but it is very hard to continue working when the profit is very small,” said Erasmo Ponce of Tortillería Chinantla on Grand St.

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Since she was a little girl in the Dominican Republic, Flor Diaz dreamed of being a modista, or dressmaker. She is now the owner of a popular dress shop in Corona.

The Queens Economic Development Corporation reports that immigrant business niche markets make Queens the borough most resilient to economic recession. Diaz – armed with needle, thread, and measuring tape – is making ends meet by stitching them together

Their eyes met for little more than a second. “Cool” J.C. Rocwell acted instinctively. He sprang from where he sat and fell into step with the white-haired passer-by. At 6’2”, Rocwell towered above his new friend.

“Hello buddy,” he said as he intercepted the man’s path and pulled papers from the black Polo Sport bag slung around his shoulder. He thrust the bundle towards the captive observer. “Let me ask you a question,” he said. “Do you like poetry?”

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A day after Mayor Bloomberg and Rolex executives hailed a raid on counterfeit designer good shops in Chinatown, enterprising vendors were back hawking bootlegged wares on Canal Street.

Peddler whispered designer names to shoppers snaking along the sidewalk, heralding bargains still to be had – even if many storefronts were indefinitely shuttered.

A vendor named Tun stopped briefly to show a laminated card with pictures of designer bags for sale, and said he’d be right back before slipping around the corner. Reappearing minutes later, he pulled a small package from his jacket and unwrapped a knockoff Louis Vuitton handbag.

A genuine bag of the same size runs $300 to $600 in city boutiques. Tun’s price: $35.

Asked why he immigrated from Vietnam to work on the streets of New York, Tun gushed, “It’s the Big Apple: very, very sweet!”

‘Counterfeit Triangle’

It was anything but sweet the day before for those peddling designer knockoffs from Chinatown storefronts. On Feb. 26, the mayor’s Special Enforcement Unit and cops from the Fifth Precinct seized about $1 million in bogus goods and closed 32 shops in what Bloomberg dubbed the “counterfeit triangle” of Canal, Baxter and Centre streets.

Targeting property owners George and Carl Terranova, police got a restraining order to keep vendors out and began a lawsuit, citing building code violations. The Terranovas, who promptly issued a statement promising to cooperate with the city, must demonstrate that new tenants will sell legitimate goods before the stores can open again, officials said.

Legit Businesses Hurting

The closure of the storefront operations didn’t stop vendors like Tun, who said his boss brings in containers of knockoff goods worth thousands to resell on the street. On a good day, Tun will make $80, from which he pays $15 daily rent for a private room.

Nearby, the Lucky Stone shop was still open, displaying water fountains and carved stone dragons, giving some life to the street amid closed graffiti-laden metal gates on neighboring stores.

Robert, the shop owner, said he was grateful that police supervisors allowed him to reopen after determining his business was legitimate. He did, however, lose a day and a half of business.

“It’s slow today, too,” he said, explaining the lack of open stores had cut foot traffic.

Sitting inside a Centre Street kiosk, the “newspaper man” as he identified himself, said complained that innocent businesspeople suffered when cops shut the entire block for the raid.

“They lose their livelihood. The little guys always suffer,” he said.

In one of the closed shops, an NYPD detective stopped packing confiscated handbags, belts and wallets to talk with two women standing on the other side of a metal barricade set up by authorities. The detective explained in Chinese that the women could have access to their grocery and bamboo shop once they return with letters of permission from various city agencies.

“No illegal!” one of the women declared. She rubbed her eyes with her fists – apparently expressing her sadness to be out of work.

Clear Consciences

Experiencing a different kind of disappointment were Sammie Jones and Patrice Eldridge who came from Texas hoping to find the same Prada bags they had picked up in Chinatown last year. Neither had any qualms with buying bogus bags.

“[The designers are] not really reimbursing the people that are making them. They’re getting made in sweatshops and it’s costing them nothing, then they’re selling them to us at 500 or 600 times a markup, so it doesn’t bother me at all to come to Chinatown and buy the knockoffs,” said Jones.