With so many premieres, I felt like I neglected the fans panels a little this year at Otakon. Since panels is usually the biggest draw for me, I feel a bit guilty. There was a great variety, but one only has so much time. Still beyond our own two panels I did squeeze a few others in over the weekend.

I consider a healthy dose of fan panels part of a balanced convention diet. At some cons my entire schedule is filled with nothing but fan panels with the occasional guest panel if they have an interesting Japanese guest. Plus, as I become more active in the fan community I begin to know more of the people doing fan panels so I sometimes just stop in to support my friends who often do very intelligent panels (or at least entertaining panels). Fan panels have this passionate rawness that makes them unique and special. Sometimes that means you go to some real stinkers but such is the price you pay for some incredibly unique and eye-opening content.

I wrapped up a very busy Friday with Otakon Game Show. I ran into a lot of familiar faces who were waiting to take the qualifying quiz earlier in the day and once I heard Hisui made it on, I knew I had to check it out. It was a packed panel 6 where I was greeted with high energy and a handout with instructions on how to play along with your cellphone. This is what really set this game show apart and it actually worked really well. You simply sent a username to a special number by text (or you could use web if you had it), then subsequently sent your answer of 1, 2, 3, or 4 from then on. While the contestants where contemplating, the audience was doing its own deductions. This also seemed to cut down on people shouting out answers. There was even a leader board and small prizes for the crowd. I made it into the top slots for both rounds, which kinda makes me want to try out for the real show next year! This actually ended up being an unexpected highlight of the con.

Although I have been meaning to do so for a while, I finally got around to trying to be a participant on an anime game show. To be a contestant on the Otakon Game Show you had to complete a 15 question quiz mostly (but not entirely) made up of questions about anime from the last decade. Some questions were multiple choice or fill in the blank but there was one matching puzzle. I apparently knew enough to get into the top 4 positions even if I referred to Rolo from Code Geass as Lelouch’s fake brother. When the other three contestants and I  got on the stage, they had a pretty slick set up that used Buzz! controllers for the contestants while the audience could use their phones to answer alongside us. The setup was mostly like Jeopardy! but there was no penalty for missing a question. The categories were usually pretty amusing including a “Is it a magical girl show, a hentai, both, or neither?” category and a “Name that shower scene” category. And basically I got schooled. I started out strong but as time went on I firmly took last place. Even though I came in 4th I still got a nice assortment of prizes (and traded away my Soul Eater box set for a copy of Armitage III box with another contestant.) Everyone who participated was a good sport and I hope they had a good time. I know I enjoyed myself despite my somewhat embarrassing performance. Also since I could not recognize the Chun-Li shower scene, I was asked to turn in my manhood by several people. What people do not realize is that I never had it in the first place. You can watch my shame here and see me have to run off to the bathroom halfway through the show.

On the more educational side, I attended Daryl’s Remembering Satoshi Kon panel and the Anime and Manga Studies panel. The Satoshi Kon one is just what it sounds like, a celebration of Kon’s body of work which was cut short. The panel was extensively full of fans of the director already so Daryl smartly kept introductory information to a minimum. Instead the focus was on themes and motifs as well as some discussion of Kon’s otaku characters and their evolution. Kon himself was quite a fan and one of the clips goes on to show this perfectly as he tries on traditional samurai armor under the guise of research. While this was a celebration, it was also quite melancholy knowing Kon is no longer with us. Even more academic was the Anime and Manga Studies panel which featured people currently doing research or PhDs relating to the subjects. This panel was less formal than it sounds which was a good thing. Each panelist gave good advice and anecdotes about their work. Subjects that were discussed included anime and manga not being subordinate to another field of study; how not speaking Japanese can affect research; and how studying anime and manga contributes to the fan community. It certainly would give people curious about studying anime and manga a good place to start.

The rest of the weekend saw me going to two different styles of fan panels. First there were the highbrow intellectual panels. I went to the Ani-Gamers’ Fandom & Criticism: The Art of Active Viewing which is one of their war-horse panels. Evan manages to keep it fresh by always having a different person in the third seat and this time it was Elliot Page alongside himself and Ink. The discussion was fairly lively and there was one young gentlemen in the front who was extremely engaged in the conversation. At first I assumed he was totally against the idea of the panel but it was eventually clear that he was just passionate. They had to limit the audience to three responses to each topic or they could have been there all night. Charles Dunbar and Ed Sizemore weighed in their feelings as well. I would have spoken up but I was just on the panel at AnimeNEXT so I already used my Toaru Majutsu no Index, Type-Moon, and Macross 7 analogies enough as it was. While Fandom & Criticism went off without a hitch the Cyborgs, Cybernetics and Metal Men was plagued with problems. The lady running the panel had a Mac that refused to cooperate with the projector so no matter how much the staff tried. But she was a champion and still did a good panel despite no longer having her visual backup. She started with a quiz on the truth and lies about real world cybernetics that showed that while we don’t live in the Ghost in the Shell universe we might not be that far off. She went into the controversies that cybernetics bring up in real life and what they reflect in modern society about our hopes and anxieties for the future.  The interaction between the audience and the panelist was good and I would like to see the panel again when everything was working. Even though he was a guest, I am throwing Roland Kelts’ Japan’s Intellectual Property Problem panel in this section. He started with a look at what IP is and how the Japanese and American view the protection of such rights is very different. This of course has led to many conflicts which is only exasperated by the fact that American anime fandom is a fandom built on piracy. Of course someone in the audience had to make the defense of piracy argument but in his defense he was much more polite and rational than most people on the Internet with that same stance. Christopher Macdonald was in the audience and piped up that physical media sales are in a major decline and streaming video profits are still chump change for most titles. If nothing else the conversation about the revenue sharing licenses explains why ANN retires certain streams after a while.

And of course, we ran our own panels, too. I was quite worried about Best Manga You Never Read having a Friday 9AM time slot because of past years with panelists and attendees being able to get in the building early. No need to worry though, Otakon was on top of it! We were able to pack panel 4 that morning. This was also a bit frightening to be honest. Once again this panel focused on TokyoPop titles that are either forgotten or sold so badly as to be canceled. Unfortunately, since the panel was first thing were weren’t able to scope out what series were in the dealer’s room. Some titles got crowd reactions like Sgt. Frog but for the most part I think we were able to give people new things to check out. The crowd was smaller, but still attentive, for Investigating Detective Anime. This was our third time running it so we are finally getting the hang of it. This is an introductory panel so we are still contemplating doing something a bit more advanced as some point. There was a lot of good questions and discussion after we finished our presentation, too.

I did not just go to high-minded panels where academics pondered complex concepts from ivory towers while smoking pipes and drinking brandy. I also went to some down and dirty fun panels. I unfortunately started my fun panel run with the Let’s Play Ero-ge! panel. I was hoping to learn about a few obscure but story rich porn game titles. The problem was this panel had two distinct sections. One was very strong and one was very weak. The part that I cared the most about was weak: the actual explanation of eroge was slapdash and shallow. They really only mention three titles and their guide to finding and installing games was full of important holes. They did not even mention how to use AppLocale which is vital in the installation and use of Japanese games and is often the most tricky part of getting into eroge. The strongest part of the panel was when they played Yume Miru Kusuri while selected audience members dubbed the dialog. At this point, the audience was really having fun and the panel worked well. They should just drop the pretense of being educational and just make the whole panel a “Lets dub some eroge” panel. It would be more honest and far more popular. On a lighter note, I saw the Gyaru Culture Revealed panel. The panelists looked at both the Gal culture in Japan and how there is a small but vibrant Gal community in the U.S. as well. It was informative look at the history of Gal culture and how western fans have made it their own. They even did a makeup demonstration. They were obviously big fans of the Gal lifestyle and it showed.

Having to choose between the many mecha panels, I went to the What Makes Gundam Great panel to meet up with some friends I don’t normally see. The panel was mostly interesting to me as a way of gauging the pulse of the Gundam fan community. Even though it was an introductory panel, almost everyone in the room was a decently hardcore fan. So as the panelist went through the Gundam series you got a good sense of what was popular and what had its haters. Of course Zeta got nothing but cheers but what else to you expect from an audience of hardcore Gundam fans. The two shows that got the most hate were SEED and AGE. I already talked about Age at length on the blog but I did get an interesting insight about SEED. The guy running the panel mentioned that SEED was very popular among non-mecha fans. Is SEED’s more mainstream popularity why it gets all the hate it does from the hardcore Gundam fans or is that putting the cart before the horse? Of course there was one guy with a very Nazi like uniform and a Zeon flag shouting “Sieg Zeon!” the whole panel. You know, just in case someone had not been scared off by crazy Gundamn fans by the point. And from one form of insanity to another I went to Anime’s Craziest Deaths. I was going to go to the Manga Gamer panel but since some my suitemates were holding me a place in line I decided to go to Anime’s Craziest Deaths. I was a bit depressed after losing the Aniplex raffle so watching people being eviscerated picked up my mood. Daryl’s clip show panels are usually very entertaining and this was no exception. It was full of bloody goodness with people dying in the most spectacular manner. It was heavily 80′s-centric but that is when you tended to get your most entertainingly gratuitous deaths. I would be curious to see it again in a few years to see what Daryl adds and removes as the panel evolves.

Fan panels are the heart of conventions and Otakon goes to such lengths to create a quality fan experience. This fan produced programing is what sets them apart from the other big conventions around. While there were some questionable scheduling decisions, there was a robust amount of panels to attend all times of the day. A great job was done by all! Thanks everyone for coming out! Please fill out the feedback form from Otakon if you have time.

I think I went to a good selection of fan panels this year. This did not stand out as a the best line-up Otakon has ever had, but I don’t think it was as weak as I heard some people say it was. I had a good time and most of the panels I did not like were mostly a matter of not being what I wanted rather than being flat-out bad panels. Of course I always miss out on panels due to various running around. I am curious if anyone went to any of the following panels: The Weirdest Games You’ve Never Played, Deculture! A Macross Panel, Mythbusters: Anime Edition, Underrated Mecha Anime, Toei Tokusatsu, or the Madoka panels. If you saw those panels, would you kindly leave me a comment on what you thought? I would appreciate it.

When it comes to panels AnimeNEXT has its own draw as a mid-sized convention. While they will not accept any darn panel they are pretty fast and loose with what they accept as long as you make a convincing argument. It makes it the perfect place to test out new panels, play with old ones, or try radially unusual topics. All four panels we ran were either new panels or majorly overhauled from the last time we ran them. At the same time the convention is big enough that most panels get a good draw no matter how esoteric. But don’t let me fool you into thinking AnimeNEXT is the amateur hour. There are some great high-level panels as well as wildly popular clip show presentations. AnimeNEXT has a solid enough panel lineup so that you always have something do.

AnimeNEXT is a place of familiar faces, even if you’ve never spoken to them directly. This is never more true than when attending panels. You get a variety of veterans who run a number of panels old and new. I like to think we are included in that bunch by this point as well. But there are also new people throwing their hats into the ring.

Usually the most packed panels are always the clip show panels. The Best Of Martial Arts Fight Scenes 2: The Rematch was a selection of fight scenes from various martial arts movies. Since it was just videos of the fights it was all killer and no filler. The guy running the panel  would give the clips some set up and then jump fight into the action. Apparently every time the guy in charge runs this panel he picks a different theme and this year was pretty clever. Each of the clips was part of a duet. At first he would show a pair of martial artists fighting in one movie and then the second clip would be the same actors in a different movie fighting again but as different characters. It was an inspired idea and rather well executed. I also went to the AnimeNEXT classic clip show panel of These Are A Few Of My Favorite Scenes. I am surprised they put it in a workshop room as panels like this can usually fill an event hall. The panel was amusing as always but we only saw he first hour. I wish I could have stayed longer but we had to drive home and we were all tried as it was. The Yakitate!! Japan clips were hysterical and I always enjoy more attention being paid to the Secret of Kells. Always a great panel and always has something new to see. Fanthropology: Behind the Study of Fandom was a Charles Dunbar panel so it was done professionally with a sense of fun. The panel looked at anime fandom and the unique challenges and benefits to its study. Charles interacted with the audience quite a bit. I myself would have piped up but there was almost always three of four people who had something to say about any given topic so I just let them talk.  It is always interesting to see anime fans talking positively about fandom as opposed to the less than bright picture the internet paints. My favorite panel of the convention was the JoJo’s Posing School panel. It was simply brilliant. Based on the Jojo’s Posing School in Japan the idea was to learn how to strike the insane poses from the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure manga. At the same time as the panelists were teaching you the poses they also taught you about the manga. It was great because the interactive nature of the panel made everything fun and more likely to stick in your head more than any lecture on the manga would. It even changed the way I look at doing panels. I will add some element of interactivity to any panel I do in the future after seeing how effective it was. I don’t think every panel I do will be this interactive but I am sold on the principle. Plus it helped wake me up Saturday morning because I sorely need some pep. If you see this panel on the schedule of any con you go to I highly recommend it.

One of the earlier panels on Friday was Inside the Industry, I wasn’t immediately sure what it was going to entail but decided to pop in before going off to do our first panel of the convention. Robert Axelrod and Leah Clark hosted what essentially was an invitation to ask them whatever you wanted to know about the American voice acting business. Mr. Axelrod was a hoot as he told some stories. Like many others he started out to be a traditional actor. One job offered to send him to do voices in Japan when he was just 19-years-old, but he turned it down and didn’t end up voice acting till many years later starting with a show called Banner the Squirrel. He even did a funny high-pitched voice! Vertical Inc. was the only company to be running a panel at AnimeNEXT that I saw. There was much GTO talk as it expands their manga line in yet another new, and unexpected, direction. Though Mr. Chavez said this has been his hope all along as he is a big Onizuka fan. He also showed off the first couple Drops of God covers and the sadly final book of Black Jack which is a departure from the current designs but isn’t set in stone yet. While not there in any official capacity, the American Animation folks showed off what is upcoming. This seemed like a good route since there is a massive amount of works, so picking a theme was a good call. Some of the titles were the new installment in the Avatar franchise, Legend of Korra; Thundercats which people were excited about but I still maintain looks bad; Tin Tin with a lot of big names behind it; and a few different DC superhero titles. They also talked about Sym-Bionic Titan, which is not upcoming but absolutely deserved to be discussed. I was a bit sad that when I brought up Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated, no one seemed interested. It also made me realize that the panel was really favoring action cartoons, rather than embracing the whole of American works, but that may be for the best at an anime convention.

Anime in the 90s seemed like revenge of the 2009 version of the As The Otaku Grows panel (which was also at this con and apparently is still horrible according to Ink). [updated 06/19/11] It was basically a panel about how 90s anime was the best anime ever which is always a claim that makes me roll my eyes. It is worth nothing that when they say 90s anime they really mean anime that was released in the US in the 90s as opposed to anime from the 90s. They pretty much wanted everything to be Cowboy Bebop. While we all wish everything could be that good it clearly ignores the classics before the 90s and the good shows that have come out since then (as well as all the garbage that came out in the 90s.) I think the most telling sign of why they thought as they did was no one on the panel was watching the Noitamina block. Also someone in the audience brought up MD Geist as an example of superbly crafted anime. Everyone in our little crew physically reacted to that amazingly insane statement. Speaking of insane the Tenshi ni Narumon: Anime Under the Radar was quite unexpected. I really enjoyed Tenshi ni Narumon but that show is hardly popular so I was curious to see where this panel was going. The panel was run by a professor whose daughter got him into anime. He decided to try to promote this cute little series at cons to raise awareness about it. Since he teaches about fables and mythology most of the panel was analysis of the story, themes, and symbolism. It could be a little dry at times and feel like a lecture but it was a distinctly unique approach to looking at the series. He did have a lot of clips to back up his points and throw some energy into the panel. I will say my biggest problem was the panel was filled with major spoilers. I think that an intro panels should avoid major spoilers when it can but to each their own. I also went to the Fandom Podcasting: An Overview panel because I always go to podcasting panels. It had Jefferson from the Otaku Generation podcast. Jefferson always strikes me as the most awkward member of the current cast of the podcast and since this was his first panel it started off  really slow. But eventually Matt from the podcast threw in a little help and Jefferson started to loosen up and the panel fell into place. Narutaki sort of threw off the panel by over-examining one slide with the various types of fandoms in podcasting but I think we all had to know that clickie podcast was. The most surprising fact we discovered was over half the audience was not just podcasters. Since most podcasting panels are made up solely of podcasters it was an interesting change of pace.

I was quite curious about Otaku on a Budget since I’ve oft thought of doing something similar myself. This panel run by Natsuki from NaruNatsu was fun, if a little scatterbrained, and her focus was mostly on how to save for conventions and at the convention itself. As a cosplayer she also had quite a few tips in that area which I know very little about. She also told a cute story about how she had only just met the two other girls on the panel with her. This panel was fun all three days of the con so I wonder how the other sessions went. The Anime Openings and Closings panel was a little less successful, but had some good elements. The big issue arose after he showed Astro Boy and Lupin openings, good start, but then jumped almost 30 years into the future for the rest of the panel. He had some other good pieces like talking about Ali-Project who does many openings and discussing dancing themes. Any of these subjects could have probably been their own panel honestly so he was only able to briefly touch upon them. I got the feelings he was just more familiar with modern anime, but it was a good attempt. There were two panels stressing opinions Fandom and Criticism and Anime Incorrect. Ani-Gamers Evan and Ink as well as Hisui sat down to have a rather philosophical discussion with each other and the audience in Fandom and Criticism. Everyone watches anime differently, but watching it thoughtful can create en enriching experience. Questions were posed about how many episodes you give a show to grab you; anti-intellectual fans; and about pinpointing what exactly you liked or didn’t about a show. There was a lot of audience discussion and I threw in my two cents now and again as well. A less academic session occurred Friday late night with Anime Incorrect, a rif on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. This panel too had some familiar faces like Greg from Reisen Goes to School by Bus, Scott V. from Anime Almanac, and Evan from Ani-Gamers. The folks on the panel took on such controversial subjects as the new live action Akira and Bill 156 (The Tokyo Youth Ordinance Bill). It took a little while to warm up but things started to get more lively as the audience and participants got comfortable with each other and debates started to heat up.

I think all our panels went well overall. They all experienced some technical difficulty but that is Reverse Thieves way. Some of our panels were in workshop 2 where there was no projector. This meant that our the Best Manga you Never Read panel was just us talking. We had run this panel before but because of recent events I decided to make the selections all under-appreciated or forgotten Tokyopop titles. I figured now was the best time to talk about them before they became near impossible to find. Despite the lack of graphics the panel went well and I think we got some good responses.  I finally got to test by infamous Type-Moon: Unlimited Panel Works panel. I got a projector for my panel but I started about 10 minutes late do to set up problems. This meant I cut a lot of the introduction to the plot, themes, and characters of the assorted works of Type-Moon as most of the audience knew the score. Plus I had an audience filled with some real wisenheimers so jumping to the obscure stuff was probably for the best. But while the audience may have been cracking wise but they were enthusiastic and supportive. It gave the panel a good flow back and forth as we celebrated the collected works of my favorite Japanese creators.  The Q&A at the end was sort of no holds barred discussion with a mixture of very silly question and some actual real deal questions as well. My general feeling was the panel was good but needs some work for bigger cons. I might run this panel again at small cons and run a more advanced Type-Moon: Mystic Eyes of Information Perception at bigger cons.

Our own panels had good turn outs and good feedback from the audience. It is always nice to talk with people after to gain even more tidbits of knowledge and maybe even make some friends. Our Investigating Detective Anime panel was more refined than the version we ran at Genericon. We added clips in, which cut down the number of shows we could discuss. I’m a little on the fence about how to get a good balance. Overall, it went well but we will still be doing some tweeking before presenting it at Otakon. Brand new to our panels list was Real Men Watch Shojo, another clips centered panel encouraging people to look beyond the genre classification “shojo” and hopefully show them the variety therein. I talked with a number of people after this panel and got even more suggestions for titles to use in the future. Thanks everyone for coming out!

I totally missed the WTF Moments in Anime & Manga, The Anime Geek Glossary, One Piece Podcast, and Totally Subversive Toons panels. Either I did not wake up in time, was eating dinner, or was shut out. If anyone attended those panels I am curious to know what their reaction was.  Also if anyone who attended our panels has any comments or criticism I am curious to hear that as well. My Type-Moon panel was completely new so I would love to know where to expand and where to cut for future versions. I had a great time with the panels at AnimeNEXT this year. We have a few panel ideas on the back burner that we might test out. I know we are thinking of trying out a Legend of the Galactic Heroes panel. That might just be divine.

AnimeNEXT’s main event for me is usually panels, it makes up the majority of what I do at the con. Luckily this year was another one of great variety and overall competence from a number of sources. While most panels didn’t start on time either due to previous panelists or technical difficulties, the actual knowledge presented was still entertaining.

More AnimeNEXT 2011 posts:

AnimeNEXT 2011: Tweets
AnimeNEXT 2011: General Impressions
AnimeNEXT 2011: Production I.G
AnimeNEXT 2011: Artist Alley

My first Genericon was also my first college convention and by far the smallest con I have ever attended with a head count of 1351. We were also doing two new panels as well as being touted as featured panelists. And to top it all off many familiar faces were in attendance. All of these factors, plus some great people involved, ended up making it a worthwhile and memorable weekend.

Now that I was a featured panelist and have made it to the big times I will try to remember all the little people who helped me get here because that makes it easier for me to make sure they cannot call me. But it all seriousness I was greatly honored to be invited as a featured panelist at Genericon this year. I think along with our fellows guests we were able to bring some amazing presentations to an already traditionally well run college convention. We got to see the Most Dangerous AWO Crew, the stealthy The Ninja Consultants, the professional animators from For Tax Reasons, the harried Evan Minto, and the luminary Ed Chavez. It was a great opportunity to reunite with some old friends from the anime community, sit down at some wonderful panels, eat some great meals, meet some new people, meet the young chap who won the Dirty Pair Box set, and have a great time.

I’m sure for students at RPI the layout was old hat but I had to orient myself fairly quickly as we had one of the first panels on Friday evening. It basically consisted of two halls in two buildings a mere 20 feet apart from each other. Artist alley occupied the floor below one hall while the video game room resided above the other. The giant lecture halls startled me for sure; it seems obvious since it was a college but they were very intimidating anyway. Sounds fairly simple, but the 3D map made it seem more complicated, and what caused confusion was not having the rooms clearly marked as anything besides a classroom (this also caused problems when trying to tell a volunteer just what room you needed help in). There was way more space and rooms than were allowed for use by Genericon so sometimes it was trial and error figuring out which held what. That being said, since it was small it was easy to remember after being through a couple of times.

The convention itself was very cozy but at the same time efficiently laid out which is great when it comes to a smaller convention that takes place on a larger facility. Everything was in two connected buildings and it was simple to walk from one end of the con to the other in a few minutes. I have been to too many cons that were spread out over multiple buildings or are laid out inefficiently so that you have to sprint to get from one event to another. I would have liked if the three panel rooms had all been in the same building but the distance between the three was never enough that I missed anything because of it. I did find it amusing that the tables in artist alley and the dealer’s room were in small classrooms. It made it seem like they were shops in a RPG or a strip mall. There was also a huge table of board games to choose borrow and play. While this was super awesome for people wanting to explore the world of board games it also seems like an invitation for missing pieces.

I must applaud Genericon for their placement of the VIP lounge along with con-ops and staff area which was quiet and remote enough that random con-goers weren’t constantly happening by. We were even able to record a podcast in the lounge which was a necessity as going to and from the hotel was a bit of an undertaking. Things like the dealer’s room(s) and artist alley were a bit forgotten by me actually as the programming was engaging most hours of the day. In any case, I made a special trip to both. There were two small classrooms of dealers, one of which had a decent selection of imported merchandise though it was a tad pricey. Most popular of the vendors seemed to be the one selling Japanese snack foods and drinks. Artist alley was surprisingly bigger than the dealer’s area and consisted of more crafts like knitting than of glossy prints of fan-art. Though the space they occupied was a bit far off from the rest of things.   

This was a convention filled with people who seasoned veterans when it came to panels so I spent most of the convention go from one cool panel to another. There was one group that did bad video game and anime panels. For some reason these bad anime/video game panels are always insanely popular and filled to capacity but are always thrown in super small rooms. It is such a bizarre phenomenon. Both panels were well done even if they decided to target my beloved Fate/Stay Night. On the other hand I could feel the palpable Schadenfreude radiating off Narutaki when they decided to send up the work of my buddy Kinoko Nasu. But the group knew how to take select scenes from the given anime or game and throw on a good comical spin. The same group did a panel on underappreciated gems. King of Bandit Jing in Seventh Heaven stood out the most in all of their selections as something that was better than you might have assumed.

As I mentioned, programming reigned supreme from what I saw and it was very robust. Amazingly, there were very few schedule changes throughout the weekend. For Tax Reasons’ first panel was opposite one of ours but I made it to their second. It was about the animation process and how to get started, sort of anyway, as jokes about it being the worst motivational speech ever were exchanged but everyone learned a little and laughed a lot. Continuing on the animation track was Hetalia History with Walter Amos which is as it sounds. I only caught half of it but just to know a series like that creates history buffs in 14-year-old-girls is both hilarious and heartening. Manga based panels like Ed Chavez’s seinen history was of course fascinating plus you never walk away from a talk with Ed without learning about 15 new things; and Ninja Consultant’s panel featuring as much unusual manga you could cram in an hour was very amusing though I would have liked it to either be slotted for longer or have just a few less titles as they talked a mile-a-minute. Rounding things out was me finally getting to a Touhou panel in an attempt to figure out the phenomenon. I didn’t, as it seemed more structured for actual fans and hearing them go on about the world the only thing I walked away with was that it seemed excessively complicated. But I did come to the realization that all Touhou cosplayers are guys and all Hetalia cosplayers are girls.

Anime 101 started out as Daryl’s propaganda lecture on what is anime and manga and what is not. It was fairly preachy but Daryl did make some excellent points if a bit heavy-handed. The second half was a quick overview of the history of anime. As he stated it is impossible to do anything close to comprehensive overview of anime history in one lecture but it did open your eyes to where to start exploring the history of anime which might be greater than new fans would realize. AWO’s Final Fantasy Debate was a bit more Final Fantasy history than debate. They went through all the numbered Final Fantasy games and what new features each game brought to the franchise. They then did some polling of the audience with questions like what was everyone first, favorite, and most hated games in the series. I think they hoped that asking questions like, “What did you not like about 8?” or, “Why did you like 13?” might cause some arguments but everyone stayed polite and reasonable. For better or for worse the audience realized that how you act on the Internet and real life are very different. It did reinforce Narutaki’s perception that Final Fantasy 9 is the unfairly neglected child of the series. The final AWO panel I saw about state of Podcasting. Daryl was called away for an interview for 2/3 of the panel but Clarissa and Gerald did an excellent job hosting the panel. They talked about how it seemed like podcasting was the way of the future when it really took off. It seemed like blogging or webcomics it would be a way for people to make a living. But as time goes on it seems that with only a handful of exceptions the only people who make money podcasting are people who were already famous. The panel was mostly a conversation with the audience about why they thought this was the case and if anyone had strategies on how to successfully market a podcast. Then general consensus was that if you want to have fun and speak your mind than podcasting is great but if you want to make money you should try something else. I think that the highlight of the panel was Noah’s suggestion that podcasters adapt the stripper model of payment were the podcasters ask for gifts that would benefit the podcasters and the listeners more than straight monetary donations. It was both an intriguing idea and an amusing analogy. Plus it gave us the image of Gerald shaking his money-maker for presents.

This was our first time as featured panelists, though I know some cons don’t really have such a thing, so I hope we were able to live up to such a status. As I have hoped for a while now to do a detective related panel, Genericon seemed like a great place to test it out. I was overall happy with our presentation but am taking the suggestion of adding some video clips. There was extra time at the end and perhaps we’d cut a title or two to accommodate it, but I think it will liven it up. One Piece was run on pure adrenaline since the projector decided to reject my laptop. It was a do or die moment that proved when the chips are down I guess we can deliver! I had fun, the audience had fun, and talking about One piece always puts a smile on everyone’s face. Both new panels need tweaking design-wise but that is something that can certainly be cleaned up before the summer time. Our old standard Anime Recruitment had a nice enthusiastic audience especially for a Sunday. This version of the panel had a bunch of updates that helped a lot so I hope to be using this at cons later this year as well.

As for our panels they went rather well despite the fact that we got the normal curse of the panelist that says that at least one of your panels will always have major technical difficulties no matter how well prepared everything is. Our first panel was about detective manga which ran completely smoothly. The panel was a bit empty but that was mainly because it was the first panel of the con and people were still getting badges for most of the panel. We realized that the panel ran a bit short so we will throw in some more shows or some video clips next time. The One Piece panel had crazy technical difficulties so we had to do the whole panel without the slides but oddly enough it still went over really well. The audience seemed really enthusiastic and engaged despite the lack of visuals. It was mostly made up of fans so I hope we got them to think a bit more critically about the show. The last panel we did was an old classic, anime recruitment. We had updated the panel a bit and added a new category but the fundamentals we still the same. The only major difference was the reaction of the crowd was very different. Usually at anime recruitment we have people who are already hardcore fans who want to know how to get other people into their hobby. This crowd seemed distinctly knowledgeable about anime but seemed more like casual fans. So they seemed enticed to watched some of the shows we mentioned more than were looking to entice someone else. But most of the audience seemed to find at least one show that seemed to pique their interest so it was a success just not in the way it usually is.

I had no idea what to expect from Genericon, but I don’t think it could have disappointed me even if I did. The staff was friendly and helpful, the con-goers were not insane, heck there was no rave! This was my first college run convention and I’m here to say if they were all run like Genericon I’d be stopping at as many as possible. That isn’t flattery, I was genuinely impressed. Amazing job guys!

More than anything I would like to thank Evan Minto and the rest of the convention staff for being wonderful to work with. They were always prompt, courteous, and most importantly organized communicators. The staff made everything run smoothly and made the convention extra enjoyable. Next year I would go back even if I did not have benefit of being a featured panelist. The con was tons of fun and had a wonderful feeling of community and energy. That spirit is the key to success with a college con and Genericon had it in spades.

Big conventions mean equally big panels and panelists. NYCC had some big names in the comics industry talking about what they are doing alongside television and video games properties having high-profile panels as well. Despite all this I tried to stick NYAF side of the convention for panels this year considering the fact we are an anime and manga blog. More than any other aspect of the show it was the panels were I felt I missed out the most due to conflicted schedules. You can see a premiere later down the road but a panel is sometimes a once only opportunity. So here are the once only opportunities I got to see.

The first panel of the convention, when the convention wasn’t official open yet, was one about the problems faced by graphic novels in libraries and the censorship debate of such material. It was ran by one of ALA own who handles these type of complaints on a daily basis. She brought us from the beginnings of comic book censorship and even some comic book burnings in the 50′s up to the present where things like The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian have come underfire in schools. She reminded us that one of the biggest reasons these cases arise is because images have power and can illicit an immediate reaction. In many cases the people filing complaints had not even read the work, but saw an image or two that they found offensive. It was a great short lecture and it helped promote how important a diverse library is as well as the fact that graphic novels are just as important as novels.

Friday always starts with the professional panels. Since I have a press pass I always attend these as they are sometimes the hidden gems of the convention. I started with the Other side of the Table panel. It was a guide to how to self publish and make you way into being a professional comics creator. It had Jimmy Palmiotti, Raina Telgemeier, Bryan J.L. Glass, Carla Speed McNeil, and Carolyn Belefski and was moderated by Joe Carabeo. They talked about how to build an audience and a reputation through interaction between you and your fans and other professionals. They had good advice on how take constructive criticism and when to ignore it. How to balance your art career with whatever your other career you have that pays the bills was invaluable as well as how and when to turn your art career into your only career. Everyone of the panel was lively, had great stories to back up their advice, and the obvious love for what they do that was infectious. It was a great panel for anyone who wants to draw comics for a living.

As per usual I attended many a Marvel panel during the weekend. I use this time to not only see writers whom I adore, but also to catch up on what is happening in the universe as I am always a bit behind. There didn’t see to be as many big announcement for titles or upcoming things but nevertheless the panels were filled with good energy overall. During X-Men they announced a Wolverine and Jubilee miniseries that should have some great insights on their bond and how it is changing. It was also interesting to see them discussing the new Generation Hope and how it could be defining for the young, much like Generation X was. I am always interested in the younger set so I will probably be picking it up. They also announced something called Age of X which perplexed me a bit since they described it as it could be the end of mutant kind, didn’t this just happen after House of M and continued through Endangered Species, etc.? Not a whole lot went on in the Avengers Assembled panel, they did reveal the nanny which was rather amusing for the crowd. I was tempted to ask about the fate of Young Avengers but didn’t really want to know the answer. Cup o’ Joe was immediately after so it was back-to-back madness as both panels were very full. Joe related a story about first reading Brian Michael Bendis’s work and poked at what he felt was his terrible art, luckily he was a writer! The revival of Cross Gen was announced and all the audience members got a special button of it. I was very interested in Mr. Bendis’s new work Takio, a children’s comic, that sounds fun and promising. From Joe’s lips I heard the sad confirmation that Runaways is no more, but perhaps they would show up other places. And of course, as always, someone has to go up and tell everyone on the panel that they think Marvel is terrible and blahblah. And also as usual the room boos and hisses them into silence. Marvel publisher, Dan Buckley, told them simply “Don’t buy our comics then.”

Dead Like Us: Shinigami, Death and Japanese Culture and Castles, Forests and Bath Houses: The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki were both run by Charles Dunbar of Study of Anime. I am always surprised to see that such academic analysis of popular shows gets such a big turn out but Charles Dunbar seems to have a knack for making such concepts accessible to the average person. Dead Like US  focused on how anime looks at Shinigami but touches of all type of Japanese views of death and dying. The panel uses shows like Death Note, Bleach, YuYu Hakusho, and Rin-ne to delve deeper into how the Japanese view death and how anime reflects and plays with these ideas. The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki was an overview of the works of Hayao Miyazaki and his style as a director.  The Shinigami panel was pretty full the Hayao Miyazaki panel was standing room only and it was the first panel on a Sunday. It is one of the few panels that you might not actually get into if you don’t get in line in advance. And the other panel I went to by a person from the anime and manga twitter universe was Unusual Manga Genres by Erin Finnegan with some backup by Noah Fulmor and Ed Chavez. It was an interesting overview of manga titles and genres that either to not get translated into English or are generally ignored when they do. You had unusual sports manga, gambling manga, manga about manga, unusual pet manga and even weirder things like manga about the US military, manga made by cults, and manga on how to get into Tokyo University. It was a good panel to show you that manga is more than shonen fighting and shoujo romance.

Last time around DC premiered their latest animated, Wonder Woman, we had no such luck this year as this con fell in between things (Batman: Under the Red Hood came out a couple of months prior and the Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam isn’t due out for another month or so). However, they did give us some sneak peeks at things and plenty of questions were answered by Bruce Timm. The short pieces we saw starring Superman and Shazam were nicely done, but not overly exciting to me personally. On the otherhand, the All-Star Superman few minutes that we saw were quite incredible and furthered my desire to read the comic, of which about a million people have insisted I need to read long before this was in production. There weren’t a ton of details revealed by questions posed to Mr. Timm. Though a great question of ratings came up when someone asked if they had ever considered doing a rated-R animated. Bruce said they actually had something in the works, but it just didn’t come together, however he did seem interested in pursing such things again.

I had to go see the rather unusual Yoshiki and Stan Lee panel. The panel stated with a video that basically informed anyone in the audience who was unaware of X-Japan of what a phenomenon they are in Japanese music scene. There were clips from shows all over the world and some interviews with the requisite hardcore American fans. The Stan Lee and Yoshiki came out and while they were slightly awkward they had an oddly amusing chemistry.  Stan Lee did his normal larger than life shtick and Yoshiki played a very humble soft-spoken straight man. They announced they were doing a motion comic together were Yoshiki would be a super powered musician. The details beyond that were still in development but they said they wanted a multilingual international release.  Other than that they mostly talked about how great the comic would be and how much they admired each other. I do have to wonder how much of Stan Lee’s doddering old man persona is an act and how much is it him just getting old. After that Stan Lee left and so did about a third of the reporters. The second there were seats free due to the press leaving the Japanese fan girls moved into to fill the seats like sharks smelling blood. The rest of the panel was a Q and A done with Gia Manry. The Yoshiki fans clearly got what they came for when this happened and you could tell they were thrilled to be that close to their idol. Overall I was highly amused by the whole affair even if not much more than the announcement that there would be a collaboration was said.

Anime Recruitment was the absolute last panel of the convention, atleast on the NYAF side of things. The panel before also ran a little over which threw things off by a few minutes. Despite all that, we had a good crowd, certainly more than I was expecting, and they were very responsive. I was happy to see a lot of questions at the end and people grabbing up our suggestions list at the end. There was one girl who was trying to find a show for her boyfriend with a sense of realism, this was a particularly hard question, but wouldn’t you know once she left I though of something that might work, Flag. This time around for the panel I realized some of the titles we assume people have already thought of like Cowboy Bebop are no longer known go-to anime for new fans. I was a little sad to hear this, but it also means that some of our panel needs a little adjusting for the younger set. We were hustled out of the room the moment the clock struck 5 which made it a little difficult for us to chat with our audience as much as we usually like. But it was another success.

Anime in Academia was the solid panel it always is.  I think me and Philip were the only two people in the audience who were not already academics which I found amusing.  But despite not being a trained academic I am always interested in how academia and anime interact in the English-speaking world. Every time I attend an Anime in Academia panel someone asks if the panelists think it is possible they could do anime research at their school. And the answer always is people have done it before, will do it again, and you have a good deal of precedent to make you case for its validly. The other big anime panel I attended was the ANN panel. The panel was nothing like it was scheduled to be in the program guide. It was originally going to be Christopher Macdonald and Justin Sevakis talking about the big changes that were going to be taking place at Anime News Network. But after the Oreimo leak everything had to be changed as Christopher and Justin had to do damage control. Erin Finnegan, Gia Manry, Mike Toole, and Todd Ciolek did a Q and A about their philosophies on reviewing anime and manga. It was a very casual panel and the audience seemed happy despite the fact that you knew many of them wanted some discussion of the Oreimo leak. I will say the one thing that stuck out in my head was they said the worst part of reviewing was watching the mediocre stuff because it was monotonous. But it made me think. Is there any job no matter how amazing that does not have monotonous parts of it? Even with acting, music, and sports you are often doing the same things over and over in a way that can be boring even if you love them. It is an extremely easy thing to forget especially with more glamorous careers. While it was not strictly anime related I did go to the A Geek’s Guide to Podcasting and Blogging panel. While it was all comics podcasters they had some great advice for anyone who was getting into blogging and podcasting. They had the basics on what sites you can go to  for hosting and what equipment you need for podcasting. They had good advice on how to make a show your own in the sea of countless podcasts that exist now, how to promote your work, how to mix being professional with being fun, and how to keep a schedule. While it seems there is much more potential to become a profitable podcast in the comics world the overall message was universal. I got some great tips on how to secure interviews which will definitely be useful in the future.

There was never a dull moment at this year’s NYCC and NYAF. I was impressed by the guests on both sides and was happy to see them so talkative and interested in their fans for the most part. There seemed to be a good handle on the programming this year and I saw few changes once the convention was under way, not a mere feat to be sure. I can only imagine there being more panels next year, which is a boon, but also a daunting prophecy as I’ll never have enough time to see everything!

I was super disappointed that I was not able to see the Robot Chicken and Venture brother’s panels. They are always hysterical and informative. Like Narutaki I was curious to see the US Sherlock premier. I wanted to see what they said at both the Square Enix panels out of curiosity. Also the ItsJustSomeRandomPanel was surely great as I have always enjoyed the I’m a Marvel…and I’m a DC clips. If anyone out there saw any of these panels I am curious how they were and if anything interesting was said there. If nothing else the mere fact that I could have made a second schedule for all three days of things to attend and still miss out says volumes. I look forward to seeing the selection we get next year and hope that the anime content only increases along with the comic content despite the fact it would cause even more conflicts.

More NY Anime Festival and Comic Con 2010 posts:

NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: Tweets
NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: General Impressions
NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: Anime and Manga Industry
NY Anime Festival 2010: Artist Alley – Making it Big!
NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: Exhibitors Hall
NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: Premieres
NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: Minori Chihara

Fan panels are a gamble, but one that often pays off especially at places like Otakon where people are vying for a panel slot so the competition is steep and so is the talent. I try to squeeze in as many fan run sessions as I can but it can be tough when there are so many guests. I feel like I attended so few panels this year, but all of them were good so maybe it worked out.

One of the most controversial panels this year was the You Don’t Like Moe – And Here’s Why! panel with Otaku USA’s original OGT and Pontifus. The panel attempted to give a high-level look at what moe is and why people hate moe as passionately as they do. The problem was most of the literary analysis terms were going over the heads of the audience; they needed more hand holding before being thrown into such academia. While talking down to the audience is patronizing likewise assuming everyone has a degree in literary theory in otaku culture is equally ineffective. But it did spawn some passionate debate at the end. We had a huge three and a half hour conversation on the bus ride home about the very topics brought up by the panel.

Over the weekend I attended two fandom specific panels The World of Sailor Moon: Countdown to 20 years and The Mecha Fan Panel. For the most part panels like these have a bad rap of being rather asinine displays where people just shout about what they like best, but both of these panels showed how to do it right. For Sailor Moon there was some brief information about the anime but then it went further into why reading the manga is great and how richly it stands against its more well-known TV counter-part. They also discussed the live action TV show that came out a few years ago and even showed a funny trailer for it set to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers theme song. Equally funny was the short clip they showed of Sailor Moon Abridged which succeed in making me check it out. A good portion of the panel involved back and forth conversations about the Sailor Moon revival currently in full swing in Japan and other places around the world and of course the hopes that the U.S. would join in. Interspersed throughout was some trivia and giveaways. On the completely other side of the spectrum, the Mecha panel was going strong with a condensed history of the genre and some of its well-known creators like Go Nagai and Tomino. I did have to laugh as Carl (of Ogiue Maniax) kept holding his tongue when they got a fact or two wrong but it was mostly minor. There was plenty of pleasant attack name shouting thrown in and overall the panel was spry and lively. These guys did the panel last year, but this time around they were much better prepared plus had visuals.

Gerald Rathkolb‘s the History of Hentai was a solid panel that took a serious look at a topic that usually only gets jokes when brought up in public conversation. It looks and the growth of pornographic anime like one would look at any other genre in the medium. I did think some of the clips of the Tezuka anime went on for a bit too long but mostly because I wanted more history. I think everyone enjoyed the bad hentai dubbing section. It was remarkable. On an equally informative but less pornographic note I went to Alex Leavitt’s the Experiments in the Anime Industry: noitaminA panel. It started out about the noitaminA animation block but it quickly turned into an examination of the anime industry through the lens of the noitaminA block. I think most people will bring up the cost of anime section when talking about this panel but I think you would be remiss to ignore the solid information in the main part of the panel. It was also a good exploration of the shows that make up such an innovative time slot. I would have like to have seen some analysis of the fact that Hakaba Kitaro was the consistently the highest rated show in the block. Later on I went from talking about animation blocks to talking about directors. I missed the first third of Wildarmshero’s The Life and Times of Akiyuki Shinbo because the Saturday night dinner rush was quite massive but I liked what I saw. It was a thoughtful examination of the directorial eccentricities of Akiyuki Shinbo from someone who is absolutely a huge fan of his work while still being professional. There was a great selection of pictures and videos that give you insight into what makes Akiyuki Shinbo tick and what makes him unique as a director.

Early in the morning on Friday, but almost filled to capacity, was Riichi: Japanese Mahjong, Anime, and You run by Carl (of Ogiue Maniax) and Dave (of Subatomic Brainfreeze). The goal of the panel as stated at the beginning was to teach you enough about Mahjong, a rather complicated game, to get some extra enjoyment out of watching Mahjong anime. They made it clear that you probably wouldn’t be able to sit down after the panel and play a hand. Even with this in mind the panel was brimming with information from where the game comes from to what hands make people freak out in a series. The guys were funny and engaging so it was no surprise that the audience was having a good time, too. Throughout there were clips, many from Saki, but atleast one from the other animated Mahjong series out there. They wrapped up with a good amount of time for questions and answers and even gave the audience tips on where to play Mahjong online and where to pick up a set of tiles if you really wanted to pay the shipping. There wasn’t enough Akagi, but hey, is there ever?

I went to the Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Strategies of the Stars and The Otakon 2010 Gundam Experience: Life Beyond 30 who were both run by the same two gentleman. They were both great introductions with an understanding that a majority of the audience was made up of people already neck deep in what they were talking about. The panelists had an amusing friendly banter that kept the panels lively. If you are ever interested into getting into either series those panels are a great way to sample both  and get an idea of where to enter the fandom. And when ever you start talking about mecha you have to talk about Mike Toole. Anime Cult Classics was a look at the various anime that have been funded by fringe religious groups in Japan. Mike Toole did not just run the clips but he gave a bit of history and insight into each of the groups featured in the panel. It was clearly a panel that had enough material for two hours because he constantly had to cut himself off to fit into the time slot. Given the nastier nature of most of these groups it is easy to see why otaku get a bad rap thanks to these cults. The only bigger and more dangerous cult in Japan are the figure collectors.  The only panel I was able to attend on Sunday was the Japanese Figures, Toys and Collecting panel. It was an introduction to starting and maintaining a figure collection by several writers from Tomopop. I had a good time and they had a power point that would display various figures whenever they were talking and did not need info on the screen which is great with such a visual hobby. I did not win any of the figures they gave away at the end but thankfully none of them were Type-Moon figures so it was all good and no violence took place.

Ed Sizemore of Comics Worth Reading rounded up both the head of ANN, Chris Macdonald, and editor-in-chief of Japanator, Brad Rice for the Anime Journalism: The Story Behind the Story panel. In it Ed moderated a discussion about where stories come from, fact checking, ethics, and where opinions belong in the news. After both Chris and Brad told brief stories of how they came to be in their current positions things got down to business. Highlights include Brad talking about how Japantor wants to add fun to the news experience likening them to The Daily Show and Chris discussing harm vs. benefit of running a story after Ed gave him a fake scenario of getting a leaked list of titles that Funimation was currently bidding on. Chris went on to say that publishing that type of leak can be detrimental to the outcome of negotiations but that ANN almost always runs such information. Everyone also felt strongly about citing sources and griped a little about the unprofessionalism of not value adding to a news bite. Another panel talking about slippery slopes was Anime Lost in Translation which detailed some of the many ways bringing anime and manga over to English can be a challenge. She smartly skipped the basic honorifics and instead went for things like uncle and the confusion of characters calling each other brother/sister/etc. even when not related. She also went in for things like Kanji visual puns and non-gender specific pronouns. When tackling romanization the infamous Light/Righto was brought up but mostly for comedic effect. She had a good wit and it was a fun panel though it was disappointing that her presentation only lasted about a half-hour.

I did not get to see the 10 Anime You’ve Never Heard of but Must See! or Bad Anime, Bad! because the rooms filled up. I could have barged in with a press pass but I decided to go to other good panels at the same time. I did not see Fanthropology or Feminism, Fandom, and Fanservice either because the panelists never showed up which was a shame. As always with Otakon my only regret was I did not get to see more panels. Everything I went to really entertained me and taught me something. Also I got to see a clip from Johnny Destiny the Korean Gundam knock off. Priceless.

In a way, fan panels are the true essence of a convention. They take up almost all my time between the guest apperances and at smaller conventions they are even more important. With Otakon becoming quite a destinantion for panelist these days the quality has really gone up. I can only hope that they add perhaps one more panel room in the coming years as things continue to grow.

More Otakon 2010 posts:

Otakon 2010: Industry
Otakon 2010: General Impressions
Otakon 2010: Guests
Otakon 2010: Events
Anime3000 Podcast: Bonus Round – 8/5/10 – Otakon: It’s Fantastic!
Otakon 2010: Fan Panels

I have always attended conventions be they anime or not to see the panels so they make up the bulk of my con reports. Fan panels can be a gamble because their quality can vary so very much but when a fan panel is excellent it can be one of the most memorable events. A superb fan panel connects with you on a personal level in a way that a professional panel usually cannot because of a layer of formality between the audience and the panelist. An exceptional fan panel teaches you something while having a free flowing dynamic between the audience and the panelist.

“Fandom & Criticism: The Art of Active Viewing” was run by fellow bloggers and podcasters Ani-Gamers. The focus was on engaging anime on many levels even if you aren’t a reviewer, whether or not that leads to a happier viewing experience is still up in the air. The discussion was robust as they related their own habits to the audience and discussed what they look for when watching a show. The crowd had plenty to share in return and it was clear that many were casual fans so Ani-Gamers seemed to be reaching the group of people they were aiming to. There was a bit of debate, a little from myself, about the notion of whether something is actually bad. I can easily point to another panel we attended, and a personal favorite of mine and many others, “Bad Anime, Bad!!” and say definitively that yes, there are bad shows. This year’s “Bad Anime, Bad!!” gem was Frankenstein which literally doesn’t have credits, probably because no one wants to own up, but there was speculation it could have been the same crew who created Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned. The host commentary was as amusing as always, the catchphrase of the night for me was “Quick! Crab-walk for your life!” Of course our host had to shush the crowd a number of times in order for us to enjoy the horrid dialogue of the show. I don’t want to spoil anything as its worth seeing and the ending was quite a surprise.

I always try to see any panel given by the noble old school fans of AnimeNEXT Walter Amos, Rob Fenelon, and Brian Price. They always have a mixture of professionalism and joviality. Friday night ended with their “These Are a Few of My Favorite Scenes” which is always a treat. Walter, Rob, and Brian took turns playing clips of different shows in hopes of whetting your appetite for things you might have otherwise overlooked. The video from the Space Battleship Yamato pachinko game was disturbingly well-produced. There was also an amusing clip from an anime with a super powerful pink bunny rabbit mecha in an apron with a heart. Coincidentally that same robot was in a mecha guide that Evan had in this room. This meant they had to bring up Legend of the Swordmaster Yaiba which I think they mention every panel but rarely show anything from. Moving on to prove that everyone on the panel had good taste they had a clip from Summer Wars with King Kazma. They also had a cool cut scene from Xenosaga showing that above all else they are huge space opera fans. They also played a bunch of clips from Ralph Bakshi’s film Wizards that I mostly remember as the non-anime movie that was always in the anime section at video stores in the 90s.

I also attended Ani-Gamer Evan’s panel “The Changing Faces of Anime” which was a thoughtful presentation about the ever evolving character designs of anime though he also included many manga references. He started with God Tezuka and carried through to the moe movement. It is a vast arena to cover in one hour, in fact I think it would be hard to cover some genre’s character designs in just an hour, but he did a good job of creating an interlinking overview with defining series and changes for the audience. There are some additions that I think would be relevant, I found no mention of Saint Seiya an oversight as it is often held up as an important shonen series especially in terms of the look of male characters and I think shojo after the Showa 24 was a bit glossed over. All in all it was an entertaining panel that engaged the audience while giving them a history lesson.

There were two Legend of the Galactic Heroes panels and one mecha history panel all done by the same guy. The “History of Mecha” panel started off rocky because of some technical problems and never recovered. While the host worked with temperamental equipment the packed room started to get out of control. By the time the panel started any sense of rhythm was thrown off by the audience’s constant talking. Sadly none of them were particularity insightful and Evan and I left half way through, exiting on the line “Gundam is a somewhat lighthearted series” that made us both laugh to no end. He also did the “Legend of Galactic Heroes: Introduction” and the “Legend of Galactic Heroes: Movie with fan commentary” which went far smoother. The LotGH intro was decent but I feel that the Waterloo clips he played went on a bit too long. I liked the idea of selling the series using a live action movie with similar themes but I would have liked to see more of what makes LotGH so amazing. I would have also liked a bit more commentary during the movie. Something along the line of what they do during “Bad Anime, Bad!!” but being informative instead of hilarious. The times the LotGH panels were best was when the panelist was interacting with the audience. Most of the time people who come to panels are already fans so it’s best to engage them and let the conversation that ensues sell people on the show. I myself became interested in the show through the enthusiastic and intelligent discussions I saw. There were a lot of good concepts  and a clear impression the guy running all three panels was both knowledgeable and enthusiastic but the panels need some polish before they are great.

On a sleepy Sunday morning (the same time last year, too, I believe) a lively panel was held entitled “Otaku Perceptions and Misconceptions,” and things were pretty hopping so early for the con. This time around we were asked to contribute some questions and some insights based upon our work on the Otaku Diaries project. Not only was it gratifying to have people using it for a piece of their panel, but it also allowed us to spark some interest for audience members to check out the whole project. We added a comment here or there but the panel was very much the ladies at the front’s show. They were more organized this year and were able to take the reins when the audience got too carried away. This type of panel is more of a discussion than a lecture so luckily the audience was enthusiastic to contribute but happy to hear everyone speak their own piece. Things got a little out of hand as much talk about the few and far between bad incidents attributed to otaku ensued but things got back around to the positive side as people cited the community vibe and delved into how fans group and define themselves within otaku culture. The hour was over way too fast and there was a common thread of people hoping the panel will be kicked up to two hours in 2011. I hope to participate again and who knows we may have an extension to the Otaku Diaries to talk about.

I started Saturday with the “Gundam: What Makes It Great.” I did not really learn anything but it was a fun panel. People were shouting out things like at the “History of Mecha” panel but they were shouting out things that were useful and the guy running the panel was able to keep everything moving forward very smoothly. The panel was a great overview of all the various Gundam series that gave you just enough information to get a taste of each show and some insight into the various spin-offs. My only real criticism was pointed out to me by Narutaki, it was more a history of Gundam than why the shows are great. Another panel with a good amount of interaction with the audience was the the “Psychology of Anime II” a sequel to the panel I commented on last year. This year the panel focused entirely on what about anime appeals to anime fans using several popular psychological theories. As always the panel is very audience driven and seemed to have everyone participating in some form or another. I still stand by my assertion that the complex backgrounds and mechanical designs especially in 80s shows drew in a different group of fans than the simplistic and easy to comprehend character designs over the years. Still the idea that a panel could generate that sort of discussion is always encouraging.

AnimeNEXT delivered a wide variety of panels this time around setting a great tone for the convention to be a place of fun and learning. And since I have a list of panels I didn’t get to I know there was plenty of quality out there. I always enjoying coming away from panels mulling them over or with new shows to watch or what have you. I hope we can return to doing panels next year at AnimeNEXT and add to their wonderful programing.

I was very impressed with the panel line up this year at AnimeNEXT. Thankfully a good selection of panel usually gave me something to do all day. I really only disliked the “King of Fighters: Past to Present ” but I only saw about 5-minutes so I just might have walked in at the wrong point. I wanted to see “The Science of Anime,” “Why we love to hate video games,” “Otaku Through the Generations,”  “Religion in Neon Genesis Evangelion,” “IT CAME FROM FRANCE!!“, and “Hetalia History” but did not get a chance to for one reason or another. If anyone did attend them I would appreciate your thoughts in the comments section so I can determine how much of a priory to make them next year if they are run again.

More AnimeNEXT 2010 posts:

AnimeNEXT 2010: Tweets
AnimeNEXT 2010: General Impressions
AnimeNEXT 2010: Industry and Guests
AnimeNEXT 2010: Kenji Kamiyama

Everyone’s question was would NYAF live up to, exceed, or fail compared to the two previous conventions? There was quite a bit of talking with the announcement that NYAF would join with NYCC for 2010 so there was also the question of what would NYAF do as its last year as an independent convention? Although those are all pressing questions my main question was if I was going to have fun? Was I going to be able to do as much as I wanted to? We were also running two panels one of which had a lot of people looking forward to it. The Bloggers Roundtable had some big names on the marquee but it was a the first time we ever ran the panel. I had the most expectations for the panel because I felt it could succeed or fail so much more than any of our previous panels. On top of all that I had two guests staying at my humble abode during the convention so I had to play host as well as press.

It was no secret that we were looking forward to New York Anime Festival, probably more than any other con previously thanks to a killer guest, director Yoshiyuki Tomino. This sent NYAF which I always enjoy but never as much as say Otakon right to the front of the line this year. That being said, the rest of the con experience remained the same though I was happy to see quite a few license announcements this year. Since NYAF’s space has basically stayed the same from its first year, there weren’t too many surprises but that also means it still has some of the same problems. Javits, is Javits, its a bit of a walk from the train, the hotels, and most food. Though it also means that for the most part events went off without a hitch and things seemed to be well in hand with the staff.

The convention for me started on Thursday night since most of my main convention group went to see the Eureka Seven movie. Although not officially a part of the convention experience it felt like a great way to spend an evening before the big show. The movie itself was bizarre. I will never forget the line, “I am an enemy alien spy robot” as long as I live. It was a visually appealing movie but otherwise a utter train wreck. I appreciated their attempt to do something new with the original story but their execution left something to be desired. Though I was happy to watch a film with my friends and be able to talk about it afterward because I often feel like I hardly watch any anime at anime conventions. On Friday morning my two guests the spectacular OGT, the amazing PatzPrime, plus the remarkable SDShamshel all met up and went to the Javits center early to get Tomino autograph tickets. We were all a little worried when we heard that people were already starting to line up at 7am. We finally arrived at 10 and got progressively worried when we saw how the VIP line was growing but we were able to get our autograph tickets. Since we got there before the con officially started getting our press badges was a snap. We all went for some delicious Go Go Curry before starting the convention. Starting the con with curry is a tradition I could get behind.

Once again, the staff of NYAF as far as tickets goes were on top of it. Not a moment more than one was I in line for my press badge, which incidentally looks very different this year. This goes for the weekend con badges and VIP ones as well and only half for individual day passes. I’m not sure what to make of them, on the one hand I really like the hard plastic but on the other hand the badges aren’t very fun. Maybe that sounds like a stupid complaint, but too bad, many of us have a grand time trying to guess what show or characters will appear on the badges before going to a con. The speculations can even spawn forum threads, so it has become a popular and expected part of anime conventions. And I was surprised to not at the very least see the badges sporting the logo from this year’s contest winner. Since I never made it to the convention center before opening time, I have no idea what the lines looked like but from the massive crowds on Saturday I can imagine there was a pretty good wait in the morning. However, panels seemed to be well organized in this regard though having a press badge prevented any problems for me. The Javits space allotted for NYAF was insufficient for Saturday but was tolerable on Friday and Sunday. Happily this mean the Tomino panel was rightfully full.

I had heard so many stories about Yoshiyuki Tomino but it is still hard to say what I was expecting. To be very brief, Tomino was quite chill from the moment he cut the Opening Ceremonies ribbon to the insistence that he finish answering all the fans who lined up to ask him a question at his Saturday panel. To expand more thoughtfully, Tomino in the past has made some pretty harsh remarks about all his works and most notably about Gundam but at this convention (and quite possibly because this year also marks the 30th anniversary) he seems to have accepted its value, its popularity, and become more content because of it. During his keynote, he remarked that he wanted Gundam to be remembered even more fondly than Star Wars. Tomino also gave the impression of being proud that he created something that is still watchable and relevant thirty years later then going on to discuss his use and philosophy of cinema which made Gundam the show it was. Though the audience may have been missing out on more wisdom from Tomino due to a poor translation at the Keynote, but thankfully at his Q&A this was corrected. The Q&A started off very lively as they showed a reel of Tomino’s work, many members of the audience sang along to the theme songs and of course there was mass cheering for many pieces on the screen (surprisingly Gundam ZZ had a rousing reception). Tomino then finally took center stage and got down to the nitty gritty of tackling fan questions. It was pleasing to see, after a couple of questions submitted online were answered, Tomino signaled that he would much prefer to answer those standing before him. He clearly understands how many people came from varying distances just to see him in the flesh, and frankly they should get the priority. The people helping to the run the Q&A went down the line hearing everyone’s question first, and making sure it was actually Tomino related. One could have probably heard the collected booing a mile away from the Keynote when a con-goer stood up and began to ask a question about Gundam 00. Tomino’s visit ended (not counting a final autograph session) with a showing of Ring of Gundam, his short 30th anniversary film. Tomino left the room with a standing ovation and there was little doubt that he made many a fan happy this past weekend.

I was expecting Tomino to be a man of very little words but for those few words to be extremely cranky and point blank. However, he  seemed genuinely happy and upbeat at the convention but you could tell that the cranky old man Tomino we all knew and loved was there. While his answers were always pleasant, he never seemed to be holding back. As expected there were a few lame question, a few rephrased and then repeated questions, and a few super egotistical questions from the attendees but overall selection was very good. Tomino mentioned that he always had regrets on all his series because he always felt they could be majorly improved in retrospect. But he also felt that feeling makes him always strive to do better in every project he works on. He said that one of the major themes of Gundam was that adults who were rigid in their mindsets were the enemy so therefore since he was super old that made him the super enemy now which got a good laugh out of the audience. Tomino seemed to have a fuzzy memory on any sort of details of the projects he had worked on. He thankfully remembered a little something about Sayla so I did get a partial answer to my question about what her role would be if she was in Zeta Gundam, he seemed to think he would have left things as is. I was also thrilled we got a good answer to the one Turn A Gundam question about why no newtypes appeared in the series. Tomino clarified the confusion by saying the people in Turn A would later become newtypes but the story couldn’t have been told as it was had they already evolved so. The way he dodged questions about Gunpla and his time at Mushi Productions told volumes but his actual feelings. When someone asked him about the possibility of Double Zeta Gundam compilation movies he stated that he was ignoring the fact that he was asked that question. Thankfully no one brought up Victory Gundam or Brain Powered. On a side note, during a reel of Tomino’s work they played almost every one except for Garzey’s Wing. I wonder if that was an accidental or deliberate oversight. Everyone who went to the Tomino panels and autographs sessions got a unforgettable experience out of it. Just look at that man’s face on the picture above. He seems down right giddy and it’s not just because he is holding a book with a page turned to Sochie although that is a good reason to be giddy.

So NYAF marked the first Bloggers Roundtable, it was an interesting experience, a learning experience if you will. You always have to have the first of these things and often times it has many flaws. Biggest being, there were just too many people but it’s such a difficulty because you want to get as many great people as you can! Also this panel was our first technical difficult in a while, and it was never actually corrected. We just did the best we could, and since the panel mainly involved talking it wasn’t a major issue. It started to get more lively as the panel continued, people got comfortable, and the discussions became more interactive. When first deciding what this panel was about, we thought asking only blogging questions might seem too blah (perhaps people wanted to know these bloggers on a more personal level), but they really engaged the audience so that would be the majority another time around I would think. In any case, it was fun and we did end up with plenty to talk about (even spilling over a bit since we were the last panel of the night).

Overall I think the Bloggers Roundtable went well despite the fact that it had major flaws. Several things will have to be changed if we ever run the panel again such as a maximum of five participants. I was a little worried that people would not have enough to say on certain questions but everyone had a good deal to share. In fact they often held back because of the size of the panel. We should also try to go to audience questions quicker, I was impressed by the number and quality of the questions from them. After this first round, we got a better understanding of what questions worked and what questions fell flat. Despite all the flaws I know I personally had a good time on the panel. I had fun hearing everyone’s answers and the playful banter of the panelists when things got rolling. I hope the audience had a good time, too. We even got a question from Zac “Answerman” Bertschy over the internet. I would definitely run this panel again if I could get people to do it. We will take what we learned from this attempt and make the panel even better.

We once again presented our Anime Recruitment panel with a good 30 or so people in the audience. This was a pleasant surprise considering the time slot of 4PM on Sunday, essentially the last panel slot for the convention, but hey someone has to go last. As always the Q&A portion where we answer any and all recommendation questions to the best of our abilities is the most fun and interesting part of the panel. This time around we were hit with some difficult requests like something gothic in style but with robots or a gore comedy. We were also called experts which was a little unnerving but kind of cool at the same time. Each time we do this panel we hone it just a little better and our ability to come up with a show for anyone increases. This is a panel that will be around for a long time with us because it goes over well and it is a lot of fun!

It is always fun to see a premiere at a convention. The ability to go a screening of something you will before everyone else is exciting. Much like Voices of a Distant Star it turns out that Cencoroll is the almost entirely a one man project done by Atsuya Uki. Cencoroll is the story on a bored teenager named Tetsu who has a shape shifting monster that is forced to do battle with another boy with a similar creature. Tetsu’s female classmate Yuki gets drawn into this conflict  when she discovers Tetsu’s secret. It was an amazing little piece especially since it was done by one person and used no CG. I had a very good look and feel. I am curious to see more work like Atsuya Uki. I would like to see him as the next Makoto Shinkai.

I didn’t really know much about Cencoroll till it was announced as a premiere title for NYAF. Then I began to hear things about it, most prominently that it was another one man show and put together without the use of CG. A fascinating part of this short was the discussion of what is acceptable in a short film verses a series. Cencoroll tells you virtually nothing about the why of its world or its premise but that was fine for a half hour jaunt. Beyond that, the relationship between boy, girl, and Cenco was well formed with some humor and moments of surprise. This 30-minute short ended up being a highlight of the convention.

There was a good amount of manga news and manga licenses at NYAF. While the manga market might not being growing anywhere as quickly as it used to it is not sickly from what I can see. I missed out on the Vertical panel because it was against Tomino but they announced four new manga titles, including Chi’s Sweet Home. More obscure titles were Peepo Choo from Felipe Smith that did the comic MBQ for Tokyopop before he started doing manga from Morning 2 in Japan; and Twin Spica and Needle which are two very different sci-fi manga. Tokyopop still seemed to be alive despite what everyone fears, for how long is another question. They admitted to switching to a cheaper paper company but had to switch back after a huge number of customer and retailer complaints. They had some new title announcements, including the next installment in the .hack line .hack//Link, so they still are in the game enough to get new manga. VIZ seemed to be doing extremely well as they announced not only some new manga but also anime and sci-fi novels. The most interesting announcement was that they will be streaming Inuyasha: The Final Act. I had a feeling that this was going to happen but it was never definite. I am curious how well this new fiction line is going for VIZ. All the other manga companies have been delaying or seemingly canceling their novel lines. Del Rey did not have a lot to say but they did pick up Rave Master. If there was any sure sign that Kodansha has cut off its ties to Tokopop it was the fact that they gave Samurai Deeper Kyo and now Rave Master to Del Rey despite the fact that both series had almost finished under Tokyopop.

The majority of the panels that I attended were industry related which in recent years have become fairly entertaining rather than tedious. Funimation always puts on a good show but I was shocked to find them making an announcement at NYAF. An announcement that personally made my draw drop, Initial D Fourth Stage. Actually, they have acquired all of Initial D and will be repackaging it. I nearly wept with joy. They also made mention of their upcoming ShoDojo site which is going to be a sort of social networking tool. The piece of the site that sounds fun is the ability to chat while watching streaming video. The launch of the site has been delayed but it could be another thing Funi does right for fans. Bandai didn’t have too much new stuff to say though they did have dates for things like the Eureka Seven movie on DVD (January 2010) and mentioning of things making the move to Blu-Ray such as the Escaflowne movie. These companies and others sat down on Sunday for, what has become a standard, State of the Industry panel moderated by Chris MacDonald of Anime News Network. There was not much new ground covered at this one, topics like watching digital media and reading digital media differing greatly as well as the difficulties in simulcasting (seemingly ignoring all the successful ones currently going on) were well discussed. One thing that leapt out thanks to so many anime companies finally doing streaming video is the inability to monetize such ventures, yet. It was pointed out that most likely their day will come but DVD/Blu-Ray is and will remain king for quite sometime.

I went to the How to Become Famous on the Internet panel which was an informative presentation on how to promote your work on the Net be it a blog, podcast, webcomic, or anything else that shows your skills as a artist or writer. It was pretty solid advice from panelists who knew their stuff. As always the most important thing is to go out there and honestly connect to other people. The How I Broke into the Anime and Manga Industries panel was nothing I did not know but I think it was a good wake up call for anyone who did not realize how hard it is. Kevin McKeever made it clear that it was extremely difficult to make your way into any entertainment industry because everyone else wants in as well. Sacrifice and the ability to deal with repeated failure is essential. The CPM Retrospective was a nostalgic look back on working at Central Park Media. I had heard quite a few stories from various people on how crazy Central Park Media and John O’Donnell could be for better and for worse. Although everyone spoke glowingly about their times at CPM is was obvious they took their fare share of lumps as often as had great times. It was a fitting tribute for a former major player in the anime industry.

The artist alley was located in a much better spot this year, and it was really hopping! And most importantly, it was open until the convention closed up at 10PM. I saw some familiar faces among the artists but plenty of new people to go around. In fact, while I had set a strict no buying policy for myself at this con, I broke it in artist alley for a piece of Cloud fan-art by a very talented fellow, ningyee7. I was much better at resisting in the dealer’s room. There were visibly more booths but the merchandise itself didn’t seem to be too special or rare for the most part. I was also sad to not see Ultimate Doujinshi. While I avoided this section for most of Saturday, I did move through it a little and found it cramped but not wholly deadly. Still is there ever enough room in the dealers room anywhere?

One of the biggest draws of any convention has nothing to do directly with the convention itself and that is meeting with your friends who you do not normally get to see and to hang out with your regular friends in a dynamic setting. I think that meeting One Great Turtle in real life was almost as awesome as meeting Tomino and that is saying a lot. I also got to meet the infamous Wild Arms Heero. He was unsurprisingly normal and quite amusing in real life. It was extremely fun going out to karaoke, stores, arcades, and meals with people you have only met online. Hey, I even got to play Melty Blood: Actress Again on an arcade machine. Speaking of karaoke, I am always fascinated by other people’s song choices. I wish I had enough Japanese knowledge to sing the Japanese songs like many others but people had to settle for my lame renditions of Queen and the Police instead.

New York Anime Fest brought many familiar faces to NYC this time around, some of which I already knew and some I would meet for the very first time during this event. So instead of having a big dinner at this convention, the theme was karaoke with many bloggers in tow (and friends) on Friday night. My Japanese is about pre-school level but others among me belted out all kinds of fierce Japanese tunes including Holy Lonely Night from Macross 7! If I practice really hard maybe I can pull some opening off in the near future. But there was also plenty of English songs being sung,  most memorable being On A Boat from SNL. This was the latest night of con and really wrecked me for the rest of convention. There were also various dining and chatting experience a plenty during the con and after hours. NYAF overall became a rather large hang out and meeting convention.

I am always most interested in the Japanese guests and the panels at any anime convention. They tend to be my meter stick of how much fun. Tomino pretty much assured that NYAF won completely and utterly in the guest department. My now signed Turn A Artbook was worth the time and money I spent on the convention alone. I would have liked to have seen one other big named Japanese guest but that was hardly a requirement. I did enjoy several of the panels but for some reason I felt this years panels were lacking. The ones I went to were excellent but there was a good deal of dead space for me on each day. It did give me time to hang out with people and have leisurely meals but I would have rather had to decide to either have a leisurely meal or a quick bite to eat like at Otakon. I am also a little bummed out that next year there will not be a single solitary NYAF but instead it will be combined with NYCC. I liked having a anime convention and a comic convention in Manhattan. I could do my anime events at NYAF and my comics events at NYCC. Hopefully NYAF will not just be a name tacked on the NYCC but only time will tell. Still I will remember New York Anime Festival with fond memories.

While I don’t want to be running without a moment to spare at a convention, I found myself too often with time on my hands. If there was one of two more rooms for panels or workshops this problem would be solved. Also the lack of fan run panels is certainly getting better but still wish to see more of a fan presence in the presentations. It will be interesting to see how it combines with New York Comic Con in the coming year. So really the highlight and reason for NYAF 2009 for me was Tomino and everything else was just something I went to in between. It can’t be said enough that having a chance to see and hear speak a director of such importance is a rare chance which makes NYAF one of the most memorable anime events I may ever attend. As Dave said during the Bloggers Roundtable, “Tomino Con 2009 was great!”

Top 5 Tomino shows I want to watch that are not Gundam
5. Aura Battler Dunbine
4. Invincible Super Man Zambot 3
3. Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3
2. Space Runaway Ideon
1. Combat Mecha Xabungle

If you have never been to Otakon, let me just say that it is like a whirlwind of anime, manga, costumes, music, fans, panels, guests, and friends. You are practically going non-stop from the moment you touch down in Baltimore. Maybe it is just the way my mind works, but it seemed to be ten-fold this year! The amount of things seen and done in just one day sound almost impossible. I distinctly remember some of us talking on Friday night about how things done that morning felt days in the past rather than just hours before. But I’m not complaining, I call Otakon the highlight of the summer for a reason! This year only went on to prove that statement further.

Otakon came and went in an amazing and thrilling blur. I remember the highlights but the details even a few days later are still sort of fuzzy in my head. So in many ways this con report is just as much for me as it is for anyone reading it. This is my chance to sort out what I felt and what I did in my own mind because there was just so much information to process. I was almost always doing something. In fact, I wore myself out so much there was two or three times I just had to stop and nap or get food even if it meant missing out on something awesome. At first I was worried that there were not going to be any Japanese guests worth talking about but in the last few weeks before the con they pulled some great guests out at the last second and turned my perception of how great this was going to be right around.

Friday
No Means No, Defense against Fanboys and Fangirls panel
Know Your Creators panel
Yutaka Yamamoto panel
Mobile Suit Gundam: Celebrating 30 Years panel
Anime Recruitment
Legend of the Galactic Heroes: History’s Future panel
Mecha Appreciation panel
Opening Ceremonies
Kikuko Inoue panel
I Can’t Believe You Haven’t Seen This!
MELL concert
Guess the Melons 18+ panel

Saturday
Gundam Model Building workshop
Funimation panel
MELL press conference
Maruyama, Ishiguro, Kikukawa, Matsubara press conference
Anime and Manga Studies panel
From Kenshiro to Kenshin: The Neo-Shonen Revolution panel
Fred Schodt panel
Fred Schodt autograph session
Return of the Anime Old Timers? panel
Otaku TV panel
The Problem with Otaku panel
Review Anime the Right Way panel

Sunday
Without Watching the Anime: Opening & Ending Themes panel
Hidenori Matsubara panel
Osamu Tezuka, Astro Boy, and the Manga/Anime Revolution, with Fred Schodt panel
Naomi Tamura concert

Narutak, Kohaku, and I all met up at my apartment. The anticipation was practically visible! Before we left I got an early birthday present of some very choice pencil boards, one of manga art Hayate No Gotoku and a cute Gakuen Kino one. We fortunately got a ride to the MegaBus pick up in front of Penn Station. I must agree with Mike Dent, MegaBus rocks! I will never ride a Greyhound again unless forced to. The free WiFi was awesome and the ride was smooth and clean. We took over the back of the bus where we pretty much had a pre-Otakon party. The Baltimore public transportation was a little slower than we had first anticipate but we arrived at our hotel by about 6:30PM. Here we encountered the first and only real major problem of the convention: the Radisson overbooked the con rooms. They tried to throw us into a super small single when we had booked a double. Thankfully Narutaki is a master of getting what he needs and they eventually gave us a bigger room.

If you saw the amount of stuff being lugged to Otakon, you would think we were moving there. Heck, at the very least you would have thought everyone was a cosplayer bringing gear, but no. However to be fair, when I say we, I mean 9 people and also a lot of it was free stuff for our panels and food that was quickly eaten up. I wouldn’t say I was nervous about MegaBus, I had done some research, but a new experience is always a little worrisome in these cases. Though really with so many friends along, a misstep can easily turn into an adventure! Luckily we didn’t have to prove that rule as the bus was great, well-organized, and on time. While the bus stop is certainly far out from the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, the price tipped my hand and everyone seemed satisfied. I was a bit miffed at the Radisson because they have served me so well in the past. In the end, things turned out fine once a larger room was acquired, remember: calm persistence! I will just mention that I use quite a bit of the tips in our Con Survival guide and they serve me quite well.

Since getting into the hotel took a bit longer than expected, we had to rush over to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. We met Clarissa from AWO, Patz Prime from the Gaming Dungeon, and Ed from Comics Worth Reading for the first time in real life. I wish I had gotten more time to talk to everyone there. I know they made a good impression on me. After dinner we saw the crazy long pre-registration line. I have never seen it anywhere that long. I was quite glad to be able to just stroll in and get my press badge. Some of our friends said the wait wasn’t too long. We all stayed up shooting the breeze since the first night is usually the first and last time everyone is in the same place at the same time before the trip home. I don’t know about everyone else but I was so amped up I hardly got any sleep.

Thursday night is the only planned dinner that I have, everything else is on the fly based on who I run into when the time is right. In fact, I wasn’t even going to do the usual Thursday thing, but hey everyone’s gotta eat so why not do it together! You would have found many voices from the internet at our table including Carl (Ogiue Maniax), Scott (Anime Almanac), Evan (Ani-Gamers), Keith and Joe (The Pokemon Times) who we traveled with plus the new faces that Hisui mentioned. It was quite a gathering! Every year it seems to be more and more true that a big part of Otakon is meeting up with people. I was planning on picking up badges before dinner but the unexpected delays prevented that from happening. Considering the line, there was no way our friends were getting badges before dinner anyway. Press Ops was fully operational so the slue of us were in and out in a matter of minutes. Most troubling was that a lot of our contact information didn’t seem to be entered in the database. This lack of communication seemed to fluctuate throughout the convention. However, there were no interviews in our future and I wish this was communicated to us rather than me finally giving up on the notion. Their twitter account was very informative though giving us little tidbits of info during the con including attendance numbers and the like. Also from talking to staff, it seems they got almost 10,000 badges out on Thursday night! While line management seemed to be handled, I did see people still waiting in line for non-pre-registered badges around 4PM on Friday.

No Means No, Defense against Fanboys and Fangirls was a fairly light panel and most of the advice was common sense. The girl who ran the panel was rather amusing and she had a good collection of pictures to go with each slide so everyone was having a good time. I missed the part were the audience shared their stories and I am sure there were some good stories because I had to get to the press briefing. I went to Know Your Creators with natural born enemies Daryl Surat and the Geek Nights guys it was an entertaining panel to watch just for the natural amount of underlying tension. Still they had a good mix of prolific and influential anime and manga creators, what they had done, and why you should care about them. They mentioned the panel would have new creators on it all the time so it is always worth checking out. It is a great panel for anyone who is just starting to get into anime but wants to go deeper into the art.

I was truly sad to miss out on Otakon’s opening animation last year, so I made it a priority this time around. Opening ceremonies was actually in the mid-afternoon of Friday, probably to make sure all the guests had arrived as well as having as many attendees already in the building. We were first shown a reel of all the guests with music and clips of the things they are best known for. Since the room was filled to capacity it was telling to see who people cheered for the most, not too surprising to me after so many years, but the American voice actors were easily who the crowd favored. Matt Smiechowski the con-chair talked to us a bit and then introduced some of the Japanese guests. Yutaka Yamamoto, Naomi Tamura, Yukio Kikukawa all said a brief hello to the crowd while Kanon Wakeshima made a surprise appearance. And at last we were privileged to see the Madhouse produced introduction to Otakon staring their two mascots, the con staff, and a deluge of references from anime and science-fiction. It had a lot of energy and we all laughed to see our favorites parodied so it was a nice way to officially open the convention up to what would be a memorable weekend. It was a sad moment at the end when were were informed the director Takuji Endou had passed away just a short while ago.

My first panel with a Japanese guest was Yutaka Yamamoto’s. He was quite amusing as he looks like a mild-mannered salary man. I was surprised by the detail he gave in his answers. I did not expect him to so frankly talk about his feud with Akiyuki Shinbo and his views on the industry. Japanese guests usually give very polite but ultimately empty answers. I noticed this year all the guests starting with Yamamoto were rather frank while still being polite and cautious. Some joker had to ask him about him getting fired from Lucky Star but Yamamoto gracefully deflected the question. Omo did a great transcript of the panel if you want to learn more. I also saw Kikuko Inoue that day. She was very charming and answered all the questions with a smile. I was a little miffed that I never got to ask her a question but the panel itself was enjoyable. We all got to hear her sing “My Heart Iidasenai, Your Heart Tashikametai,” “Cruel Angel Thesis,” and “Seikan Hikou.” That was without a doubt the highlight! Welcome Datacomp has all the highlights of the panel as well as some from Yutaka Yamamoto’s panel.

I seemed to hit a lot of robot related things on Friday. I had heard good things about the people who run the Gundam panel at cons, so this time I decide to catch it for myself. The Mobile Suit Gundam: Celebrating 30 Years panel was a quick run through of the major parts of the Gundam franchise that have been animated though they didn’t mention the MS IGLOO OVAs. The “celebrating 30 years” part of the panel consisted of talking about the 1:1 scaled Gundam recently erected in Japan as well as a little speculation about the coming Unicorn anime. It was lightning fast information with an anecdote thrown in here and there, so while I didn’t learn anything new, recent fans to the franchise would do well to attend this. I skipped out on the last half which was a quiz show. I also attended the Mecha Appreciation panel because everyone should really appreciate such things. This started off in rather a flurry as we all yelled out “Sieg Zeon!” The panelists were really knowledgeable especially regarding Go Nagai which got a lot of attention unsurprisingly. They went through an explanation of Super Robot vs. Real Robot (and something they deemed Super-Duper Robot!) There were many good laughs had at the expense of robots everywhere. They really got caught up in the 70′s shows so had to rush through the rest practically skipping present day series. They also lacked any visual materials which was a shame. I would love to see them do this again with a bit more organization, it was a lot of fun.

The two guys running the Legend of the Galactic Heroes: History’s Future panel were appropriately dressed as Wenli Yang and Reinhard von Lohengramm. Besides being dressed for the part they were quite knowledgeable making it a great intro to what Legend of the Galactic Heroes is and why you should care about it. I am pretty sure that most of the people who went to the panel were already LotGH fans but if they were not the panelists’ enthusiasm hopefully got them to check out a great space opera. Later at the convention I talked for a bit with the man cosplaying Reinhard. It turns out he is one of the people behind Hero Legends and is extremely knowledgeable about Gundam in addition to LotGH. I wish I had caught his name because he seems like someone you should check out whenever he does panels. I peeked into the Evangelion panel which looked to be going well but I was really starting to fall apart due to lack of food. So I went back to my room and got a snack that carried me to 7-11 to get a more substantial snack. I actually could feel my spirits rising as I digested food. I made sure for the rest of the con to never let myself get that hungry again.

Both of our panels took place on Friday which was actually quite nice since it meant we’d have the rest, and busiest, day of the con to concentrate on events. Panel Ops was efficient and quick, they even allowed us to leave some stuff in the room for later in the day. Anime Recruitment was held in the very panel room where it premiered in 2007 so it had a nostalgic feel to it! We had a good crowd, definitely more than 50 people, and a plethora of questions that we just plain didn’t have time to get to. With so much extra free stuff leftover it was kind of a free for all at the end. While I was happy with Anime Recruitment, nothing could have prepared me for I Can’t Believe You Haven’t Seen This! which was held in a very, very large panel in the new Hilton section. We easily had more than 250 people in the room . . . YIKES! Since this panel line-up changes every time we do it, I was a little uneasy. Plus, we were also doing this panel for the first time showing the openings for each show. But somehow we pulled it off and had a happy crowd by the end. We had zero time for questions so once again a mad dash that made us look like celebrity superstars was done in the pursuit of free swag. I can say though that I won’t ever be scared about doing a panel again, after that many people we can handle it!

Anime Recruitment went fairly well as it usually does. One day we will learn to be more snappy in our answers but I think we did okay in our Q&A section. As always people loved the free stuff. It was good I took the time to recharge myself before our I Can’t Believe You Haven’t Seen This! panel because we were in a huge room and had an overwhelming turnout. It was the first time that we ran the panel with the openings before we started talking about the shows. We had to cut down the number of shows we talked about but I think that the shows we talked about had more impact this way. Whenever we run these panels I am always surprised by what people know already. The amount of reaction to Princess Nine caught me off guard. Shows how little I have my finger on the pulse of fandom!

One schedule conflict that came up was our panel butted up right next to the MELL concert and since we tend to be chatty after a panel it was inevitable that I was going to miss a bit of it. After we skedaddled we jogged over to the other side of the con where the concert was being held. Luckily the press area was near the stage and we were able to jump in rather easily. MELL started off in a very elaborate Victorian-esque costume dress and fan which made it a feat that she was able to move around so fluidly on stage. She did several numbers of heavy beats then exited the stage for a wardrobe change and returned in another white dress that was only slightly less complicated though it was missing the wide skirt. She sang some slower and more melodic pieces before amping it up with the Black Lagoon opening and others then rocking so hard she broke her dress! For her encore she came back on stage in a red kimono and started off by singing the opening from Rideback which was really the one thing I wanted to hear most of all. Easily one of the best parts of the convention, I would certainly love to see her back in the U.S. I was also able to attend her press conference where she was very gracious and talkative. I asked her about the process for doing an anime opening, she went on to explain that the production studio contacts her. After her manager has laid down some sound she then starts to work on the lyrics. MELL also mentioned that this was the first time she was invited anywhere because of her involvement in anime openings and endings. Afterward she was kind enough to even take a photo with me!

After the concert a bunch of us hooked up with Clarissa and had dinner with a big crew at a local sushi place. It was another delightful dinner and I got to meet Daniel Briscoe from The Anime Chop Shop. After that I tagged along with Gerald and Daniel as they went to the Guess the Melons late night panel. It was a game show where they showed you the cleavage of an anime, video games, or manga character and you had to use that to identify who they were. There was one guy on the panel who was pretty good at the fighting game girls were but other than that most of the people from the audience were more knowledgeable. Gerald would have schooled them all had he been picked to play.  It was a funny panel but I found it most amusing that despite being an 18+ panel there was no nudity. Even when they had a Queen’s Blade character! Daniel and I left about 3/4 of the way through because it was getting late.

If it was not absolutely clear that I am a mere amateur when building models, the Gundam Model Building workshop made this fact 100% obvious. The man giving the panel was extremely knowledgeable and skilled. He quickly went past where I was and went straight to advanced techniques to make your kits look both professional and unique. He mentioned he has a web page but I sadly did not stick around long enough to get his card. I popped in on the Otaku TV panel with Viga the Otagal of the site of the same name. She looked at various anime about otaku and then played clips to show how they each had a different look at fandom. She looked at shows like Genshiken, Cosplay Complex, Comic Party, and Welcome to the NHK. After relaxing for a bit I went to the always entertaining Return of the Anime Old Timers? panel. It was fun to see some of the first wave of anime fans tell about their experiences. I asked what shows they felt everyone else had over looked and people should check out. I was surprised that everyone on the panel said Sentou Mecha Xabungle.

There was a last minute press conference with 4 of the major Japanese guests at Otakon. One has to wonder why this was planned at the last minute to begin with. So entered Masao Maruyama, Noburo Ishiguro, Yukio Kikukawa, Hidenori Matsubara to a fairly empty press room. Maruyama and Ishiguro tried to slip in the back row and were amused by us and the rest of the press room pretend interviewing their interpreter. Once they were corralled on stage they were very talkative and each answered the questions with solid responses. Kikukawa talked a bit about the production of Legend of the Galactic Heroes going on to say that he thinks it went on so long because the top people at the studio just didn’t notice it. When a show was just staying in the middle they had free reign to do what they wanted. Matsubara mentioned that he would really like to do a Dororo anime and in addition to that Maruyama said they were considering the project very seriously at Madhouse. Ishiguro hinted at a project he has had in his heart for many, many years but fears he will never be able to make it. He also talked a bit about Nagahama Tadao, the long deceased director, and gave us some insights into how he worked. Near the end Ishiguro went on to talk at length about the lack of preservation for film in Japan and how envious he was of the care given to American films, even bad ones. The press conference went on longer than expected and was really diverse in the questions, good job press!

I took a little nap before catching the tail end of the Funimation Industry panel. The couches in front of the panel rooms at the Hilton are quite comfortable let me tell you. I got  in pretty much as they were announcing licenses so I got to hear what everybody really cares about. I was surprised that they got Eden of the East. Narutaki and I expected it to be picked up by Bandai. I was sort of shocked that they picked up Casshern Sins. I have heard it was an amazing series but I wonder how many people care. I will probably pick it up based on sdshamshel’s recommendation alone. I am still a little surprised no one has picked up Toradora! or Rideback yet but the con season still has a little while to go. I guess they have to save something for NYAF. 

Fred Schodt was one of the guests I was looking forward to the most. I read his book Manga! Manga! many years ago and have recently read both Dreamland Japan and The Astro Boy Essays making me a certifiable fan of the man. His Q&A was just that, there was very little introduction and for the people in the audience there seemed little need for it. From the moment the first question was asked it just went non-stop until the panel ended much too soon. He was very soft-spoken and patient with the audience which created a very comfortable atmosphere. Schodt started off by telling us the answer to a question a lot of us were asking each other over the weekend, “how do you pronounce Schodt?” apparently it is simply “shot.” Other highlights included Schodt’s telling of how he met Osamu Tezuka, what cultural parts are hardest to translate, and the Pluto manga which he is currently working on for VIZ. When asked about the rise in manga and anime studies, Schodt replied simply that people should read more and watch more, that was the most important part. He also seemed disinterested in writing another book about manga because the awareness had grown so much. I didn’t have a chance to ask if he would think about writing commentary on manga, but he did say he hoped to translate a biography about Tezuka in the future. Directly after his panel was an autograph session that I rushed over to and happily got my copy of The Astro Boy Eassys signed. 

I tried to get into Daryl Surat’s Anime’s Craziest Deaths panel which had a huge line on which I ran into Dave and Joel. We were eventually told that there was no way on God’s green earth we could get into the panel so we all went down to the video games room. Unsurprisingly, I hung out by the Type-Moon fighting games. It really made me want a PSP and Fate/Unlimited Codes. I then ran into Ko Ransom who mentioned that they shut down Anime’s Craziest Deaths for being a 18+ panel despite not being marked as such. Daryl argued that he came close to the border but never crossed the line. This would quickly become a constant topic of conversation. Yet again AWO almost gets kicked out of Otakon. That is why you have to love those guys. Maybe next year Clarissa will run a panel that will come close to the danger zone and they can have a hat trick. I sort of lost track of time browsing doujin so I was a little late for From Kenshiro to Kenshin: The Neo-Shonen Revolution. I missed the first third of the panel but it was rather good. Daryl was really well spoken and proved that he can be very even handed and moderate when he wants to be. He gave an excellent analysis of how shonen has changed over the years which I found fascinating. Not that I really have to tell anyone but Daryl is another person who you should go out of your way to see if you get the chance.

I attended Reviewing Anime the Right Way because quite frankly who know what we do on this blog? The panel consisted of Mike Toole of Anime Jump, AWO/OtakuUSA‘s Daryl and Clarissa, and ANN’s Bamboo Dong. Since all of these people get paid for their writings I was hoping to at most pick up some tips, and at least see an amusing panel. Throughout the session each person gave examples of how they work and talked about their own approaches to things like having your own voice and writing consistently. I wouldn’t say I was surprised that everyone said they take notes while watching shows but I know it is not something I subscribe to doing. Of course hearing that made me reconsider my position so we will see. I found the advice about how to avoid falling into the trap of just summarizing helpful as well as their suggestions to write too much and edit down rather than the other way around. They finished off the panel by mentioning how to get paid writing gigs and answering a few questions. So if you were just thinking of writing reviews for the first time it was worth a listen and a laugh.

I eventually fluttered over to Anime and Manga Studies which was an overview of how to look at anime and manga from an academic perspective. Alex Leavitt, who was on the panel, was surprised how many teachers and professors asked questions about ways to convince their school to let them do anime related programs. It was a good panel for anyone who wanted to start looking at anime from a more intellectual perspective. After that I headed over to the The Problem with Otaku also chaired by Alex. This panel looked at the word “otaku” and how it has evolved in Japan and the U.S. I did not learn much I did not already know but it was a good and even-handed discussion on a somewhat controversial topic in the U.S. that has inspired myriads of debate in the fan community. It definitely helped me organize my thoughts for our next Otaku Dairies article though!

As I mentioned previously, dinner plans during Otakon after Thursday just sort of happen by chance. So on Saturday evening a gathering emerged of some familiar fellows from previous dinners and some new faces like Alex Leavitt of Department of Alchemy who we’ve met briefly before and Link. The gang rounded up and headed over to the food court with the insane notion that since the masquerade was in full swing it wouldn’t be as crowded. Once it became apparent there wasn’t much room for us people grabbed food to go and we ate and talked leisurely outside one of the con entrances for a bit. Some of us headed for Mike Toole’s  Dubs That Time Forgot panel but to no avail! Wow, what a line!

Narutaki, Kohaku, and I all went back to the hotel to rest up for the Big Dave and Joel party. This was a good idea because me and Evan ended up there until about 3AM. Without a doubt I don’t think Otakon would feel right without going to Dave and Joel’s extravaganzas. It is a excellent chance to talk to everyone you would ever want to at a convention who was not a Japanese guest. Dave and Joel were charming and hysterical as always and everyone else was equally chill. Some people in attendance were the Ninja Consultants, Viga, AWO, Matt Burnett of For Tax Reasons, and Mike Toole after his panel. I was utterly drained by the time I left the party. It did take us a little while to get to bed because someone accidentally locked the deadbolt to the room so we had to keep calling people until someone unlocked. This always has to happen to someone during a con.

Early on Sunday morning was the Without Watching the Anime: Opening & Ending Themes panel run by Alex Leavitt. His mission statement was to show us the history of anime with just openings and endings and to show how they have evolved over the years. We started with some classics like Astro Boy and Mazinger and even a hilarious English version of Mazinger! A little too much time was spent on the openings to Cutey Honey. He went on to talk about the lack of synchronization of animation with music which has changed in more recent times, the example he used was K-ON! Additionally he talked about experimental openings that don’t necessarily reflect the show at all like the opening to Honey and Clover. There was some weird scheduling conflict that seemed unknown to our host so the end of the panel was rather rushed along. While I liked the overall concept of the panel since I too am a big fan of openings, I think the examples could be more effective and diverse combined with more discussion. Also I wouldn’t mind seeing the focus possibly switched to the more experimental or innovative openings.

The Hidenori Matsubara panel maybe had a dozen people so we did a little roundtable discussion. Link and I both asked a bunch of questions sometimes following up each other’s inquiries. It was a shame more people did not attend because he was very open and talkative. I got to gush a little about Sakura Taisen and mention that I really liked Gemini Sunrise’s character design. He was willing to give some insight into the Rebuild of Evangelion movies as well. I was surprised how casual about the movies he was, according to him there is almost no chance that the 3rd and 4th movies will play together in theaters like originally planned. I did notice three things that Matsubara and Yamamoto both mentioned. Both had very vague definitions of moe when asked about moe. This leads me to believe that the Japanese are just as confused about moe as we are. Both felt there was an increasing trend among Japanese otaku to want nothing bad or horrible to happen to characters. And both conveyed a fondness for American conventions were they can sit and talk with fans. Why they don’t have these type of conventions in Japan is an eternal mystery. After the panel I got his autograph which made me happy. It was the best panel almost no one went to.

Since the panel with Matsubara ran on as late as it could I was a little late to the Osamu Tezuka, Astro Boy, and the Manga/Anime Revolution, with Fred Schodt panel. Schodt comes off as an amazingly scholarly asset to the anime and manga community in the U.S. And I must agree with Mike Toole’s assessment that he looks remarkably like Revolver Ocelot. It was a  good overview of Osamu Tezuka and Astro Boy much like a live action version of his Astro Boy Essays book. At the end someone had to ask the age old question about whether or not Disney stole the idea of the Lion King from Tezuka’s Kimba. While Schodt has written and probably spoken about this numerous times over the years he didn’t bat an eyelash at the question and in fact answered quite succinctly. I think everyone came away with a little more knowledge after the panel.

Dave Wujcik/Copyright 2009 by Otakorp Inc.

There was a double concert session on Friday. No I’m not talking about Becca, I’m talking about the rockin’ tunes coming from the Otacafe where on Sunday you could find Carl, Big N of Drastic My Anime Blog, and Omo of omonomono singing! And then the Naomi Tamura concert rounded out the con with a very exciting performance. Naomi is best known, atleast to me, for her songs from Magic Knight Rayearth and I hadn’t really looked much further into her repertoire. She quickly proved to me that I should have as she had some very hard rock sounds to share with the audience in addition to her Rayearth more pop-rock pieces. I am happy to report that she ended her concert (minus the encore) with my favorite piece Yuzurenai Negai the first opening to Rayearth. I jumped up and down, I waved my hands, I screamed, and I clapped for the song I had been waiting for! I was very worried I wasn’t going to hear it because we had to catch a bus but the con gods smiled upon us. It was the perfect way to end the incredible weekend.

The dealers’ room was impressive as always. There was a wide variety of items and a huge amount of dealers. As per our Con Survival guide I only looked at what I had priced beforehand (expect doujin) so I was easily able to keep my spending under control. I mostly looked through the doujinshi because I did not see the Maria figure from Jun Planning. I got some good stuff and picked up a doujinshi for OGT I thought he would like. I also picked up a Nirvash kit as a birthday present for Patz, and then grabbed up some items for my travel companions that couldn’t get to the dealer’s room again which included a Souther Revoltech for Carl, and a Red Comet Gundam action base for Narutaki. Patz got me the Gundam Double X with G-Falcon as a birthday gift earlier in the convention. Did I mention that I love Paula Cis? It is only tangentially related but I figured I would bring it up again. I wish I had had a little more time to just look over the dealers’ room in hopes of finding something rare but my schedule was a little too jam packed for that. While my heart was sad my wallet was happy.

I really didn’t get a chance to spend as much time as I normally like to at the Artist Alley probably because there were so many events going on I barely even had time to eat let alone meander. However, I did make a point to check out the art auction and to see the very large Big O model that was for sale. A mere $9500.00 could net you that behemoth, atleast that was the starting price! I haven’t heard anything about what it sold for. There were other unique pieces like quilts and door shades as well as traditional paintings and the such. I am always amazed to see people willing to pay top dollar for prints, PRINTS, of stuff that you can buy right over in artist alley just because they are framed. They aren’t even numbered or have a limited printing. The alley itself seemed to a little less crowded but the artwork seemed to be a bit higher in quality over all.

I had a ton of fun with people I have known for years, people I know casually, people I only know through the Internet, and with people I just met for the first time. My biggest problem was usually deciding what to go to because there were too many good options. If your major problem is too much fun then that is always a good thing. Without a doubt Otakon once again proves that there are major benefits and experiences you can only get out of a big convention. I know that Narutaki and I are already planning to go next year.  If you are on the fence I suggest you attend as well. The only other conventions that are going to give you anywhere as much bang for your buck on the East coast are New York Anime Festival and Anime Weekend Atlanta. So I hope to see everyone I met at Otakon next year and I hope to see some new faces as well.

Otakon is a special convention that is not without its problems but they more than make up for it in enthusiasm for the fans themselves. With the new addition of the Hilton the convention seems poised to continue growing in the many years to come in Baltimore. Crowd control over all never seemed to be an issue for me and congestion seemed to be kept to a minimum. The events were top notch and very rarely started late, even the concerts were efficiently run on their time schedules! Being our first year as press we still have some things to get used to and learn. And while I would have liked better communication about interviews and the such, it didn’t wholly overshadow the experience. I can honestly say overall praise is what Otakon staff deserve this year! If I haven’t made it clear in my report then let me say plainly that Otakon was amazing, full of people and events that were second to none, and plans for next year have already started taking shape in my mind.

Top 5 Model Kits I would like
5. 1/144 PTX-003-SP1 Alteisen Riese & 1/144 PTX-007-03C Weissritter
4. Moebius Zero & Sky Grasper 1/144 Scale EX-15
3. MRC-F20 Mobile Sumo / Gold Type (1/100)
2. 1/100 MG Nu Gundam
1. 1/35 AT-05E Rodeo-Star

Narutaki and Hisui’s schedule:

Friday
Anime Through the Generations Panel
Anime’s Pirate Legacy Panel
Anime Princesses Rule Panel
Japanese Crime Fiction in Anime Panel
My Stereotypes are More Offensive than Yours Panel
These are a Few of My Favorite Scenes Panel

Saturday
I Can’t Believe You Haven’t Seen This! Panel
Psychology of Anime
Vertical Panel
ParaPara Dance Workshop
Directing! Panel
Funimation Panel
Bad Anime, Bad! Panel
As the Otaku Grows Panel

Sunday
History of Manga Panel
Otaku Perceptions and Misconceptions Panel
Anime Blogging Basics Panel

Aren’t cons exciting? No matter how many I go to, I always look forward to another one. This has become especially true in recent years as I meet more and more people from blogosphere and other outlets. AnimeNEXT usually kick starts my con season every year and this time around is no exception. It was one of those inbetween conventions that holds a special place because of the dates it usually lands on. There was a major location change this year so it the con had a bit of a unknown factor going in.

I have to agree with Narutaki. As I am more and more a part of the menagerie that is the anime community, I look forward to going to conventions more than ever. It is a great opportunity to see old friends, meet up with people you have only talked to on the Internet, and discover awesome people you have not yet met. I know people are always disappointed that I am not actually an emotionally dead red-headed magical maid when they meet me. Then again I am actually emotionally dead so that is something, right? AnimeNEXT also has very good panels thanks to some very knowledgeable old time fans attending every year. There is also a strong and growing blogging presence. Since the thing I like the most about anime conventions, besides Japanese guests, are the panels it is always nice to seem some quality lectures about fascinating topics.

So around 1PM I hopped on a train bound for the unknown (or New Brunswick, New Jersey) with two of three people I would spend a good portion of the convention with, Carl from Oguie Maniax and Ko from datacomp (the third, and missing, companion being Hisui). A short amount of train trouble later and we had arrived, kind of. As we were waiting for a shuttle from our hotel to pick us up, we were hit up for change a number of times. To be honest, I was rather unhappy with having to grab a hotel at the last minute but the location is just not conducive for commuting to three days in a row. They also seemed rather unhappy to have con goers in the hotel. I had to implicitly insist that we get a coffee maker in the room. In any case we checked in with relative ease and the room was decent enough. There was a small walking path to the convention that got a lot of use over the weekend. Getting panelist and press badges was virtually painless though they did spell our blog name wrong (REVERSE THIVES). Once all of these details were taken care it was time to dive in! 

Friday started off a quite the rainy day. I was stuck at work with various misfortunes until late so I myself did not arrive at the convention until after 9PM. The hotel would not send me a courtesy driver to pick me up from the train station so I had to take a cab. Upon further thinking I wonder if the fact that I mentioned I was going to AmineNEXT had anything to do with it. The woman I was talking with very suddenly changed her tone after that and overall the hotel seemed less amiable to AmineNEXT guests. A guest is a guest in my opinion and should be treated as such. After I got to the convention and got my press badge I was off to the panels. On a side note, I got the Keroro Gunso badge because the Code Geass badge did not have Euphemia. No pink princess equals no badge.

We peeked at the karaoke room and I was told their song selection and set-up was only so-so and we quickly exited. Not that I was planning on doing any anyway. We then headed to our first panel for the weekend: Anime Through the Generations. I was unsure what to expect here but it seemed like a place that interesting discussions might arise. I was surprised to see the panelists were fairly young. It ended up being basically a group discussion with large amounts of audience participation. Topics were thrown out and the fans answered along with the panelists. The room was a mix bag of older and younger fans. They also ran a panel on Sunday called Otaku Misconceptions and Perceptions. Not sure if it was their first times with these panels but it seemed that way. In group discussion panels its important to keep things on target and not to let the panel runaway with itself. I think if they just exert themselves a bit more this will be corrected. Would enjoy seeing these discussions again.

I stated off on a good foot by going to a trio of panels by Brian T. Price, Walter Amos and Rob Fenelon. They are knowledgeable guys and it is always a pleasure. They are well versed in a variety of subjects including anime, manga, history, literature, and philosophy. If you attend one of their panels you will always walk having learned something while still making it entertaining. First, Anime Princesses which looked at various strong female anime princesses who act like real princesses. I was really disappointed that I missed them talking about Princess Euphemia. Next, My Stereotypes are More Offensive than Yours which sounds much worse then it really was. It was mostly a discussion of tropes and ideas that were unique to anime. They realized that anime could be just as cliched as any other form of entertainment but sometimes a formula can uplift the medium. Last, These are a Few of My Favorite Scenes where they took a couple of scenes and tried to sell you on the series. I especially liked the series of super weapon scenes. My only real complaint was they often had a decent number of non-anime shows as they did anime ones in all of their panels. I would have liked to have seen just straight anime in their panels but they always picked shows worth watching. I had wanted to chat with the panelists but it was 2AM when all the panels were over so I went straight to bed. I hardly even saw my fellow roommates. Apparently they need more and 4 hours of sleep a night and went to bed way before I did.

We ordered pizza to our hotel room and regained our strength before heading back for more convention going action. I missed a bit of the beginning of the Anime’s Pirate Legacy panel. Without having a panel description to consult I thought it was going to be about piracy’s history in anime fandom. It turned out to be a panel about pirate anime or atleast kind of. It started off fine talking about all kinds of shows from space pirates to traditional but at the half way mark it deteriorated. They ran out of titles so started talking about tangentially related shows like Gurren Lagann. They then showed the 12-minute OVA of it. There was also a lengthy discussion of Dragonball thrown in the middle. The same people ran a panel later called Japanese Crime Fiction in Anime which mostly consisted of Golgo 13 and a brief mention of City Hunter. This was rather a let down, they seemed very enthusiastic but certainly needed to do more research. The subject matter certainly interests me so I would love to see it revamped and done again. I then caught the tail end of Anime Princess before dropping off to sleep for the night.

Saturday stared with a delicious breakfast of instant Sukiyaki Udon otherwise know as the breakfast of champions. Then we wandered over panel room to give our I Can’t Believe You Haven’t Seen This! panel and I had some coffee and trail mix. That was certainly important because I did not really wake up for the panel until about half way through. I think the panel went well and got a decent crowd considering how early in the morning we were scheduled. Carl was a new addition to the panel but he was an excellent speaker and brought some shows we we not have normally had in our lineup.

Despite our panel’s terrible time slot and also the omission of the panel description in the guide book, we had a decent turn out. The location of our panel room was a good spot right near the artist alley. We had almost 40 people listening to us babble on! It seemed like all of us including the audience were still half asleep till about half way through the panel then we hit our stride. Since this was only our second time running this panel it still had an uneasy quality to it. Also since we switched out a deal of shows for new ones, it wasn’t and probably won’t ever be as natural as Anime Recruitment comes off. Still I think the panel is getting there and will probably end up in our rotation of panels. We are updating it and presenting at Otakon, too. The Vertical panel was a little later. Their panel had no major new things to say, yet. Ed hinted all over the place and has so on his Twitter that there should be some upcoming manga licenses that will be buzzing. They mostly talked about their current catalog and also gave some things away. One thing that was awesome was these Sayonara, Mr. Fatty! notepads. I was also able to snatch up a copy of the book which doesn’t street until July!

After the panel I checked out the game room and watched some Tatsunoko vs Capcom. It looks like a fun game that I will have to get for the Wii when it comes out despite the fact that I am rather horrible at fighting games. I then went to the Psychology of Anime panel. Although it was listed as a workshop it was more of a talk. But it was certainly a fascinating. The lecturer showed how various psychological theories were used by anime to enhance their stories while other psychological theories could be applied to analyze different series. The guy running the panel was very good at getting the audience involved while making sure that it moved forward at a decent pace. It went over rather well and he promised he would run the panel next year with new material. At one point Narutaki and I went back to the hotel room to chill and eat and we got to see a sneak preview of the blogging panel. It was fun to see the powerhouse team working their magic. After shooting the breeze with everyone I tried to go to the Japanese Sweets and Snacks panel but it was all filled. I therefore went to Directing! Panel. It had Toshifuma Yoshida and Tom Wayland talking about directing anime DVDs in America. They answered questions about directing and the American side of the anime industry. I did not learn anything new but both panelists were friendly and well informed.

After the rain let up I went back to the con in time to catch the ParaPara Dancing Workshop. It was run by the same girls from last year who are from ParaPara NY. It was the same general set-up hosted in the “arena” area of the exhibition center. There are bleachers in the back for chilling out and watching what is going on. It is rather populated area since its one of the more open sections indoors. They upped the amount of dances from 3 to 5 over last year but I was quite done at 3. I am not good in the least but its a lot of fun and I highly recommend it at any convention. I tried to go to the Funi panel and as per usual it was packed to the gills for no reason under the sun. I promptly deserted and went to stick my head into the Restricted Rock Paper Scissors panel. I came in too late to actually play but Carl was able to join in. It’s a game from Kaiji where you use cards that are either rock, paper, or scissors. You try to beat other players and gain points. Obviously in Kaiji its a bit more cutthroat and you have more to lose! The panelists seemed surprised how many people showed up and it threw them off for the beginning. Once the game got underway things seemed to go fine. Though they seemed anxious to rush everyone out because the Masquerade was soon after.

Since the Funimation panel was in the same room as the Directing! panel, I fortunately had a seat for when everyone streamed in. I always find it funny that so many people show up to Funimation panels hoping to get free stuff but they never give anything away. I must have heard three separate conversations about free stuff before the panel. There were no big announcements but I did notice one thing. When the topic of picking up Central Park Media’s old licenses came up I did notice that the Funimation rep said they were interested in all of the titles including ones with pink-haired girls. I am glad to hear they are looking into getting Utena because I would certainly buy it again they they cleaned up the video from the mediocre job CPM did on the first 13 episodes.

After all this, somehow most every blogger we knew (and a few we hadn’t met yet!) came together to get some much needed grub. This ended up being perfect timing because a good portion of the con attendees were at the masquerade. After a game of musical cars we were all seated at the Ruby Tuesday’s a couple of minutes away. The table was large and you could essentially talk to everyone. I was sitting nearest to Carl, Brad from Japanator, Ko, Moy from 11-15% suki, and Super Rats from Happy Soda. Dinner was good, the place serves endless fries! Conversations were varied and laughter was plentiful. These dinners are really becoming one of the things I look forward to most at conventions.

The dinner round table was definitely one of the highlights on the convention. It is a nice chance to speak with people outside of the hectic environment of the con. It worked better than the dinner at NYAF because I got a much better chance to speak to everyone as opposed to speaking to a small group of people like the last time. I loved talking with the people at my table at NYAF but I was essentially cut off from the other 2/3 of the bloggers. Though I was seated closer to Omo from Omonomono, Trish from AnimeNEXT, Scott from Anime Alamanac, and Brad. Dinner with good conversation is always very nice. This time around, dinner topics ranged from anime to politics and everything in-between. I had a delicious buffalo burger and, of course, endless fries.

I’m pretty sure I experienced my first Bad Anime, Bad! panel at an AnimeNEXT a couple of years ago. It has certainly become popular, though I also wonder if that is because it was a little earlier than normal. Anyway, this time was solely devoted to the monstrosity known as Dracula Sovereign of the Damned which was brought over and dubbed by Harmony Gold so you can imagine where this is going. I had only seen pieces of this previously and admittedly he still cut parts during this showing as well. I can now see why it needed to be seen. Not only is the story bad, the dialogue is incredibly inept, and the voice acting even worse. It is one hilarious moment after the other and just when you think it can’t get worse it has . . . an explosive ending let’s say. It’s a show you don’t care about spoilers for but it just wouldn’t be as funny unless you see it for yourself!

After dinner I made the very poor choice of going to the As the Otaku Grows panel. I have gone to panels that I felt could use some polish but I had never been to a panel that was worthless. Until this panel. It was essentially what if Paul “Otaking” Johnson ran a panel about 90′s anime instead of 80′s anime. He basically ran a panel about why 90′s anime is the best ever and everything else is garbage. I had to leave the panel halfway through. It’s not the fact that he loved 90′s anime so much. Everyone is entitled to have a favorite time period in anime history. But I won’t stand for people saying that everything else is worthless. There are great, mediocre, and horrible anime from every time period and saying otherwise is both ignorant and closed-minded. The scary part was the audience mainly seemed to be agreeing with him! I wanted to stay and argue but I decided against it and just had fun elsewhere.

On the morning of our last day we finished off the last bit of food I had brought along. Yes, that is right, my con survival talking about how to save your pennies on food for the weekend in practice right here ladies and gents! In any case, my load was still pretty heavy thanks to a couple of purchases as well as some free books I had acquired. Checking out was also painless thank goodness. We headed over the con about a hour or so before the first panel began. This is a rather magical time that is kind of frighteningly quiet. We also took this time to get refunds for our badges since we were press. I also took this time to take one last look around the Artist Alley. It had a decent turn out this year with talent ranging from fan-art to crafts. I picked up a button of Kanda from D.Gray Man and contemplated a nice print of Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle but decided against it.

Sunday started with an apple and cupcakes which is another power breakfast. I then attended the History of Manga panel. After some technical difficulty the panelist launched into his lecture. It was a good overview of the history of manga in America. He hit all the high and low points and it was very good for the amount of time that he had. I did notice he had a bit of more of an emphasis on OEL manga than I assumed he would have but it is not as if he neglected anything so I was fine. It was just an unusual choice. As Ko said you could tell he was an old school fan due to his obvious interest in furry titles like Fred Perry’s Gold Digger. Still it was an informative panel and a great introduction to how far manga has come in the U.S. The next panel was Otaku Perceptions and Misconceptions. The panel started late as the members rushed to get to the room. The idea was interesting. It was panel about what how anime and manga fandom feels about itself and how does it think that other people perceive it. They seemed to have a list of topics they wanted to talk about but since it was a discussion panel with the audience their speaking points quickly got cast by the way side as the audience took over at many points. Still it was an interesting panel as I always like to see fandom’s views about itself.

Even with some crazy scheduling changes the Anime Blogging Basics panel ended up being our last event of the convention. Unfortunately with a sudden time change and room change the panel mostly consisted of other bloggers. Besides Carl, the panel was Omo from Omonomono, Moy from 11-15% suki, and Super Rats from Happy Soda. These guys put together a good outline and all seemed to work quite differently with different philosophies about blogging. It was a pretty relaxed atmosphere for the most part. I think handouts would help for anyone who was actually wanting to get tips on starting to blog. Hisui also swooped in to ask some hard hitting questions!

The dealers room was nice but I am bit on a budget so decided that I was only going to look for two things. The only way I would buy anything else is if it so shocked me I had to buy it. I was looking for a model kit of the RX-78-2 Gundam or Nu Gundam and the Jun Planning version of the Maria figure from Hayate the Combat Butler. I never saw the Maria figure but I did stumble upon a prefect grade original Gundam. I was informed that it has light up eyes and I am merely a mortal so it was not easy to resist that siren’s call. But I eventually decided to wait for Otakon. There I will most probably get some form of Amuro’s Gundam. There was a bunch of nice stuff but nothing worth splurging on. I almost bought a Mylene pencil board for Mylene’s fan #1 but at $12 I decided against it. But I partially blame my mad net skills on that fact. 

The dealer’s room seemed larger than last year which is certainly a plus. There was also much more room to maneuver around making Saturday even pretty decent to go into the fray. Since I have a strategy when going in, it makes things less chaotic and makes me seem less like a maniac with no worries about money. I needed up with just a couple of purchases most happily is the one pictured above. When they guy was willing to go down to $10 I was in! But most dealer’s were not making deals, very sad times. I wanted to walk away with Athrun’s Aegis 1/100 scale but no dice. I also saw a decent amount of people selling doujinshi which keeps increasing every year it seems. Also I barely resisted getting some Record of Lodoss War pencil boards since I had never seen them they snuck up on me! As usual the dealer’s room is not my priority at cons but this one was manageable enough to be worth exploring.

AnimeNEXT is like spaghetti with plain sauce when there is no solid Japanese guest. It is satisfying but you feel like something major is missing. So just as a meatball would make the meal complete, likewise a Japanese guest would have rounded out this con. I like AnimeNEXT but I’m not sure I would go next year because it has shifted from being a New York City/New Jersey convention to being a New Jersey convention. The old convention site was super convenient to get to from New York City and there was no reason to have to stay overnight. Being so convenient, there was no reason not to go AnimeNEXT. Now that it is harder to get to, I am no longer 100% locked into going again. I will only go if two things change: if they move the convention back to the old site or if they have a have a decent Japanese guest. Otherwise I might as well spend a little extra and go to Anime Boston instead. AnimeNEXT is an excellent New Jersey convention but if I am going to an out of state convention I want more bang for my buck.

Once again AnimeNEXT proves that some of the best parts of conventions are the fan run panels and the people that you meet. Unfortunately, that is just not enough this time around. I have to agree with Hisui, this location is not New York City friendly mainly because the convention itself is not close to the train station. The train ride is a mere hour but then you have to get to the con. While the shuttle was super plush it just wasn’t running often enough for me to do it three days in a row. Also the location has very little food close by. Really this is a con for people with a car. And thanks to that fact I have to assume their attendance was down this year. I like NEXT, I always have a good time, and I want to go back but not if I have to stay in a hotel.

Top 5 panels I would like to attend (These might exists but I don’t see them enough)
5. The Hidden World of Light Novels
4. Secret Shopper: A Guide to the Best Otaku Stores in Japan
3. I Don’t Know These Characters: The Best Original Concept Doujinshi
2. More Than Just Option #3: JAM IT IN! – A Beginner’s Guide Visual Novels
1. You Have to Get This: A Guide to the Most Awesome and Wackiest Anime Merchandise

Narutaki and Hisui’s schedule

Thursday
ICv2 Conference
Pre-Con Party at Dave and Buster’s

Friday
NYCC Focus Group
News Flash Teen Girls Read Manga Panel
Teaching Comics Panel
MARVEL: X-Men Panel
The Business of Web Comics! LIVE!
MARVEL: Dark Reign Panel
Batman: The Brave and The Bold
Vertical Publishing Panel
Yatterman Premiere
Wonder Woman Premiere

Saturday
How Not to Break into Comics
Del Rey Manga Panel
Gabe and Tycho Spotlight Panel
MARVEL: Cup o’ Joe Panel
Yen Press Panel
Robot Chicken Panel
FUNimation Panel
Men Are From Kyrpton, Women Are From Paradise Island Panel
The Venture Bros. Panel
Bloggers Dinner

Sunday
VIZ Media Panel
Scott Pilgrim vs. The Panel!
Mondo MARVEL: 70th Anniversary Special Panel

So with 18 guests of honor (J. Michael Straczynski and Grant Morrison had to drop out), 6 living legends, 7 special guests, 32 featured guests, 79 artists and writers, 31 literary guests, 7 anime and manga guests, and 8 performance guests, plus dozens of premieres and sneak peeks for movies, video games, books, comics, cartoons, and TV shows. There had to be something for any type of nerd at NYCC 2009. Narutaki and I practically attended two different cons for the amount that we crossed paths. And we didn’t cover half of what was offered at the convention. In many ways it is the clearest example you can find of how our taste may vary when it comes to things outside of anime and manga.

Good lord, NYCC you never cease to wonder a person. The guest list was insane as proven by the statics mentioned above. The amount of panels to go to was overwhelming creating endless schedule conflicts as you are pulled in three directions at once. This was made twice as difficult because no one seemed to have the chart/grid of all the panels. Apparently there was one, no one we met ever saw it. It was also amusing how other bloggers seemed to only see one of us each day. No one could find me on Friday, likewise Saturday Hisui was missing till the end. Not only was there a ton to see and do there was also a huge amount of bloggers and friends to pal around with for the entire length of the con and after!

So my co-worker and me practically ran out of work to get to the Pre-Con party because they were giving away swag if you were one of the first 200 in. This ended up being mostly nothing worth having. Though I did keep the Ultimate Spider-Man 100 Project which has a ton of pics drawn by lots of artists. I was hoping Dave and Buster’s would have more Comic Con related stuff and atleast a discount on game credits! But we made our own fun. I played 88 games of skeeball and gave all the tickets to kids randomly. We bailed pretty early and went to dinner. My co-worker did get to speak with Joe Quesada for a minute though!

I was barely at the Dave and Buster’s party. It was just a good place to meet up with people after the ICv2 conference. I met with Scott of Anime Almanac and Dave of Subatomic Brainfreeze. I didn’t really spend any money at the arcade but I guess I am one of the reasons they are dying in America. Then again the Deal or No Deal game is not something that particularly makes me want to spend my money anyway. From what I understand the food at D&B’s is hideously overpriced and merely okay so we went to the nearly empty Applebee’s downstairs. I finally learned of Dave’s opinion of Type-Moon which made the whole convention a success. It was a good warm up for the upcoming convention.

I started the convention proper by attending the News Flash Teen Girls Read Manga Panel. It was a well run and Brigid Alverson from the Manga Blog was part of it. I did not learn anything new but it was a panel for librarians and store owners to learn about manga and its appeal to girls. All the panelists were quite knowledgeable and the panel was well run. The Teaching Comics Panel was putting me to sleep. It was basically was a panel for teachers and how they could teach language and theory behind making comics in their class. The high point was an exercise at the end: they had everyone draw one panel and then tried to make a complete comic out of it. Being interactive it woke me up to participate.

I came to the convention after the professionals panels (I worked a half day). I was sad to miss those few special hours but I took advantage of the early entrance into the exhibitors hall when I got there. It was certainly the most calm time for the convention. I always look forward to Marvel panels, they are always a good time. Luckily my first panel of the con was X-Men. It was amazing seeing so many creators up there at once, not the least of which were Chris Claremont, living legend himself, and current Uncanny writer Matt Fraction. They talked quite a bit about the upcoming Messiah War. They also hinted around at a lot of things like the new mutant child named Hope. And she has red hair and green eyes, don’t draw conclusions. . . but draw conclusions! Looks to be an exciting time to be an X-Men reader. A couple of hilarious moments occurred, as per usual. A guy stood up and asked Matt Fraction why he refused his friend request on about Xbox Live. Everyone was cracking up till we realized the guy was actually serious! Also a guy asked about Scarlet Witch, Jim McCann told him to ask at the next panel where Dan Slott would be. This seemed reasonable enough but the guy walked out and yelled “coward!” This then became a running joke at all the Marvel panels for the con.

I decided to pop into The Business of Web Comics! LIVE! panel with Scott Kurtz and Robert Khoo. It was interesting to see under the hood of how big name web-comics make their money. It was a great panel if you wanted to draw your own web comic and hopefully make money off it one day. Robert Khoo lent the panel a serious and professional quality whereas Scott Kurtz make the panel entertaining and quite funny. Both had good insights for the audience. Scott Kurtz mentioned that most professional comic artists seem mystified by the concept of putting up their work for free then making money on merchandise only.

The Marvel fun just never stops! The Dark Reign panel was awesome. Probably my favorite comic writer now is Brain Michael Bendis so I was ready to here about all the coming plans for this crazy twist. Certainly keeping a lot under their hats but they love throwing out hints to get people all excited. One guy in the audience was going on and on about how Doctor Doom would never take a backseat to Norman Osborn. Doctor Doom then became the default answer for everything in the panel. Of course there is always one guy who stands up to say how much he DOESN’T like what is going on, as if the rest of us agree with him? Joe Quesada is really great at taking the wind out of their sails. He basically says, our sales are better when big events are going on, if people weren’t buying them believe me we wouldn’t be doing them. And that was that. In other great news, they are doing Dark Young Avengers!

I then went to the Batman: Brave and the Bold Panel. Since I don’t have cable at my apartment I was sadly unaware of this show which is a shame because it seems to be rather awesome. Batman teaming up with a variety of other superheros it seems to have a good amount of Batman style and action while retaining a tongue in cheek sense of humor. They really sold me on Aquaman. I think the line, “He thinks he is an awesome hero and does not realize you all think he is lame” really sold me. They then played a rather cool episode had Batman go to an alternate Earth where all the heroes were villains and all the villains where heroes. When the leader of this alternate Earth’s heroes is the Red Hood you know you have a Comic Con episode.

The Vertical panel and my first industry panel of the convention started off slightly depressing. They have very few books coming out in the next year and only four of which are manga, all Black Jack. They talked about some of their crafting series and about how the word “cute” in the title helps them sell better. I think proposed they start calling it Cute Black Jack. Luckily there was a bright spot, apparently they are getting new investment and teaming with a Japanese publisher who they have yet to reveal. I also asked about more Shinjuku Shark novels. They said they will at least do the third book but would like to do all ten. At the end they gave away signed copies of To Terra . . . by Keiko Takemiya! I didn’t win one and I was really jealous!

I attended the first half of the Vertical panel but I wanted to make sure I got to the Yatterman premiere on time. There I met up with Scott of Anime Almanac, Gia of Anime Vice, and John of Japanator. We had a nice conversation about various things including Kaiba. The audience that was not press seemed to be mostly made up of crazy Sho Sakurai fan-girls. This was made painfully obvious because anytime anything Sho related was mentioned or appeared on the screen the audience went nuts. The squeals when Yatterman No.1 kissed anyone was simply amazing. The movie itself felt like a Stephen Chow movie. It had that same mix of goofy comedy and over the top action that made it feel like a live action cartoon in every sense of the word. I think that Stephen Chow does it better but overall I enjoyed Yatterman. You just can’t go in expecting Ichi the Killer. It’s a dumb movie but it never wants to be anything else. I am sure Yatterman fans are going to get more out of it. There was some question and answer after the panel with Sho Sakurai and Takashi Miike.

My last excursion of the night was the Wonder Woman premiere. My friend and I also caught the last few minutes of the Futurama movie before it. It seemed reasonably funny. As we waiting, the IGN theater showed a bunch of looks at things on the screens like at a regular movie theater. We saw a first look at the G.I. Joe movie which will probably be awful. They also mention how they were really making it diverse but I saw about 80 white people in it and one black guy and one Korean guy so whatever. Apparently Cobra Commander won’t be in it?! We also saw some stuff about the upcoming Chun-li movie which looks worse than the G.I. Joe one. All the fights they showed where in the shadows probably because this girl playing Chun-li can’t fight worth a damn. Anyway, the Wonder Woman movie was really great! D.C. has really done some great animated productions over the years and this ranks up there with them. There was some adult humor and was more violent than I expected! Bruce Timm along with the director and writer did a Q & A after the showing. He said he thought this was the best yet, even better than Mask of the Phantasm. NO WAY, but it was still really good.

Saturday was my big day so there was quite a bit to do. I started with the How Not to Break into Comics panel. I was hoping it was going to have a lot of funny stories. It definitely had some good ones but it was mostly a very serious look at how to try to get a job in the comics industry. Apparently people constantly don’t put any contact information on their submission making getting back to them impossible. A very useful panel for anyone who is serious about doing their pitch right.

Bandai is going to be okay people! They are going to be doing a lot more online, including having Code Geass and Gundam 00 available. Also they picked up the Gundam 00 manga and novel! YAY! I am hoping they do similar packaging with Gundam 00 as they did with Code Geass with including manga in the awesome box. Looks like Hayate the Combat Butler will be released subbed only in 13 episode boxes. This seems like a smart move, plenty of fans wanting to pick that up but not enough to go through dubbing it. I’m sure they will have a few more announcements coming this year, all of them good.

Like many east coast residents I have never had to good fortune to get out to PAX so it was really awesome to be able to Tycho and Gabe at NYCC. You definitely see where the characters in the comics come from when they talk. I found it amusing that Gabe would constantly pick people from the audience to ask questions and Tycho would have to force Gabe to stop and let him pick someone from the audience on occasion. They were very personable and entertaining and had an excellent chemistry with each other and the crowd.  It also started the trend for Saturday, every panel I attended was standing room only.

Attended Del Rey panel with a good portion of the anime/manga blogging crew. They mentioned doing some “manga” versions of X-Men at NYAF 2008. But what I saw was quite unexpected. Emo-boy/Bishonen Wolverine? Turning X-Men into a reverse harem romance comedy? It just seems like a strange way to approach things. Wolverine is rather beloved. Oh, and he is a totally crazy, deadly, bad-ass. It was really off putting. The same goes for the X-Men story. While I like Kitty Pryde, as do all, and am glad to see her staring, this wasn’t what I had in mind. One of the great things about X-Men is their strong female cast which was mentioned in this panel. I asked about the decision to then exclude most of them in favor of this school comedy bit. It was basically like “well this is just what we decided to do.” I am clearly bias and not the target audience but come on!

I barely got into the Robot Chicken panel due to a good deal of madness. It was the least organized of all the lines I saw. Staff pulled the press out of the line to get us in, then security refused to let us. I eventually got in but had to stand along the wall after one of the other press guys pulled out an class-A ability to complain politely but loudly. It was worth it. The main question and answer consisted of Seth Green talking about everything with backup from Robot Chicken crew and the Cartoon Network representative trying reign things in. Seth answered all the question (other than being super precise about their budget) but once he started talking there was almost no stopping him. He told a hysterical story about dressing up as Spider-Man at San Diego Comic Con. It turned out that he received just as much attention as Spider-Man as he did without the costume. There was also a amusing story about how they bought a vintage Batmobile off eBay and the woman who sold it to them wrote them a letter about how glad she was it was going to a good home. They tried their best to use the car without damaging it but wound up having to trash it beyond all recognition. I also loved the Star Wars joke they could not use for the show. After the Q&A it took about five minutes to get Seth to stop talking so they could play a ten minute clip. I only watch Robot Chicken on DVD so I am not sure how much of it was new stuff and how much of it has already been on TV. It was definitely worth the hassle of getting in.

One of the key things that has made Marvel a fan favorite in recent years is their off the cuff interactions with fans. So one of the highlights of every convention, for Marvel fans, is the Cup o’ Joe panel with head man himself, Joe Quesada (and usually a few guests along). It is essentially just a panel to ask questions to Joe about anything comics related. This time around he had Jim McCann, Brian Michael Bendis, C.B. Cebulski, and Marvel’s publishing director with him to help out. There were actually a lot of questions directed at Bendis which is no surprise with Dark Reign in effect. Some memorable moments included a woman dressed as Black Cat, very well done, asking when she will get her own comic; a semi lengthy discussion about the rising price of single issue comics; and me telling stories about other Marvel panels with the guys sitting next to me.

Men Are From Kyrpton, Women Are From Paradise Island Panel was packed which for some reason surprised me. There was hardly a free seat in the room. I was tempted to go to the Dr. Who panel because hey, it’s Dr. Who but I was curious to see an analysis of gender in comics. The discussion was lively and the panelist did broaden the discussion as race and homosexuality started to come up. It was all interesting and the moderator let people go off on related tangents while making sure that everyone got back to the topic at hand. I really wanted to state that it’s important to keep in mind you can’t force sensitivity or diversity into a story. If people want stories about females, minorities, or gay characters you can request that they do so and hope that someone listens. If you force people to do it then the stories will come out as disingenuous and be horrible. The best solution is for people who really care to go out and write those stories themselves but not everyone has the time or ability to do so. It can be frustrating to not see the topics you want  addressed in a sensitive and entertaining manner. I am not sure what to say other than people have to be patient but politely vocal. Though I was unable to express this to the panelist because everyone was so engrossed.

So, so much anime and manga industry stuff on Saturday. Next up was Yen Press. Everyone was excited to see they grabbed Yotsuba&! People couldn’t be happier! Though the surprise was kind of spoiled by a flaky PowerPoint presentation. They gave books galore and it got a bit crazy. This also explained why when most industry panels and empty this one was packed. Soul Eater was clearly the crowd favorite, unfortunately for me and great for Yen Press. Funimation was right after that. I liked the new Funi media player plus they are getting a lot more series online for free. I am yet to check it out since but I plan to. They showed a lot of trailers and two dudes behind us were so annoying and loud yelling DBZ and Afro Samurai the entire time. I had a major headache after that. I also found it amusing that when people realized there would be no free stuff the room emptied fast before the panel was over.

I finished of Saturday with the Venture Brothers panel. It did not have as many panelists as last year but it was still fun. I came in just before it started so I had to sit all the way in the back. It was actually great because everyone just sat on top on their chairs to get a better view. Since they did not yet have a trailer for the fourth season, they played some deleted scenes from the third. The rest of the panel was Q&A. They kept bringing up that they killed number 24 but in their defense so did the audience. I enjoyed Doc Hammer and Jackson Public saying they were going to make sure to keep the murderous moppets around just because they were universally hated. The same Triana cosplayer that made such a big splash last year showed up again and invited the cast to have coffee with her. This of course set everyone on the panel and the audience off like nobodies business. And speaking of Triana the inevitable topic of the inexplicably popular friend Kim came up. The panelist all but said they would make sure she never came back just because people keep asking for her. I really hope they do the panel again next year because it is always one of the highlights.

My last panel was industry related, as a lot of Saturday was given to. CMX did a great job. I love this company anyway and they are truly one of the under appreciated manga publishers out there. They do a lot of good smaller manga, more obscure stuff. They did announce anything new but we got to see covers and interiors for upcoming releases. One was a mecha series that looked cool called Broken Blade! I asked them about the marketing strategy of releasing different series by the same author simultaneously rather than one after the other. It was as I hoped, they are trying to build a fan-base for the manga-ka. Also they hope you don’t feel like there is too long a break between titles if you are reading my series by the same manga-ka. I like this a lot and it does seem to help name recognition. They also seemed receptive to my and Kohaku’s opinion on some licenses, like Yoroshiku Master (which was my manga of the month recently!). This panel also became the unofficial gathering place for all the bloggers going to dinner.

I met up with everyone after the Venture Brother Panel. It took a bit of herding but we got everyone to go to dinner. At final count we had a group of 15 and had to be  separated into three groups. I was seated with Gia and John along with my old friend Eric. Gia and John were nice conversation. I was interested to find that John liked Diebuster more than Gunbuster despite seeing Gunbuster first. That is almost never the case although he made a convincing argument about the themes of Diebuster being more relevant to him. After dinner I went with Dave from Colony Drop and Carl from Ogiue Maniax to karaoke with some anime podcasters. It was awesome seeing Erin and Noah again and no one can ever get too much David Riley. Ed Chavez did an awesome rendition of Metamorphoze by Gackt. Seeing Dave and Carl back to back singing giant robot openings was quite awe inspiring especially King Gainer Over!. I was also quite happy that Carl did Century Color from Turn A Gundam. Mike Toole showed up later on to kick it up a notch. I was happy finally be able to sing karaoke with people who were not all gods but merely mortal men. It made me much more comfortable. I myself got home around 5 in the morning.

The bloggers dinner, as we are calling it, was definitely a highlight of the convention. Some of the people in attendance I had only just met at the con. There were also a few that I have hung out with before, and of course good friends too. After we split into our booths all after each other, I was with Kohaku, Carl, Dave, and Evan of Ani-Gamers. This led to many amusing discussions (and the showing of video clips when Dave’s phone felt like working). On the menu for talking was creepy teachers, never drinking Snapple again, giant robots, and Segata Sanshiro. At one point we heard what sounded like a intelligent conversation going on behind us but then we promptly put it out of our minds. I had a blast, laughed a lot, and ate a yummy cheeseburger. I took part of it home but then forgot to refrigerate it, I was rather sad about that. I went home early with Kohaku and Eric in toe.

I really only went to two panels on Sunday. I went to the VIZ panel with everyone else. The there were two big topics and several smaller announcements. First they talked more about Japanese science-fiction line. It seems to have a wide variety in the first four titles upcoming. This could open up new avenues for VIZ and anime fans if these do well. The big announcement was the licensing of Rumiko Takahashi’s new manga. As far as I can tell they licensed her new manga sight unseen. Rumiko Takahashi equals money no matter what she does. I am very curious what it is going to be about. Also it seems that this will be an almost simultaneous U.S.-Japanese release if they want it to be. I am curious how simultaneous the release will be.

What most excited me at the VIZ panel was the announcement for the Natsume Yuujinchou manga. If you have been keeping up with my ongoing investigations, I have a gushed about this series a few times. After this, Evan corralled a few of us and we headed to the press room to do a podcast for Ani-Gamers about the convention. On the way there we must have been yelled at five times for allegedly trying to cut the Joss Whedon line. Podcasting ensued with the likes of yours truly, Hisui, Scott of Anime Almanac, his friend Greg, Brigid of Manga Blog, and of course Evan himself. The conversation was lively and fluid covering topics like crowds, licenses, Yatterman and state of the industry. Go take a listen!

I then went to the Scott Pilgrim panel. I have heard quite a few good reviews of the series so I was interested to hear the author speak. Most of the audience wanted to hear about the upcoming movie but Bryan Lee O’Malley could not really say anything more than what was on the Internet. I have to say comics like Scott Pilgrim are OEL done right. American artists should take their interest in manga and let it influence their  art and their storytelling but not try to adapt the “manga style” wholesale. I can’t say the panel made me want to rush out and buy Scott Pilgrim but I will probably pick it up the next time I see it.

My final Marvel panel of the con was Mondo Marvel. It had a good number of writers and artists there. About 14 in all plus Seth Meyers and Bill Hader from SNL showed up much to the surprise of the audience. They are doing a one shot Spider-Man story called the Short Halloween. The crowd chuckled at the name in a knowing fashion which lead to Seth and Bill making the comment that this was the only crowd that would get that joke (if you have no idea what I’m talking about, there is a famous Batman story called the Long Halloween). They kind of stole the spotlight, unsurprisingly. One other cool announcement was The Marvels, it is will be taking us back to the origin of origins, the Marvel universe itself. We know certain characters came from experiments, accidents, etc. but we are going to get a look at how those organizations that caused these things came to be. Sounds like a really interesting project.

Sunday I finally got to spending some cash in the dealer’s room. I bought five Revoltech figures since it was buy three, get two free and there were only 20 dollars each. I got an Ingram, King Gainer, Gurren Lagann, Yotsuba, and Dark Saber. I was a little sad they did not have Revy but that was not unexpected. I almost got the two Valkyries but decided to have some restraint. I also went to the Yen Press both as they were giving away manga but it had been mostly picked clean. I got a copy of Black God three but not one or two.

The Exhibitors hall as always was giving away some free stuff, but seemed like less than last year. I did get a copy of the first issue and a poster of Watchmen which was cool. Sunday was the first time I set foot in artist alley and it was great! Comic cons version of this is a little different because there are actually famous comic artists and writers sitting right there! There are also amateurs, too. We saw Ryu Moto (who we have interviewed) and talked with him for a few minutes. He seemed really impressed with the convention as well. I happened by the Jim Lee booth and he was actually there! The line was also fairly short, what luck! If I had come by ten minutes later he would have been gone. I got two signatures plus he took a photo with me! This man started my love for American comics, it was a really amazing way to top of the convention.

After the con we met up with some friends. We went down to Kinokuniya and Book Off. I did not spend any money but I came very close to buying the new Kido Senshi Gundam-san manga. Mostly because it has Sayla on the cover but also because it looks funny. I learned about Blaster Knuckle and Jesus manga from Dave. Both of them seem like epically horrible, but therefore enjoyable, manga. Blaster Knuckle is about a African American in the south who has to fight flesh-eating KKK members with magical brass knuckles. I can’t casually find anything about the Jesus manga I saw at Bookoff but it was about an assassin codenamed Jesus. There is a manga called Jesus about the biblical Jesus, a romantic comedy called Jesus!, as well as another romantic comedy called Jesus Christ that was in Bessatsu Friend. I was dead tired by the end of it.

I think many of us were reluctant to have the convention end! So meeting up right after we were being kicked out seemed like a way to prolong the inevitable. And a good number of us spent even more money that we didn’t have! But really, Bookoff was having a sale, how could I resist? I was also lucky to make it out of Kinokuniya with any money at all considering Gackt was in three magazine this month. I only bought one, sigh. At about seven or so we parted ways and the magic was over. Leaving a con is like having been in another dimension for three days then coming back to reality. I came out of this con with great deals, hilarious stories, and some new friends. Overall it was one of the best, and best run, conventions I have ever been to. Next year I expect great things but I have to wonder if they can top my experience this year.

I don’t think I have ever been to a convention that was so jam packed with stuff to do. I really regret not being able to go to more anime and manga panels but that is what anime conventions are for. I wish I had been able to see Joss Whedon but I did not feel like hacking through the crowd to hear him talk on Sunday. I also regret not being able to see the Dr. Who panel but such is life. There were just so many to events attend!  There were dozens of minor problems but overall I had a blast. My greatest criticism is that next year it may be almost impossible for them to duplicate the sheer amount of things as they did this time around. NYCC is clearly become a force to rival San Diego. I am curious how the date change for NYCC 2010 will effect things but we shall cross that bridge when we get to it.

Top 5 Anime songs that must be sung at karaoke
5. Tobe! Gundam by Koh Ikeda
4. Cha-La Head-Cha-La by Hironobu Kageyama
3. Rinbu Revolution by Masami Okui
2. Yuusha-oh Tanjou! by Masaaki Endo
1. Ai wo Torimodose by Crystal King

Posted in Conventions, Events Tagged: New York Comic Con, panels, Sho Sakurai, Takashi Miike, Yatterman ]]> http://reversethieves.com/2009/02/16/new-york-comic-con-2009/feed/ 6 reversethieves http://reversethieves.com/2008/10/13/providence-anime-conference-2008/ http://reversethieves.com/2008/10/13/providence-anime-conference-2008/#comments Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:23:10 +0000 reversethieves http://www.reversethieves.com/?p=152 ]]>

Friday
She Might Not Be Into Meowth: Dating Tips for Otaku
Dubs That Time Forgot
The Business of Anime
What? Why? Hentai!
Back in MY Day…

Saturday
Got Yaoi?
Bleach: Of Death and Dyings
ADV Films
All About Anime Cons
When Otaku Attack: The Dark Side of Fandom
Anime Hell
The New Wave: Women, Manga, and Where We Stand
Couples in Anime
The Fans Fucking Scare Me

Sunday
Anime in the 60s
Anno Atomu: Manga Before the Age of Tezuka
The Vile Spectre of Moe
The Absolute Worst of Osamu Tezuka
Do Anime Cons Have a Future?
Conference Feedback

Providence Anime Conference was a great victory for conventions but I worry that it was a Pyrrhic victory in the same moment. Only time will tell if my fears are grounded or if I’m just being my normal pessimistic self. I was never at a loss for an interesting panel to attend, a cool anime to watch, or a fascinating person to talk to. The atmosphere was distinctly refined and sophisticated while still retaining a passion for these Japanese cartoons and comic we all love. The only problem was the dreadfully low turn out for such a lavish convention center . It is a shame because it was an unique experience I would love to bring other people to next year.

I must say the Rhode Island Convention Center is ideally suited for a anime convention. It is connected to the Westin Hotel and Providence Place Mall so theoretically you could check in and never have to leave the interconnected complex. It does not matter what the weather is because you can stay indoors all day and night if you wish. I myself stayed at the Providence Hilton because they gave you a discount if you booked a room online. I had to walk farther to get Chinese food around the corner where I live than I did to get to the convention center. Downtown Providence was sort of sterile but it seemed safe, clean, and there were plenty of places to eat and drink. It was also within walking distance of the bus station so no wasted money on a cab. It would have been the prefect location for the convention had they gotten the 2000 people to show up.

I got in just a little before the first panel started; got my attendee and panelist badges quite easily. The badges has quite unique and colorful designs that I think most people including myself enjoyed. I then quickly checked into my hotel and then went to panels all day. The schedule was quite good; I more often than not had to decide which panel I wanted to go to more. I was also really pleased that the guests did multiple panels and often did panels that were not just about them but topics that they had experience with. A good case in point was Christopher Ayres doing a panel on Mock Combat for Cosplay despite the fact he was at the convention as a voice actor. I always thought it would be a good idea to see what other type of panels the guests can do to mix things up and I think it worked.

I started with Sarah Hodge-Wetherbe’s anime dating panel. She did not actually talk that much about general dating advice like I assumed the panel would consisting of. It might have come up at the very beginning because I did miss the first ten minutes. Since she is a dating columnist for soulgeek.com she just had the audience if they had any questions and she would them give them her advice. There seemed to be no end of questions from con-goers and she answered them in a serious and entertaining fashion so the audience and I had a good time.

Iris “Rakshar” Gordon had the most scholarly panels with Geoffrey Tebbetts coming in a close second. Iris did the Bleach – of Death and Dyings, Death Note – The Psychology of Solipsism, Fullmetal Alchemist – The Symbolism of Alchemy, Neon Genesis Evangelion – The Man in the Machine, and Witch Hunter Robin – The Hero’s Tale panels. I attended at least an hour of each of her panels and they were without a doubt the highlight of the convention and the closest to the stated higher goal of the convention. She had meticulously researched each of her presentations and they were well written and well presented in an engaging manner. I felt that some of her points used some academic shoehorning to get them to fall into place but they were always backed up with documentation and thoughtful ideas. I knew that when she was explaining how the Captains from Soul Society each corresponded to a Buddhist Hell I knew I had finally gotten what I had come for. If you have a chance to see one of her panels I highly recommend it.

Geoffrey Tebbetts was no slouch himself with the Nandeyanen!: The Finer Points of Owari Comedy and Anno Atomu: Manga Before the Age of Tezuka panels. The first panel was an investigation of not just Owari Comedy but Japanese comedy in general. I loved his little Naruto themed comedy act at the end. Take that Uncle Yo. The second panel was an insightful look into what people before Tezuka contributed to modern manga and how they were different as well. We all too often assume that anything before Tezuka is not worth talking about but that is obviously not the case. It is always interesting to see panels that go in different directions and slightly more obscure topics. Geoffrey is another panelist you should go out of your way to see at a convention.

Dubs That Time Forgot, Anime in the 60s, and The Absolute Worst of Osamu Tezuka were panels by big name fan, owner of Anime Jump, and all around cool dude Mike Toole. Dubs that Time forgot was half material that I saw on Anime News Network and half new material. Since Mike Tootle is always adding new content it was still fun to watch. Anime in the 60′s was a good overview of the best (and worst) of what 60′s anime had to offer. The Absolute Worst of Osamu Tezuka mostly dealt with mediocre adaptions of Tezuka’s classic works and some of the mediocre to horrible movies his original production company put out. It was still mostly a love letter to his best works. I was hoping to hear more about stuff like Rainbow Parakeet that nobody talks about. He did dozens upon dozens of different manga. Some of it had to be bad.

I finally got to see one of David Merrill’s Anime Hell panels. They are just dozen of wacky and amusing clips which are more often than not have only a tangential relation to anime. But they are usually darn fun so it’s all good. My favorite part was the man who did the one man Mito Komon vs. Godzilla movie. It’s was worth the price of admission in itself. Don Hertzfeldt’s Rejected got a big reaction out of the crowd as well.

When Otaku Attack: The Dark Side of Fandom and The Fans Fucking Scare Me were both panels talking about the worst that anime conventions and anime fans have to offer. Both panels were obviously well attended and well received. When Otaku Attack tended to be the more serious panel. It started out with Internet fandom horrors stories which of course always leads to a discussion of how 4chan is the anus of the Internet. The second half was mostly about anime fans praying on other anime fans and how we have to band together to prevent that. The Fans Fucking Scare Me was mostly funny little stories from the Funimation rep, like how a kid punched out his best friend for a promo card or how a trailer trash family followed his Dragon Ball Z tour for several states.

The most disturbing story was the story of why Anime Boston no longer allows signs at their convention. Apparently one year Sarah Hodge-Wetherbe was at the con. Her and her friends were chatting with con security while waiting to get into an event. One of their friends spotted a girl who could not be more than fifteen with a “Will Hentai for Money” sign. Attempting to call her bluff he called over the girl and threw down five dollars. She then proceeded to robotically flip up her skirt showing the Full Monty including the fact that she was quite hairless down there. Everyone who saw this was flabbergasted. When they regained their sense they proceed to find the girl, take away her badge, and give her a lecture about how utterly stupid and dangerous her actions were. And so we know why they have rightfully instituted a no sign policy at most anime conventions.

The Business of Anime and ADV Films panels were looks into how anime is brought to the U.S. and then how it comes out on the shelf. The Business of Anime was run by Adam Sheehan from Funimation and the ADV Films panel was run by David Williams. ADV unsurprisingly did not comment at all about the companies current situation and could not even comment about the state of their rumored CLANNAD license. Both companies representatives did talk a good deal about digital downloads. They seem to be a good way of supplementing their income on licenses while providing a legitimate alternative to fan-subs. The only problem is that Japanese companies are extremely hesitant to give out digital distribution rights.

Back in MY Day panel consisted of Kevin McKeever from Harmony Gold, Chris Beveridge or AnimeOnDVD, and David Williams of ADV. It was a fun little look back to fans who took their love of anime and turned it into a career one way or another. Kevin and David did most of the talking. Chris seemed to get embarrassed after he mentioned that Cream Lemon was his gateway into serious anime fandom. David talked a lot about how he got into anime and how that led to the creation of ADV. He also spoke about how they did things back in the early day of the company. It was a fun panel and when David Williams took out the heavy sipping whiskey and started passing it around among his fellow panelists you knew it was informal as you could get.

The Vile Spectre of Moe was interesting and not nearly as harsh as I thought it was going to be. I assumed it was going to be a Daryl Surat style moe bash fest. It was actually a history of otaku fandom and how it led up to the popularity of moe. Christian Daly was clearly not the biggest moe fan but he went out of his way to be fair and balanced. My only complaint about the panel was their was this girl in the audience who felt she should have been a co-panelist. She must have piped up with her own 2 cents after after point he made which, although out of Christian’s control, was annoying. If she obviously knew more than Christian it might have been fine but this was not the case. I felt like screaming, “Let the man run his panel thank you very much!”

I really liked Providence Anime Conference. I don’t think it was able to live up to all it’s ideals but PAC did a good amount of what it wanted to in only its first year. I saw no attention whores in the hallways, most everyone asked intelligent and thought provoking questions at panels, and we saw a more mature set of panels that were generally well attended and received. Although there was a good deal of drinking going on at night and there were hentai related panels it was hardly the majority of the experience. I don’t drink and don’t care that much for hentai but I always had something to do. The only negative thing to say about PAC was it was so poorly attended. They had planned for 2000 attendees but I would be very surprised if they they got over 500. I got the feeling that everyone I talked to had a great time and I know that I would got again next year. The real question is if everyone else is not too gun-shy from this lackluster turnout to try it again. I hope that if the New England Anime Society too took much of a loss on PAC to try it again that someone else sees that this was a good idea and learns from PAC’s mistakes to give it another shot.

It was promised and so I made it come to pass. I commissioned Hisui and Narutaki art as I plan to do at every convention I attend. The first piece is by Nikki O’Shea of Dragon Press Graphics. I hope you enjoy it.

Top 5 characters who should have 1/8 sized figures so I can buy them
5. Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun (Slayers)
4. Momoka Nishizawa (Keroro Gunso)
3. Ranka Lee (Macross Frontier)
2. Shiro Emiya (Fate/Stay Night)
1. Ryuunosuke Fujinami (Urusei Yatsura)

Hisui and Narutaki’s Saturday Schedule

New York Anime Festival Panel
Anime Dating Game (Cosplay)
ParaPara Dancing Workshop
Media Blasters
Gaijin in Japan
Anime and the Revolving Door of Culture Panel
Anime Recruitment

AnimeNEXT has been the convention to fill the void for the New York area since the death of BAAF (and now we have NYAF). So I have always had a fondness for it, for a small convention it has done pretty good for itself. I remember when it was still in the hotel that now houses MangaNEXT. But this year it just wasn’t quite up to the task, where are you Japanese industry guests? And you American industry?

I have always liked that AnimeNEXT was the good small local con. It’s big enough to get decent Japanese guests and a good selection of activities but small enough to really interact with the guest if you so choose. From what I can tell AnimeNEXT is not fully responsible for the lack of industry presence this year. Apparently the Japanese guests backed out at the last minute and they could not schedule new ones in time. I’m curious who they had coming. The American industry seems to be doing poorly enough that they are only focusing on major cons everyone has to attend and local cons that don’t require too much travel. Since Media Blasters and Del Rey Manga are local they showed up but for everyone else it was too much of a journey in these leans times.

As with most conventions, this one started out with a line. With all the horror stories about 6 hour line waits for registration I was a bit apprehensive. The line was no longer than normal, less than 30 minutes to get our tickets. And at least the line was in the shade and actually the weather on Saturday was really perfect for the event. Weather is extra important for NEXT because the convention is split into two buildings. I have always found this unfortunate but they really have no alternative, the convention center isn’t growing.

The line moved pretty quickly. If we had pre-registered we would have been done in seconds. I can’t say that we have ever had a problem at AnimeNEXT. For some reason anime conventions have yet to be as efficient as sci-fi/comic conventions. But I have been been lucky so far in avoiding major hassles. Also since they gave out the forms you had to fill out while you were waiting in line, it made everything run more smoothly. I have never had a big problem with the convention being split into two buildings. I definitely see how it can break the flow. But from what I saw, the cosplayers loved it because the strip between the two buildings was an active area of people hanging out. Ideally you have a situation like Otakon where the cosplay section is off to the side and the events are together in one continuous area. As you said though there really is no great solution without changing the venue.

However, we did miss the first panel we wanted to attend which was Tokyo Bound. I am always planning for my imaginary trip to Japan. So instead we headed for the dealer’s room because my next panel wasn’t for a while yet. Not too much to say about it, it was fine, good even. I found the two things I was looking for (doujin and a Kyrios 1/100 scale Gundam model) so I was pleased with the selection. There was no line for it which is indeed good management.

I myself picked up some pretty sweet Gundam 00 figures of Sumeragi and Feldt for under 20 dollars a piece so I was very happy. I was looking at a nice Kaleido-Ruby figure but was a tad overpriced and out of my spending range anyway. I was sad when I heard the doujinshi dealers missed getting their big shipment so they was less selection than we could have hoped for. They still had a good selection but I’m curious what they could have had. I almost got a very nice Phoenix Wright art book but neither me or my roommate decided to get it. Ah well, there is always Otakon.

Anime Dating Game is one of those things we went to expecting it to be really bad. Cosplayers pretending to be contestants on the dating game? But it wasn’t, it wasn’t great either, but it actually had potential. The cosplayers just needed more rehearsal but the audience was eating it up. The only other thing is you have to familiar with all the characters or it isn’t as funny. I felt like the guy playing Ace for One Piece was the most memorable and well done. He had perfect timing with his “I have a smokin’ hot body” comment.

The problem is that they tried to improvise when no body there was an improv actor. Improvisational comedy is hard for professional actors let alone random untrained cosplayers. The way to do a skit like that is to write out a script and rehearse it several times before the con. I think that way you can get some real gems. Despite my critique, the audience really loved it. I think that the Anime Dating Game is merely an idea that if pulled off with more preparation could be so very good.

ParaPara Dance Workshop was one of the highlights. None of us have done it before and we thought what the heck? We have no real qualms about embarrassing ourselves. The girls running it were enthusiastic and encouraging, so bravo to them! Though for newbies they went a little fast on the steps. I only started to catch on to one song by the end. I would like to see the panel be longer so we could go over the steps more times or cut it down to two songs instead of three. It was a lot of fun, I will definitely do it at the next con I go to. A workout at an anime convention, who knew?

Ever since my mother watch Super Gals she always asks if I go to the ParaPara demonstration at cons; my mom is an odd woman. Overall, it was fun and the instructors seemed to be having as good at time as the audience. We were rather tired after the workshop and we only had to do half as much as the girls on stage. I’m not sure they could have lasted another hour. I think that you are right in they should have only taught the dances for two songs and slowed it down a little. That ParaPara Paradise song was rather infectious. I kept singing it to myself the whole day. On a related note, I think more cons should shell out for ParaPara Paradise machines they could be the next DDR.

Unfortunately, the Cutting Edge of J-music panel was canceled. Media Blasters, there isn’t much to say about it because they didn’t say much. Though I was glad to see some industry presence there. I know industry related stuff isn’t the biggest draw at cons so maybe it is just me feeling their absences but I was really disappointed. They don’t have to make announcement (we know they save them) but at least be there hyping stuff and giving out things. It is dark days!

The fact that Media Blasters ended their panel after a half an hour because they did not have much to say was a little bit frightening considering. I assume everyone is saving their big announcements for Anime Expo, San Diego Comic Con, and Otakon. I guess it is good that no one is over licensing themselves out of business, but it is a distinct sign that times are lean. I remember at previous AnimeNEXT conventions we would get one or two title announcements. Now we have almost no industry presence and no new news. With ADV’s current health I think it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.

We did make our way to artist alley at some point. This was a completely new area for the convention, the parking lot under the hall. It was hot and sticky and smelly! There was no ventilation, awful. I don’t do well with heat and almost passed out in artist alley by the end of it. However the artists this year were great! And a lot of them too. I talked with two girls who work on show with Nickelodeon. One for a new show called Three Delivery and the other for Dancing Sushi. Their work was strong and playful, this snagged me and ended up being my only purchases from the alley.

The stink of unwashed gamer and otaku was quite strong. I did see a group doing the Haruhi dance, the Lucky Star dance, and Caramelldansen down there. I can’t see why anyone would want to dance in that pit of stench but to each their own. I liked a lot of the artists this year. They had a good mixture of art styles. I really wanted a Saber in a suit picture from Fate/Zero or a picture of the Straw Hat Crew. But I forgot to bring reference materials. Oh well, another thing to do at Otakon.

Are you trying to make me jealous by constantly mentioning Otakon? Hum. One of the first panels I knew I wanted to attend was Gaijin in Japan. I am just uber curious about anything like this. The guy running it really seemed to know a lot, have good advice, and great stories. But the poor guy needed a longer panel or some serious time management. He barely got into the actual living and working in Japan part before it was over. I did get some good resources including the site Gaijin Pot, oddly enough Japan is in need of IT people! Of course that doesn’t help me much.

He did seem very knowledgeable and interesting so it was a shame his panel was not longer. I did like his section about the different dialects and certain speech patterns in Japan. Kansai-ben and Osaka-ben are things you always getting an inkling of in anime but never understand the full ramifications of on Japanese society. I was also interested to learn about the Japanese bus system and how it differs from the Japanese train system.

I went to the Revolving Door panel alone but since it was run by the Bad Anime! Bad! guy I was assured that it would be interesting. It was basically a look into how Japan and America keep ping ponging influences on their media back and forth. One of their examples was how William Gibson wrote Neuromancer which heavily influenced Ghost in the Shell. Ghost in the Shell and Megazone 23 in return heavily influenced The Matrix. The Matrix went on to pioneer bullet time which is used in anime. The panel was a constant stream of the back and forth between the two styles of media. Although the panelists had notes and the panel never dragged, it was run in a very conversational manner. The audience was encouraged to participate in the discussion while the panelists kept the conversation on track.

We ended the night on a high note with a panel of our own! Anime Recruitment strikes again! I am becoming less nervous as we continue to do these and one day I will be totally comfortable. I was surprised to have no tech problems, I really think that is a first. Plugged in the laptop and it was there on the screen, boom! And the panel proceeded with success. There wasn’t as many people as I was hoping for. I had forgotten that at smaller cons there are few attendees who don’t attend the masquerade. Whereas at something big, there are always lots of people about. But everyone who came seemed to leave with new knowledge. Also there were these great girls in the front row who were very excited. It was a lot of fun!

I think the panel went well and everyone got something from it. We did as well as we could with what we were given. It seemed like certain people in the audience got as many new shows to watch as they got shows to show other people. Those two girls in the front were writing notes constantly. There was one guy in the audience who was cosplaying Sean from Streetfighter who had a girlfriend that totally seemed to be dragged along to the con against her will. By the end of the panel she seemed interested in Monster and all the Satoshi Kon movies we mentioned. If nothing else it proves to me that our panel works.

AnimeNEXT was still fun, but it is hard not to have a good time with friends along. Also the convention was well run, although we are still waiting for our refund. The people running NEXT do a good job they just had some bad luck this year. And while I did attend some panels I never normally would have (even liked them) it doesn’t quite make up for it.

As far as I can tell for Kohaku and Narutaki this was a TM Revolution concert with a comic convention thrown in at no additional cost. The comic convention was fun for both of them but I have a feeling they would have paid the same price just to see TMR and been just as happy. I myself had fun at the convention but I don’t think I had anywhere the near orgasmic time that they had with the convention.

Okay, that too! But hey I still would have gone to comic-con regardless of TMR. It just so happens that he was there and I was super excited about it. But since you brought him up I will say that the concert was a lot of fun and a good length, 90 minutes. It also, surprisingly, started on time. There were a couple of girls from Japan in front of us and they knew all the dances. Me and Kohaku tried to follow along but I think we just ended up looking silly. Not to mention I have about -5% rhythm. He played all of his songs from various anime (since most of the audience probably knew him from those more than anything else). He didn’t however play my favorite song. We also went to his panel which was basically useless and annoying. He had his own interpreter and the guy never really said anything or asked any good questions. It mostly consisted of him saying, You guys love TMR, right? insert audience cheering. Same went for his event at Kinokuniya which was on Sunday. The did play the b-side from his upcoming single release which was exciting! Also me and Kohaku were a mere three feet from him and he waved! We rule.

Although I did not attend the Bandai panel they did announce some very interesting things. The first was they had the license to Gundam 00 and Gurren Lagann. I don’t think anyone was really surprised that Bandai is releasing Gundam 00. I think it has the potential to be the next Gundam Wing here in the states. It’s certainly not guaranteed but it is possible. Gurren Lagann on the other hand was out of left field. Nobody knew what has going to happen to Gurren Lagann after the whole ADV/Sojitz deal fell apart. I know there are a lot of people predicting even more doom and gloom for ADV now knowing that Bandai has stepped in and snatched away ADV’s guaranteed hit of the year. I’m not sure this is any more or less of a sign that ADV is on it’s way out but it is something worth watching.

Well, you know they had Gundam Seed on TV and no one cared. So I dunno. But I only care about getting my lovely Gundam 00 DVDs so I am a happy camper. I wonder if they will start coming out before the second half is done. I would really like them right now. RIGHT NOW. The whole Gurren Lagann fiasco kind of makes me chuckle. But really I would hate to see the death of another anime company in the near future. There have been few announcements and that just does not bode well. The bubble is bursting and quite frankly I’m not surprised.

Their second announcement is that Bandai hinted/practically said outright that is there is little to no chance of Gundam X and Turn A Gundam being licensed in the U.S. in the foreseeable future. It clearly shows that Bandai is being more conservative about its already somewhat cautious outlook towards Gundam in the states. I’m pretty sure that Bandai’s mishandling of certain Gundam series in the past has a lot to do with this. I’m looking right at the original Gundam and Zeta Gundam. I think it also shows even beyond Gundam that if you are an older series your chance are slim to none of getting licensed. More and more companies are realizing that the current market schemes are not working enough as it is. Old shows will not work at all with the current methods used in the U.S. The problem is this: they are basically giving up on older titles rather than trying to find better way to sell them.

That is not really an announcement, it’s more like a confession.

Viz announced that they will be releasing Vagabond in 3 volume omnibuses and that they will be releasing One Pound Gospel to usher in the first time release of the final fourth volume of the series. I’m sure that Narutaki is thrilled that he can finally start collecting Vagabond in a slightly cheaper format. I’m probably going to be a sucker and re-buy One Pound Gospel even though I have already bought the original three manga. Because if I don’t Rumiko Takahashi will surely starve to death, penniless, in the gutter.

It seems like every time I decide today is the day I will buy Vagabond the place I go will not have the first book. So as long as they can keep this in stock for more than ten minutes hopefully I can get myself a copy. I wonder how fans of Inu-Yasha like this series in comparisons, haha. I really like One Pound Gospel in fact, it was my first encounter with Rumiko’s work. I am down the middle about her series though.

Del Ray Manga said a lot but there were only two announcements that mattered to me. The first was the fact that Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei was licensed and the second was more details on Del Ray attempt at making a manga version of the X-Men. I mean I can’t not buy, Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei, the manga representation of my life if I were a Japanese school teacher. Despair. Despair. Despair. I am in Despair because it so accurately captures my essence.The manga versions of the X-Men just looked so silly that I’m curious how they turn out. I mean they had a version of Beast that looked very much like a certain Studio Ghibli character that rides a cat bus. Plus Kitty Pride is the main character. That makes me happy. Oh and they are going to have a separate Wolverine comic. Gosh I wonder why? Wolverine is such a minor and unpopular character. It would be like giving M.O.D.O.K. his own comic and we all know that would never happen.

Yen Press had two of the most shocking announcements of the convention. The first was Yen Press has the license for the Haruhi manga and light novel series. People have been asking for the light novels since the first episode of Haruhi popped up on fan-sub so theoretically this will make a lot of people very happy. The only thing that might make people a little wary is that Yen Press had to bring in the big guns and get Little Brown and Company to license it with them. While that means they will have a much better chance of a better translation, it could also mean that they will insist on making the story as Americanized as possible. Now I don’t think they change Haruhi and Kyon from Japan to Holly and Kyle from California but they might try and reduce the number of Japanese references as much as possible. I’m sure we can all image how the internet is going to light up if they change a reference to Ayumi Hamasaki to Britney Spears.

Yen Press fills me with love. They are nice to talk to and they happen to be picking up some really great work. I will take this moment to say I love Spiral! Two thumbs up. I am definitely curious to see how the Japanese-isms for go over in the Haruhi books. Although with the covers they have, people are going to be mistaking it for manga at first glance. I doubt it will end up anywhere else in the bookstore. Also Ayu is 1000% more talented that Britney Spears. So there. Yes Press also brought Judith Park, a manhwa creator, to the convention. They gave away the first book in her series they are releasing and you could jump right in line to get it signed. Which we did. It took a while a we read a bit of the manga before we got up to her. She was drawing pictures for everyone! What a treat! And on the last day of the con, as an added bonus, all the books at their book were just 5 bucks! Score.

The second shocking announcement was that Yen Press is starting their own manga anthology line much like Shonen Jump USA. I think it is definitely something to watch. It looks like it has enough going for it that it might succeed but enough against it that it could crash and burn with force of a thousand suns. The anthology will be called Yen Plus and it will contain a mixture of manga, manhwa, and American comics. All the manga in the magazine will come from Square Enix for the first two years. So it will be running Soul Eater and Nabari No Ou. Narutaki and I are both assuming that those titles maybe the two shows that get the most chatter on the fun-sub circuit this season. Also Higurashi, Bamboo Blade, and Sumomomo will be seen. I like Higurashi, heck I made it my anime of the month, but I’m not sure how much fandom it has outside of a cult following. From what I know of Bamboo Blade it seems generally cute but I can’t see it as being a huge seller. Sumomomo Momomo looks very silly but other than the general story and that it has an anime I don’t know much about it. As I mentioned in our first article Svetlana Chmakova is the only OEL artist I like so I guess she is the best pick for the OEL section. I had never heard of Maximum Ride before the Comic Con but it seems wildly popular. I know next to nothing about manhwa so I don’t know how good or popular Pig Bride or Jack Frost are.

While I like the ideas of anthology series, I don’t buy the ones that are out now and this one seems an even less likely buy for me personally. But it is a nice way of sampling a whole lot of things at once. There are so many other resources for helping me with my choices. Beside that, the manga has either already finished or is far ahead in Japan which seems to take away some of the point of the monthly anthology. And while I do steal Shonen Jump USA from Hisui’s brother to read Bleach I find it more of an annoyance than anything else. I would rather my manga be coming out faster.

I remember Dallas Middaugh mentioning that the only way he felt that a new manga anthology could succeed in the U.S. was for it to have a popular title on Television and I have to agree with him. I feel in order for this magazine to succeed they need to get either Soul Eater and/or Nabari No Ou on Cartoon Network. The Maximum Ride manga will help the magazine greatly but I think it needs both of these factors to be financially viable.

Yes, James Patterson is insanely popular. Personally, I can’t understand why. And although I have never Maximum Ride, I’ve actually talked to quite a few people that thought it was quite terrible along with its sequel. But he does sell well, though I don’t know if that is just adults buying is younger literature. I suspect a good portion are.

I’m not sure if I’m the only person who did not know about this but it seems that Dark Horse has picked up the rights to CLAMP’s Clover and is releasing all four books in one 20 dollar collection. I wonder if this means that Dark Horse is going to pick up all of the old CLAMP series that TokyoPop’s licenses have run out on. I also wonder if this means that Dark horse is interested in building more than just a seinen line or if they just realize that CLAMP is money in the bank. It might also just be part of the deal for that new manga CLAMP is writing for Dark Horse starting in 2009.

As far as the dealers room went there wasn’t a whole lot of anime and manga related stuff to speak of. TokyoPop had a great big set-up but the price of manga was the same. There were quite a few industry booths displaying figures but most of it was not for sale. However Square Enix had some very nice pieces for sale but the most enticing stuff was the preview for the coming year of their figures. Like the amazingly beautiful Leneth from Valkyrie Profile at a whooping 420 dollars!

Comic Con is one of those professionally run conventions where it would be more surprising if it did not run smoothly. It had a wide vareity of comics, anime, and video game related subjects. A nerd paradise. If nothing else I really enjoyed the Venture Brothers panel. The Venture Brothers panel is always livey and fun. The fact that I got to see a preview of season 3 was just icing on the cake. All in all I think we both had a great time.

Everything went fine for me. Though I did see the IGN theater was running behind thanks to those pesky technical difficulties. But really the whole experience was wonderful! I definitely think it fills me up with geek culture, rather than just anime. I saw Stan Lee. STAN LEE. So if you have hobbies outside of anime in the nerd realm it is a perfect catch all.

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Kaiba
Reading Dragon Eye
Listening to Chihiro Onitsuka

Hisui (Brainwasher Detective) Currently:
Watching Macross Frontier
Reading With the Light
Listening to DANZEN! Futari wa Precure by Mayumi Gojo

Top 5 things I did at Comic Con
5. Getting exclusive Marvel Civil War Minimates
4. Going to the Cup o Joe Panel
3. Getting my book signed by Shannon Hale
2. Going to the Stan Lee Panel
1. Seeing the T.M.R. concert

Friday
Del Rey Panel
ImaginAsia Panel

Saturday
The Art of Reviewing Anime Panel
Katsushi Ota Q&A
Kobun Shizuno Q&A
Viz Media Panel
Otaku USA Panel
Unicorn Table Concert

Sunday
Vertical Inc. Panel
State of the Manga Industry
State of the Anime Industry

This was the first anime con in NYC since 2003, but nevertheless I had high hopes for NYAF. They were planning far in advance; they got the Javits Center; the schedule was up almost a month before the convention; and they were advertising. However, this last one was a bit worrisome, NYC is a big place and if everyone in it who likes anime shows up at a con you can expect a freakin’ crowd. Their projected numbers were around 15,000, I am eager to see what the actual was. Unfortunately for them, it didn’t seem that busy. It is not that I want to be squashed between otaku all day but for how big this con seemed like it was going to be, it wasn’t.

Without a doubt, this was definitely a professionally run convention. There were no major schedule changes and everything ran as smooth as silk. Even Otakon at it’s best did not run as smooth as NYAF. I think it could be argued that it ran a little smoother than Anime Expo. I have only gone to Expo once and it was very well run the year I went, 2006, but they still made things a little bit difficult and obtuse. They also had a bunch of schedule changes and mix-ups. So not matter what there is something to be said for professionally run conventions.

Saturday at NYAF, which is always the busiest day at most cons, seemed like a Friday at any other big con. When something like AnimeNEXT gets a crowd like that, it seems fine because they are smaller cons and have smaller expenses. They don’t need as many people to make back their money. Doing anything in Manhattan is expensive. I too wonder if this is the last we shall see of NYAF. First year cons almost always have a low number of attendees, so maybe they will wait and see if this con will grow. If given an chance, I’m sure that this con will grow but it has to be given that chance. According to this, BAAF had 3,500 people during its first year in 2001. Then again, BAAF 2001 was a much smaller affair from what I remember of it. Still, it was a convention that grew in numbers and scope as the years went on. BAAF did occur at another time but it still shows that even in NYC it takes time for a convention to grow. I’m also not really sure what exactly killed BAAF. I have heard several stories but they were more rumors rather than anything close to factual evidence.

Friday started out well for me, I got there around 2:30 since I had silk-screening in the morning. I met up with Kohaku to wander this new experience. The first thing that struck me was how the dealers room was set-up. It was very similar to comic cons and there was a lot of free stuff, which is always a plus. There weren’t too many people so navigation of the area was fairly simple. The entire convention was in a relatively small area but had very wide hallways.

I missed Friday because of work (and the fact that I accidentally FedExed the print out of my ticket to one of our clients). I guess on Monday there was a very confused guy opening up an overnight package. I showed up at around 6:30 to see Narutaki and Kohaku getting out of the convention.

The dealers room was definitely set up like the New York Comic Con when it was at the Javits Center. I don’t remember this convention having more free stuff than any other anime con. But maybe that is because I’m a moody loner that ignores other people where as Narutaki and Kohaku are normal functional human beings. I remember the comic con was pretty packed but things still moved nicely most of the time thanks to the large hallways.

It was also the best day to talk to industry people since there wasn’t a whole ton going on and they weren’t overwhelmed with questions yet. We chatted with Mike Bailiff (I think) from ADV and also Chris Oarr. We also talked with quite a few people over at the newest addition to the manga market, YEN Press. And as per usual, talked with the people from Del Rey as well. Del Rey certainly made a lot of acquisition announcements for the coming year, of which included a light novel of XXXholic and the manga of Gankutsuou.

I’m curious to see what the XXXholic light novel reads like. It was great potential to either be very good or very bad. XXXholic can be very episodic so a random story in the middle is not anything that would be obtrusive. I have not heard anything about the Gankutsuou graphic novel but historically any manga based on an anime is weaker than the original work.

ImaginAsia, I wanted go to to see how the classics were doing. I really wanted them to be going well! And thankfully they are, thanks to the sets being really nice and them being shown on their cable channel. They also have a block of programing that is all Geneon titles, I had to ask what was going to happen to that with the recent news. They said it would remain as is, and they have hopes that Geneon isn’t completely dead yet. I also spoke to them after the panel and asked about Rose of Versailles. I thought I was going to hear the usual about it being expensive, and the creator is problematic. But she told me that the biggest obstacle right now is Riyoko Ikeda wants the manga released first! Well, bring it on people!

Well did they not say that Riyoko Ikeda was not a super crazy lady but she was a super crazy lady who also wants the manga released first. Also Geneon still seems to be in an odd undead limbo between being fully dead and just half dead.

The dealers room, the industry booths, and the artist alley were one big mish-mash. I can’t really find a reason for this, except to possibly just fill the room to make it seem bigger. But after some searching you could find everything you wanted. And of course the dealers room did hold some gems. But this is not really my priority at cons.

I did not buy much this convention most because it was so close to Christmas. I did find it odd that they combined the dealers room and artist alley into one as well. I did pick up a neat Gundam doujinshi where they remade Azumanga Daioh strips with Gundam characters. Any doujinshi with Domon Kasshu and his glowing King of Hearts in a Azumanga strip is worth the price of admission.

The Art of Reviewing Anime panel was rather uneventful, but it did reaffirm my beliefs about the AnswerMan being jaded. I don’t think it’s impossible to work in the industry and still be a fan. Daryl from AWO was there to and it was rather amusing to see him and the AnswerMan saying the completely opposite of the other. But the Katsushi Ota panel was wonderful! Thank you Del Rey for bringing him. He is the editor of Faust which Del Rey announced they would be releasing parts of. It is a light novel anthology series that has illustration accompaniment. This will definitely be an experiment here in the U.S. and I’ve very excited about it. I asked him about digital distribution and he said there was something big coming up later this year that he couldn’t talk about.

Jaded? The tomb of a Chinese Emperor is not as jaded as Zac Bertschy. A noir gumshoe is not as jaded as Zac Bertschy. The fact that he did not light up cigarettes to put them out on members of the audience was somewhat surprising.

Well if nothing else, Katsushi Ota provided me with the highlight of the con. Kinoko Nasu who writes for Type-Moon (games like Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night) also has written for Faust so you know I was at this panel. I like the idea of light novels in general so I was probably going to go anyway, but once I found out they might be announcing some works by Nasu, I was there in a flash. Faust seems pretty interesting. They have a collective mix of authors and artists working on the book. We will only be getting selected parts of the Japanese Fausts but as long as we get Garden of Sinners, DDD, and see their CLAMP artwork I’m happy. I asked Ota what his impressions of Nasu were and he gave me both an amusing story and a definite insight into the man. That was awesome. I also thought that their boxed line of books looked nice.

I am always interested in more light novels being released, since I’ve such a big reader, so this is a dream some true to me. Ota seems to be smart, insightful, and has a desire to bring creative people together into projects. Anthologies haven’t been bigger sellers in the U.S. but I hope this turns that around. It will have short stories and also excerpts from longer works.

At the end Katsushi Ota gave me the first two books of DDD and then took my picture with the books and promised to send the pictures to Nasu himself. WIN! That is the second Japanese creator that now has a picture of me. Without a doubt my favorite part of the convention.

The Guest of Honor was Kobun Shizuno. At first Patrick Macias asked him about how he became a director in the anime industry and what he though of the industry in general. Then Shizuno showed a pretty long clip of his newest show, Cross Climber. It seems to be about a full immersion virtual reality MMO with a sinister secret purpose. Then a bunch of people asked him questions about the Evangelion movies that he could not answer. The most interesting part was listening to how Shizuno worked his way through the industry to become a director. I sort of wished the people from the audience had asked him some more interesting questions. I did like that someone asked him a Princess Nine question. That show does not get enough love.

You are kinder than I was. I was practically leaping from my seat in outrage at the crappy questions. Two questions were not about his OWN work but about Ginax works. This man is a director, not a film critic, you shouldn’t be asking what he thinks of other peoples’ work. Not to mention there was only time for about 5 or 6 questions so them being wasted was quite a frustration. After this panel we also man into Dave and Joel from Fast Karate and talked with them a bit.

I had never heard of Unicorn Table before they were announced as the musical guests. But I am always up to hear some J-pop! So the concert was something of a high priority for me, and I wasn’t disappointed. There were 10 or 11 songs, which was more than I could have hoped for. We pushed our way to the second row and enjoyed quite a show! We survived the otaku stink for nearly an hour and a half. Although, I wasn’t crazy about her solo songs in the middle, the entire band was the best part. They really got the crowd up and cheering. There was even a raffle at the end, they gave away a t-shirt, a DVD, and a small bag.

Unicorn Table was pretty fun, although my favorite part was when the guitarist and the bassist just started to rock out while the main singer was changing costumes. I stayed away from the madness at the front of the concert and enjoyed myself in the back. I also have no need to be around stinking touchy-feely otaku.

The panels were all industry run and this was my biggest complaint. I really like a mix, I always go to many industry panels but I also like things about older anime or some aspect of anime. I hope this can be remedied next time around. The best things were the state of the industry panels where people from all over got together for a round-table of what’s been going on in the last year. As can be imagined, the anime one had a lot of what if’s and what can be done. It was really informative.

I’m not sure why they did not have any fan run panels. I admit when fan panels are bad they are very bad but they also could have had some good fan runs panels. It might be that as a professionally run convention they did not want to take the risk of a non-guest/nonprofessional run panel. Excluding fan run panels cuts down on your poorly done panels but also excludes a good many interesting panels that could exist.

It was really interesting to hear the two state of industry panels. The manga panel was happy talk and full of what are we going to do next. The anime panel was full of what can we do to pull ourselves out of this mess. Both panels talked about digital distribution. The manga panel speculated on why they were doing so well and how they could keep up their success. On the anime panel, they discussed why sales were down, what they could do to counter it, and what their hopes for digital distribution were. John O’Donnell, from CMX, definitely stole the show during the anime round-table. His answers/tirades were insightful if a little harsh.

I feel like this was a small con that seemed bigger because of the industry involvement but really it wasn’t anything like Otakon. A small con dressed up in big con clothes. Then again, it was its first year and also it is the winter…in NYC, not exactly the most inviting scenario. I also feel like it should have gone on longer into the night. Panels running till 8 or 9 at least and showings till at least then if not later. We know they could do it since the concert went on till almost 10. Overall, I had a good time and learned a lot. It wasn’t the best time I’ve ever had at a convention but I look forward to another one of these, if there is one.

I like having a con basically in my back yard. I’m sure I would fly halfway across the country to go to NYAF, but I will definitely take a subway ride again next year. It was not my favorite con but I had a good time and it did everything I need a con to do. I was never at a real loss of what to do; there was always something interesting going on. I sort of wish I had had some more time to see some of the movies they premiered on the big screen but there were too many good panels. Too many good things is never a real problem. It proves that a for profit convention can be done in an acceptable manner. If NYAF takes what they did this year, and grows, it has the potential to be one of the big name East Coast cons. I look forward to seeing how things turn out next year.

I wonder how many talks/events we will see after the first month. It would be cool to have something going on at the store at least once a month. Little events like that tend to be good for business. Maybe a certain pair of sexy and fashionable bloggers should look into doing some sort of panel lecture at Kinokuniya. Maybe we should as well. I’m not sure they would want non-professionals, but it might be worth looking into.

BTW – If you are ever in New York you should check out Book Off. It’s a used book store so its selection is rather random but it also means that its books are very cheap. You can stumble on some amazing finds if you are lucky. The only real downside is the fact that the temperature is always weird in that store and it sort of gives me a weird vibe. I don’t think anyone else has that problem though.

The store itself is very sleek and modern looking. The first floor has a small gallery space where the current exhibit is Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue, Hataraki Man by Moyoco Anno, and Silent Service by Kaiji Kawaguchi. I am hoping this will be a changing gallery, maybe every few months. They have really expanded their magazine section. There are significantly more music and manga magazines. Both of which I looked at with pure joy. I even saw a few photobooks in the music magazine section as well.

I found it interesting that the gallery was all seinen manga. Seinen much like josei is not very popular in America, but Kinokuniya is mainly a Japanese book store so I guess seinen would be more popular with the people who would shop at Kinokuniya. Either way, it’s nice to see a little visibility for some really good manga targeted at an older audience. Maybe I’m very naive but maybe some teens looking for Nate the Ninja might look into some more sophisticated manga due to this. It probably will never happen but I can dream can’t I?

Other than that the new store has a very modern look. I also like the wider selection of manga magazine collections. They greatly increased the number of seinen and josei magazines. I might pick up a few the next time I am there. I was lame and only picked up a copy of Jump Square but I was curious what titles where staring in it as it was the magazine’s first issue. Hey it has the newest chapter of Claymore and Nobuhiro Watsuki’s new manga, Embalming – Another Tale of Frankenstein. I’m thinking about getting Morning, Big Comic Spirits, or Young Animal the next time I go.

In fact, I don’t remember the old store carrying any seinen collections. I could be wrong but they definitely have a wider variety of ages at this store. Although I couldn’t find a copy of Afternoon, I’ll have to ask next time.

The second floor is almost exclusively manga, both in English and Japanese. Both have huge displays of the newest books out. I really like this, it has a nice impact and it’s easy to see when something is out that you might not have realized. There is a decent artbook section, too. I do feel like the shojo manga in Japanese shrank from the previous store but all the other sections seemed to have grown. By the way, if you hate going to a bookstore and feeling like the manga you are buying has already been used 10 times over, Kinokuniya is the place for you. They wrap all their English books (Japanese have always been wrapped) and unlike at Barnes and Noble people don’t ignore it. There is a help desk and a cafe as well.

There is definitely a nice selection of both English and Japanese books now. I’m curious why there is such a small Japanese shojo selection but I’m not really going to complain about it as it effects you and Kohaku more than me. I sometimes wish I could take a flip through some of the Japanese books, if for nothing else the covers can be misleading. Series that look horrifically sexual on the cover can sometimes be rather tame in reality and other times series that look safe can be horrifically graphic on the inside. But I guess that is the price you pay for getting to buy pristine books.

I will testify to that being the case. Some shojo manga you think looks really cutesy ends up being smut! And sometimes even the other way around, all the special art can really give you a wrong impression.

I wish I had taken a look at the cafe. It seemed interesting but I totally forgot to look until after we left. I’m curious what their selection was and how good their prices were. There was also a decent toy section on the second floor. It was no Toy Toyko but it had all the common toys you see at most comic shops.

The basement seemed to have all the travel books, kids books and art and book supplies. Narutaki found two cute little pencil boards that doubled as Hirigana and Katakana cheat sheets. There was also a good selection of learning Japanese books including two different learning Japanese with manga series.

The event space is on the second floor right next to the cafe. When there isn’t an event there are easily moved floor displays. It was nice having the windows to the street behind the guests. However, it was really a noisy area being next to the cafe and having people moving about so much.

Well, it seemed the cafe space also was used by people to sit in on the events as much as eat (sometimes both). I really did not notice the noise as much as you, but I tend to actively tune other people out as much as I can.

Del Rey had their usual crew along for the ride. I have met all of them at different conventions, minus one. They are all fairly knowledgeable, entertaining and very talkative. They had a person for each sect of the publishing process essentially, from acquisitions to editorial to translations to production to publicity. I had a fairly good idea of what the process was already but it was still interesting hearing them go through it.

There were at least four different people in the audience who seemed interested in creating some sort of Amerimanga. There was also that guy who was either writing for a financial magazine or was some sort of odd investor because he kept asking questions about the manga industry and how one might be able to profit off of manga. If nothing else we got some early proof materials from Kitchen Princess. That is unique if nothing else.

Brian Camp ran the second panel about overlooked or unknown anime that had been released at one time in America. He mention that he used to be a regular contributor to Animerica and has taught a class about anime at the School of Visual Arts. Although his book, Anime Classics ZETTAI!, was mostly about about anime easily available in the U.S. most of the anime he talked about on the panel was no longer in print in America or never available at all. He oddly enough did not talk much about his book and mostly talked about some rather obscure anime. Not the best salesman in that respect ( :) ) but he did talk about some interesting shows.

Brian Camp gave us a big helping of old and fairly unknown titles that have never made it to U.S. shores, with a few exceptions. But everything was hard to get and unavailable. Actually, I don’t believe the panel was supposed to be all about pimping his book but rather a showing and he just happened to write a book too. I always like adding bits and pieces of information so this was a great way to do that. Not only did I actually see part of shows that I had only heard of, I also saw two incredibly rare films in anime history: Anju to zushio-maru and Hakujaden.

I was impressed by the choices he made because they were not the standard collection of anime people use in the overlooked classics panels. In fact, I would say it was the overlooked classics of the overlooked classics panel. Star of The Giants and Attack No. 1 are both fairly well known animes in Japan but since they are sports anime (and old sports anime at that) almost nobody in America know them. I only knew about Panda and the Magic Serpent (Hakujaden) because of AWO. I never heard of Arion and it was definitely a unique anime due to it’s use of actual greek legends (as opposed to Saint Seiya) to tell its own story. The Little Mermaid was also a good example on how the anime adpatation was far different than the Disney version.

It was also being billed as cosplay day and anyone in costume got 10% off all their purchases. Despite that I did not see that many people cosplaying. I’m not sure if that made me happy or sad but it was definitely interesting. Maybe people did not want to dress as Nate the Ninja at a bookstore (not that it stopped everyone).

Overall, it was a fine little trip. Learned a bit and chatted with people in the industry. And we walked away with some free stuff from Del Rey and Viz, entered to win free airfare to Japan, signed up for a drawing to get a free ticket to NY Anime Festival, and bought a couple of phonebooks. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday. Can’t wait for later in the month to see the mural painted on the second floor!

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Shion no Ou
Reading One Piece
Listening to Evangelion OSTs

Hisu (Brainwasher Detective) Currently:
Watching Mushishi
Reading The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service
Listening to Daia no Hana by Yoriko

Top 5 old anime I would like to watch
1. Legend of the Galatic Heroes
2. Touch
3. Dororo
4. Ashita no Joe
5. Princess Knight

MangaNEXT, for better or for worse, is very much a small convention. This is the convention’s second year. If it will always stay a small time convention is another story but for now it is a little con. The down side to a small time convention is less guests and smaller guests. There is also less programming, panels, dealers, and workshops. The up side is a greater sense of community, not waiting for anything, and a lot more access to guests and panelists. The ability to just come up to the guests and just chat, even sort of hang with a guest, is almost unthinkable at larger cons. If you thought Anime Expo was going to let you within 10 feet of CLAMP you were sorely mistaken.

I like both types of conventions, one kind is really crazy and goes by like a whirlwind and the other is relaxing and slow-paced. I have equal amounts of things that I learn from both. Besides most of the guests I want to see, no one cares about anyway! This is terribly unfortunate but completely true since I like to see the directors, producers, character designers panels. However, even when there aren’t a lot of people, at a big con you still don’t get to talk one on one much.

We started our trip on Saturday because the three of us (Narutaki, Hisui, and Kohaku) had work on Friday so that made Friday a no go. There was a Media Blasters panel that might have been interesting. Media Blasters licensed The Gorgeous Life of Strawberry-chan by Ai Morinaga and I was curious if they were looking into other Ai Morinaga titles.

The panel I was interested in was one Jason Thompson mentioned he did on Friday, about Japanese manga magazines. I was even most interested in it after he inferred, in a panel later on, that Weekly Shonen Sunday is not doing so hot.

There was a panel on strong female characters. I would have liked to have seen. I’m sure I would have had some interesting conversation with the panelist for that one. We saw her the next day and she gave us her list of shows with strong characters. It was mostly good, but there were some interesting choices on the list. Miaka Yuki and the dolls from Rozen Maiden are hardly anything near strong female characters IMHO.

I remember her from the previous MangaNEXT, and she did other panels about women. She seems to know a lot and has a good deal to say on the subject. If I had had time, I would have liked to see her reasoning behind some of the choices on that list. You will remember her best as the woman running the panel where that girl said Misa Misa was a strong female role model.

I’m also very curious to have seen what was talked about in the famous manga-ka and their not so famous works panel. You can sometimes be surprised what other works can come out of a manga-ka you think you already know. The fact that Rumiko Takahashi does both Ranma 1/2, Rumic World, and Mermaid Saga might not be immediately obvious.

On Saturday, we started by signing in at Panel Ops. MangaNEXT was pretty cool in the fact that we got special panelist badges. I don’t remember getting any special privileges due to the fact that we got panelist badges but it was still cool.

I was so stoked to get special badges! I want everyone to do this from now on. We had a regular badge and another badge letting them know we are panelists. I think this would be especially helpful at bigger cons where people are trying to get through lines to check in and not be late. Sure people would use them to always get in a few minutes early, but is that really so bad? After all, we are helping at the con. And why is it that Panel Ops always looks so baffled when we check in early, are anime fans really that unreliable?

The first panel we went to was Women in Fandom. We only caught the final part but it mostly seemed to be a discussion of how women have different experiences being a part of anime fandom than men. It seemed an interesting panel so I’m curious in what was discussed in the earlier part of the panel.

It is pretty obvious that women and men show and experience fandom in different ways but also in similar ways. Being that I sort of had knowledge of this already I didn’t learn anything new but it is nice to share experiences with others.

We went to the dealer’s room, it was small but it had doujinshi so we were happy. Nartutaki and Kohaku bought some doujinshi from a dealer that let you browse before you buy it. I almost got a Akiha figure from Melty Blood but I decided to hold off from buying it. Maybe I will pick you up another day you wacky incestuous tsundere.

I see that dealer at all the east coast cons and never knew I would open anything! Actually, they are on our little side bar, Ultimate Doujinshi, and they are always getting new things. This time around they had lots of Fruits Basket, I however did not pick any up. I finally found a Cowboy Bebop doujin that was good and also grabbed a fun little Bleach one as well. I don’t really care if the dealer’s room has tons of vendors, but boy, was it cramped! It was really clogged up on Saturday, I could barely breath.

We saw part of a rather mediocre Manga vs. Anime. Dubbed vs. Raw panel. The part we came in on mainly seemed to be bashing the Naruto dub and how awful it is. I’m no Naruto fan but the dub seems at least to be to do an adequate job. If any Nate the Ninja fans want to chime in on their opinion, I’m interested to hear what people think of it. I thought the guys complaints seemed sort of a super weaboo argument to me. There was another guy who was supposed to do a similar panel at the same time, but due to a mix-up he never got to do his panel. I’m curious if his panel would have been any better.

Okay, I dunno what nice pills you were taking, but HELL YEAH THAT OTHER DUDE’S PANEL WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER! That panel was awful, there is no way it could have been worse. It was exactly what I try to avoid, panels that deteriorate into nothing more than, “yeah I hate this,” “me too,” “isn’t this cool,” from a bunch of kids that think Naruto is the end all of anime. Gar. I know panels like this exist, but damnit I got roped into one for a few moments and it was so not cool.

We then went to Jason Thompson’s panel on his new book Manga: The Complete Guide. He basically talked about how he got started in the anime and manga business at Viz and how that eventually led to him writing a book for Del Rey about manga. He then talked about his book which is a complete guide to all the manga published in the United States. It seemed very thorough and will be getting regular updates online. My only objection was the fact that all the entries were reviews. I tend to like my reference books without an opinion. I don’t want to go to the encyclopedia and have the author tell me why he thinks the Holy Roman Empire was lame sauce. I will probably still get it but I would have preferred a comment free guide.

Well, I am definitely buying it. Even before we met Jason Thompson, who is a really cool guy, I heard about this book. He read some entries out loud to us, and what was really great was the reviews themselves are entertaining. You are getting a “what’s out there” guide along with some witty commentary. Most of the reviews are written by Jason, he became a Hikkikimori for a year to do it, and the hentai and yaoi sections are mostly written by a few friends of his. His experiences at Viz were funny and he was an all around charming guy. He is no longer with Viz, he said he had to leave before he wrote the book because he wouldn’t hold back!

The Del Rey panel was a well done but rather standard industry panel. Other than the announcement of the licensing of Faust there were no shocking revelations or announcement of note. Faust seems to be a light novel anthology so it’s the first of it’s type licensed in the US. I’m kind of curious how well it’s going to do. There are some illustrations in the magazine but it’s mostly text. That means a lot of translation and adaptation so it’s riskier than some licenses IMHO. But it has Decoration Disorder Disconnection in it so I’m waiting for that with bated breath. I also heard that some little known female mangaka named CLAMP have done illustrations for the magazine. Might be a selling point for some people.

I had never heard of Faust magazine, no surprise really when I looked it up to find it was mostly a light novel publication. The official Japanese site is really great as it lets you see sample chapters and art, from what looks to be every issue. I really like the concept of following a novel chapter by chapter every month, kind of exciting like TV. I’m looking forward to more novels making it over from Japan, so this sounds like a great way to kick start it. However, Del Rey did mention they won’t be localizing the entire thing, so it is still unclear if we will be getting a monthly adaptation or just anthologies released every few months with their picks. They also mentioned they will be having an event at the Kinokuniya grand opening near Bryant Park, NYC on November 3rd. I haven’t found confirmation of this online yet but hopefully it is still going on.

Mari Morimoto had a panel about her experiences as a translator. She gave an overview of how she got into the industry, what a translators role is, how a translator works with others to make a manga come to the U.S., her views of the industry and how its changed, and then she gave advice about how to break into the industry as a translator. It was a good behind the scenes peek at one of the vital grunt jobs of the industry. Morimoto was very friendly and open so the panel was very relaxed and informative.

Mari is the semi-famous translator of Naruto, since the original translator was panned by fans. She almost always does Shonen translations, she mentioned that translators have to have a different voice depending on the genre. She says by now if she did a shojo series it might sound awkward. She also does Saint Seiya (Knights of the Zodiac) and we sort of bonded over it! She brought a new release of it with her, so cool! It was also hinted that the Saint Seiya manga is in the bottom 10 of sellers for Viz but they are on contract to finish the series, 28 volumes! We talked to her a lot after her panels. Kohaku asked her if she knew anything about Princess Knight but we found out it will not be released.

Morimoto was at the next panel we went to as the translator for Hiroki Otsuka. He used to be a Japanese erotic/shojo manga-ka then he came to the U.S. to pursue a slightly more relaxed career. He is currently living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He seemed like a friendly guy and spoke a decent amount of English, not enough to go without a translator but still a good amount. If nothing else, we reaffirmed the fact that being a popular manga-ka can be hellish and that editors are often like co-writers in Japan. I also got a good insight how a Japanese artist makes it into the Japanese manga industry. It was definitely a unique experience to find a Japanese manga-ka living and working in the U.S. and getting to hear him talk. Often manga-ka are so busy that they can’t often come to American conventions and when they do they often are not that accessible.

Hiroki was a delight. It was the first time that I heard a manga-ka be very frank about the manga industry. He wasn’t completely candid, but a lot more open about what goes on. This could be because he is no longer working in it. It was fun to hear about his adventures in doujinshi and fan-made games. That was actually how he got discovered and was hired on. He has done a variety of genres but likes shojo best as far as I could tell. He has a shonen series out in the U.S. called Boys of Summer although he only does the art for it. He also has an exhibit at the Japan Society in NYC which I am hoping to check out. Hiroki seemed to think that as a growing artist, not just manga-ka, NYC was the best place for him to be.

On the way back, we ran into some internet celebrities in the form of Erin and Noah of the Ninja Consultants. They were rather delightful to talk to. I distinctly remember the topic of strong female characters in anime turned into a conversation about NANA.

Well, I never miss a chance to theorize about NANA. I had only spoken to Erin and Noah briefly at Otakon so it was cool running into them again and having a chance to chat.

We started Sunday with our own panel. Our panel examined the history, methods, and impact of scanlation in America. I think it went pretty well but it was the opening slot on Sunday so we had about 6 people at the panel all together. If nothing else, everyone who came to the panel walked away with a decent amount of free manga. One girl got the old versions of of Cardcaptor Sakura and Magic Knight Rayearth.

I always get so nervous right before a panel! Ugh. But once I start going, I get into it. All the people who came were very attentive and talked a lot with us afterward. Seemed that most of them had dabbled in scanlation but hadn’t really known much about it. I do wish there had been more people but luckily no one got up and left. I would love to do it again in a different time slot. When I mentioned to panel ops how few people we had they said the feedback panel only had about 10, it was running at the same time, so I didn’t feel too bad.

We inadvertently got roped into a horrible D.Gray Man panel. The panelist itself seemed to be rather well-informed and well-prepared but she also seemed like a ferret on cocaine. We had to leave when she left all of a sudden to talk to her friends. I think that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Okay, it was my fault we went in that panel. I love D.Gray Man. It’s true. It was not truly awful but once again, it was a panel that I could have looked everything up on Wikipedia for if I wanted to. D.Gray Man is full of dark and religious themes, plenty of fodder.

I think the main problem with panels about one title is they are just why title X is so cool and why character Y from title X is so cool (and maybe why we hate character Z and hope characters A and B get together). I really would like to see more panels like the panel I saw at Otakon about Hellsing. A detailed analysis of characters and themes of a title. A more mature and detailed examination of a work. That would make me happy.

Exactly, I don’t feel anymore that people go to panels about shows to learn about them. There are just so many other resources for that. The only thing I learned before hi-tailing it out of there was that D.Gray Man will be going on after 52 episodes. I probably would have known this if I wasn’t pissed at the show at the moment. But now maybe I can get over it since it is continuing, hopefully without filler.

We ended the day with the Manga Industry round-table panel. All the guests were on one table and Morimoto acted as moderator as she asked questions of all the guests and took questions for the guests from the audience. Morimoto started the panel with the joke that she recognized everyone in the room from other panels she had given over the weekend. I guess that show once again that most of the time people who come to conventions don’t care about the guests.

All in all I think MangaNext was worth the time and the money. I had fun, learned some stuff, and met some very cool people. I would like it to grow a little more so they might draw some bigger guests, while keeping that same relaxed and comfortable atmosphere.

MangaNEXT grew by leaps and bounds since last year. I am proud to be a part of it. And hope to do a panel next year as well.

P.S. This con report is ridiculously long.

Nartutaki Currently!
Watching Gundam 00
Reading Saint Seiya
Listening to L’arc en Ciel

Hisui (Brainwasher Detective) Currently:
Watching Orguss, Super Dimension Century
Reading Negima! Magister Negi Magi
Listening to Tobira Wo Akete by Anza