Month: October 2007

Japan is lookin’ to crack down!

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So, Japan has decided it wants the U.S.’s help is putting down fan-subs. I am actually a little surprised. Japan hasn’t really taken an interest in it even though it has been going on for years and years. I guess I never really thought about the effects of fan-subs on the Japanese industry. I don’t know if anything can really be done about it though. Besides if the U.S. anime industry isn’t making the plea is doesn’t seem like it’ll hold water.

Maybe that is why Japan is making the plea. If the U.S. industry won’t make a fuss then the Japanese are going to make sure that someone is going to protect their intellectual property. A good number of anime are now made with the idea that some of the projected profits will come from international distribution. So they seem to think they have two choices. Make less anime without the support of the U.S. anime industry or get someone in the U.S. to crack down on fan-subs. The real question is even if they get someone to crack down hard on fan-subs will it really do anything positive for the U.S. or the Japanese anime industry.

I feel that fan-subs have their uses and positive impact on the anime industry but they also doing harm to the anime industry. The problem is as long as there is some possibility of ruining it for everyone some jerk is going to go out there and make sure that he ruins it for everyone (And often times they are quite proud of it.) There are going to be people who watch fan-subs and the minute a title they watched get licensed they go and buy it in stores. Then there are people who will watch everything they can get their hands on and not bay a slim dime on anything in the U.S. or Japan and act like they are the heroes on the modern age. Most people fall somewhere in the middle but it’s hard to see which end of the spectrum most people all under. Do most fans buy the shows they really like that they watch on fan-subs or do they only buy a fraction of what they watch fan-subbed? A thread on Anime Jump makes me think people are not buying anywhere as much as they say they are.

And there is now this reverse backlash of people in Japan downloading fan-subs because of the sky-high DVD prices in Japan. Although, they have the opportunity to watch it on television that we don’t. So that’s where the ruining it for us kind of comes in. I mean fan-subbing has been going on for a quite a while with some complaint from the industry but very little action.

The problem is that up until recently most of the time fan-subs were inferior to legitimate releases. In the old days the video quality was almost always better on a legitimate release. Now if most fan-subs might be of lesser quality but only hard core video freaks can tell the difference. The only real draw that legitimate releases have are extras like DVD bonus features and exclusive items included with DVDs. I mean the Japanese CD market keeps itself alive despite outrageously high prices by including exclusive tacks on their CDs to prevent people running to reverse imports or downloading American CDs. I guess that DVD extras are less valuable then the actual content of extra tracks on a CD.

The thing is fan-subs are not going away any time soon. They were an integral part of the formation of an American anime fan-base so it’s hard to separate them from fandom. They actually have their positive benefits even today, despite what some company reps might tell you. Whether the benefits outweigh the costs are another story. I think as much as some people would argue against it we would not have anywhere the current U.S. fanbase without fan-subs.

There are those few examples where it seemed like everyone watched in on fan-sub and then decided not to buy it. So that really damaged the persona I think. There was Love Hina and then more recently it was seen with Rozen Maiden (that’s really weird that I dislike both of these shows, but I digress). But fan-subs are the only way some niche shows are even a thought in the heads of company reps. They have an insight in to what people are actually watching. They have a leg up on other media! Fan-subbers are working for free and the industry gets to look in on what fans think is good.

But I think that fan-subs can also give a very wrong impression of the market. Geneon assumed that since so many people were downloading and talking about niche shows like Rozen Maiden that it was worth the high price to license Rozen Maiden and they would make their money back. But it seems places like 4chan and the rest of the Internet was willing to watch Rozen Maiden for free but they were not willing to buy it on DVD and anyone who did not see it fan-subed was in no rush to buy such a show on DVD either.

Well, I wish fan-subbers were less worried about their e-penises and worked a little more on obscure and older shows. Do you really need 10 groups working on one show? (the answer BTW is no). I understand that subbing is in some ways almost an art form so you can have more than one translation that are both correct but have different subtleties. The thing is, after 2 groups are working on something, it is almost assured that most of the extra subbers are either adding nothing new or are sub-par to other groups doing the subs. A lot of times they are just a bunch a speed subbers trying to out do each other and just giving in to a fast translation with a horrible grammar and spelling.

I sort of agree. In fact, when there is more than one group I usually stick with the one I think has the best sub…not the fastest sub. For example with D.Gray Man, I always wait for the Black Order sub, even though they are a couple episodes behind. I think people should lose the pride thing and do more shows! More is better, the more we see the richer the anime community is. But can I really complain when people actually do this out of the goodness of their fanboy/fangirl hearts? Not really. Besides there are so many shows available there is no way I could watch all of them.

I have to admit I’m on the fence with this issue. Selling is not cool but when it is completely free it is harder to say. Especially since the shows aren’t licensed in the U.S. I can understand Japan’s problem and quite frankly they don’t owe us anything. I mean if I could never watch another fan-sub again I would be upset. But I would still be buying anime. My disappointment would come from all the shows that will never make it to the U.S. But I have to say if the prices of DVDs were not so high in Japan, I wonder if they would be seeing such problems?

I think if DVD prices were lower in Japan we would still have the same problems we have in the U.S. The only changes would be that Japanese consumers might buy more DVDs and American might import more Region 2 DVDs. The only people who can change the situation in America is Americans. Either U.S. fans have to suck it up and support the industry or the U.S. industry has to break some heads and hearts and crack down on the bad boys of fan-subbing. I’m not saying they should try to take down everybody who downloaded Monster but maybe you can take down some of the mega download sites that have half the licensed shows out in the U.S. Something is going to change and I hope it does not hurt either industry too much on either side of the Pacific. But I also don’t want to hurt the U.S. fan base either. It’s sort of nice that you can run into several anime fans at work or school and not be outrageously shocked.

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Shonen Onmyouji
Reading Rockin’ Heaven
Listening to Abingdon Boys School

Hisu (Brainwasher Detective) Currently:
Watching The Story of Saiunkoku
Reading 20th Century Boys
Listening to Daybreak’s Bell by L’Arc-en-Ciel

Cat’s Eye and Orguss: 2 Golden Oldies

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Why you should buy them! (probably)

I think you should buy them. In fact, I demand you go buy them.

I think we are extremely lucky that ImaginAsia has come along and decided to try this. Classic shows released in the past have done notoriously bad. Not because the shows aren’t good, but fans seem to be superficially obsessed with the way a show looks. I’m not saying style doesn’t matter because there are some things that are so ugly is it hard to look at it. But to miss out on a really good show because of it seems counter productive.

Well, I think a lot of ImaginAsia‘s plan to pick up older series come with the fact that they have a novel distribution system that makes it economical to release niche titles to a niche audiences and still get some kind of profit. First off, ImaginAsia is a cable channel so they can put anything they license right on TV, which is an advantage that most anime distributors don’t have. Then ,they are releasing them on high quality press on demand DVD-Rs. This means they are possibly not as high a quality a disk that has been factory pressed DVD, but the only real difference between the two will been seen 5 or 10 years so I guess we shall see then. For now they see good enough quality.

Since they are so cheap to make, can be made in house, and since they are only distributed on the Internet, ImaginAsia can sell them at a lower price than normal anime DVDs. Also since they are print on demand. They don’t have to worry about a factory filled with thousand of unsold DVDs if a title is unsuccessful. Also since they are going for a niche market, so they’re not spending big bucks on a dub. All in all this seems the best way to see a old anime series that does not have nostalgia factor like Voltron. I wonder if other companies will start to do the same thing if ImaginAsia makes a profit.

But for me, I really love 70’s and 80’s style so the vintage of a show is not really an issue for me. I jump at the chance to watch some older shows. And as such have jumped at these ImaginAsia releases.

Yeah, there are a bunch of really good classic series that could use some U.S exposure. Captain Harlock, Rose of Versailles, and Dirty Pair come to mind right off the bat. There are also some legendary old sports anime like Aim for the Ace, Touch, Attack No. 1, and Tomorrow’s Joe. Some of the greatest hits of anime go unknown in the US because they are old sports shows but are an integral classics of anime in Japan.

I like the way they are released even-though some people take issue with it. Of course, they are subtitle only, which doesn’t bother me since I don’t even listen to the dub track, ever, not even as a test, for most shows. The first disc comes in a thick box that holds all the discs. The box is nice, comes with artwork and all the discs have artwork on them, too. Then each disc after that just comes in a … So you just continually add discs to the big case filling it up. It saves space, is cost effective, and quite frankly is the only way we are ever going to get shows like this in America. And if these releases do well, we can expect more in the future. It would be wonderful to get a lot more classic shows here in the U.S. Especially since Rose of Versailles is part of the TMS catalog. It’s a long shot, but you never know.

Well there is always the rumor that Riyoko Ikeda is super duper crazy and is the main obstacle preventing Rose of Versailles from getting licensed.

I like the boxes and they are pretty nice looking. Most people prefer smaller boxes as opposed to single boxes for each DVD anyway. I mean I don’t even keep most of my DVD cases anymore. I throw all my DVDs in CD notebooks. I need space. Otherwise where am I going to keep all my Saber figures?

Well we can talk all day about what a good distribution idea ImaginAsia has but if the shows stink who cares? Or if you hate the types of show they licensed then why should you care. But I think ImaginAsia picked at least two good series in Orguss and Cat’s Eye. They are very different shows but both have a distinctly fun old school vibe. They have yet to ship me Nobody’s Boy Remi so I don’t know how good that series is.

Orguss is about Lt. Kei Katsuragi is a fighter pilot who is assigned to protect a dimensional bomb set to blow up an enemy space elevator. When the engineering team assigned to detonate the device has to flee as the battle turns south Kei decides that he don’t need no stinking dimensional science PhD to set off a highly complex dimensional bomb. Since Kei is 80’s anime protagonist, and a huge jerk, he sets off the bomb horribly incorrectly. This has a two fold effect. The first effect is Kei is transported 20 years into the future. The other is that he rips time/space in half and mixes dozens of different world together rather unstably. Kei pops out with his transforming fighter and is discovered by a traveling band of merchants. They take him in partially out of the kindness of their hearts and partially because he is an idiosyncratic point. What an idiosyncratic point is unknown to the viewer but everyone in this new mixed-up Earth seem to think one is very valuable. In fact the militant Terram keep sending soldiers to capture or kill Kei because he is an idiosyncratic point. Kei stays with the Emaan merchants because they seem to have his best interests at heart. Oh and because he is a horn-dog that probably has a shrine to Ataru Moroboshi in his room and the Emaan ship is filled with cute girls and sexy ladies.

Orguss is space opera lite. There is a serious plot but the show doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously. The main characters are not dark and tragic, at least not so far. Kei is a super-flyboy, jerk as far as I can see with glimmers of sensitivity. But to counter act this, he is slapped in just about every episode. Mimsy being the one doing the most slapping. Mimsy the love interest, although I feel like it is really rushed.

Well, the whole Mimsy and Kei like each other does sort of come out of nowhere. I guess since Kei hits on anything that moves and is female he was bound to eventually get someone who was interested. Mimsy also seems interested because Kei is different and not a super prat like her fiancée Sray (who I’m sure is going to die sometime in the last 5 episodes of the show). I’m sure they will string the romance along by making her go back and forth between Kei and Sray until Sray gets killed.

Plus ,he uses the guaranteed techniques of world famous pick up artist Mystery. Duh!

On the Emaan side, there seems to be a lot of women in high ranking roles, which is nice. Most of the ship is female. They have a female captain and their best pilots are also female. I wonder if this has to do with their society. But of course Kei is just way better than anyone. Although, this sort of makes sense considering the Emaan society are merchants.

Well, a large female casts with leadership roles lends itself (but does not guarantee) some strong female character roles. The captain Shaya seems capable so that is something. Maaie and Lieea are somewhat more cutsey but seem decent at supporting Kei. I remember reading on Anime Jump that someone theorized that if Orguss was made today it would be a harem show and all the girls would love Kei.

I guess I can see that, but I don’t really think it would have to be. Thank god this is not a harem show, sorry people. I also really like Muum, the little girl robot. Her first appearance is the first time we see Kei seem to care about anything. He dots on her like a little sister. I see her as a super-adorable R2D2 that fixes his ship and gives him information.

Well, having watched the second disk she does sort of slip into proto-moe. She definitely has a crush on Kei but thankfully Kei does not seem to be a robo-pedo.

Why, why!?

Because Moe had to come from somewhere.

Cat’s Eye is one of those shows that you just have to roll with. The premise is so outlandish that you have to be in it for pure entertainment.

Hitomi, Rui and Ai beat Superman in the worst attempt to hide someone’s secret identity. These three lovely ladies run a little cafe called the Cat’s Eye by day. By night they are the notorious cat burglars called Cat’s Eye. They steal various pieces of art and always leave a calling card. They always steal pieces of art that had been part of their father’s collection before it was broken up after he disappeared. They hope by collecting pieces of their father’s collection they will find some clues as to what happened to him.

And they also where outlandish outfits! Like roller skates and bright colored scarfs in combination with their jumpsuits, I swear they look like they are going to a roller disco. They also have access to everything ever, ever. Planes, boats, all sorts of equipment. I suppose all of that cash from the art their father collected keeps them going, as running a cafe probably isn’t raking in the money. But then ya gotta wonder why the art was sold and now they are stealing it back? Where were they that they didn’t inherit it?

Then there is Toshio, Hitomi’s fiancée, frequent visitor to the Cat’ Eye cafe, and the detective assigned to stopping Cat’s Eye. Obviously Hitomi is dating him for his gentle compassion and rugged good looks not for his common sense or stunning intellect.

It is so hilarious! Especially when he takes people who need his help with Cat’s Eye to the Cat’s Eye cafe to discuss their plans!

The show seems rather episodic with the women from the cafe lining up another piece of their father’s collection, them doing prep work, them pulling off the job, and then how they get away.

This seems to be a popular method for caper shows. It makes sense and allows the series to continue for a long time. But it also makes me want to watch it in spurts as opposed to straight through. Once again that isn’t bad but it is a different experience. There is an over-arcing plot but for the most part I could watch it once a week and grasp what is going on. And if there ever is something I need to remember, they will probably remind me of it when it comes up.

From what I understand in 37 episodes in the first season and 36 episodes in the second season we only get real answers from the manga. Japan really seems to like formula shows like Lupin and Conan. They were definitely made to be watched once a week and if you missed an episode you would be fine tuning in next week none the worse for wear.

I found both shows to be entertaining and full of 80’s charm! Not to mention music. They are both fun and don’t take themselves to seriously, which I can appreciate. With both a good price and a good quality release they are a great buy. I am definitely going to continue to purchase these shows and look forward to other releases from ImaginAsia.

I also really hope this works out for ImaginAsia because I just keep dreaming about what other awesome older shows they could get from TMS.

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Innocent Venus
Reading Spiral
Listening to Adrift ~Sky Hurricane~

Hisui (Brainwasher Detective) Currently:
Watching Le Chevalier d’Eon
Reading Yotsuba&!
Listening to Jungle P by 5050

MangaNEXT 2007

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Let me start out by saying, we completely forgot about this con until less than a week before it! Whoops. But we busted our butts and got our panel together along with fliers for the blog.

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