For me guests are key at conventions, maybe that sounds a little obvious to say but truly it isn’t as I attend more and more cons and have realized many attendees never set foot inside a room to hear people speak. For many the con going experience is more social than educational, I like to have a little of both. This year’s AnimeNEXT really made that possible with a variety of guests, though not too much industry presences, that really filled out the roster of the con and made it feel solid again.
A panel with guests is usually a sign of quality so I tend to go out of my way to attend any panels with a guest that remotely piques my interest. Of course an event with a Japanese guest trumps all others if for nothing else you may never get another chance to see them but more because they can give you incredible insight and perspective into the mediums of anime and manga. Sadly other than a few rare exceptions American fans tend to skip panels with Japanese industry guests. Therefore I feel it is also my duty to attend such panels to show my support and let conventions know that their investment in such guests is important. But I assume most of the people reading a blog like this feel the same.
Funimation was the only industry panel in attendance a sad fact considering how close AnimeNEXT is to New York City and such a turn out doesn’t inspire much confidence on the state of things. On that front, Funimation’s panel, run by newbie Josh, started with a little “the sky isn’t falling”-type bit followed by some trailers and the usual Q&A session. My mind is always a little boggled by how many fans turn out for the Funi panels but perhaps that is a testament to how much people are liking what they do. I gave a big shout and started a round of applause as their Initial D releases appeared on the PowerPoint. They mentioned Part II of Fourth Stage being available early in the dealer’s room, though mine came in the mail right before I left for the con. The trailer for My Bride is a Mermaid got me interested. There were no real surprises during the panel which wasn’t too shocking and Josh did mention some big stuff will be happening at upcoming Anime Expo though it wasn’t clear whether he meant license announcements or events pertaining to already licensed stuff. He did say specifically you can expect to see a push for Hetalia at the rest of the summer cons. As the Q&A got rolling we all learned very quickly just how new Josh is as the audience ended up answering quite a few of the questions asked. There was also a rampant amount of DBZ questions. But Josh had a good attitude and I’m sure he’ll grow into the role, we’ll see how he fares at Otakon!
I got a good deal of the American guests in one go when I started the convention with the “Big Bald Broadcast” recording. Host of the podcast Kyle Hebert had along Uncle Yo, Tony Oliver, Martin Billany, and Kroze. There was no real theme to the podcast as Kyle threw out questions to the panel for everyone to answer. It was more of a getting to know everyone session with questions like what was everyone’s favorite piece of memorabilia. It was amusing that science fiction and Power Rangers came up far more than anime or manga in everyone’s responses. The panel ran smoothly although I could have done without the people in the audience who felt they were funnier and more interesting than the guests. I regret not going to any of Martin Billany’s (aka littlekuriboh) other panels because he seemed like an amusing and friendly guy. I then went to “How to Spot Bootleg Merchandise” with Greg Ayres. The panel was informative but it has the flaw that every Greg Ayres panel has: it is half informative and half moralistic lecture. While there was many a good tip on spotting bootlegs, he could have toned down the rhetoric especially since he was already preaching to the choir. I feel it would have been better served just putting the information out there and using a little less hard sell but that is sort of what he is famous for. Kevin McKeever’s “WAR STORIES FROM THE CONVENTIONS” was much like the one he ran at PAC in format but almost all the stories were new. He had the audience give him a topic and he would then relate an amusing story related to said topic from his many con experiences over the years. There was everything from sexually aggressive con moms to really scary fans of all stripes. Overall, Kevin tried to keep the stories positive and give the impression that no matter how bad some of the stories were his overall experiences were positive.
Reverse Thieves 