Month: May 2016

Otaku USA Magazine Presents Hisui’s Schedule 2016

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hisui_icon_4040 I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I will be attending Anime Fan Fest this year. It is a brand new convention taking the space of the Garden State Exhibit Center now that AnimeNext has moved to Atlantic City. I’m very excited to see what the new convention in the area has to offer.

Kate is not attending because she is gearing up for her trip to Japan. I will try to visit artist alley and do some of the other things Kate normally does as part of her coverage. I did not submit any panels so I could have a little more time to explore the convention since she will not be there to fill in some of the holes I might otherwise leave in a con report.

As the title of the post implies it is sort of hard to miss how much Otaku USA Magazine is behind the inaugural Anime Fan Fest. They have their logo visible almost everywhere. Thankfully Otaku USA is quality publication so I’m not to worried but I felt it was worth pointing out.

If nothing else it means that the convention can hit the ground running in a way that most first conventions could not. It is not that they have started out trying to be the next Otakon like Big Apple Anime Fest or New York Anime Festival but the convention already has the feel of a mid-sized convention that has been established  for a few years. Anime Fan Fest does not have any Japanese industry professionals on the roster but they have some high-profile American voice actors, industry professionals, as well notable writers and panelists as guests despite being a first year con.

If you going to Anime Fan Fest feel free to say hello and maybe we can meet up over twitter. Other than that I hope to see some of you there!

Friday
3:30pm – 4:30pm THE ANIME ASSEMBLY LINE
5:00pm – 6:00pm COMIC & MANGA PRODUCTION WORKSHOP
6:00pm- 7:00pm HISTORY OF JAPAN: EVERYTHING’S OK, I GUESS
7:30pm – 8:30pm ANIME NOSTALGIA BOMB – TIME MACHINES ARE REAL!
9:30pm – 10:30pm LIVE FROM JAPAN, IT’S OTAKU USA

Saturday 
12:00pm – 1:00pm ANIME LITERARY CLASSICS
1:00pm – 2:00pm THE FIRST ANIME
3:00pm – 4:00pm THE CLASS OF 1986
5:00pm – 6:00pm BOOTLEG ANIME FROM SOUTH KOREA
8:00pm – 9:00pm LIVING, STUDYING AND WORKING IN JAPAN 101
9:00pm – 10:00pm THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SHIGERU MIZUKI

Sunday
11:30am – 12:30pm 70S ANIME FUNTIME!
1:00pm- 2:00pm THE BEST AND WORST MANGA OF 2016
2:30pm – 3:30pm ANIME MYTHOLOGY STRIKES BACK
4:00pm – 5:00pm ANIME BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE!

Slayers Rewatch Podcast: Spell #00

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Lina Inverse: Bandit Killer, Dragon Spooker, and Beautiful Sorceress. That’s right, we decided to revisit the classic 90’s fantasy comedy Slayers.

The show is a mixture of comedy and adventure that is both a parody and homage to the various worlds of fantasy and roleplaying. Lina, Gourry, Zelgadis, and Amelia are your stereotypical D&D adventuring party (albeit with a rather spell-casting heavy focus) killing monsters, hording treasure, fighting amongst themselves, and causing tremendous amounts of collateral damage which sometimes inadvertently save the world. And in the 90’s Megumi Hayashibara was the queen of anime voice actresses and one of her most iconic roles was Lina.

Back in the day not everyone liked Slayers but almost everyone had watched it and had an opinion about it. Now even with the two recent seasons in 2008 the series is distinctly seen as a product of the 90s.

We are recruiting adventures for our journey to discover if Slayers is still an enjoyable 90s romp or a cursed relic better buried in the stream of time. If you are a high enough level, you should rewatch Slayers with our party!

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Crime Scene Investigations #012: Castle Point Anime Convention 2016

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This is a bonus segment of the Speakeasy Podcast we like to call Crime Scene Investigations. These are random bonus podcasts that we record about various events. There is no regular schedule for these. We will put them up as quickly as we can when the opportunity for one occurs. 

This (mostly) 1-day convention is just across the river from NYC at the Steven’s Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. This year we were invited as guests to present panels for the event!

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