Category: Events

Otakon 2013: Shingo Adachi and Tetsuya Kawakami

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hisui_icon_4040 At points it seemed like one, and only one, anime came out last year. Some people loved it, some people hated it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, with other felt the show had a major shift in the middle. It was on inordinate number of year in review lists in the general anime blogosphere. The hyperbolic Kotaku reviews did nothing but throw fuel on the fire of the discussion. And so now that the shows in question, Sword Art Online, is playing on Adult Swim it seems like the conversation about the show never stopped.

As we have mentioned multiple times during these Otakon reports they pulled out all the stops for the 20th anniversary so getting Shingo Adachi and Tetsuya Kawakami who were involved with Sword Art Online was no surprise. I’m sure staff members from the show were some of the most requested guests this year (other than Attack on Titan which came out a bit too recently to be negotiated as guests for this years con.) As Sword Art Online is getting a second wave of popularity while playing on TV they could not have timed their arrival at a better time. The only way it could have been better is if they got Reki Kawahara as well (my roommate is a huge Accel World fan so I’m sure he would have loved to meet him) but their lineup was hardly shabby.

The interview was supposed to be a roundtable discussion with 4 press groups but one group dropped out and the other just vanished. In fact at first it looked like I was the only person who was going to show up. But I did get to talk to Shingo Adachi and Tetsuya Kawakami with some members of the Ninja Legion podcast. I find that amusing because up until that point there were only that anime podcast that people always confuse with the Ninja Consultants. If nothing else that meant that both of our sites were pretty much free to ask both guests as many questions as we liked which was very nice.

Sadly, we were not able to record any audio or video of the interview so we will have to go off my handwritten notes about the affair. I apologize in advance about that.

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Otakon 2013: Guests

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hisui_icon_4040 When I was at AnimeNEXT this year I noticed that the Japanese guests were doing more to engage with the American guests during their panels and this Otakon continued that trend. I did not go to a panel were the guest did not have some amazingly wonderful tidbit to share with the audience that would make anyone who did not attend the panel green with envy. The guest brought with them everything from exclusive trailers and never seen before videos to original art that was on display for the attendees. That was a wonderful set of treats that went above and beyond. It made the already special panels extremely memorable.

narutaki_icon_4040 I don’t know how many more Otakon introductions I can write where I say they pulled out all the stops for the guest list this year. But here I am once again because it can’t be stated enough. My hat is off and has been off ever since they started their announcements and I couldn’t put it back on again until now.

We’ve covered many of the Japanese guests in other posts. In this one we call out new additions to the Otakon line-up Kaoru Kurosaki and Yuzuru Tachikawa; returning vets Michihiko Suwa and Tomokazu Seki; and Masao Maruyama old friend to Otakon now.

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Otakon 2013: Concerts

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narutaki_icon_4040 Just like everything else about Otakon’s 20th anniversary, they went all out with their musical guest selection. Home Made Kazoku and T.M.Revolution were perfect fan favorite choices that have graced the halls of Otakon before. Chiaki Ishikawa was a beautiful new voice to add to the line-up. And then, Otakon shocked everyone by announcing that Yoko Kanno would be performing a special beta version of her new concert series Piano Me.

With nearly five hours of concerts to see at Otakon, it promised to be a weekend of music heaven.

hisui_icon_4040 I tend to focus a bit of coverage on the blog to Japanese production guests from anime and manga mostly because they get ignored by more fans than I would like. Bloggers and podcasters tend to pay a good amount of attention to them but that is mostly because anyone that deep down the rabbit hole is the type of person who naturally would be interested in such details. (You could then complain about such talk mostly just being preaching to the choir but that is beyond the scope of this report.)

But there is one type of Japanese guest that is beloved by anyone from the most casual fan who watches nothing but a handful of popular shows to the most dedicated scholar who compile Sakuga MADs. Japanese musical guests have that appeal. Even more than even Japanese voice actors they can really bring in an audience. There is even a distinct group of anime convention goers that just comes out for the musical guests and only the musical guests.

Otakon usually does a great job in getting a wide variety of musical guests with everything from JAM Project and VAMPS to the The Yoshida Brothers and the Eminence Symphony Orchestra. So for the 20th anniversary they went and got some of their most popular musical acts and created one blockbuster lineup.

But without a doubt Yoko Kanno was the keynote act. If she were the only guest (musical or otherwise) at Otakon 2013 I think most people would think the lineup was very thin but acceptable. She is one of the few universally beloved names and a distinct crowd-pleaser that transcends boundaries. She is synonymous with anime composition and her discography covers a wide variety of shows and countless different genres. It is probably easier to find someone who has never heard of Naruto at the convention than someone who does not love at least one of the songs she has created. In a fandom that is usually divided she is a wonderful unifier.

But lets us not discount the other guests as well. This was a stellar and unforgettable collection of artists that should not have been missed (even though I did miss some of them.)

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