Victory! No members of the Shrike Team even had to die to achieve it.

How did I win? Very simple. AnimeNEXT rejected any and all in-character Q&A panels this year. I’m not going to pretend that I was the sole reason those panels have fallen out of favor at AnimeNEXT. I was merely a single voice in a chorus of people who felt those panels were lazy and useless. I was just glad to be able to contribute to helping sing the swan song for that type of panel at AnimeNEXT. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Other than that this year also did a lot to bump up the panel quality with featured panelists. Last year just had Mike Toole but this year had Charles Dunbar, Daryl Surat, and Gerald Rathkolb who are all experienced convention veterans who have a reputation for doing quality panels. Part of Charles Dunbar’s income even comes from professionally doing panels throughout the year so he clearly has a following and a reputation for excellence. Daryl Surat and Gerald Rathkolb have an equal amount of fame doing the Anime World Order podcast. It is a move that has distinctly raised the bar when it comes to panels at a convention that already distinguished itself with a higher caliber of panels.

 Ah panels, the true backbone of anime conventions! AnimeNEXT sticks in my  mind as having many talent panelists every time I’ve gone. Now they are stepping up their game, like so many other cons, by inviting guest panelists who are known for their quality fan work.

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 If you hadn’t already heard me say it, know that the thing that got me to attend AnimeNEXT this year was ROOKiEZ IS PUNK’D playing a concert. That being said, I was not disappointed in the least!

Unlike Kate I don’t think I have ever been tempted to go to a convention solely due to a musical act. I will even stand by the blasphemous statement that even JAM Project is more of perk rather than a decision maker. That is from someone who went down to Baltimore just to hear JAM Project. I don’t dislike musical acts. If you made me choose I would rather a convention’s budget be spent on an anime production guest over a band but at the same time I have enjoyed more concerts at anime conventions than I have outside of them. In Maslow’s hierarchy of anime needs it is more like music is often the second or third tier on the pyramid.

All that talk aside I was the only person in our little group that saw both musical acts for this year’s AnimeNEXT. Thankfully both performances were very different in the style so they both satiated a different audio desire. The ROOKiEZ IS PUNK’D is a high energy band that is all about pumping up the audience. Luna Haruna is more of a soulful balladeer. One is spicy and the other umami. Other than that analogy making me hungry for a spicy umami burger it also encapsulates the interplay of the two acts during the weekend on my musical palate.

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 If you didn’t already know, Sailor Moon is back, friends! It was present all over AnimeNEXT and that even extended to the Artist Alley. But don’t worry, there was no overabundance of any one thing at the alley this year. Even titles like Attack on Titan and Kill la Kill didn’t seem to be in the overwhelming majority.

On a personal note, I was pleased to see a decent amount of Fire Emblem (mostly Awakening) love as well as more than a few Animal Crossing-related pieces in the alley.

But back to Sailor Moon! Megan Brennan had many small comics for sale including original work and she was one of the contributors to Hana Doki Kira which was a Kickstarted comics project. Her depiction of Luna’s trials with Usagi had me laughing right there in the aisle, I simply couldn’t pass it up.

As always I picked up some great buttons from the series as well. Two, I couldn’t choose, of Sailor Moon by Kristilyn who likes even bigger eyes than anime already has! Then there was the graphic nature of the very new group Tainted Sweets who I purchased a Sailor Mars button from.

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