Animesou.com

Fate/Zero:

I have always been a fan of Fate Stay Night, and when this piece came out, I was obviously excited. Fate/Zero is the prequel to Fate Stay Night. It is based on the Holy Grail war that occurred before the events of Fate Stay Night. In this version, you will get to see the family ties and more in-depth insight in the characters of Fate Stay Night, who played the role of extras.

So all this stuff should be good and dandy right? No. To my surprise, I was quite disappointed with what I have seen thus far. The dialogues were long and boring. The animation felt… like the kind I would see in dating simulation game. You know, the type with the high resolution backgrounds and then the character will be in the foreground, torso up, just talking.

It was quite sickening during one of the scenes where Kotomine Kirei was being recruited by Tosaka Tokiomi and Kotomine Risei; the scene was pretty much Kirei standing in the middle and Tokiomi and Risei playing duck duck goose, circling Kirei and informing him of the Holy Grail war. What kind of crap is that? Anyways, the first episode is 45 minutes and I was unimpressed. I was bored and just wanted it to be over. I certainly hope the future episodes will be different, because Fate/Zero has a lot of potential. Saber deserves better!

Working’!!:

In the second season of Working!!, the crew at Wagnaria is back and viewers are in for some comedic adventures. If you have not seen the first season, Working!! is about Takanashi Sota and his experience working at a restaurant named Wagnaria. Sounds pretty simple, but the cast of characters are all quirky and weird in their own way. Takanashi loves small things, Popura is a short girl who strives to be tall, Inami has androphobia and uses Takanashi as a punching bag and Yachiyo carries a katana around at all times. There are more strange personalities, but let us get to the actual show itself.

Nothing has changed since the first season; it felt like this series just picked up exactly where it left off. After watching the first episode, I did not feel the same enjoyment that I had from the first season. I guess, it was because I was no longer surprised by the things that happen at Wagnaria. But even with that, I will continue to watch Working’!! as I know there will some entertaining content in it.

Bakuman 2nd Season:

What is the life of a manga-ka like? What if you were a student with the dream of becoming a successful manga-ka? In Bakuman, the show will take you behind the scenes to see how some of the things are in the manga creation world. As a work that came from the creators of Death Note, you know Bakuman had some high expectations. Judging from what I have seen, the show is the slice of life types where you feel a certain connection with the characters as they are chasing their dream.

I have not seen the first season of Bakuman, and I guess I missed all the struggles Moritaka Mashiro and Akito Takagi went through to get their manga “Detective Trap” serialized. Although that is the case, season two brings a new chapter to the two characters’ lives. Now that they are serialized, they need to work harder to keep it that way. How will they deal with the changes or failures? Guess if you are one of those viewers who love to see how some people’s lives play out, this show is for you.

C³:

C³ also known as C Cube or Cube x Cursed x Curious, was a light novel by Hazuki Minase, before it was adapted into a manga and anime series. One day, a package box arrives at the home of Haruaki Yachi from his father and thinking that it was just another one of his father’s weird antique collectibles, Haruaki dumps it in the storage room. On that very night, he is awoken by noise in the kitchen; that is when he comes into contact with a naked girl named Fear.

Fear is not your average girl; she attained her human form after years of hatred and murderous intents from people. She was “created” to accept these feelings and to deal with them. She will also cause problems for whoever is her owner, but as Haruaki reassures her, he is immune to curses, so Fear can curse him all she wants. Upon watching this piece play out, I kept having this thought in the back of my mind. This anime felt like Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, maybe because Fear resembled Erio Towa. Anyways, I enjoyed what I saw thus far in C Cube. The story seems interesting and the character exchanges were entertaining. I am definitely looking forward to how this show plays out.

Kimi to Boku:

After seeing a lot of these school girl slice of life anime pop up recently, we finally have an opportunity to see a male version. Kimi to Boku is an anime adaptation from the manga series by Kiichi Hotta and is about four childhood friends and their school adventures. I have to admit, I did not think much of the show seeing how it is mainly about school boys, but it was interesting. There were some comedy that made me chuckle, nothing too crazy though. Since I am not a big fan of this genre, I cannot fully recommend it. If you like to see how people go on with their daily lives, this one is for you.

Shinryaku Ika Musume Season 2:

Shinryaku Ika Musume is a cute show. But it is just that. For those who have not seen the first season, the anime follows a squid girl who vows revenge on humans, because of their pollution to the ocean. That sounds quite menacing, until she breaks a wall in the Aizawa household. After that she is forced to pay off the damages through work as a waitress at the Lemon beach house.

The story picks up from where first season left off; the viewers will see how this squid girl communicates with humans and her plans of revenge, it kind of feels like “Pinky & the Brain.” One thing that I found annoying is the way Ika Musume ends her sentences (geso), and after watching one episode of it, I do not know how anyone is able to withstand two seasons of that abuse. So if you are into kind of show, go for it. Otherwise, I would move on to something else.

Phi Brain – Kami no Puzzle:

Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle is produced by Sunrise and is about a genius puzzle solver named, Daimon Kaito. Kaito is one of those kids that want a challenge, because through talent alone he was able to clear the so called difficult puzzles that other students took a long time to solve or could not solve at all. In comes Jikukawa Soji, the puzzle club’s president. He gave a device to Kaito with puzzles in it. When Kaito solved the puzzles one after another, he receives a message from someone named, Minotaur, through the device. It was an invitation to solve a complex puzzle that the Puzzle King could not solve; the Sage’s puzzle.

As I was watching this show, Zelda and Resident Evil games came to mind, since both of those titles contained puzzles for the gamer to solve. In the case of Phi Brain, you are not the person solving these puzzles, you are watching someone else do the job and I wonder how much amusement one would attain from doing that. Do not get me wrong, I thought Phi Brain was enjoyable, because I am a fan of puzzles. It also kept a rapid pace throughout, so I had to stay tuned to the screen. Overall, the show might not appeal to all viewers, but if you have nothing else better to watch, check this out. You might find it interesting.

Chihayafuru:

Chihayafuru is an anime adaptation from the manga series created by Yuki Suetsugu. The story follows a high school girl named Chihaya Ayase and her dream of becoming a Karuta master. That is a pretty weird dream to have for a high school student as the game of Karuta is not one that is very prominent in the modern world. But nevertheless, it is a dream that she has set for herself, unlike her previous dream when she was an elementary school girl, where it was that her sister becomes a famous model. The idea of having her own dream was brought up to her by Arata Wataya, a transfer student that the other students picked on. During a game of Karuta, Chihaya was amazed at Arata’s passion for the game and as a result, she developed her own.

As great of a job Madhouse did with the animation, I do believe that it is quite difficult to bring the game of Karuta any excitement on screen. You got players slapping cards away and they fly like ninja stars are thrown. Kind of excessive and dangerous if you asked me. Anyways, as I said, the animation was very lovely and while I will not keep this in my watch list, I do feel that there will be an audience for this show. I mean, take a look at the success of Hikaru no Go. Who would have thought a game like Go would produced the results it did as an anime? I sure did not.

Mashiro Iro Symphony:

Mashiro Iro Symphony is an eroge (adult game) by Palette. While it is in the genre of eroge, there really is not much gaming aspect to it, as it is a visual novel where the players read and look at the scenes and select certain choices. Now that it has been adapted into an anime, I am wondering how this will turn out. I sure hope it will not be like Yosuga no Sora, you know what I am talking about if you have seen that anime.

Mashiro Iro Symphony follows our protagonist, Shingo Uryu. In the first episode, most of the show was dedicated to Sakuno (Shingo’s little sister) getting lost and Shingo going out to look for her. After a while, Sakuno meets Airi Sena, a girl who is also lost and together they meet up with Shingo in the park. The Uryu siblings did not know who Airi Sena is and not knowing whether they will see each other again they bid their farewells. Fast forward some scenes and now the viewer is finally told the situation and the base the anime will build on. Shingo and Sakuno are both students of Kagamidai Private Academy and as a result of certain events; the Kagamidai students are undergoing a merger with an all girls school, Yuihime Girls’ Private Academy.

The episode comes to an end when it is revealed that Airi Sena is actually a student of the Yuihimi Girls’ academy who is fine with the girls merging, but opposes the boys from Kagamidai. It is up to Shingo now to get through to Airi that merging the boys to the school would not be a bad idea. I really do not know how this anime will turn out, and I will not recommend this show to viewers who are not fans of this genre, as certain parts of the show is torture for those who cannot stand these eroge turned anime.

Persona 4 the Animation:

Persona 4: The Animation is an adaptation from the video game for the Sony Playstation 2, and since I have beaten that game, I was exhilarated when I heard that an anime series was going to be produced. Okay, let us get into the anime now. If you have played the game, a lot of the scenes felt old. Maybe I was expecting a little too much, I thought it was going to be different somehow. But so far, the show follows the game to the scene. I knew what was going to happen, I knew what was going to be said in the dialogues and other than the fact that these characters are animated, there was nothing special about it.

When they said Persona 4: The Animation, they really meant Persona 4, just animated. If you enjoyed the game, you might find the animation less entertaining because there was nothing that was extraordinary. If you did not play the game, Persona 4: The Animation should feel fresh to you, but I would suggest that you do play the game sometime in the near future. I will still continue to watch this anime, as I am a huge fan of Persona.

Maken Ki!:

Maken Ki! is a manga by Hiromitsu Takeda, adapted into an anime. The plot focuses on Takeru Ohyama, your average high school boy without much focus in life. He decided to attend Tenbi Academy due to the fact that there were no interviews, no entrance exams, is a boarding school and just recently became a co-ed school after many years of being an all girls’ institution. Obviously, this is all too good to be true and within a few scenes he got to experience what Tenbi Academy was about. It is a school that focuses on magical martial arts combat battles.

Enough with the story, Maken Ki! is your typical ecchi humor show, with your typical characters and in this day in age, what is really original anymore right? It really comes down to how these perceived “typical” things are used in relation to the show. When it comes down to it, I liked Maken Ki!. There might be excessive panty shots, but that should not take away the fact that it was entertaining. The characters were nicely designed and animated, plus the battle scenes looked great. The interactions in the anime were paced well, so the viewer knows exactly what is going on throughout. Definitely check Maken Ki! out, if you like the ecchi humor genre.

Shakugan no Shana III (Final):

Shakugan no Shana III is the final series of the anime. Honestly speaking, this title is another one of those, “I forgot it never finished” kind of titles. I do not really remember much from the previous seasons as the last time I watched them were years ago. Anyways, Yuji Sakai is now gone, disappeared, he has moved on and reappears as the leader of Bal Masque. How is Shana going to deal with this battle? If this installment is similar to the previous series, it should be quite entertaining. There will be action, drama and the best of all, a conclusion.

Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai!:

Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai, which translates to “Do You Love Me Seriously” is an adult visual novel developed by Minato Soft and has been adapted into a manga and now an anime series. Right off the bat, you are put into a class war, also known as the Kawakami War; the battle between the S class and the F class (Some Baka-Test element to it?). Watching this show, reminded me of the aforementioned Baka-Test, an episode of Sora no Otoshimono Forte where there was a class battle and also characters from other shows in the form or similarity and exactly (Ex: Ageha Kuki from “They Are My Noble Masters”).

In Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai or Majikoi for short, we follow Yamato Naoe, the brains behind the operations. He wants to prove to Momoyo Kawakami (Shinra resemblance from “They Are My Noble Masters”) that he is worthy to be by her side. Their relationship is one of brother and sister, which for some viewers is a major turn off. I certainly felt disturbed, but as with Asian culture the term brother and sister is just a reference to someone who is close and older/younger.

I did not think this anime was entertaining. Matter of fact, I fell asleep and had to re-watch it after a coffee break, and still my mind set did not change. Majikoi is supposed to be a comedy but it was not funny; it is the usual harem type anime with no depth. During the whole run time of the episode, I kept questioning myself, “What is the point of this show?” Things kept occurring on screen, but I was tuned out, because it was boring and uninteresting.

Kyouka Senjou no Horizon:

Kyouka Senjou no Horizon, also known as Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere is an anime by Sunrise and was adapted from a light novel by Minoru Kawakami. The story takes place in the future where Earth was no longer habitable and humans have taken on space exploration only to find that they were not able to. Japan is the only area that was habitable. How is it that a small country, such as, Japan can foster the entire human population? Of course, that is impossible, so dimensions were created to solve the issue. When the original Japanese population was pushed out by the invading dimension forces, they created the city ship Musashi.

The city ship flies around Japan, looking to reclaim what was once their land. In comes Tori Aoi, our protagonist. He has the “Oh gosh” type of personality and very easy going. Because of this, he became the president of the student council. While he does not excel in any particular area, he is respected. From what I have seen thus far, the show will have a lot of boobs, a lot of tight fitting outfits from the female characters and some odd ball moments as a result of the other characters.

I cannot say that Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere is anything special; the whole first episode was dedicated to a chase, which really does not do much in terms of forwarding the plot. We will probably see more in the future episodes, but this anime has already set a pace and it does not feel like a good one, because if there were not any development at all from the first episode, what can we truly expect later on?

Mirai Nikki:

Yukiteru Amano is a member of the “Go Home” club. He has no friends, does not care to make any and enjoys documenting everything that he has seen or done in his diary. Kind of like Facebook status updates, because he will post even the most random things. Anyways, because he is a loner, he has learned to communicate with his imaginary friends in his mind; Deux Ex Machina and Murmur. Upon expressing how bored he was, Deux Ex, “helps” Yukiteru by giving him a mirai nikki (future diary).

The morning of the next day, he checks his cell phone and sees that his diary has already been filled with today’s events. Feeling suspicious and in a state of disbelief, he finds out from Yuno Gasai that he is not the only person with the future diary. He is also then filled in with the true purpose of the future diary. Deux Ex Machina was not his imaginary friend; he was real and has put Yukiteru and eleven other diary users in a survival game. In this game, the participants have to find and kill each other, until only one survives. The winner of this game will take the throne from Deux Ex as the God of Time and Space.

I thought Mirai Nikki or Future Diary was an interesting concept and that each of the characters in the show are twisted in their heads. There are some blood and gore aspect, but not extreme to the point of disgust. But how far can this show go? While I said the concept is interesting, it still feels somewhat one dimensional, and will get dull to a certain point. So let us hope that it will turn out well in the end.

Ben-To:

You are a poor high school student, you are hungry, and so you walk into a supermarket to pick up some food to eat. That ben-to over there looks good, so you make your way down the aisle to grab the last ben-to available. Next thing you know, you are on the floor, bruised, you are bloodied and your memory does not quite serve you correctly as you forget why you were in the supermarket and what events took place. Still fuzzy, you see a pretty girl mouth some words to you through the window of the supermarket and you begin to have fantasies, but that is besides the point, you are still hungry and now with whatever change you have left in your pocket, you had to grab whatever is left because the ben-to are all gone.

That is the life of Yo Sato. From what I have seen from Ben-To, this guy is in for some abuse; getting slapped by the class lead (Ume Shiraume) and getting kicked around by the girl known as the Ice Witch, Sen Yarizui. This anime is a strange piece. The main point of the show involves the protagonist going through battles of life and death in order to earn the right to purchase the half-off ben-to.

After consecutive failures, Sen Yarizui tells Yo Sato to meet her after school. It is then made known that he will be joining the Half-Priced Food Lovers club, where Sen will train him in order to succeed in battle. Ben-To is a ridiculous concept and I do not see how this series will be entertaining. You might get a few laughs here and there from the comedy, but seriously, fighting for ben-to? I do not comprehend the excitement associated with that. Let us hope, there is more aspects to the show, than just the supermarket battles.

Tamayura ~hitotose~:

Here comes the female slice of life anime of the season. Tamayura ~hitotose~ is a story about a girl named Fu Sawatari. She is still healing from the passing of her father and one day as she looks at the pictures that her father took when he was still alive, Fu remembered the joy that were in the photos and the happiness her father felt as he was snapping the shots. It is then where she decides to take up her father’s passion for photography. Utilizing his camera, she is on a mission to take pictures with light specks in them. These light specks are referred as tamayura by Fu and they only exist in pictures when there is joy around.

I am sure there is audience out there that will appreciate this type of anime, but I cannot bring myself to continue to watch this. The pace of the anime is slow, and from what I have seen so far, feels sad. I do understand that Fu Sawatari is going through the process of losing a loved one and that contributes to the gloomy atmosphere. Towards the end of the episode, Fu returns to her home town, where her father grew up to attend high school, and meet up with her childhood friend Kaoru Hanawa. Tamayura is your typical slice of life anime and if you enjoy those, then have at it.

Un-Go:

Un-Go is a detective anime. Shinjuro Yuki, also known as the “Defeated Detective” goes around crime scenes with his partner Inga to solve the mysteries behind the crimes. Right off the bat the viewers see that Shinjuro Yuki was dead or in the process of dying and Inga saves him somehow. Once the opening theme was over, we are immediately brought to the story and the characters involved. One issue I have with Un-Go is the constant introduction of characters by just captioning their name and who they are.

Honestly, I cannot remember all these names and their roles. If they did one or two, I can process that. But when they started to go down the list of characters I just tuned out, because quite frankly, the story did not require that all these extra characters be identified. All that was needed was the protagonist, Inga, Rinroku and Rie Kaisho, the criminal and the guy that died. Every other character, the anime would have survived if we did not know who they were.

Anyways, I thought Un-Go was good. It made me put on my detective hat and think about the incident, trying to solve the mystery myself. You rarely get anime like that anymore, where you have to put your brain to use. Most of the stuff these days are, just watch and maybe hope you enjoy it types. Also, Inga is strange. She mainly takes on the form of a kid, but when she gets anxious, she will take the form of a hot babe. Her special ability is that she can pose one question to anyone and they will answer her truthfully. With this ability, solving mysteries sure gets easier. I am looking forward to see what really happened with Shinjuro Yuki during the opening of the show and definitely looking forward to what kind of other mysteries Un-Go has in stored for me.

Boku ha Tomodachi ga Sukunai:

Boku ha Tomodachi ga Sukunai, also known as “I Don’t Have Many Friends” or Haganai for short, takes a concept that is often over looked in everyday life and brings it to light. When I was in school, there were the popular kids who had many “friends,” then there were the kids who were kept to themselves and did not care to make any friends. In the first episode of this show, we get to see three levels of why certain people do not have friends.

Our main character, Kodaka Hasegawa received a bad rap on the first day of school. His delinquent look scared the teacher and the students. From then on, everyone is scared of him and runs the other way whenever he is in sight. Next is Yozora Mikazuki, she makes no effort to talk to anyone in class. She often just sits at her desk and puts her head down during free time. From the “leave me alone” vibe that she gives off, other students just ignore her. Now we move onto Sena Kashiwazaki. She is the popular girl in school, often accompanied by a group of guys. But that means, she should have a lot of friends right? No. The people that associate with Sena are the people that want something from her, due to the fact that she is pretty and also the daughter of the board chairman of the school.

So things happen and Mikazuki decides to create the Neighbor’s club, where the main purpose of the club is to make friends. I thought the idea of the show was fun, but where can the story take us? Will it be another one of those shows where you see the characters interacting in the club all the time and getting little to nothing done? Quite a few anime titles come into mind. Or will Haganai actually accomplish something and become a title that I will want to continue watching. It is difficult to tell at the current moment as all I saw in terms of club activities were Mikazuki and Sena going at each other. I guess it is their form of getting acquainted as friends. Anyways, I do want to see how this show plays out, but I will be ready to hop off the bandwagon when things get rough.

Mobile Suit Gundam: AGE:

Out with the serious styled Gundam series (SEED, Wing etc.), in with the kiddy style series. While I would not say this is a first for the Gundam franchise, Gundam AGE takes the less eye candy route, but still manages to deliver with a great story line. In this edition of Gundam, we are placed in a war zone, the Unknown Enemy (UE) attacked the space colony Ovan and obliterated everyone and everything in sight. Our protagonist Flit Asuno was just a child when he was involved in all that mess and was given the responsibility (a device containing the blueprints to make a Gundam) from his mother, who also told him to entrust his fate to the Gundam.

Years have passed since the incident and humans lived with the fear of the UE daily. Having experienced the attack and lived to talk about it, Flit has always wondered whether the UE have an attack pattern. When a colony ship was destroyed by the UE, he believed that the next target would be space colony Nora. Of course, everyone laughs at his suggestion until the attacks materialized. With whatever firepower Nora had, they were fighting a losing battle. That is when Flit suggests the Gundam be used. And from that point on, Flit Asuno begins his journey as the savior of humanity piloting the Gundam.

From what I have seen, obviously, my first beef with the show is the animation. I am not a big fan of the kiddy style Gundam series and I am confident that I am not the only person on this boat. But at the same time I looked past that and saw the series as a whole. The story is, while not totally original, as there have been a few mecha anime with similar elements, it was still very good. The way the characters acted out and the action that followed was remarkable.

I have to be honest, this is the first Gundam I have watched since Gundam X and Gundam AGE has managed to pull me out of my state of trauma left by Gundam X. Okay, maybe not so serious, but AGE has really brought to me a sense of refreshment for the Gundam franchise. It could be the fact that I have not watch Gundam for years, or it could be the fact that it is genuinely a decent series. I am siding with the latter.

Guilty Crown:

If any series is a love at first sight this fall season. Guilty Crown takes the crown. The year is 2039 Shu Ouma is a high school student whom often kept to himself. He is a loner and as he was going to his secret spot, he meets Inori Yuzuriha the singer whom he adored (as he was listening, watching her music video and staring alone into the city night sky in the introduction). But the circumstance of the meeting was not ideal as she was injured from running from the GHQ.

The GHQ is an organization that took the independence from the Japanese people all while they were restoring Japan from the “Lost Christmas”; the period in time (2029) where a virus was spread in Japan, which caused many deaths and chaos. Certainly, this sounds like a noble cause by the GHQ, but their oppressive government and disregard for the independence of the people has lead a resistance group to develop, a group named, “Undertaker.”

When Inori was captured, Shu finally found the push for him to do something out of the ordinary chapters of his life. He decided to make a difference and listened to Inori’s words and brought the stolen goods to Gai Tsutsugami, the leader of “Undertaker.” As their meeting unfolds, the GHQ has launched an attack to the area with a kill anyone in sight order. Seeing this mayhem unfold, Shu runs and stumbles upon Inori. Hesitant at first to save her, he decides to run out there and when everything was said and done, he attains the king’s mark, which allowed him to withdraw a weapon out of Inori (looks like a Dantalian no Shoka moment). Anyways, he uses the power and halts GHQ’s attacks and the episode comes to an end. At this point, I was picking my jaw up from the floor.

Right when the episode began, we are greeted with one of the best insert theme songs (Euterpe) that I have experienced. The soft and calm vocals really put the viewer into the correct mood of the show. Both opening (My Dearest) and closing (Departures: Anata ni Okuru Ai no Uta) themes are written by Supercell and the performances by the respective singers are astonishing. I really enjoyed the sounds of Guilty Crown.

Next comes the animation and action. Superb details as expected by Production I.G, I was very happy with what I saw. The battle scenes and fighting scenes were explosive and hard hitting. Now the story, it was gripping. While Shu Ouma’s character is a bit frustrating due to his scaredy cat attitude at the beginning, he matures as the show goes on and became part of the resistance. The plot also manages to keep you on the edge pondering what is next. Guilty Crown is a definite hit and if you do not check this piece out, you are missing out!

Cross Fight B-Daman:

Where do I begin… Cross Fight B-Daman is one of these kiddy anime that focuses on a certain game. Kind of like Yu-Gi-Oh with cards, Digimon with the digi-devices and whatever anime that has that kind of aspect to it. This time around, we are dealing with robot looking pinball shooting pocket toys; B-Daman. Of course, it cannot just be that simple right? No way.

Ryuugazaki Kakeru is a normal elementary school student, whom has a heart for adventures. That is until his friend, Natsumi introduces him to B-Daman. After Kakeru helps out a toy store owner, he decides to give him a gift of his choice. Kakeru picks a B-Daman that was not for sale and a few scenes later he gets himself involved with the underground world of real B-Daman battles.

Personally, I do not like the show; I felt it was one dimensional with the pinball shooting B-Daman. Sure the animators can jazz it up all they want, but still, these are small mechanical devices that shoot pinballs… and all of a sudden special powers are introduced to the shots. I had a good time laughing at the show, not with the show, so that pretty much sums up what I think of this title.

Last Exile ~Ginyoku no Fam~ / -Fam, The Silver Wing-:

I have not seen the first Last Exile, so I am watching Last Exile ~Ginyoku no Fam~ or -Fam, The Silver Wing- with no prior expectations from the franchise. I am very happy with how GONZO is doing what I expect GONZO to do; great animation. The last GONZO title I came across I felt cheated, so from the animation aspect, Last Exile –Fam, The Silver Wing- looks amazing. The dog fights and the sheer size of the battles are sure to entertain the viewers.

From the story standpoint, this series is separate from the original Last Exile. In this show we follow Fam Fan Fan as she gets involved in the battle between the Ades Federation and the Kingdom of Turan. The feeling I got from Last Exile -Fam, The Silver Wing- is that the plot will be very intriguing, and entertaining. The action will keep pace and continue to draw the audience in. The music is also very nicely done, especially with the singing voice from Maaya Sakamoto. All in all, Last Exile -Fam, The Silver Wing- looks to be a solid title and deserves your views.

San Diego Comic Con International, shorthand known as “SDCC” or simply “Comic Con,” is one of the biggest pop culture conventions in the United States. Currently in its 41st year and bringing in another 125,000+ attendees over its four official days, Comic Con hit like a storm on July 21-24 and we were in attendance.

Yep, it’s that time of year once more

Comic Con is held in the massive San Diego Convention Center next to the heart of downtown San Diego, the Gaslamp District. It’s different from other pop culture conventions in that it covers a broad spectrum of genres. Originally it was true to its namesake, comics, but has increasingly added anime, manga, video games, movies, and television to its repertoire over the course of the last decade.

Even the hotels get into the act

This year’s tickets were, for people who had not registered at the 2010 convention, very elusive. The combination of an unreliable online sales system plus the subsequent panicked rush on tickets meant that many would-be hopefuls were turned away empty-handed months before the convention. This is the first time there has ever been a problem like this. 2010’s convention had its four day passes sold out in late 2009 but there was never a real feeling like it was impossible to get in. For the benefit of those of you unable to attend I’ll be writing this as a primer and explanation on how SDCC differs from other conventions you may have gone to. This also marks the first SDCC report on Animesou.

The $105 ticket for 2011 included preview night, a three hour block on Wednesday where the main draw is the exhibit hall. This is the first chance for attendees to see the massive 500,000 square feet of the exhibit hall that has been setup solely for booths and artists. Some attendees will make a beeline to stores like Hasbro and Mattel in order to purchase convention exclusive goods while others will run around the hall just for the thrill of being there and experiencing the booths or to scope out what free items they can acquire. This is one of the best times to visit the hall because you may not have enough time to explore all of it during the rest of the convention because of panels, signings, or other events.

SDCC, JAPAN

Something you might be used to at other conventions are reseller stores taking up the majority of the exhibit hall. This is not the case at Comic Con where industry and official companies are very well represented. Some of the Japanese culture related companies with booths include Bandai/Blue Fin and all their gunpla, Square Enix’s store and display of goods, Viz Media, Funimation, Nintendo (who actually took over a ballroom in the Marriott hotel in addition to their much smaller booth in the convention center), Kotobukiya, and more. The more Western companies like Marvel, DC, WB, Fox, and others have even bigger and more elaborate booths. Television network G4 had a two tier structure that doubled as both exhibit and studio for some of their on-site programs being streamed live from the convention center. While all of these companies are outnumbered by smaller booths they equal the amount of floor space taken up with massive displays full of props, special displays, and masses of people wanting to take a look.

This is the best official Gunpla ever

Even stormtroopers like to dance

Zelda and Link playing the upcoming Skyward Sword

As an example of the above I’ll be taking a look at the Square-Enix booth. It’s a huge setup with one side being dedicated to the store and Square-Enix’s online manga effort and the other being dedicated to some upcoming games. Square-Enix has grown over the past decade to be a multi-industry company handling manga, anime, and merchandise in addition to the video games we all knew them for. One of their big lines are the Play Arts figures which span a number of series including Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, and Halo. Displays also housed classic Final Fantasy plushes like the Tonberry and Cactuar and there was even a listening station setup for some of their soundtracks.

Two of the manga displays

As stated earlier, Square-Enix does handle some manga series. Their most popular is no doubt Full Metal Alchemist. Soul Eater and Kuroshitsuji are also high on the list. For the past few years a part of the booth I have come to enjoy are the displays of color shikishi with a short message from each of the mangaka and this year they include Nabari no Ou, Pandora Hearts, and the above mentioned Kuroshitsuji and Soul Eater. As part of the ongoing transition to digital format Square-Enix has begun making their series available online in English and demoed the system at the convention. Currently (as of writing) sixteen series are available for purchase at the reasonable price of $5.99 per volume and you own them forever (but must use their software to view manga). As a bonus they were giving away a small Full Metal Alchemist clear file originally included with Monthly Gangan’s May issue if you watched the short demo.

Closeups of this year’s four shikishi from Soul Eater, Pandora Hearts, Nabari no Ou, and Kuroshitsuji

The other side of the booth was host to a number of flat panel televisions hooked up to game consoles playing Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, one of the franchises acquired during the purchase of Eidos as their English video game arm. Another set let attendees play the Wakfu game currently in beta testing and if you played for about ten minutes you got to spin a wheel and get a prize.

In stark contrast to the booths are the panels. Naturally being “Comic Con” and having so many more genres to deal with means that the anime and manga panels are much less in number. Industry panels for anime and manga companies are fairly boring and consist mainly of series pickup announcements. Further adding to the weirdness is that Comic Con is sandwiched right between Anime Expo and Otakon so the bigger announcements have either already been made or are being held in reserve for the week after. You do have a few panels like “Manga: Lost in Translation” which allows you to poke questions at the unsung heroes of the industry, the translators, and others like “The Best and Worst Manga of the Year” which is fairly self-explanatory and a good way to learn of new titles to read but if you’re going to Comic Con solely for anime and manga you’re going to be disappointed.

Much like the panels, the guest-list when it comes to Japanese culture is lacking. There will be a few big names but nowhere near the scale you might see at Anime Expo. It’s somewhat tied into the way the American anime and manga industry has been on the decline, partly because they want to save the money for the actual anime conventions, and partly because they know that people at Comic Con come from all sorts of backgrounds and interests so there’s a much greater chance they won’t know Japanese guests. Viz Media, English publishers of Shonen Jump and a multitude of manga, used to bring huge names in like Arina Tanemura (Full Moon wo Sagashite, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne), Nobuhiro Watsuki (Rurouni Kenshin, Busou Renkin), and Tite Kubo (Bleach) but in recent years have scaled down. This year they actually did not have a headliner manga guest. And something you’re definitely not getting at Comic Con? Japanese music concerts. This is a huge plus to anime conventions and one of my favorite bits.

The biggest Japanese name at this year’s convention was Yoshiki, better known to some as X Japan’s drummer. At the beginning of the panel a news montage about Yoshiki and X Japan was played on the projectors, a good choice because while X Japan is huge in Japan and popular enough elsewhere, I would not be surprised if people here did not have a clue. He teamed up with the ever prolific Stan Lee (this isn’t Stan’s first Japanese collaboration as he’s worked to create Ultimo with Hiroyuki Takei of Shaman King fame) and Todd McFarlane (Spawn) to create the comic book Blood Red Dragon. It will be published under Image Comics and they were even nice enough to pass out a preview issue to everyone in the audience. It actually plays music much like some Hallmark greeting cards do, an idea thought up by Yoshiki himself. According to Stan he has a great amount of input on the project and isn’t just lending his name to the project but really wants to get involved.

SDCC, EVERYONE

Now if you’re going to Comic Con for the whole experience then you’re in good hands. There are educational panels on topics like how to break into the industry, tips on composition and perspective, live demonstrations of painting and figure sculpting, and even a few where you can watch famous professionals like Jim Lee draw and ask questions in order to learn how they work. Video game fans will be able to attend panels by Capcom, Bioware, and Microsoft for updates about future titles and giveaways. If you’re looking to meet fellow fans and enthusiasts then meetups like Firefly/Serenity’s Browncoats, ball joint doll collectors, or the Star Wars 501st Legion might be of interest to you. If you’ve got some time to burn a fun panel like the improv art of the Quick Draw panel with MAD magazine’s Sergio Aragonés or a screening of a musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will help you out. Anyone looking to get sneak peaks of upcoming big name movies and the new seasons of TV shows will also be well provided for. If you’re lucky you’ll even be able to attend prescreenings of movies yet to be released. Captain America and Cowboys vs. Aliens were two of the bigger names that showed this year.

My personal favorite is Ric Meyer’s Kung Fu Extravaganza. Anyone who has been to FanimeCon lately will recognize Ric for his panel of the same name or for his duty as masquerade MC. Three hours of fight scenes from martial arts movies is the name of the game at this panel and if you even remotely like the genre you should take a look. This is the one panel I’ve attended every year I’ve gone to Comic Con without fail.

Guestwise you’ve got representatives from TV, movies, video games, comics, novels, and more. With Hollywood only a few hours away there is a constant stream of celebrities big and small. Expect to see them in panels answering questions and talking about their experiences on set and in the studio. English anime voice actors are also present like Stephanie Sheh, Yuri Lowenthal, and Tara Platt. George R.R. Martin, L.L. Cool J, Peter Mayhew, Grant Morrison, J Michael Straczynski, and countless others were in attendance. You may or may not know who any of those names are but let’s just say they’ve done some pretty big things in their time.

LINES

Ballroom 20’s outside line. It doesn’t seem that bad til you realize it’s a quarter mile long and that inside is another line just as long

Lines. This is something you’ve probably run into at other conventions. Comic Con takes it to a whole new level. The most popular panels are held in Hall H, a 70,000 square foot room that holds 6500, and Ballroom 20, which holds 4000. These numbers seem like a lot til you realize that the total attendees are many times that number. If you want to get into a panel held in one of these, expect to be in there for at least an hour. Two to three hours is more reasonable. Comic Con as a policy does not clear panel rooms so if you want to you can camp out a room all day. In fact, you’re often forced to get in at least one panel ahead if the next is the actual one you want to see. In the smaller panel rooms things get even worse as the capacity is much smaller than the bigger rooms. You will have to gauge the popularity of the panel and whether or not it is one you will have to go early for. Some panels I thought would be unpopular turned out to be and I had to find other ways to occupy my time be it hunting for photos or taking another trip around the exhibit hall.

COSTUMES

This section is titled costumes because Japanese cosplay is a little hard to come by at Comic Con and not just because of the varied interests of attendees. Some cosplayers actually take this as an opportunity to specifically wear costumes from western series and take a break from the anime and manga they usually cosplay. And while cosplay meetups are common and run throughout the day at anime conventions, Comic Con had barely a handful in comparison and they were limited mainly to the very popular mainstay items like Vocaloid and Naruto. Even characters from this year’s breakout hit Puella Magi Madoka Magica went largely unseen.

They were up for most of the night making these

How can you resist taking photos of strange things like this?

A very, very big Totoro

Vernedead and Precious

2011 AND 2012

We’re many months away from 2012 and yet you must plan ahead if you want to attend Comic Con. Hotel rooms fill up fast, especially close to the convention center. Ticketwise things changed and tickets for 2012 were only available from 8-11am Thursday through Sunday. Only a limited number of tickets would be sold during the three hours and completely depended on the capacity of the Grand Hyatt hotel’s Douglas Pavilion. The room held an estimated 2500 people and each person was allowed to buy a maximum of two tickets worth (either two four-day tickets or eight single-day tickets). Assuming every person bought their maximum allotment, approximately 20,000 tickets would be pre-sold at convention with the remaining 100,000+ to be available online at a later date still to be determined. SDCC has been developing a new ticket system they hope will prove effective but if it doesn’t, good luck. If it’s anything like the sales held this year it’s going to take alot of it or taking the day off in order to maximize the time you have available to buy (many still went empty handed at the end of the day).

Something very unwelcome is the price increase with four-day tickets with preview night now costing $175 and four-day without preview night costing $150. The reason given for this price hike is that they want to prevent people from buying four day badges and only going for a couple of those days. The convention sells out regardless of whether or not there is a discount so you can read between the lines to get another idea why prices have gone up. More inexplicable is the fact that preview night, something that’s been free for many years, now costs $25 for its three hours. This makes zero sense when you think about their official reason for price increases. A Sunday ticket is $23 and gives you more hours and more to do for your money. Speaking of single day tickets, it’s actually cheaper to buy four single day tickets (totalling $143) than it is to buy one four day ticket ($150).

Some veterans I spoke to who have been attending Comic Con for decades (I’m on my seventh year myself) are having questions of whether or not they want to attend when they think of how the convention has developed over the last few years and now about this price hike. It’s something that’s been a long time coming. First the lines across the convention got a whole lot longer. Then they stopped offering mail-in registration and the discount you got for registering early at convention (early registration for 2009’s convention - $50. Early registration for 2010’s convention - $100). Then they removed at-convention registration for those who hadn’t preregistered. Then badges sold out online months in advance. Then we had this February’s online panic. Some veterans of them really resent Hollywood for coming into their convention and being one of the causes for overcrowding.

Word through the wire is that 2013’s tickets are going to be sold entirely online. Another big change is the rumor that Wondercon, a longtime San Francisco convention and little brother to Comic Con, is going to be moved to Anaheim for at least a year. It has not been confirmed as being true or if it will return to San Francisco at all. Speculation has it as a test run for an off-shoot of Comic Con to possibly alleviate congestion.

So, do you want to go to Comic Con? This is a question you have to ask for yourself. Do you want to contend with the giant lines? Are you able to handle wall to wall crowds and all the sights and smells within? Do you go to conventions just for the Japanese culture aspect or are you open to everything? Do you want the opportunity to be within eye-shot of some of the biggest celebrities and possibly get their autographs or converse with them? Maybe even get a photo taken with them? After reading this report and answering the above questions, you might have your answer.

For the record, I bought my 2012 badge on Thursday. I was in line by 5:30AM and out the door, registration in hand, right after 9AM.

Sunday, 5:30PM

Written By: Brian Lee

It’s hard to believe that Anime Expo held its twentieth anniversary this past Independence Day weekend but that’s how it is. This year marked its fourth year in downtown Los Angeles after previously being in Long Beach and Anaheim. Right next to the convention center is Nokia Theater and LA Live, a collection of restaurants, eateries, and clubs. Anime Expo utilized both Nokia Theater and Club Nokia for a few of their special events that needed a little extra room. This is the biggest anime, manga, and Japanese culture convention in the United States and they showed that off.

KALAFINA

The first major panel of the convention for a lot of attendees was the singing group Kalafina, most recently known for “Magia,” the ending theme of the anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica. They are backed by veteran composer Yuki Kajiura who is responsible for the production of their music as well as Madoka and many other franchises. Kalafina is also well received for the Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) ending “Lacrimosa” and the many vocals of TYPEMOON’s Kara no Kyoukai, their original raison d’etre. They have released two albums, Seventh Heaven, which compiled many of their anime related songs, and Red Moon, a largely original affair. A third album is set for release later this year.

Kalafina’s center personality is Keiko Kubota and to her left she was flanked by Wakana Otaki and to her right, Hikaru Masai. Each member would take turns answering questions. Some were about their music, others their style, others their previous musical experience. One of Kalafina’s high points for me, besides being backed by Yuki Kajiura, is their clothing. Keiko mentioned that each song has a theme and their costume is loosely based on that. Sometimes the image is determined after the song is written; other times there are specific storyboards that help determine this image but whatever the case, it makes for a great visual.

This weekend was special in that July 2nd, the day of Kalafina’s concert, is also Hikaru’s 24th birthday. The panel ended with everyone in attendance singing “Happy Birthday to You.”

Kalafina’s concert was held in Club Nokia on Saturday evening and was one of two concerts for the year to be sold out. Downstairs was standing room only and packed wall to wall. Upstairs had stadium seating that allowed for a good view no matter where you were and monitors that mixed concert video with anime footage supplemented this. Being Anime Expo, the set list was full of songs from Kara no Kyoukai, Kuroshitsuji, and Puella Magi Madoka Magica. When they started “Magia” the whole room seemed like it exploded and “oblivious” garnered a strong reaction from TYPE-MOON fans. A couple songs from Eve no Jikan and Sora no Woto closed the night. At the end of the concert they took a group photo. Perhaps we’ll be seeing a DVD later on?

MIYUKI SAWASHIRO
Miyuki Sawashiro, one of NIS America’s seiyuu guests, was another draw and her panel was held in the spacious Petree Hall. Her first major role was Puchiko from Di Gi Charat in the late 90s and she has been the voice of characters like Mint from Galaxy Angel and Saeko Busujima from Highschool of the Dead. Earlier this year NIS America announced the license of the anime Arakawa Under the Bridge and Miss Sawashiro, as the voice of the character Maria, was there as part of its retail push.

One thing visitors of Petree Hall would be seeing a lot of was Danny Choo as host and sometimes translator for any events held within. He began by getting the crowd to yell “Miyuki Sawashiro!” and she entered wearing a kimono. Banter between the two revealed the origin of her English skills as a combination of college studies and home stay. Format for the panel was a question and answer with previously submitted questions and when these ran out, audience ones. These included ones about why she got into the industry as a seiyuu, some of her favorite roles, her thoughts about a few of the people she’s worked with, and even requests for her to say lines like Cammy’s “spin drive crusher” from Street Fighter 4.

She expressed a deep amount of respect for Maaya Sakamoto, who she worked with on Arakawa Under the Bridge and went as far as always making sure to sit behind her as a sign of that. Sakamoto exhibited an aura of being a reliable senpai and was always comfortable to talk to. When asked about how working with Katsuyuki Konishi was (on Beelzebub), Miyuki mentioned how he would always prepare the script and place it on her seat ahead of time. It’s something a little interesting considering the fact that Miyuki plays the role of Baby Beel, a character that communicates largely with baby sounds.

Miyuki mentioned that she would like to further study English. For the moment she only speaks English “when she wants to order a hamburger.”

HATSUNE MIKU/VOCALOID

Miku Hatsune is growing at a frighteningly fast pace both online and in real life. Both Crypton and Toyota have begun huge pushes in America in order to expose more and more people to the Vocaloid craze that has swept Japan. In the main lobby of the Los Angeles Convention Center’s south hall was a Toyota Corolla which you may have also seen in Toyota commercials featuring Miku on television stations as well as on Youtube.

The first inklings of the official American Miku rush were last year at San Francisco’s New People theater in which they held screenings of the 39’s Giving Day concert of 2010. Anime Expo would be where they really drew lines in the sand. The Miku Keynote, held on Friday in Petree Hall, outlined their plans for the rest of Anime Expo. Danny Choo acted as MC and called out the guests by getting the audience into things with the phrase “Miku-san, maji tenshi!” which translates roughly to “Miku-san is a real angel!” Hiroyuki Itou, President of Crypton Future Media, and Toshihiro Fukuoka, Chief Executive Editor of ASCII Weekly Magazine and editor of Tokyo Kawaii Magazine, provided the meat of the keynote.

Toshihiro Fukuoka and Hiroyuki Itou

For our readers who don’t know, Vocaloid most often refers to the voice synthesizer software developed by Yamaha and Crypton. A series of characters and designs were assigned to the voice banks in order to improve their appeal. The Vocaloid 2 series consists of Miku Hatsune, Rin and Len Kagamine, and Luka Megurine. Legacy vocaloids like Meiko and Kaito are seen as older siblings to the Vocaloid 2 characters. Each has a different theme and voice.

The main appeal of Vocaloid is the creative aspect of it. Musicians and composers without a singer can utilize Vocaloid to fill in that blank. In fact this is what one music producer had in mind when his band broke up and he wanted to see if he, with the assistance of Miku, could do it all himself. Sometimes this only results in songs. Other times another artist will take that song and create a video to go with it and then share it on Niconico or Youtube. This can either be accomplished with traditional video and 3D software suites or with MMD, MikuMikuDance, and a freeware 3D animation program. This was made specifically for Vocaloid where different models are imported and animated to music. Traditional artists contribute through drawing art either original or based on existing videos/songs and uploading to websites like Pixiv or piapro, Crypton’s own purpose-built Vocaloid website. Sometimes all three occur at the same time and music, design, and video are coordinated by a group. This whole cooperative structure has helped grow Vocaloid into the phenomenon it is today. A search survey done by Crypton revealed that Nico Nico had approximately 93,000 Vocaloid videos with Youtube having almost four times that number at 366,000.

The first order of the keynote was to outline the Vocaloid push for Anime Expo. Friday’s keynote would be followed by a MMD workshop and the day after would have a Miku Conference. A dance competition would be held on Sunday with a Sapporo Snow Festival Miku nendoroid the prize. A merchandise booth with all manner of items from shirts to DVDs to figures was setup in the Exhibit Hall to sustain attendee’s desires to buy including a collaboration effort between Sanrio and Crypton, Miku Kitty. A portion of the rest of the keynote was an introduction to the many Vocaloid 2 characters that most benefited people new to the scene but I doubt the audience required that.

Miku Kitty!

Monday showed that the Miku booth proved quite popular over the weekend

Saturday’s Miku Conference was more of a behind the scenes talk. Crypton’s marketing director Wataru Sasaki was accompanied by Onyx Kobayashi, a producer and composer of Vocaloid songs. They revealed some of the things running through their heads throughout the rise of Vocaloid till now.

Onyx remarked that when in Japan he can’t really tell what the rest of the world is thinking about Vocaloid so it was good to come to America for this event. A large portion of the Japanese audience raised their hands when queried about whether they had tried to use Vocaloid. The English speaking contingent was in the minority. Sasaki would respond with “Well, maybe that’s because we don’t have an official U.S. version yet.” He followed by saying that an English version will definitely be released “(because) we’ve spent a lot of time and money on it already and if it isn’t then I’ll get yelled at (laugh).” Originally their goal was for 39,390 fans on the official Miku Facebook page (they’re currently up to 224,000) before considering an English version.

Will Miku in English have as much an impact in America as it did in Japan? “I would love to see Vocaloid chase Lady Gaga!” says Onyx. Considering how popular Lady Gaga is in Japan as well as the rest of the world, those are big words. But the success of Vocaloid in English lies entirely on how Miku is received and used by fans. Japan’s anime community has much more practice at this sort of thing thanks to all the amateur music composition both original and derivative that has been driven by their doujinshi movement over the past few decades. The English community has a much smaller number of these fan composers, DJs, and remixers. However, only time will tell whether English Vocaloid is a spectacular failure or the cause of a creative revival.

The biggest event of the convention was the Saturday concert. This would be the first time that Miku has performed live outside of Japan. Previously two concerts, fittingly on March 9th (mi can be read a 3, ku as 9), have been held for the past two years in Japan and they have been quite successful. The same success would be shared with Anime Expo and this is the first time in all the years that the convention has been in Los Angeles that the entirety of the 7,000-odd seats of Nokia Theater were sold out. At first only the central portion would be utilized in order for the projection screen to be seen at its best. Technical limitations meant the Miku hologram becomes invisible to certain viewing angles depending on its location. A Japanese travel tour created specifically for this event allocated much of this center block leaving the rest for domestic consumption. Sales of the remaining tickets went quickly and since demand remained high the other areas of the theater were opened with online presales sold out as early as May. The very final sales would go on at the convention itself but for seats on the edges of the theater that faced the technical problems outlined above.

The twenty-four song affair had a live backing band performing alongside Miku and would go on for approximately an hour and a half and was full of dedicated fans waving glowsticks and enjoying some of their favorite songs like “World is Mine,” “Saihate,” and an English version of “PoPiPo.” In the later parts of the concert Miku’s fellow Vocaloids Len and Rin Kagamine as well as Luka Megurine would appear and sing a couple of their own songs. Noticeably absent was “melt,” a song that had featured in the previous Miku concerts.

Currently a competition is going on to design “U.S. Miku” which will culminate in this year’s San Francisco Japantown J-Pop Summit in late August. Heads up: they’re using kickstarter to help fund the event and pledges of $20 and $100 will get you a Hatsune Miku x Hello Kitty J-Pop Summit Festival 2011 Edition USB card and entry to the VIP party. $100 also gets you photo opportunities and an autograph session with guests from Japan in addition to VIP entry ($20 gets you the general entry).

MAON KUROSAKI

A relative newcomer to the anime scene is the vocalist Maon Kurosaki. Her debut work was for last year’s anime Highschool of the Dead in which she released an album of twelve songs, each the ending theme of a different episode. She begin a few years ago at Dearstage which is a combination otaku-friendly cafe, club, and idol/singer training grounds held in the heart of Akihabara. Geneon producer Mitsutoshi Ogura chose Maon to be the singer of HOTD and she was set for a three month rush to create all twelve songs. Maon recalls that “sometimes I couldn’t stop crying… I feel like I really grew in those months.” More recently she contributed to the two ending themes of To Aru Majutsu no Index II. For Magic ‡world she was, as a fan of the light novels, tapped to write the lyrics and helped create the PV that she based partially on her own life. Maon described herself as a hikikomori who wanted to sing but couldn’t make that step. People cheered for her and finally she was able to transform into the girl she is now. She loves cosplay, anime, and games and wanted to show that in the PV. Near the end of the panel was the revelation of a rock song called “SCARS” set to be used in Hellsing OVA IX.

Sunday’s concert was listed as being an hour long and was the shortest of Anime Expo’s four ticketed concerts. It was still enjoyable and the crowd loved it. Her HOTD album provided the bulk of the performance with the two To Aru Majutsu no Index II songs also coming up. Midway through the set she sang SCARS, the Hellsing OVA song revealed the day before, for the first time live. By the end of the concert the audience called for the customary encore and Maon, throat feeling a little down, came out to explain that as much as she wanted to sing she physically couldn’t. She made up for this on Monday with an impromptu three-hour long autograph session, sickness or not.

Later this year Maon will be releasing a mini-album of songs for the OVA Hakuoki, another series she is a fan of. She will also be participating in August’s Animelo Summer Live 2011 concerts alongside names like May’n, Yui Horie, and Nana Mizuki among others.

Her main message for everyone in the audience: “If you can believe, wishes come true. You can change yourself for the better. You are who you are so don’t hide it (because that makes you uncool) (laugh).”

GOOD SMILE COMPANY/NITRO+

Takanori Aki and Taiki Kosaka

Good Smile Company x Nitro+ was not only a panel for fans of figures but also one for people who wanted to know a little about the philosophy behind both companies. Held in Petree Hall it consisted of MC Danny Choo, Good Smile Company’s Takanori Aki, and, Nitro+’s Taiki Kosaka. Each of these three have attended previous Anime Expos with Kosaka having made his first visit back when Long Beach was the place of choice. Aki had actually just a few days earlier been at France’s Japan Expo but decided to make the trip to Los Angeles. He remarked how fans in America knew much more about current titles airing in Japan and how there were more cosplayers here.

Aki recounted the history of Good Smile Company and how it began as a talent agency for seiyuu. It failed miserably and he knew that they had to change. He was friends with sculpting and figure production group Max Factory and thought they were one of the best but wondered how well they could continue business-wise and wanted to assist. One thing led to another and now you have GSC in its tenth year of figures. His first job was at Konami in sales where he was tasked to help sell Tokimeki Memorial, one of the first bishoujo games, to stores. At this time no one was sure such a thing would sell. When asked how he made sales work he said, “I had to think that what I was selling was the best in the store.” But he also came to think, “Is what the company making what the user likes and enjoys?” That question has stayed with him till this day and helps drive him in his efforts. As a creator he says that sometimes you get really into your work and sometimes a divide forms between fan and creator. He tries to keep things in balance at Good Smile to avoid such a damaging event.

Somewhat related to the whole Vocaloid-push theme of Anime Expo we come to Good Smile Company’s Black Rock Shooter. It started as music composed by supercell (with Miku on vocals) and creative design by the artist huke and a PV to go with it but with time its popularity grew to the point to where GSC picked it up for major release. An OVA, figures, and soon enough a PSP game are the products of that. The opening trailer for the game was shown, set to the song “no scared” by the hardcore band ONE OK ROCK. Aki had brought with him quite a number of figures to be given away to the crowd but this would have to wait.

Cheerful Japan is a charity project headed by Good Smile Company to help raise funds for the ongoing recovery of the Sendai area that was hit by the massive 9.0 earthquake in early March. So far it has raised approximately $900,000 and with the planned once per month release of a variety of figures aims to bring much more. The first release, a special edition of the Miku Hatsune nendoroid, should be arriving for international buyers soon with those in Japan having already arrived. The Miku nendoroid was followed by a giant plushie of the Good Smile Seijin mascot and a nendoroid of the Good Smile Company mascot, Gumako. The next upcoming item is a Cheerful Japan version of the Miku figma with orders set to open in late July.

Nitro+’s Kosaka had his start making doujinshi and caught the attention of one of the studios responsible for creating The Super Dimensional Fortress Macross (known to some as the basis for Robotech). He worked as an intern under mecha designer Kazutaka Miyatake before becoming an editor for Newtype magazine and working at Namco and Banpresto before eventually forming Nitro+. Working under others was good but what he really wanted to do was to create.

They started with a game called Phantom of Inferno way back in 2000 and which was released in English in 2003 by the now-defunct Hirameki. Another of their popular games, Deus Machina Demonbane, was just released about a month ago by JAST USA/Nitroplus USA after almost two years since it was first announced that it would be officially translated. Future titles for English release include Saya no Uta (which has notably been already translated by fans), Sumaga, and Satsuriku no Django. On the anime side of things Nitro+ has been involved with the popular Puella Magi Madoka Magica (with Aniplex whose U.S. branch announced that they would be releasing it in English) and the currently airing Steins;gate (with 5pb; artist huke, mentioned earlier as designer of Black Rock Shooter, was the character designer for Steins;gate).

So what do we have to look forward to from these two companies? From GSC, obviously more figures. Aki mentioned that there is an upcoming Nendoroid PSP game where you can battle with characters like Haruhi and Nanoha in a Super Robot Wars style game. “What about Madoka?” “She might not make it into this one.” “Put her in #2!” Black Rock Shooter is still on the rise and besides the BRS game there may be an English version. More BRS goods will be released in America.

For Nitro+ we have the Super Soniko game which is about a girl, Soniko, who is an upcoming musician who wants more people to see live concerts. Players take the role of photographer and confidante and you ask her questions in an adventure type game. Danny Choo’s pet project Mirai Suenaga appears in game (2D art only as opposed to Soniko’s 3D, unfortunately) and Danny himself is mentioned in the text at one point in the game. In the fall we will have the anime adaptation of TYPE-MOON’s Fate/zero which they originally collaborated to write the light novels. It will be handled by Aniplex and ufotable (who also worked on the superb Kara no Kyoukai and the opening animation of the Black Rock Shooter game).

As to what happened to all those figures that Aki brought? It became a gigantic series of room wide janken (rock paper scissor) games. To the victors go the spoils.

EXHIBIT HALL

Once you’ve been in one anime convention’s exhibit hall you’re more or less going to see the same thing in another convention’s exhibit hall. You’ve got your various stores selling shirts, plushies, manga, figures, and whatnot. You’ve got your industry booths selling their respective company’s wares. Some of the recent additions to the industry side of things are video streaming sites who have begun streaming live from the convention so that people unable to attend can get a glimpse of what goes on, or at least, whatever goes on in the small corner of the room that the camera can see.

With nothing else to do on Monday, why not have an impromptu dance?

What the cameras and everyone else see

One of these sites is Crunchyroll, a company established originally as a user-dependant video hosting site that naturally attracted the upload of fansubbed (and therefore copyright infringing) anime. Eventually they went legit and developed into an official streaming partner of various anime studios boasting English subtitled anime available shortly after their airing in Japan. That time problem was one of the biggest hurdles for anime licensing. Sometimes licenses in English would take months, oftentimes a year or more, before becoming available to the public. With fansub groups able to process and turnaround anime within a week there was no way they could compete especially since the public can fall out of love with anime after a season ends. Now that Crunchyroll works with anime studios that demand for current anime can be legally filled.

One of the Nico Nico booth’s hosts

The other streaming website is Nico Nico Douga who helped make things like Vocaloid available to everyone. A quick comparison for Nico Nico is “Japanese Youtube” but with the added bonus of comments that are time-specific and will scroll across the screen. A lot of Japanese content is sourced from Nico Nico and posted on Youtube to make it more visible to English speakers. Nico Nico also boasts a live streaming system so broadcasts can be made as they happen and this retains the comments that scroll across the stream. As part of an English push Nico Nico has created an English navigation system to their site and they were taking signups for new accounts at the convention. Upon creating an account you would receive a Nico Nico shirt (although the same one given out in every goodie bag that you got after picking up your badge). Nico Nico had also simulcasted the Miku Hatsune/Vocaloid concert for a nominal fee.

Aksys games, well known for fighting games BlazBlue and its predecessor Guilty Gear, was also in attendance. They had brought along some of their more niche games like the shoot-em-up game Deathsmiles and fighting game Arcana Heart 3. They also played host to some of the staff from Idea Factory who were responsible for Record of Agarest War Zero, recently released and available for purchase at the booth. Other items on sale were the BlazBlue “Hope” shirt created for charity for the Sendai earthquake featuring Tsubaki, Ragna, and Noel and a new BlazBlue shirt featuring Valkenhayn as well as their library of games. They would also hold a fairly popular BlazBlue tournament which packed not only the booth but the nearby aisle.

A very packed tournament.

One company that stood out last year with multiple mini-concerts by singers of various game songs at their booth was Mangagamer. They had to scale back this year to just merchandise and brought along a mix of oppai mousepads, specially colored shikishi, and even things like K-on swim trunks. Mangagamer is known more for their translation and publishing of a variety of Japanese visual novels like the Higurashi series, Koihime Musou, and most recently, Kara no Shoujo. Illustrator and designer Shinji Katakura of OVERDRIVE along with other guests were also at the booth.

Shinji Katakura

A few of the goods available at the booth

NIS America…

…complete with giant Prinny

Artist Alley was held in the back of the exhibit hall and had the usual mix of prints, artists available for commission, and various crafts. It was busy in what seemed like every hour of the day.

AUTOGRAPHS
Autograph sessions ran a little differently this year. Attending a panel did not guarantee a ticket. It did however tell you when most sessions were as they were not listed in the guidebook, online, and not even at the info desk except for that day. At some panels the barcodes on the back of your badge would be scanned and that information fed into computers that would randomly select the names of lucky attendees. These attendees would receive a guaranteed autograph ticket. Everyone else would have to pray for luck and a spot in the standby line. This time they held the autographs off to the side in the area the Artist Alley was the previous year and the Artist Alley was in the back of the hall. It seems less congested than last year and competition was much less fierce. I’m not sure if this is because of the location, the guest list, the lack of everyone knowing when the autograph sessions were, or the ticket system. The Monday open autograph sessions involved the staff from Crypton, Kalafina, Nirgilis, and on the far side, Vic Mignogna.

COSPLAY
As with every year the events of a convention help determine what cosplay you’ll see. Naturally this year there was a lot of Vocaloid but other popular series like Puella Magi Madoka Magica were well represented. Code Geass and Kuroshitsuji are still going strong. There were a few Highschool of the Dead cosplayers in the crowds. And there’s always some things that just stand out more than others.

This seems to be a recurring theme at Madoka gatherings

Morning Rescue en masse.

Too bizarre not to take a photo of.

Not exactly in the right place but still welcomed by congoers

Always good to see fans of the old series. 23 years and still going.

CONCLUSION
Now where do we go from here? Anime Expo 2012 is going to have a lot of work to do to surpass the likes of Miku who managed to sell out the entire Nokia Theater. Even big names like May’n and Megumi came nowhere near filling out the ground floor, let alone the upper levels. The change to holding three out of four concerts in the smaller Club Nokia is one that is both good and bad. On the good side a smaller venue means you can fill it with less people and have it look full. This is good for artists who always like to see a full house (rumor has it that some concerts in Nokia Theater were delayed because of managers hoping that more people would arrive) and happy artists tell their friends who will hopefully come to AX too. On the bad side its standing room only and no assigned seats which means you have to wait in line for a long period of time if you want to be closer to the stage. It also means that there’s a greater threat of concerts selling out (good for the artist, bad for the fan). This might all be useless thinking if they go back to Nokia Theater next year (the Miku concert’s setup dominated the theater for half of the convention) but the lower cost for using Club Nokia might mean it’s here to stay.

Guest wise, I think it was fine. There was a good mix of seiyuu, industry guests, and musical guests. I have seen some complaints online where they were unsatisfied by the guest list but this might just be in comparison to last year’s May’n, Megumi Nakajima, Yui Horie, AKB48, Yuu Asakawa, and more. The cornerstone of this year was Miku and some have thoughts that this was where the bulk of money went to.

Organization wise, something has to be done about the pre-reg line. More computers. More shade. Something. If you get there early it is maybe an hour to pick up your badge. Get there late and you are looking at three to four hours. Not to mention that you then have to rush to the ticket booth (this year located all the way across the center in the west lobby) and wait for another hour or more to pick up tickets that are first-come-first-serve no matter when you actually purchased the ticket. Day 0, 1, and 2 (Saturday) are the biggest offenders. Day 3 and 4’s lines were a ghost town in comparison. Rumor has it that more of the convention center is available for AX to use next year so it’s a possibility that the line might be moved inside which will be a welcome change from waiting in the July sun.

Announced numbers for this year were 47,000 unique, 128,000 turnstile, up from 46,000 unique, 103,000 turnstile which means that the total number of attendees was roughly the same but the number of people going each day was up, if that makes any sense. Or maybe it means more people were just going in and out of the doors. Lines for certain events like the Miku panels and Kalafina were definitely long and you had to arrive at least an hour early if you wanted to be close. It’s not San Diego Comic Con bad, but it’s getting there. As far as autograph sessions go it’s actually gotten better but that might be because of the lack of information about them. Last year it was more or less Anime Linecon for me where I went from a panel line to an autograph line to another panel or autograph line from the time I got to the convention to the time I left. This year I spent less time in autograph lines. Did I have a good time? Yes. The concerts make 90% of my AX experience every year and everything else is a bonus. If they keep bringing in the musical guests, I’ll be happy.

Next year is set for June 29 through July 2, another Friday through Monday. The convention-going staff of Animesou will see you there.

Blade:

When I first saw this title, I thought to myself, “Really?” Blade ended with me with the Wesley Snipes’ movies. Now that an anime is created, I wondered how good this can be. To my surprise, Blade the anime shows great promise. The action is superb with the animation by MADHOUSE. The story is based in Japan and if you do not know who Eric Brooks is, he is half vampire half human. What caused this condition? His mother was attacked by a vampire with four fangs while she was carrying Eric. As Eric Brooks grew up, he realized his powers and became a vampire hunter named Blade, vowing revenge on the four fanged vampire who killed his mother. From the first episode, you can tell this was not going to be an average anime about vampires. This was serious. The fighting scenes and the anime styled animation worked very well… and Maaya Sakamoto as Makoto was nice. I am definitely recommending people to check this out when they get a chance to.

Double-J (no website, yet, maybe):

I absolutely do not want to be harsh, because I know creating an anime takes a lot of work and effort. But I… I just wasted four minutes of my life on Double-J. In the four minutes, I wondered why I was putting myself through something like this. What was the meaning of this show? Exactly, what was going on? Double-J, from what I have seen is about two girls who join a club that focuses on preserving traditional crafts. It is supposed to be a comedy, but it was not very funny. The cel looking characters in the foreground and real life backgrounds make the show look cheap. This anime reminds me of Honto ni Atta! Reibai Sensei. Were the people behind this show lazy or just did not care? I am having a very difficult time looking for the official page for Double-J, and that is not a good sign at all.

Sacred Seven:

There is always that one title that many fans get hyped for, and Sacred Seven is that title this Summer. This piece boasts great animation by Sunrise, nicely designed characters, creative mechas and battle suits along with some nifty fight scenes. Although I am not feeling the wavy scarf, it looks too much like Strider Hyru. I do like the special ops maids though, they are always fun. From what I have seen thus far, there were not much story filler about Alma Nidoshi’s past, the show touched on it, and moved on instead of lingering around wasting an episode’s runtime. Maybe his history will be told later, but it was good that they did not force it on the viewers and just let us focus on the anime and what it will be about. Ruri Alba had a recognizable voice if you are a fan of Ranka Lee from Macross Frontier. Yep, Megumi Nakajima contributes to Ruri’s voice, which is a great plus. Overall, Sacred Seven has impressed me with the short amount of time that I have spent on it. I will be looking forward to more from this show!

Natsume Yuujin-chou San:

I read a synopsis from another writer about what kind of show Natsume Yuujin-chou was going to be about and I got interested in it, because the show pertains to spirits and demons. And what I am about to say is about this third sequel only. I have not seen the first or second series. What I saw was a wuss of a character who is scared of these spirits and demons that his grandmother would duel with. Instead of acting like his grandmother, Reiko Natsume, who challenged these spirits and made them agree to write their name in the “Book of Friends,” if they lost the duel, Takashi Natsume frees these spirits upon request. What is the entertainment in that? So to sum it up in a simplified form. Guy inherits a book with spirits’ names in them and he is not fond of spirits so when a spirit comes and asks to get their name back, he does some chanting and BAM the name is returned and they go on their ways. That is a pretty boring story to me.

Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel - Kyun Kyun Twinkle Paradise:

I knew what I was getting myself into when I was getting ready to check this title out, but I was not prepared for a Sailor Moon Tuxedo Mask wannabe named Misty Night. I just had to laugh when I saw that. Twin Angel is about two high school girls who study during the day and fight villains during the night. And that is the gist of it. While the picture I provided does not show any hint of kiddiness, but from what I have seen, Twin Angel tries hard to steer away from the childish factor by having Aoi Kannazuki run and show her bouncing jugs only to have her sidekick Kurumi Hazuki kill it with her immature personality. Also, there will be some fan service throughout. Just the first episode already featured the neko ears and tails on the two heroines. Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel – Kyun Kyun Twinkle Paradise is certainly appealing to a select crowd and is not for everyone. You can be confident that I will not be revisiting this piece any time in the near future.

Nyanpire the Animation:

The story goes like this. This homeless black cat was dying. And as its luck was running out, a vampire comes along and gives the cat some of his blood so that it can “live” and become immortal. Hence the name, Nyanpire! Now I will take this show at face value. Nyanpire is nothing more than an entertainment piece for children. My five year old niece will enjoy it. The show runs about four minutes and change if you count the credits and in the show, all you see is Nyanpire trying to be cute. More time was probably spent with the end credits than the show itself. Save yourself the trouble of watching this, unless you are into titles, such as, Hello Kitty’s Animation Theater. I guess I expected too much out of GONZO.

Morita-san wa Mukuchi:

What is with these five minutes or less anime? Morita-san wa Mukuchi runs three minutes and in that time nothing productive comes out of it. The show feels like it wants to be Nichijou, but fails miserably as there is no substance. Is it trying to be funny? This anime follows a character by the name of Morita Mayu and that is it. When it comes to these short anime flicks, character introductions are reduced to a name shown on the screen only. I mean, other than the fact that she probably listens to her mother’s teachings; nothing else can be deducted from the equation. I am quite disappointed.

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée:

Here we have another one of those a slice of life anime based in France. The twist is that the time period is not modern and the main character, Yune is Japanese. She is brought to France to work at a blacksmith shop known as the Galerie du Roy, by Claude’s grandfather. Nothing much has been exposed as to why Yune is doing what she is doing. This piece has a slow and mellow feel to it. I caught myself falling asleep on several occasions. Maybe it was the lack of Redbull or the show was just not very interesting. I have to give it credit though. Ikoku Meiro no Croisée has a nice atmosphere to it. The artwork was superb and there are bits of humor that derives from the fact that Yune is a traditional Japanese girl and her behaviors are not in line with the people in France. I am sure there will be fans out there that enjoy this piece, but if you are looking for the action packed anime, move on.

Blood-C:

I have pretty much grown up with Blood the anime. When something is good, there will always be different variations of the show. Blood has always impressed with each release. Now we have a Production I.G and CLAMP production, I knew I was in for a nice ride. Blood-C starts out with the klutz, Saya Kisaragi. Her character behavior is a complete opposite of what I expect Saya to be. Throughout the runtime there is a feeling of something is going to happen, but when? That suspense ultimately ends up with Saya’s father telling her it is time to take care of some business. He hands her the sacred sword and she goes out looking for the evil being. Blood-C did not do much as far as character introductions are concerned. Maybe down the line, but at the moment, Saya is the focus, as she should be. Anyways, the sword fighting and bloodiness of the fight scene was very impressive. At the end, you wonder who really is this Saya Kisaragi, and I was left wanting to know more. If you want to see bloody fight scenes with a great plot, you have to check out Blood-C.

Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi:

I was intrigued by this anime when I read about it during Spring time. Now that I finally have a chance to see what Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi is about… I am split on liking and disliking it at the same time. The characters seem very typical at the beginning. A kid named Taito Kurogane played with a girl named Himea Saito and in an attempt to keep Taito for herself. Himea bites Taito and instead of sucking his blood, she injects him with a poison that binds him to her and keeps him immortal. At that time, he wakes up from this dream and continues on his school day wondering what he just dreamed about.

I am certain; you have probably come across this kind of introduction on several occasions in other anime, where the main character wakes up from a dream and starts to wonder what the heck he just dreamed about. As he proceeded home, he tries to save a girl from an oncoming truck and gets run over by the truck in the process. He should have died right? His head was severed from his mangled body, yet he was still conscious. After his body healed itself and reconnected his head, he began to have flashes of Himea and finally remembers her. At the episode’s end, something crazy happens and leaves you on a cliff hanger! Of course, I know what happened in the episode cannot be the end of Himea… as there would not be a story then. Anyways, this anime should provide some drama and I will stay tuned to it to see how it develops.

Mawaru Penguindrum:

Mawaru Penguindrum has one of the most insightful introductions that I have ever witnessed in an anime. Fate. If everyone is predestined to do something and be someone, then what is the point of a future? As fate has already determined what you are. It is truly, some deep stuff. And then you wonder why the show introduced itself like that and immediately you discover why. Himari Takakura is a sick girl; she was not going to live much longer according to her doctor. Her brothers Shoma and Kanba Takakura, are very close to their sister and have a difficult time accepting the fact that their little sister is going to die soon. So in an attempt to make her happy in what could be her last days, they brought her to the aquarium, just like their parents did years ago.

It was a happy moment and they were having fun… until Himari walks off by herself and as Shoma and Kanba scramble to look for her, she has already fainted on the ground and she finally dies in the hospital. At the sides of their dead sister, something amazing happens. She pops up from the bed and yells out along with talking a bunch of gibberish to Shoma and Kanba’s ears. When her penguin hat falls off, she returns to the perfectly normal Himari, meaning she was no longer sick. I was happy by that fact and what comes after was comical. They receive a frozen package and inside contained three frozen penguins that only they can see. Mawaru Penguindrum shows potential. I liked what I saw, and the damn penguins are just too cute! I want my personal penguin helper too.

Uta no Prince-sama:

Uta no Prince-sama is not for everyone. It is a harem anime, but a male one. Right off the bat, the anime shows that the music will play an important part of the show as the group Starish begins with a singing performance. The protagonist of Uta no Prince-sama is a girl named Haruka Nanani and as she goes through her days at Saotome Academy, a school for performing arts, she begins to meet with these male counterparts. I liked the music of Uta no Prince-sama somewhat. The animation looked good and the character designs are nice. While I personally will not watch this show, due to my time constraints, this anime will appeal to the fans who are into the shoujo genre.

No. 6:

Honestly, I do not know where I should go with this. From what I saw, No. 6 the anime is about a kid named Shion. He is what people will call a prodigy. Since the age of two, Shion received all sorts of academic awards. Now it is his twelfth birthday and after celebrating it with his friend Safu, he returns home and is entranced in the typhoon that was about to hit No. 6 the city. After screaming out to the typhoon, Nezumi, someone who had escaped prison holds Shion up. And in a not so usual way, Shion offers to help Nezumi instead of fearing that his life was at danger. The first episode was purely character introductions and nothing too deep. If No. 6 the anime was a person who introduced himself to me, I would forget this person in a week. That is how much of a not so lasting impression this has made on me.

Usagi Drop:

As I watched Usagi Drop, I just kept having the thought of “unappealing” in my mind. As a Production I.G anime, I expected better animation. What Usagi Drop looked like was water coloring on a sketch pad for certain parts of the show. And even in the other parts, the animation was basic and simplistic. Some people might actually prefer that type of animation, but I am not one of them. The story follows Daikichi Kawachi a thirty year old single male who is on his way to attend his grandfather’s funeral. At the funeral, his family discovers that his grandfather had an illegitimate child. This quiet teenager, Rin Kaga, who nobody at the funeral wants any part of is suddenly in the care of Daikichi. How will this affect his life? Usagi Drop could be a case where the story of the show covers up the slack of the animation. As the story played out, I was a bit intrigued at the situation and how Daikichi will respond to having someone in his care. If you are into anime like Aishiteruze Baby, this could be a show for you.

Baka to Test to Shokanju Ni:

Baka to Test to Shokanju is back with a second season. I was a fan of the first season as the humor was great. Now what will the second season bring? Right from the start, a beach episode? Now that is what I am talking about! The way Baka Test meshes comedy with fan service is awesome. And it does not disappoint in this installment. Fans of the show should definitely check this out. If you were not a fan, you should start being one now!

R-15:

R-15 starts out like a scene from a school related eroge. Now that it has completely made you go what the heck is this? Taketo Akutagawa wakes up from his dream. You see, Taketo is not an ordinary student. He is enrolled in Hirameki Gakuen, a high school that only accepts those who have unique talents. Taketo’s talent is writing pornography novels. When he sees or hears any interesting situation, his mind wanders and puts the situation in a complete pornographic scene. So those of you who are ecchi humor fans will have a sure field day watching R-15. Now one issue I have with R-15 is that aside from the fan service and all, the story development and the character interactions were boring. It felt like it was talk, talk, talk, then, hey look, fan service time. I do not foresee any changes in that formula as the character of Taketo requires that kind of flow to the show.

Rou Kyuu Bu!:

Rou Kyuu Bu is not an anime that is for me. Any of you lolicon fans out there might enjoy this, but I did not like it at all. This anime is about an elementary school’s female basketball team. They are training and trying to win a tournament. The problem is their coach is away. In comes Subaru Hasegawa, a high school student, who had his basketball dreams put on hold, due to a scandalous situation that his team captain had with an elementary school girl. His sister suggested that Subaru should coach her school’s female basketball team. Now comes all the fun eh? The first day he walks into the gym, a row of maids greet him. After that event, the show does put an effort into the basketball story. Tomoka Minato is the obvious star of the team and she takes basketball seriously. But other than that, I am certain there will be some lolicon moments, and that in itself is enough to turn me off from Rou Kyuu Bu. If you like these shows go for it.

Nurarihyon no Mago Sennen Makyou AKA Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan - Demon Capital:

I have not seen the first season of Nura so I do not know how that turned out. Judging from what I have seen from season two, this anime is pretty good. I liked the yokai (demon) aspect. Nura was raised as a human and unlike other yokai he does not want the humans to fear the yokai. Nura’s perspective is skewed because he lives with the good yokai. When he was named the third heir to the yokai clan that was when he saw the evilness that some yokai possessed. Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan: Demon Capital has some nice animation, action and interesting character designs. I would certainly continue to watch how this season develops! Viz Media is simulcasting this show, so definitely head over there to watch it!

Manyuu Hikenchou:

Manyuu Hikenchou is a ridiculous concept at work. In a world of ninja and samurai, big breasts rule the world. All the flat chests suffer in poverty. Right off the start the viewer is put into a very sick situation. The slicing off of a woman’s breasts. This was called the breasts hunt and I guess the procedure is to keep the public at bay. Anyways, Chifusa Manyuu is the protagonist of the story and she is passed down the Manyuu secret scroll and technique. When she uses her technique, she “slices” off her opponent’s breasts and in the process, her own breasts will grow accordingly to the breasts of her opponent that she had just reduced. I am not going to sugar coat this. This anime is nothing more than for fans who like big anime boobs. I honestly throughout the whole show was saying to myself how stupid the whole idea was. I do not like the concept of breasts hunting and yes, I believe Manyuu Hikenchou is nothing more than a show about boobs. If you are that much of a pervert with a secret fetish for this kind of thing (slicing off boobs), go for it, otherwise, I will never go near this anime.

Mayo Chiki!:

Sakamachi Kinjirou is born with a rough condition. His nose bleeds when he is touched by girls. His condition is so bad that he is given a bad rap at school for it; they think he is a pervert. Now what occurs at the introduction of the anime feels like a waste of time; having Kinjirou’s sister go through a list of wrestling moves on Kinjirou. The whole show is most likely going to be about Kinjirou, Kanade Suzutsuki and Konoe Subaru the butler of Kanade. There is probably going to be some more characters sprinkled in, but the gist of the story I believe will be about Kinjirou keeping the secret that Konoe is a female and Kanade doing all sorts of scheming things to make sure it happens. I thought Mayo Chiki was entertaining. It felt very fun. The character voices and dialogue interactions were great. The ecchi humor was not overly excessive to the point of disgust. I will be sure to keep this one on my watch list.

Dantalian no Shoka:

You can tell this is a GAINAX title from the moment the show’s title is displayed. I went into this show not knowing what to expect. I did not know the story, did not know who produced it, did not know anything. Anyways, from the introduction I was given the knowledge that the anime will be about books, magical books. From that point, Demonbane came right into my mind. I hoped it was not a replica of an existing anime. My worries did not last long as GAINAX has always produced anime with intriguing stories, Dantalian no Shoka is not an exception.

Hugh Anthony Disward’s grandfather was a book collector. He has many rare collections in his library of books. One day, mysteriously, Hugh’s grandfather was killed during a burglary at his house. Hugh was surprised to find out that in his grandfather’s will, he was the person to inherit all his grandfather’s estate. The story really jumps start when Hugh meets with Dalian at his grandfather’s mansion and my summary will stop there. Dantalian no Shoka has a great story and nice animation as expected from GAINAX. The fight scenes with the use of the magical books stored in Dalian could be better. I am not really feeling the whole, “I will read this book and the monsters will die,” idea. Hopefully it will be different later on. Overall, I liked this anime and I am sure it will turn out well.

Kamisama Dolls:

This anime is one of those where characters control a familiar and they will use it to fight. There seems to be a lot of history that needs to be told to the viewer as we have no idea what happened in the past that caused Kyohei Kuga to quit being a seki and whether Aki Kuga was always a violence driven crazy guy. Now that Kyohei has left his duties as a seki, he tries to live a normal life as a college student in Tokyo. It was all going well, until he witnesses a corpse in an elevator. When he was about to get back to his apartment, he is stopped by his sister Utao Kuga and she informs him that Aki has escaped his imprisonment after he learned that Kyohei had left the village and Aki is responsible for the corpse in the elevator.

I thought this show has potential to be good, but I just cannot stand the singing of the Kamisama dolls. When they are summoned, they sing some kind of lullaby and when you are trying to focus on the show, the singing distracts you to the point of telling it to shut up already. Aside from that flaw, Kamisama Dolls should be entertaining. There will be a lot of action and a story that should be interesting.

Nekogami Yaoyorozu:

If I can just use one word to sum this anime up, that word will be… boring. But since I cannot just be that irresponsible and say something is bad, because I say it is simply bad. I will explain why I feel the way I feel. First off, Nekogami Yaoyorozu is about a mischievous cat god who is punished by her mother by taking away her divine powers and sent down to live an ordinary life with the mortals. The show from what I have seen is about the misadventures of Mayu and friends. That is all there is to it. The comedy is not very funny, the characters are dull and the plot is non-existent. I cannot recommend this, if you are a fan of this show, please explain it to me. Thanks in advance.

Yuruyuri:

Yuruyuri is a show about middle school girls, when Akari Akaza began her first year as a middle school student, she immediately joins the Amusement club where her two childhood friends were. The club was held in the tea club’s room so I was thrown off a bit from seeing this. Anyways, when Akari asked what the purpose of the amusement club was… there was none. Her friends, Yui Funami and Kyoko Toshino just used the club time to relax and hang around doing nothing. When Chinatsu Yoshikawa comes through the doors of the tea club’s room expecting to join the tea club, she is greeted by the amusement club and Kyoko pretty much forces her to join the amusement club because Chinatsu looked like the character she had been drawing in her doujinshi work. Chinatsu joins, but her goal is to revive the tea club as she is in this no goals club. Yuruyuri feels like a show about nothing in particular, and because there is no definite plot, the interest factor is low. At the midpoint of the episode I just wanted it to end already so I can move on. The show has bust written all over it.

Kamisama no Memo-chou:

Here is your dose of mystery and detective anime. Kamisama no Memo Chou is a show about NEETs. But not just any simple NEETs; these NEETs help solve mysteries that are occurring in town. And in the episode that I have watched, they solved the disappearance of a high school girl. Kami Memo starts off slow. It does not get into the thick of things until midpoint of the story. Narumi Fujishima does a full circle before coming back and meeting with the NEET group again. I thought this anime was filled up with a lot of boring dialogue and tries hard to do things the unconventional “NEET” way. So we end up with a show that feels all dramatic when the mystery unwinds, but the drama has already been watered down, because it has been dragged on for a length of time. Kamisama no Memo-chou is mediocre and it is adequate to satisfy only the less than average NEET.

The iDOLM@STER:

A show about idols, something that I do not care about… what better way to change my idea of idols than to watch an anime that depicts the struggles and the various types of idols; all thirteen of them. 765 Production is in the process of bringing up thirteen idols and that responsibility will fall on the new producer. I tried my hardest to give a dang about this anime, but in the end I cannot watch a show about aspiring idols. The iDOLM@STER is an adaptation of the Xbox 360 game The iDOLM@STER 2. From what I have seen, I do not feel anything extraordinary about this piece. I mean, each of them probably represents a different personality that might fall on the viewers and the viewers in turn will focus on that particular idol to see how she turns out. Other than that, I do not believe there will be a strong following for The iDOLM@STER, and I cannot recommend it, because it was just not very interesting to me.

Appleseed XIII:

This title was a title that I was looking forward to viewing. And I am not sure whether something changed about it, or my mindset changed from the last Appleseed that I have watched. While the Appleseed animation is great for the action scenes, scenic views and mecha technologies, the way the characters look feel so… fake. What I mean by that is that their mouth and body movements feel even more unnatural than if the piece was a regular anime. The story follows Deunan Knotts and her partner Brialeos as they fight to protect the city of Olympus from the Argonauts. But it cannot be that simple. An anime series adapted from the manga by Shirow Masamune has a deeper meaning than what is on the cover. The viewer has to pay attention to every detail and put the pieces together in order to understand the plot. I am interested in how this adaptation will turn out, but at the same time, I did not like this show that much to fully recommend it.

FanimeCon 2011

‘On your mark! Get set! Fly!’ was pretty much running through my head as I hopped on the plane to participate in another year at FanimeCon which took place at the beautiful McEnery Convention Center. Towering over the convention on the left and right were the Marriott and the Hilton where fans eagerly checked in to their hotel rooms and quickly snagged a spot in line for pre-registration. For many, this was the event of the year for them with guests of honor, dealer’s room, artist alley and an almost countless line up of things to scope out and do. But before I run through the nitty-gritties, I want to thank the staff this year as well as all the other contributors of this convention, which include the attendees themselves as well. So without further delay, I showcase to you all of FanimeCon 2011~!

Swap Meet

I told myself this a thousand times, if not more, to stop buying. Seriously, swap meet this year was crazy. Now let me define crazy for you people in this context: the ability to provide a massive supply of goods ranging from doujins, figures, out-of-print items and whatever your minds can come up with. Since the start of swap meet a few years back, it had grown exponentially to what it is now with thousands of fans selling and buying and looking for that special something only a diehard anime fan would still possess. In terms of numbers though? Really, I swear it felt like people would have exploded outward into the sky, both Thursday and Friday nights had there not been a roof above Exhibit Hall III.

With the addition of set ups of E-Gaming and Arcades, you could imagine just how jam packed even an exhibit hall of that size could have been. Now moving on to the actual products, I really liked what I saw this year and as mentioned above, I bought things to the point where I got sick of buying more. You know the phrase “shop till you drop”? Well.. it almost happened to me. But anyways much like last year, swap meet was a success in terms of what it offered and I don’t think it has failed me personally. However, there are some minor complaints with the swap meet this year.

One concern of mine was how it seemed as if a few people were monopolizing the spaces in swap meet. Granted it was understandable some had much more to sell and wanted to maximize their profits, but it seemed almost unfair for those who wanted to take part in swap meet for the first time and make a little extra spending cash for the convention. Hopefully those who took up massive spaces by having friends buy out more spaces for them would allow others to get in on the action of swap meet next year. Either way I loved swap meet and I hope for its continued success.

Dealer’s Room

With this tough economy and the skewed exchange rate between the yen and the US dollar that’s been going on for who knows how long now, being an anime dealer isn’t exactly the easiest or profitable thing to do. However, dealers still made their trips from all around the country to participate at FanimeCon, bringing with them loads of anime and anime related merchandises. Even Crunchyroll, Bandai and other anime industries made their appearances this year to show what they licensed and had to offer.

I have to admit that even though FanimeCon didn’t have the most dealers in the dealer’s room this year, enough of them still came and they came with quality. You want Cospa t-shirts imported from Japan? Try half a dozen of them with those. You want figures that are desired? Try… a lot of the dealers. Long story short and as mentioned, the dealer’s room at FanimeCon came with quality. Still a lack of imported CDs, but we all have an idea of what’s going on so I assume there isn’t a need to touch up on it. Anyways good dealer’s room this year and I hope to see many return next year old and new.

Artist Alley

Ah artist alley. If there was one place where creativity thrived, this was it. I remember the artist alley back at Anime Boston and how I noticed an increasing number of artists venturing into the unknown world of playing with metal, wood, plastic and other earthly material on top of the traditional pencil and pen and buttons and what have you. T-shirts, paper origami characters, plastic beaded characters, plushies, keychains made out of plastic, wood, metal, paper… and possibly even fire, wind, water and earth weren’t a rarity to see. I mean the list went on and on with what the artist alley had.

What I found more interesting was how in tuned the artists were with what was currently popular in the anime world, one of which being Puella Magi Madoka Magica. I would safely say almost a dozen artist, if not more, had some form of work of that anime in one way or another. From key chains to pins to stickers to even magnets. This was a prime example of the type of interest of fans that were at FanimeCon and how closely in touch attendees were with releases of anime out in Japan.

Many of the PMMM merchandise at the artist alley were sold out by the last day of the artist alley and even I had my regret of not buying a Kyubei phone strap an artist was selling the day before. Aside from that, I spoke with a good number of the artists and they shared their stories of how they got into doing what they do: a passion for art and creativity. Keep doing what you do best and love. See you guys around when FanimeCon rolls around next year.

E-Gaming and Arcades

Well much like last year, the set up was just about the same for E-Gaming with the same amount of awesome and diverse games of all genre. This was the first year I stuck around for some of the tournaments and actually participated in one and, wow were they hyped. One thing which bugged me was the Blazblue tournament and how even though PSN was restored a week before the convention, the updated game wasn’t put out until the very end when the tournament started. Had I known that, I would have signed up rather than to fight for my life to get a spot, when it was almost too late in the end. I guess they did mention that it was version 1.02 or higher, but honestly it was like playing a completely different game. There was a bit of confusion but it worked out in the end regardless.

The Marvel vs. Capcom 3 tournament was also pretty fun to watch and I found it pretty funny some guy placed a container of salt on top of the TV before the match started. Overall it seemed to me the tournaments started on schedule and went very smoothly. The two I attended were very organized and ended on time so props for getting that done. Also having iplaywinners there to record and upload videos of the top whatever players to their site was a bonus.

One thing I do wish to see in the future is having fight sticks and whatever accessory being lent out for use. I understand that those things do cost quite a bit but if there is a way to monitor who uses what, say by someone giving up their ID and badge or something for the staffs to hold on to, it could work. It happened at Anime Boston and it worked out fine. But again, it’s still a risk so this isn’t so much a complaint as it is a possibility of any staff of e-gaming wish to provide what they have for public use in the future.

Arcades worked out really well this year and I thought they had a decent selection of games. The head of arcades actually posted on the Fanime Forums asking which titles people wanted. Again, a sign that the staff is listening to what the fans want. The prices to play them were also not too bad even though some have mentioned that they were cheaper elsewhere. However with the way things work at a convention, it is a bit different so that needs to be taken into consideration. Finally with the layout, nothing much for me to complain there. People seemed to have a lot of fun and being next to E-Gaming all these years is like a match made in heaven <3

Stage Zero

Well if there was one thing that FanimeCon stood out against the rest, Stage Zero would certainly be one of them. Located at the main entrance on the second floor of the convention, Stage Zero served as a spot where big events and showcases took place as well as providing casual entertainment for the occasional and curious passerby. One event which took place was the Fanimaid Stage Zero performance. Like the previous year, Momoi also joined in on the fun as they danced, sang and shared memories with each other and everyone else. Also on Stage Zero was a Marvel vs. Capcom 3 charity event where people paid a few bucks to play against each other. Again, much hype took place during the matches as people watched on and cheered. Overall though Stage Zero is and will continue to be a major contributor to FanimeCon’s diversity and uniqueness. I look forward to seeing more events next year.

Tohru Furuya

Yep, you heard it right. Tohru Furuyu, the legendary seiyuu known for his key role as Amuro Ray in Gundam, Tuxedo Kamen in Sailor Moon and Yosuke Kasuga in Kimagure Orange Road, made his trip to FanimeCon this year. For many, his visit was highly anticipated as floods of people crowded into his panel room, snaked around to form lines for his autograph session and getting the chance to meet him up close. During his panel, dozens of people lined up to have their questions answered and explained. For the most part, the questions were fairly entertaining, although I was hoping there were more diverse ones regarding the whole spectrum of his career.

Nearing the end of the panel session as Tohru was running out of time to answer everyone’s questions, he went down to the rest of his fellow fans and gave them all hugs as a final show of appreciation he had for all his fans. After his panel session, people rushed to get his autograph as a loooooooong line was formed in the waiting room. All in all, he was an amazing addition to FanimeCon this year and I hope he felt the affection from his fans who look at him not only as a legendary seiyuu, but also as a role model.

Ryusuke Hamamoto

Brian Lee: A guest of honor I was happy to see is the artist Ryusuke Hamamoto. I have been familiar with him for approximately six years after seeing one of his sketchbooks from Comic Market, one of Japan’s major doujinshi sales events. Hamamoto has a distinct style that involves superdeformed designs and has contributed work to a variety of companies like Bandai, Shueisha, and Square Enix. His most recent commercial works are for Bandai’s Petit Eva and R-style series and Comic Gekkin’s Usagi Rurikarakusa. An artist throughout his life, Hamamoto really developed his style during his high school years and was influenced by Ryusuke Mita, mangaka of Dragon Half, and CLAMP, the famous group known for Cardcaptor Sakura, xxxHolic, and others.

The format for his two panels were open Q&A and inbetween questions he drew Neon Genesis Evangelion themed illustrations on his laptop. He gave advice to potential artists on how to break into the industry, both American and Japanese. As a fan artist turned professional artist he had to go through the same process. When asked about how well he was able to live off of his work he answered, “I brought seven things with me to work on while I’m here.”

Halko Momoi: The Queen of Akihabara

Brian Lee: Known as the “Queen of Akihabara,” Haruko Momoi has been active in the industry for the last ten years as a seiyuu and singer with unofficial work starting even earlier. This year’s convention marked her third Fanime and second formal concert. Momoi’s concerts are marked with crowds wielding glowsticks and performing designated dance movements called “otagei” (sometimes spelled “wotagei”) which makes it easy to tell who has been around for a while by what they carry in and what they do. The main two glowstick colors are blue, one of Momoi’s favorites, and pink, a natural given her name and its similarity to “momo” which means peach. At select times an intense, short-burning orange known as the UO (”ultra orange”) is used. New as of last year’s IVY album is green for its namesake song.

For the first half of the concert Momoi wore a white dress adorned with sparkles and a matching hairband and lace gloves. Midway through her performance she donned a pair of faux heart-shaped headphones reminiscent of those worn by Crypton’s Vocaloids. They had been presented by a fan to her during Saturday evening’s autograph session and this fan was thrilled they were being worn. A panda themed jumper helped round out her appearance.

The song list for this concert contained a mix of fourteen songs ranging from new ones from IVY like Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!, a mix of old standbys like Wonder Momo-i and Ai no Medicine, and even a few unexpected ones like Luka Luka Night Fever, a high-energy dance song popularized on Nico Nico Douga and YouTube that was originally composed for the Vocaloid Luka Megurine. For Luka Luka Night Fever a few brave souls even volunteered to perform the dance onstage alongside Momoi.

LOVE.EXE helped closed out the concert’s main set. It is the opening song for the game Baldr Force EXE and is a mainstay of Momoi’s music repetoire and a true fan favorite. It also plays host to one of the more complex of otagei moves, the “thundersnake,” which is characterized by a series of wide, sweeping arm movements. The room up front was at a premium so this particular otagei had to be done sparingly with the more close-quarters friendly “mawari” which involves jumping and spinning repeatedly (hence the “mawari”), arms held high, being favored in its place. The maids of Fanime’s maid cafe were only too happy to join in onstage. Some of them were attendees of her previous concert and executed otagei flawlessly.

Besides her concert on Sunday, Momoi had two Q&A panels and two autograph sessions on Saturday and Sunday as well as a mini-concert in the early afternoon on Saturday. On Saturday she cosplayed as her most recent seiyuu role, Feiris Nyannyan, from the Xbox 360 visual novel and now anime series Steins;Gate. She fielded a variety of questions including ones about the current state of anime and the increasing use of fanservice, how to become the King of Akihabara (”Well, Feiris Nyannyan is the queen so if you marry her, then you’ll become king!”), and whether or not it would be possible to stream her concerts from Japan for those unable to make the trip. After every question the questioner was presented with a snack brought from Japan.

Momoi expressed the desire to return in 2012 and with any luck she will.

Karaoke Contest

Brian Lee: One of Fanime’s annual traditions is the karaoke contest held on Friday. 2011’s preliminary round consisted of three hours and approximately forty entries which was whittled down to ten for the second and final round which lasted another hour and a half. All of the final ten were awarded prizes with the eventual winner, Patrice Coleman, receiving a Nintendo 3DS and trophy (both in the mail), and the opportunity to sing at the Fanime Masquerade, which she eventually took advantage of. The vast majority of songs were anime or Japanese culture related with the exception of a few like Portal 2’s “Want You Gone.” Older fans were well represented with classics like Bubblegum Crisis’ “Konya wa Hurricane,” the singer jokingly saying “I can tell you’re all younger than me” from the relative lack of a crowd reaction.

Contestants came both in their casual clothes as well as cosplay. One contestant, Emily Chen, was well prepared with a Ranka Lee motif (of Macross Frontier) and two of her songs, Houkago Overflow and Nijiiro Kuma Kuma from the second Macross Frontier movie, Sayonara no Tsubasa. She was even prepared to give a summary and explanation of each song’s theme. As a Megumi Nakajima fan (Ranka’s seiyuu) I was thrilled but also slightly disappointed at the lack of one of my favorites from the soundtrack, Koi no Dogfight.

Masquerade

Brian Lee: This year’s Masquerade Cosplay Spectacular was MC’d again by Ric Meyers. California con-goers should be very familiar with Ric as he has attended Fanime in some capacity for the last seven years and July’s San Diego Comic Con for more than a dozen. San Jose’s Civic Auditorium was again packed to capacity as attendees waited to see the many contestants and their skits. 2011’s entries numbered at more than 60 with 54 skits and a few more display entries. Some of the skits included a line of Star Driver cosplayers from Thick Bread dancing to “Men in Tights” from the 1993 movie “Robin Hood: Men in Tights,” the cosplay group Angel Hearts performing choreography to idolm@ster (something they would do throughout the convention including a concert early Monday at Stage Zero), and a near-naked Dante from Devil May Cry in a parody of the Old Spice commercials.

One entry that stood out both during the masquerade and later online was a Portal themed affair by NOTN Cosplay in which two Chell cosplayers performed in sync to music, complete with blue and orange portals and trademark portal guns. In true portal fashion when one entered the other would exit and even when peering through one side you would see the other. This entry ended up winning the “Most Dramatic” award. Gaming websites like Gamesradar and Destructoid would later pick up on it in the coming days.

Fanimaid Cafe

Fanimaid Café took place again on the side of the Hilton where attendees lined up to take part in this event that had grown proportionally in recent years. I visited the maid café on both days and it was jam packed with a line that looped around the corner almost every time I passed by it. Inside, the set up looked nice with neatly arranged and decorated tables. People were served by their maid, allowed to eat while their maid kept them company, chatting and playing games with them. Every table that I passed by, I saw happy faces one after another. It was a sight to be seen.

To touch up on the maid café a bit more, there are a few points I want to bring up regarding this event. For one, the Fanimaid Café is a prime example of the “By Fans, For Fans” idea of FanimeCon. A good comparison I can think of is masquerade where fans spend their time to put up a performance by the fans and for the audience. I guess if you think about it, every anime convention has a little bit of the “By Fans, For Fans” in them. However, the Fanimaid Café attempts to introduce people to what an authentic maid café would be like in Japan. It’s an attempt to incorporate an aspect of the anime subculture that’s bold and daring with many skeptics who question this having never experienced this before. But that’s the whole reason why FanimeCon is loved by so many, as this type of event is exactly what makes this convention unique and stand out on its own.

The fans which are a part of this subculture attempts to pro-actively be a part of it and reinforce the saying “By Fans, For Fans” to another level. This isn’t so much as being simply a staff or volunteer as much as it is an idea or concept put forth by people who are passionate for an area of the subculture. All the time that the maids spend in practicing for skits, training for the café and the time spent during the café are all 100% volunteer work with no compensation. That’s dedication and I hope to see its success grow in the following years.

MusicFest: Yuya Matsushita and FLOW

Well ladies and gentlemen (mostly ladies), Yuya Matsushita made his appearance at FanimeCon this year and wow was he popular… I mean REALLY he was. Though he has only done two anime themes in the anime series Durarara!! (”Trust Me”) and Kuroshitsuji (”Bird’) he’s nevertheless an amazingly talented dancer and singer overall. Throughout his concert, screams ran through the concert hall with every move and wink he gave. It was almost like watching a Japanese Bieber in action. Overall, his concert went very smoothly and on time. I hope he enjoyed all the girls who cried out for him, wanting to have his baby and I hope he will contribute more of his work in future anime.

Following a small intermission after Yuya’s concert, FLOW took on the spotlight as cheers ran through the crowd once more. Unlike last year and with a change for good, FLOW’s concert took place on a day different than Swap Meet which not only yielded more audience for the concert, but also in part gave the people who missed them last year a chance to see them. Like Yuya’s concert, things went without a dent in time or any technical problems. For me, it was a pleasure to have them back as they have done extensive musical work in anime, such as, Code Geass, Naruto and Eureka 7. Their return was a treat for both their dedicated fans and fans who were attending FanimeCon for the first time and I hope they enjoyed what this convention offered them.

This was the first time that FanimeCon has held two concert during a single MusicFest that involved major names. The proper care and enforcement by FanimeCon’s staff who took part both directly and indirectly made this joint concert successful and on time. Though a small incident happened involving a fan who took video of the concert when it was strictly prohibited even for approved Press members, stern rules were needed to prevent other potentially dangerous things from happening and forming such as mosh pits. Good job all around with the concerts this year.

Cosplay

Never a year have I been disappointed by the cosplayers at FanimeCon and this year certainly wasn’t one of them. One thing I love about this convention is how much in tuned and up to date people are with anime. It would be unfair for me to make the judgment that cosplayers represent the extent of the general anime competency of the fans, it certainly does represent a more active rather than passive attitude fans at FanimeCon have. Madoka cosplayers? I literally saw dozens of them floating around the convention.

Although many have mentioned how the amount of cosplayers have been declining more and more, there also isn’t a doubt that the recent seasons of lackluster shows isn’t exactly something that helps in relieving the problem. During the previous few years, big hit anime, such as, Gurren Lagaan, Code Geass, Lucky Star, Haruhi and so forth have made choosing cosplays very convenient for many who looked up to a popular series with characters to choose from.

What is there nowadays? Madoka? Well that’s actually been covered fairly well at FanimeCon and in fact several have mentioned an inflation in the number of them. Panty and Stocking cosplayers have also exploded and of course you have your usual Bleach and Naruto cosplayers. But what next? Star Driver? Sure there are interesting characters but even for more hardcore anime fans, how many really have cared to watch it? In other words, I don’t believe that fans are caring less and less for cosplaying but are finding it more and more difficult to find characters to worthy to cosplay.

With that said, every year I have my top 5 choices of cosplayers I usually acknowledge for their contributions to FanimeCon through their passion in the art of cosplaying. However this year, I have decided to increase the number to 10 rather than 5. Keep in mind though these are just my top picks. For everyone who did their part as a cosplayer for FanimeCon this year, keep it up. You are an active participant of this subculture and I appreciate the hard work and dedication that you have been put into it.

Reflections and Afterthoughts

This year FanimeCon brought over many talents new and old. Our friend Momoi made her return for a third year in a row performing on Stage Zero with the maids from the Fanimaid Cafe as well as in her own concert. Tohru Furuya, the legendary seiyuu from famous series, such as, Sailor Moon and Gundam, was also summoned over as his-trulys littered his panel and autograph session. FLOW made their return for a second year as well, giving fans the opportunity to see them due to conflicting timeline from the previous year. Also for the first time Yuya Matsushita made his debut in MusicFest, singing and dancing with style. And as always there were the amazing Swap Meet days, Artist Alley, Dealer’s Room and with a massive list of other things as well. There are however a few concerns I want to address.

The biggest problem this year at FanimeCon was a lack of a printed schedule. Fans were forced to go off the electronic schedule via the net in order to know what was happening. For me, it wasn’t a problem since I haphazardly wander into stuff most of the time anyways aside from the major events. But regardless, fans weren’t pleased. Going as far as that, the reason for it’s absence has been untold so far but it wasn’t a printing error as mentioned by Tony, FanimeCon’s convention chair. I guess we’ll have to forgive FanimeCon this year and move on to the next. Talk also has been made regarding mini-pocket schedules. According to Tony once again, the staff responsible for making those in the previous years didn’t participate with the convention this year. I’m hoping next year either that person returns, teaches someone how he makes them or someone who knows how to make them, make them.

The final area I want to touch up on rather than it being a concern are Rovers this year. There has been some grievances shared by fans with the behaviors of some of the Rovers. On the contrary after speaking and discussing this with one of the Rovers’ department head, apparently fan behavior was amazingly difficult to deal with especially at night. Based on what I saw while walking around, no one was screaming, running or acting like a complete idiot. Initially my thinking was that fan behavior really kicked up a notch. Then after being told essentially the “behind the curtain” stuff by some Rovers, it made me think twice. So here is the million dollar question: what came first, the chicken or the egg? In this scenario were the Rovers doing their best job of their lives or did some attendees turn and acted like proper human for once? With all honesty, it doesn’t really matter as the end result yielded properly behaved attendees from what I saw. If the Rovers were responsible, you have my respect and support and I look forward to that dedication in serving and being the protector of FanimeCon. If fans, WOW…. please keep staying normal next year. If it was on both ends, kudos to both then.

With all being said and done, another year of FanimeCon has concluded with new friends, memories, knowledge and experience gained. What the short weekend of FanimeCon was is now only a strong yet fleeting and distant memory of the once crowded and packed floors. I look back now remembering the mixed feeling I had the day that I arrived after a long trip across country just to be there. As funny as it is to say, FanimeCon has watched me grow just as much as I have with FanimeCon in the passing years. While a lot are returning FanimeCon attendees like myself with feelings that are mutual, a good amount are new to this convention. To those I say keep up your dedication as an anime fan and continue to be a part of this subculture so long as the passion is there. Until next year, see you all at FanimeCon 2012~!

*Special thanks to Brian Lee for his contributions in this convention report.

Synopsis:
The year is 2034, and the face of terrorism has changed. No longer restricted to the limits of the physical world, the war on terror has exploded onto the net. In an attempt to confront this new threat, an elite counter terrorism and anti-crime unit was formed: Public Security Section 9. Two years have since passed when the team’s commander: Major Motoko Kusanagi, resigned from her post. After a rash of mysterious suicides Section 9 is forced to confront the “Puppeteer,” a dangerous hacker with unsurpassed skills. As their investigation of this terrorist threat takes them deeper into the bowels of a potential government conspiracy, Section 9 once again crosses paths with the Major, but is her sudden reappearance more than a coincidence, or is she somehow connected to the “Puppeteer”?

Review:
In this third release of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society, we are not dealing with a film where it is a compilation of scenes from the television series. This is a new story and a continuation of where Stand Alone Complex left off. After the incident of “Individual Eleven,” Major resigned from Section 9 to do stand alone investigations on her own. Upon her net dives, she stumbles upon the case that Section 9 is just starting to get into; the suicides of people and a lead with the name “Puppeteer.” The whole situation began with one aspect, suicides, but balloons to bring in other concepts, such as, abducted children, and the aging population. Director Kenji Kamiyama brought the current social issue in Japan and mixed it within the Ghost in the Shell world.

While the population is in decline due to low birth rates and the aging population goes up with not enough able bodies to replace their place in the working populace. So what is the solution to this problem? According to the show, one way to solve this problem is to take a look at the death total of children. What if those children did not have to die? So as suggested, the government will devise a plan where they will take in these children who are on the brink of dying; kids that receive abuse etc. And put these kids in position where they will at least contribute to society, instead of just dying somewhere if they were left where they were. This sounds like something that will work, but is it ethical? Is it really that simple? Of course not, when it comes to Ghost in the Shell, someone always has to take it to another extreme. Otherwise, there would not be a show.

So what I thought about this show as I was watching it. Obviously, this time around the feature is in 1080p and not 1080i. I will not get into “p” or “i” but just know that “p” is better. And also, Nissan was brought into the mix. They meshed in flawlessly, because if I had not recognized the Nissan and Infiniti logos on the cars, I would have thought they were normal Ghost in the Shell world vehicles. I have to bring this into light as well. When you are watching an anime, you must pay full attention to everything on screen, or else you will miss the tiniest of hints that the film crew puts in. What do I mean? Well, for one, when Section 9’s Infiniti Kuraza pulls up, the license plate reads “3923.” If you pronounce it in Japanese it reads, “San Kyu Ni San,” which really means, “Thank you, Nissan.” Well that was the Nissan plug, but back to the story. When Motoko goes back to her pad after the scene where she retrieves the ampoules, as she gets out of the elevator, a man gets in. For a short moment you get to see that person’s face. And as you could expect, that person will make a strong appearance later on.

In Solid State Society, there was not an evil villain that the viewers can hate. Actually, the Puppeteer does not make many physical appearances. He hacks from a far and lets the people that he hacked do his dirty work. So throughout the show, there is a feeling of there is a threat out there, but where? In this feature, there was a lot of story development and action scenes were short and to the point. I have to say this again, but watching this one, I had to pay a hundred percent attention or else I would have been lost. And honestly, I might not have even comprehended the whole show on the first go around. Now that I have seen all three of these releases, I will say that Solid State Society was not as entertaining as the others. While I enjoyed my time with it, there was not anything where I got overly excited about. Do not get me wrong. This film was good, but I think the standard has been set so high by the previous Ghost in the Shell shows that Solid State Society just could not climb over.

The Breakdown:
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society features a social issue that has been around in Japan for a while now. It attempts to take that angle and put a twist to it to make it work within the Ghost in the Shell world. While the overall product was good, there was just too much dialogue and not enough action as you would expect from a Ghost in the Shell series. At least in the end, there seems to be some “closure” between Batou and Motoko’s relationship. That was a plus!

Synopsis:
The year is 2030 and six years have passed since the end of World War IV. Influxes of refugees are allowed into Japan to fill the labor gaps of the growing economy. Terrorist cells identifying themselves as the Individual Eleven have begun a series of ultranationalist attacks targeting refugee camps, foreign consulates and even the Prime Minister. A charismatic new leader rises amongst the refugee’s resistance movement, a former member of the Individual Eleven. Simultaneously a top member of the Cabinet Intelligence Agency contacts Section 9 with shocking revelations and unknown ambitions regarding the current state of affairs. When the refugee resistance procures a nuclear bomb can Major Motoko Kusanagi and Public Security Section 9 diffuse the situation and help avoid a catastrophic civil war? Can they uncover the mastermind orchestrating the situation? Who is the mysterious resistance leader and what link does he hold to the Major’s past?

Review:
In this release of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: 2nd GIG: Individual Eleven, the story revolves around a mysterious resistance leader Hideo Kuze and the villain Kazundo Gohda. The history behind Kuze is deep. He was a part of an elite infantry unit of the SDF in the Peninsula War. While his group was setting up for a preemptive strike on the People’s Army, they stumble upon a camp that was not in the intelligence report that they were briefed with. Seeing how these soldiers of the People’s Army turned into a band of bandits. Kuze’s group mobilized and fought the group of bandits, saving the villagers in the process. The news of this was never revealed and members of Kuze’s unit suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. While a cameraman was questioning a wasted soldier, Kuze traded his rifle for a camera and walked off by himself. The scene was very symbolic. In a sense, he told people that he did not want to fight and if others feel they can perform better, here is the rifle. Maybe I am thinking too much into it and Kuze only wanted the camera so he can go off to his solitary life watching refugees’ daily life routines. But the great thing about Ghost in the Shell is that certain aspects of the plot are up to the viewers to decipher. And this point is proved even more during the conversation between Major and Kuze’s trapped scene.

As for the story behind Gohda, who has to be one of the ugliest villains ever created in anime. He is the head of the Cabinet Intelligence Agency and the mastermind behind the whole Individual Eleven event. His entrance into the show was fitting and he did prove his point during his introduction to Chief Daisuke Aramaki, where he states that people remember his name once he corrects them and also by seeing his disfigured face. This is a certain fact, because the viewer will vividly recollect Gohda throughout the show. As I watched “Individual Eleven,” I often thought what part did Gohda played in this event or that event. You can see that he had a lot of knowledge of the whole situation, and that part of his character was displayed during the initial encounter with him and Major Kusanagi. During the helicopter incident where a pilot had heart failure and his helicopter went rogue, Gohda exuded a sense of confidence that the situation was not going to go out of hand and Section 9 was going to take care of it rather easily.

As the plot progressed, a romantic relationship seems to develop as well, with Motoko and Kuze, after Motoko’s brain dive into Kuze. They had a relationship earlier in their childhood. Where does Batou stand in all this? Motoko gives a small reference to Batou when Kuze questions whether Motoko has anyone who she can share her deepest thoughts with. Her reply, “I suppose.” Quite what you expect from the Major and after the scene you see Batou digging her out of rubble and at the same time screamed out what he did in “The Laughing Man,” “MOTOKO!” Those were some powerful scenes and puts the whole film into perspective.

“Individual Eleven” has a faster pace than the previous release, “The Laughing Man.” There are a lot more action scenes that describe the story, than there are dialogues that explain it. Director Kenji Kamiyama wanted a quicker pace for the film. This resulted in a pace that was gripping and held me as a viewer on the edge of my seat. By using this strategy, the show becomes a bit of a mystery and is up for the viewer’s interpretation of certain events. Depending on a viewer’s emotions certain scenes appear differently. If you were someone who liked the character of Gohda you would not like what happens to him in the end. If you were fed up with his crap, you would feel that he deserved what he got. It is things like that, that make Ghost in the Shell such a unique piece of anime. While there is a lot of information that is shown, the viewers have to take an active part in making sense of it all and stay tuned. This release was fun. Once again, it was an amazing experience to have seen this in high definition. With pictures so crisp and smooth and the audio so clear, I was fully immersed in what was in front of me on the screen.

The Breakdown:
I have to thank the folks at Anchor Bay Entertainment, Manga Entertainment and Bandai Entertainment for making the Blu-Ray release possible. This installment of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: 2nd GIG: Individual Eleven was tremendously entertaining and thought provoking. It is action packed and viewers are in for a very good time.

Synopsis:
The year is 2030 and six years have passed since a criminal known only as “The Laughing Man” swept through top medical nanotechnology firms committing acts of cyber terrorism, kidnapping, extortion, and corporate espionage leaving no known suspects. New information is revealed to Japan’s top homeland security force, drawing Major Kusanagi and Section 9 into the hunt for a suspect capable of hacking the eyes of every operative, obscuring all details of his appearance and leaving behind a trail of copycats and hacked cyborg citizens. Who is The Laughing Man? What are his motives? And how do you catch a criminal that you cannot see? Join the beautiful cyborg Motoko Kusanagi in a world of high technology and deadly conspiracies as she searches for the answers to these questions and more!

Review:
Let me be honest with you, and this might even sound ridiculous. I have not completed watching the television series of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex… so the story of “The Laughing Man” is completely foreign to me. I can understand from a stand point that for those who have seen the series that this special release is nothing more than an OVA that summarizes the happenings of the series with the potential of some re-edited scenes to make the short animation work. In a sense, not having previous experience may play to my advantage, as I have nothing to compare this story to, therefore my views are strictly directed toward what I have in my hands and what I just saw in 1080i HD (I will discuss the Blu-Ray edition later).

Moving right along, the run time of this piece is 160 minutes. But it felt so much longer. I commend director Kamiyama for that effect, after watching the extras on the Stand Alone Complex Archive I found out that he was visioning this special release through different eyes; the eyes of people who have seen the television series and those who have not. Utilizing those points of view, he was able to direct the story in a way where I felt I did not miss a thing from not having seen “The Laughing Man” from the series. From the beginning to the end, the plot flowed fluidly. The dots were connected flawlessly and the viewer is put in the position to enjoy the excitement that is about to unfold on the screen.

The story revolves around an incident that happened six years ago in the world of Ghost in the Shell. “The Laughing Man,” a criminal that has become a cult icon in a way, is back at it again. For those who have seen him, only recognize the happy face icon with a cap pointing to the side. That is because he is able to hack into the sights of people. But what is the true story behind “The Laughing Man?” With a slew number of copycats, the real motive of his actions diluted and skewed, the original “Laughing Man” is out to prove that he is not really about what the news out there portray him to be. The uniqueness from this release was that what you learn from the start is not what turns out to be later on. The viewer is put through a series of scenarios and has to think about them. And just when you thought you got the gist of the show, a twist is thrown at you in various ways to knock you off, forcing you to readjust. This constant mind play is fun and entertaining. And while the action was superb, I believe the way the plot was told was where the bread and butter were. It was truly an amazing experience.

This special release is one out of three. And if this is an indication of what to expect from the others, I must say, I am very thrilled. Maybe I am late in watching these releases, as they have been out on DVD for a while now. But while I feel sorry for myself that I have not exposed myself to these great stories, I am in no means feeling any sorrow for letting myself feast on the Blu-Ray editions of these releases. Watching anime on Blu-Ray is something else. While DVD is still very competitive in video quality, the high definition of 1080 resolution blows anything else away. Especially for a series like Ghost in the Shell, where the viewers are expecting explosions, guns, mechas, Tachikomas, computer hacking effects and futuristic themes. Everything was crisp and clean. I have no complaints in the animation department.

The Breakdown:
It has been a while since the stories of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex were told. For those who have missed it, now is your time to discover the excitement that surround this work of art. Produced by Production I.G ,directed by Kenji Kamiyama and with music by Yoko Kanno, comes the tale of “The Laughing Man” available now on Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: This list is in no way shape or form THE list of top anime songs of the world. This list IS a compilation of the anime songs that I have come to be fond of over the many years of watching anime. Everybody has their own list and I respect that. Just do not get the wrong idea that I am telling people what they should be listening to. Also, if you want to sample the music listed, you might be able to find an upload from YouTube. I would have linked the music here, but I could not find any official streams. Too bad :(.

AZU feat. Seamo – Jikan yo Tomare (Itazara na Kiss):

The ending theme song to Itazara na Kiss, one of the best drama anime that I have seen. From AZU’s lovely vocals to Seamo’s seamless plugs, this song is great. Jikan yo Tomare has been in my playlist for a while and will continue to stay. The beat just takes me in. I cannot help but bop to this. It was a very tough choice, between the song below, but I cannot help but think about how this song just stays fresh even after listening to it for a very long time.

May’n – Diamond Crevasse (Macross Frontier):

The ending theme song to Macross Frontier, my favorite Macross of the Macross universe thus far. May’n takes the singing role of Sheryl Nome (not seiyuu role), a singer in Macross Frontier. The show has action, drama and a bit of romance to keep viewers interested. May’n’s vocal in Diamond Crevasse is awesome. The beat also brings the most out of her voice. As I have stated earlier, this could have been my number one, but after a while, the mood of Diamond Crevasse gets tiring. Do not get me wrong, this song is very good, it is just, I prefer the quicker beats of Jikan no Tomare over the slow and calming beat of Diamond Crevasse.

Mikuni Shimokawa – Arekara (Full Metal Panic):

The ending theme song to Full Metal Panic, one of GONZO’s top mecha anime series, Arekara is a slow song. The song focuses on the calming voice of Mikuni Shimokawa. The beat plays like a melody and I can feel her emotion as she deliver the words of this piece.

Maaya Sakamoto – Yubiwa (Escaflowne the Movie):

This song is from Escaflowne the Movie, one of the best animated films you can find. The music score is top notch and the animation takes on a more mature tone than the TV series did. Every time I listen to this song, I can never get enough of the flow of the lyrics delivered by Maaya Sakamoto. It is a very smooth listening experience.

Uverworld – D-technolife (Bleach):

The first song to break from the ending theme roll is Bleach’s opening theme by Uverworld; D-technolife is a rock song that gets you jumping. Honestly, I am more of a R&B, Pop, Hip-Hop person, and any time a song of the rock genre gets my attention, I have to give it props.

Maki Ohguro – Anata Dake Mitsumete’ru (Slam Dunk):

Back to another ending theme. This song comes from Slam Dunk, an anime about Japanese high school basketball. I have been watching the show since I was thirteen or fourteen years old, and I can still remember this song. So you can imagine how deep of an impression it has implemented in me.

Yuuka Saegusa IN db (U-ka saegusa) – Whenever I Think Of You (Tenshi na Konamaiki):

“Whenever I Think Of You,” stems from the anime series, Tenshi na Konamaiki . As the music flows out of my speakers, the sound of the water waves is not only soothing, but merging it with the voice of U-ka saegusa makes it superb. The pace of the song is slow, yet it picks up at certain points to give it that rollercoaster feeling.

L’arc en Ciel – Driver’s High (Great Teacher Onizuka):

This song is an example of when an opening theme meshes really well with the anime. Driver’s High is the opening theme for Great Teacher Onizuka one of the best anime ever produced. From the engine start to the electric guitars, I felt lost in the music for the song’s elapsed time. Definitely one of my favorite L’arc en Ciel pieces.

angela – Hikari, Sagase Naku tomo (Shikabane Hime: Kuro):

The ending theme to Shikabane Hime: Kuro. I remember watching the ending theme intently. I mean, who the heck does that? Seriously though, anyone who has seen the show knows what I am talking about when it comes to the nice fan service images of the ending theme. Anyways, the song is amazing. I love the chorus. And just to say it again. I was watching/listening to the ending theme intently because of the SONG, not because of the images. HONEST!

Siam Shade - San Bun no Ichi no Junjou Na Kanjou (Rurouni Kenshin):

Aside from TM Revolution and L’arc en Ciel, Siam Shade is the other early Japanese band that I have came across while watching anime. San Bun no Ichi no Junjou Na Kanjou is the ending theme to Rurouni Kenshin, I forgot which arc because it has been a while, but I did not forget the song. Again it boils down to, me not being a rock fan and when I come across a rock song that I bump my head to, that is how I can tell it is a good song, for me at least.

Honorable mentions:

May’n – Iteza Gogo Kyuji (Don’t Be Late) Macross Frontier:

SilC – Himegoto (Vandread):

Yoshida Jungo - Aruite Iko (Rental Magica):

Suga Shiako – Tsuki to Knife (Honey & Clover):

Helloooooo~ Anime Boston!

Once again, Anime Boston took place at the gorgeous Hynes Convention Center in the heart of downtown Boston. As a second time attendee of this long awaited event, I had my hopes set to experience another year of great guests, people and memories to be made. One main event from last year if people recalled, Nobou Imatsu along with the Video Game Orchestra conducted one of the most magical symphonic event any musical fan could hope for. But for this year though…? Let’s just say the best is yet to come. However before I start, I want to thank all the hard working staffs and volunteers for making this convention possible. Though only three days of convention, these people sacrificed their time to provide us with something we carry with us for years and beyond. So without further delay, I bring to you Anime Boston 2011!!

Line-Con? No, It’s Actually Registration!

You know those hideous lines that’s hated by the world whether you’re at a DMV or grocery store or say… an anime convention? Well, seems like this year Anime Boston relieved some of those fears with a well organized registration area for people to pick up and purchase their badges. Upon asking, most people spent literally less than half an hour to get that piece of validation in a shiny plastic pouch to sling around their neck. Call it what you may, the matter of the fact is if lines were what you dreaded at an anime convention, Anime Boston probably isn’t the best place to find it. And no, I didn’t end up bombing an exam this year like last year on day one of the convention for the sake of registration. That was one of those “memory I can live without.” Oh and one last thing, did I mention over 19,000 people registered?

Dealer’s Room

Of the many attractions of Anime Boston, the dealer’s room certainly was a main one as thousands of people searched through the rubble of close to 100 dealers for that special little something. Whether they are figures, posters, t-shirts or whatever, the dealer’s room at Anime Boston mostly had them all. For me there wasn’t much to buy this year except a few Spice and Wolf posters and an Angel Beats (<3) towel. With that said however, I did find a few oddball “dealers” such as, oh I don't know... Verizon? Beats me but either way, I had a great time walking around in the dealers room and conversing with the dealers as well.

I know it's probably over done and over mentioned in the last half a dozen reports that I've done, but in this gloomy economy, I really appreciate dealers for coming to Anime Boston and keeping a part of the fandom alive by providing us with fun and unique merchandises. For us, supporting an anime industry is one thing but supporting an entire subculture that stems from anime and vice versa is quite different. I hope these dealers realize how happy they make fellow anime fans feel and I hope they will continue to be one themselves.

ONLY ONE WAS LEFT STANDING!…. FUNimation!

I walked into the dealers room and the first thing I saw, boom, there she was: Maria in all her hot-pink plug suit glory on possibly the biggest tapestry for a single anime character. I mean she might as well be an Eva herself. Ahem… that aside since the subject came up from how much I wanted that giant orgasmic piece of art, FUNimation came and they came prepared to showcase some of the awesome things that they had, such as, Baccano!, Evangelion 2.22, Eden of the East movie and many more. A few years back I remember telling myself FUNimation was going to be one of those anime distribution companies that was going to last. Up to date, they have licensed two of my top 5 anime: Solty Rei and Gunslinger Girl. Pretty good ratio I must say coming from someone who’s pretty darn picky. Either way they came, they impressed and they licensed. Keep up the good work FUNimation and also keep putting out those Blu-Rays * wink *

Swap Meet

Maybe this is from someone who is too spoiled by FanimeCon’s massive football field size swap meet set-up, but this was one aspect I would really like to see some more investment and progression in. I’ve talked with a few staffers regarding the issue of people not being allowed to purchase the items from swap meet and it pretty much boiled down to not upsetting the dealers. That aside, swap meet took place in the same tiny and sweaty room where people were literally squeezed shoulder to shoulder at times just to pass each other. Though I’m not saying it should have been in Ballroom D or some other main event room, at least it should have been moved to a more formidable and a room closer to where more traffic was, rather than a secluded location at the end of the hallway around a corner.

I personally believe swap meet is an excellent opportunity for anime fans to socialize and discover some common interest that sparks from a simple conversation of an item being traded. I admit that this was only the second year that swap meet was put into motion, so I won’t say more about it than that from personal experience, swap meet can become a main event and if fine-tuned, can maintain a balance between the fans and the dealers where both sides are happy.

Artist Alley

I swear, every year at every anime convention that I’ve been to, artists have been getting more and more creative with what they offer to people and wow, there were no exceptions at Anime Boston this year. In the past, a lot of artists focused on prints, pins and postcards of their art work. Nowadays, don’t be surprised to see custom made… well, I think the pictures will do more justice for them than words from me. All in all, artist alley will definitely remain one of my favorite attractions at Anime Boston. It’s one thing to be an anime fan, but it’s another to be inspired by it and apply dedication and hard work to that inspiration. Keep up the good work you promising artists and I hope to see what you guys will bring for us next year.

Masquerade… “I lift things up! And put them down! I AM A ROADIE!”

Over the years, one of the main events that I have come to love is masquerade. Though the nature of an anime is static no matter how many times it’s watched, masquerade brings out the creativity of those performers to create a new crossover that’s completely fun, entertaining and original. For example the first skit of masquerade was with Pokemon characters, the originality and fun-factor was within the actual cosplayers who carried out the skit. With that, I can safely say I had a great time watching performances which ranged from Magic Knight Rayearth to Persona 4 and so forth.

One skit which caught my attention and actually surprised me a bit was of Star Driver. The anime itself is fairly new and to see passionate fans perform based on it proved that Anime Boston did shelter those die hard anime fans. Although the acts and the people who performed were good, I would have liked to see a bit more diversity in the types of anime, as they served as the backbone for the skits. Given that, masquerade at Anime Boston this year, like last, was entertaining and amusing and overall something I encourage people to attend and experience.

In addition, what could be better than fun skits by fans dressed up in cosplays?… a MC who brought life to the crowd and kept people entertained even during masquerade skit intersessions. This year Anime Boston welcomed a new/substitute MC for masquerade due to circumstances of the original MC that should have been in charge. I have to admit though, this guy is by far the best MC I have ever seen. I mean Ric Meyers was awesome as MC in the past FanimeCons but wow, I think I enjoyed him almost as much as I enjoyed the skits. Finally if anyone was curious about the nature of the sentence in the title above, tune in to Anime Boston 2012 masquerade… IF he returns for round two.

Video Gaming Room

Aside from the sewer looking room that the video gaming took place in, the overall set up and games put out was very impressive and comparable to the E-Gaming room of FanimeCon and by far outclass the one at Anime Expo. The set up was pretty much like last year where each system was on a platform and to each its own, an LCD TV. Looking over the massive room and the overall set up, it was pretty obvious a lot of time and effort was put into making everything fun and presentable to the public. At the very back of the room were three projectors set up where people played and showed off the games in style. I did however noticed that the projectors were directly on the wall of the room rather than against a projector screen of some sort. Later on I think one of the three projectors got something like a white screen but still, it seemed a bit “ghetto.” Hopefully, next year there will be projection screens to make that area of the gaming room both attractive and more visible with regards to the games.

Aside from that, no complaints as people were able to request games they wanted to play, borrow controllers and so forth. The tournaments were well organized as I jumped in on the hype and watched parts of the Marvel vs Capcom 3 one. A big disappointment however was that there wasn’t a BlazBlue: Continuum Shift tournament, something that I would have been a part of myself. I mean, the game hasn’t even been out for a year and it was pretty much dead in a way. Maybe more people will be attracted to BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II the next time Anime Boston rolls around. Either way, the video gaming room this year was impressive and provided people with that extra kick of entertainment, whether one was stopping to take a rest or to simply challenge another in a battle to the e-deaaaaaath~

Girugamesh

Like, excuse my next few unprofessional words but holy CRAP! People came, saw and head banged HARD. To introduce them, Girugamesh is a long time established visual kei band that plays metal as their genre and is fairly well received in Japan. They were a bit more popularized in the States a few years ago when Sakura-con announced them as the musical guests of honor, not to mention how Sakura-con’s promotional commercial turned Girugamesh into a popular online meme.

Putting that aside, I honestly did not realize what I was getting myself into before the concert. I mean, they haven’t done any anime theme songs. Heck, I don’t even think they’ve done anything even anime related. Just how good could they be or how much would I even enjoy them? Answer: after the concert.. A LOT. Lets put it this way: I remember a transition from a subtle and laxed sitting position in the front taking pictures to head banging and pumping my fist in the air as the concert progressed…*cough*. In addition, I think I felt miniature earthquakes during the entire course of the concert.. that or people were going nuts jumping up and down. Yeah, I think I’ll stick with the latter.

Overall, Girugamesh were simply amazing as they energized the entire crowd, drawing them into a world of it’s own. It was not only a sight to be seen but a transient feeling of something that couldn’t be explained and only felt during that time. Anime Boston, kudos for bringing Girugamesh this year. Next year, I can only expect the greatness to continue.

Stereopony

One of the best things Anime Boston can do is to give the opportunity for people to meet guests of honor who they know and appreciate for what they’ve contributed for the fandom. For me the rock band Stereopony and their featured song Namida no Muko, the opening of Gundam 00, was just that. I remembered back a year or two when I heard that song for the first time, I fell in love with it right away so naturally I was psyched when I found out that they were going to be at Anime Boston this year. Though Namida no Muko wasn’t the only song in their discography that I enjoyed, for me it certainly was the highlight.

After the pre-event hype, Stereopony light the whole room up with applause as they walked up to stage to the welcoming cheers of the passionate fans. The duration of the concert was filled with joy, grief and hope. They brought to us joy through their passion in music, grief as they shared their condolences with us in the recent earthquake of Japan and hope for the victims and family of the victims of that earthquake. There were so many different emotions flowing through that concert hall as they poured their hearts out with every song they played. Overall, Stereopony was amazing and I would love to see them perform again.

Cosplay

If there was ever something that would challenge an anime fan to go above and beyond than just being a passive fan, cosplaying would certainly be one of them. Hosting almost 20,000 attendees, the absence of them would certainly be something that wouldn’t cross anyone’s mind at Anime Boston. However, I was a bit more disappointed with the turn out than pleased. I should go back to my original statement about the lack of cosplayers. The big problem I saw was a lack of diverse cosplays.

There were plenty of Pokemon cosplayers and little bits of Haruhi, Code Geass, Gurren Lagaan and others sprinkled here and there. Aside from that, there were plenty of people dressed up as random and I mean really random stuff. In fact a lot had neko mimis (ears) on or a tail… or being a fur cosplayer. Where are the Madoka cosplayers? How about the Zakuro ones? I saw no Index or Railgun cosplayers and believe me, I searched hard for the three days I was there. In fact it was because of last year, I decided to spend a lot more time this year in search of cosplays I had hoped to see.

In the end though, I did find some and from those I picked out, five I absolutely loved for the anime character cosplayed, the quality of the cosplay and just.. pure awesomeness. To those who cosplayed, I want to acknowledge the hard work, effort and time put into it. I want to clarify that by no means am I putting other cosplayers down. I simply wish people to expand into new area of anime and characters they can fall in love with and cosplay as. With that said, here is my top five list. Thank you for being a vital part of this fandom and to everyone else who contributed to the diversity of the people of Anime Boston.

Afterthoughts

As a second time attendee of Anime Boston, I had a lot of mixed feelings compared to last year both positive and negative. To get it over with, one thing which bugged me was how eccentric the behavior of some of the fans were. Not saying they were crazy per se, but there were some behavioral problems, such as, people running around and people with random meme outbursts. I mean I understand the fact that major Eastern conventions like Anime Boston and Otakon would host a large amount of 4channers. Even the mascots of Anime Boston revolved around 4chan: A-chan and B-kun. But to stress this again, people in general were having fun and were well behaved. With every anime convention, things like this are expected so I’m just picky.

Also another thing which actually upset me a little were the mall cops. I mean, who in the world do they think they are? I don’t think I saw a single one smile during the entire 3 days I was there. Maybe I had to really stare at them and study that robotic facial expression? Not sure. All I know was that at times I got an attitude from them for no reason. Again, this had nothing to do with the staff members or volunteers as I had absolutely no issues with any of them. I think I even mentioned last year how laid back, helpful and awesome the staffs of Anime Boston were.

Another thing I would like to see improvement in would be swap meet as previously mentioned. Although a slow process, I hope down the line swap meet will expand and gain popularity. Again probably my personal biased devil speaking, but from how much I enjoyed swap meet at FanimeCon and how I’ve seen it expand exponentially, there isn’t a reason why Anime Boston can’t turn that around in the future years. Finally my biggest hope is to see more cosplayers and more cosplays from different anime new and old. Though no anime convention has that completely covered, even one extra person who decides to put a few extra hours to making a cosplay rather than slapping on a tail or ears or face paint or whatever, makes a difference in the long run. I saw so much potential this year it was unbelievable. I urge those people to push yourself one step further. While it’s true to love something you already cosplay as, venturing out and discovering new things can be great as well.

Now for the good stuff to boot, both the artist alley and dealer’s room were pretty decent. In this kind of economy with no relief in sight, dealers still made their trip and carried fairly good imports from mugs to figures to towels and so forth. It was good to see their continued support for the fandom and our cravings for all things anime and manga related. In addition, both Girugamesh and Stereopony were amazing and I hope Anime Boston will continue to invite amazing musical guests and other guests of honor in the future.

Overall, I would say I had a lot of fun at Anime Boston this year. This convention is growing on me as I am becoming more and more attached to it. Personally I think the location is amazing being at the heart of one of the best places in Boston. Anime Boston has already booked the next almost half a dozen years to be at the Hynes Convention Center. Since the creation of the convention, Anime Boston has been growing tremendously with an attendance of almost 20,000 this year. The future looks good for this anime convention but for now, have these words haunt you… “ I lift things up! And put them down! I AM A ROADIE!”. Until next year, so long Anime Boston~!