Otakon 2009: Panels, Loot, Wrap

I enjoy Otakon every year, but I always get the feeling at the end of each one that I’ve had a good run and might skip it from now on. I’ve been saying it for three years now, so I’ll probably be back. This here is my convention report, panels, loot, and jabber at the end. Didn’t take any pictures of cosplay or anything at the convention. I brought my camera, but I left it in my suitcase the entire time.

Panels and Screenings

Panels are still my reason for going to conventions, even though the social aspect of it for me has slowly kept growing. I think these are in the order I attended.

Voice Actor Mary Elizabeth McGlynn

This was the first thing we did after getting our badge. I’d already seen her before the last time she was at Otakon, but I didn’t mind seeing her panel again since she directs (Cowboy Bebop, Wolf’s Rain, Naruto) as well as acts (Motoko Kusunagi) and sings on all of the Silent Hill games. As a panelist, she knows how to keep the crowd who shows up interested in what she has to say, though it helps that she’s got an amazing voice. In all an above average panel, even if it wound up being a pretty standard VA panel — some gushing, line requests, anecdotes, and questions about things that haven’t been announced, which the general lack of knowledge of NDAs amongst fans, even older ones, surprises me.

Aniplex Panels

Aniplex had two panels on Friday that were back-to-back. Unsurprisingly, the first was a Kannagi focus panel. I didn’t get much out of this panel as to whether I want to watch Kannagi or not. I’ve not yet seen the show and it was assumed people in attendance had already seen it. I did like how Yamamoto (director), described some of the character design goals and creating a signature element for the design like the line for Nagi’s thigh.

The second panel was like a previews panel, though most of what they showed had not yet been licensed. Guin Saga, an epic fantasy anime based on a massively long series of books, looks great and I hope they can get a tv channel to bite on it. Seeing as the trailer was dubbed, I’m guessing it’s being shopped around. Didn’t remember much else, except the Kannagi trailer, which by this point I’d seen three times already that day.

Bang Zoom! Dub Workshop

I have no intention of doing any acting at all, but I stayed after the Aniplex panel to check this out because I was curious to see a dubbing process in action. The first half hour or so Tony Oliver (actor, director) basically pitched Bang Zoom!’s voice-over classes in LA. After that it got down to dubbing some scenes with panel attendees playing parts from some anime like Kenshin and Gurren Lagaan, as well as the Magna Carta video game.

In the past I’ve seen some dvd extras which showed the actors in the booth, but I haven’t really seen any that showed the director at work or the engineer for that matter. It was fun to watch the director, Tony Oliver, lead people to be where the character needed to be and the actors adjust to the direction. It was also neat to see the engineer be able to do a rough mix, move dialogue as requested by the director who would tell him how many frames to move the audio track, compress or stretch time, all on the fly (working on a laptop which is a handicap for this).

If you’re like me and are curious about process then check it out. Sure, it’s kind of like how you imagine it would be, but nothing is a substitute for witnessing it, let alone doing it. I was a bit skeptical about this panel before attending and thought I’d leave before it ended, but I thought it was worth staying for the whole thing, though I could have taken a break after the Aniplex panel and come back after the sales pitch was done — there’s nothing cynical about that statement, just that I’m not an aspiring actor and have no interest in investing for voice-over classes.

I Can’t Believe You Haven’t Seen This

This is a noble panel, where fans champion shows that should get more love. I only caught the last ten minutes of it, so didn’t know who else was up there with The Reverse Thieves and only caught the last two anime they featured, but I saw enough to say it was good. Any panel that tries to get more people to watch Kamichu! is worthy. The panel was in a huge room and most of the seats were full, even at the end. Plus, they gave away mad loot, not sure what it was though.

Bandai Industry Panel

Ugg…the Kannagi trailer for a fourth time. This one was pretty predictable, some trailers from already announced shows, and bringing out Yamamoto, or as my sister likes to call him, Mr. Stylish, for some more Kannagi talk (at least, thank goodness that Yamamoto isn’t that stuffy), and Bandai trying to get rid of more of those awful Lucky Star shirts that came in the SE releases which are too lame to even wear at home. They probably have a Rider truck stashed in Area 51 full of these things and will be giving them away as “prizes” for at least another decade, should they be so lucky given the way things are going. Would have liked to hear something less vague about their plans during this correction phase, some acknowledgment that they’re not just crossing their fingers. Bandai appears very slow to adapt.

Really, I didn’t hear anything to quiet down the growing sentiment that Bandai is “doing it wrong” with the marketing of their shows. Their solution appears to be to shrink and retract, rather than to take a step toward the obvious and either follow the customers or lead customers somewhere. Cutting service or the product down usually isn’t a fun strategy. Customers aren’t stupid. It’s true that customers are going elsewhere to get their anime, but making your product less attractive sounds idiotic to me. It might work as a tactic to implement something new, but I don’t see that something new, just the cutting. Short version: I want a dub, boo-hoo.

They really had nothing else and did “confessions for prizes” to kill the rest of the time. Having had all their news (Kannagi) spilled before the convention kind of killed the excitement of the industry panel.

Dub Actors After Dark

This is one of the things we make sure to go to every year. There’s really no point to it other than to laugh. It probably ran about a half hour longer than it should have. The first hour was very funny, but during the last half hour people just started to ask variations of the same question so it became more of a slog than fun at the end. Still there were some exchanges that killed me. It was great that when asked what anime should have never existed, one of the VAs named a show my sister and I like to make fun of all the time as the biggest who green-lit this POS, though it seems most people didn’t catch the show mentioned, as we were like the only people laughing at it. The panel highlight was an epic in character orgasm. Details left vague on purpose to honor the what’s said there stays there.

I’ve been to several of these. It was pretty decent this year, even if it ran out of steam toward the end. Unfortunately, getting into the panel required some effort, since the room was too small for the number of people who want to see it, so it meant waiting in line for over an hour, which can get tiring. Really can’t believe it was in Panel 3 this year, when it filled the larger Panel 4 last year. The line this year was closed half an hour before the panel start time.

Funimation Industry Panel

I’m glad Funimation announced something at the panel that I hear is good, Eden of the East — unlike Bandai, Funimation saved some news for people attending the panel. Other than that, it was a pretty standard Funimation industry panel — trailers and slides. While I can’t tell how well Funimation is doing, from the panel it seems like they’re actively adapting to the market. Really, I’d only start to worry when cutting dubs is something that’s part of Funimation’s standard operating procedure, which would basically signal the end of R1 if Funimation stops dubbing most things.

Even though I knew they’re waiting for another con to push Soul Eater, I was keeping my fingers crossed that they’d announce the cast for the dub, just because the trailer drives me crazy — I can’t tell who voices Soul and I’m pretty good with knowing actors’ voices. Oh well. If you’ve been looking at the loot shots, you’ll see I’ve been getting a bit of Soul Eater gear. I haven’t seen any of it, but I love the art style.

Voice Actor Crispin Freeman

Crispin Freeman (Alucard, Kyon) is what I’d love every voice actor to be at a panel. I attended both of his Q&A panels, and honestly, would have attended a third or fourth if there was one. While a lot of the questions were pretty standard fan questions and line requests, he’s able to field questions about anime (even one’s he’s not been in) that a lot of other actors just don’t seem able to do with such a depth of knowledge, or at least the ability to express that knowledge and tie it together with other things — very well spoken. Some VA’s are actors, and not fans of anime, which there’s nothing wrong with, but Freeman also has the perspective of a long time fan of anime. He gives off the air he knows what he’s talking about. I liked the observations about the different segments of the entertainment industry and just how different they can be, particularly with the apparent lack of cross-pollination.

He’s an insanely popular voice actor (as well as a director and script writer/adapt), so the question line was too long to get any questions I would have asked. It’s kind of disappointing that most of the time was taken up with questions I wasn’t interested in, but who am I to say those who just wanted to speak to Alucard were wrong to take the opportunity? At least, Freeman most of the time was able to add some interesting thoughts behind some of these questions. Being the mythology scholar that he is, I would have liked to hear him talk a bit more about Eureka 7 and the setting, but E7 only came up in one question.

I wish he was able to stay and give one of his mythology in anime lectures at the con, but he was unable to due to his own schedule — he was giving a lecture the next day and had to fly out after his second panel.

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone

There were technical difficulties during the Saturday screening. The video would go out frequently. I stayed for half an hour while they were trying to fix it and then figured that by the time they fixed it, wouldn’t be enough time to finish the screening, so I left, figuring it would be canceled. Apparently, they finished the screening and pushed back the next event in the room. In retrospect, I wish I stayed. Instead, I got a fat gyro, too big to each with my hands, at the mall near the convention center. Food is good too.

Genshiken Fan Panel

The person running the panel I think just needed a little more confidence to get out what was in her head to go a little further with her presentation of the characters. Still, I love the show to death and watching select clips is always amusing to me. She did ask who everyone’s favorite character is and I’d have to say Saki, just because she’s an enabler and an outsider, which I relate to, the outsider part. Pony Boy.

Review Anime the Right Way

I’ve never felt like my anime reviews were where I want them to be, so I was looking forward to this panel, which featured Mike Toole, Daryl Suryat and Clarissa from Anime World Order, and Bamboo from ANN. While they provided some good information and discussion, the slides seemed to be geared toward someone who is thinking about writing anime reviews, rather than something more intermediate to help those who already write reviews to tune up their process. Stuff for beginners is always good, since I agree that more people should be writing thought out reviews than currently do, but wish maybe the second half looked to aide those who already do it. The discussion amongst the panelists was interesting though.

The Art of Translations with Trish Ledoux

Again, this was another panel I attended due to curiosity, rather than out of vested interest. If you’ve experienced anything Rumiko Takahashi translated into English, then you’ve seen her work. She’s one of those industry people whose been there long before anime blew up in the US, so has some perspective about where we’re at right now. The discussion on translation dilemmas and some of the anecdotes were good to hear.

Fansub and the Industry Panel

This panel didn’t appear on the printed schedule, so a lot of people didn’t know about it, including myself until my sister told me about it. While the panel last year was interesting as sort of a breaking ground for a visible discussion between fansubbers and the industry, this year it proved less interesting. The advent of simulcasts throws a wrench into the discussion, but I think the impact of the simulcast is just too new to really talk about beyond mentioning that they might have an impact — will streams pull some away from fansubs to watching a simulcast that generates revenue for the original creators back in Japan so they can, I don’t know, afford to make more anime?

Too bad Crunchyroll wasn’t there to share their perspective as the big fish in the anime streaming pond.

Loot and the Dealer’s Room

I love the dealer’s room, a massive room filled with all kinds of junk that seem so appealing. My mission this year was to amass as many pins as I could find of characters I like.

Pins are distinct from buttons or can badges (at least in my mind), which are cheaper and likely easier to make. I always suspect a lot of buttons and can badges as illegitimate product, but it’s kind of difficult to verify since many of them are sold absent of any packaging. All this is to say, I put buttons and can badges on a lower tier than pins. I did however buy a number of buttons, mainly for Disgaea and SuperGALS! characters, which being older series are difficult to find in pin form anymore. Seriously, who brings SuperGALS! stuff for sale? Crazy. Anyway, I finally got an Etna button to go on my armored laptop bag, but I’d be surprised if it was a legitimately licensed button.

On the pin front, I’ve acquired a good number to add to my armored laptop bag, both at the con and what I’ve ordered online. So many, that I think I’ll need to plan out pin placement and haven’t gotten around to doing that yet.

I tend to get a lot of items for shows I’ve never seen. This time around the art style of Soul Eater has been in my groove and I got quite a bit of Soul Eater gear: a 10pc pin set and 1 button, an art book, and a t-shirt. It’s about time I replaced some of the ratty t-shirts I wear around the house.

And finally, as if by fate, I had said that the only thing that could tempt me to jump in the Figma pool was Drossel, which I doubted anyone would have as it’s not been distributed to the USA. One vendor who imported it, did, and I snapped up the last one. Also picked up a Figma Haruhi and Kotobukiya’s Yarizakura Hime of Yozakura Quartet. The girl had a lacrosse stick, which I’ve not yet seen on a figure, and since I grew up on Long Island the lacrosse stick carries a bit of nostalgia that’s kind of strange since I never even owned a lacrosse stick when I lived there.

Overall, the selection of goods was decent — also managed to get a Black Rock Shooter mug and another NERV card case. There were vendors here and there that had unique items, so digging for goods pays off. Some years it feels like there are no unique items to be found. My sister went nuts on resins for Gaara and Kakashi from Naruto.

Otakon 2009 Wrap

Technical difficulties aside in Video 1 during Saturday’s Evangelion 1.0 screening, from my experience this year Otakon was well run. Using the conference rooms in the Hilton Hotel definitely helped spread out some of the traffic, particularly in that bottleneck area by Panel 2 and Panel 3. I found myself having to hit that area far less than before. It’s still a congested area, but seemed to be less of a choke point.

I spent very little time watching anything. While you can always watch anime at home, you can’t always get two hundred people in the same room watching the same thing. There are certain shows, comedies usually, which having the company of two hundred adds to the viewing.

Overall, Otakon gave me good times, but I still have a con-hangover. Saturday in Otacafe chilling with Moy, Omo, and VManOfMana was fun. OS stopped by to say hi and TheBigN swooped in for some karaoke. It’s so easy to lose track of time at Otakon that I got to do, see, meetup with less than I had hoped. At least, there’s always next year.