Monthly Archives: August 2013

August 10, 2013

Otakon 2013: Day 1

By omo

Anime USA, thanks for all the fish.

Vividred Operations

I mean, it’s like mindblowing.gif.

Day 1 was pretty okay. Other than 600 people cramming into a line for 350 people in order to get the first batch of the Yoko Kanno/Chiaki Ishikawa tickets, everything went very well. I met up with most people that scattered my twitter follower list that were at the con between day 0 and day 1.

The panel I’m doing with WAH is actually in the BCC, Panel 4. I probably should fix that huh. Kawaiikochan’s Dave Cabrera will also guest to do some game content because Wah and I are not exactly gamers. It’s 7:30pm Saturday!

Yoko Kanno is still the sly cat that she always was. Could use more iM@S content. It’s kind of funny when some random blog reader (hey there) went up to a friend who was decked out in iM@S gear (he’ll be wearing a biking jersey tomorrow) and asked if he was omo. I guess the world is kind of all one? UNITY MIND.

OreImo was fun, and I’m glad we put that behind us. Yes, the sucker punch still has its sting in anime form.

 

6 comments | posted in Conventions and Concerts

August 8, 2013

Otaku Hotspots in Tokyo

By omo

Saitama Super Arena

This is the notes post for the Otakon panel Otaku Hotspots in Tokyo hosted by Wah over at Analog Housou and I! Featuring special guest Dave Cabrera!

You can download the presentation here.

Here are some of the links to what we talked about (and some that we didn’t). This post will be updated as the panel progresses (and afterwards…).

Now that the con is over, we’ll try to update this as soon as the post-con funk goes away~

Hotels

Arcades

Akiba Shops

Akiba Foods

Akiba Others

Others

STC filmed the panel. Gee thanks!

5 comments | posted in Conventions and Concerts

August 7, 2013

Otakon 2013: Day -1 & Details

By omo

Just the facts, ma’am. And some opinion and advice. I’d say this post may update but I got no time to do so, realistically speaking. [And ho, Update 1–Otakon lounge and booths][Update 2: oh boy new rules for concerts this year woooo whole sections out of the door][Update 3 added FUNi][Update for correct panel info]

The latest schedule (now a PNG). Just get it on Guidebook instead.

TM Revolution’s concert with Home Made Kazoku is at the Arena at 4pm on Saturday. TMR is also selling a special compilation CD at Otakon. See their booth in the dealer room. Details for the show here.

Yoko Kanno’s concert with Ishikawa Chiaki is at main events at 1pm on Sunday. Piano Me will probably need an advance lineup if you want to be in the live audience (and by advance I mean like, 9-10am), but [T]here is a simulwatch room as well for late comer types. I presume merch is also available in the dealer room, since there’s a booth for her. The concert will now require tickets. The tickets are available in limited quantities Friday and Saturday from 1-3PM, and Sunday 9-10AM. They are first-come first-serve (2 per person) at Sharp street lobby by Hall D. To go watch the concert live you will need a ticket. You don’t need a ticket for the simulcast. And you still have to line up for the concert as usual! Details here.

Good Smile Company is going to be at Otakon, at least sharing a booth with Daisuki. Goods TBD.

Daisuki will be doing their usual deal as per AX, booth and a panel. I assume Crunchyroll is doing the same thing, but it’s worth checking out if they’re doing any interviews with guests. Would be cool if Ishikawa showed up.

Aniplex is basically done with their Otakon plans. We have the charity poster, we have the OreImo event (and a poster giveaway there). There’s probably a booth autograph session since there’s only 1 con autograph session with the OreImo guests, and 2 con autograph sessions with the SAO ones. And of course they’ll be selling leftover AX merch. Adachi will be live drawing at the World of SAO panel.

From Chiba to the World

The OreImo Premiere screening might or might not require a room clear. I hope not, because this way I can catch the Young Animator Showcase that goes before it. Well. Maybe. This could be complicated.

Mangagamers said at AX there are 5 titles for Otakon, so yep. And probably more leftover AX merch to sell.

Otakon has their Thursday festival. It’s cute but also a little quaint. And this year is no different. What’s different is it’s at the West Shore Park.

Studio Nasu, the Otakon video Game people, are doing a pre-con game room thing for their Otakon game backers (of any level). It’s neat and I probably should spare you the details–check your email or the project updates if you are a backer before Thursday night.

What is this I don’t even.

Funimation is doing the Wolf Children dub premiere at Otakon. They’ve got their usual lineups of actors and actresses. Some loot based on badge tags. You know the drill. More importantly is the Evangelion 3.0 screening on Friday…

Lastly, the rumored autograph random draw–TMR and Yoko Kanno both have 2 autograph sessions and Otakon is actually doing a ticket lineup (on Friday morning 10am) for these autograph sessions to lessen the line/crowding at the autograph area. Details here. I am going to be there like, crack-ass dawn, because I have to be somewhere at 10:20……

Oh hey, a 21+ lounge at Otakon. Pimp. Friday night 8PM, top of Hyatt Regency. A cash bar and … dance lessons?

PS. Again, free iM@S tags if you can catch me!

PPS. Come to my panel 7:30pm Saturday in Panel 4 (BCC) lol.

3 comments | posted in Conventions and Concerts

August 5, 2013

Gatchaman Crowds: Positivism Trap

By omo

Take a break and watch this little youtube video about the criticism of the ideology of positive thinking.

Does it make sense in the context of Gatchaman Crowds?

Babes from the (not) UK

Fundamentally, the crowd-funded, crowdsourced mode of thought differ from traditional heroism in the sense that all of us contributes to resolve problems, versus the heroic effort of one or few individuals. Anime and manga are stable sources of media to draw stories about incredible beings (and perhaps much more so for American comics and its derivatives) with incredible strengths, inner or otherwise, that achieve a great feat or two. Maybe these stories even feature concepts like teamwork, because being a good team player is an ideal inner quality as well. [Maybe I should give SAO a nod here wwwww.]

But that’s just the teeth of positive thinking at work. It’s great to develop and cultivate admirable personal qualities–I am a full believer of this–but we are not called to be superheroes. Maybe just ordinary heroes. And maybe sometimes Hikigaya Hachiman is who this ordinary hero looks like. I say maybe because he is still way too heroic, in the “dark hero” kind of sense that’s pervasive in the 90s and onward–just because you are not Superman doesn’t mean you are not some delusional power fantasy ideal? Of course, I also mention 8man because he’s rather close to who I’m talking about–a realist. A realist that doesn’t have all the answer, and sometimes take a dumb way out of the situation. He will piss some people off, including the audience of Oreguile. So maybe we should aim closer to Moko instead.

To go back to Gatchman Crowds, originally we are following the idea of a sentai team, doing heroic deeds fighting with aliens to save the townsfolk. But here we are, 3-4 episodes later, now confronted with the fact that positive thinking-powered, straight-looking sort of a lifestyle actually is not the optimal solution to the problem. A realistic solution to the problem is precisely one that attempts to solve the problem through trying to understand the problem, and trying something new in light of that. It is not Hajime’s positivism that saves the day, but the quality of her actions.

PS. This is kind of like Genei Taiyou isn’t it, speaking of another Miss Genki having to deal with some horrible situations.

3 comments | posted in Gatchaman, Modern Visual Culture

August 2, 2013

Otakon Uprising, Manga

By omo

Author discovers manga. I’m not very different from him, except I probably gave it a lot more thought. You really can’t talk about TV anime in the 21st century without talking about manga, after all. The problem for me is that there are too much stuff I enjoy about anime that’s absent in manga. My main gateway into anime has been seiyuu idols, OP/ED themes and soundtrack music. I still remember the one summer where I listened to Macross Plus soundtracks like a bijillion times. Direction and cinematography may overlap with paneling and framing the shot in manga but it’s not exactly enough to “get” it on from one format to another, even if a sharp-eyed critic can probably appreciate one going to the other. And of course, I adore animation in itself. These are not exactly why people read manga for. Maaaaybe you can say they’re in motion manga type things, but who wants to read manga in a guided mode…?

That said, it isn’t like I don’t read manga. My collection is a few times bigger than Author’s but that’s not saying much. I just can’t really call myself a fan of the categorical format, genre or medium. That said, I highly prefer reading on a portrait-mode monitor. At home, I read it using a Dell U2412m–basically that was the only way I can tolerate JManga while they were around. I just can’t stand reading manga on a tablet. The resolution is crap, either because of the display or the source files (all non-high-quality scans should DIAF). Maybe it’s okay on a Nexus 10 or the latest iPad for some, but it’s no substitute for the paper version in my opinion. Maybe this is because I do the manual “zoom” by holding it to my face, which doesn’t really work on manga on a tablet.

Because I’m not the kind of person who just want to read about “what happens next” on average. I like to appreciate the medium. Which is probably why I would rather subject myself to crap-tier light novels than high-quality, near-artbook, manga tanks that Ed is peddling.

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From Chiba to the World

Otakon finally has a public schedule, and that announcement brought the website down. Pretty telling about Otakon this year–it’s a little uncharacteristically late, and it’s going to be crowded. On the other hand when AX brought up theirs, it was just a PDF and it was running off of AWS. Hah. Otakon’s schedule is more like an account-based thing where…obviously some backend sharing was happening. It happened last year too but I didn’t think it was this bad.

I’m going to be there, of course. I have these iDOLM@STER tags that are burning a hole in my wallet and I would love to give them away. If you see me there, let me know if you want one. I’m probably going to ask you a couple questions in exchange, though.

More importantly, I’ll be running a panel with Wah. So if you want to catch me at Otakon you can surely find me there ;) The Panel is Tokyo Otaku Hotspots, scheduled currently for Saturday night at 7:30pm, Panel 4 (which IIRC is in the Hilton). COME ON GUYS DON’T BE SHY. (I am assuming the average reader of this blog is not the con-going type, but tell your con-going friends!) Mainly because there will be prizes.

Here goes hoping the scheduling masters of Otakon (as a press attendee that means several groups of people!) don’t swap things on me to make things difficult.

4 comments | posted in Conventions and Concerts, English Language Modern Visual Fandom