Wota Life, North America 2014 Version

MOCHOOOOOOO

As I try to get a grip on the AX wrap for the year I have to confront the reality that is in front of me. Truth is, if you told me 8 months ago that Yumi Hara, Altima, [TBD2], Angela, WUG, Marina Inoue, Saori Hayami, Ami Koshimizu, Ai Nonaka, KOTOKO, Elisa, Yui Ishikawa, Mai Goto, Ryouka Yuzuki, Halko Momoi, Babymetal are coming to the US and Canada, I would be like LOL you are drunk. It also didn’t help that I went to Japan in February and got entirely hosed into the Producerhood of Idolm@stery, so even people like Tsukigami Luna and Toshifumi Akai can generate big time feels for me. And I mean, who are they? Sushio was the sakkan for episode 17 (AKA Makoto episode) of Anim@s? The what?

The fact is this is just pain for the DD. A lot of these guys are great but are only going to attract people who are scenesters or just like a lot of things. The WUG-chans, for example, voiced just a handful of things among all of them. I-1 Club will win every time if they held those voting things at American cons, even if they too are more or less current-gen or upcoming voice acting talents. Yui Ishikawa marks a point where Titan really puncture the mainstream discourse, but besides that most anime con-goers don’t even know what else she has done. It’s standard fare for seiota. But then on the other hand  you have the Hayamins or Amisukes of the seiyuu world, the kind of guests that you only expect to see twice a year–between AX and Otakon, really–because there are so few anime cons that deal seiyuu to begin with, and there are so many seiyuu to choose from.

But this has been an abundantly blessed year for the North American idol/seiota/aniota complex. And I didn’t even list old timers like the Gundam dudes (Ikeda-san!) at Animazement or Morita at AX.

There’s value to be a DD, and there’s value to be someone who is more devoted to the causes of a few (or just one)–basically you can survive such a wonderful but harsh convention schedule. The value of doing all these things is that it’s incredibly fun, but I can understand why it’s sometimes good to hold back and just stew at home about not being able to go to these things.

That being said, who knows what remaining cons will bring over as guests? And I’m already looking at 2015 with a weary eye, partly with IM@S 10th on the horizon.

Wonder if there will be JP fans coming to chill out with Hayamin at Otakon? There was an Aoi Eir fan that came just for her, and sat right behind me. He went pretty nuts given the number of times he hit me LOL. Would be cool to do an offkai again!


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