Spirit of Japan Miami is a first-year convention at Miami Beach. Literally located in the big con center (that was renovated last decade) just to the side of South Beach, this new con brought big con guests which drew people like myself. It also is the Funko Pop Private Signing Wonderland that you might have heard about. Still I got to see Fruits Zipper and that made things all OK? Maybe.
The story really started at around AX time, because Sayaka Ohara went to AX and I want her to sign my Aria stuff, naturally. Of course, because MangaGamer, it couldn’t be done there, nor did I get a ticket anyway due to POS fail at MG booth first day of AX. I didn’t really get a chance to go back to do that either. So I said to my self, “Ohara is going to this first-year con in Miami, let’s just do that.” So I did.
I didn’t think much about Hiroaki Hirata much, or that Yuki Kaji will do a zoom panel there. Then the con added Ryo Horikawa, who is a staple of this kind of events nowadays. Oh, Burnout Syndrome? I guess Fake Star is involved. Then there was Satomi Akesaka??? Fruits Zipper???? Wow they called in that A-Kon rain check! Wow Diana Garnet (again)! The list is impressive say the least, not to mention for a first-year con.
Turns out, this con is largely run by One Guy who is a Japanese-American business man who really want to bring the stuff he loves together. The face he made when talking about Yui-chan on Sunday says it all. I was able to talk to him briefly and it was pretty fun to see this sort of thing being thrown down.
The event is a combination of a cultural festival and a pop cultural con. There was a “dealer room” setup with AA art walls and random lifestyle brands, mixed in there some vendors with merch. And by merch, I just mean walls of Funkos. There was a board game part with tournaments. There is a corner with actual arcade games and a few playstations set up. I give them props for that. There is also just a corner with all the autographs, across from the one and only stage. Lastly the entrance and exit is right by the cultural booths where you can learn tea ceremony (I wanted this but it didn’t pan out time-wise), wear a yukata, learn to draw manga, calligraphy, and what have you. There is also a sake tasting thing in a corner that is gated (of course).
I actually attended day 1 of Animethon and days 2-3 of Anirevo 2024. Part of this has to do with the stacked guest list for Animethon this year. Part of it also has to do with how the flights and prices were to go to Edmonton from Vancouver. Lastly, part of it has to do with that I had never done two (full-sized) cons in the same weekend, and wanted to give it a try. So I did.
I’m still in the middle of a series of four weekends of anime cons so I’ll keep this not so wordy and more focused on the journey. It really started on Monday when a series of rainstorms would pummel the US Northeast. I went to Yoasobi’s stop in NYC on August 6 in the middle of a downpour. I think the weather forecast said it would drop 0.97″ of rain in one hour at some point that night. Needless to say I got wet. Later on this series of rainstorms would affect airport operations in the area and cause delays, albeit not a lot of delays, but enough to cause some real problems.
I decided to fly American Airlines out to Vancouver on Thursday night out of EWR. This proved to be a rough journey as I had to connect at DFW, and the equipment was delayed getting in, because it was also delayed from the even earlier leg. My 1-hour layover turned into basically 5 minutes and I had to rush from Terminal D to Terminal B, and a friendly and super fast gate agent was able to make it work. Thankfully the plane going from DFW to YVR was also delayed at gate for mechanical issues. It did mean I was able to make it to YVR on Thursday for my trip to YEG on Friday early morning. But it also meant I landed just before midnight in Vancouver and got about 2 hours of sleep for my 6am flight on Friday to YEG.
After the schedule for both cons were released, I figured Anirevo has a very light day Friday where the main 3 items at the con were the opening ceremony (which is often skippable even if it’s good content for the general audience), the Oshi no Ko panel, and Igoma’s autograph session (1 session out of 2). On the other side of the Canadian Rockies was Sally Amaki’s concert, a Konomi Suzuki panel and autograph session, and a KIHOW autograph session (since TomxHack half of Myth&Roid was sick at home). All the guests also would appear at the Animethon opening ceremony. Plus, I would also be able to say hi to twice as many people, and go to Edmonton for the first time in my life.
The flight from YVR to Edmonton (YEG) that I took was from Flair Airlines, a Canadian low-cost carrier mostly serving customers based out of YEG. The flight was uneventful, but the airline doesn’t do a good job posting delays, and it forces all the customers to check in at the desk if they didn’t buy a carry on. This means I got to the airport a tad too early, and the flight was delayed for about an hour due to crew timeout, which I only found out 2 hours before departure, which meant I could have slept at least 1.5 hours more. I tried to make that difference up by sleeping at the gate, to varying success.
Flair’s service schedule between YVR and YEG was mostly in the early morning, late night, and 1 flight in the day. I guess it works out just as well for someone going to a con for a day there, but the quality of service at the airport during those non-business hours are not great, and generally everything is closed at the airport. I did get to Animethon, which is at downtown Edmonton, in time for badge pickup (took about 5 minutes in a fast-moving line) and the opening ceremony.
Animethon moved to an online autograph lottery system for the first time this year, which had multiple rounds where people can get randomly drawn as winners, up until “standby” time after the session has started. To access the system you need to buy an badge online which spits back at you a personalized link that lets you reserve each session. This worked well enough for attendees, but some improvement can be done such as having a closer watch on how fast the lines go. Konomi Suzuki and KIHOW’s lines Friday went super fast and I don’t know if every standby got them, although they probably could have, for example.
Other notables about Animethon is that it had about 16k in attendees this year, and Edmonton is a place without a lot of stuff going on for it in terms of youthful-ish activity or nightlife. It seems like the city government really wants to lean into the event as a way to reach out to young people. I mean, it makes sense, other local governments have made similar appeals before that I’ve seen. Anime cons are definitely a way where local government can support younger people. The opening ceremony featured several local politicians saying more or less what I’m saying. It also helps to fund the event, which partly explain how suddenly the guest list exploded for Animethon in 2024.
Anyways, living on 2-3ish hours of sleep is not a great way to enjoy the con, and my flight out at 10:20pm meant I had to vacate the con at around 8pm, which I did. That let me hop into the Sally concert and eek out a smile in the group pic? Sally always puts a smile on my face anyway. In retrospect the cost was just a LCC ride and a couple friendly Uber/Lyft drivers convos away between two places in Canada that are probably as opposite to each other as you can get up in mapleland. It was a great side trip.
Anirevo Saturday and Sunday are decided less chill and much more line-up heavy. Thankfully there was nothing super early that I had to deal with, other than getting a badge and having breakfast along the downtown Vancouver waterfront at a cafe. It felt like I was an Asian tourist or something. The Oshi no Ko live recording panel was pretty wild in that it recreates the afureko environment so much so that it felt like work, or that it is kind of boring. The acting was fun to watch, but they spend a lot of the time talking about edits and directions for each demo cut that becomes a drag. There was also a lot of them all at once so it becomes slightly hard to follow everyone’s directions. Anyways, I enjoyed it.
The autograph situation at Anirevo follows last year, which premium badges get a priority line and it’s capped properly this year. Badge checking was enforced more so to prevent hopping, but we suspect many perps from last year were actually at Edmonton this year instead. Anyways, this is the last year, according to Anirevo, that they will offer this perk for the Premium badge. For the three Oshi no Ko seiyuu guests, you can at best get a shikishi or your badge/program signed. For ZAQ and TRUE, you can get their merch. It was a good time otherwise.
Due to the price I paid in the alternative of going to Athon, I had to grab Igoma’s autograph on Sunday, which pushes me out of the running for TRUE’s panel and autograph. Still, I was able to go to ZAQ’s panel Sunday, and one autograph from ZAQ, Rumi, Igoma and Megumi Han. It is wild that I did last saw Megumi Han at Animazement 2013, and I’m just glad she’s such a big time voice actress now in Japan, and so quickly since. That gap of 11 years I followed dozens of seiyuu with less success than her, she’s literally like the 90th-percentile or higher at this.
The big event at Anirevo is the Saturday Night Concert. The Animusix brand lives on. ZAQ and TRUE threw it down, although I think my friends and I agree it was “okay, if good” but not lit like Calgary’s set for TRUE or the average ZAQ set. I think the covers really saved me, as ZAQ did Tutti and Guitar to Kodoku to Aoi Hoshi.
Overall, besides fatigue and cost, there was no huge drawback going to two cons. Pretty sure I spent about $100 USD total including a VIP badge for Sally and a 3-day badge, and about another $200 on flight and rideshare. The anexiety of not making my DFW connection was the worst part, but I guess it’s just lesson learned that I should just work at the airport the next time I go out there, just like what I did last year…
PS. Can’t talk about Vancouver without talking about eats. I got some FIFTYLAN. I had some nice Shanghainese dinner on Sunday. We went to a nice seafood joint Saturday, not because some guests went there in 2023 or anything. There was an interesting bear that we took photos of, hmm. Nah that cannot be it. I rather liked that place actually, it’s in a touristy part of town and very walkable, plus nice bayside/riverside views. The happy hour begins at 9pm which is perfect for uchiage timing.
I went back to Japadogs by the Waterfront station on Saturday…and ran into Anirevo staffer buying for their guests, so I had to wait extra long, LOL. There was a cafe down the street that they went to and we also went to, which was expensive but very nice. And full of foxes.
I went to a nice place for lunch Friday at Animethon with a friend, it was chill and full of nobody, certainly pricing out most attendees (my bill was more expensive than Sally’s VIP event let’s just say). I do enjoy the food though, and the story about a famous steakhouse used to be there and went into bankruptcy or something. Most importantly, I felt so much better after that nice lunch. Travel is a pain if you don’t take care of yourself! Don’t forget to take care of yourself!
Otakon this year came and went in my whirlwind August. It is the first stop for this eventer choo-choo…uh, did you know Otakon has a train theme last year? This year the theme is “30” because technically it’s not yet the 30th anniversary but just 30 years? Anyways, I have Anirevo next week, Spirit of Japan in Miami after that, and finally staying home for AnimeNYC before ending the month at Anisama. So yes, it’s recap really rapid-time.
This year the guest list is actually impressive. So impressive that I know I won’t have them to see them all. I actually missed out on most of the male seiyuu cast members from Blue Lock….most, because I was at the autograph area for some of their signings so I was able to see them from afar. For the josei seiyuu fans, this year’s lynchpin is Uchida Aya. Some friends flew in from all over the country just for her, and why not? She is fun and cute, and definitely entertaining.
Acen 2024 came and went. It was a lot of fun and I’m home now enjoying that post-con glow. Just want to jot down all the key take-aways before I have to deal with the dozens of to-dos for next week’s con trip to Animazement.
For one, a big 30,000-ft view topic is that we are so back. I will need to bring back the blog post sticky of my events for 2024. Granted I still did a lot in 2023 that probably warranted it, but I am enjoying cons with other friends who also go to cons now that it just feels more right than last year to do it. I went to Acen 2022, 2023 and 2024 since the pandemic and it’s a good slice of what happened for the US con scene for each of those years.
In one day at ACEN I've exchanged more P cards than I have in 5 years. We are so back
Second, of course, it’s HiroMaya. Hiromi Hirata plays Makoto and I have been a MakotoP for ages now. That said, in a way I think it doesn’t excite me as much as seeing Mayako Nigo because to me Nigo is one of the cast members that makes 765Pro Allstars special, especially when you compare it with other similar groups. Either way, the two young moms felt quite at home on their new-ish radio show (about a year old now?) and they brought some of that healing atmosphere to Acen. The discussion and the manzai-but-not chemistry between the two is just wonderfully charming to me. Various Ps got their long-wish goods signed and dreams came true. I brought a life-size cardboard cutout of Makoto, and with the major help of friends able to bring it to Chicago and got one signed. I saw 2 other POPs there as well which is great. (BTW, Q&A panel notes here.)
Knowing a bunch of other Ps in the US meant I also saw a lot of them at Acen, which is always a good time to catch up since I haven’t seen many in a long time. It’s also fun to see those people see each after, after so long. We were able to do a big group dinner at Fogo de Chao (mainly because they can host large groups easily), and that was a blast (of meat eating). Three JP Ps also came to visit and it was their first time at a churrasco steakhouse. They are fellow P-friends from abroad that I’ve met several times already and they got the local greeting (even if most of us weren’t from the area).
Acen’s other seiyuu guests are also impressive. Tomo Sakurai is kind of rebooting her seiyuu-idol career after being invited to the con. She’s even doing some other event later this week? It’s nice to finally meet this showa-era seiyuu idol who voiced most notably, Mylene of Macross 7. I went to one of her panels and she did a karaoke performance to Friends. That was a surprise. (As an aside, Dan, who was interpreting for Tomo, also ran a booth at the artist alley which I failed to drop by because I only found out later.) I got my Shayla-Shayla fix when she signed my El-Hazard DVDs.
The most impressive seiyuu on the list was Sora Tokui, who hopefully helped all of us get the “nico nico nii” thing out of the collective attendee’s systems. The love for her was bountiful, from flower stands (the Midwestern Liver/idol group folks knew better so everyone got a stand, leaving no seiyuu behind) to a big banner. The people were out in force here. Meltdowns and other stuff that comes with the territory, stories about getting into and out of the scene thanks to the OG Love Live school idol herself.
Which leads to the last but hardly the least seiyuu guest, Sally Amaki. This present-day idol seiyuu’s story is well-rehearsed via her popular Trash Taste interview, but Sally is more than the sum of her parts. Or the number of RTs for her various tweets. It’s just like the other dreams-come-true stories in a way, but this time our 21st century Japanese idol in her prime is also a socal shitlord turned josei seiyuu, which is a word spaghetti that means also more than the sum of their collective meanings.
I got lucky and was able to attend her “autograph session” substitute given that she doesn’t do that kind of event anymore, but the meet & greet event was just so, so good. I hope other anime cons in America can replicate this whole thing Acen has made with SME and 22/7’s management to make Sally available, because she is the bringer of a busload of hilarious idol fun.
In some ways the four seiyuu guests at Acen this year paints sort of a past-present-future look at how things are in the seiyuu idol side of the biz. That sums up how powerful the draw this year was for me personally.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE BEST 2 DAYS EVER ?? HOPE TO SEE YOU AGAIN CHICAGO ???? It was truly a dream come true ?? ?? Anime Central 2024 ???????????? ???????? ??????????? ???????????#acen2024pic.twitter.com/YOzlZ4Vhm2
— Sally Amaki/??????(Gintoki/Kuroo/GetoEnthusiast) (@sally_amaki) May 19, 2024
The nuts and bolts of the con this year are pretty similar to the past few years, although we are ever inching closer to 2019 Acen again. What’s different is Win Morisaki, who is mostly a Toku music guest, and Lotus Juice, who’s here to suffer the Knicks getting knocked off of the playoffs. It’s a bit too bad that I barely got any time to watch their stuff due to event conflicts, but these bros don’t bring down the house by themselves. Acen needed to give them a bit more help, for no fault of their own.
Industry/production side, the one that caught my eyes the most was PILI, or the Taiwanese production group that made the Thunderbolt Fantasy puppet show. Some of their puppeteers came, and they messed around with the doll with the fans. I couldn’t find time to see the Colorido guests doing their premiere or the Kinema Citrus guests, but I did pick up the Colorido shirt from their new Netflix movie.
I couldn’t get any tasting for the Saburomaru whisky tasting because Acen booth’s lines were super long and they couldn’t process transactions fast enough, so I came back when everything was sold out to pick up the shirt and the Sally cheki thing. On that note, the biggest public enemy at Acen this year had to be the security theater. It was not very well organized and during peak morning hours people had to wait quite a while, up over 30 minutes? There were 6-7 scanners at the main con entrance and one at the hotel overpass. I’m not sure if there’s one also over the Embassy Suites side though. Anyways, for the most part it wasn’t an issue for me, but I did hear some problems over internet chatter and others I talked to, while most didn’t have much of an issue.
The autograph situation was somewhat better for me this year than the last, and some people really got it figured out. Turns out to get all the sessions you wanted you will need to create new accounts as sessions conflicted with each other. On the flip side it sucked if you didn’t get any, and some folks I know basically struck out. The system is merciless and not well-documented beyond this tweet, I think. One of the JP Ps was able to get FOUR sessions across all 3 days right away and none of the Sally oshis who flew here got hers. It’s rough. Our GR dude Sujay even translated the procedure into Japanese with pics for the 22/7 fanbase…I wish the non-Japanese even got that lol. I mean, I suppose it only tells you to install Guidebook and sign up for an account, which gets you just half way there.
The setup from last year mostly translated to this year, with most folks hanging out by the back tables at the street level of the Hyatt and the lineup going around it. It was chill and a good time to trade P cards? It was old timers reunion and good time to meet new people.
I personally was able to get both Hiromaya sessions (they were together) after coming off the waitlist, a Tomo Sakurai session, a PILI session, and one with Soramaru on Sunday. All of this is punctuated by that aforementioned lucky Sally M&G pickup. Man that was a great session. Normally this level of programming is reserved for the rare “VIP” panels that you pay $$$ for, but because Sally can’t do the normal signkai stuff, she gets to hang out with 60 of us for about an hour and a half as a compromise. It was so wonderful and it was as if her dreams are coming true and we’re all in it, and I guess we were?
One more thing to add: fan projects. It seems the con is finally set up for flower stands, so if you want to make Acen smell better, that’s one way…I jest. Hopefully we will get some kind of written method to hook those up. This year everyone got flowerstands as mentioned. Soramaru also got a banner and some other stuff. I made two business card binders with message boards from people in line as usual.
I’ll end with this. If you want to see your favorite imas or LL seiyuu (or Sally) come back, request it in the feedback form.
PS. Fooding at Chicago was so good this time, but also in general. I stayed for almost a week on this trip so I got some decent options, basically ate pizza everyday but Sunday and Monday (when I landed at 10pm). Pizza (deep, normal and tavern style), italian beef, the Chicago dog, cake shake, and others were consumed. One night I was theorygaming Vancouver vs Edmonton with friends at “the” Uno Pizzaria bar and that was an one of a kind experience. One of the JP Ps also brought me a visiting gift, his favorite butter “sando” from Hokkaido, and it was heavenly too. At the con I ate out with friends and hit up Gibson’s and the aforementioned Fogo also, which both hit the spot after long, long days at the con.
PPS. I didn’t forget Kawaiikon! But Raleigh awaits…
I probably left my AX2023 writeup in the trash somewhere, and between then and now was a very fun AWA2023, but let’s not let it get in the way. Million Live’s 10th tour part 3 in Fukuoka just commands my mind right now, so thus the needs to get it written down.
