So the hotel I stayed at had paid-for wireless, but we didn’t feel like it. I suppose if I didn’t lug my laptop around I could’ve left it there to set up internet sharing, but screw that. It also means no mid-con update posts.
Category Archives: Conventions and Concerts
Anime Central 2014: Day 0
I’m actually not at the con yet, but I figured there are notes I can share.
First off, ACEN is the third largest con last year in US and Canada. That’s really impressive. This also means if you didn’t book a hotel room way ahead, it’s real hard to get a room. Unlike AX or Otakon, the area near the con is not exactly the most pedestrian friendly either. Somehow we got rooms. It’ll be a little crammed but it’s not too bad. It might also be a hike, but I’ll live. The last time I visited ACEN was 2005 so I expect everything to change greatly, including the crowding.
Second, WUG is here courtesy of Crunchyroll. They’ll be rolling all their autograph sessions at their booth. Details can be found here. And here. Bottom of that post also has a list of events at the con for WUG and Yamakan/Hiro-san.
Acen guest guy camps the forum well, so it’s cool. JP WUGners are coming as mentioned.
Angela landed and will have goods. They have a booth autograph in addition of the ACEN ones. Details in the link. Good, I like goods.
I’ll be draining LPs and rocking out my 3DS streetpass games while bouncing between scheduled conflicts. Yeah. This is also the first time doing Press for ACEN, and I vaguely remember some issues they had with Press, which explains why their Press process is kind of horrific.
I mean, I think I’m going to miss all the Final Fantasy chamber music stuff. Terrible.
Flower of Connectedness
Just going through the thousands of things in my various feeds and ran across this on Pikasha’s blog post:
At the guest reception at Sakuracon, we saw this adoring Nagahama’s table. He said it’s a hand-made gift from a fan. I hope you realize this, fan person!
Chocolates makes a great treat and souvenir in Seattle. I should’ve brought home some.
Anison Sales Cycle, Plateau
In the mid to late 00s there has been an anison boom. The question is has it cooled since 2010? With the 8th Animax Anison Grand Prix canned this year, what do we make of it? How about Love Live S2 OP sales breaking records? Or the way different anison artists “being dropped” by different things? It’s intriguing.
Thankfully, someone already wrote it up, so I don’t have to.
My own opinion of this is that, like all musical artists, the way people make a living vary depending on where you are at on the chain. As a “live lover” I appreciate solid acts and people who can put on a good show. Thing is, a lot of anison artists during the boom are hardly that different than the seiyuu idols themselves that are now replacing them, in terms of exactly that–their live abilities. Then there are those who are notably better, invariably because that’s their bag to begin with; they are the Angela’s and LiSA’s of the bunch; the super robot singers (because seiyuu are not quite there yet?); and the singer-song-writers (which includes bands like Angela too, but also Nano.ripe, Ali Project and Yousei Teitoku. And the occasional ZAQ).
I’m not sure if we can make a distinction between the seiyuu idols who are now more like regular artists versus “idols” who are seiyuu, like StylipS or Sphere for example. I mean I enjoy all their shows, but the way I enjoy say a Nana Mizuki live is not going to be the same as how I enjoy IM@S. It’s harder to get that drooling, wallet-opening fanbase going if you are Maaya Sakamoto versus the newly debuting Azusa Tadakoro. You know?
But I’m not really worried. I think anison is no different than other categories of music as far as market and culture is concerned. It might contract or expand in cycles like everything else, and we’re probably just seeing that play out. Maybe this is why when JAM Project tours the world, their message to us is that they want the anison base to expand. So it can accommodate more artists?
So. How about that I’VE SOUND 15th Anniversary?
Maybe meg rock should tweet more in English…
On Chokaigi 3
What’s amazing about Niconico Chokaigi is that it isn’t just “Japanese internet vomited into one place” (Makuhari Messe being the barf bag), even if that in itself is a big deal in a “this is why you can’t have nice things” kind of way that I can write a lot on its own, but that someone overseas can “catch” the vision of it and live it up as if I was there. It is truly a wondrous application of the internet where joy can be spread across the world in real time.
So rather than just watching Chokaigi at home this year, I decided to get a couple friends together and watch it at the guy’s house whose most capable of doing it. This just means good internet setup, a good multimedia set up (he’s got a big TV and easy hook-up to his network), lots of power plugs, what have you. In the end we still needed a few things–more HDMI plugs would be nice, or some way to play R2 DVDs, or a better HTPC solution, but it turned out really well. You can watch the streams you all care about and talk about it, rather than let your English language comments lament in the sea of Nico memes, or make a mess of your twitter time line. Or private chat rooms wherever, which seemed to be the better venue in retrospect.
I thought Chokaigi is possibly the closest thing to an “anime con” in the sense that while it is an industry event, it dips its feet in fan culture much more so than most other industry events. It’s hard to explain or describe this gap and oddly enough we talked about it this weekend. Just what makes an AFA or an AX versus AnimeJapan? It’s hard to explain, I think, maybe because I haven’t been to all of those events, but it’s also the sort of content you promote at those venues. Maybe it’s more a SDCC or NYCC?
At any rate, through the myriad numbers of region-unlocked live streams, we were able to watch a ton of streams on Nico over the weekend and live it up real-time. This means watching that awesome anison concert on Saturday night/Sunday afternoon featuring IVE Special Unit. Takase Kazuya doing backup dancing with Maon for Ray is just amazing. In fact that whole IVE set is amazing. But what’s also amazing is to go on twitter and see the JP feeds I follow respond to the events I watch on the streams, and other non-JPers watching the same.
The number says Chokaigi 3, this year being the third Chokaigi, has about 7.6 million viewers across all its official feeds (and there were a bunch of those), which is just to say that’s only like, two thirds of total Chokaigi streams, if we go by streams not on its schedules as not official.
???????????????????????????????? pic.twitter.com/TlLb4n8Ux8
— ?????????? (@chiaking58) April 26, 2014
Anyway, just saying you can live up Chokaigi if the technology is there, the infrastructure is there. I didn’t pay the 2500 yen or whatever for Cho Party, but at that 525y entry price for premium, this is the cheapest way to brighten up a weekend. That and a VPN. And having the image of Mocho eating a Lawson generic pastry in your retina.
Update: Say hello to some Ps that we met earlier in the year:
