Category Archives: Conventions and Concerts

April 5, 2013

Tokyo 2013

By omo

Girl with Camera

I will be in Tokyo to cosplay as a tourist starting later next week. I will return to the guise of a salaryman otaku again after the 22nd. If I stopped blogging for a couple weeks, now you might have some idea what was going on.

I’m also planning to attend the following events:

The rest of the time I will be doing normal touristy things, I think. Hopefully I will have time to not only meet up with at least a few people I know living there at the moment, but hit up all the delicious eats! If you want to meet & say hello let me know.

Lately things has just been kind of busy, especially when I try to squeeze in video games in my routine (that is not Love Plus). Now the new season is here and I probably should say something about Kyousuke Hyoubu, Oreshura and Maoyu (again, but from an internal perspective). Especially Oreshura…

There’s all kinds of things I want to do in Tokyo too, but short of laundry-listing them (or rather, the listing of things I want to do in a master list format is a to-do item) let’s just say that there’s a world of possibilities and it’s like having to deal with the nagging feeling of missing out on something. Hoping the cherry blossoms will still remain and more importantly, I’m hoping the rain will keep away.

4 comments | posted in Conventions and Concerts, Off Topic

March 26, 2013

Peak Anime

By omo

Keima & Mari

There are a growing number of single-cour TV anime (usually the late-night variety, but not limited to) where there’s one really outstanding episode. Often these episodes are also peak in production value and in terms of story–some kind of emotional climax or turning point. Normally, you would find the climatic moment of some dramatic story to be the most memorable, or the ending to be memorable (especially when controversial). But often times these “peak” episodes are becoming slowly just off beat on those key moments in the story.

Following The Nihon Review staff blog post here, see a list of ACE 2013’s top episodes that they’re singling out for being special, after a vote among fans and pros. (You can see the list from ACE directly.) For the sake of simplicity I will just list them here and make some notes:

  • Haruhi S1 E12 – The Linda Linda Linda episode
  • Toradora E16 – The catfight
  • Strike Witches 2 E6 – Yuri in space
  • Fruits Basket E1 – Selected by Hayami Saori. I guess I am not surprised. A lot of people like Fruits Basket even in Japan lol.
  • The iDOLM@STER E20 – Chihaya sings
  • Angel Beats! E10 – They get married
  • Fate/Zero E23 – The showdown
  • MajiLOVE 1000% E13 – /shrug did not watch
  • Anohana E11 – They cry a river
  • Steins;Gate E23 – The climatic moment
  • Madoka E10 – Homu’s Revenge
  • Gode Geass S2 E25 – The shark jumping reaches climax
  • Bakemonogatari E12 – Under a cold, starry sky
  • GITS SAC E26 – Laughing man is dead, long live the laughing man
  • K-ON S2 E24 – Angel descends
  • Narutio E133 – Sakugafest
  • Railgun E24 – Mechafest
  • Azanel-san E9 – Selected by… Sakura Ayane. Somehow this is not a surprise either.
  • Gintama E150 – This series is full of crap like this.
  • Tatami Galaxy E11 – It ends well.
  • Scryed E26 – Before Gurren Lagann, there was this.
  • Gurren Lagann E8 – In the programming guide it screens right after Scryed, and probably for good reasons.
  • Clannad After Story E18 – SHINY GET in the field of childhood dreams

The episodes listed are part of the anime screening at ACE, so across 3 days they will be showing these. I believe they have one screening unannounced at this time.

Looking over that list it seems that most of those are just normal climatic bursts of emotions and the accumulation of a season’s worth of built-ups. K-ON and Anohana seem most poignant. The Clannad After Story bit, too, although at episode 18 it feels a little off. Toradora’s selection is a much more subtle choice in comparison, even when compared to the likes of iM@S and Gurren Lagann (that series is punctuated with such things).

But Gintama? Naruto? Madoka episode 10? Angel Beats 10? Actually maybe not that one. Certainly not before Haruhi 12.

Fruits Basket episode 1? Actually that one makes sense on the “pilot” theory–that the first 3 episodes of any given anime tend to have better production value (given time/resources and other constraints). From what I remember, Furuba episode 1 was pretty good, definitely above average for the series.

Bakemonogatari’s charming date seems awfully quaint in light of all of these older fan favorites, I suppose.

It all circles back to Strike Witches. Oddly enough I dropped SW right after episode 6 (but picked up the movie anyway). I think in more than one ways it is fit for the true weight of being 神–it’s not only emotionally engaging, it is well-produced and directed, and it’s precise. It’s like at any point in season two they could’ve pulled it off. And for me there was no way the rest of the show could top it.

So that’s about half a dozen of these mid-series peak episodes where the story doesn’t quite jump the shark but something drastic has taken place on the screen. And I don’t mean it in a Gurren Lagann kind of way. That count must’ve been higher now, right?

How else can we take into account of things like Kannagi 7? Kamichu 11? Simoun 16-17? (okay maybe not that one). Or my pet favorite, Asatte no Houkou 8? Or how about things like Manabi Straight 1-2 and 5? Girls und Panzer 8-9?  (and soon 11-12?). Kaminomi 4? Or S2 E12? How about Black Lagoon 9-10? Kurenai 6? (Perhaps only rivaled by the Red Garden Dead Girls OAV.) I guess I’m digging deeper back than the ACE list.

I probably should keep a list on these.

6 comments | posted in Conventions and Concerts, Modern Visual Culture

February 25, 2013

Otakon Vegas Zero

By omo

Just my 2c on Otakon Vegas, the newly announced convention in Jan. 2014, the offshoot of Otakon (in Baltimore). In short, it’s still too early to say.

Himawari Dynamite

I think the concept of Otakon Vegas makes sense. If you want a convincing argument, reading the FAQ part of their site is an almost-bullet-point list of the common worries being addressed spot on. Otakon also sent 3 dudes on the ANNCast this week, and that’s a pretty good listen if you are into what the character of Otakon. Otakon, in my mind, separates from other cons because it feels like a con that is focused on the “anime” part of an anime con. It’s executed in that way–I can feel it, after all these years of attending. There’s a focus and a purpose, and the con is planned around it. There are also a lot of weird constraints that you never really have to worry about but end up making things difficult. If you listened to the ANNCast they’ll go into things like why streaming the con becomes a problem. (It also kind of explains why there was a DVD of L’arc~en~ciel concert, but Aya Hirano only got pictures of her at the Aquarium and walking around town from this summer.) It’s also about the slightly weird stuff about membership where when you attend Otakon (Prime, to cop PAX terminology), you are really a member of Otacorp attending its annual membership meeting. This means Otakon Vegas is more like a non-Otakon anime con in that sense–it’s going to be small and run by weird Otakon bros (as characterized by the ANNCast) who will use it as a lab to hone their 20+year of collective con-running prowess.

I think the Maid Cafe is a great example, so I’ll rehash it here. That’s basically what we should be expecting of Otakon Vegas. The story about the Maid Cafe is that for years on end, Otakon attendees (and staffers) wanted a maid cafe. Other local cons had it–Anime USA being the most outstanding example–but for a lot of different reasons, it wasn’t possible. Well, mainly one reason: serving food in their programming required some kind of labor contract trigger involving the union who work the con center to be a part of it. This stopped being a problem when the Hilton opened up and became part of the BCC complex. You can definitely serve food in the hotel on your own, and so this is partly why Otakon had its very first maid cafe last year. However a 30k-attendee con means you can’t really do a maid cafe without working out the logistics to deal with the crowd. I remember NYAF’s maid cafe–that was pretty sad. Otakon’s was somewhat better, from what I can tell by hearsay. I say hearsay because I join more than half of the people who wanted to attend the maid cafe–the more-than-half of people who couldn’t get in. It’s “too successful” but it’s more because that kind of activity just doesn’t scale with this size of a con. So to do a con Maid Cafe right,  you gotta set it up with not only the right kind expertise, without the contract constraints, but also scaled to the size of the con. This is where a brand new con comes in, and I guess it could apply to all sorts of other programs that Otakon may not offer today.

The other problem, also mentioned on the ANNCast, is one of logistics, when Zac brought up the point about how the con has outgrown its locale. Rather, it’s more about time, not so much size. I can tell you by hearsay that Otakon struggles with the idea of a 4-day con for some time now. As someone who plans for cons pretty hard and pretty far advanced, I can tell you by non-hearsay that it’s much harder to write up Otakon’s schedule because it’s much more jam packed than, say, AX’s. AX has that extra day to spread things out, to enable its high-capacity rooms to host more and larger programming. Not to mention it’s just more spread out physically (despite its much larger headcount). Otakon, in contrast, has consistently much better panels, but it’s more compressed and thus it feels like that con always have rooms too small for the programs it has–all because its big rooms can only host so many panels in a day, and there’s all this additional logistics problem with programming as a result of having less time to juggle more dynamic programming. By beginning from scratch, Otakon Vegas can do more stuff with less sort of the logistical constraint that comes with a 30k con, not just one of supply and demand.

There’s another angle to this. Similar to the Music Fest, Otakon Vegas is naturally another venue for Otakon to work with its Japanese contacts, to build its brand, to bring more JP guests overseas. It’s Otakon, so I expect at least this much. It’s also why I think Otakon Vegas is going to be financially not-a-major factor in terms of its impact to Otakon and its existing affiliated events, because it can possibly run cheaper than a small con of the same size due to economy of scale and other leverages as a spin-off con. Actually, the way how LV is being pitched to Otacorp in the podcasts seem to suggest something possibly revealing…

A little reverse engineering can tell you just where a con places its priority–in contracting the location, taking care of its staff, spending money to wrangle lines, bringing over oversea guests of honor, and balanced with its membership fees… I think the saying goes where your money is, your mind is there also? I believe that applies to a membership-run con like Otakon 100%. In due time, when Otakon Vegas begin to announce its detail plans, guests and events, we’ll find out for sure what this new con will really be.

PS. Otakon has, in years past, a marketing issue. You can kind of tell that with Otakon Vegas they are trying to make this marking thing work, at least a little.

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

January 10, 2013

Run, Con, Run

By omo

Chihaya Mi...er, plays football

If you ever read my con introspective posts and reports you might wonder just how much effort I expend at cons. Here’s a somewhat objective measurement.

Since early 2012 I’ve been towing around a Japanese 3DS. While all I play on it is New Love Plus, I also enjoy the built-in games gratis from Nintendo. This means I get that “shoot people’s face” game as well as the Streetpass minigames, which gets a boost via the coins you get by walking while the 3DS is suspended. That provides me with a count of how many steps I take every day once I get back to the hotel after a day at a con. I’m trusting the 3DS pedometer to be relatively accurately, and from my own experience, it is pretty good.  (And of course you want to carry your 3DS, in suspended mode, at a con. Because that’s where the magic of Streetpass happens.) Maybe it undercounts, according to some people online, but I’ve not read anything authoritative.

Here is Gizmodo’s blog post of CES 2013 as the reporters wore various personal devices that kept track how much energy they’ve expended. To sum it up, here are their most active day and how many steps they took:

Casey Chan: 14,839

Brent Rose:  15,170

Peter Ha: 15,440

As for me? The only one I have on record was:

Ax 2012: 23,159

I’ve taken it easy at cons, I have done cons where I got home I lost like 6 pounds because I power-walked all weekend long while averaging 2 meals a day. Both are fun, one is more painful than the other. I probably get more sleep than the average press guy at CES, because there’s less smooching to be done and I sure don’t have to bang up a billion posts every day. But that’s usually what it takes to do my itinerary. It’s also easy to see why at AX you’d walk that much, simply because the way the con is set up, and things in California are just more spread out versus the East coast cons I visit. I think AX2012 was also the one con that I’ve gotten more press-y than any other con, just out of the number of 3rd party obligations. Anyway, a lot of walking was to be had.

Off hand I’m pretty sure there was at least a one con that I got over 30k steps in a day. Oh well.

Do you walk nearly this much at an anime con? I guess it really depends on the venue–I mean if I walk around AnimeNext’s complex (the con center and the hotel) it might take 1500 steps. It’s not that big. It might be 3000 steps to circle LACC. But even for a large con a lot of people don’t do much other than to pace through the AA and the dealer’s room, and sit in some panels or screenings. It’s not exactly the most active sort of thing. But on the flip side that’s not what kids do at cons either, just old people. When’s the last time you were a part of a Caramelldansen train? (Dead meme is dead, almost.)

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

November 6, 2012

Otakon Music Fest 2012

By omo

So, Otakon and Lantis had a baby and after 3 months of anticipation, we were there to celebrate its birth.

JAM Project, the globe-trotting anime song promoters and epic arena rockers, headlined what seemed to be an usual Saturday night at the Ram’s Head Live, a fairly well-known concert venue in the Baltimore inner-harbor area. At least, to some locals who’ve been to the venue for various other acts, including some Otakon events in years past, Ram’s Head is located in an area of town that feels a little familiar. I get the feeling that wasn’t the cast for most at this concert.

Along with JAM Project, Lantis brought over Faylan and Aso Natsuko. That really fanned the flames for me. Why? Because they are while relatively novice anison acts, they are genuine solo anison artists with multiple solo albums. It’s easy to imagine “hey it would be pretty darn awesome to have Anisama ~Baltiport~” or some such nonsense. I get the feeling that was also what the various event organizers had in mind.

Fact is, the idea of the Otakon Music Fest started years ago; at least that’s when I first have heard of it. I didn’t know how long ago when the idea first found momentum nor did I know the amount of hard work, luck, pluck, chemical X, or whatever that was necessary to bring it about. Like lucky fans that were at the venue, we waited after we heard about it, for three months, paid some amount of monies, and enjoyed ourselves. Maybe it will grow into that epic all-star music festival some of us had in mind in the future.

The truth is, though, every journey still begins with just one step at a time, so the metaphorical baby has to have, I hope, its humble beginning. Or in business-speak, the experiment has to be a success and the show has to make money. While we were promised just a concert with the three acts, we were also promised (and sold) a VIP add-on of roughly $60, in order to make possible to get an autograph and some mingle time after the show. Did you know the show started about on time? This is on Japanese-time, this show.

Oh, before I forget, set list. I don’t know if I will walk it through blow-by-blow, but I’ll highlight the interesting parts. Note that there are most likely some inaccuracies.

Faylan batted first (this was subject to confusion throughout the afternoon: who went first?)

1. WHITE Justice
2. Realization
3. Dead End
4. Errand
5. Mind as Judgment

Then it was the totally-adorbs Natsuko Aso (henceforth Natchan…or Natcha~an or whatever)

1. More-more LOVERS!!
2. Everyday Sunshine Line
3. Eureka Baby 
4. Diamond Star
5. Perfect-area complete

Then it was Big Brothers and Sister JAM Project (after a 10-minute, Pocky-moderated break):

1. Crest of “Z’s”
2. Vanguard
3. Break Out
4. Hagane No Resistance
5. Garo ~SAVIOR IN THE DARK~
6. Rinbu Revolution (Masami Okui)
7. We Are! (Hiroshi Kitadani)
8. Yuusha-ou Tanjou! (Masaaki Endoh)
9. Cha-La Head-Cha-La (Hironobu Kageyama)
10. King Gainer Over / Dynamite Explosion (Yoshiki Fukuyama)
11. Transformers EVO.
12. VICTORY
13. GONG
14. ROCKS
15. Rescue Fire
16: EC-1: KI-ZU-NA
17. EC-2: SKILL

Yeah, only five each? That is shorter than JAM Project’s thing by almost 50% if not more, once you count the encore and the … long SKILL. I wasn’t too disappointed to be honest, partly because I was saving energy for JAM’s inevitably epic aerobic exercise, and they played most of my favorites. Not having Dark Side of the Light was kind of rough but man. I wish each of them would go another 2 more songs. Then again, I’m the kind of person who would go to a full show from either of them!

The crowd was not huge but they were energetic. And in some sense JAM Project’s East Coast fans might actually rival their South American fans in terms of loudness and intensity. For anison fans overseas, that is quite the exception. I arrived at around 3:30 and it was rowdy. JAM Project was doing their rehearsal at the time and the line busted out in songs, almost too loudly since we lined up in this narrow corridor. It’s safe to say Hurricane Sandy weeded out some of the lukewarm or simply non-committed types, but it’s hard to say many, if at any, of the people at this show were lukewarm or non-committed.

I have to kind of whine though (if I can’t whine on my blog where can I…oh wait)–lining up before the show is what they do in Japan, because you get to buy merch before it sells out. Lining up to go to the show in America is only something you do for huge acts in large arenas where it matters where you may end up sitting. A venue like Ram’s Head Live is at most 7-800 (maybe 1000?) and even at the back of the floor you can get a pretty intimate show. So it’s kind of annoying that I ended up going early and line up. On the flip side that gave me a good spot on the floor and I worked my way up to the 2nd row after Faylan’s set. So maybe I shouldn’t whine after all. Well, I probably would’ve been fine if I was relegated to jumping in the back. It just wouldn’t give me the nice photo ops that now I can share (at the end) nor the up-close view of Natchan’s high socks. Why do I like those? Sick otaku. Speaking of Natchan’s apparel, that hat, man. Nice. (Go to the end notes for some deets!)

Faylan dressed mostly casual and it only made her fiery self stand out just a little more. I’m kind of glad that her presentation is as plain as she appears to be, rather than the very…uh, extreme look she has in her promo material. She did pull a LiSA at some point on stage, and that got the crowd going. And by what I mean “pulled a Lisa,” well, hopefully you can get some photos from LiSA’s AX 2012 red carpet for what I mean.

JAM Project are in good form as before. I was close enough to see En-chan’s face getting more wrinkled, which was about as wrinkled as it was last time they were in town? Kageyama looked almost younger, man. I can’t really discern any difference between Dani now and 5 years ago. Makkun, well, according to at least one person, has put on weight. I guess that might be the case? It would explain why she was wearing a crab bib during SKILL’s epic chorus.

I guess, yes, the epic chorus. It was really the key piece missing from the 2008 concert. We did SKILL for maybe an extra 5-7 minutes, which included Dani pulling out a couple Crabby-chan plushies and throwing them around, play acting as if it was alive. Makkun put on a bib. And then Kageyama pulled out Faylan and Natchan for the final I CAN FLY part. It was a good time. It was…well, mini Anisama, circa. 2009. Only if Makkun and Faylan did Soul Refrain duet right then!

After SKILL we all dispersed, except then Jim spoke over the MC to have us line up and get our VIP badges. Which just means you get to line up to get your badge, and then line up again to get in an autograph line. It turns out the VIP thing is reduced to just getting an autograph, have a quick chat with the guests (people who went later had more talk time, I think), while my group and I hung around the bar and socialized. It was also interesting to see all the Lantis people doing whatever they were doing. After the autograph session the guests took a few Q&As, and president of Lantis gave a toast, and then it was the photo session.

Fukuyama was not present–he will be missed, but only a little, because they ended up Skyping him into his solo segment. There were some technical problems with it but it turned out hilariously entertaining anyway. Yeah, it was that kind of a crowd, for that kind of a dude.

All in all, the show itself is good. The only real downer is the very slow merch line. It is a problem two ways–first you kind of need the towel and that was the only way to get theirs unless you brought one (and someone I know did…). The second problem was that typically you can buy merch after the show. Except for most folks, it’s VIP time after the show and the merch was closed by the time autographing was done. That kind of sucked.

The merch booth had a lot of stuff for sale–both of the two albums from Faylan and Natchan were on sale, as with 4 JAM Project CDs, at about $40 a pop. Each artist brought a towel; Faylan had a t-shirt and a wrist band, and Natchan sold an orange hopi (only $35!) and something I forget. JAM Project brought a ton of stuff–chopstick, keychain/light combo pack, scrunchies, a “cutie kit”, playing cards, a couple t-shirts, and some other stuff I probably forgot. On the side, Otakon was selling a festival shirt where the proceeds go to charity.

That’s not the only places I spent money…well, we all had some drinks. Some of us had more than others, but $3 rum & coke? Woo.

My Natchan stock has gone up a lot. I saw some videos of her over the years (years, wow) and while she never struck me as a looker, there’s this natural cuteness she was able to extrude that you can better appreciate in real life. She’s a bit of an actress (well, she technically is I guess) and has more otaku cred than your average anison singer. Faylan, well, shoots straight and when she stumbled with English during her last MC, it was as moe as it gets.

Revisiting Jam Project (and seeing Makkun being semi-grumpy) always makes my day. Only if this could happen every year. Well, hopefully this is going to be the case–both Lantis President and Kageyama said something to that extent! Maybe we’ll celebrate year #2 next year!

PS. Photos. Shoddy but it’s all I can do. All you can do. Kagayake TRANSFO–oh.

PPS. I probably know a whole lot of you at the show, and I probably didn’t see all of you that I know. Well, I’m sure I’ll see you all soon.

PPPS. Natsuko Aso? Did you see her? Did you like her? Are you one of those people going to Japan end of this year? You can see Natchan at her Tokyo live at Shibuya O-East on December 27! Details all right here.

6 comments | posted in Conventions and Concerts, Modern Visual Culture, Seiyuu, Idol, Pop