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December 3, 2022

Anime NYC 2022: Wrap

By omo

It feels weird blogging about Anime NYC while attending its sister con, Anime Frontier in Fort Worth. On the other hand, AF is basically the same setup as ANYC, just much smaller…and has Gundam Aerial HG in stock.

Anime NYC comes back from its Omicron-shaded 2021 edition and is a victim of its timing, yet again. This time it’s still not its fault. Japan opened its doors in mid-October which made booking guests feasible. Record high inflation and strong US demand for entertainment in 2022 means every international act is trying to play here, resulting in a slog of perfomer visa applications. This is partly why fhana and Flow dropped out of A-Kon earlier this year, but this is also why ANYC, despite various tries and attempts (as heard from the grapevine) couldn’t really come through with much. With help from CR, the Mogra DJs made it to the US, including the once-denied-by-visa DJ Wildparty who was supposed to show up at Porter Robinson’s show earlier in October. Rock band [alexandros] was literally announced on Friday of the con with a concert on Sunday, curtesy of Bandai Namco and their huge Gundam push. There’s a video out there of them talking about their visa limbo. It is a very 2022 eventer feel for Americans.

Anime NYC 2022 is a big Gundam con. I would say a good fifth of the programs are related to it including guests, screening, and the Alexandros concert. Bannam brought two huge Gundam displays and a large Gundam Base shop, along with other Bannam stuff. It was so big that it took me a while to find where the Tensura and music stuff were sold. Mixbox had a booth as collaborated with MAL, so I guess that technically is also Bannam? Bannam brought over the producer and director to Hathaway’s Flash. I finally got to tell Murase how I feel about Witch Hunter Robin! Maybe it’s blessing in disguise it wasn’t Reina Ueda at the con. Anyways they had a big presence.

Sort of overshadowed by them are Aniplex, and Toei. It’s hard to overshadow the huge One Piece displays they had at the hall, though. Literally a giant Luffy balloon towered over everything there, with regular cosplay gatherings riding on the hot Film Red stuff that’s going on.

Aniplex did their usual best, and I thoroughly enjoyed their panels, or at least the ones I could go to. Kagura panel was a ton of fun, and you can watch it streamed still. The big Mahoyo displays though…it is a vibe, as they say. I guess I need to dust off my Switch for the holidays.

Being mostly an industry thing, ANYC let the big companies bring their stuff, and it worked out because Bannam, Aniplex and Toei are real deals and I am impressed with what they did. Gundam Base did brisk business all weekend. If you spent $500 there you could get front row Alexandros concert. I’m not sure people realizes the value of this.

Alexandros are bros through and through. Two of them are fluent in English so it helped. It’s my first time seeing them in person but these guys are chart topper rockers (and I guess played in NYC in 2018). Still wild that they came with basically 2 days of notice. We were able to coax an encore out of them so that was good.

For reasons, I actually missed out on most of the Mogra stuff. I hated it, but it can’t be helped. The show was combined with the JP DJ with this LA DJ (she’s Taiwanese?) who played basically half the time. LIO from NIOLION was there with Teddy also, who I was able to see on Sunday.

The last thread from ANYC in terms of programming was the Tensura stuff. The movie just came out in Japan and was right after ANYC. Mindaryn and RON from Stereo Dive Foundation came over to do some music from the movie. In fact, Mindaryn had to fly back on Saturday because she has a movie event literally the day after. The mini-concert at the Tensura panel was fun. RON also did a solo show the Wednesday after ANYC (literally day before Thanksgiving) which was basically the same set plus a bunch of his older stuff. RON has written a lot of anime and game music so his solo work from SDF is kind of just scratching the surface of his catalog but do check it out.

What else is there to say? The con is huge–49K plus unique warm bodies, and it’s only because they weren’t booking the entire Javitz. The lines were a non-issue this year due to the lottery system. That said the lottery system is a bit of a mess, so I hope they clean that up for 2023.

On that note, Flow said at their panel at Anime Frontier that they want to go play in NY, because they only played in NJ and toured NY during their off day (sup Anime Next). Maybe this is a sign.

As for the rest of the con, I actually spent most of the time there, despite working Friday. It was crowded, and the exhibit floor was pretty much buzzing most of the time. Since panels were lottery for a good number of them, I didn’t really try to go. I didn’t even get to see Kawasumi… and the aforementioned miss on Mogra DJ left a bad taste in my mouth because I wanted to see them (and even paid VIP..)…well it’s partly my fault, but everything was announced kind of last minute, including the schedule of when the DJs will play. I think those issues aside, ANYC was actually a good time that renergized me (even if it was at the tail end of a eventing spree). Good time with friends were spent, especially making this ANYC special as covid’s grasp on events continue to weaken.

I gave away a bunch of these Minami Saki photo books. They come with a DVD. Not sure how many people even know her at this con... Why do I have these? Someone gave them to me lol.

PS. Eats… if we take the full time from Friday to Wednesday after SDF’s concert… Went to 3 izakayas and they were all pretty good. The Henn na Hotel in Midtown has a proper izakaya inside of it, just really expensive. We went to 2 other places around Grammercy, one being a staple and another more traditional. We ended up getting “hot pot” which is just meat foudue Japanese style. It’s weird. Other spot has become a bit of my regular place with tebasaki and boozy milkshake made from nigori sake. We had late night dimsum on Wednesday after ramen for pre-show pregame. I mean what else is open at 11:30pm the day before Thanksgiving, am I right?

Leave a comment | posted in Conventions and Concerts, Gundam

November 6, 2022

Omonomono Newsletter, November 6 Update

By omo

Two months!

Two months!

Two months and 13 days~

Since the last newsletter, I’ve put up some normal posts. I came back from going to Japan (before they opened up!), one big con, and spent quality time with family. How have you been?

Sign up for these as emails here.

Omonomono Newsletter, 2022-11-06

See you at IDOLM@STER Orchestra? I’m going to Japan again, after this blank of 2.5 months or so. Although I will only be there for about 3-4 days, it would be great to meet up with anyone who I’ve not seen for some time.

Deja vu is not a thing but I have a bunch of events planned from now until next May. It’s nuts and the con season won’t start until April/May next year. As some would say, anime con guests are going to be in “revenge” mode in 2023. Gonna be holding to my rear and grimacing all next year.

Two months is enough to jump cross over one whole Shiny Colors seiyuu drama lol.

Continue reading

Leave a comment | posted in Newsletter

November 4, 2022

Context the Rock

By omo

I’m not fully sure what the angle is to Bocchi the Rock! Evirus isn’t wrong* about the humor aspect, and the anime adaptation carries the cuts, however (slightly) blunted, and the laughs. Yoshino Aoyama does an admirable job with those reactions and fun noises that comes out of Bocchi. It’s a fun anime series that I look forward to enjoying every week.

But to me Bocchi the Rock occupies a particular set of contexts. Here is an anime based on a 4-koma comic from the same magazine that published K-ON, and it existed largely due to the post-K-ON boom of high school girl rock content. The animation takes direct cues from that, and the adaptation also directly pegs some key aspects on K-ON. My spine shivers hearing Ikumi Hasegawa do her version of Mio’s power vocals. When will she cover Don’t say “lazy”?

There is yet another layer to this context where many rock and roll creators are folks with far-from-perfect psyches, each dealing with their phobias, insecurities, and other maladjustments. Sometimes I think good musicians all struggle with some inner problems, darkness or whatever you want to call it. Well, nothing remarkable there I guess, that seems entirely human. Whatever that drives Bocchi to join a rock band is what it is, but these reasons and motivations do run the gamut and having a range of them in the same group is one way to create a remarkable sound or experience. It can make for good art.

At the same time, the way rock bands make art is through dealing with those issues while at it, and this is all assuming the band doesn’t break apart sooner rather than later, of course. Making music can be both creative and/or destructive. Just like any other art.

How do you create great music? What goes on in the minds of successful rock-and-rollers? Isn’t Bocchi the Rock a story that sort of plays on these stereotypes? Yeah. And if the opening to Chainsaw Man was inspirational, Bocchi is a whole TV show of it because that’s in its bones.

Bocchi the Rock is not glamorous, and maybe this is the one big thing that sets it back from its aspirational target, its idol. If anything the sheen of CloverWork’s excellent visuals cut against its faux glam. Regardless, in being the opposite of glamorous, Bocchi the Rock will hit those who gets hit that much harder.

This style or philosophical take on rock and roll is the kind in which art is the window into the mind of the unsettled, the disturbed, the distressed. It’s not glamorous at all. Bocchi’s little band is actually as rock as it gets.

*Turns out there is something shared between Bocchi The Rock and Hitori Bocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu so Evirus is still wrong.

Leave a comment | posted in Bocchi the Rock!, Modern Visual Culture

November 3, 2022

Anime Weekend Atlanta 2022: Wrap

By omo

It’s been about 5 years since my last AWA. Some things didn’t change, others did. For starters I started to just call it “awacon” in chats this year because it’s a bit less ambiguous and it’s what the website and twitter handles read like. Second, the cell connection was terrible at the con. I’m not sure why, but it’s really bad, and worst than I’ve ever had it at any other con, including AWA 2017. I have had better luck at AX and Anime NYC than at AWA, and those cons have maybe 10k more people or more on site on any given day and moment. I also run a full-blown TMO (via Fi) connection as well as a work Verizon LTE sim. Between the two (and downshifting to 4G for the TMO one) sometimes I can get connection. On Saturday this was basically not really possible even.

If I was doing a gripe panel with AWA this has to be my first complaint. Full stop.

Without internet there are a bunch of things I would like to do but didn’t. One is to see who I know is at the con. Another is to look up and research people at their panels so I can be better at asking questions, if any were to be asked. I was able to go to one and a half panels. I spent about half an hour at the Renaissance lobby on the “boarding pass” PC talking to United rep to change my flight. There’s also the issue with my Passkey hotel reservation. Long story short there were a lot of internet/tech issues at this con that may or may not be a big deal that affected me.

So, what did I have to do–call Hyatt because somehow when the reservation went from Passkey (the con block hotel management side) to the individual hotels, my dates were off by 1. After calling reservation for Hyatt, they confirmed that the dates were off by one, and they cannot change it without additional cost. I did end up calling the hotel who told me my dates were actually correctly transferred. Then I changed my hotel reservation anyways–because originally I was only going from Thursday night to Saturday night, and then I changed my mind to stay for Friday to Sunday.

I also had to do the aforementioned United thing. Same-day changing my flight from Thursday night to Friday was easy and free, but it was impossible to not pay to switch from Saturday to Sunday for some reason, via the app and web. I decided to just do it and not worry–maybe leave a terrible review or something.

Because I have no internet, I didn’t really ask much during the BPM15Q panel. I also wasn’t connecting with some local Ps until late Saturday when I was just chilling at the Maggiano’s across the highway. No, I don’t really want to trek back to the gazebo area from there, sorry. Not to mention I didn’t notice the tweet until hours later. This does mean I missed out on some uma cosplayers, sigh.

Anyways, back to AWA this year. I was only interested to see the Japanese guests, and the con did not had a lot of other special content this year. Still I was able to check out Diana Garnet again, and this Voia guy. Seems legit. Both of them served as opening acts for other JP acts like ASCA and BPM15Q. Burnout Syndromes was put up after PIXY.

So yeah, this is kind of a stacked lineup, if you know what these acts are. ASCA was a big reason what anisong kids wanted from AWA. I didn’t particularly leaned either way about ASCA honestly, but I wanted to see her again and hear those best hits. I wanted to see live HOWLING. It does feel she got more into it at AWA versus Boston during the concert, even if the vibe isn’t as chill and cool compared to the ASCA artist image. Which is fine because, well, what she really is in some ways.

Burnout Syndromes to me, before AWA, was a forgettable anisong band with tie-ins for shows I didn’t really care about. The one song that I kind of did, Good Morning World, is a Jump title and I generally have little affinity for acts following Jump anime even when they all bring their A game to big anime nowadays. That said I didn’t have a bad opinion of them or anything, their music had something to offer as far as typical big-label bands go. Thanks to certain someone’s pushing I went to see them and got to learn a lot more about this band, and it really made things interesting to me.

For one, Burnout Syndromes is pretty diverse musically. It’s hard to suss this out partly because their sounds do change a bit between different anisong tie-ins so I don’t always connect them. They’ve been around for a while as well, so it’s hard to get a good sample of what they really sound like “today.” Being diverse musically also didn’t help with communicating their vibe.

What did communicate Burnout’s vibe was seeing them play and speak in person. That vibe is a, uh, dorky group headed by one music mastermind, the frontman, composer, and leader Kazuumi Kumagai. Apparently the 3 current members of the group started in middle school and are still together after all these years. It’s both very simple and yet very artistically clear what and who is doing all the figurative talking. Their music makes sense once you get to see the people behind it. Well obviously it’s the guy who is doing the singing too, but musically there’s this “literary” slant however super-flattened it could be in some ways. Like the hat he wears half of the time. The one rap song he did was a good example. Do people rap with that kind of head gear typically? It’s safe to say this group, even if it’s not up my alley, at least has something worthwhile to see. It’s like a humanities-nerd kind of a vibe.

At the end of the show they were repping their stream that’s later this year that will also have a foreigner-friendly option for watching. I’m not sure if it’s a bridge too far for me, but if you dig Haikyuu songs maybe it’s worth it.

I’m not going to go too deep into ASCA, because I sorta already did, other than to say she’s cool and check her out. Then again ASCA has the kind of anime tie-ins that I watch and it’s always a treat to see her do Hibari in person. And this is someone who didn’t watch too many of the alt Fate stuff. I missed her panel on Friday because I got in late, but she was collaborating with some local streamer type person. She also popped out at the end of ASCA’s show on Saturday? Anyways, I don’t know what is going on with Sacra Music marketing, as usual.

If we go back to two weeks before the con when AWA announced BPM15Q was attending and performing their first US show, I was largely met with surprise and indifference. I vaguely know about CY8ER but I didn’t know much about the Ichigo Rinahamu personality, and all the music and projects Rinahamu started and is still a part of, and this seems like something actually worth flying to alone if everything about BPM15Q is as they say. Turns out, it is as they say. This is the core or basis in which one of the most interesting idol groups in the last 10 years.

Thinking back, this whole idol circus stuff is something now I am somewhat familiar with. You do the photo sessions, you do the watashikai and signkai, you talk to them, to do the wota moves and calls, and you enjoy yourself. As with typical East Coast cons, the number of people who indulges and knows the ropes are probably in the handfuls, at any given event. Having probably the worst slot at the con (last show on Sunday afternoon), BPM15Q still made the con for me. Imagine people finding out about them at the show–the reception of BPM15Q at the con would have been a lot better.

I can see why Rinahamu is who they say she is, because she’s definitely left a mark in my mind. In another way, nicamoq also left her mark, but she’s playing it more straight and my comm skills are probably not strong enough to really enjoy this…funny/charming idol. I don’t know what to say, just that Rinahamu slayed it at the concert, and it was what one could call an “unforgettable experience.” I’m not so sure it’s actually unforgettable, but it’s like being branded by cattle iron sort of thing. It left a very deep impression. It’s something about Rinahamu’s face, her expressions, the way she pumps up the crowd, the way she ad-libbed the stage positions and dances, and it’s really a full package deal.

The show itself is basically just the two of the members dancing to Teddyloid’s backing. It’s basically nearly non-stop dance mixes. There was a cover portion where we got Go, Butterfly, 君の知らない物語, and Renai Circulation. Musically this is the kind of denpa-inspired idol music, but updated for the 2020s. I had a nice place by the railing on the Hamu side of the catwalk, and I went as ham as I could at times. I had a blast.

Fake Star brought all these talents to AWA, including BPM15Q (but except ASCA), who is direct from Sony/Sacra). There were VIPs for PIXY and Burnout. There were photo sessions for BPM15Q all 3 days and sign sessions all 3 days. People went to Burnout’s sessions after their Friday night show, but most didn’t know about BPM15Q and their show was at the end of the con. This means literally a dozen or two people were at all their sessions. It’s too bad, but at least I didn’t have to compete for anything.

It’s not with much expectations I went with AWA, but I left with some deep memories that I hope doesn’t blossom or fester into something else lol. The lack of cell signal does sting because I couldn’t hang out with anyone easily other than the folks I already made plans with before the con.

I wish I can see BPM15Q’s show again, that is the foremost thing this con left me with. I got to shoot the chitchat with some folks. I had fun escaping reality into fuwa-fuwa denpa dream idol land. I enjoyed some music culture. I said hi and seen some faces that I have not for ages. It’s all good.

Leave a comment | posted in Conventions and Concerts, Modern Visual Culture

October 17, 2022

So, You Want to Go See Masters Of Idol World 2023?

By omo

Back around 2013/2014 we knew IDOLM@STER series will do a splashy show for the 10th anniversary year. We sort of got together to get something organized, and for the most part it went as well as things could have gone. With MOIW 2023 now in the horizon, maybe it’s time to review a few things.

For starters, the ticketing situation in Japan has gotten much harder than just “walk in and apply.” There are a bunch of factors to understand. For one, after COVID, many anisong shows have a big drop in attendance. Most concerts in Japan are still on their way to recovery in terms of attendance in 2022, but to put it into perspective, the summer big show, Anisama 2022, only really had packed seats on Saturday. Day tickets could have been had at the door on all three days, and those days don’t even have 100% seating utilization. The stands were at 50% on Sunday and both stands and arena were 50% on Friday.

Anyways, this is the biggest factor because fundamentally, some things have changed. Thankfully, it’s not that much.

Because of COVID, ticketing has largely moved to digital. There are still physical tickets for many shows, but some companies have completely moved to digital. For our purposes Bandai Namco has, anyways. Specifically, between eplus and OnlineTicket/Smart Ticket, it means ticket holders needs to map to account holders, for the most part.

No thanks to scalping laws pre-COVID, many ticket sites require verified JP phone numbers to even open an account now. This is probably the biggest barrier for oversea Producers trying to get tickets. The upside about this restriction is that you can get a sim card or perhaps even a rental phone, even as a tourist, in Japan, that can be used for this purpose. The downside is that there are few ways to obtain a permanent number that works oversea for this purposes, and no real way at all for most people outside of the country (or at least non-Japan residents).

The second barrier to going to see MOIW is the actual obtaining the ticket part. Besides having tickets within your ownership, you will need the same account if you want to apply to buy tickets, which means having a JP phone number at some point and having to register it with the account. In other words, to apply for the lottery, you need to rely on people who are already in Japan, or people who have already figured this out from overseas (due to being grandfathered in or something). Thankfully, the MOIW 2023 Asobi Store round ticket lottery allows each account to apply up to 4 tickets, both days (or up to 4 per day and there are also “through” tickets that include both days). Well, all the aforementioned barriers plus the smaller problem of that currently, there are no easy way to pay for it using oversea credit cards.

Enterprising Ps should be able to find someone who has an eplus account and have that person apply and get tickets for your fam for now, during the lottery rounds. Then worry about sending out the extra tickets to each person once you land in Japan.

These ticketing barriers are not exactly new, as some of these things were already pretty hard in 2018-2019 trying to get tickets via eplus. Either you had to figure out a payment system (like what used to work such as Mixi M), or had help from someone local. What is definitely harder is trying to get a phone number, as Japan really locked down the prepaid sim process and requiring residency proof.

So first thing everyone should do is flag themselves as interested for those who want and can go next Feb. Then people can organize lottery pools to at least get the right number of tickets.

If that falls through for you, the next step is to plan the next (and future) rounds of lottery. There will likely be direct ticket sales for this, as there were for MOIW 2015. And if things are as “bad” as they are, odds are good there will be even at-door ticket sales. It should not be too hard to get tickets to this show, much like how it wasn’t hard to get tickets for MOIW 2015.

I realize a Japan trip is hard to plan on these vague chances, but that’s the reality today. I hope at least the fan groups can get together and communicate and at least lower that uncertainty a bit. It could be a good thing or it could be just getting the bad news sooner so you have a chance to do something about it.

Leave a comment | posted in Conventions and Concerts, Idolmaster