Another Otakon, come and gone,
T'was a very fruitful and full convention as usual. One difference this time around was me getting shoehorned into helping my best friend shoot some video for a website he's doing some side work at, Anime3000.com. His big bit there is how he runs a show called KUSO! A Howard Stern/That Guy With The Glasses-like comedy show where he plays an mentally unstable, leather jacket wearing persona that screams about anime he doesn't like (which is basically how he is in real life).
The convention started on Friday where there wasn't really a whole lot of stuff that we were interested in going on in the morning, so that time was pretty much spent with me taking a few cosplay photos and [crowded!] environment footage. Afterwards, we both attended a Johnny Yong Bosch Q&A panel. Really cool and funny guy, during the last half hour of his panel he busted out his guitar and started singing all his A's to the Q's. When that was done we went to, or at least TRIED to get to the Nobuo Uematsu Q&A, but the line was already at full capacity like 45 minutes before the panel was actually going to start and the room that it was being held in is like the tiniest ass panel in the whole convention center. So we pretty much said "fuck that" and killed a good amount of time in the Artist Alley and Dealer's Room. I met back up with Steve from the Artist Alley (that guy from AP and the SHAMAN KING forum back in the day that I mentioned last year) got up to speed with him, chatted, then me and my friend both went to the FUNimaiton panel happening later in the evening, where I was fortunate enough to sit next to yet another Arlong Parker! My friend got to sit in the super special press row (but he also had to put up with annoying fangirls randomly quoting "The Abridged Series", so ha!).
Now Saturday was the big day for us (as it usually is). For me, it was the day of the One Piece photoshoot and Podcast Pizza Party event, and for my friend managed to finally catch up with the guy who runs Anime3000, as well as a few moments with Patrick Seitz. And both of us got to spend some time with the current console build of KING OF FIGHTERS XIII in the game room. In fact thats actually how the day started out! It was actually one of the big highlights of the whole convention. We're both kind of fighting game nuts and KOFXIII is actually still in its development process (the console version at least) so without going into overly long details, the gameplay is awesome, fun, it looks fantastic visually and its very user friendly. And with the pre-order bonus being a 4-disc soundtrack, I think I know what I'm getting come October. Just outside the game hall was where the photoshoot took place. It was fun, but I kinda wish the folks who organized the whole thing managed to get the outdoor fountain location like last year. There was actually a nice a breeze outside making the heat much much more tolerable plus there would've been more room, the this year's photoshoot was, we were smack dab in the middle of traffic with everyone cramped (and albeit smelly). It was still good fun though, and then it was lunchtime!
This was the best part of Saturday by far, I got to meet up with The Dude the rest of the guys from New Pork City whom I've never actually met face to face before! Had a great time eating and shooting the breeze with the rest of them. At one point that animated show "The Critic" came into discussion and all of us started chanting "BUY MY BOOK" making everyone in the UNOs look our way. It was hilarious. Afterwards the podcast guys did had a little trivia question segment outside the restaurant (I won a 7 year old issue of Anime Insider, yay!), my friend broke off to see Patrick Seitz, and I pretty much hung around with my NPC friends, derping around the Dealer's Room and getting some more cosplay photos. We eventually made our way to the theater where the new FMA movie was showing. The line to get in was out to wahzoo and it wasn't but an hour and a half before the movie would actually show, so I decided just to play a few more KOFXIII games in hall next door ( I broke off from the rest of the NPC crew around here). I also managed to break a M.Bison winning streak at a TV with Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition playing, I didn't realize just how many people were afraid of T.Hawk (I think he'll take Guile's place as my main for this version). The last few things me and my friend did on Saturday were attend the Sunrise and BANDAI panels back-to-back. They were pretty cool and interesting. Tiger and Bunny seems to be the "it" anime this year. I've heard nothing but great things about the show so I want to get on it ASAP. One of the things that I was excited me from BANDAI was the bilingual ANIME LEGENDS release of the original Mobile Suit Gundam. There was also a guest appearance by Hiro Yura, musical director for a lot of BANDAI properties. He chatted a bit about directing the score for the Haruhi Suzumiya movie and even showed off some mad violin skillz. It was actually an interesting panel (aside from that K-ON sing along business :/).
Now Sundays are usually the lightest of days with the whole convention center closing in the afternoon. I swung by the artist alley one more time just to say goodbye to Steve, killed some time over at the FUNimation Sneak Peeks panel before the VIZ MEDIA panel (there was actually such a light crowd that people who were lined up for VIZ jumped into the last segment of the Tiger and Bunny Q&A session, which actually kind of cool, the creator of the show seemed really awesome and wanted everyone to get photos of T&B cosplayers to show off in Japan. Like I mentioned before, I wanna check this show out ASAP. The VIZ panel was also pretty nifty and I was kind of shocked to learn that they plan to bring over One Piece Color Walk 2, I thought they abandoned the art books for good but damn. I know already have up to Color Walk 5 in Japanese but this seems really cool, the VIZ rep mentioned that they were going to produce them in a higher quality than the Japanese original so I'll have to see how that turns out. After that, it was just some shopping, browsing and closing out of the Dealer's Room, filming of the closing my friend's show and then a drive on back to think about whats going to be in store for next year. If anyone was there, sorry if I missed you! I look forward to Otakon 2012 next July!
Oh yeah, My photos are all uploaded to my Facebook and Photobucket accounts. Check 'em out at your leisure, a lot of 'em aren't that great anyway.
The convention started on Friday where there wasn't really a whole lot of stuff that we were interested in going on in the morning, so that time was pretty much spent with me taking a few cosplay photos and [crowded!] environment footage. Afterwards, we both attended a Johnny Yong Bosch Q&A panel. Really cool and funny guy, during the last half hour of his panel he busted out his guitar and started singing all his A's to the Q's. When that was done we went to, or at least TRIED to get to the Nobuo Uematsu Q&A, but the line was already at full capacity like 45 minutes before the panel was actually going to start and the room that it was being held in is like the tiniest ass panel in the whole convention center. So we pretty much said "fuck that" and killed a good amount of time in the Artist Alley and Dealer's Room. I met back up with Steve from the Artist Alley (that guy from AP and the SHAMAN KING forum back in the day that I mentioned last year) got up to speed with him, chatted, then me and my friend both went to the FUNimaiton panel happening later in the evening, where I was fortunate enough to sit next to yet another Arlong Parker! My friend got to sit in the super special press row (but he also had to put up with annoying fangirls randomly quoting "The Abridged Series", so ha!).
Now Saturday was the big day for us (as it usually is). For me, it was the day of the One Piece photoshoot and Podcast Pizza Party event, and for my friend managed to finally catch up with the guy who runs Anime3000, as well as a few moments with Patrick Seitz. And both of us got to spend some time with the current console build of KING OF FIGHTERS XIII in the game room. In fact thats actually how the day started out! It was actually one of the big highlights of the whole convention. We're both kind of fighting game nuts and KOFXIII is actually still in its development process (the console version at least) so without going into overly long details, the gameplay is awesome, fun, it looks fantastic visually and its very user friendly. And with the pre-order bonus being a 4-disc soundtrack, I think I know what I'm getting come October. Just outside the game hall was where the photoshoot took place. It was fun, but I kinda wish the folks who organized the whole thing managed to get the outdoor fountain location like last year. There was actually a nice a breeze outside making the heat much much more tolerable plus there would've been more room, the this year's photoshoot was, we were smack dab in the middle of traffic with everyone cramped (and albeit smelly). It was still good fun though, and then it was lunchtime!
This was the best part of Saturday by far, I got to meet up with The Dude the rest of the guys from New Pork City whom I've never actually met face to face before! Had a great time eating and shooting the breeze with the rest of them. At one point that animated show "The Critic" came into discussion and all of us started chanting "BUY MY BOOK" making everyone in the UNOs look our way. It was hilarious. Afterwards the podcast guys did had a little trivia question segment outside the restaurant (I won a 7 year old issue of Anime Insider, yay!), my friend broke off to see Patrick Seitz, and I pretty much hung around with my NPC friends, derping around the Dealer's Room and getting some more cosplay photos. We eventually made our way to the theater where the new FMA movie was showing. The line to get in was out to wahzoo and it wasn't but an hour and a half before the movie would actually show, so I decided just to play a few more KOFXIII games in hall next door ( I broke off from the rest of the NPC crew around here). I also managed to break a M.Bison winning streak at a TV with Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition playing, I didn't realize just how many people were afraid of T.Hawk (I think he'll take Guile's place as my main for this version). The last few things me and my friend did on Saturday were attend the Sunrise and BANDAI panels back-to-back. They were pretty cool and interesting. Tiger and Bunny seems to be the "it" anime this year. I've heard nothing but great things about the show so I want to get on it ASAP. One of the things that I was excited me from BANDAI was the bilingual ANIME LEGENDS release of the original Mobile Suit Gundam. There was also a guest appearance by Hiro Yura, musical director for a lot of BANDAI properties. He chatted a bit about directing the score for the Haruhi Suzumiya movie and even showed off some mad violin skillz. It was actually an interesting panel (aside from that K-ON sing along business :/).
Now Sundays are usually the lightest of days with the whole convention center closing in the afternoon. I swung by the artist alley one more time just to say goodbye to Steve, killed some time over at the FUNimation Sneak Peeks panel before the VIZ MEDIA panel (there was actually such a light crowd that people who were lined up for VIZ jumped into the last segment of the Tiger and Bunny Q&A session, which actually kind of cool, the creator of the show seemed really awesome and wanted everyone to get photos of T&B cosplayers to show off in Japan. Like I mentioned before, I wanna check this show out ASAP. The VIZ panel was also pretty nifty and I was kind of shocked to learn that they plan to bring over One Piece Color Walk 2, I thought they abandoned the art books for good but damn. I know already have up to Color Walk 5 in Japanese but this seems really cool, the VIZ rep mentioned that they were going to produce them in a higher quality than the Japanese original so I'll have to see how that turns out. After that, it was just some shopping, browsing and closing out of the Dealer's Room, filming of the closing my friend's show and then a drive on back to think about whats going to be in store for next year. If anyone was there, sorry if I missed you! I look forward to Otakon 2012 next July!
Oh yeah, My photos are all uploaded to my Facebook and Photobucket accounts. Check 'em out at your leisure, a lot of 'em aren't that great anyway.