Animazement With Alex
[Edit: all three focus panel I was at are up]
Some roads are best traveled with a group.
I’ve said this before and I’m going to say it again–Animazement is one of the best American convention for Japanese guest seekers. And I think it is also one of the better cons for guests as well. While it’s common that the guests’ interaction with us selfish American fans become a taxing exercise for both, it is also done with a genuine sense of respect and admiration, usually from both sides. At a little con like Animazement, with attendance a fraction of larger (the Friday panel only drew 110 or so attendees), well-known cons, Mitsuishi gets peppered with flowers and gifts. Even at Otakon and other large cons, this is uncommon.
Much can be also said that this is the only con where lines are rarity rather than the regular expectation. The hotel that hosted Animazement is really too small for the con. In order to accommodate, there were tents set up for daily registration as well as an entire additional panel room in a large tent outside. Because there was very little lining up to do, and a lot of outdoor spaces were utilized, the convention hotel didn’t feel overly cramped (although it was still pretty cramped at times). It’s almost impressive.
Weather was on our side this weekend. It was a laid-back slice of country-style Americana mixed with your usual horde of weeaboo teens dressed as Misa and Ichigo. Conga lines and drum circles, Sunday sermons and running randomly into Japanese guests when the clock strikes midnight, only seeing them in a cosplay. All we’re missing is a nice grill-out. Or golf. Or NASCAR. Being somewhat middle-of-nowhere yet biggest-named-guests-ever is an unique thing to this humble anime convention.
But at the same time it makes for even more of a surreal experience. American anime cons are surreal enough as it is–a clash of not just two different cultures (and the myriad subcultures involved), but of generations, and of what is real and what is not. It brings all sorts of fans under the roof of a large convention center, or inside a small panel room. And there are really all sorts of anime fans. Ones that peppers her with Ebichu questions, for instance. Speaking of Ebichu, I wasn’t the only one onto it–she made the note herself well enough. Indeed, out of the hundreds of works she did why did us Americans home on on that one?
Anyways, this was a very good convention, even if it is a very relaxing, laid back, full of nothing much to do kind of con. The dealer’s room was homely and a little cramped on Saturday and Sunday, but it has all one would expect. I broke my own rule about watching anime at a con and watched Rebuild of Eva episode 1, a surprisingly good choice considering Mitsuishi did reprise her line live just not too long before I watched it. On Saturday we retreated to the hotel room for some pizza and I watched Kara no Kyoukai and Macross Frontier along with DAIOH JAMBO while Alex goofed off online. Basroil and his son went for the Dragon Ball panels, which in retrospect was a better choice probably. The game room was pretty average. The video rooms small but does what it’s suppose to do. Panels are lulz or yawn, as per usual. SG is still at it with his thing, very cool.
The one notable piece of programming was the seiyuu concert. Akira Kamiya and Takako Furukawa runs some kind of musical operation back in Japan with a band and all, and they reproduced the experience for us. Kumiko Watanabe and Jouji Nakata also joined in for a little act…
But what was cool was Ryuusei Nakao’s songs and playing, which brought the show together and got it away from “corny” to “alright, I can dig this” as we’re stripped of the karaoke soundtracks, now replaced with some plain acoustic guitar strumming. It was pretty neat.
It also made possible for me to experiment with the giving away of random glow sticks. I think I am going to do something like this for Otakon, if the situation works out.
What other tidbits? Besides my personal non-con related adventures, not much. At the Gundam panel I asked like 3 questions because the attendance was so crappy. Fukuda was already apologetic enough about GSD that it was not too cool to pounce him more. Instead I started out asking about working with his wife, which drew a few chuckles with a degree of candor that was appreciated but it was pretty visible he can be a little annoyed. Eventually the question turned more to generally how he got into the (un)enviable position he is in. He is a fairly big sci-fi guy and enjoyed old school shows like the 6M$ Man, for example. Note that he is a ST:TOS kind of guy.
Videos - Best to just stay tuned to my Animazement 2008 playlist. It’s mostly my videos but I’ve added some from others, and will continue for a bit. Actually I got a bunch of videos from the seiyuu show being encoded right now…
Pictures - Not much that I haven’t posted already, but here are a couple loot pix.
Panel transcriptions:
- Kotono Mitsuishi on Saturday
- Keiko Han & Kotono Mitsuishi on Friday
- Gundam panel with Fukuda, Mitsuishi and Han on Friday
I think last year’s Animazement also had one of the best guest lists of any convention, if it’s the convention I’m thinking of.
Smaller cons are way better for interaction with guests than a large one like Otakon, where guests seem to be herded through the mess by con staff. It’s a trade-off. Sometimes there’s long stretches with nothing you want to do except hang out.
I preregistered for last year’s Animazement (Kikuko Inoue and Satsuki Yukino, \o/) but had to back out the last minute. Sucks.
To be honest, you can get some good guest time at large cons as well. It just depends on a lot of details that the attentive guest-seeking con goer needs to mind. Doesn’t guarantee it will happen, but the likelihood increases if you know what you’re doing.
Update: I’m a tad elated (cons are such good sources of endorphin!) but it’s awesome when you can see yourself on Mitsuishi’s blog. It seems that she took a lot of pictures over the course of the con, including the one sailor moon shot which I will add to the Keiko Han/Mitsuishi panel comments…
Yeah, read the rest of her blog for the trip. Insightful.
I didn’t even see you at one of my panels, which one did you attend? :V
I think I skipped out on MSTing for more sleeping and the internets. I am getting too old :V