Otaku no Podcast » Conventions

Heads up: Anime Los Angeles starts tomorrow!

Donald Burr — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:28:46 +0000

Heads up, people – Anime Los Angeles is coming tomorrow to the LAX Airport Marriott

5855 W. Century Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90045
1-800-228-9290

Guests include Chris Carson, Stan Sakai, Dave Merrilll, Kyle Hebert, Jon Allen, Lauren Landa, Stephen Weese, Panda Cubed, Jonathan “Jake” Tarbox, Kaiji Tang, Julie Rei Goldstein, Jessica Straus, Danielle McRae, Derek Stephen Prince, Craig Miller, and Mark Allen Jr. And of course there’ll be the usual anime con fare, including a rather nice dealer’s room, artist’s alley, musical guests, cosplay masquerade (and tons of hall cosplay too), dances, gaming (both tabletop and console), and oh so much more.

Pre-reg is sadly closed, so you’ll have to register at the door. Prices are $25 for Friday, $35 for Saturday, or $20 for Sunday. And with their “Parent-in-Tow” program, any attendee 14 years or younger can bring a grown up for free. (It doesn’t have to be a parent; it can be a sibling, other relative, teacher, guardian, etc.)

For more information, you can check out their website; however the latest and greatest information can be found in their awesome downloadable schedule, which you can get using the free Guidebook app (available for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Android, Windows Phone 7, and BlackBerry devices).

Unfortunately, through a strange twist of fate, none of the Otaku no Podcast regulars will be able to make it to con (contrary to what I said in our most recent ChibiCast). I may be able to attend one day (most likely Saturday) but that is still unknown. So con coverage this year may be, erm, somewhat lacking. Gomen nasai.

Hentai PC dating-sim games at J-List

The PMX 2011 Meta-Post of Doom!

Donald Burr — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:16:35 +0000

You’re probably wondering “gee, where the hell has the Otaku no Podcast crew been?! Surely they must be back from PMX by now!” Yes, in fact we have been back for a few days; however one of us is more or less incommunicado while she’s helping to housesit for a relative…. and I have contracted the Dreaded Con Plague of Doom. (Remember, people: Emergen-C. LOTS of Emergen-C.)

I hope to be in a well enough shape to record our inevitable PMX wrap-up podcast episode this weekend. And I’ve started finally ingesting the video and photos we took while at the show, and hope to have those posted over the next week or so as well. But in the meantime, I’ve started gathering up other peoples’ PMX-related postings, in particular photos and videos, and present them here for your enjoyment.

(Note: I will be constantly updating this post as I find more peoples’ photos and videos, so check back often! And if you know of any PMX 2011 photo and/or video posts that I don’t, please let us know so we can update this post.)

ChillyWillyTube’s PMX cosplay video
Mike Rollerson’s PMX 2011 Photos (Facebook) (Flickr)
Ani.me PMX Photo Studio photos (Facebook) (Flickr)

Going to PMX? Got a smartphone? Get the PMX schedule on it with Guidebook!

Donald Burr — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 05:45:36 +0000

One of the benefits of today’s modern smartphones is easy, instant access to the data you need wherever and whenever you are. As anime fans and con-goers, this is especially desirable for us. Not having to fuss around with clunky paper-based schedules is something we’ve dreamed of for quite some time. And thankfully, a company has risen to the occasion and has created a solution for us – Guidebook.

The Guidebook app, available for free on both iOS and Android, is beautifully and elegantly designed. With it you can access convention schedules, exhibitor info (dealer’s room), main event info, maps and more. As you browse through the list of events, you can mark events you’re interested in and add them to your own personal schedule list. And, best of all, you can configure the program to warn you before an event starts!

If you’re part of a group organizing an anime convention, you might want to contact then about getting a guide made up for your event. From what I hear the rates are quite reasonable. In fact, at one point they were making guides for smaller organizations for free.

Speaking of guides (yes, I’m finally coming to the point), PMX, which is coming up in just a few days now, now has a guide in Guidebook! If you’re at all interested in going, and own an iOS (iPhone, iPod touch or iPad) or Android smartphone or tablet, you’ll definitely want to go grab the shiny new PMX Guidebook guide!

Download the free GuideBook app today for iOS or Android. Once you have the app installed, run it, click the “Download guides” button and search for the “Pacific Media Expo” guide (also free).

Reminder: PMX is this coming weekend!

Donald Burr — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 20:19:50 +0000

This is just a heads-up – PMX is coming up this weekend – Friday through Sunday, November 11-13, at the LAX Hilton:

Hilton Los Angeles Airport
5711 West Century Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90045
1-310-410-4000

Check out the PMX website for full details on the guests of honor and the various events that will be going on (there are a lot of ‘em!). Also, the schedules are now online and can be downloaded in PDF format as a print-ready black and white or color version.

And, as I mentioned earlier, we will be running three panels/workshops!

“Otaku Podcasting for the Complete n00b,” Friday November 11 at 5 PM in LP2 (Los Angeles B) is basically the same old podcasting talk we gave at AX, Fanime, and Anime LA. If you’ve seen it already, you don’t need to come, but why not do so anyway to show your support? And if you don’t know what in blazes I’m talking about, then please come on by! If you’ve ever wanted to know how we run this dog and pony show called Otaku no Podcast, we will show you how it’s done, and you’ll learn that it is not only easy to do, but cheap as well. (which is why even weirdos like us can do it).

“Con Photography 101,” Saturday November 12 at 12 noon in LP2 (Los Angeles B) is for all you costly photographers out there. Ever come home from a day of shooting at con only to be met with pain and disappointment when you load up your pictures and look at them? Well, we’re here to help! If you’ve seen this talk before, you may still want to come anyway, because we’ve reorganized it somewhat. We’ll be focusing in (heh, pun) on tips and techniques for point and shoot camera owners first, but we’ll also cover what you DSLR owners can do as well (and why you point and shooters might want to upgrade). Besides, there will be swag!

And finally, Otaku no Podcast co-host and noted doll enthuses Michelle “Ms. Geek” Klein-Hass will be putting on a Dollfie Dream/Obitsu Doll Panel on Sunday November 13 at 2 PM in Workshops (Marina).

Online pre-registration is still open as well, and will be open throughout the con (trust me, folks, it’s a real time-saver). Prices are $50 for a full 3-day adult membership; $20 for a single-day adult membership (Friday or Sunday) or $35 for Saturday; $15 for children 12 and under; and children 5 and under get in for free. (Children must be accompanied by a paying adult). A 20% group discount is also available for groups of 5 or more who register together.

Click for J-List now!

PMX 2011 preliminary schedules are now up!

Donald Burr — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 19:37:08 +0000

Good news everyone – the PMX preliminary schedules are now up! They’re available in PDF form as a print-ready black and white or color version.

I would like to point your attention at 3 panels in particular. (Yes, as you might have guessed, we will be running some panels of our own!)

“Con Photography 101,” Saturday November 12 at 12 noon in LP2 (Los Angeles B) is for all you costly photographers out there. Ever come home from a day of shooting at con only to be met with pain and disappointment when you load up your pictures and look at them? Well, we’re here to help! If you’ve seen this talk before (yes, we’ve given this one before as well), you may still want to come anyway, because we’ve reorganized it somewhat. We’ll be focusing in (heh, pun) on tips and techniques for point and shoot camera owners first, but we’ll also cover what you DSLR owners can do as well (and why you point and shooters might want to upgrade). Besides, there will be swag!

And finally, Otaku no Podcast co-host and noted doll enthusiast Michelle “Ms. Geek” Klein-Hass will be putting on a Dollfie Dream/Obitsu Doll Panel on Sunday November 13 at 2 PM in Workshops (Marina).

For more information on PMX, including guests of honor and other events, check out the PMX website. Online pre-registration is still open as well. Prices are $40 for an Adult Full (Fri-Sun) membership (before Nov 5th) or $50 (after November 5); $20 for a single-day adult membership (Friday or Sunday) or $35 for Saturday; $15 for children 12 and under; and children 5 and under get in for free. (Children must be accompanied by a paying adult). A 20% group discount is also available for groups of 5 or more who register together.

J-List is a peaceful island of Japanese pop culture for you

Did you miss Mikunopolis? We’ve got you covered!

Donald Burr — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 04:37:30 +0000

Are you sad that you missed out on what was quite possibly THE event of the new millennium? Don’t fret, we’ve got you covered. We’ve uploaded our video from the Mikunopolis concert to our YouTube channel. Go check ‘em out today!

But first, the bad news. Unfortunately, the press weren’t exactly given the best seats in the house — I suspect they saved the best angles/camera positions for their own use. Also, due to the nature of on-camera microphones, the sound quality isn’t exactly world-class. (I did use a shotgun mic so the quality is probably a bit better than your garden variety camcorder.) Also, they only let us record the first 6 songs (the first 7 if you count Project DIVA desu), and while these first few songs were awesome, the ones that came later were even more spectacular.

And the good news? These videos will still give you a taste of how incredible this show was to behold. You’ll get to see and hear how terrific Miku and friends (and especially their backing band) were.

If you really wanted to see the live show in person and are bummed that you missed it, don’t fret! I have a feeling that Miku and friends will be returning to the States before too long. Keep an eye on the Mikunopolis site as I’m sure they’ll announce future concert dates and locations there. (Of course, as soon as we hear about any possible future Mikunopolis dates, we’ll be sure and tell you as well.)

Also, I understand that they will be releasing an official concert DVD (and Blu-Ray too, hopefully) later this year. We’ll definitely let you know about it when it goes on sale, so keep an eye on the Otaku no Podcast website as well as our Twitter and Facebook accounts. (Or, if you’re the impatient sort, you can get the Blu-ray of the Japanese concert today, thanks to our good friends at J-List/J-Box.)

Finally, this is by no means the end of our AX coverage; there is still tons more to come. Besides the second half of our recap/review podcast episode of Doom (which should be going up tonight), there are tons more interviews, video and photos, which will be going up over the next few weeks to come. So stay tuned!

Hentai PC dating-sim games at J-List

Anime Expo 2011 videos are hitting the Otaku no Podcast YouTube channel

Donald Burr — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 19:10:11 +0000

First of all, yes, I am well aware that there are no Anime Expo Day 2-4 updates. I’m sorry, but I just wasn’t able to get them done. By the time we got back to our hotel room each night, it was too late and we were way too tired to write anything even remotely coherent. Besides, bandwidth was pretty much crap, so even if I did write something, it would be next to impossible to post it. This weekend we’re planning on getting together to record our Anime Expo review/recap episode of doom, panel-style as usual, so that will serve as our final AX update of doom.

But the AX coverage doesn’t stop there! Besides recapping the veritable cornucopia of new anime licenses, releases and other news to come out of AX, we will also be posting, over the next few weeks, audio, photos, and videos that we took while at Anime Expo. The first such fruits of our convention-going labor are now up on our YouTube channel. We were able to sit down and chat with MegaTokyo webcomic creator Fred “Piro” Gallagher and voice actor, director, script adapter, former child actor, and all-around multitalented guy Taliesin Jaffe about their various projects and other sundry topics.

Go check them out now!

PC dating-sim games @ J-List

Anime Expo 2011 Day 0 & 1 Report

Donald Burr — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 19:12:20 +0000

Anime Expo 2011 Day 1 has drawn to a close. Actually we’ve been here since Thursday, aka Day 0. So at long last here is our writeup!

Day 0 was spent mostly getting here, followed by press interviews. We had the great honor of interviewing Fred Gallagher of MegaTokyo fame, as well as the multi-talented Taliesin Jaffe. Those should be hitting the podcast feeds along with our inevitable panel discussion recap episode of doom.

We then trekked over to the LA Convention Center for press badge pick-up. We had a bit of difficulty finding it, but were eventually able to get there. Fortunately there was only a short line, not like the line of gargantuan proportions that was the pre-reg badge pickup line. Press badge pickup went pretty smoothly.

We were in a rather unique situation in that we are both press, as well as disabled. They weren’t really expecting this odd twist, and it took us a while to get referred to the proper people. Coordinating badge pickup, ticketing, etc. for the disabled is still one of their weak points; there was an awful lot of walking back and forth involved. However we can’t fault the staff, as everyone was friendly and willing to go the extra mile to help out. The AX staff is making a conscious effort to educate their staff and volunteers on good customer relations.

Unfortunately the same can’t be said for convention center staff. For one thing there is still a definite shortage of them. Last year this lack of personnel led to a rather disastrous accident suffered by one of our panelists; fortunately, so far, knock on wood, we’ve escaped unscathed this year. However one run-in with con center staff left a decidedly sour taste in our mouth. Due to physical disability we had to take a taxi to the convention center, and as the driver was pulling up to the hall we wanted to exit at, a con center staffer rushed up and accosted us saying that we couldn’t even pull up there. This greatly angered our driver, so much so that he even offered to give us a reduced fare if we called him when we needed to return to the hotel.

We didn’t make it to the con until late afternoon, and as a result we missed a few industry panels, at which some rather interesting announcements were made.

First up, the NIS America panel, NIS America is a company better known for its English localizations of popular Japanese tactical role playing titles such as Disgaea and Phantom Brave. What many people don’t know (well, at least what I didn’t know until now) is that they also license some anime titles. And they came out with two rather interesting announcements in that vein. They announced that they have licensed Kimi ni Todoke and Dororon Enma-kun for North American distribution. Kimi ni Todoke came as a welcome surprise, and I so called this one in our 2010 wrap-up episode. KnT is an absolutely sweet, endearing story and one that anyone, not just shoujo fans, will heartily enjoy. Expect it to come out in two sets of 13 episodes each, with the first box shipping sometime in October, and the second one shipping at some unspecified later date. However, it’s the licensing of Emma-kun, a strange and rather poorly rated horror-comedy, and a rather old one at that (originally aired in 1973), that has the anime blogosphere flummoxed. Ain’t it Cool Anime News remarked, rather incredulously, that “that’s about the least expected anime license ever,” while Narutaki of the Reverse Thieves quips, “This might be the most poorly thought out license of the year.” There’s no news about release dates, only that they hope to have more information by next year’s Anime Expo. So don’t expect this one anytime soon.

Next up is Right Stuf/Nozomi Entertainment, who announced that it has acquired the license for more of the (original) Dirty Pair as well as Dirty Pair Flash, Gasaraki, and Martian Successor Nadesico, along with the Gekigangar 3 video. This is welcome news for us old school anime fans. I’m particularly looking forward to the re-release of Nadesico, as this is a great title for relative newcomers to the genre which I have been unable to recommend since it’s been out of print for a while.

At the Aniplex USA panel, we learned the exciting (but not terribly surprising, at least IMHO) news that Puella Magi Madoka Magica has been licensed. (Although this was suspected for a while now, since they registered the domain for an apparent US Madoka Magica website late last month, and the site went live early this morning and was noticed by sharp-eyed net stalkers.) This series has been generating quite a bit of controversy on the intarwebs, and has turned the whole magical girl genre on its ear, and it’s no surprise (at least to us) that it was snapped up — the only surprise was that it took them this long to do so. They also announced that they picked up the license for Blue Exorcist; the first of four DVD volumes will ship in October, with the remaining volumes tentatively scheduled for January, April and July of next year.

Viz announced that they will be releasing Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva as well as Bleach: Fade to Black – Kimi no Na o Yobu, joining the over 9,000 other Bleach properties out there. Bleach is due out on November 15 on both DVD and Blu-ray, while no details of the Professor Layton release have been announced yet.

Finally, FUNimation announced a veritable cornucopia of releases, including Deadman Wonderland, Steins;Gate, Baka to Test, B Gata H Kei (to be known as “Yamada’s First Time”), and Asobi no Iku yo! (previously known as “Bombshells from the Sky,” but apparently now to be called “Cat Planet Cuties.”) They also added DVD, Blu-ray, digital and broadcast distribution rights for the anime “C.” B Gata H Kei, in particular, is a fun and funny story about a girl, Yamada, and her quest to garner 100, ahem, “sex partners” before she graduates. Scandalous as this plot may sound, IMHO there is comparatively little hanky panky in the actual show — yes, maybe some mildly suggestive scenes, but nothing compared to a certain other infamous title. It plays out as more of a saucy and funny romantic comedy. Hopefully its US release won’t generate the same controversy it did back in Japan.

The one panel we did make it to was the Hatsune Miku Keynote, hosted by Hiroyuki Itoh and Wataru Sasaki of Crypton Future Media, the creators of Hatsune Miku and other Vocaloids, and the #1 music software distributor in Japan. To say that Crypton, et al created Vocaloid is somewhat of a misnomer; Vocaloid is a software speech synthesis engine developed by Yamaha, who licenses it to other companies (such as Crypton) who then take it and marry it with voice data to create a unique singing software. (Hatsune Miku was created based on voice data sampled from voice actress Saki Fujita.) Vocaloid, the software, is neither an anime, nor a character. In fact, Crypton’s earlier Vocaloid-based products were sold as plain old software, with no Hatsune Miku-like character. Hatsune Miku, in fact, was created as a marketing tool to make the software appeal to a wider audience. And boy, did it work. Hatsune Miku and friends now enjoy worldwide popularity thanks to events such as the Hatsune Miku concerts. This year’s Anime Expo marks the North American debut of the “Mikunopolis” concert; previously only highlights of this show were shown at the New York Anime Festival.

To be completely honest, they also owe their popularity to the Internet and the creative people that take these tools and make cool new things based on them. And they know this very well. In fact, in a move that’s completely counter to how agencies here in the west handle things (I’m looking at you, Hollywood, MPAA and RIAA!), Crypton freely encourages fans to take their works and make derivative works based on them. They directly attribute Hatsune Miku’s popularity to video sharing sites such as YouTube and NicoNicoDouga, which bridge the gap between those people who create and listen to music, normally independent and isolated. These sites facilitate what they call the “chain of creation” – where someone creates something, posts it for others to see, and then people see it and create their own derivative works – truly an example of the long tail philosophy at work. They’ve created a website, Piapro, to facilitate this sharing of music, lyrics, and video. There is only one hard and fast rule to this site: if you post something, you must let others derive from it; And if you modify something, you must acknowledge the original creator. A brilliant example of the Creative Commons license at work. Crypton themselves provide the original permission for people to derive from their content. (Not only do they tolerate people deriving from their work, they actively ENCOURAGE it.) Take, for example, MikuMikuDance, which we’ve written about before; a really powerful 3D animation program that could be sold for real money, yet is freely given away, to encourage fan creativity. They realize that increasing popularity leads to merchandising opportunities such as CDs, books, and even cookies(!). Of course there is the famous Sega Project Diva games, where they consciously made every effort to use user-generated content in the game — costumes, character designs, even loading screens. Compared to Hollywood’s top-down creation process, the Hatsune Miku universe demonstrates a more bottom-up approach, a new way to create work. And Crypton is very conscious of remaining sensitive to the creative community’s needs. Case in point: their newly-created social networking site Mikubook, a social networking site that allows users to recommend videos, illustrations and music to their followers, with emphasis on Vocaloid-related products. Users can also connect with other people easily, and can log in to the site using their existing Twitter or Facebook credentials. Although this site is still in an early beta phase (it was birthed only one month ago), work on it is progressing rapidly.

And finally, the highlight of our evening: the Anime Music Video contest. I say this all the time, but the entries just keep getting better and better. Unfortunately there were once again a few (in our opinion) mis-categorizations: some videos in drama that felt more like comedy, which, we think, is rather unfair to the rest of the competition in that category. And there was one video in particular that pretty much nailed it in terms of emotional content and matching the music’s mood with the anime content, but I just couldn’t vote for it because of a glaring technical error, a field order problem that caused all motion to appear strangely stuttery. This year also marked the debut of a new category, “Fun,” that is basically a catch-all for anything that doesn’t really fit anywhere else. Being a new category, however, its entrants were ineligible for the “Best of Show” prize. However (again in our opinion) some of the best (certainly the more funny) of the videos were in this category. There were also some, shall we say, not entirely safe for work entrants, especially in comedy. This has been a concern for some of our co-hosts in years past, in that exposing children to these type of videos might not be such a good idea. The AMV staff have finally acknowledged this, and are apparently going to make the AMV event an “18+” event starting next year.

That about does it for this update. Busy schedule tomorrow, including what could quite possibly be the highlight of the entire con, the Mikunopolis concert!

Got questions for the AX Guests of Honor?

Donald Burr — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 21:12:52 +0000

Yes, it’s that time again, time for another Anime Expo. This time we’re actually going to try and bring you some actual coverage. To that end we have set up our new liveblog, which, after hours of experimentation, I have determined to be much easier (and much less vomit-inducing) than live video streaming.

And this is your opportunity to ask a question of one of the Guests of Honor. We’ll be in one-on-one interviews with Fred Gallagher of MegaTokyo and Taliesin Jaffe, who’s been involved in one way or another with more anime projects than I can count; and we’re gonna try to get interviews with Danny Choo and Hiroyuki Itoh and Wataru Sasaki of Crypton Future Media (yes, the Vocaloid people). However there may be other opportunities to ask questions of the other Guests of Honor too.

So, got anything you want us to ask? Then post them in the comments here. We make no promises, but will do our best to get your questions answered.

J-List is a peaceful island of Japanese pop culture for you

Announcing the new Liveblog of Doom!

Donald Burr — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:17:14 +0000

As you may (or may not) know, for a while we have been experimenting with livestreaming video from various anime conventions. And after hours of experimentation, I have come to one inescapable conclusion:

Livestreaming video is hard.

For one thing, it’s almost impossible to hold a cameraphone steady, which is painfully evident if you’ve managed to sit through any of our livestream trials. (Contrary to what it may seem, it is not our intention to induce nausea and vomiting in our audience.) I suppose I could put together some sort of eXtreme steadicam type rig, but (A) I don’t have the money to do so, and (B) I’m lazy. There’s also the fact that all cameraphones have really crappy sound. Which means that, most of the time, it’s almost impossible to understand what the speaker/panelist/GoH/whatever is saying; it usually ends up sounding something like this: “Mmfffrrf mrrrfff mrr mfff mff mrrrrfff.” And, of course, unless you happen to travel with a backpack-mounted studio lighting kit (which I don’t), the only thing you have to work with lighting-wise is the (often lousy) lighting found in most convention center rooms; so even if I could manage to get a rock-steady shot, the video would most likely be of inferior quality as well.

So, yeah, livestreaming video is hard. So how am I to achieve my goal of bringing you live on-the-spot convention coverage? One word: Liveblogging.

Yes, the very same technique that many tech bloggers have successfully employed to bring coverage of tech conference keynotes and so forth will now be put to use to bring you the latest and greatest anime news from whatever con we happen to be attending. This is being brought to you thanks to the excellent free liveblogging service CoverItLive. If you head to our livestream page you will now see a lovely new “Liveblog of Doom!” widget. When we are at an event and are liveblogging it, you will see our pearls of wisdom scroll by just as fast as my fingers can type them. And there’s no need to obsessively hit your browser’s “reload” button either; the CoverItLive widget does all of that hard work for you, so all you have to do is sit back and watch. Unfortunately the service is ad-supported, so you’ll have to sit through the occasional advertisement video. But in general I’ve found the service to work pretty well.

How will you know when we are liveblogging an event? For one thing, you can take a look at our con calendar. This will list the events that we are interested in. However that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll be at each and every event listed here (the usual disclaimer about the fickle nature of convention scheduling, plus my unpredictable stamina level at any given moment applies). However when we do decide to livestream, we will of course update our Twitter.

We hope you enjoy this new method of convention coverage. If you have any comments, or are having trouble getting the CoverItLive widget to work for you, please drop us a line.

Hentai PC dating-sim games at J-List

Anime Expo 2011 programming schedules are now live!

Donald Burr — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 21:40:22 +0000

As Murphy’s Law would have it, mere hours after we released our latest episode, the fine folks at Anime Expo go and release their preliminary schedule. Would’ve loved to talk about it on the podcast, but what can you do? shrug Anyway, go forth and peruse the schedules for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. (You’ll need the free Acrobat Reader, as these are PDF files. Or Mac and iOS users can use their device’s built-in PDF support.)

Speaking of iOS devices, the AX staff are planning on releasing an updated app for the iPhone, and are also working on an app for Android devices as well. Keep an eye on the Anime Expo website as well as their Twitter for an announcement when those are ready.

We here at Otaku no Podcast have begun going through the schedules and have started filling out our convention schedule with events we are interested in. You can look at our convention schedule on the brand-new Con Calendar page.

Only 17 more days to go…!

FanimeCon 2011 Day 2 Report

Donald Burr — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 07:13:02 +0000

Editor’s note: Unfortunately, I was not able to complete my daily reports while at-con due to a very nasty hard drive crash on my laptop. The good news is that no data was lost. The bad news is that this has delayed my reports until I could come home and fix things. I’ll post the final Day 3 report (sadly we didn’t make it to Day 4) shortly, and we will of course be getting together, probably this weekend, to record a FanimeCon recap and review podcast episode.

Day 2 of FanimeCon got off to a bit of a shaky start as I didn’t make it on site until early afternoon. However it got busier from there.

Unfortunately it also started on a bit of a sour note, as once again the SJCC was being heckled to death by a group of fundamentalist Christians. This year they were equipped with a megaphone and, to be brutally honest, were really annoying. The crowd was putting them in their place though: if, for example, they would proclaim that we would all burn in Hell, the crowd would shout in unison “YEAH!! PARTY TIME!!!” or something like that. Apparently they are standing just beyond the edge of convention center property and so are avoiding legal prosecution. Or something like that. Personally, my instinct is to go up there and argue with them, but then I realize that that is exactly what they want. I think what would really get these guys is if we completely and utterly ignored them. Don’t answer them, don’t look at them, just pretend that they just don’t exist.

FanimeCon does a really commendable job of giving plenty of “face time” with the Guests of Honor. Each GoH had at least one focus panel, with many guests hosting two or more panels, focused on different areas of their work. In addition there were plenty of autograph opportunities (many GoHs had two or more autograph sessions as well). Also I saw many guests wandering around the con in general, and they were almost always willing to stop and chat with their fans, pose for pictures, etc. This can only happen at less corporate, more fan-oriented cons such as this.

Most of the following updates are a bit short on details. Blame that on me not taking any notes (ie: Notetaking FAIL). I did however record the panels so as soon as I get home I’ll be able to review the panels, and will summarize them when I record our inevitable FanimeCon 2011 recap podcast episode.

Our first panel of the day was Mamoru Yokota, an illustrator, character designer and producer who worked on several projects including Air (movie), Kanon, and Death Note, among others. He amazed the audience with his drawing skills, and also spoke of what it’s like working in his field.

We next caught Tohru Furuya’s panel. Mr. Furuya is a veteran voice actor and is probably best known as the voice of Amuro Ray in the original Gundam. In addition he has provided voices for Pegasus Seiya (Saint Seiya), Yamcha (Dragonball Z), Kyosuke Kasuga (Kimagure Orange Road), and Tuxedo Mask (Sailor Moon). He was really energetic and totally “clicked” with the audience, and entertained us with voices from his various roles, as well as tales of what it’s like working in the industry alongside other notable figures. The fans really loved him – the line to ask him questions was really impressively long. One fan in particular wanted to express her love of his works by offering him a hug, which he bemusedly accepted.

Seiji Mizushima’s panel was next. He directed several notable works, including Slayers Next, Shaman King, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Mobile Suit Gundam 00. He seemed a bit more reserved than the other panelists we saw today, but still informed the audience with tales of what it’s like working in the anime industry.

Then came the highlight of my evening (and I’m sure it was also the highlight of quite a few FanimeCon attendees’ evenings as well) – Momoi Halko’s panel. She is a prolific idol singer, voice actress, and self-proclaimed otaku and “Queen of Akihabara.” To see someone not only acknowledge her otaku status, but positively revel in it, is refreshing indeed. She is cheerful and energetic, and is truly grateful to her fans and makes every effort to stay in touch with her fan base, and it shows. She made every effort to answer everyones’ questions, and seemed genuinely apologetic when she had to cut peoples’ questions short on account of time.

Apparently, recently she attended a San Francisco Giants game, and they have been doing fairly good as of late. (whether those two events are related or not, I’ll leave to the audience to work out). In any case, one fan took it upon himself to give her a gift of a SF Giants jersey, which she gratefully accepted, even modeling it for the camera. (unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a shot of this – Photographer FAIL.)

When asked about her observations on the differences between anime fandom in Japan vs. here in the US, she commented that the anime convention scene between the two countries is quite different, and that in Japan, they don’t have the proliferation of fan-run events we enjoy here in the west (such as FanimeCon). This really impressed her.

We were going to try and make it to MusicFest, the big music event at FanimeCon, but weren’t able to. MusicFest was held at the San Jose Civic Center to a sellout crowd — lines to get in to the event were out the door. Musical guests FLOW and Yuya Matsushita rocked the house. I was worried that Momoi Halko would also be performing at MusicFest and that I would miss her. Fortunately my worries were unfounded, as it turned out that she would be performing in her own concert the following day.

One of the reasons why we decided not to stick around for MusicFest was that the weather had suddenly turned ugly. San Jose got hit with a sudden off-again-on-again rainstorm. Unfortunately this caught people during the busy dinner hour, and tons of cosplayers were hurriedly scrambling for the nearest awning or overhang. Sadly quite a few costumes and props were damaged in this freak phenomenon. The only consolation was that this didn’t happen on Masquerade night, so people had a chance to fix their costumes. Word to the wise cosplayer: come prepared. If you don’t have an umbrella, then at least bring something that you can use as an umbrella (large fan, shield, I dunno), as well as backup cosplay items, costume repair supplies, etc. Anime Los Angeles definitely wins in this category, as they have a staffed Costume Repair Station open during con hours where people can effect repairs in times of need.

One thing I noticed as we left the downtown San Jose area is the sheer number of congoers still out and about even at such a late hour. FanimeCon is truly a 24-hour convention: there is literally something going on at each and every hour of the day. This is one really good reason why you should really consider staying at a con hotel — the public transportation system shuts down after about 9 or 10. There were some events I really wanted to attend but the only way I could have done so would be to stay all night and beocme a con zombie (which, trust me, you really don’t want to do).

Speaking of zombies, one of the late-night events I had to miss was the “Anime Convention of the Dead.” This fan-run event is based on the highly popular manga (and now anime) Highschool of the Dead. They asked for volunteers to come get “zombified”, which consisted of receiving (free) zombie makeup as well as “Training of the Dead” – how to be an effective zombie. The zombie hordes were then turned loose on an unsuspecting convention center. Really a cool idea. If anyone was able to get pictures and/or video of this, we’d really love to link to it. Get in touch with us!

That about does it for this update. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day – not only is it the day of Momoi Halko’s concert, but it is also masquerade night. Stay tuned!

PC dating-sim games @ J-List

Announcing a new anime convention for the Central California area

Donald Burr — Fri, 27 May 2011 16:47:59 +0000

It’s no small secret that Otaku no Podcast is very California-centric when it comes to anime convention coverage. Unfortunately, financial reality being what it is, I can’t really afford a trip to any of the non-California conventions, both in terms of money (or the lack of it) and in terms of time. I’m even not able to make it to many of the ones in our home state, thanks to the generally sucktacular (and virtually nonexistent) intercity public transportation system. (Life sucks when you live in California and can’t drive.) If not for what little public transportation we have, such as the wonderful Bay Area system, or the LA Metro system, I wouldn’t even be able to make it to the few cons we do go to. Which is why, when I heard about a fairly new (only in its 2nd year) convention starting up fairly close to us, my ears perked up.

Anime Five Cities (which, as mentioned before, is only in its 2nd year) is a small fan-run convention in the San Luis Obispo area. They claim to be the central coast’s first anime convention, and I believe them. It’s being held at the Ludwick Community Center in downtown San Luis Obispo, CA on Saturday, June 18, 2011, from 11 AM till 7 PM. (Hey, I told you it’s a small convention…)

Guests of Honor include voice actress Lauren Landa, illustrator Irene Flores, and the fine guys and gals of the AniMaid Cafe. Also, even though it’s a small con, they’ll also have some traditional con favorites: some live programming, dealer’s room, artist’s alley, video screenings, and even a cosplay competition.

Pre-registration is open until June 4 and will run you $11; after that, tickets will cost you $14 at the door. Attendance is capped at 400, so don’t delay.

Some of you might blow off smaller conventions, thinking that the only cons worth going to are the big ones. And some people I know (perhaps certain Otaku no Podcast cohosts) have the exact opposite view, that the big cons are way too much trouble and the only ones worth attending are the smaller, fan-run events. Me, I see merit in both, and I have this “discussion” with that co-host in question at least two or three times every year. What I’ve said to her time and time again still stands: each has its merits, and I will continue to frequent both large and small cons. You can’t beat the large cons for the sheer star power they can attract (in terms of guests of honor, etc.), as well as the sheer awesomeness of their dealer’s room and breadth of live programming. At the same time, the smaller cons are great because you get to meet and hear from some of the lesser-known (but just as interesting) figures in the industry, and get to know your fellow fan in a more intimate setting. And you should definitely support the smaller cons too, because, well, even the big guys had to start somewhere…

Click for J-List now!

Anime Los Angeles Day 3 Report

Donald Burr — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:57:04 +0000

First things first: if you attended either of our workshops (podcasting and photography) and are looking for the notes pages for these, here they are: Photography notes, Podcasting notes.

Day 3 – the final day – of Anime LA was pretty low key. In fact I didn’t even make it to any panels. Most of the morning was spent getting much-needed rest, then frantically packing because we got up late and the hotel wasn’t granting late checkout, despite what one hotel person said to me last night when I asked. Then we waited for an hour or so before someone could come help us with our bags. I gather they had an Xbox Huge flood of people checking out at noon. Next time might I suggest that they do grant some late checkouts to some people; that way they can stagger the checkouts and not put too much load on the hotel staff.

Sunday was the most low-key day of them all, but there were still a fair number of people there. Every year, Anime LA has a special “theme day” on Sunday to try and lure people to the con who might otherwise leave after Saturday. This year’s theme was Japanese New Year. There were a few panels and workshops on various things related to Japanese New Years, which looked pretty cool.

I finally had a chance to make it to the dealer’s room. It was about the same size-wise as last year’s dealer’s room. Perhaps this is one way that the Anime LA staff manage the growth of the con. Lots of tables selling manga (whole walls of the stuff), along with character goods, plushies, a few weapons dealers, and figures (Figma, etc.). Seemed to me that there were more figures (and especially Figma type figures) this year than in years past. Maybe this is a precursor to dolls and doll parts/accessories starting to show up. (We think it’s only a matter of time.) One thing I did note however is that the guy who had a whole wall of DVD’s last year wasn’t there this year (at least I couldn’t find him). In fact I don’t recall seeing any DVDs for sale (if there were people selling DVDs, their displays were so small so as to blend in with the rest of the items for sale). Maybe this is another manifestation of the industry’s trend away from physical media. Which would be sad, because I for one still enjoy buying and watching DVDs and Blu-rays. Don’t get me wrong; streaming still has its place (and I do enjoy my Crunchyroll membership) but physical media shouldn’t be abandoned.

Artist’s Alley looked quite lively. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to do anything other than quickly glance through the door. Pity, as I wanted to meet up with Cosplay in America again.

Overall Sunday as a whole definitely felt like a “relax-a-con.” Lots of people relaxing and socializing. More so than other days I thought. And a nice, relaxing end to yet another really nice Anime LA.

It’s amazing to me that, even at a smaller con like this, there was still way too much to see and do. Gaming, karaoke, fighting/martial arts/weapons demos, panels/workshops, concerts… I am also amazed, and glad, to see that, even in times of economic hardship such as we are in now, people (a lot of people, in fact) are still able to come to events like this and enjoy themselves — and that the organizers are able to successfully put on a large scale event such as this.

Of course we’ll be getting together soon to record our thoughts on Anime LA 2011. Expect that episode to hit the podcast feed within the next week or 2.

Finally, let’s talk winners. (Below the cut)

The AMV winners have been posted. They are as follows:

Audience Favorite: Running Desperado
Best Produced: Curtain Call
Creators’ Choice: Crimson Rhapsody
Staff’s Pick: A Host’s “Special” Kind of Girl

I’ve updated the day 1 report with these, and I’m continuing to update that post as I find links to where you can view/download all the finalists.

And the Masquerade winners: (now we know why the judges took so long, there were over 9000 awards to give out )

Most Humorous Presentation Open and Props Award Workmanship - S Doki Doki Kawaii Academy Its not like I like you or anything cosplay
Best Song Routine Open and Best Stage Effects Workmanship Open - Sequin Moon
Best Group Performance Novice, Honorable Mention Workmanship Novice - Haru and the Baron
Best in Class Novice - World of Warcraft Alliance
Judges Workmanship Open - Ahza
Excellence Workmanship - A No Life King Cosplay Esther Blanchett
Honorable Mention Workmanship – Lulu
Best Design Interpretation Workmanship Novice - S Pokemon Panic The Sacred Tree
Best Individual Novice Presentation - Socal Host Club Special
Best in Show Overall - Kitties go Meow Broccoli goes Moo XD Cosplay DX
Best Walkon Novice, Most Beautiful Workmanship Novice - Sakura Hime
Most Beautiful Open - Hoshikage Foxy Lady
Judges Choice Performance, Best in Class Workmanship - Prince of Pick Up Lines Were Not Twins Cosplay
Best in Class Presentation Novice, Excellence in Workmanship Novice - Four Tail Kyuubi
Best Characterization Novice - The Deformed Diva
Best Characterization Open, Best in Class Workmanship Open - Jojos Fabulous Masquerade
Excellence Workmanship Novice - Sora and Riku
Excellence in Engineering Workmanship Open - Ultimecia
Best in Class Performance Open - Id Like To Move Your Castle

Hentai PC dating-sim games at J-List

Photos (and video!) from PMX 2010 (Updated)

Donald Burr — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 05:18:50 +0000

I’ve now been back home for a little over 48 hours, but am still recovering from PMX - I’m still horrifically tired and rather sore (thanks to having to shlep my stuff halfway across creation back and forth to our hotel). At least I’m not suffering the dreaded Convention Plague of Doom (knock on wood), thanks to regular infusions of Emergen-C (trust me folks, this stuff works wonders, it should be in every con-goer’s supply kit). Unfortunately, my return from PMX was greeted by a pile of work of epic proportions waiting for me to tackle it. Sigh. Which all means that it’ll be a while before I can complete the process of editing and posting the pictures and video I took while at PMX. (Yeah, I know, you’ve heard it all before. What can I say? *shrug*) In the meantime, please enjoy these PMX photo and video galleries I’ve managed to find on the internets. I’ll update this post as I find new ones. Also if you took photos or video at PMX, please tell us about it and we’ll add yours to the list.

(Updated 11/20/2010) I’ve finally started working on my PMX 2010 photos, and they’re slowly trickling up to Flickr. Check the photo gallery section on our website or visit our PMX 2010 Flickr set to check them out!

(Updated 11/21/2010) Otaku no Podcast co-host @msgeek93′s PMX 2010 Flickr gallery
(Updated 11/20/2010) LA Weekly’s PMX 2010 photo gallery and coverage of Innocent World and Baby the Stars Shine Bright (including pictures)
@patachu’s PMX 2010 photo gallery
PMX 2010 video from Cosplay in America
Japanator’s PMX 2010 Photo Gallery (part 1, part 2)
(Updated 11/17/2010) @jonno212′s PMX 2010 photo gallery
(Updated 11/17/2010) ani.me‘s PMX Photobooth (Day 1, Day 2, Flickr gallery)
(Updated 11/17/2010) @otakuforlife’s PMX write-up (comes to a somewhat different conclusion than I did, but at least they have pictures)
(Updated 11/20/2010) @cosplayvideos/ACparadise’s PMX 2010 CosFest Videos (be sure and check out all of them by clicking on their username on YouTube to access their YouTube channel)
(Updated 11/20/2010) @anirichie’s PMX 2010 highlights video (they promise more to come, so be sure and check back on their YouTube channel!)
(Updated 11/20/2010) @blackheavenfan’s PMX 2010 Facebook photo gallery
(Updated 11/20/2010) CatchKuma’s PMX 2010 photos
(Updated 11/20/2010) American Cosplay Snapshots’ PMX 2010 photos
(Updated 11/20/2010) AfterCon’s PMX 2010 highlights video
(Updated 12/04/2010) CNN’s report on Korean actor Jang-dong Gun’s appearance at PMX

Hentai PC dating-sim games at J-List

PMX Day 3 Report and Final Thoughts

Donald Burr — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:13:31 +0000

Sorry for the late posting here. PMX 2010 has drawn to a close, and I am now safely back at home at Otaku no Podcast HQ, and more or less back to normal (after a day of basically nothing but rest). So far (knock on wood) I’ve managed to avoid the dreaded Con Plague. (Pro tip: Emergen-C. It works, people.)

The third and final day of PMX was as low-key as the rest, and was spent mostly soaking in the con atmosphere, checking out the dealer’s room and artist’s alley, taking pictures, and hanging out with our fellow con-goers. We did make one attempt to go to a panel — an “open mic” doll meet at 11 AM — but apparently nobody else got the memo, and no one showed up. So we ended up basically resting our weary selves in an air-conditioned meeting room, and talking dolls and other random subjects with several passerby who wandered in to find out what was going on. (At least one confused attendee was wondering why there was no one at the mic cracking jokes – I guess he thought “open mic” meant comedy, as in “open mic comedy.” I offered to step up to the mic and start telling jokes but he ran away pretty fast. I guess my reputation precedes me…)

PMX definitely feels to me like a hang-out con. Is that a bad thing? Not at all. After all, what is the real purpose of anime conventions? At the very heart of it all is the desire to get together with your fellow anime fan and socialize. Everything else is just window dressing. Of course, don’t get me wrong; that’s not to say that PMX is devoid of things to do. There were quite a few things that I really wanted to see and try: the various guest-of-honor panels; martial arts and stunt choreography demos; the Vocaloids panel (which I hear is always fun); the food carts (which turned out to be uber-popular); swap meet; fashion boutique and swap meet; Japanese snack, sushi, and sake tasting; karaoke; the various musical guests and concerts; and the various anime and live action films being screened. Live action, including Japanese and Korean drama, is something I’d like to learn more about (Korean in particular being that that is my heritage), and PMX is definitely the place to do so. So, yeah, there was certainly plenty going on; just enough to satisfy someone of almost every taste, but not so much as to bewilder or confuse a person and make them feel bad because they might be missing something cool.

I couldn’t be happier with the location. Pasadena is a reasonably safe area, and is well served by public transportation. There were reasonable looking hotel/motel choices within a reasonable commuting distance (although my earlier Pro Tip applies: definitely seriously consider staying at the con hotel – it’s really worth it to be close to the action. And if you do, be mindful of the con hotel block closing dates – you don’t want to miss that discount!) There are plenty of food options nearby, and if you’re not willing to go off-site for food, the Hilton’s food was actually pretty decent, and the prices weren’t horribly outrageous (and the prices were actually better than most convention food I’ve seen). The Hilton’s rooms were reasonably big, and although a few of the hallways were a bit small, the building was mostly pretty easy to navigate in a crowd. The lobby area had plenty of soft couches/chairs and tables, an environment quite conducive to just hanging out with your fellow con-goer and getting to know them better. The PMX staff were helpful and courteous; I didn’t get a hint of the ‘tude that you sometimes see.

One thing I wanted to mention is the wonderfully refreshing attitude that PMX has toward the press. Their press restrictions (what qualifications you must meet to qualify as press) are refreshingly non-stringent, making it possible for even smaller organizations (anime clubs, school newspapers, etc.) and New Media creators (bloggers and podcasters) to qualify for press credentials. Most other anime conventions that offer press privileges set their requirements so high as to essentially shut out anyone other than traditional large-circulation media. Kudos go to PMX for the foresight to recognize that yes, us “little guys” do in fact have a legitimate voice, and to give us the opportunity to use it in support of PMX. Press privileges included special press panels, access to the guests of honor, and preferential seating (with a better location for photography) at main events. They also sent out press releases and various other background material about PMX and the various guests and events. The photography-friendly seating, in particular, was very much appreciated.

This was my first year attending PMX. I had always wanted to, but something or other kept coming up. I’m really glad I went. The Otaku no Podcast crew will definitely be coming back next year.

PMX Day 2 Report

Donald Burr — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 09:41:52 +0000

Well, Day 2 of PMX has drawn to a close, and while there were definitely more people attending today (Saturday being the traditionally busiest day during a weekend con) the crowds were still manageable, although it was definitely more of a challenge navigating the hallways with the increased population. I still couldn’t begin to hesitate at a guess as to the number of attendees; all I can say with reasonable certainty is that there were more people than yesterday. Several thousand. Perhaps even over 9000. But, if so, then just barely.

It turns out LP 3, the room we were in yesterday, was not the typical room size. There were definitely larger rooms. LP2 looks like it could hold at least a hundred, maybe two. And the main events rooms even more. This is good, and I didn’t see any events that were stuffed beyond capacity. Even CosFest (their version of masquerade, a cosplay competition) was still workable space-wise.

I visited the dealer’s room and artist’s alley for the first time today. The dealer’s room was definitely on the smallish side, about equivalent to what you would find at a smaller regional convention I’d say. Something like Anime Los Angeles’ dealer’s room maybe 2 or 3 years ago, if you’re familiar with that. They definitely had a reasonable selection of goods: anime and manga (saw some Xbox huge manga tables – that was impressive); character goods; lots of cosplay materials (costumes, acessories, etc.); and I even saw a vendor selling cels and sketches (genga/douga) – definitely gotta check back there tomorrow, when I’m not fully laden with A/V gear like a high-tech pack mule. Artist’s Alley was quite lively as well, and of a respectable size – it felt actually larger than the dealer’s room. There was a pretty good selection of artists offering a nice selection of goods and services.

The hotel is located in an area that’s fairly well stocked with restaurants and eateries of various types, all within reasonable walking distance. In addition to the catered food available at the hotel (which was, surprisingly, not the worst I’ve seen price-wise, and was almost reasonable even), PMX also contracted with several food trucks to come and service the convention. And this turned out to be quite a success – every time I checked, the lines were of epic proportions. Next year I suggest that they employ a “tag team” approach – have two food trucks simultaneously on premises, to spread the load between the two (and offer people a choice of cuisines).

As I suspected in yesterday’s post, today brought a more even mix of cosplayers. There were still quite a few Asian fashion/music/live action cosplayers, but they were balanced out by quite a few recognizable anime and video game characters. And CosFest was practically dominated by anime – I only recall seeing one or two acts not strictly speaking related to anime. As always, the creativity and talent of these cosplayers continues to amaze me.

Speaking of CosFest, it actually started more or less on time, although there was some confusion regarding seating the members of the press – we weren’t sure where we were supposed to wait, and were in fact let in a bit earlier than we should have, apparently. The whole thing felt a bit disorganized. Again, I can’t ding them too much for this, as some level of disorganization is bound to happen in any endeavor of this type. However, us press folk did get choice seating – front row in fact – which really helped. It ran pretty much without a hitch, and quickly at that – there were only a bit over a dozen acts (I believe either 16 or 18, definitely less than 20). The halftime show was provided courtesy of the Angel Heart cosplay troupe, who danced to some songs from Idolm@ster and probably one or two others I didn’t recognize; and singer Mikurin, who sang several songs that appeared to be related to each other along the common theme of the seasons in Japan.

During one of her monologues, Mikurin said something that really hit home with me. I wish I could recall the exact quote (and unfortunately for whatever reason my recording of CosFest crapped out 30 minutes in, so this exchange didn’t make it onto the recording), but it went something like “We humans always worry that winter will never end, but we needn’t worry, because spring will always come.” Those of you who know me in person know that I’ve been going through a lot of hardship lately, and have been really down emotionally as of late; her simple yet profound words really touched me and helped uplift my spirits.

We only attended one panel today, a general intro to ball joint (and vinyl) dolls and their care and maintenance. Quite informative, and it was just fun seeing all the attendees and the wide variety of dolls they brought with them. Panels definitely seem to me to not be the central focus of PMX. Don’t get me wrong, I do not intend to diss any of the panel givers; the ones we attended were very well done, as were the rest of them that we didn’t attend I’m sure. It’s just that there were quite a few holes in the panel schedule, and also the panel rooms served double duty as video screening rooms. All of this, plus the general laid-back nature of the con, leads me to theorize that PMX is really more of a “kick back and relax and shoot the breeze with your friends and fellow con-goers” con, with a secondary focus on art and cosplay. Which is absolutely 100% fine by me. I was quite happy since this is the first time I’ve been at a con when I wasn’t constantly fretting ”OMG OMG I’m gonna miss something cool!!!” and could just take it in stride and “go with the flow.” Conducive to this is the nice large lobby area replete with comfy chairs/couches and tables – a perfect place to meet up with people who share your particular interest. One such meetup I attended was a doll meetup. Again, seeing all the lovely dolls with their awesome costumes, and chatting with their humans, learing their backstories, etc. was fun. We even got some attention from a pair of reporters from the LA Weekly, which really made our day.

Tomorrow is the final day of PMX, and being a Sunday, is usually the most laid-back day of a weekend con, so it should be pretty low key. There are a few events I want to catch, plus making another blitz through the dealer’s room and artist’s alley. And of course taking more pictures. And then, sadly, back to life, back to reality for me. PMX has definitely been fun, but in a different way than Anime LA, FanimeCon, AX, etc. (which were also fun, but like I said, fun in a different way). Just goes to show you that there’s a con for everybody.

I more than likely won’t be able to post pictures tonight; first of all I’m almost falling asleep at the keyboard here, plus I took probably anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 photos at CosFest, and going through those will take some time. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day. Stay tuned! In the meantime though, you can check out the videos from today’s various livestreams. I may livestream some more tomorrow; those will of course be announced on our Twitter, and you can tune into them on our shiny new Livestream page on otakunopodcast.com!

Hentai PC dating-sim games at J-List

My PMX Livestream of Doom!

Donald Burr — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 18:12:33 +0000

I’m not sure how often (or if) I’ll be able to do this (it all depends on my laziness factor, whether my phone battery runs out, etc.), but I’ll be livestreaming from PMX today. Tune in below!

PMX Day 1 Report

Donald Burr — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 08:05:44 +0000

Unfortunately, AudioBoo for Android is currently down until further notice, so you’ll have to put up with a textual report for now.

Well, day 1 of PMX draws to a close. Unfortunately, as most of the day was spent on trains and buses, as well as finding our hotel and locating some sources of food, I didn’t get to see much of the con. (Pro tip: definitely, DEFINITELY seriously consider taking up your con’s room block offer. It is TOTALLY worth it to be able to stay on site close to the action.) What I did see however was pretty cool. PMX has a nice, fairly laid back feel to it; more akin to a smaller convention like Anime LA. If I were to hazard a guess as to the attendance, I’d say several thousand (but probably not over 9000). Unfortunately I can’t find any attendance data newer than 2004, at which anywhere from 3,000 to 4,000 attended, depending on who you talk to.

There were definitely quite a few cosplayers in attendance, but I didn’t see very many anime character cosplayers, at least ones I easily recognized. Rather, the bulk of cosplayers were wearing outfits representative of various Asian fashion styles (gothic lolita, etc.), or Asian live action stars, musicians (visual kei, etc.) and so on. (Makes sense, as PMX bills itself as a convention covering Asian pop culture in general) I suspect that this may change tomorrow, since Saturday (tomorrow) is usually the highest attendance day for weekend cons, and is also the day that CosFest, PMX’s cosplay competition (i.e. Masquerade), will be held. I will, of course, be attending that event, and will get you what pictures and/or video I can. (Note that this time I was unable to rent the “lens of doom” due to monetary concerns, so the pictures won’t be as good; we are going as Press, which supposedly gives us a better photography location, so it may be OK. We’ll see.)

The Hilton Pasadena looks to be a pretty reasonably sized facility to hold the number of people who attended PMX today; I didn’t feel overcrowded. Some of their halls are somewhat narrow and twisty though, and may be hard to navigate for those with larger costumes or props. However there seemed to be plenty of areas, both indoors and outdoors, that would serve as reasonable cosplay photography locations. There are also some organizations offering free professionally shot cosplay photos however, so you might want to investigate that. Also the one panel we did make it to (more on that below) was held in LP3, the Del Mar room, a rather smallish room (my guess is maybe 50 tops, a few more if they’re willing to crowd in). This was fine for this particular panel, but we’ll have to see how this handles the greater crowds tomorrow. (also I’m not sure how big the other rooms are in comparison)

The staff seemed to me to have a reasonably good attitude and were as helpful as they could be. There were a few clueless ones (but you always get that no matter what con you’re at, so I can’t ding them for that). But we got checked in and received our press badges in a pretty reasonable fashion.

The one panel we did manage to catch was on doll “face-ups,” a rather neat tie-in to our most recent episode. The panelist demonstrated what is involved in pulling off an effective face-up and gave some tips and techniques for achieving the best results. Definitely informative, and really goes to show how creative the doll community is – face-ups are a lot of work!

I’ve posted what few pictures I took today (again, didn’t get to see much). Looking forward to tomorrow!

J-List is a peaceful island of Japanese pop culture for you

My PMX Schedule

Donald Burr — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:43:42 +0000

OK folks, I’ve started going over the PMX schedule (they just released the final schedule btw, might want to go check it out) and I’ve started marking down things I might be interested in checking out and/or possibly get coverage for the podcast for. Of course the standard disclaimers apply: I sometimes double- or even triple-book myself intentionally, the idea being that I am interested in both events and will probably make my final decision as to which one I want to go to 5 minutes before the time it starts; the usual “convention schedules are HIGHLY subject to change without notice”; and of course, I might be otherwise indisposed and unable to attend a given event due to my body suddenly pooping out on me and requiring an unplanned nap (or in other words, “the spirit is willing but the flesh (may be) weak”). And in between events, I’ll of course be roaming around the con in general, maybe peeking into dealer’s room and artist’s alley and various other places, and of course taking a ton of photos. (And no doubt spending a fair amount of time at the food trucks!) Check out my schedule below the cut.

Click for J-List now!

Heads up! PMX is THIS weekend!

Donald Burr — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 22:51:30 +0000

Winter may have finally come to us, but that doesn’t mean that anime convention season is over yet. This coming weekend, November 12-14, the Pacific Media Expo (or “PMX” as the cool kids call it) will be blowing into the Hilton Pasadena Hotel in Pasadena (duh). Online registration for the event is still open (and will remain open during the convention – no need to stand in long registration lines!) and will run you $40 for a full weekend pass, or $20 for Friday or Sunday only, $25 for Saturday only, or $15 for children age 12 and under (children age 5 and under can get in for free). There’s also a 20% group discount, so if a whole bunch of you will be going, that’ll help you out.

PMX is different from your typical anime convention in that, besides anime, they also focus on other aspects of Asian pop culture, including Asian live-action movies, fashion, music, martial arts, and (my favorite) food. Of course you’ll find the usual anime convention fare as well, including a dealer’s hall, artist’s alley, cosplay masquerade, video and film rooms, karaoke, panels, and the like. Guests of honor include Korean actor Jang Dong-gun, writer Sngmoo Lee, Alice and the Pirates head fashion designer Miki Nohmoto, lolita fashion brand Baby, the Stars Shine Bright; Amy Okuda, actress on The Guild; Hiromi Kato, animator on various works including Revolutionary Girl Utena, Tenshi ni Naurmon (I’m Going to Be an Angel), and Di Gi Charat Nyo; Yumi Fujiwara, designer of fashion label Innocent World; and musical guests Dig Jelly, Lemon Drop Kick, and Tanuki Suit Riot.

PMX is still a fairly new convention (only in its 7th year now) but has really made a name for itself. I’ve been wanting to go for quite some time now but never was able to… until now. Yes, you read correctly, we will be attending this year’s PMX. I won’t make any promises, but I’ll try to get some coverage of the event for you folks (at the very least some pretty pictures to look at, whenever I can get around to editing them and posting to the website that is ).

A schedule of events and hotel map are available for download.

Click for J-List now!

“Anime Podcasting for Beginners” panel at Anime Expo 2010

Donald Burr — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 18:28:07 +0000

Here, at long last, is the final edited version of the podcasting talk I gave at Anime Expo 2010. It’s more or less similar to the one I gave at FanimeCon, which I already posted to the podcast feed some time ago (that is why this isn’t being posted out to the podcast feed), but this version is slightly altered (a few new/changed slides here and there), and I sound *slightly* less scatterbrained than I did at FanimeCon.

I’m currently working on editing the photography talk, and will post that to the feed later today.

Anime Podcasting for Beginners Panel @ Anime Expo 2010 from Otaku no Podcast on Vimeo.

Episode #0013 (Part 2) – Anime Expo 2010

Donald Burr — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:16:59 +0000

NOTE: This is a 2-part episode. Be sure and download both parts! (In particular, most iTunes installations are set to only download the latest episode if it detects more than one new episode is available.)

Here at long last is our Anime Expo 2010 review episode of doom. I bring you but a small sampling of the news that came out of the convention, as well as our famous Panel Discussions of Doom(TM) where we talked about AX, what we liked, what we didn’t like, and our thoughts on the event. We’ve also got an interview with Ejen Chuang of Cosplay in America who recently put out an awesome cosplay photography book. And, as always, we bring you the freshest, coolest anime picks.

Today’s Opening Music: “Lion,” Megumi Nakajima & May’n. One of the opening themes of the excellent anime Macross Frontier.

AX 2010 Coverage – ANN and Japanator. AX 2010 Photo Galleries: ANN (cosplay, exhibit hall/around the con); Japanator (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6) Cosplay in America

Our picks:

Me – Highschool of the Dead, Evangelion 1.11 – You are Not Alone (DVD, Blu-ray), Cosplay in America, K-ON! (will be released by Bandai) Danny – Durarara!, Heroman Michelle – Hetalia Axis Powers, Eden of the East (DVD, Blu-ray)

Evangelion

Funimation 2010, DVD, $10.85

Evangelion

Funimation 2010, Blu-ray, $13.85

Cosplay in America

Ejen Chuang. OptikNerve 2010, Hardcover, 272 pages, $39.95

Hetalia

Funimation 2010, DVD, $20.29

Eden of the East

Funimation 2010, DVD, $32.46

Eden of the East

Funimation 2010, Blu-ray, $24.43

Gothic & Lolita Products, magazine subscriptions from Japan

Episode #0013 – Anime Expo 2010

Donald Burr — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:34:20 +0000

Today’s Opening Music: “Lion,” Megumi Nakajima & May’n. One of the opening themes of the excellent anime Macross Frontier.

AX 2010 Coverage – ANN and Japanator. AX 2010 Photo Galleries: ANN (cosplay, exhibit hall/around the con); Japanator (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6) Cosplay in America

Our picks:

Evangelion

Funimation 2010, DVD, $10.85

Evangelion

Funimation 2010, Blu-ray, $13.85

Cosplay in America

Ejen Chuang. OptikNerve 2010, Hardcover, 272 pages, $39.95

Hetalia

Funimation 2010, DVD, $20.29

Eden of the East

Funimation 2010, DVD, $32.46

Eden of the East

Funimation 2010, Blu-ray, $24.43

Otakon bans vuvuzelas; the world rejoices

Donald Burr — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:00:48 +0000

I really, really hate the vuvuzela. The noise that those cursed “instruments” make sounds to me like a cross between a pair of yaks mating, and a pair of yaks dying an excruciatingly painful death. As I wrote previously, those abominations were all over the LA Convention Center during Anime Expo, and it seemed to me that practically every few seconds, the center was filled with that abominable noise. Really distracting, and even worse, a potential medical liability for those especially close to the offensive noisemaker.

Now before you soccer (or football, as it’s known in places outside of the US) fans get your knickers in a bunch, fear not. I have absolutely no problem with the vuvuzela, in its proper context — i.e. during the World Cup. What I don’t agree with, however, is its use outside of said venue — more specifically, at Anime Expo (really, any anime convention). Because the correlation factor between anime conventions and the World Cup is precisely 0.00. (yes, even if you’re cosplaying as someone from Captain Tsubasa. There ain’t no vuvuzelas in that work…)

Well, great news for all you Baltimoreans: in a shocking display of sanity and common sense, Otakon has banned the vuvuzela. Their announcement on the matter is short and sweet:

Absolutely no vuvuzelas or similar loud noisemakers are permitted within Otakon. Vuvuzelas and other noisemakers within convention buildings are subject to confiscation. Blowing a vuvuzela or similar noisemaker may lead to ejection from the convention.

Finally, a voice of sanity! Good on you, Otakon.

PC dating-sim games @ J-List

Save $$$ on an Anime Expo 2011 4-day Pass — but only if you act quickly!

Donald Burr — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 02:02:02 +0000

Did you have so much fun at Anime Expo this year that you’ve resolved to definitely attend next year, come hell or high water? Or maybe you couldn’t make it this year because of financial reasons, but really want to try and go next year? Or maybe you’re a tightwad and want to try and save as much money as possible? (hey, gotta set aside as much as you can to buy anime after all…)

Well, if you act quickly, you can pre-register now for a full 4-day pass, for the amazingly low price of $45! Considering that this year’s regular pre-reg price for a 4-day pass was $75, and at-the-door pricing was a whopping $85, that’s quite a savings. But you only have until this Friday, July 9 to get this special pricing. So hurry up and reg, why don’tcha?! (Operators are standing by…)

Next year’s AX is sure to be even more awesome than usual, because it’s their 20th anniversary! Who knows what cool guests and other surprises they’ll pull out for this special occasion? I for one am dying to find out. The next 365 days are going to be unbearable…

And thus ends another Anime Expo… (Updated)

Donald Burr — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 05:41:00 +0000

I write this from our tiny hotel room at the Kawada, on the eve of AX Day 4, after an enforced 4 hour-ish nap. Anime Expo 2010 was another phenomenal event. Some among our panelists will disagree (and I’m sure they’ll elaborate during our inevitable Panel Review of Doom, which we’ll try to get to within the next week or two). Me, I still think AX has a place in the grand scheme of things, and I’ll keep on going. (But then again, I don’t mind the crowds, which I think is their main complaint with AX).

What I did have issue with is the sudden fee hikes. Pre-reg was a whopping $75 per this year, and while I don’t specifically recall last year’s pricing, I think that this year the increase was rather sharp and sudden. The general tone of the event was “nickel and dime.” People staying at con hotels were no longer given complimentary event tickets and were forced to purchase tickets to the events that they wanted to go to. They once again charged for shuttle service (although they did throw in free shuttle service as a last minute gesture to 4-day attendees, which I thought was a nice gesture.) The Meet the Guests reception tickets took a sharp increase ($50 as opposed to somewhere around $25-30 last year); I also hear that they cheaped out on the food. What did it for me was them charging $1.99 for the iPhone app. Good on them for making an iPhone app — and a fantastic app it was — as well as the SCHED system, which was quite usable from most other smartphones; but charging $1.99 for it along with all the other price hikes seemed a bit crass to me.

Speaking of shuttles, because of an incident that happened (more on that later) we were unable to use the shuttles for the majority of our stay; however according to friends, apparently the shuttles were once again running late fairly regularly. Also, honestly, some of those buses should really be put out to pasture. Seriously.

The staff, on the whole, was friendly and largely knew what they were doing; on those occasions when they didn’t, they went out of their way to work with us to find the solution to our problem. Their one weak point is still in the disabled services department. It was a challenge finding exactly where to go, and then trekking halfway across the convention center to get there. They should really integrate disabled services as part of the standard registration process. Also some staff were confused as to the meaning of the “priority access” badge inserts that us disabled attendees received. We were turned away from and/or denied priority seating at a few events because of this confusion. Fortunately once additional staffers who knew what was going on arrived, we were seated without further delay. I believe these may be the same as the “AX Premier” badges, so perhaps those people had trouble as well.

However, we did have issue with the convention center staff. Oh, the ones we interacted with were friendly enough. Our problem was that there just weren’t enough of them. Specifically security. This is thanks to some serious budget cuts at the LACC. As a result there was quite a bit of horsing around going on, which can be very dangerous, especially around stairs and elevators and the like. Sadly, this resulted in one of our panelists receiving a rather serious injury. Nothing permanent, thankfully, but it still involved a rather expensive and nasty trip to the hospital on the wrong side of town…

Another thing we had issue with… What the frak is it with the vuvuzelas? They were EVERYWHERE, and practically every 30 seconds I was hearing that most abhorrent noise that sounds like a cross between a pair of yaks in heat, and a pair of yaks dying an excruciatingly painful death. Super annoying! I seriously wanted to run up to every vuvuzela wielder, yank it out of their hands, and shove the thing… right up a very dark and personal space, if you catch my drift. This is frakkin’ Anime Expo, NOT the World Cup. And unless you’re cosplaying someone from Captain Tsubasa, they have no place here. Hell, even if you were cosplaying as someone from that series, I still think they’re inappropriate, because I don’t ever recall seeing them there. Gahhhh!!!!

This year marks the return of the Nokia Theater as the venue for the main events (AMV, Masquerade, and concerts). This was fantastic, as the Nokia Theater has excellent stadium-style sloped seating (makes taking pictures that much easier, less of a chance of someone’s head getting in your way), and their sound and video system is phenomenal. In 2008 (the last time Nokia Theater was used) we had some trouble with the staff not knowing at which events photography was allowed at — we were harassed for taking pictures at Masquerade. We also had trouble with getting disabled assistance and bag check. Not this year. The Nokia Center staff conducted themselves with professionalism and courtesy, and we weren’t hassled at all over photography or any other issue.

The events themselves were terrific. Each year I am constantly amazed at the creativity and talent of the AMV creators and the cosplayers. Unfortunately we didn’t make it to the AMVs — we arrived after registration and badge pickup were closed for the day; however they rescreened all the videos on Saturday, and barring a minor technical glitch or two, it went off smoothly. Masquerade also went smoothly, and actually started more or less on time (shocking, I know). This year, rather than that same old masquerade host (whose jokes were honestly getting a wee bit old) Masquerade was hosted by a trio of MC’s. They handled their job admirably, although the female MC was a bit ditzy for my taste

However, the highlight for me has to be Friday’s concert featuring Megumi Nakajima and May’n. Fans of Macross Frontier will know these two names; Megumi Nakajima is the voice actress who provided both the speaking and singing voices for Ranka Lee , and May’n provided the singing voice for Sheryl Nome. I recently had the pleasure of watching Frontier (I wrote about previously) and the music from this show really stood out in my mind. Seeing these two perform on stage was a real treat. They performed many of the songs featured in Frontier, including a really rousing rendition of “Lion” (my favorite opening theme from the series), a heartfelt acoustic version of “Diamond Crevasse,” and a truly moving performance of the haunting Vajra theme “Aimo.” Sadly we missed the first half of the concert, but the part we did see was incredible. Japanator has a great writeup, including some awesome pictures.

Oh yeah, there was that little matter of my two panels. They went off beautifully. Tech staff was extremely helpful and got us set up in a jiffy for both talks. And — THERE WERE PEOPLE!!! This especially shocked me at the 9 AM panel – with such an early schedule, on a Sunday morning, on lastday, and after a Saturday night’s drunken debauchery, I was expecting a rather miserable turnout. I was pleasantly surprised. There were at least 20 at the morning talk, and I’d say at least 50 at the afternoon talk. Everyone I talked to found the information extremely useful and they had some great questions. To those of you who attended, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. The notes from the podcasting panel are already up; I’m still working on the photography panel notes (give me a few days – I still have to recover from AX) but they should be online by the end of the week.

What will probably take me a bit longer are pictures. I shot over 2,000 pictures around the convention and at Masquerade. (no, unfortunately I didn’t shoot OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAND…) Those will take quite a while to properly edit. In the meantime, Japanator has started posting some of theirs (and awesome ones at that), which you can feast your eyes on here and here. (EDIT 2010-07-05: And here, and here as well.) (EDIT 2010-07-06: Last two AX cosplay photo galleries from Japanator are finally up here and here.) ANN has their own cosplay photo gallery, as well as a gallery of photos taken in the exhibit hall (dealer’s room) and around various parts of the con in general.

What will also take me a fair amount of time to digest is the news coming out of AX. I simply did not have the energy to attend every panel I wanted to. As I get the time, and as the fog of tiredness gradually lifts from my brain, I’ll go through the news items and latest releases and blog about the ones that interest me, adding my own spin on things; but in the meantime you can feel free to check out ANN’s and Japanator’s coverage of all things AX.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll crawl back into my cave and hibernate for a few more months…

J-List is a peaceful island of Japanese pop culture for you

Make the most of your time at AX with these cool new scheduling tools

Donald Burr — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 01:46:03 +0000

When you look at your typical anime convention’s schedule, what do you do? Does your mind seize up with panic and indecision? Do you just say “screw it” and decide to “go with the flow” and just randomly drift between whatever events interest you? (One of my friends and co-hosts swears by this method and seems to have fun at whatever convention he goes to, so maybe it’d work for you too). Or do you whip out your maps, charts, and sextant, and begin plotting your convention course to military precision? Planning things down to the second isn’t necessarily the best idea either – there’s always things going on, events get changed/canceled, etc., so leaving some flexibility in your schedule is always a good idea. Still, being able to at least roughly sketch out what events you’re interested in seeing is helpful. What’s even more helpful is if you could share this information with your friends that you’re attending the convention with – after all, if several people are going to the same event, it would be easier (and perhaps more fun even) to group up with them. So yeah, having at least a basic plan of attack definitely helps. But dealing with paper schedules is such a pain. (besides, generally speaking, you don’t actually get the paper schedules until you’re actually at the convention, and it’s always a good idea to plan things out beforehand). Surely there must be some cool flashy Web 2.0 synergistic XML-based social networking-aware (insert various other random buzzwords here) tech tool to help you out with this?!

If you’re the proud owner of an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, well guess what, there’s an app for that. The new Anime Expo app, to be more precise. Armed with this app, you’ll have just about everything you’ll need to better navigate your way around the convention. Exhibitor listings and information; maps of the convention center, exhibit hall, and surrounding areas; the full programming schedule; listings of nearby businesses and restaurants; schedule updates and alerts; a “you are here” (location-based) feature to help you more easily meet up with friends; and fun little mini-games to pass the time while you’re in those Xbox Huge lines. The app is compatible with all mobile Apple devices, including the iPod touch and the iPad, and is available for $1.99 in the App Store. I will admit that their charging $1.99 for this app when they’re already charging for so many things at con seems a bit crass to me, but at least $1.99 isn’t too bad as things go.

What? You’re not part of the iCollective? No need to fret, because you’ve got SCHED. This Web-based tool will allow you to browse and search through the AX events schedule and mark down which events you’re interested in seeing. Once you’ve selected, you can either print out a paper-based schedule, or you can export your schedule to a variety of different formats (iCal, Outlook, Google Calendar, etc.). You can even link to your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts, and find out what events your friends will be attending. SCHED even has a mobile-friendly version which will allow you to use the site from your smartphone without the need to install any special software or apps (I’ve tested this on Android and it works beautifully; it is also said to work on iPhone, BlackBerry, and Palm Pre). Find out more or sign up (it’s free) here.

Heading up to FanimeCon… (and some Important Announcements!)

Donald Burr — Thu, 27 May 2010 07:28:43 +0000

Apologies for the radio silence, but between work (crazy busy with the added fun of rush deadlines, joy!), the Great Move, and FanimeCon, I’ve been a pretty busy boy. But, deities willing, I’ll be on my way to San Jose (do you know the way? ha!) tomorrow evening, and will be snaking my way through Reg Hell sometime Friday morning/early afternoon.

Naturally I’ll be blogging (as time, energy level, and bandwidth permits), and I’ll also once again activate the AudioBoo gateway, so you should be able to hear short audio updates as I find things that interest me enough to yak about ‘em. Those will come out on the podcast feed.

But more importantly, I have some announcements about my panel. First of all, I now know what room my podcasting panel will be in. (As a reminder, that’s scheduled for Sunday the 30th at high noon.) We’ll be in Panels 1 (Marriott Salon 1:2). So if you’ve ever wondered what this whole podcasting fuss is about, or wanted to know how I run this three-ring circus we call Otaku no Podcast, come on by!

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!!! (or, as the great Steve Jobs would say, “…There is one more thing.”)

Thanks to some cancellations in the panels schedule, I will now be doing ANOTHER PANEL! Yes, you read correctly. My friend Dave and I will be presenting a panel, ”Con Photography: Shoot to Win!”, which is currently scheduled for Sunday May 30th from 9pm to 10pm in Panels 3 (Marriott Salon 4:6). Yes, as the title implies, we’ll be talking all about the tips and techniques that you can use to get those awesome cosplay shots. Whether you’re a total photography n00b or fancy yourself to be the next Ansel Adams, whether you own an uber-crappy point and shoot you picked up for 20 bucks at a Wal*Mart or a DSLR with more knobs and dials on it than the space shuttle, you’re sure to pick up some tips, techniques, and gear recommendations that are sure to improve your photography. (Or at the very least we’ll entertain you with our lame geek humor.)

One last thing: the full FanimeCon schedule is now online for your viewing pleasure. Now you might be asking “So what’s the best way of keeping up with those inevitable schedule changes that are bound to happen?” Well, FanimeCon has a Twitter account (which they actually use quite liberally throughout the con, for things such as schedule changes and event announcements). But if you have one of those newfangled cell phones that can surf the Intarwebs, then you’ll be thrilled to learn that FanimeCon has a spiffy mobile website version of their schedule. Just type in m.fanime.com in your phone’s web browser, and behold the marvels of modern technology. It even has a nifty search function. Schweet!

Click for J-List now!

It’s officially official, part deux: Looks like I’ll be at Anime Expo as well!

Donald Burr — Sun, 16 May 2010 05:05:46 +0000

Looks like I’ll be pretty busy this summer. Not only will I be presenting a panel at FanimeCon, but today I found out that I will also be presenting not one, but TWO panels at Anime Expo!!

Anime Expo is, I would wager, one of the US’s largest anime conventions (44,000 attended in 2009), and is held every July 4 weekend in Southern California. This year’s event will be held Thursday-Sunday, July 1-4, at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Unlike most fan-run anime conventions, AX (as the cool kids call it) is much more of an industry affair. Don’t get me wrong; you’ll still find plenty of traditional fan favorite events at AX (AMVs, masquerade, various fan-run panels and workshops, console and tabletop gaming, artist alley, etc.), not to mention a dealer’s room of epic proportions; however there is a decidedly industry-heavy focus to the live programming lineup. This is where you’ll see the industry heavyweights — Bandai, FUNimation, Tokyopop, et al — trotting out their latest offerings, and giving glimpses into their plans for the future. (There are also, I’m sure, quite a few “behind closed doors” industry meetings as well.) Keeping up with the news around AX time is difficult, what with all the announcements and press releases flying about. Many a hot property has had its world premiere in an AX film or video room — for example, at last year’s AX, FUNimation premiered the US release of Evangelion: 1.0 - You are (not) alone, the Eva reboot.

Unfortunately, this year’s AX is marred by controversy between the new management at AX’s parent organization and much of the convention staff, who resigned in protest, citing a long chain of grievances including excessive travel expenses (and other financial shenanigans), restructuring of the chain of command, inexperience with the anime industry and how to run a convention, unjust terminations of key staff positions, offending Guests of Honor and industry guests and refusing to honor their contracts, and heavy-handed censorship of staffers’ Internet postings. The other side naturally counters that their accusations are unjust, and all changes in staff, power structure, etc. were done to make AX and SPJA a more financially sound organization, and to increase attendance from both exhibitors/guests and attendees (whose growth has flatlined for the past few years). Which side is right? Well, one way or another, we’ll find out in a little less than two months.

Anyway, this year’s guest list does look pretty good, including such heavy-hitters as Shinichi “Nabeshin” Watanabe, Kenji Kamiyama, Toshihiro Kawamoto, and musical guests Sophia, MELL, and AKB48 (huh… Morning Musume last year, AKB48 this year… the circle is now complete??!). There are also rumors that legendary expatriate otaku Danny Choo himself will be there, no doubt promoting his latest anime-related project Chinka. Of course, there will also be your usual convention fare, including a truly awe-inspiring dealer’s room, artist’s alley, AMV contest, masquerade, console and tabletop gaming, and various and sundry panels and workshops.

AX hasn’t gone totally industry, however, as there are still quite a few fan-run panels and workshops in the lineup – and yours truly, as it turns out, will be running two of said workshops (yes, I’m finally getting to the point of this long-winded post!). ”Anime Podcasting for Beginners” is basically the same song and dance I’ll be giving at Fanimecon (with changes based on my experiences there). If you’ve ever wanted to start your own anime or manga related podcast but just weren’t sure how, then this is the workshop for you! According to the preliminary scheduling info I’ve been given, this fine event will take place on Sunday, July 4, from 9:00 AM-10:00 AM (sorry folks, I have no say in the matter), in LP3. My second panel, “Convention Photography 101: How To Get The Shot (and make it look easy!)” will help you if you’ve ever had that experience where you take a bunch of pictures at con, excitedly hurry home and load them on your computer, but are greeted with only pain and misery (and a bunch of blurry or sub-optimal shots). We’ll show you how you can get that great shot, whether you’re armed with a crappy point and shoot or a DSLR with more knobs and buttons on it than the space shuttle. If you think that sounds familiar, yes we did talk about it on the podcast. (Unfortunately my friend Dave who was my co-host on that episode won’t be able to make it to AX.) That workshop will also take place on Sunday the 4th, at 12:30, in WS1. (Note: this is a new room and time!) So if you’ll be in the LA area come July 4 weekend, come on down!

Pre-reg for AX as well as hotel registration is online at the AX website.

Hentai PC dating-sim games at J-List

It’s officially official: Come see my panel @ FanimeCon!

Donald Burr — Thu, 13 May 2010 05:32:56 +0000

Well, those of you who have been particularly observant may have caught me making vague references to this on Twitter or Facebook, or on some of my past video podcasts. And if you were paying attention to last week’s audio episode, you almost certainly heard me announce this. Well, now it’s officially official: I will be putting on a workshop at FanimeCon!!

FanimeCon, to those of you not “in the know,” is a rather nice anime convention held in San Jose, CA, around Memorial Day weekend each year. Many moons ago, when I for a brief time lived in the Bay Area during my first (and, I am chagrined to say, rather unsuccessful) attempt at obtaining a higher education, I attended my first FanimeCon with my friend Charles (I remember seeing Iria: Zeiram the Animation – an anime most fans these days probably have never heard of – there when it was still fairly new – that’s how long ago it was). Unfortunately, because of having to move back home (remember, failed education?) I wasn’t able to return until last year when, on a whim (and thanks to some unused train tickets that were about to expire that I found while cleaning my desk), I decided to check it out. Boy was I glad I did, because man, has it grown! When I went in 2000, attendance was a paltry 2,300; the attendance at the 2008 show (the most recent data I was able to find) was a whopping 14,926. (No, I’m not gonna say it…) The 2009 show, which is the one I went to, felt even bigger than that – I’d say at least 20,000. That’s still less than a half of the mega-cons (Anime Expo 2009, for example, with 44,000 attendees), but still quite impressive by my book. Despite its growth, however, FanimeCon has still managed to remain a fun and worthwhile experience, and lacks the ‘tude that you sometimes see at the larger cons; as I noted in my review of last year’s event, it has that unique and rarely-seen mixture of big-con excitement and smaller-con friendliness and breadth of events. Not surprising, as they to this day bill themselves as a con run “by fans, for fans.”

This year’s FanimeCon is shaping up to be yet another awesome event, with guests such as musicians LM.C and Haruko Momoi (who totally rocked my socks off at last year’s FanimeCon – I’m so glad she’ll be returning!); Daisuke Ishiwatari, creator of the Guilty Gear franchise; Hiroyuki Yamaga, one of the founding members of a little anime studio called GAINAX; and many others. Aside from the usual con happenings (AMVs, Masquerade, a pretty happening dealer’s room, gaming, etc.), FanimeCon also features a refreshingly broad lineup of panels covering a wide range of topics, including cosplay, gaming, entertainment, gatherings and debate, how-to/demo, manga, webcomics, music, working in the industry, and many more.

Well, yours truly will be responsible for one such panel, and if you’ve ever wondered how I put together this little dog and pony show we call Otaku no Podcast, you might want to stop by. My workshop, “Anime Podcasting for n00bs” is currently scheduled for Sunday, November 30, at high noon. So far only the preliminary schedules have been drawn up, so this time and date may change; also, since it’s just a preliminary schedule, I don’t yet have a room assignment. I’ll definitely let you know when I find out more.

While I’m at con, I’ll also do my best to bring you some audio and video highlights from the event — and yes, I’ll actually try and get you some real interviews for a change! So be sure and keep an eye on the website and the podcast feed come Memorial Day weekend. Bandwidth and technology willing, I’ll be posting as much stuff as I can before collapsing in an exhausted quivering heap at the end of the day.

FanimeCon will be held on Memorial Day weekend, Friday-Monday May 28-31, at the San Jose Convention Center in downtown San Jose, CA. For more information, links to pre-register, etc., check out their website.

Click for J-List now!

A Winner is You! Behold the Anime LA 2010 AMV and Masquerade Winners

Donald Burr — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:20:33 +0000

Behold, for here are the winners in the various divisions of both the Masquerade and AMV contests at Anime LA 2010. Congratulations goes out to everybody who participated in both contests – all entries this year were truly awesome.

AMV:

Action:

1st Place Judge – Alucard’s Sound of Madness 1st Place Audience – Some Ride it Ruff 2nd Place Judge – Rarity 2nd Place Audience – Dante Makes a Man out of Ryu

Drama:

1st Place Judge – Veni Vidi Vici 1st Place Audience – Tsubasa Falling 4th Place Audience – Ameno Tiara Creator’s Choice – Guide Me

Comedy:

1st Place Audience & Judge – GoldenPants 2nd Place Audience – Ode to Cross Dressers 3rd Place Audience & Judge – Mean Woman Blues Judge’s Favorite – It’s Tough to Be a Host

Pro:

1st Place Audience and Judge – Lord of the Anime 2nd Place Judge – Valhalla 2nd Place Audience – Standing Still 3rd Place Judge – You Know My Name 4th Place Audience – CityScape Staff Pick – Diorama

Masquerade:

Best in Show: Workmanship This is What You Give Me to Work With Whitney Brown & Kiyoko Wakabayashi

Best in Show: Presentation The Prince’s Tale We’re Not Twins Cosplay

Workmanship Awards – Novice Division:

Technical Ingenuity Award Evil Black Bunny Productions Jeffrey Gerard

Excellence in Design Romeo and Juliet’s Night at the Rose Ball Laura Linnala

Honorable Mention for Detail Dark Cloud 2 Robot Penguin

Honorable Mention for Armor & Leather Work ia shake-zula of Anime Souffle iakurosaki and DingSha

Best in Class Soldier “A” Cosplay Matt Wiseman & Amanda Avila

Workmanship Awards – Open Division:

Honorable Mention for Details Wesley, Illyria, Gunn, and Spike from Angel Li, Dawn, EJ, & Phil

Honorable Mention for Fabric Painting Ahza Miracle Cinthya Jeanneth Rmz

Armor and Wings and Jewelry, Oh My! Do You Want to Date My Avatar? Beth Hodgson & Jacob Hodgson

Perfection in Sewing Good Enough Cosplay Caistarrin T. Mystical

Obsession with Detail Award Death by Sparkles Garnet Runestar and Tenshi

Best in Class The Prince’s Tale Julia & Caitlin Doolittle

Presentation Awards – Novice Division:

Audience Favorite Mangafreak 150 and Erin Chu Mangafreak150 and Erin Chu

Honorable Mention for Performance Fushigi Yuugi, The Mysterious Play dot, Michi-chan, Melanie, Rin, Katie, & Britnay

Best Individual Performance ia shake-zula of Anime Souffle iakurosaki

Best Group Performance Romeo and Juliet’s Night at the Rose Ball Two and a Half Space Pirates

Presentation Awards – Open Division:

Audience Favorite Ninja Stand-up Comedy Mister Inu

Most Dramatic Death by Sparkles Garnet Runestar and Tenshi

Most Humorous Do You Want to Date My Avatar? Team Kaolinite

Best Individual Presentation Good Enough Cosplay Caistarrin T. Mystical

J-List is a peaceful island of Japanese pop culture for you

Back from Anime LA

Donald Burr — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:00:37 +0000

I’m back from Anime LA, and so far (knock on wood) I’ve managed to avoid the dreaded Convention Sickness. Keep your fingers crossed…

I”ll try and schedule a recording session with The Gang soon to record our A-LA recap podcast. Look for that in the next week or two. In the meantime, here are my initial impressions and thoughts. Anime LA, and the staff that runs it, continues to amaze me year after year. According to Chaz (the A-LA head honcho) this year’s attendance was just shy of 3,200, which, in this tough economic climate, is pretty amazing. I hear that some attendees came from places far outside of California, even. The Spoony Bards, this year’s musical guests of honor, came all the way from Indiana – Anime Los Angeles was their first appearance west of Chicago. Even more amazing is the fact that one of the Bards, who recently quit the band when she got married, rejoined the band especially for this appearance – and traveled here all the way from London, UK! One attendee even came from New Zealand! Anime LA is truly becoming a global phenomenon!

I definitely noticed the increased attendance, especially on Saturday (traditionally the busiest day). There was a certain buzz in the air; it had a certain energy to it that I normally only associate with much larger conventions. Even with the extra attendees, it didn’t feel crowded at all (except for Masquerade, which always feels crowded). It looks like A-LA will be able to stay at the LAX Airport Marriott for a while to come, which is good, because the hotel and facilities are really quite nice. Decent convention room rate, easily accessible from most modes of transportation, and a reasonable selection of nearby food.

Anime LA bills itself as one of the friendliest fan-run conventions out there, and I believe them. Every time I interacted with their staff (or saw others interacting with them), they were kind, courteous, and truly helpful. I didn’t detect a hint of the “attitude” that can often be found at larger conventions, or those that take themselves too seriously. The events (or at least the ones I attended) were well-staffed and it looked like they had enough people.

There were, I felt, a decent selection of events, including some that go beyond typical anime-related topics. (I don’t have a schedule handy, but the ones that come to mind are the Japanese calligraphy workshops, martial arts demos, handicrafts, Japanese ghosts and demons, and Tadao-san’s Japanese sword demo, which, sadly, I was unable to attend.) I’m always in favor of having events at conventions that go beyond typical anime fandom and explore other aspects of Japanese life and culture. One of my favorites were the food workshops (Sushi, fried foods, etc.) that Anime Expo featured several years ago.

The (always excellent) program guide and pocket schedule did a pretty good job of laying out the schedule of events and describing what they were all about. However there were a few that were described in vague terms, or even not described at all — for example, “Egg Samurai” — I’m still not quite sure what that was about… Also I was very pleased that A-LA posted a draft event schedule before the convention – for those of us obsessive types, it really helps us begin to plan out our convention time. However it might have been nice to have that up at least a week, maybe even two, before the convention – the extra time would really help those who are traveling from out of area and may not necessarily be traveling with a computer and Internet connection. I realize that sometimes it’s hard to nail things down until the bitter end, but even a rough preliminary schedule is better than nothing.

They did a pretty good job of communicating event and schedule changes. Changes were indicated on signboards outside each room, plus they also published a daily newsletter (the Shinbunshi) with scheduling changes as well as other items of note. These were fairly liberally scattered around the convention area, and were hard to miss. One thing I’d like to see for the future is for them to start using social media such as Twitter and Facebook. We are living in the age of social media, and almost any cell phone these days can access it ubiquitously, making it an excellent way of staying in touch wherever you are. FanimeCon stands in my mind as the “gold standard” in this department. Their Twitter account was extremely active both before and during con, with frequent updates when schedules changed, and they also sent out reminders of when certain “big ticket” events (concerts, Masquerade, etc.) were to start. With FanimeCon’s Twitter loaded on my phone, I almost never had to consult their pocket program guide. They also used it to remind people before con of certain important dates (pre-reg closing date, hotel reservation, etc.).

The guest list was pretty impressive for a small/fan-run convention. (unfortunately for a convention of this type it’s difficult to get those “big draw” guests, Japanese guests of honor, etc.) They had a pretty good musical selection. I got to see some of the Spoony Bards’ Sunday concert and they were pretty awesome; they played a nice selection of anime and video game music that had me nodding and thinking to myself “Oh yeah, I remember that one…” They also entertained the crowd lined up for Masquerade during the long interminable wait to get seated. I was also surprised to see the beginnings of industry support for A-LA; for example this year FUNimation chose Anime LA for an advance screening of their latest title, RIN ~ Daughters of Mnemosyne. (Unfortunately I was unable to attend)

I really hate to overuse it, but Masquerade can only be described as “awesome.” There were 29 entries consisting of a total of 76 people, and the costumes and routines continue to amaze. There are truly some talented people out there! As I recall it didn’t start too late, and there were only a few minor technical glitches (which are pretty much par for the course in an event such as this).

AMV, on the other hand, was, I hate to say, made of fail. I wrote about this previously so go read that post if you haven’t seen it already. However, none of the problems (I think) were the fault of the staff – they were all technical issues which, perhaps in hindsight, could have been avoided, but may not have been easily anticipated. My recommendations that I wrote about still stand, and hopefully they will take steps similar to the ones I outlined to make next year’s AMV contest a success. (They did replay all AMVs the next day, without a hitch, and the audience was invited to cast ballots for the Pro category that was skipped during the actual AMV contest.)

(I’ll post a list of AMV and masquerade winners shortly. Unfortunately not all of the AMVs have made it online yet.)

The dealers’ room and artists’ alley were impressive, and definitely felt bigger than last year, and most of the traditional vendors you see at dealers rooms were well represented. For one thing, they actually had some decent DVD vendors. Yay! I picked up some good deals on some stuff I was looking for. Of course, I’ll be reviewing my purchases for Otaku no Podcast. They also had several cosplay-related sellers, weapons sellers, character goods, etc. And it looked like artists’ alley was doing some good business – every time I looked in on it it was always pretty packed.

The video screening rooms had a decent selection of titles and genres. Support came from FUNimation, Nozomi Entertainment/The Right Stuf International, Bandai Entertainment, AnimEigo, Central Park Media (apparently this support came from beyond the grave — creepy!), Section 23 Films, Sentai Filmworks, Viz Media and Media Blasters. They also featured certain “Dealer’s Choice” titles, which, presumably, were whatever the dealers in the dealers’ room wanted to promote sales of. One thing I really liked was that they had big bright LCD screens outside of each viewing room showing the name of the title being played and what looked like example scenes from the various anime that they were showing. Really nice touch there. They also split the titles fairly equally between dub and sub, which prevented the holy war to end all holy wars from occurring.

I am once again thoroughly impressed with Anime LA. It’s the little con that could, and is showing no signs of letting up on its growth. It serves as proof that, even in these times of economic hardship, anime conventions are still needed, and are still viable. My congratulations to the staff and volunteers for yet another enjoyable year of Anime LA.

I’ve got about 1500 photos to go through, edit/retouch, and post; I’ll try and get to that by this weekend. I’ve also got about half an hour of video that I’ll edit down into a highlights reel and post soon.

Hentai PC dating-sim games at J-List

Anime LA Day 2 mid-day convention report

Donald Burr — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:54:31 +0000

The day started off on a good note – I actually managed to get up and out of bed before noon, which, according to most of my friends, is a miracle.

The con is definitely in full swing now. It’s Saturday, which means lots more people in attendance who couldn’t come during the week because of work or school. It’s also the day when most of the “big” panels and workshops are. And it’s Masquerade day (by far one of the most popular events at any anime convention). The lines at registration at 9:30 this morning were pretty impressive, and I’d imagine that as the day goes on, they will grow.

The most interesting and informative panel this morning was “How not to run an anime convention” presented by fan guest of honor Bekka the Alice. As past chair of Nan Desu Kan, she definitely knows what she’s talking about. She presented many tips and techniques and things to watch out for, signs that a newly-born anime convention might be heading down the road to failure, and how to avoid these pitfalls, interspersed with a few war stories as examples of what not to do, and how catastrophically FAIL things can become if you didn’t heed her advice. Very interesting, and I’d wager that alot of her advice would apply to other types of public events as well. Bekka has graciously agreed to come on Otaku no Podcast to talk more about how to properly get a new anime convention from conception to reality.

I attended several other panels and workshops on amateur/beginning voice acting, and while informative, they weren’t quite what I had expected. More on these later.

Unfortunately my camera is out of commission at the moment. I forgot to charge the battery last night, and I used up what was left this morning taking panel shots for the photo gallery. I really need a second camera battery. The camera’s in the room charging so that it’ll be ready in time for Masquerade; in the meantime I’ll have my video camera with me (which takes passable stills) for as long as its puny battery lasts. (I need a second high capacity battery for that as well… one of these days…)

Still quite a few hours left in the day, during which I hope to attend a few more panels/workshops, visit the dealers room and artists alley, and get as many pictures as I possibly can. (and maybe an interview or two as well) Then, of course, there’s Masquerade. Stay tuned for more…

How not to run an AMV competition screening

Donald Burr — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 09:49:25 +0000

Day 1 of Anime Los Angeles has officially drawn to a close. Due to various factors including my travel schedule (I didn’t actually arrive on-site until close to 2:30 this afternoon) and my body’s need for a sudden unscheduled nap (remember what I said about human frailties…) I only made it to one panel today, but it was an interesting one – all about anime conventions in Japan and how they differ from the typical style of anime conventions we’re used to in the Western world. I’ll post more on that later. However, the evening ended on a bit of a sour note… The Anime Music Video (AMV) contest is something I really look forward to at every anime convention I attend. Having tried (and failed) to make one myself, I know how hard it is to make an AMV – and how much harder it is to make a good AMV. The creativity of the AMV community simply astounds me. Plus it’s a great way to discover new anime – I often see scenes, characters, etc. that interest me and motivates me to go online and find out what series they came from.

Anyway, back to tonight’s AMV contest. For starters, they were late letting us in. No biggie there – late starts and line-ups are pretty much par for the course when it comes to an anime convention, and we’re used to that sort of thing. Once we finally got seated, however, the event didn’t start – they were running late. Again, no biggie, and at least they were running AMVs from previous contests on the big screen to entertain us while we were waiting.

Then things started to go south. Specifically, the computer that was running the AMVs started freaking out. Badly stuttering/pausing video, sound dropouts, Windows crashes (did I mention this was being run on a Windows machine?), and multiple occurrences of the Windows “USB device connected/disconnected” sound (which seemed to indicate problems with an attached USB hard disk – presumably the source from where they were playing the videos.) The natives began to get restless, and there was some jeering and heckling from the audience (some of which, I’ll admit, came from the Otaku no Podcast camp).

Finally, the MC, the inimitable Tadao Tomomatsu, appeared on stage to get the ball rolling. Only… it didn’t. Again, frequent video stuttering/pausing, sound dropouts, program crashes, etc. If it weren’t for his (sometimes corny, but always funny) jokes and entertaining stories, I fear the scene would have turned very ugly. While he vamped, the tech crew was busy trying to get things to work. Finally, they got it working more or less, with only the occasional slight audio glitch, and we proceeded through the Drama, Action, Comedy categories. But there wasn’t enough time to show the final category (“Pro,” for high-production-value videos, similar to the “AMTV” category in Anime Expo’s AMV contest).

So what went wrong here? Let’s do a little hypothetical post-mortem analysis here…

I’ll ignore the late start/late seating issues, as these are common at conventions. Clearly the main issue was technological in nature. What happened?

First of all, it turns out that the computer being used was the personal computer of (presumably) one of the A-LA staff. This was his (or her) gaming rig. It would have been far easier to use a less, umm, riced-out machine. Less complexity and all that. Almost any machine is capable of playing back video these days, even many lower-end notebooks (and even some netbooks).

Second, apparently the videos were being played back from a USB Drobo – a professional-grade highly redundant external storage device. Again far more complexity than was needed. It would have been much simpler to use a standard USB external hard drive, such as a Western Digital My Book. (Or even a USB thumb drive, which are pretty much bulletproof and highly reliable.) It turns out that the Drobos require specialized drivers for the best functionality – during one of the periods when Tadao was vamping, tech staff were frantically downloading the latest Drobo drivers and software.

Finally, it looked like the videos that were supplied for the contest were in a variety of different formats. Unfortunately there’s not much you can do about this. Working with video is a complex procedure, especially given the wide variety of formats that AMV source material comes from (retail DVDs, fansubs of various formats, and now HD video). You could attempt to use one of the video “Swiss Army Knives” – programs that attempt to decode and play back a wide variety of video formats. (in fact it appeared that they were using VLC, one of these type of programs.) Unfortunately sometimes even these versatile tools fail or generate undesired results. You could also enforce a “standard format” that all submissions must be sent as – say, for example, H.264 video with a maximum bitrate of 1500, and a maximum resolution of 720×480. The tools for converting between video formats (transcoding) are widely available and generally work well enough. Or – best of all – standardize on the DVD format. Most computers these days come with DVD burners, the DVD format is robust and reliable (it’s withstood the test of time), and it is very difficult to screw up computer-based DVD playback software. And if the unthinkable happens and the computer crashes or whatever, then all you have to do is hook up a cheap $40 Wal-mart DVD player to your A/V system and you’re back in business.

Lastly, I feel that most, if not all, of these problems would have been averted, or at least lessened in severity, if the staff had used Macs in the video preparation and/or playback workflow. I’ll acknowledge that Windows has done some serious catching up in the multimedia department in the past 20-odd years that it’s been out; however I still firmly believe that the Mac still has an edge when it comes to working with digital media, especially video. (and before you hit that “comment” button – I don’t want to turn this into a “my computer/OS is better than your computer/OS” thread. So stop right there. If you still feel the need, please do so by contacting us directly.) One of the conventions I spoke of last year, FanimeCon, used a completely Mac mini-based video playback system for all of their screening rooms, and (to my knowledge) did not have any computer-related video playback problems whatsoever.

I do feel I must give credit where credit is due, however. The staff did their darndest to ensure that “the show must go on.” And if it weren’t for the always-entertaining Tadao-san — like I said earlier — things would have turned REAL ugly. Finally, unlike Anime Expo of several years ago, A-LA actually had an AMV contest. They didn’t mysteriously lose their files or equipment, with no backups to be found anywhere.

I’ll post links to all of the AMV candidates (as well as links to their entries at AMV.org where available) when I’m less tired. Tomorrow’s looking to be a pretty full day, and in order to survive it, I really do need my beauty rest. Oyasumi nasai…

Hentai PC dating-sim games at J-List

My Anime Los Angeles schedule

Donald Burr — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:38:26 +0000

OK, I’ve started blocking out my time at Anime LA. Obviously, anime conventions, human frailties, etc. being the way they are, I might not make it to all the events I’ve called out, but I’ll do my best. And of course I’ll do my best to get plenty of audio, photos, and videos to share on the podcast as well.

If there is an event you would be interested in me covering (see the schedule for a list of events) please let me know and I’ll do my best to cover it (or have one of my evil minions cover it).

Gothic & Lolita Products, magazine subscriptions from Japan

Anime LA (draft) schedules are up (Updated)

Donald Burr — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:21:49 +0000

FYI, the draft event schedules for Anime Los Angeles, as well as the anime video room schedule, are now online. Cosplay gathering schedule coming soon, and of course being a draft schedule, all of this is very much open to change, so do check back often.

Update: 01/05/2010: A restaurant guide (PDF) is now online. This should help all you hungry otaku feed your need, whatever it may be. Also, their tech department is in desperate need of a few good men and women (i.e. volunteers).

J-List is a peaceful island of Japanese pop culture for you

Pacific Media Expo (PMX) is THIS weekend!

Donald Burr — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:55:57 +0000

Yes, folks, he lives! As I mentioned earlier, October was a pretty busy month for me, with two huge work projects, and then the BlogWorld and New Media Expo conference mid-month. Well fortunately the work stuff all went well, and BlogWorld was a total blast. UNfortunately, however, I apparently took a little extra “something” home from the BlogWorld trip – what can only be described as “the Martian Death Flu.” I’ve been living in misery for the past two weeks, which of course explains why I haven’t been able to get an episode out (or any blog posts for that matter). In fact I’m still not 100% over this thing, I still have a pretty nasty cough and my voice is still pretty hoarse, but I hope to finally kick the last of this thing in the next few days.

Anyway, I missed quite a bit of news while I was sick (so the next episode, which I hope to be able to record in a few days, will be chock full of news and such). One of the (many) things that slipped under my radar is the Pacific Media Expo (PMX) convention. But the good news is that you still have time to get in on this – PMX is being held right now (the weekend of November 6-8) at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport, 5711 West Century Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90045.

PMX isn’t your typical anime convention – really it’s a convention about Asian Pacific entertainment and culture as a whole. Which, of course, includes anime and such, but also includes Asian live-action movies, Jpop/Jrock, visual kei, Japanese street fashion, and a whole lot more. Guests of honor this year include Gashikon, clothing designer famous for the Hangry & Angry line; visual kei rockers UchuSentai NOIZ; Maki and Asuka, clothing designers with Angelic Pretty; famed anime director Shinichi “Nabeshin” Watanabe; and fashion designer Takuya Sawada of Takuya Angel.

Of course you’ll also find the usual series of events, including various panels and workshops, dances, karaoke, video and console gaming, video and film rooms, CosFest (cosplay competition), and even a fashion show! (Of course there’s also a Dealers Room.)

Sounds interesting? Online registration is still open for the convention, at $40 for a full weekend adult pass, and less if you only want to go certain days, or if you’re a child, etc. – children under 5 are free with adult membership. Of course you can also register at the door.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend – besides the whole recovering-from-major-illness thing, I have a podcast to work on this weekend However, if you do manage to make it to PMX, I’d love to hear from you! Either drop me an email or call our voice line with a mini-review.

J-List is a peaceful island of Japanese pop culture for you

Attention New York City: New York Anime Festival is THIS Weekend!

Donald Burr — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:28:08 +0000

New York Anime Festival will be hitting the Jacob Javits convention center THIS weekend – Friday through Sunday, September 25-27. Special guests include Yoshiyuki Tomino, the director of Mobile Suit Gundam; and Yui Makino, the voice of Sakura in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. Film premieres include Gurren Lagann: The Movie – Childhood’s End, Cencoroll, and 20th Century Boys. There’ll also be tons of musical goodness, including the US debut of all-female Japanese theatre/idol supergroup AKB48, and the Far East to East Showcase musical tour, featuring Kokusyoku Sumire, Swinging Popsicle, Echostream, and Gelatine. Of course this barely scratches the surface of the tons of other cool things that’ll be going on at this mega-convention. For more details, check out their website.

Unfortunately New York is a bit of a trip for me, so I won’t be able to go, nor do I have any Evil Henchmen(tm) in the vicinity whom I can order into action. So if you’ll be attending any of the convention or ancillary events, I would really appreciate it if you could type up – or better yet, record – a short review of what you thought of the event. You can send it to me using any of the contact methods listed on the “Contact Us” page. Who knows, I might just use it in the next show, and you’ll be famous In any case, if you are going, please do enjoy yourself!

Click for J-List now!

Photos from Comic-Con

Donald Burr — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:36:35 +0000

Friend of the show Dave “Paradox” Fayram (no, he hasn’t been on the show yet, but he is still a friend of it) is attending San Diego Comic-Con and has started putting up his pictures. Check them out on his San Diego Comic-Con Flickr set. Looks like he’ll try and upload new ones every day, so check back often!

J-List is a peaceful island of Japanese pop culture for you

San Diego Comic-Con is Here!

Donald Burr — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 04:03:14 +0000

I can’t believe that it’s that time already. Yes, that awesomely huge comic convention, Comic-Con, is set to rock the San Diego Convention Center this Thursday through Sunday, July 23-26, with a special Preview Night on Wednesday, July 22. But if you’ve procrastinated up till now hoping that you could get in at the last minute – sorry! You’re out of luck. All memberships are sold out. WOW! This year’s attendance is going to be epic!

Our intrepid reporter Danny Barer will be there and we will be talking with him after he has come back (and has had a chance to decompress) about all that went on at Comic-Con. Look for that episode sometime next week. (I just learned that one of my other friends is going as well, so I’ll try and wrangle him onto the podcast as well).

For more information, check out the Comic-Con website.

PC dating-sim games @ J-List

Episode #0007 – FanimeCon 2009 Review

Donald Burr — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:50:46 +0000

Here it is, the special mid-week episode I promised containing my review of FanimeCon 2009. In short: It’s the perfect compromise between huge mega-con and small local fan-run con, and I liked it. A lot. We also go over some news, including, yes, some more Weird Japan. No picks this week, but I think you’ll like this episode just the same.

News:

Weird Japan:

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Episode #0006 – We’re Not Dead! (Yet…)

Donald Burr — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:49:02 +0000

Yes, it’s true, we’re still very much alive and kicking. Let’s just say that 2008 was the Year of Hell, and a lot of stuff happened in my life (most of it NOT good). Things aren’t quite at the levels they were before the Year of Hell, but at least the dust has settled and I’m in a more or less stable situation right now. So I figured it’s time to revive the show!

Today we bring you yet another of our big group discussions, this time talking about our experiences and thoughts on Anime Expo 2009, quite possibly North America’s largest anime convention, which happened this past July 4 weekend. We also give out some anime recco’s along the way. And, of course, go over this week’s anime news of interest.

This Week’s News:

Picks of the Week:

Donald – Galaxy Express 999, Last Exile, Shangri-La
Michelle – Chi’s Sweet Home, Chi’s New Address
Danny – Hayate no Gotoku (aka Hayate the Combat Butler), Shangri-La

Last Exile

Funimation Prod 2009, DVD, $110.97

Hayate the Combat Butler

Artist Not Provided. Bandai 2009, DVD, $12.47

Our Websites:

On the way to AX

Donald Burr — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:23:56 +0000

OK, We are on the road. (rails, actually) Expect to hit the LACC around 3 pm. Watch this space for more updates and announcements of live broadcasts. Related posts: Anime Expo 2009 photos on Flickr Otaku no Podcast is proud to announce that we are now a Friend of JList! ChibiCast #0021 – Random-Updates-a-Gogo

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Anime Convention Alert: Anime Expo is THIS Weekend!

Donald Burr — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:20:34 +0000

I should learn to never make promises. No sooner had I posted the last “we’re coming back soon, honest!” message, then I got slammed with a huge wall of work which pretty much left me with NO free time – not enough to even watch anime. (See, that’s the problem with freelancing in a tough economy: you take what work you can get, when you can get it, and count yourself lucky because you may not be so lucky next month.)

Of course, now that I actually have a break in my work schedule, my voice is now gone thanks to a freak summer cold I managed to catch. (I suppose I COULD do a podcast now, but you probably wouldn’t like it, as I sound something like a cross between Darth Vader without his breathing mask, and a 50 year old chain smoker.)

Anyway, the voice (and my cold) are finally healing up.. and just in time too… because Anime Expo is THIS WEEKEND!!! (Time sure flies, doesn’t it?)

Yes, Anime Expo, one of the world’s largest – certainly the West Coast’s largest – anime conventions, will return to the Los Angeles Convention Center THIS WEEKEND. Actually, the dates are Thursday July 2 through Sunday July 5. Some of the awesome Guests of Honor who will be making an appearance at this convention include:

Hiroyuki Imaishi – Recipient of the 12th Animation Kobe Director’s Award. Mr. Imaishi has worked on Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and many more!
Daisuke Ishiwatari – Video game developer best known for creating the fighting game Guilty Gear. He also provides the in-game voice for the characters Sol Badguy and Order-Sol.
Yun Kouga – Revered manga artist who has garnered praise and acclaim for her current series Loveless. Ms. Kouga is also the character designer for the anime MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM 00.
Yosuke Kuroda – Mr. Kuroda has been involved in numerous projects including Excel Saga, Gungrave, Hayate the Combat Butler!, Hellsing OVA, Love Hina, etc.
Seiji Mizushima – Famed director of the upcoming theatrical version of MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM 00. Mr. Mizushima also worked on Fullmetal Alchemist, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and many more!
Moi dix Mois – Sound project headed by Mana, the consummate guitarist and leader of Malice Mizer.
Toshimichi Mori – Mr. Mori is currently working on the Aksys Games title BLAZBLUE as its director, lead artist and designer.
Toshiyuki Morikawa – Legendary voice actor who has in many popular anime roles, such as Bleach, Gundam X, Full Metal Panic, Initial D, Inuyasha, and many others.
Morning Musume – Famous not just for being the Japan’s top female group, but also for its unique approach with the shuffling of band members.
Yasuhiro Nightow – Creator of the highly popular TRIGUN manga that inspired the television anime series of the same title.
Atsushi Nishigori – Recipient of the 7th Annual Tokyo International Anime Awards. Mr. Nishigori has worked many titles and now serves as the character animation director for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann franchise.
Satoshi Nishimura – The director of the highly anticipated 2009 TRIGUN movie. Mr. Nishimura has also worked on many huge and popular titles, including Black Lagoon, Rurouni Kenshin, and Street Fighter Alpha.
Takashi Okazaki – The creator of the popular Afro Samurai manga. Mr. Okazaki has also done illustration works for Spider-Man 2 DVD & Blade III Sound Track CD.
Kari Wahlgren – Kari Wahlgren was first introduced to anime audiences as the Vespa-riding, guitar-bashing Haruko in “FLCL.”
…and tons more industry guests!

Aside from the many GoH, fan, and industry panels, there’s also the ever-popular Anime Music Video (AMV) contest, AX Idol singing/voice acting contest, Masquerade cosplay contest, various tea and masquerade balls, gaming (both console and table-top), dances, karaoke, concerts, maid cafe, film and video rooms, and of course, the always impressive Dealers Room.

Full 4-day passes are $65 ($70 at door), or $50 ($55 at door) for a two-day pass, or $30 ($35 at door) for single-day pass. A 4-day childs pass is $30, and children 5 and under are free. Online registration is still online and is highly recommended.

For more details, including links to the online registration, and complete details on events, schedules, guests, and more, check out the Anime Expo website at http://www.anime-expo.org/.

I’ll be on site during most of the convention (I’ll be getting in mid-day on the first day so will miss the first half day or so) and will do my best to bring you coverage from the convention. (I’m not making any promises, I’ll just leave it at “I’ll do my best.”) If I can, I’ll be broadcasting certain events live, either via Ustream/Stickam, or over our experimental streaming radio station, Otaku no Radio, so keep an eye on the website for more details. At the very least, I should have a post-con wrap up episode (including video highlights – if my camcorder, which was recently damaged, gets back from the repair shop in time) shortly after the convention ends.

Hentai PC dating-sim games at J-List

MikomiCon is THIS Weekend!

Donald Burr — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:14:04 +0000

For those of you in the Southern California area, specifically Cal State Northridge, MikomiCon will be held THIS WEEKEND – Friday through Sunday, September 19-21. The convention will be held at the CSUN campus, at 18111 Nordhoff St., in Northridge. That’s at the cross of Prarie St. and Zelzah Ave. This relatively new convention (only in its third year) has gotten off to an excellent start. I was lucky enough to be able to attend for one day last year, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. This year’s convention is shaping up to be even bigger and better, so you won’t want to miss it! Guests of Honor include Rob Paulsen, Robert Axelrod, Johnny Yong Bosch, Kyle Hebert, Roger Gibbs, Leslie S. Klinger, Tone Rodriguez, and Erika Weinstein. Musical guests include Stephanie Yanez, Eyeshine, M3 Productions, DJ Helsing, The Black Crystals, Jishin Taiko, Vaeidos, Rusika, Makenai, and L2D. Aside from the usual Masquerade, Dealers Room, Gaming, Panels, and Video Rooms, other events include the Ninja Wall Challenge, Pirate Rum Party (gotta have balance in the Force after all), tag team watermelon eating contest, Bridget Shuffle Competition, Modeling, and even Sumo.

But don’t take my word for it – see for yourself the vast cornucopia of anime goodness that is the Mikomicon Program Guide; Download the program guide here.

Sadly, online registration is closed; you will have to register on-site. On-site registration opens bright and early Friday morning at 8 AM. At-door pricing is $40 for full con (all 3 days), and $35 for single-day attendance. (Child 12-and-under pricing is $35 for full-con and $30 for one-day.)

Sadly, I will not be able to attend this year. If you are able to make it, send us your review and photos/videos!

J-List is a peaceful island of Japanese pop culture for you

Otaku no Podcast » Conventions

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Absolutely no vuvuzelas or similar loud noisemakers are permitted within Otakon. Vuvuzelas and other noisemakers within convention buildings are subject to confiscation. Blowing a vuvuzela or similar noisemaker may lead to ejection from the convention.