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…

Related posts:

1. It’s officially official, part deux: Looks like I’ll be at Anime Expo as well!
2. Anime Convention Alert: Anime Expo is THIS Weekend!
3. Save $$$ on an Anime Expo 2011 4-day Pass — but only if you act quickly!

We’ve all got anime on our hard drives. Might as well man up and admit it. OK, so maybe it’s anime you legally purchased through an online service like iTunes; or maybe it’s content that you ripped from DVD’s that you own (technically illegal under the DMCA, but we’ve never heard of individuals who only do this for their own personal use [and don't share the files they create] being prosecuted); or maybe it’s something that you downloaded via teh torrents (definitely illegal, but most anime companies have traditionally turned a begrudgingly blind eye toward fansubs). But I’m sure that many of us have some anime hanging around on their hard drives.

Playing this downloaded anime, however, can prove to be a problem. There are over 9,000 video formats out there. (Not really, but it sure feels like it!) And with different bitrates, options, etc., this can prove quite confusing for most computers to play. Add different audio formats (AAC? AC3? PCM? WAV? MP3???!) and different subtitling methods (SSA? ASS? SRT??!) and that makes the complexity even worse. Fortunately, for desktop PC’s and Macs, there are excellent “swiss army knife” video players such as VLC (Mac, Windows, and Linux/UNIX) and Perian (Mac only) that do a pretty good job of playing back the various video formats out there.

But what about portable devices? Devices such as the Archos 5 do a fairly good job of playing back the most common video formats, but many files still require transcoding, which takes lots of time and CPU power. But if you have an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, you’ve got an even harder challenge, as these devices support a very limited set of formats (basically only MPEG-4 and H.264 of a certain resolution and bit rate). Also, with any portable device, your storage space is limited – anywhere from 8 to 64 GB for flash players, and maybe 250-500 GB max for hard drive based players. Which is a problem for those of us with, erm, larger anime collections.

What to do, what to do?

Enter Air Video. This fantastic app for the iPhone and iPod touch lets you stream video files from your computer over either WiFi or the 3G cellular network. The kicker here is that, if the file is in a format that your device can’t play natively, it will transcode it – on the fly! And it also supports the display of embedded subtitles. It’s pretty solid too. I’ve thrown just about every oddball video I’ve got at it, and it works perfectly.

The program is available right now for the iPhone and iPod touch. They’ve already upgraded it for the iPad and have submitted it to Apple for approval, so hopefully the iPad version will be out soon. Best of all, the iPad version will be a free upgrade to those who already own the iPhone/iPod version, so feel free to buy it now – the iPod/iPhone version works just fine on the iPad.

Get it today for the amazingly low price of $2.99 at the iTunes Store. There’s also a free version with limited features. You’ll also want to head over to the Air Video website to download the accompanying server software for your desktop computer (versions available for both Mac and Windows).

A few days ago I wrote about how the iPad will appeal to anime and manga fans. This, my friends, is a concrete example of that.

(UPDATE 04/09/2010: The iPad version of Air Video is released and is on the App Store, and once again, is a FREE update if you’ve already purchased the program. Just go to the Apps section in your copy of iTunes and click the “check for updates” button at the lower right corner of the window, and you should automatically download it.)

Related posts:

1. Crunchyroll App for iPhone and iPod touch (and soon, iPad!)
2. Crunchyroll for iPad: It’s Here!
3. What The iPad Will Mean For Otaku

What? Not familiar to you? Then you must not be a K-ON! fan. For this humble school building, and its surrounding areas, were used in large part in that work.

According to the translation provided by the kind commenters over at this YouTube video, the school building, which might be some sort of historical building/landmark, was apparently scheduled for demolition 8 years ago to make way for a new school facility; however, instead they decided not to demolish it and instead built a new school facility opposite the old one. In appreciation for saving the building, the author of the K-ON! manga used the building along with parts of the surrounding area as scenes for his work.

This part at least is true. The resemblance is uncanny, particularly the auditorium where the K-ON! girls held their concerts, the look of the hallways, the music room itself, and even the brass animal figures on the stair bannisters. (Not sure if there is a real life analogue to that statue that the students in K-ON! are always putting funny hats/outfits on tho… I didn’t see one in the video)

Anyway, the building is still being used for some functions (at least I believe the library is being used still – hmm, I wonder if they have the K-ON! manga on their shelves? That would be pretty meta!) And the school is cashing in on the building’s otaku street cred, as they are apparently holding concerts in the style of K-ON! in the auditorium, and the music room is decorated with K-ON! pictures as well as sweets and tea on the tables! (I really hope those are plastic models! Or that they change them daily, but that would be kind of cost-prohibitive…) And the otaku are indeed flocking to the location, as is evidenced by the huge collection of itasha (otaku cars decorated with anime decals, figures, etc. – literally means “painmobile” as in “too painful [for non-otaku] to look at”) parked in the parking lot – not to mention the cosplayers taking photos in front of the building and various landmarks. Sure hope that all of this attention isn’t disturbing the students too much!

Video below. (EDIT 2010-03-24: the original video has been taken down from YouTube for terms-of-use violations. Grrr… However I found not one, not two, but THREE!! fan-made videos of trips to the K-ON school that shows some additional footage of interest (e.g. the guitar shop that the K-ON girls bought their instruments at, the fast food restaurant where the girls often meet and where Mugi-chan got a job (apparently based on a McDonald’s), other views of the surrounding town, etc. And apparently the statue with the funny hats/clothes is actually based on a real-life statue of the man who built the school. Be sure and check out some of the “related videos” too!) (EDIT 2010-03-25: found another video!)

Related posts:

1. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve found ourselves the real-life Ritsuko Tainaka
2. OMG! Real Life Ritsuko Tainaka!
3. Cool Find of the Day: VOCA-ON!

Speaking of the next show, I’m actually working on it.  We’re still in Vegas for another few days, and unfortunately the Internet access is pretty lousy, so I doubt I’ll be able to post the show before I return this weekend.  But you should definitely have a new show by next week.

In the meantime, I’ve got something to tide you over. Your friends and mine, DJ City and DJ Gladiator of TJX – The Japan Xperience – have released a new episode in which they talk about one of my favorite subjects in the world – FOOD!  More specifically, they take a gastronomical tour through Japan, and focus in on the most well-known/famous foods for various regions/cities of Japan.  Give it a listen, you’ll like it.  But beware – better have some snacks handy, as listening to these guys talk is gonna make you hungry!

Related posts:

1. The TJX crew talk about Onsen Etiquette (among other things)
2. DJ City and DJ Gladiator talk travel in and around Nara Prefecture
3. The TJX Crew Invade J-Town

Related posts:

1. The TJX crew talk about one of my favorite subjects – FOOD!
2. DJ City and DJ Gladiator talk travel in and around Nara Prefecture
3. The TJX Crew Invade J-Town

But even that pales in comparison with the news I received today that, according to early estimates, Japan’s Comic Market (“Comiket”) welcomed a record 560,000 attendees at its Summer Comiket event this past weekend (August 14-16, 2009).  Comiket’s organizing body reports that the high attendance figures also indicate a spike in new attendees, which should come as good news to the manga industry.

Think about that, people.  FIVE HUNDRED SIXTY THOUSAND.  Holy crap, that’s a lot of people!  Sure makes our grousing and complaining sound petty and immature, doesn’t it? 

Comiket, as it’s called by the cool kids, isn’t the same as your typical western Anime convention.  For one thing, it’s frakkin’ HUGE.  It dominates the entire Tokyo Big Sight, a massively huge (one might even say “Xbox huge”) convention center with a total floor space of 230,873 m².  It’s almost exclusively devoted to manga, specifically doujinshi, essentially self-published manga.  Most doujinshi “circles” (the groups who sell their doujinshi at Comiket) are unknown fans, though many well-known manga artists choose to publish doujinshi in order to publish outside of their usual publisher relationships.  And they sell a TON of this stuff at Comiket – perhaps as many 20 acres (81,000 m² according to one source).  It’s also known for its epic and legendary cosplay.  There is plenty of photographic evidence to back this claim.  Search for yourself.  (I would post links, but there are really too many to post here, and I don’t want to make this article over 9,000 pages long!)

On our last episode I expressed my doubts as to whether my stamina would hold me through a Comic-Con.  Well, after reading this, I don’t think I’ll be attempting Comiket anytime soon… perhaps ever.  *sweatdrop*

Related posts:

1. San Diego Comic-Con is Here!
2. Episode #0002 – Convention-al Wisdom
3. Episode #0008 – San Diego Comic-Con 2009

One of the ways I console my aching soul (well, besides watching anime that is) is to listen to podcasts about travel in Japan. And just the other day, the fine folks at TJX: The Japan Xperience put up a new episode once again detailing one of their adventures traveling through Japan. In this episode, your fearless leaders DJ City and DJ Gladiator talk about their travels in and around Nara prefecture (which we never got to in our tour). Among the subjects they talk about include the rather friendly deer in Nara Park that come right up to you (but sometimes bite you, so be careful!), the Daibutsu (or Great Buddha of Nara), arguably the world’s largest buddha, and… well… lots of other cool stuff.

Listen to it here. Or – better yet – subscribe to their podcast – they’re cool guys and their talk of Japan travel and music (plus plenty of friendly jabs at each other) is always entertaining and interesting.

Now please excuse me while I go sigh dramatically and pine away… (and hand me that cheese over there, it’ll go great with my whine…)

Related posts:

1. Project 760 Productions and Pop Japan Travel Present The Tokyo International Anime Fair Tour!
2. The TJX crew talk about one of my favorite subjects – FOOD!
3. The TJX crew talk about Onsen Etiquette (among other things)

Anyway, he hosts a show on the Revision3 IPTV network called PixelPerfect, in which he demonstrates and teaches his Photoshop and Illustrator techniques.  His latest episode features a tutorial on how, using Photoshop, you can draw and color manga characters, and turn them into a marquee-like biillboard.  You can watch the show on the Revision3 website or in the embedded player below. Or you can subscribe in iTunes or your favorite podcatcher of choice.

EDIT: Here is the earlier episode on colorizing Bert mentioned (link goes directly to that show’s page, or view the embedded version below).

Related posts:

1. “Anime TV” visits Anime Los Angeles 6
2. Artistically challenged podcaster seeking artistic assistance
3. “Anime TV,” a new anime video podcast from the folks at Revision3

No related posts.