Before we go any further, I’d like to take the opportunity to commend the FanimeCon staff on their refreshingly open press policy. Their policy allows even smaller organizations such as school anime clubs and smaller, lesser known anime websites (ahem, not to mention podcasts) to gain press credentials. My feeling is that the more voices a community has, the better off it is, especially if many of those voices are from smaller, less mainstream sources.

One thing I stress constantly is that when attending an anime convention, you should definitely stay at a con hotel if at al possible. This is especially true here at FanimeCon. This is a 24/7 convention, meaning that there’s always something going on, day and night. And the hotels are set up perfectly for this. The two official con hotels, the Hilton and Marriott, are directly connected to the convention center – no need to walk outside. If you must stay off-site, there are several reasonable choices in accommodation not too far away.

But, if you must stay even farther off-site, FanimeCon is probably the best con to do so at, thanks to the excellent Bay Area public transportation system. The San Jose Convention Center is directly situated on the San Jose light rail system, just two stops away from the San Jose Caltrain and Amtrak stations. Between the light rail, Caltrain, Amtrak, BART, and a handful of buses, you can easily get here from just about anywhere in the bay area. I can’t help but compare this to certain conventions I go to in the southern California area; things are getting better there, but aren’t nearly at the level as they are in northern California.

The AMV contest this year was, in a word, epic. The number and variety of videos was really impressive. Videos were organized into four categories: Action, Comedy, Drama and Experimental (similar to the “Pro” or “AMTV” categories at other conventions). Trite as it sounds, it still holds true: the creativity and technical skill of the AMV creators just keeps getting better year after year, and continues to impress me. Alot of this is thanks to the lowering cost and ready availability of high-quality digital video editing tools.

The variety of this year’s videos was really refreshing — it wasn’t the same 5 clips from Naruto set to the same 5 Linkin Park songs. This year there was a pretty good variety, not just in the types of music used, but also in the anime that was used. There were quite a few newer/less mainstream series (Angel Beats!, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Macross Frontier, NANA), as well as some old-school classics (Sailor Moon, Tenchi, etc.). This year there were some particularly touching entries. One video in particular that tugged at my heartstrings was a very touching tribute to the late Satoshi Kon, done by prolific AMV author (and Anime Expo Masquerade host extraordinaire) Brad deMoss. I’ll make a post as more of them start going up on the org. Winners will be announced on Sunday at 2 PM on Stage Zero in the SJCC.

Tomorrow is looking to be a busy day. Not only are most of the GoH panels scheduled for that day, but the always-excellent FanimeCon MusicFest is also happening Saturday evening. Tomorrow is also traditionally the busiest day of con, and is sure to be chock full of cosplayers as well. We’ll do our best to bring you as many pictures and audio/video as possible. For now, it’s way past bedtime.

Related posts:

1. FanimeCon 2011 Day 2 Report
2. Episode #0007 – FanimeCon 2009 Review
3. Anime Los Angeles Day 2 Report (Updated)

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

Gothic & Lolita Products, magazine subscriptions from Japan

Related posts:

1. A Winner is You! Behold the Anime LA 2010 AMV and Masquerade Winners
2. Anime Los Angeles Day 2 Report (Updated)
3. Anime Los Angeles Day 1 Report (Updated)

Well, Day 2 of Anime Los Angeles has ended.  There were definitely more people here today than yesterday.  I still could not begin to hazard a guess as to how many.  Last year’s Anime LA was capped at 3200 and I’d say that there were at least that many people here today.  Perhaps more.

The day started out on kind of a sour note for me.  It seems that there were some mix-ups regarding some of the cosplay gatherings.  At least I couldn’t find them at the times and places they were supposed to occur at. There were two in particular that I was really looking forward to, the Angel Beats! and K-ON! gatherings. According to Condroyd (which got its data from the cosplay.com forums) there was supposed to be an Angel Beats! gathering at 10:30 AM, and a K-ON! gathering at 2:30 PM, both on the pool deck.  But I was there at both times, and saw neither hide nor hair of them.  Very sad.  At least at the K-ON! gathering, K-ON! Violinist Dude showed up and serenaded us with renditions of “Don’t Say ‘lazy’” and other songs from the series.  So at least K-ON! was representin’.  Sort of.

After the failed Angel Beats! cosplay meet, I sat in on a panel titled “Buying anime and manga from Japan.” Unfortunately this did not live up to my expectations; it didn’t even come close.  It basically consisted of the panelist sitting in front of the room, mumbling out a few seemingly obvious places to go (Amazon.jp?  CDjapan? etc.) and picking the audience’s brain for ideas on other ideas of where and how to order products from Japan. The panel was informative all right, but mostly thanks to the great audience.  He promised to post the results of said brain-picking to his website.  Unfortunately I don’t have that information. I did manage to get up the energy to find him on google. See what I do for you guys?!  I was using my digital recorder at the time, so I thought I didn’t have to write it down.  Unfortunately the digital recorder was set to the wrong input channel, resulting in it recording about an hour’s worth of silence.  Oh well, like I said, you didn’t miss much.

The next session we went to, on the other hand, was like the polar opposite of the above.  Courtney Kraft, a journalist at G4 TV, gave a wonderful, dynamic, and informative panel on “How to Interact with Anime Industry Professionals.”  Not only was the panel immensely informative, but it was delivered in a clear, concise manner, and with plenty of humor and liveliness.  I’d say this was probably the best panel of the con so far. Fortunately, by this time, I had figured out that my digital recorder was set wrong, so I actually captured this session, which I will do a more in depth write up on later.

After a quick bite of lunch, I then headed into “Your First Trip to Japan,” presented by Helen McCarthy, Tim Eldred, Walter Amos and Todd Allis. A very informative panel – these folks have traveled in and around Japan many a time, and had a lot of knowledge to share. Plus they had pretty pictures. Alot of the information was stuff I already knew, either thanks to our trip to Japan in 2004, or through the TJX guys who talked about many times before on their show. But there was a lot of information I wasn’t aware of before today. Again, a writeup is forthcoming. Updated 1/9/11: Turns out that the guy that did the “Buying anime and manga from Japan” panel (whose name is Todd Allis) was also one of the presenters at this panel, and he had some really good information here, so I’m happy now. Also, it turns out that the convention staff didn’t provide him with a mic and sound system during his earlier panel, but at this one, they had a full sound setup going. Properly equipped, I could hear and understand him clearly.

And then it was time to prepare for and then deliver our podcasting workshop. Which… well, let’s just say it didn’t exactly go according to plan. A complete failure to get our Internet connection going scrubbed our Skype demo, and taking the time to try and get the Internet connection going caused me to start late, which meant that there wasn’t enough time to do the live demos and leave enough time for Q&A. Fortunately I had anticipated something ike this long ago, and had a second set of slides with static screenshots of how the audio editor, Skype, etc. look and work. I feel personally responsible for not being able to do a right and proper demo and for that I apologize. At least the audience seemed to still get some useful information from the panel. In fact, it turns out that one of the people attending the panel was a panelist on the Anime TV video podcast I wrote about earlier this year. It was bugging me all evening: I was sitting on stage and kept thinking “gee, that voice sounds awfully familiar…”

Unfortunately, in the process of getting dinner before masquerade, we learned of the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and this news cast a grim pall over the rest of the evening. Our hearts and sincere condolences go out to the congresswoman and her family, as well as the families of Federal Judge John Roll and the others killed and wounded in this horrific act.

We were a bit late to masquerade as a result, but fortunately they were a few minutes late themselves; the hotel had apparently forgotten to set up chairs in the back half of the room, and this needed to be done in order to provide enough seating to everyone. Still, they got started fairly quickly, and the event went off with only one minor lighting glitch. It sounds tired and old, but it still is true: the creativity and craftsmanship of the cosplayers continues to amaze us year after year. This year’s skits in particular were quite entertaining. Poor Beep is probably afraid that I’ll be pestering her with bad ninja stand-up comedy routines for months to come. All told, there were some 30-plus acts; quite a collection. Unfortunately we missed choice photographer seating, but I was still able to get a few good shots, which I will try and sort through and post before Anime LA 2012 rolls around.

During the halftime show, the lovely ladies and gents of the AniMaid Cafe entertained us with various dance numbers. They also announced the AMV winners during the masquerade halftime show, and replayed them for our enjoyment. Unfortunately I spazzed and didn’t have anything to write these down with.  I suppose they’re posted online somewhere by now but I’m too lazy and/or tired to look.  Tomorrow. I did however start finding some of the AMV’s on the org and have linked to them in the AMV list I presented in our day 1 report. I’ll continue to update these as more of the videos come online.

We also didn’t stick around to hear who won masquerade.  The judges were taking an inordinately long amount of time rendering a verdict.  Perhaps that says something about the quality of the costumes and acts this year. Who knows. Anyway, in addition to the AniMaid halftime show (which was excellent btw), they pretty much re-ran the entire AMV contest from last night.  We decided to leave after that, before Tadao-san launched into one of his corny stories.  I suppose the masquerade winners will be posted somewhere as well.  Again, too tired/lazy to look that up.  Tomorrow…

it is now 2 AM on Sunday morning and there is still lots of life in the con, judging by the noise level of the hotel. Part of me wishes I was out there among the masses, taking more cosplay photos or maybe even (gasp!) socializing with people. But my body didn’t like that idea one bit. Yes, I am having to face the fact that I ain’t no spring chicken any more. The phrase that I use pretty much every time a con comes around and I try and promise you guys some actual reporting, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” is turning out to apply more and more as the months and years go by. In any case, it’s time to drag these tired old bones off to bed. Tomorrow we head home, back to life, back to reality. Which means of course that we have to pack up all our crap and store it (either at the hotel desk or in the car) after checking out. A big ordeal. And maybe get a few last minute photos and maybe even some panels. Either way, Anime LA Day 2 was a bit of a mixed bag, but still fun overall. Oyasumi nasai.

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

Related posts:

1. Anime Los Angeles Day 1 Report (Updated)
2. Anime Los Angeles Day 3 Report
3. Anime LA Day 2 mid-day convention report

Day 1 of Anime Los Angeles has drawn to a close.  Unfortunately, as luck (and Murphy) would have it, we spent most of the morning and mid afternoon on the road.  We barely got here in time for our first of two panels (but fortunately, we made it – barely).  The panel went well, and although attendance wasn’t quite up to our previous benchmark, there were still a respectable number of people present.  Unfortunately the only time slot available was a 1-hour one, and our workshop was originally written to run 1-1/2 hours, so some judicious editing needed to be done on my part.  Even with the editing, it still ran kind of long, and I had to rush things a bit at the end.  But I think people still got a lot out of it.  The notes from the first version of our workshop are up; I’ll update them within the next day or 2 with the new and/or updated material (which isn’t very much).

We didn’t really get to see much else of the convention, as right after giving our workshop, we needed to take a breather.  (rushing around late into the night last night getting ready for con means we didn’t get enough sleep last night).  But we did make it to the AMV contest, and while wandering around, a few other things occurred to us to comment on.

Anime LA has been held at the LAX Airport Marriott for the past few years, and it seems as though the con and the hotel have a very good working relationship.  The hotel staff have always been friendly and courteous in the past, and this year was no exception.  And to top it off, we found a nice surprise waiting for us in our room: a really nice letter from the hotel management.  It’s obvious that an actual human (perhaps the manager himself, definitely at least one of his staff) wrote this, and that the hotel really enjoys the con’s presence here.  Which is good, because the facilities seem perfectly sized to fit Anime LA, even though it has grown somewhat.  There’s reasonable choices for food and other accomodations nearby as well, and the con negotiated a reasonable discount on the hotel rates as well as parking.

Anime LA has definitely grown, though at a measured rate.  It’s clear that A-LA staff are managing the growth rate well.  I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to the attendance.  I’d say at least a thousand, maybe two or three. Tomorrow of course will be the real test (Saturday being the traditionally busiest day of a 3-day con, and also the day of masquerade).  But it still doesn’t feel crowded or oppressive.

We did realize something as we were working our way through badge pickup and checking in to our panel: A-LA does not have a disabled services division.  We mentioned this to several staff, and it turns out that they are considering this, and the people we talked to promised that they would bring it up in staff meetings.  This is a welcome development, as with A-LA’s increasing attendance, there are bound to be more and more attendees that need special assistance.

Now on to what you’ve been waiting for, the AMV contest.  It started more or less on time, and there was only one minor (and easily corrected) technical glitch.  We noted approvingly that the videos were being played back on a Mac (please, no “my OS is better than yours” flame wars, or if you feel the need, please do it in email).  This year they were more strict in terms of what file formats/codecs they would accept, which went a long way towards the relative smoothness of things.

I have to admit though that tonight’s AMV contest was… odd.  The videos were definitely really well done from a technical standpoint – there are some great editors out there.  And, thankfully, we didn’t have the case of over 9000 videos using the same old Linkin Park song or the same Naruto fight scene.  No, what one of our cohosts found odd was that there weren’t any recent examples of anime being featured in this current crop of AMVs.  Aside from long-running series that started a while ago but are still going on today (e.g. Naruto), the most recent shows we saw were The Girl who Leapt through Time (2006) and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (2007).  You would think that with the popularity of more recent shows such as Durarara!!, Angel Beats!, K-ON!, To Aru Majursu no Index and To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, to name a few, that we would see some videos using these.

The comedy category was also odd.  There were a few good entries, but they were much more subdued humor wise than they have been in past years.  And the rest of them… well, to be perfectly honest, they just weren’t funny.  (Or maybe they were inside jokes and would be funny if we were appropriately clued in.  I don’t know.)  Of course humor is highly subjective and differs from person to person, but we did notice that the audience, which is usually rip roaringly raucous during this segment of the contest (comedy being the traditional fan favorite category) remained largely silent during this round of entries.

The finalists in the four categories are as follows.  I’ll update this with links as I find places where you can view or download these online.  (Updated 01/11/11 with the list of winners!)

Action:

Beat of the Rising Sun
Illusion Breaker
Final Fantasy Heroes
Explosive Soul
Hell Jump
Time to Let it Go
Dragonball Evolution

Drama:

Running Desperado (Winner – Audience Favorite)
You’re Not Alone
Princess of the Red
If Everyone Cared
The Love of a Hero
Naruto’s Hope
Over and Over

Comedy:

Kiss Me
I Love the Anime World
AMG in a Nutshell
Thunderbusted
Be a Man Conrad!
Thunder Cats
A Hosts “Special” Kind of Girl (WInner – Staff’s Pick)

Pro:

Your Own Miracle
To the Future
Tomo’s Gonna
Curtain Call (Winner – Best Produced)
Building Steam
Crimson Rhapsody (Winner – Creators’ Choice)
Spinning Infinity

In any case, it’s late and we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.  No cosplay photos today; sorry.  I’ll definitely try and get some tomorrow (that is almost a certainty since tomorrow night is Masquerade, if nothing else I will get some shots from that).  And of course we will be giving our Podcasting workshop (4 PM, in LP3/Imperial A).  And there is also the distinct possibility that we may livestream or do other such things during the day.  So keep an eye on our Twitter feed as well as the Livestream page.  Goodnight for now…

Click for J-List now!

Related posts:

1. Anime Los Angeles Day 2 Report (Updated)
2. Anime Los Angeles Day 3 Report
3. Anime LA (draft) schedules are up (Updated)

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

Gothic & Lolita Products, magazine subscriptions from Japan

Related posts:

1. Anime Los Angeles Day 3 Report
2. Back from Anime LA
3. Episode #0013 – Anime Expo 2010

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.

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Related posts:

1. A Winner is You! Behold the Anime LA 2010 AMV and Masquerade Winners
2. Anime Los Angeles Day 3 Report
3. Anime Los Angeles Day 2 Report (Updated)

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…

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

Related posts:

1. Reminder: Eureka Seven movie screening is TONIGHT, Thursday, September 24
2. Advance Screening of Miyazaki’s “Ponyo” at New York International Children’s Film Festival this Sunday

Besides being a truly excellent AMV, this also serves as yet another example of that old adage “never judge a book by its cover.”  On first blush, Card Captor Sakura looks like a kids’ show, and indeed it has its cutesy kid elements, with the cute characters, bright colors, etc.; however, when you strip all that away, what you find at its core is really a very deep, dramatic, exciting, and enjoyable story.  The takeaway from all this is that it’s nice to step out of your comfort zone every now and then and try something new, a new title in a genre different than what you usually get.  It’s something I’ve started to do lately.  Now, admittedly doing this was a lot harder to justify several years ago, back when you actually had to pay fairly big bucks for an anime DVD; but in today’s world of low(er)-cost “classics” releases and discount “thin pak” box sets available at discount retailers such as Amazon and Right Stuf, “all-you-can-eat” video rental services such as Netflix or RentAnime and online streaming sites such as Crunchyroll, it’s not only possible, but easy and cost-effective to do so.

Anyway, back to the video.  Here it is, in all its glory and awesomeness.  Mad props go to Otaku Outpost for creating this wonderful video. If you want to download the higher quality version, or read more about the methods and methodology behind the creation of this video, head on over to the AMV.

(PS: if this instilled in you a great desire to see Card Captor Sakura, beware – there is a similar sounding title “Card Captors” that was in fact an early English dub – but a horrendously butcherized ones.  Entire episodes were left out, large parts of the remaining episodes were chopped out, and the lines were rewritten to focus more on action.  Avoid it at all costs!  Fortunately they wised up and released the unedited episodes, with the original Japanese audio and English subtitles, under the “Card Captor Sakura” title.  Unfortunately it’s out of print now; however you might still be able to find it at some of the DVD rental houses or perhaps online.  Trust me.  It’s worth it.)

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

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