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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.
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.
For last year’s Anime Expo, the staff did what I believe to be the first ever anime convention schedule smartphone app. Their iPhone app was indeed pretty cool, and there was much to like about it. Unfortunately their charging $1.99 for it (on top of all the other fee hikes associated with the convention) prevented me from giving a wholly glowing endorsement of it.
Well, if you’re the proud owner of an Android smartphone or tablet, and will be attending Anime Los Angeles this weekend, there’s an app for THAT as well. The ConDroyd for ALA 2011 app, to be precise. This app contains a full copy of the Anime LA schedule as well as the scheduled cosplay gatherings (something the official Anime LA program grid does not list). You can “star” any events that you are interested in seeing, and the app can be configured so that it alerts you any number of minutes before an event you’re interested in.
It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the AX iPhone app (no maps, dealer’s room listings, etc.) but one thing that it does have over the AX app is price – completely free.
So go check it out today! It’s available in the Android Marketplace; just search for “ConDroyd.”
Here is my Anime Los Angeles schedule. These are the things I might be interested in checking out and/or possibly get coverage for the podcast. Of course the standard disclaimers apply: I sometimes double- or even triple-book myself intentionally, the idea being that I am interested in multiple events at the same time slot 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”), or for some other unforeseen reason. 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. Remember also that we will occasionally livestream events, if bandwidth, cell phone battery, and my laziness/inertia permit. If we do, you can watch on our Livestream page; we will also post announcements to our Twitter whenever we start livestreaming, so follow us there for the latest news). Anyway, check out my schedule below the cut.
First of all, greetings to everyone coming to us thanks to my appearance on Leo Laporte‘s Tech Guy radio show. Thanks for your visit, and I hope you enjoy your stay, and, more importantly, come back soon 🙂
Anyway, Anime Los Angeles has made their programming guide public. I’ll be going over the schedule myself this weekend and highlighting the events I’m interested in (and will post my calendar here once I’ve done so), but in the meantime, why don’t you head over there yourself now and check it out!
Anime Los Angeles is a small, very friendly fan-run convention in the Los Angeles area. (Although it’s not so small any more – attendance has risen lately and is now in the low thousands I’d say) But it’s still small and friendly. We’ve written and talked about it before. Anyway, it’s coming up next weekend — Friday through Sunday, January 7-9, 2011 to be precise — at the LAX Airport Marriott:
Los Angeles Airport Marriott 5855 W. Century Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90045
Guests of Honor include Gina “Red String” Biggs, webcomic artist; Helen McCarthy, manga expert and author of the Osamu Tezuka book we recently featured in the 12 Days of Kurisumasu; Patrick Seitz, voice actor on many projects including Hetalia, One Piece, Ouran High School Host Club, and Hellsing; Taliesin Jaffe, ADR (dub) director; and, of course, the inimitable Tadao Tomomatsu, toastmaster and all around man about con. And, of course, there’s plenty of con staples, including a rather nice dealer’s room, artist’s alley, various panels and workshops, karaoke, various music acts, cosplay contest (aka masquerade), AMV contest, cosplay gatherings, gaming (both console and tabletop), and much much more.
Speaking of panels… (yeah, I bet you saw that one coming a mile away) the Otaku no Podcast crew will once again be doing our song and dance. If you’ve ever wondered how we do the thing that we do (namely this here podcast), come to “Anime Podcasting for Beginners” on Saturday, January 8, from 4 to 5 PM, in LP3 (Imperial A). And if you’ve ever had that experience where you excitedly hurry home from taking con pictures, only to find that you’ve ended up with a bag of hurt, get yourself to “Convention Photography 101” on Friday, January 7, from 3 to 4 PM, again in LP3 (Imperial A). (There will be swag…)
Of course, in between running our panels, eating, sleeping, and zoning out in general, there will be time to run around and maybe get some con coverage. But as I’ve learned countless times before, I’m not going to make any promises. Just keep an eye on our Twitter feed as well as the Otaku no Podcast website (especially the livestream page). You just might see some stuff go up. Maybe.
Unfortunately, pre-reg is closed so you’ll have to register at-con. Prices are $50 for a full weekend, $25 for Friday only, $30 for Saturday only, and $20 for Sunday only. As part of their “Parent in Tow” system, any child 14 or under who pays for a full membership can bring a grown-up for free (doesn’t have to be a parent; could be a friend of the family, uncle, teacher, neighbor, etc.)
When Narutaki and Hisui of the Reverse Thieves announced the return of the Anime Secret Santa project, I was elated. When I participated in last year’s event, I had a great deal of fun, watched a pretty decent series I had never heard of before, and “met” a whole bunch of cool bloggers. I was so excited that I would be participating this year as well.
Unfortunately, this year, things didn’t exactly go as I had hoped…
My three Secret Santa picks were Ah! My Goddess, Saki, and Special A. Oddly enough I had just finished watching Goddess, and since I felt that it would be kind of “cheating” to review a series I had already watched anyway, eliminated it as a possibility. Saki I could easily watch online thanks to my Crunchyroll membership (best deal in town if you want to watch anime legally and help the production companies, in my book). It was also one that I had wanted to watch, so it wasn’t my first choice either (my feeling is that the spirit of Anime Secret Santa is to watch something I haven’t heard of or intended to watch). That left Special A, which was available on DVD and could also be streamed online at Amazon‘s video on demand service. Unfortunately I can’t afford any DVDs (or Amazon’s $1.99 per episode streaming service) at the moment, so that was out. (thanks to some slowdowns at work and needing to save up for next year’s cons, I am back in “broke otaku” mode.) So I was all set to watch and review Saki., but as the fates would have it, I have had an extremely busy and stressful end of year, and just could not get to it. And now here we are on Christmas Day, and I had a choice: marathon Saki and bang out a halfhearted review (which still probably wouldn’t be done until the middle of next week), or sit down and bang out a quick but heartfelt (is that the opposite of halfhearted?) review of Ah! My Goddess (which I at least watched already). I figured that doing a writeup on Goddess would be the less lame of the choices (but not by much). And here we are.
So, with all that out of the way, click on through the cut for my review of Ah! My Goddess.
So I was sitting around the other night after dinner, thinking of yet another method of blatantly self-promoting the various affiliate networks we’re on, when an idea hit me like a bolt out of the blue. (or maybe it was that attack of gas brought on by that super deluxe burrito? Who knows…) Why not have a “12 Days of Anime Christmas” – each day feature a really cool gift idea for that certain otaku in your life (perhaps even yourself)? “You’re brilliant!” I proudly thought to myself. “Why thank you!” came the inevitable response several seconds later. (At least I thought it was brilliant. In reality, i.e. outside of the crazy world that’s inside my head, everybody and their dog probably thought of this before I did. Oh well, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.)
So, starting on Tuesday, December 14, be sure and tune in to our Twitter or Facebook every day, and you will be greeted by a cool anime or otaku related gift pick. (You can also find them all up on the 12 Days of Kurisumasu page, in case you missed one — shame on you!) Are you making yourself sick agonizing over what to get your friends and loved ones? We’ve got you covered! And remember, this ain’t your father’s 12 Days of Christmas: every product I pick will be guaranteed to have some anime or Japan or otaku related connection. There’ll be no maids-a-milkin’ or lords-a-leapin’ or turtle doves or any of that crap. You don’t even have to sing the song!
(Yeah, I know, on second thought this is just a cheesy rehashing of my already-existing J-List Product of the Day. Only this time, it will actually be correctly named, since (come hell or high water) I actually intend on picking one product per day. At least until Christmas. After that, all bets are off.)
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