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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.
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.
A big wave of controversy hit the anime scene recently, thanks to a blog posting by Bang Zoom president Eric Sherman, basically railing against fansubbers and anime pirates for ruining the industry. Well we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to comment on this. So strap yourself in and get ready for a… controversial show!
Besides his involvement in Robotech, Macek and his company Streamline Pictures was also involved with quite a few other anime titles, including Captain Harlock and Queen Millennia (released as “Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years”) all the way to more recent projects including Bleach and Naruto. Unfortunately his involvement with the American anime fandom was not without its share of controversy, but even his detractors would be hard pressed to deny him his legacy I think.
Update 2014-06-16: The folks behind Air Video have put out a brand new, even better app, Air Video HD. Not only does it stream your videos in stunning HD quality, but it also perfectly renders subtitles, even complex ones like SSA/ASS! Check out our video review of Air Video HD.
I hope you’ll excuse this slightly off-topic posting, but I just found something that I had to share with you.
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.)
If you haven’t heard of the Apple iPad, which is due to hit store shelves tomorrow morning, then you’ve probably just returned from a long journey into another dimension fighting an impossibly tough foe on behalf of a civilization that considers you their only hope for survival. Or perhaps you were off frolicking with your mail order bride who turned out to be a powerful goddess who can grant your every wish (and get you into a ton of mischief while doing so). Or [insert other random contrived anime plot here].
In brief, the iPad is Apple’s answer to the tablet and netbook. Based on the iPhone OS, it’s a tablet computer that Apple is positioning to fill a perceived gap in functionality between a smartphone and a laptop computer. Since it’s based on the iPhone OS, and uses similar (though scaled-up) hardware, it has many features similar to the iPhone and iPod touch; however many user interface elements have been designed to take advantage of the much larger screen (a 9.7-inch (25 cm) LED backlit multi-touch display at 1024×768). And at $499 for the base model, the price is really quite reasonable considering the power and capabilities of what you get (IMHO of course).
Of course, reaction on the Internet to the device is bitterly divided. (Kind of like American politics. Sigh.) The true fanboys are lauding it as the best thing since sliced bread, while the haters are calling it “just a giant iPod touch.” But I think that the detractors are missing the point here. Yes, it IS a giant iPod touch. And that giantness is what makes the device work. There are things that you just can’t do (or you can do, but very poorly) on the iPhone or iPod touch because of its limited screen size. The larger screen of the iPad makes these applications possible. (Yes, she was right when she said “size matters.”) Here is why you, the otaku, should get really fired up about this device.
As if my earlier coverage of Japanator’s Spring 2010 anime lineup isn’t enough, here comes another summary of the Spring 2010 anime lineup, in a more graphical form. Thanks to Crunchyroll member everydaygamer for posting this. This one covers a few more shows than the Japanator analysis does.
Are you in that between-series slump? Looking for something new to watch? Curious as to what the Japanese anime industry has in store for us this spring? Are you bored to tears and want to look at some shiny pictures? Good news, Japanator has got you covered, with their Spring 2010 Anime Preview of Doom (part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4). They give a pretty good 30,000 foot view of the Spring 2010 anime scene. Each series includes a capsule description as well as information such as air dates, studio/director involved, and some sample artwork (that’s the shiny pictures part). Definitely give it a look. Some of these series may make it to such streaming sites as Crunchyroll or others. And, if all else fails, well, there’s always teh torrents. (insert standard disclaimer about how downloading anime is illegal, you should respect the copyrights of the artists, and do the honorable thing and buy the DVDs if/when they are released in your country, blah blah blah).
After reviewing things, here’s what I’ll be keeping my eye on in particular:
Angel Beats: written by Jun Maeda of Key – the same folks who put out one of my all-time favorites, Kanon. ‘Nuff said. I’m willing to give anything associated with Key a shot. Besides, the premise of “[a] group of students […] leading a war against God for what he’s done to them […]with guns” sounds interesting. And violent. Yeah! EDIT 2010-03-28: found this promo video on YouTube. I’m definitely interested now. Interestingly enough, it appears that some of the main characters(?) are part of a band… Gee, I wonder where they got that idea from… 😉 Still, I’ll give it a spin.
Arakawa Under the Bridge: Sounds rather nutty and interesting.
Black Rock Shooter OVA: There’s been a lot of buzz surrounding this show, most of which surrounding the fact that it’s based on a character designed by Huke, the same guy who designed the Vocaloid Hatsune Miku who is one of the illustrators associated with the Vocaloid music group “supercell“ (thanks polymetrica for the correction). If nothing else, the artwork definitely looks interesting. Dark and moody and stuff.
Heroman: An anime… created by veteran comic book Stan Lee. Innnnnnnteresting… Yes, I know there have been other cases of “East-meets-West” style collaboration between Japanese and Western comic styles, but c’mon, STAN FREAKIN’ LEE. Whether it’ll be good or not… well, we’ll see. The old “boy finds a robot and uses it to save the world” plot has been around the block more than a few times.
House of Five Leaves: The art style on this one is definitely intriguing. And it’s being animated by Manglobe, the studio who did Ergo Proxy, which definitely had its own unique art style. And I’m always up for a samurai period piece.
Kaichou wa Maid-sama: Sounds a lot vaguely like Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu. Straight-laced student president type has a secret double life working at a maid cafe, and someone finds out about it. But still, I’m always a sucker for the old closet-otaku’s-secret-gets-exposed storyline. Not expecting anything terribly original tho. (again, Nogizaka…)
Kiss x Sis: Maybe I’m crazy, but after hearing the Anime TV panelists talking about it on their most recent show (it’s in the first “hima time” segment) I’m morbidly curious. (Their reaction wasn’t terribly favorable, btw). The Anime TV panelists were pretty spot on when they called it a “sexier version of ‘Please Twins'” (that’s me paraphrasing, I forget their exact words). That’s exactly what it sounds like to me. Still, there’ll be at least some nosebleed-worthy scenes to look at, I’m sure. So it ain’t all bad.
Senko no Night Raid: Set in the 1930s, in the Japanese-occupied city of Shanghai, China, it details the exploits of a supposed secret organization of Japanese spies, the “Sakurai Kikan,” that possess special abilities and were involved in various covert missions, so secret that they were buried in history. Anime history lessons FTW! (How much of this is actually history, exaggerated history, or outright made-up stuff, I have no idea. Neither Google nor Wikipedia comes up with anything useful other than links to stories about this anime.) But still, anime and spies… I’m game. This show is the second show to be introduced through The Power of Anime programming block – the first title to come out of it was So-Ra-No-Wo-To. This may send up warning bells to some of you. Let us hope that the people involved with Night Raid don’t fall into the same moe trap (no, not that kind of trap) that So-Ra-No-Wo-To fell into. (Not that the moe-ness killed it for me; unlike many of the angry reviewers out there, I still enjoyed So-Ra; I will however concede that, without the distractions of moe, it probably could have been an even better show.)
Working!!: At first blush, this seems like yet another moe fluff piece. But after checking out the preview episode, I’m not so sure I’d be willing to give it that summary judgment. There’s quite a bit of moe, for sure — Japanator called it “[like] K-ON!, but with food” — but unlike other series that people complain about, it doesn’t seem to me like they are using moe as a crutch. In other words, behind the moe, there appears to be a fairly decent, sometimes humorous slice-of-life piece, that I’m willing to devote at least several episodes’ worth of attention to. Besides, how can you go wrong when you’ve got a waitress that wields a katana? (Although in all honesty I would’ve picked a better name for their restaurant than “Wagnaria.” I wouldn’t want to eat somewhere with a name that sounds like an infectious disease, one that causes you to hallucinate that you are a German composer or something.)
Yojo-han Shinwa Taikei: Based on a novel about the “nonsense campus life of a self-conscious but dull university student,” this doesn’t sound terribly exciting. But when you consider that it’s being helmed by Masaaki Yuasa, who also brought us Mind Game (which, by the way, is oh so deserving of its title – it’s a real head trip), the excitement-o-meter is starting to swing toward the positive. It also comes to us through Fuji TV’s noitamina (that’s “animation” spelled backwards, get it?) programming block, which is known for its unique and distinctive titles, so it has a good pedigree. Check out the trailer and see for yourself.
And finally…
K-ON! Season 2: This one should go without saying. MIO!!!!!!!!111
(EDIT 2010-03-28: added Part 4 (the final part) of Japanator’s Spring 2010 Preview, along with my reactions to it.)
Recently I finished watching Macross Frontier. I’ll be posting a full review to the blog in a while, but in short, I was absolutely, positively blown away. Fantastic animation, very engaging storyline, and simply awesome music, which isn’t surprising coming from a series whose whole premise is based on the concept of the power of song.
The only thing I knew about Macross before this was that Robotech used parts of the first Macross anime, The Super Dimensional Fortress Macross for its first story arc (The Macross Saga), and that they heavily edited the Macross storyline to fit within the Robotech continuity. (One of these days I must view it in its original form.) So I’m still a newcomer to the Macross series.
Anyway I highly recommend you check it out, even if you’re not familiar with the rest of the Macross-verse; the story stands on its own, and you don’t really need to know much of the Macross backstory to enjoy it (plus there’s always Wikipedia). In particular, the music is, as I mentioned before, spectacular. As an example, here is J-Pop artist May’n (who provided the singing voice of Macross Frontier diva Sheryl Nome) singing one of the ending themes of Macross Frontier (and my favorite song from the series), “Northern Cross.”
This is just a quick heads-up. I’m testing a new method of updating Twitter AND Facebook whenever I post a new blog or podcast. I’m hoping that this will work without any major snags, but there is always the possibility that it may flood either Twitter or Facebook or both. If this does end up flooding the feed, please accept my sincere apologies. I’ll be monitoring things closely so if things do go wonky I’ll be able to pull the plug quickly. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
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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 
