The last day always has a palpable sadness to it. I mean, we have been having a marvelous time for the last 72 hours (and some folks have been UP all 72 hours, living on Red Bull or Monsters or Ultra Grandes from Starbucks), but it has to come to an end. I always feel sorry for those folks on the last day. For many, it is a getaway day, so they are busy packing bags and trying to get to the airport, so attendance is down. Way down. You can get into the shows, but the shows may not be all that fabulous. It’s like your panel got into AX, so don’t complain that you got Sunday at 9 am.

I squeezed in a viewing of Revolutionary Girl Utena, but even I had to head back to the hotel to pack, as I did score on a lot of swag. Now, there is nothing wrong with the show, but since it was also linked in with a massive showing of “Princess Knight” and “Rose of Versailles”, I only saw that one, as I had seen the other two the day before and was not that impressed. It’s not a bad show, but since I had been inundated with the girls trying to make it in a man’s world idea, it kind of washed over me. Too much all at once. (more…)

Hey, Good AX pics are hard to come by

I haven’t been sleeping well for a while, like the last three years, so it is not uncommon for me to pop awake and lie there, and I dislike doing that, so I get up and do SOMETHING.

I decided that I would get to the Expo early, as the taste of the defeats the day before left a bad taste in my mouth. It was rather soothing to walk about the venue, as there were a few people there and it was a physically cool place to be, which would belie the chaos that would be following.

I got there early, as they were showing some series on the modified schedule and I wanted to catch them. One was “Nyarko-san”, as that was more a reminder of what it was (I am working on a review for that), then “Love Hina”. I tried to watch it a few years ago, but found only a spotty version of it on line that wouldn’t stream properly, so I left it behind. This let me see three shows of it, but they are certainly handling things a bit differently than the manga. I know there will be a shift, but they are really playing down the fan service and upping the amount of physical abuse the male lead absorbs. (more…)

If any one term best described this day, it was Hurry Up and Wait, as that happened all the time.

When we got there for the Anime Scavenger Hunt, I checked the Update board to see that one show was cancelled and replaced with something else. That is the problem with being a caliber of Luddite. I don’t have a smartphone or a tablet or a working laptop (I have a laptop, but it might as well be bear skins and stone tools for all the good it does).

It was at the Scavenger Hunt this all came home. It was just a lark; what you did was be given a list of 25 items to find in and around the convention area. However, we got into the room late and they spent a lot of time trying to put together teams of four, so by the time we headed out, we had a mere 29 minutes to find the stuff. PS, no one found ALL the items,

This brought me to my first thought of conventions: you need a party of four, as you will have to take turns sitting in line for people and need instant communication with your team. This has been the most heavily attended AX convention and it shows. People sitiin line for hours to make certain they can get into shows, and you may not get guaranteed. None of that Disney trick of hiring someone handicapped to hold your place until you show up. What this means is that you have to miss other things in order to try and get what you want. (more…)

Sitting in front of the LA COnvention Center is a tank. Not an air tank (This is LA), not a water tank (we are in a heat wave, where it’s been like a bajillion degrees), but a tank. In fact, it’s the Anglerfish tank from “Girls Und Panzer” and a way for Sentai Filmworks (and what a bad name for a company, like calling yourself ‘Corm Movies’) to promote all of its offerings. Well, I was ready to go, dressed as Akira from “Tsuritama”. I even had my duck, but things got off to a bad start.

The panel I wanted to see “Anime vs Hollywood” and who wins with these anime-to-film translations (actually, we lose; Hollywood does not have a good track record for that) got cancelled. I went to the FUNimation.com panel instead. I have a problem with panels like that, as it is more of a way to let people know what their upcoming offerings are going to be and how wonderful we are. The only real good news they had was that the website was being revamped and would be less finicky as it had been, plus their new content and the numerous ways they would be bringing it to you. Tweet,Face, Tumblr; name it. They will get it to you

How many videos do they have on the site? “Well, it’s over 9000!” Yes, they actually said that.

I grabbed a couple of episodes of Inuyasha: The Final Act.” Now, if you just came to this series, you would be left in the dust, as they jump right into it and you would need to have some background as to who everyone is and what they are doing in the show. I had followed the show for about 40 episodes before it got yanked from my On Demand list, so I wasn’t that hard to follow. (more…)

Anime Expo 2013*

If you have never been to an anime convention, I highly suggest that you avail yourself of it. They are not the rarity of years past and if you do an internet search under ‘anime conventions’, you will find a long list of them. They range from local and fan-driven to highly professional with some dramatic clout. I happen to be in at Anime Expo in Los Angeles. Find a map of Downtown LA and look for the Staples Center and that’s where I am.

In years past, I would roll up about halfway through Day One, where you would breeze through for your tickets, but you then lose half a day. This year, we decided to get there on Day 0. Also, in the past, they used to have a quarter-day of activity, but they dropped that. So, we get to the line for the ‘common’ tickets. There are tickets that were insanely expensive and are so SuperMegaAwesomeCrunchy. They give you entree everywhere: the front of the line, special venues, behind the scenes kind of stuff.. That line was so short, the ticket people there were playing their hand-held video games.

No, I had to get in the line with the unwashed masses, and some of them were very unwashed. How long was the line? It took me 10 minutes to find the end. Disney would be proud with the crowd control and how they kept us moving, but I felt like some tapeworm, navigating the serpentine intestine to get inside the building. (more…)