A weekly look into American otaku culture

Following the ADV panel, I finished off my evening with the dub premiere of the very disappointing “Speed Grapher” and the screening of the Anime Music Video contest. I call “Grapher” disappointing because FUNimation built it up to be a completely sick show. We had to be over 18 just to get into the show, and I got in a large argument with the security person because my school ID did not have my birthday on it (if I am a senior in college and I was still under 18, I must have been some kind of genius, right? -_-). But I eventually was able to find my driver’s license, and got in to see a pathetic attempt at some gothic Cowboy Bebop wannabe. As the voice actors on stage raved about how sick it was to be working on this show, I was scratching my head waiting for some guilty pleasure material to be splattered across the screen. It never came.

I guess after Elfen Lied, it’s going to be pretty hard for an anime to shock me, huh?

But this was the first time I attended the AMV contest, and I was quite entertained with it. Which brings me to my main point for Day 1 of Anime Boston this year. This is the first convention I ever went to without a cosplaying girlfriend. And today I actually found out that my experience here at the convention is even better when I fly solo. My day was PACKED with going to the kind of panels that I really was interested in going to. I did not even have enough free time to go to the dealer’s room today, that’s how occupied I was. This whole new approach to convention going with a refreshing change for this blogger. I’m able to be a lot more social with the many other anime fans here. All these people are very friendly once you get to talk to them. We all seem to have a nice respect for each other since we’re all into the same kind of things. I was surprised at how often a simple conversation would break out between myself and the person next to me. We typically talk about convention experiences, but sometimes it even a little deeper and personal then that. I gues otaku are very interesting people once you get to know them.

But moving on to the next point, it really seems like the presence of the industry is really shrinking this year. In fact, the two very shocking bits of information did come from the convention today, but from AnimeOnDVD.com. FUNimation got the license to the 2nd Full Metal Panic season, and it looks Central Park Media is heading towards bankruptcy. But while the internet was buzzing with this news, we were all in a blissful ignorance over here in Boston. In fact, we were even talking about FMP at the ADV panel today and wondered why ADV had not announced when they were going to release it. And I was wondering where CPM was, cause I really wanted to get some stuff from them.

Hopefully that ignorance changes tomorrow with most of the companies start holding their industry panels. If the industry is going through turmoil right now, you better believe that this blogger will try to figure out all he can from all sources.

But that’s enough for one day. Thanks for everyone who have been following these posts today. I will be up bright and early again tomorrow for the world premiere of the Negima dub! (^_^)

ADV’s “Sneak Peak” panel starts off with a little tease from the man himself, David Williams, on the announcements that he was planning on making to us tonight, but he just had to get the clearance from legal to do so. So he was hoping to get the phone call sometime by the end of the panel. I hope does too, because I wanna hear announcements! (>_< )

The first release that they showed up to us was, Nanaka 6/17, which just melts my moe-loving heart. It’s the story of a 17-year-old girl who’s memory gets regressed back to when she was 6-years-old. Cheesy shoreline and lines aside, it really have cute characters and designs. However, there was some serious lip-syncing issues with the dub that the audience picked up on and laughed at. Not a good thing, ADV.

Next up was “This Ugly Yet Beautiful World.” Action, romance, fanservice, monsters, mystery, moe - this was a complete wet dream for me. I am hooked, I am really really hooked on this one. The main female character is also really pretty, and feels like she was taken from a Key visual novel (”Kanon”, “Air”).

Without a clearance from legal, the panel turns into an industry Q&A. They said that they are working on something “that will get anime to the fans a lot faster,” Hmmm… downloads…? When I asked the question, Dave did bring up a very interesting point that in the format wars, if the Japanese companies align with one side of the other, they will not allow it to go to the US if it’s not on that particular format. But as far as downloads go, he is very interested in it. Very interested. Dave ran off for a second, voice actor Greg Ayres took over the mic, bullshitting answers to questions like “Where do babies come from?”

Someone did bring up to me that Geneon is not on the schedule for the convention this year. That is really sad, since they always put out all my favorite shows. Maybe they will be in the dealers room.

The people who were going to run the visual novel panel did not show up, but that might not have been a bad thing. It was going to be run by one of the only US companies that import the games, so it probably would have been just a big commercial to sell their product.

But the panel that followed it was wonderful. It was a lecture by the Japan Consulate in Boston on how he feels that the “Father Knows Best”-style American TV shows of the 50’s completely changed the way the Japanese perceived family life. I gotta take some time to wrap my head around this idea, but I am absolutely fascinated with this kind of stuff.

That was followed by representatives from JET, who basically just confirmed all the things that I have learned about the program. I am even more confident that I am the kind of person they’re looking for, so I’m even more excited about the program.

The Media Blasters rep didn’t even know that he had a panel to go to! They had to drag him out of the deal’s room. He did announce a new version of Kite, which I thought at first, “What? Like a Super-Extra-Deluxe-Dirrectors-Cut version?” But no, it’s actually a sequel… or more exactly a follow-up… to the original OVA. As far as my question on the next step in media, they are not going to deal with Blu-Ray or HD-DVD as of yet, and neither are thy planning on downloads.

I believe that at this point, none of these anime companies will ever comment on the physical media side of content distribution. After all, that is a topic that even major Hollywood studios are unsure of. This rep completely agreed with my view that the general public will not adapt to the new formats while DVD is still going strong. But I personally believe that downloading anime will be the future of the industry, and you can very easily use the fansub community and bittorrent as a model on how to do it. So while Media Blasters is still one of the smallest companies attending this thing, it’s no sunrise that they aren’t doing anything about it. However, I’m hoping that bigger companies will mention something about it.

An interesting observation this year: the program features a full page guide on “How to Tip”, describing exactly how much extra money you much appropriately pay for the services you receive. One thing that I can completely understand is that these young anime fans are working with a very, very tight budget. In fact, it’s very common to see a double bed hotel room to be housing perhaps a dozen convention goers. So if we’re willing to be treated like sardines just to save a few bucks, I’m pretty sure that we are not so generous when it comes to leaving the tip. I can only imagine what a nuisance this is to the local hotel and restaurants

The theme for the convection this year is Colonial New England. The male mascot, A-chan, is sporting a Paul Revere look while his female counterpart, B-chan, is giving off a Betsy Ross vibe. This is a little bit on the weird side. I don’t think anime and American history mix very well.

Of course, right after I wrote that, they began their opening ceremony with the question, “What does anime have to do with the American revolution?” They answered it with a hilarious fake documentary explaining how the war was started because of a disagreement between the British and Colonist over the pronunciation of “Naruto”. Really funny stuff.

The ceremonies continue with introducing all the guests. As much flack that English voice actors get, they are very entertaining people that know how to work a crowd. I’m very exciting to see my favorite English voice actor, Steve Blum. That guy has been in everything. I will defiantly be attending his Q&A tomorrow.

So now that things have finally began, I’m feeling a lot better about the convention this year. Now time to hit those panels! (^_^)

Got up all bright eyed and bushy tail to wait in a hot, humid room to get my badge. For this year, I had signed up to get a press badge since I knew that I would be covering this event in my blog like a news service. However, I don’t think they consider a blog to be a creditable news source, so I was denied the status and just had to get a normal badge with everyone else. And that room just got hotter and hotter the longer we had to wait for one. This is a necessary evil that everyone has to go through, so while I might feel pretty grumpy and annoyed at the moment, at least it is out of the way.

Though it’s a good thing that I got my badge on the first morning of the convention. You see, everyone is still relatively “clean” at the moment. Come Saturday, we will all be treated to the funky aroma of sub-cultured young Americans after a full day of walking, sweating, and generally not bathing. And then on Sunday…. (>_< ) But for now, I am thankful that there was definitely no funk in that badge room despite the heat in there.

There’s still an hour before the opening ceremonies, so I have time now to look at the schedule of events. There is a very nice selection of panels, both industry and non-industry. I’m particularly looking forward to the panel for the JET program (ESL Teaching in Japan) since I am planning on applying to it in a few months. But there will also be a discussion on Visual Novels, which I’m sure will just sing to my fanboy heart. As far as industry goes, it looks like Tokyopop and Media Blasters will have their announcement panels while ADV and FUNimation will do some sneak screenings of their upcoming releases. The one question I will ask them all this year will be in which direction anime will be having as the shift from DVD is approaching. Blu-Ray? HD-DVD? Downloads?

Another big plus is that so far Wi-Fi access within the convection is free. Last year, you had to pay to connect, so I wasn’t able to report back to this blog until the end of each day. But this year, I will be updating as much as I can. Sorry, Blog好き, but it looks like Scotty will be spamming you all weekend long.

However, so far I’m not getting a good feeling about the convention this year. You can tell that the budget has been greatly cut back. My biggest disappointment so far have been that the wonderful, colorful badges that I admired for the past two years are now replaced by a crudely done black-and-white sketch and a tacky sticker. The events seem to be more consolidated, with most of the action taking place in smaller rooms then the were last year. And while I’m not a big fan of cosplay, I am still a little sad that there aren’t too many cosplayers around here right now. This could just be because it’s still really early. I’ll be able to have a better judgement once the convention is in full swing.