AX BONES Autograph Guest: Kawamoto, Komori, or Minami?

June 27, 2008 in Conventions by Tom Langston (calaggie) | No comments

Bandai’s blog has a Anime Expo page pimping all the events possibly connected with them as well as teasing secret guests like the new English Gurren Lagann dub cast and a person (Mr. X) from BONES who will be signing autographs. They gave enough references about Mr. X’s previous work – Ghost Slayers Ayashi, Eureka Seven, Wolf’s Rain, Scrapped Princess – to narrow the possibilities down to three men: Toshihiro Kawamoto, Takahiro Komori, and Masahiko Minami. Both Kawamoto and Komori were involved in various animation capacties including key animation, animation directing, and character design whereas Minami has produced and/or planned all four aforementioned titles as BONES president.

My educated guess would be Toshiro Kawamoto since he has visited American cons before including Sakura-Con 2008 in March. But wait, then his appearance wouldn’t be a surprise, would it? Perhaps it will instead be the other animator, Komori, since he might have more to do with the items being signed than the producer would. I suppose we’ll just have to see who shows up that afternoon to put his ~~John Hancock~~ jisho on free posters and other stuff.

(UPDATE 7/2: It turned out to be president Masahiko Minami.)

Also: I found this press release from four years ago where Bandai gave anyone who cosplayed as a Bandai character (e.g. Duo from Gundam Wing, Spike from Cowboy Bebop, Lime from Saber Marionette J) a chance to spin “The Wheel” to win prizes. Four years later, they have members of American Cosplay Paradise putting on Lucky Star dances and TTGL heaven-piercing. How far they’ve advanced…