Here’s what was inside (and what I know have to deal with):

A cabbit backpack with ear pockets.

DVD singles of Chrono Crusade. Now I can make that Pilot Speed AMV I have an idea for! [I already had 2 (TWO!) copies of vol. 1 and one of vol. 5 so those might be giveaway fodder.]

Simon Richmond’s Rough Guide to Anime – the duo wrote about it in Feb. 2010. I will definitely read through this.

Some manga singles: Prism Time (Japanese), Beck vol. 8, Queen of Ragtonia vol. 1 (RT coverage; Aurora page), Swan vol. 9

All 4 ADV Manga volumes of Azumanga Daioh — so I can read the “bad” translation and not bother with the 672-page fat omnibus that Yen Press published. I have some of the DVD volumes but haven’t really rewatched them because of those intentional comedy pauses that happen and became tiresome as I went along. (Again, more of my own stuff becoming eligible as giveaway fodder or swap meet stock.)

Speaking of thick books, I now have the massive, 816-page Brave Story novel to slough through….

…which is about as tall as all four Azumanga books stacked up.

June 2009 issue of Monthly Comic Zero Sum featuring 07-Ghost on the cover.

Taiwan-pressed CDs of Slayers music (from TV & radio) and X soundtrack 1, plus a Naruto/Sasuke button. (Hmm..hitting my soft spot for Hayashibara…)

And finally, Dragon Ball sticker sheet, a CLAMP 20th anniversary booklet, and Slayers Fight trading game cards.

Getting all this stuff reminded me of what I should probably give away when I’m done and how I would get rid of them. Some could be anime club auction material but I want to try sending stuff to readers or even Twitter followers. If you have any creative ideas for contests or other ways I could redistribute my unwanted assets, let me know in the comments!

Otakon 2010 was my first East Coast convention and it turned out pretty well despite my own logistical flubbings. I was attending as just a fan without any special press or panelist so this writeup is more experiential than HARD JOURNALIST COVERAGE but I hope you can get a sense of what I did two weekends ago in Baltimore.

THURSDAY
It’d been three years since I last flew into another time zone but the flights eastward weren’t bad – I got to read through most of the first Book Girl (Bungaku Shoujo) novel. The process of picking up my pre-registration badge went smoothly with the new barcode scanning system. I then spent some time walking up and down Pratt Street before hanging out with TheBigN, omo, momotato and others at Pickles Pub and watching the Orioles beat the Royals in 11 innings on TV while having a rum and coke. I took the light rail back to my hotel near the airport and quickly learned the correct stop to get off at after leaving a couple stops before I should have; luckily, another train came about 5-10 minutes later.

Blurry smartphone photo of Big Windup cosplay

FRIDAY
I had planned to wake up early and get to the con in time for the Japanese Mahjong, Vertical, and Anime Journalism panels but I got up around 11am and missed them all. (Thankfully, the last one was recorded and posted onto Manga Out Loud as well as a transcript done by animemiz.)

Attending the Opening Ceremonies was a good experience as a first-time Otakon member and I was introduced to some of the guests in person. I found Hiroaki Yura to be charmingly honest and the Home Made Kazoku boys pumped up the crowd with their “Otakon, Ichiban!” call-and-response. The opening animation, which I guess was supposed to be the highpoint, had a rocking song but the characters and “story” felt so-so. Shihori came on stage and sang that opening song, “Shackles of the Night”, with a backing band named School of Rock (not to be confused with the 2003 Jack Black movie).

Next was Alex Leavitt‘s What’s the Point of Anime Intro & Ending Themes?. I had gone to his AX 2009 panel about the same subject but this time, he had a proper slideshow presentation. Astro Boy (American dubbed version) and Cutie Honey/Re: Cutie Honey (remake doing homages of original) appeared again but new additions to me were Urusei Yatsura and the propensity of giant robot shows like Zambot 3 and Combattler V to repeat the robot’s name and highlight at least two of the its moves. (While writing this post, I found that Balatack also fits this category.) He also did a couple cool side-by-sides of Dragon Ball “Cha-La Head-Cha-La” & the Lucky Star karaoke version and of Yamato’s opening with Isao Sasaki singing it at a concert. Alex did his best 3 at the end, which included the Eden of the East opening and the Paradise Kiss ending (I don’t remember the third).

After it finished, I skipped next door to the in-progress Aniplex panel in time to hear a few Durarara! dub cast announcements including sleeper star Darrel Guilbeau as Mikado (he voiced Gainer in Overman King Gainer) before leaving to get a cheeseburger from a food truck near the convention center.

I thought of Jon I. when I saw this

OGT and pontifus teamed up for You Don’t Like Moe — And Here’s Why!, which got off to a dry start in trying to explain postmodernism and Azuma’s grand non-narrative theory from Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals and finished off with examples of different character types: “pure” moe, dojikko, tsundere, megane, genki, onee-san/imouto, and silent/serious. I seemed to follow along since I’d recently finished Azuma’s book but much of the audience was probably bored until the Q&A began. The most exciting part might have been when one girl who stood up and complained that Darker Than Black‘s second season was ruined by the addition of a moe character (Suou?). They had set up a videocamera to record so the video version might show up online soon.

I had dinner at a sushi place many blocks up the street with Alex, Alex’s girlfriend, Ed Sizemore, and Mechademia editor Andrea Horbinski (and entirely skipped Bad Anime, Bad!! – sorry, Narutaki). Afterward, we all returned to the BCC for the Yoshida Brothers concert. It was a very entertaining experience seeing their swift finger movements & feeling the folk fusion rhythms — and it fulfilled one of my resolutions to attend more music events.

I was unable to attend Dubs That Time Forgot due to my homebound flight time so Anime Cult Classics was my primary Mike Toole experience. It was a hilarious look at some anime productions funded by cults such as Soka Gakkai, Dahn Yoga, HAPPY SCIENCE (Hermes: Wings of Love), and Aum Shinri Kyo. Much of it was bad and that was kind of the point – the clip that made me laugh the most was from The Laws of Eternity and had both Nietzsche & Hitler in it (YouTube).

This was actually from Anime Openings/Endings prep but whatever.

SATURDAY
I managed to awake as planned this time and made it to my second Alex Leavitt panel of the weekend – Experiments in the Anime Industry: noitaminA. This one was more analytical than the themes panel; for example, Alex pointed out that some of the source material is non-traditional: josei manga (Nodame Cantabile) and novels (Tatami Galaxy). I’d honestly forgotten that Hataraki Man was part of that block. (ANN has a formal writeup of the panel including some of the ratings figures Alex produced.)

I ended up meeting Evan Minto after his Changing Faces of Anime panel finished early, then got Masao Maruyama to sign one of my DNA^2 DVD’s. I then walked around the dealers hall and bought X Diary from Netcomics’ booth, which I began reading while standing in line for Space Show seating.

There was much buzz for Welcome to the Space Show beforehand and I thought it turned out to be a pretty good film. The animation flowed very well and though it felt a bit long toward the end and took an odd plot turn, I came out of it happy. Seeing everyone leaving the convention center afterward was confusing until I heard the fire engine sirens approaching. (You can read about the fire alarm here.)

I wandered around a few blocks and then went into the still-operating Hilton for the latter part of the Hiroaki Yura, Hiroki Kikuta, and Shihori panel where they answered some game music questions and then Hiroaki went through one of those photo slideshows I like seeing from foreign guests, although he speaks English so well that he passes as a non-foreigner to me. The Space Show focus panel right after was alright – ANN has a proper write-up. The three main creators took questions from the audience and then asked the crowd a few questions. Like a number of other panels, I wasn’t able to come up with good things to ask.

I had marked The Phenomenology of Shinji Ikari on my schedule beforehand, anticipating something I might enjoy attending. Unfortunately, the discussion was fairly tedious and the main lady panelist used the sort of pretentious language I dislike hearing aloud, like “whereas” and “in re”. The only time I wanted to desperately raise my hand to chime in was when the subject of a perfect world turned to words defining reality (color names, in particular) and I made a comment to the people behind me about shades of blue. It was underwhelming for someone with a philosophy degree but I did remind me that I am lacking in some core theorists who were mentioned, particularly Hegel. (I wasn’t the only disappointed one – Ed Sizemore remarked during the panel that “seem[ed] like a lot of philosophy” and felt like argument for argument’s sake.)

Unable to get into the packed 10 Anime You’ve Never Heard of but Must See! (full list here), I went to Artists Alley in search of Ensign Sue Must Die, which I had seen Andrea & her friend look at the night before. I was unable to track it down but luckily, it’s also online. The artwork up for auction looked nice but I didn’t bid on anything because I wasn’t sure how I would get them home.

The original panelists for Fanthropology never appeared but the impromptu panelists, including Charles Dunbar, did a pretty good job on engaging the audience. Discussion topics included the origin & use of the word ‘otaku’, crossover between reality & fandom, and if fan art creation is detracting from official merchandise sales. I hadn’t heard about the “fanfiction” edition of Don Quixote Part Two before this panel. Recommended reading suggestions from the panelists included Henry Jenkins’ Textual Poachers and Roland Kelts’ Japanamerica.

Instead of pushing my way into the Bandai After Dark panel next door, I supported wildarmsheero (a previous podcast guest) and his presentation on The Life and Times of Akiyuki Shinbo. He was detailed about details and talked with enthusiasm about each major series with much focus on Bakemonogatari near the end. Afterward, some of us hung out in the hallway checking Twitter feeds on our phones for the remaining Bandai news, which turned out to be K-ON! simultaneous DVD/BD release and Mio & Yui dub casting (saving Ritsu & Mugi for NYAF?).

Sadly, the last panel I wanted to attend at Otakon - Feminism, Fandom, and Fanservice - didn’t actually happen: it was cancelled after 15 minutes of waiting for the panelists to appear. I really wanted to know who was putting it on and maybe I’ll never know. Because I had the rest of the night free, I went with Hisui, Evan and OGT to the Dave & Joel cool people party at the Marriott where I met Daryl Surat, Erin Finnegan, and saw Ed Chavez sitting in a chair. I ended up talking with Patz for a while and then taking a cab home after 3am.

SUNDAY
I got plenty of rest before checking out of my hotel room around noon. On the flights home, I finished up Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime (fantastic), read through Bakuman vol. 1 (good enough for me to read vol. 2 but wasn’t bowled over), and also enjoyed some good articles in an issue of Harper’s. I even indulged and played a bit of video poker during an overlay at the Las Vegas airport.

I would like to attend next year’s Otakon (July 29-31, 2011) now that I have a good sense of the convention center and the general atmosphere as more like Fanime than Anime Expo. It was nice to meet face-to-face many of the East Coasters I knew from online including the catgirl-loving Scott and Lauren Orsini. (If we met & I didn’t mention you, speak up in the comments!) It was also an extended weekend vacation from work. There are a few panels I wish I could have gone to, like Madhouse, but couldn’t because of schedule conflicts.

Wrapping up, here’s the Flickr photoset for the weekend and a 10-minute portion of Baltimore light rail.

The Otakon schedule got posted last Thursday & I discussed it that night with Kate (Narutaki) & Alain (Hisui) of the Reverse Thieves. There was some crackling and then other noise from my microphone due to interference, likely from my cellphone (and aliens?!)

I tried to do my best to salvage those parts in post-production but you’ll have to deal with my cyborg echo voice for much of it. Thank goodness my East Coast friends recorded their own end, preventing it from sounding worse, but don’t listen to this with the volume way up.

The Reverse Thieves also posted their tentative schedule so check that out either in addition to, or in substitution of, this podcast episode.

Opening: “Shoot You Down” by APB [Free Music Archive]

[00:50] Introduction

[02:05] Starting the schedule talk

[04:35] CLAMP was at Anime Expo 2006 (Anime Cons)

[06:25] Otakon autograph policy for this year

[08:20] Voice actor tip: the correct way to pronounce Vic’s last name (min-yah-nah).

(interim music is Spoilers reveal from Double Dare – source)

[10:45] The panels the Reverse Thieves want to attend

[14:40] We all want to see Welcome to the Space Show.

[14:58] I cut out my loud static for the listeners’ sake.

(interim sound is a letter falling into place from Scrabble – source “in puzzle”)

[16:09] Resuming the podcast after the audio attack

[18:15] Ed Sizemore’s & Alex Leavitt’s panel times DID change! Ed’s “Anime Journalism” panel is now at 12pm-1pm Friday while Alex’s “Anime Intros and Endings” panel is at 3:30-4:30pm Friday.

[19:30] Kate lists off their Friday “likely”s for fan panels

[23:58] Dave Cabrera of ANN’s Astro Toy and Colony Drop gets mentioned for the mahjong panel he’s doing with Carl (SDS) of Ogiue Maniax, “Riichi: Japanese Mahjong, Anime, and You”, at 9:30-10:30am Friday morning.

[24:14] Kate says “Yeah, right” to me being interested in the game in Saki and suggests Akagi as a better series for mahjong display. (Though “lesbians with shiny thighs” could be a good catchphrase…)

[25:04] Vertical and Ed Chavez’s separation of business & casual. Also mentioned Lychee Light Club announced during Comic-Con.

[29:05] Aniplex panel mention leads to general industry panel anecdote (FUNimation & free goods)

[35:30] I now have to go to “Bad, Anime, Bad!!” for a particular reason.

[36:50] I geeked out a bit about game shows re: Anime Press Your Luck

[40:10] My cyborg voice returns…

[42:30] HOT TIP: Visit the information booth for updates on schedule changes!

[45:33] Saturday begins with Alex’s noitaminA panel.

[49:13] Yuji Mitsuya and Anpanman

[54:41] Alain mentions Blue Flames while we’re talking about the “Feminism, Fandom, and Fanservice” panel.

[57:00] HOT TIP: You can possibly skip the first 45 minutes of RAINBOW with Hiroshi Koujina Q&A if you’ve already seen episodes 1 & 2 online. Koujina also directed Kiba and Grenadier so ask about those if you’re too disturbed by the prison story.

[59:55] Kate makes me feel bad about liking Highschool of the Dead.

[1:04:17] Apparently, 30% of Vocaloid song sales on iTunes are from users outside Japan. Followup: distribution company KarenT says 51.2% of iTunes sales from Japan and 40.9% from America. [@krnerdnews: 1, 2]

[1:04:49] Another game show: Anime Name Your Tune

[1:07:35] Actually, this went up the day before the convention started, not a week before. “Dubs That Time Forgot” has almost the last timeslot of the convention! Funimation once had shows on Gaia.

[1:12:19] Oh yes, concerts! Home Made Kazoku, Yoshida Brothers, and Masquerade halftime appearance by Yoshiki and Sugiko. Also: pondering the gender of kanon.

[1:16:57] Tips for first time Otakon attendees like myself (and breaking news that kanon is a dude)

[1:24:47] Ending: “Suihei Leibe ~Mahou no Jumon~” by Kakki & Ash Potato (Element Hunters ending)

Fanime 2010 was Memorial Day weekend (May 28th-31st) and even though it felt like the same sort of convention as in 2009, it was more personally entertaining than last year because I met up with many of the other writers/bloggers there for lunch and other times over the course of the weekend. I also attended some interesting panels as well as a few that weren’t as compelling.

Jump to: Friday | Saturday | Sunday | The Rest

FRIDAY #
My first panel of the convention was Being A Strong Woman in the Industry on Friday night, presented by Karen Dyer, who was staying on stage from the previous panel, Reuben and CAPCOM – Mo-Cap and Action! Karen admitted that the title was somewhat misleading. She has voiced Sheva in Resident Evil 5 as well as acting and performing on many stages. She explained her Eva La Dare burlesque persona and showed a music video for an upcoming single “Candy Love”, which was shot over the course of five hours using a Canon 7D. The single is expected to be released this summer, though no dates are final.

Karen also told some funny anecdotes about having to voice all of Sheva’s different possible deaths, working with Michael Jackson, and having to do a bed scene with Ice-T for a movie.

SATURDAY #
Saturday began for me with the History of Gainax panelist featuring Hiroyuki Yamagi and his interpreter. Yamagi first talked about how the company formed in 1983 and showed the Daicon IV short and a collage put together (we were told) by Hideaki Anno of Gainax’s work up until Petit Princess Yucie. He pointed out that while researching the history of the studio for the panel, he discovered it had no releases in years ending in “6″ (1986, 1996, 2006) and that those are times when they were working on new projects: 1986 – Wings of Honneamise, 1996 – Evangelion (the movies), 2006 – Gurren Lagann.

Dark Horse editor Carl Gustav Horn posed a couple questions to Yamaga before leaving to do his own panel: first, how does only speaking Japanese in the office affect their international business strategy and second, does Gainax get any awareness of how foreign audiences like their works? Yamaga said they used to have non-Japanese working for them but now they just rely on translators and that even though he’s gone overseas, he still doesn’t know what foreigners like so Gainax will continue to make projects for a Japanese audience.

[Related Yamaga links: ANN interview; Otaku USA writeup of panel]

Right after that and a brisk walk away was Dark Horse Manga and Carl Horn to lay out the imprint’s releases through about September. No new license announcements this time around but Carl made sure to pitch Evangelion: Campus Apocalypse as Shinji becoming cool because he’s got a gun in this alternate universe series and something distinctly different since it was originally serialized in the shojo magazine Asuka. (The romantic comedy manga Angelic Days was also serialized in Asuka; Shinji Ikari Raising Project runs in Shonen Ace and so did the main Evangelion series before being moved to Young Ace when that magazine launched.)

When Carl was asked putting manga on digital devices, he said they’re looking into it. Titles would be on a case-by-case basis and they have to consider their retailers’ needs as well. He emphasized that books are three-dimensional objects – “that’s why we put effort into the books” – and that Dark Horse is a publisher, not a content provider.

Following Dark Horse was a blogger lunch meetup at Sonoma Chicken Coop organized by Deb Aoki. In attendance were Deb, Gia Manry and John Martone (both formerly of Anime Vice), Heidi Kemps, Danielle Orihuela-Gruber, Sam Kusek, Emily, Nancy Thistelwaite (who does editing for Viz), Jason Yadao of the then-Honolulu Star Bulletin (now the Honolulu Star-Advertiser), and Sean & Mike from Colony Drop. Sean later wrote a report for Otaku USA focusing on how little anime-focused content there was at the convention.

The Intern in the Manga Industry panel had Stevie Wegrzyn, Danielle, and Sam talking about their experiences interning for Tokyopop and, in Sam’s case, with Fanscape, a social media marketing firm. Each got in using similar methods: Stevie applied as a sophomore in college and was currently in negotiation to be hired, Sam got his through a scholarship program at Emerson and one of his assignments was Naruto Shippuden, and Danielle went for an editorial internship which involved copy editing and researching licenses. Stevie said it’s not really what you’re doing but more what’s going on around you.

Even if you don’t have plans to work in a creative media field anytime soon, they provided some good advice that could be applied to many job areas: when applying, always look at the qualifications and reword; personalize your cover letter and mention notable skills like words per minute or computer program experience; never sell yourself short; ask for criticism; be patient. (Danielle also recently posted some guidance – and warnings – to potential manga interns on All About Manga.)

Late Saturday night was Gilles Poitras’ Sex Trade in Anime & Manga panel, which required 18+ ID checks. Gilles primarily used books written by others for his research and lamented the lack of good, reliable information about the Japanese sex trade available in English. He recommended Tokyo Vice and Pink Box while also mentioning other books that are out of print and aren’t entirely useful for conducting research. He pointed to scenes in manga and anime like GTO, Ikebukuro West Gate Park, and City Hunter to demonstrate certain terms and elements including compensated dating – you can see the list of what he covered in his own writeup.

(Gia, who now writes for ANN, posted a long interview with Gilles that begins with a focus on this subject before moving onto other things. Gilles also wrote up the panel on his blog.)

Pre-panel entertainment: Danemon Ban short (1935)

SUNDAY #
The next morning, I went to Older Titles for Newer Fans, where Gilles & Jonathan Osborne talked about & showed clips from eight anime that are more than 10 years old and still in print. Among the more familiar Cowboy Bebop and Escaflowne were more obscure offerings such as Hakkenden, The Dagger of Kamui, and Doomed Megalopolis. In talking about Gundam 0083, Jonathan commented that he liked Cima having a zebra skin chair.

K Valentine presented Working as an Anime Critic Sunday afternoon and the small audience in attendance seemed to share his cynical tone. The advice he gave was nothing surprising but I thought the Artists’ Alley raffle giveaway was a nice way to promote some of his friends’ tables.

All About Figure Collecting was presented by Heidi Kemps and had expanded from one hour to two after the panel afterward, DIY Deco Den & Sweets Jewelry, was canceled. She introduced the different types of figures from action figures to fixed pose and was starting to move onto specific manufacturers when I left halfway through to attend the Nujabes panel next door. (Destroy All Podcasts DX has an audio recording of the panel.)

Rest in Peace: Nujabes was a learning experience since I never really identified him with the music in Samurai Champloo until I heard of his death in February. Many people stepped up to the microphone and paid tribute to the late music producer and I could feel the deep relationship they felt to his music. The session wrapped up with a call-and-response rap led by hip-hop artists Noka and Lone Wolf and the songs mentioned included “Feather”, “Aruarian Dance” and “Eclipse”. By the end, I got the sense that his music was one way that a popular anime (in Champloo) introduced people to Japanese hip-hop or simply provided them an aural refuge from the stresses of the world.

Some friends from my old anime club put on Touhou Hijack LOL, based on a thesis by Tomoaki Hirai entitled “Tōhō Project and Its Connections with Classical Aspects of Folklore and Culture of Japan”. Using NicoNicoDouga videos to illustrate points, the spread of Touhou’s popularity was explained along with the religious meaning behind the characters and games.

The final panel I attended for the weekend was Character Design at 12am Sunday night into Monday, which I noticed on the schedule only a few hours before. It was pretty low-key with artist BentoBoxBobby giving some advice about designing characters, presenting artwork to potential clients, and how to maintain a steady flow of ideas. Some books he recommended for serious artists were The Elements of Color by Johannes Itten, Manga Mania: Magical Girls and Friends by Christopher Hart, and the annual Artist’s and Graphic Designer’s Market.

I couldn’t resist asking Glenn if I could get a picture of his jacket.

The Rest #
Let’s wrap up on the rest of the activities. During a couple trips to the dealer’s hall, I picked up a few small boxed figures, three manga volumes (Eden vol. 2, Ghost Talker’s Daydream vol. 1, Gakuen Prince vol. 2), a water bottle from the Red Cross after donating, and a Kanji de Manga book. I actually managed to strike up a conversation with Manga University founder Glenn Kardy about Japanese baseball after seeing his Yakult Swallows jacket draped over a chair.

The swap meet found me gaining many Mixx/Tokyopop Magazine back issues, some individual comic volumes, FLCL manga volumes 1 & 2, X-Day vol. 1 (I’d bought vol. 2 the previous weekend), and a used library copy of Samurai from Outer Space. I only took one brisk, cursory look through Artist Alley and didn’t return a second time, which shouldn’t be taken personally. I didn’t feel like spending a lot of time in there, unlike last year, and I guess my defense is I’m not enough into fanart to buy from many artists, even though I acknowledge a fair percentage is original art.

During some downtime, I watched some older anime in the video rooms: Fushigi Yugi eps. 1-2 on Sunday night and Ranma 1/2 eps. 1-5 at the head-nodding-off-into-shoulder-tapping-as-a-warning time of 4-6am Monday morning (don’t think I’ll try *that* again!). I might watch more of Fushigi Yugi but I’m not so inclined to continue with Ranma.

As press, I felt less pressure this year to try to cover the convention hard – I didn’t try to take any video of panels but I did take a bunch of handwritten notes. I think it was due to increased confidence from no longer being a university student (and therefore not having homework waiting back home) and from seeing peers I’d seen last year or met in person for the first time over the weekend.

I already decided months ago that I wouldn’t attend this year’s AX because 1) it’s a long drive and 2) I’m going to Otakon later in July so that’ll be my big “industry” con of the summer. However, I still want to briefly write about these two pricing matters. First, I can understand charging for concerts because they are an extra event (people often pay more for concerts, right?) but the Masquerade, despite being a well-attendance event, is not something I would be inclined to do as an organizer because of the amateur, fan-based nature of the event.

Those who don’t want to pay but still want to attend the events do have a last-resort free option:

If a particular Main Event has not sold out, a limited number of tickets may be available for free after the start of the event at the discretion of the Main Events ticketing staff. It is recommended that interested attendees purchase a Reserved Seating ticket either online or at the Main Events Ticketing Booth.

Anime Expo is a large event – last year’s attendance was 44,000 – and so there are significant costs in putting on such the entire ordeal. Part of that cost is paid through the registration fees from attendees. (I think other sources include exhibitor and artist alley space costs as well as sponsorships.) This year’s pre-registration price for a 4-day pass is currently $75 and I suppose some attendees may have expectations that concert or masquerade entry fees would be included in that.

Now onto the iPhone app, an easier subject. The features of the application [iTunes page] include a sortable schedule, an searchable exhibitor index & map, a map of nearby businesses, convention announcements, the ability to save items to your favorites, and some upcoming items such as a crossword puzzle, blog articles, and photo gallery. I assume there are some development costs involved in putting the app together so $1.99 sounds reasonable for what you get. If you don’t want to pay for the convenience of having all that on an Apple mobile device, that’s fine – there will still be daily PDF schedules you can download or the listings in the printed guide you’ll get in the registration bag.

I would prefer there be a platform-neutral mobile schedule for convention updates, like Fanime had this year. (I wouldn’t be able to use the AX app because I have an Android phone.) It was nice to quickly know about changes to panel times and get a quick glance at which events were happening concurrently, something that I could check in the printed Pocket Guide except for the events that has scheduling changes over the weekend.

To sum up: both the priced ticket events and the iPhone app are optional things that many fans may not need to deal in order to attend and enjoy the convention. The ticket costs are a bother for those who do want to attend those events and I’m sure a fair number of people are willing to pay for the concerts and not very many, if any, will pay for the masquerade. No one is forcing anyone to purchase and use the iPhone app so the pricing should be less of a concern, particularly for resourceful attendees who do some planning ahead.

Also: an illustrator named BliSS has been counting down the days over the past month through drawings of country representatives or of football clubs like Chelsea. You can look at her work on the blog I linked above or in her Pixiv gallery.

Oh, and I haven’t forgotten my pessimistic prediction that Japan’s squad won’t make it into the knockout stage.

pixiv artist: ぷとん [link]

As part of the zzeroparticle-helmed Aniblog Readings project, TheBigN of Drastic My Blog was assigned with reading one of my earliest posts. He chose my summer 2006 preview where I mention Zaizen Jotaro, a series I still haven’t sampled and which I don’t believe has even been completed subbed. I did end up writing something about each of the other ten in the four years since then.

TheBigN’s voice paired with Mute Math’s “Reset” as the backing track reminded me of those slick Toonami promos from back in the day. (Have you looked into doing voiceover, dude?) Anyway, listen in – and read along! – to see how wrong I was about some stuff four years ago when I was just starting out.

PRESS PLAY (MP3):

I do want to finish FLAG, Le Chevalier d’Eon, and Coyote Ragtime Show someday. I’m sort of curious about how Tsuyokiss ended and I’m not sure if I want to try to revisit Ramen Fighter Miki, which I dropped after two episodes.

Update 5/27 12:45AM PDT: Be sure to check Fanime’s mobile schedule – m.fanime.com -  for updates and changes! For example, I just noticed “Being A Strong Woman in the Industry” was added at Friday 9-10pm in Panel Room 3 as well as “Fandom, College & Career” on Saturday 10am-11am in Panel Room 2.

Swap Meet (Friday 8pm-1am, Exhibit Hall 3)
I’ll be looking for cheap manga and magazine back issues. It’s also operating on Thursday night with the same 8pm-1am hours.

Akira (Saturday 3am-5am, Stage Zero Concourse)
I suppose it would be somewhat appropriate to see this in the pre-dawn hours. It’s also being shown at the more manageable time of Friday 6:30-8:30pm in Video Room 2.

Evangelion ?.?? (Saturday 8am-10am & Monday 10am-12pm, SJCC Ballroom B)
This seems to tease the second but it could just be the first. (Eva 1.11 is being shown Friday 1-3pm so maybe it *will* be the 2nd remake film?) There will also be Summer Wars screened in the Ballroom on Saturday 1-3pm and Monday 8am-10am.

Hiroyuki Yamaga presents History of GAINAX (Saturday 10am-12pm, SJCC Ballroom B)
I believe this has been presented in the past but I haven’t been to it. I feel like asking about Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt.

Dark Horse Manga (Saturday 12-1pm, Panel Room 1)
You wanna see Carl Horn talk about CLAMP, Evangelion: Campus Apocalypse, and other projects? Carl recently wrote a piece called “Love & Wonder” on Dark Horse’s site that I’d recommend reading. (There’s a mainly manga bloggers’ lunch meetup planned for Saturday so that will be after this.)

Intern in the Manga Industry! (Saturday 7-8pm, Panel Room 2)
Even though I don’t have intense desires to work in publishing, I would want to listen in for advice being given about networking and workflow.

Sex Trade in Anime and Manga – 18+ (Saturday 10-11pm, Panel Room 1)
Gilles Poitras is also presenting “Anime for Parents” (Fri. 7-8pm, Panel Room 2), “Anime and Manga for Grownups” (Sat. 3-4pm, Panel Rm 1), and co-presenting “Older Titles for Newer Fans” with Jonathan Osbourne (Sun. 10am-12pm, Panel Rm 3).

Anime, Illustrations, and Manga (Sunday 12-1pm, Panel Room 3)
Guest of Honor Mamoru Yokota will be presenting this panel.

Work as an Anime Critic (Sunday 2-3pm, Panel Room 3)
Tom Tonthat (aka K Valentine) has written anime reviews for The Escapist and earlier this year, he put on a “Criticizing the Anime Critic” panel at Animation on Display. (Panel on YouTube: parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

The Psychotaku: import gamer (Sunday 4-5pm, Panel Room 1)
I’m mildly interested because it’s games that weren’t brought overseas. Wondering if he’ll mention the Sailor Moon fighting games.

Rest In Beats: Nujabes Tribute (Sunday 5-6pm, Panel Room 2)
The hip-hop producer/composer who met an early death in February will be remembered. There’s also a “Tribute for Jun Seba” at Stage Zero on Saturday 5-6pm.

Touhou Hijack LOL (Sunday 9-10pm, Panel Room 1)
This is one of two Touhou panels happening on Sunday – the other is “What the Hell is Touhou?!” (Sun. 3-4pm, Panel Room 2). I think one of my friends is doing the later one (Hijack) while another is doing a panel on Umineko (Sat. 8-9pm, Panel Rm 2).

I don’t think I’m going to make an honest attempt at cosplay this year because I didn’t plan ahead aside from picking up a dark green jacket recently from a thrift store that’s a little long in the arms.

In the comments section of the match post (where you can vote for this blog if you’d like until May 24, I think), there were some remarks pointing out things that I already knew.

Canne: Without any hesitation, I voted for zzeroparticle because of the blog’s shear quality. I actually think Nigorimasen is good, too. I just don’t like the orange letters -_- #

Baka-Raptor: I like AI a lot. I ended up voting for it, but I gave Nigorimasen very serious consideration even though I’ve never read it before. The deal-breaker was that Nigorimasen does a lot of industry posts, which has even less to do with anime than anime music. #

Josh on his eponymous Anime Blog has been writing about his choices in each matchup and said my content was fine but my design was quirky and my post rate was not so good (here’s an earlier post by Josh explaining his criteria):

Design: Is it just me, or is the background for the entire page on Nigorimasen! gray?  Also, while it’s not a big deal, I kind of always disliked pages shoved off to one side of the screen or another instead of being centered.  And the gray thing is bothering me.  Anime Instrumentality may not be the slickest looking blog out there, but there isn’t really anything particularly bad about it.  Winner: Anime Instrumentality

Post Rate/Style: On post rate, Nigorimasen! has posted only 10 times since the first of March, if my count is correct.  That’s less than once a week, which is clearly in my danger category.  Otherwise, I don’t see anything particularly wrong with their post style.  Anime Instrumentality also has an issue with posting a lot, though they did decent in March, and it seems to be better than Nigorimasen! in any case.  Though, I guess when one is writing mostly about anime OSTs, you can only write posts so often too.  I also like how they have music samples intermixed in their posts.  Winner: Anime Instrumentality

Content: I think Nigorimasen has a lot of good, well written content on his blog, especially about the CPM situation. He just doesn’t post a lot.  Meanwhile, Anime Instrumentality is able to write quite a bit, despite being a blog about OSTs…and they have samples!  I think this category is very close, but it goes to AI by a nose. Winner: Anime Instrumentality

Overall: Another sweep.  I think Nigorimasen’s lack of posting and quirky design really hurt it.

Winner: Anime Instrumentality

The current blog design is not ideal – I’ve crudely coded the CSS to allow for a wider, er, width and the left alignment is off a bit, which bugged me initially and I seem to have gotten used to over the past several months. The orange color for links is a conscious choice because I didn’t feel like settling for the standard blue or black. It’s also an attempt to grab people’s attention but I suppose a well-styled overall design would do a better job of that than just the text color. The gray background is intended to be not as bright as a white background and hopefully improve visual readability but I can understand if it bothers some people.

The lack of regular posting is primarily due to a diminished fire-burning-within-me motivation to read/watch things quickly & then write about them (mainly caused by now having a day job) and secondarily, not wanting to just write commentary on many news stories where I don’t have too much to add to the existing posts that have already been written by others.

While writing this, I looked back to a post I wrote last June about my belated 3-year “aniblogiversary” (last Friday was my four-year anniversary – yay!) and saw that I didn’t “feel like I’m an A-list aniblogger” and know what, that’s not a bad thing. I don’t want to write things I’m not proud of. The lack of comments on some posts still occasionally bothers me, though.

Closing out and coming back to design, the harder of the two areas to fix – readers: do you have any suggestions on how I can improve the aesthetics of the blog, e.g. switch to a black background? How about banner content or other features? Feel free to suggest improvements to the written content as well.

The Stipulation contains details about CPM’s relationship as a debtor to Bank of America. BofA had lent CPM “approximately $888,651.40″ and holds a lien against them because of that – as of the Stipulation’s filing, CPM owed $924,722.56 inclusive of all accrued interest and fees. The net proceeds from the Anime Channel trademark sale will be distributed to BofA because it was part of CPM’s Estate Assets (basically all their accounts, intangibles and inventory).

BofA then agreed to be “bound by the terms of 11 U.S.C. § 506(c) to pay the reasonable, necessary costs and expenses…of preserving, disposing of, or attempting to dispose of the Trademark subject to BofA’s lien” with the costs not to exceed 40% of the gross proceeds from the sale. If costs did surpass 40% of gross proceeds from the sale, BofA and the Trustee would “attempt to negotiate a reasonable increase to such amount” of the costs. Both parties agreed that the costs will only be payable from the gross proceeds from the trademark’s sale and no costs will be owed if the sale is not approved by the Court.

I hope you don’t mind me not reporting this last week when I first downloaded the documents because frankly, this is not a fast-moving case, the company’s already folded and the subject matter is very dry. I’m mainly doing it because I haven’t seen anyone else digging around for this information.