anime expo 2008

Today is the recovery day after the long weekend at Anime Expo 2008 and during the con, I felt disconnected from much of the stuff that was happening. My hotel didn’t have free wifi and neither did the convention center and I had varying success at 7th + Fig (it worked in the pit but not in the second level? Come on!) so I only wrote one blog post during the convention since I’m too cheap to pay for LACC Instaconnect. But I did manage to send a bunch of Twitter updates during certain panels, which makes me feel like I did something in terms of reporting things.

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Since I barely did anything at the convention itself on Thursday (Day 1) due to the long drive down to LA and the problems figuring out parking/rooms, Friday was my real first day at the convention with visits to the exhibit hall and panel sessions. I’m not going to rehash all the news that has already been reported but the things I felt interesting enough to write down in my paper notepad. If you want to all the pictures I’ve been taken this weekend, I made a Flickr photoset collection that I’ll update each night.

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I will begin my journey to Anime Expo early Thursday morning and probably make it there around 2:30pm. I plan to take some photos and short videos with my new digital camera, try to do a video diary using my older Handycam, meeting with other bloggers and fan press, and handing out the more than ninety mini-cards I still have bearing the blog’s name – but I should also try not to tire myself out. I’m going to leave the liveblogging to the professionals (not paying for wi-fi) but may try to Twitter some stuff. Hopefully the spacious atmosphere of the LACC – the once and current site of E3 – will make it less awkward to do media-related stuff than what was at AOD 2008.

Here is a listing of the panels and events I’m going to or at least interested in, in case someone wants to do some social stalking:

Day 1 – Thursday July 3th:
3:30-4:30PM – Hiromi Kato [GUEST OF HONOR]
5-6PM – Getting Into Anime Journalism
6-8PM – Anime and Manga in Academia
9-11PM – Anime in China (maybe)

Day 2 – Friday July 4th:
11:30AM-1PM – Ouran Host Club (going to get sense of atmosphere, might skip out later)
12-1PM – Viz Media Panel (wanna ask about Shonen Jump/Shojo Beat health)
1-2PM – mystery BONES guest autograph Masahiko Minami (via giapet)
3-4PM – Nozomi/TRSI Panel
4-5PM – ADV Industry Panel
7-8PM – Anime Genesis Live/Anime Diet joint

Day 3 – Saturday July 5th:
10-11AM – TOKYOPOP Industry Panel
3:30-4:30PM – Funimation Industry; Broccoli (still haven’t decided)
5-6:30PM – Otaku Parliamentary Debate Finals
8-9PM – Shira Oka Panel
10-11:45PM – Evangelion 1.0 movie screening

As far as cosplay goes, I’m going as the Computer Club President from Haruhi — with inaccurately shaded pants — and Shiratori from Mahoraba. They’re simple because I don’t like to sew. Speaking of cosplay, I’ll try to do a comparison of the Ouran and Lucky Star/Gurren Lagann booth groups. They should both be good since both are being done by American Cosplay Paradise but one will be dancing and the other will be running a host club.