I returned from Los Angeles and Anime Expo 2011 a few days ago and I have to say that the highlight of my trip, other than the soon to be regretted level of purchases I made in the dealer’s room, was anything dealing with Hatsune Miku. While the high point of all things Miku was obviously Mikunopolis, it was fun to learn a lot more about Miku over the course of the weekend through all of the panels. Before heading to Los Angeles, I was definitely a fan of the virtual idol, but going into the weekend I didn’t really know what to expect. After leaving, it struck me that being a fan of Miku was really a lot like believing in Santa for a few reasons.

First, like the meaning of Christmas, Miku can really be whoever you want her to be depending on what you like to do, and I’m not talking about her seemingly endless wardrobe for all the perverts out there. Well, I suppose that might be part of it. Still, fans can create new songs, animations, or character designs of and about Miku and send them out there for others to enjoy through the use of the internet. But just as Christmas isn’t just about candy canes and sleigh bells, Miku isn’t just about the music. One thing that became perfectly clear to me almost immediately this weekend is that Miku could very easily be a synonym for Commercialism, and in a lot of ways this is a good thing. It is because of this entrepreneurial spirit fan designs for Miku show up in games or on figures. It is because of this entrepreneurial spirit that allows companies to make money off of Miku’s products, even through the use of a decentralized business model. And in the truest of sense of all things commercialism, Miku is often depicted in pictures that are less than pure.

Continuing the Christmas analogy, it is often difficult for kids to understand the concept of Christmas during their early years. A 2 year old doesn’t necessarily understand what it means to get free presents, but within a few years it is the center of their kid universe. I kind of got this same feeling over the course of this weekend when it came to Miku. Obviously, many of the people who came to Anime Expo had some idea of who Miku was, but for many, this was their first large dose of all things Miku. While it seemed like the interest in the virtual idol slowly grew over the course of the weekend, I think most people really began to appreciate Miku during her concert. At first, it seemed like only select groups of people were cheering and fewer still were standing. However, as the concert progressed more people got into the groove of things, so to speak, and by the end of the night it seemed like almost every person in the Nokia Theatre was on their feet screaming their lungs out for Miku to return for an encore. So I guess like a lot of things in life, Santa Claus and Miku included, it takes a little time to understand what it going on, but once you do, it is something special.

Now, while I admire everything that the Japanese companies have done to increase the popularity of Miku, from implementing fan designs into concerts and figures to giving individual creators relative freedom to use Miku in their productions to this past weekend’s concert, I kind of got the sense that the Japanese feel that other nations need to follow their model for Miku to be a success, which I don’t think is the right approach. Just as people celebrate Christmas and Santa differently across the world, so should we Miku and the other Vocaloids. While having different language software available in the future is a step in the right direction, it is an obvious one. What is worrisome is that Miku won’t necessarily be available or well known to the wider audience of people in the U.S., or other western nations. Now I suppose it might be impossible for people outside of the normal anime, j-pop, etc. fan to ever really be a fan of Miku, but the creation and use of new sites in the United States, like niconico.com, seems like it will go about as well as the United States trying to introduce democracy into the Middle East.

So, assuming that Miku (and her handlers) truly do want to conquer the world, it would become absolutely necessary for them to conquer a wide range of the Otaku fan base, from Narutards to people willing to travel across the country to see Miku and everyone in-between ( as a sort of power base). From a few panels I attended during the Expo and people I’ve talked to in the past, it doesn’t seem like the anime industry has done a good job getting its online product well known. I remember several people during the con didn’t know that Crunchyroll offered free anime (and to be honest, it seems like a very small subset of people know you can get anime online via streams, legally or otherwise), so it is by no means a given thing that people will utilize niconico.com or the newly announced Mikubook on a regular basis, especially when there is the 500 pound gorilla in the room that goes by the name of YouTube.

If there is one thing I learned from my business consulting classes, it is that if you have the ability to work with a company who already has the resources needed to help you produce a product, it is better to work with that company, than to try and develop the capabilities yourself. The use of joint ventures is even more crucial when you are trying to introduce a product into a foreign country. Obviously, I have no idea if the Miku people have tried to create a joint venture of some sort with American based web companies, but if they haven’t, that would seem to be a blunder on their part. The time and money it will take to make the average fan of anime/j-pop become aware of niconico or Mikubook will more than likely not be worth it, and they can forget about ever drawing the attention of the average American consumer. Instead, Japanese companies should really think about doing special promotions for Miku on already popular American internet mediums, so that Miku will not just be searched for by those who already know of her.

That’s not to say that Miku is doomed to failure outside of Japan. The business model developed in Japan really does seem to be working and they have a great product to work with. As a person who would like to see Miku become more popular, I would like to see Japanese companies work more with American companies as a way to promote her, which they have done to some extent with the Toyota commercials in the U.S. Still, these things need to be more than gimmicks; they need to be real sustained attempts at letting people learn about Miku through already established video mediums, or eventually the costs of doing business will become too high, which force them to cut and run.

One of the main events I attended during this year’s New York Anime Festival was the Hatsune Miku “concert” at 8pm on Saturday. This was actually an “encore performance,” arranged due to the high demand for the initial “concert” that morning at 10:45. It was held in a room far too small for the event, and most people who wanted to go ended up unable to attend, it seemed.

My friend and I had actually arrived at the room for the first “performance” 30 minutes before it was to start. When we saw that there was no line, I decided to show my friend around the anime section’s artists’ alley a bit. When I got back to the room literally 8 minutes later, a line had formed and had already been cut off for new people as the room had reached capacity. Clearly I and the con organizers had misunderestimated the popularity of Hatsune Miku.

I was initially pretty pissed, at myself, more than anything. I was right there, less than 10 minutes ago! I could’ve been at the front of the line! But, well, there’s no use dwelling on the past, and I got over it pretty quickly. So it came as a pleasant surprise when I learned that there would be an “encore performance” of the “concert” that evening at 8. This one, I wasn’t going to miss, even if it conflicted with the Minori Chihara concert. I wasn’t a fan of Minorin, anyway.

I was at the front of the line for the “encore performance” an hour early and got to meet some very nice fellows from Baruch College, a college of the City University of New York. I can’t think of the last time before that day that I had played the card game bullshit.

They called it a concert, but really, it was just a screening of a special 1 hour cut of the Hatsune Miku 39′s Giving Day concert Bluray. That said, that’s pretty much what I expected going in, as I heard that the earlier “concert” in San Francisco in September had been the same thing. Though it would’ve been nice to have exclusive footage from the concert other than the ones on the disc.

Some people brought glo-sticks. Fans started claps, cheers, applause, etc. as if it were a real concert. When some of the more popular songs started playing, cheers would spread throughout the crowd. The loudest one was for a Kagamine Rin + Len song, when Rin initially appeared and Len suddenly popped out from behind her. Megurine Luka also made an appearance for the always fun Just Be Friends. The guy to my right, who knew nothing about Vocaloids going in (“So it’s like a virtual Japanese Britney Spears, right?” after the first couple songs – note that at this point, he didn’t even realize that the singing was synthesized) was one of the most energetic of the people I saw there, starting claps and fist pumping along with the fans in the video.

There was a very surreal feel to the whole thing. Here we were, sitting in a room, watching a recording of a concert that featured a virtual idol that had been projected onto a glass screen, and people were loving it. It was one of those experiences that was uniquely possible in the world of Vocaloid. All in all, it was a lot of fun, thanks to the concert-like atmosphere. It was somehow fitting that the fans had made the “concert” a success, given how the success of Hatsune Miku and the Vocaloid software is thanks to the fans.

The final song, fittingly enough, was Melt by supercell. Though I’ve grown to like supercell’s final Nico Nico Douga song, When the First Love Ends, more, Melt will always hold a place in my heart as one of the classics, the one that put ryo on the map. After the “concert,” I went up to the front with a lot of people and got to shake hands with Hiroyuki Itoh, the CEO of Crypton Future Media and one of the creators of Hatsune Miku. I also got to have a photo taken with him, which was pretty cool. Even though there wasn’t supposed to be anything after the “concert,” Itoh was very welcoming of everyone who wanted to greet him and get their photo taken with him.

What I want to get to, though, is my disappointment in the concert. Not the fact that it was just a screening – again, that was expected – but rather, the unimaginativeness of the contents of the concert itself. The guy to the left of me – one of the students from Baruch (sorry for forgetting your name) – and I had some short conversations throughout the “concert” about how to improve it. For example, there was a lack of variety and difficulty in the dance moves performed by Miku. Given that she’s a computer generated image, I thought she should be doing “flips and shit” that normal humans can’t do, or at least can’t do consistently. She’s a computer generated image! Have her do some freaky circus-type shit!

And on the flipside, how about making her seem even more real? For example, why not have her appear to sweat as the concert went on, like a real performer would? That Baruch student commented that that might be too kinky – my response was, all the better. Or, have a staged trip or wardrobe malfunction that shows her messing up. The Baruch student suggested that she could throw something out to the audience, which would be synced with an actual item being thrown out.

Really, there are so many possibilities that become open when you have a virtual performer, and the producers of the concert seemed all too happy just to emulate a regular idol. They did prepare an “encore” at the end after the show was technically supposed to be over, but that was too predictable. And the performance of The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku did use the fact that Miku was just a computer image to some effect, having her faze out into static at the end. But more could have been done throughout the concert.

Perhaps reflective of the anime industry in general right now. In the world of animation, anything and everything is possible, but the industry players seem all too content to pump out the same shit again and again. Even though I’m enjoying quite a few shows this season, the only one I can honestly say is doing anything creative with the animation is Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt.

Another idea I with regards to the concert was to have some of the popular Nico Nico Douga Vocaloid performers come on stage, unannounced. Start a song with Miku, then have someone like Nayuta or Chouchou walk on stage and sing. Reveal partway that one of the guitarists or keyboardists is a Nico Nico Douga performer. Use the concerts not just to promote Miku or the composers, but also the performers who have helped create this movement by uploading their own renditions of the work. I, for one, would go absolutely nuts if Nagi suddenly appeared on stage and started singing Melt, instead of Miku.

So I wonder, what else do you think could be done in a Vocaloid concert that simply wouldn’t be possible in a regular one? What should be done to take full advantage of Hatsune Miku’s unique properties? I feel like there are some real opportunities being missed here by playing things too safe, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s had ideas like this.

This past weekend was the New York Anime Festival, which was combined with New York Comic Convention. Being located about 4 hours away in Boston and hearing that The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya would be playing, I decided to make the trek down. Here is a chronicle of what I saw and experienced there. I originally intended to make one post, but the post on Friday alone was getting too long, so I’ll split this into two parts. Saturday and Sunday were much less eventful than Friday, so the second post may end up shorter than this one.

Table of Contents

• Getting There
• Minori Chihara Panel
• Anime in Academia Panel
• Minori Chihara Autograph
• Disappearance Screening
• The Evening Afterward

Getting There

First of all, getting to the place was pretty hectic. Not crazy, but I had to get up at 5:30 in order to get to the train station to catch a 7am bus from Boston to New York. The trip was supposed to last 4 hours 15 minutes, so with an arrival time of 11:15, but the actual arrival time was 12:10. Also, wifi on the bus wasn’t working, so I was limited to using 3G on my phone instead of wifi on my laptop. Here’s a tip: never use Megabus.

The bus dropped us off at West 28th and 7th, and with my hotel on West 39th and 9th, I hurried to get there. I ran with my suitcase rolling behind me on the New York City streets, to check in so that I could get to the con in time for opening at 1:00. Why did I want to get there so soon? Bandai was giving out tickets for autographs by Minori Chihara to the first 100 people to buy Haruhi related products at their booth, and I wanted to be one of them. I’m actually not a fan of Minori Chihara at all, but, what the hell, she’s the only actual Japanese voice actor to be at a convention I’m attending, so why not get her signature, right?

Once at the con, the line to get in was huge, but it moved very quickly, only taking maybe 20 minutes at most. I snapped a photo of my first cosplayer there, a great Rena Ryuugu who was a little in front of me. I also got to shake hands with Stan Lee as he passed by. I’m no US comic book fan, but it was Stan. Fucking. Lee.

The line led to the entrance to the show floor, and, wouldn’t you know it, Bandai’s booth was right at the entrance, and they still had tickets left! I bought the first season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya collection on DVD – I actually didn’t own it before – and collected my ticket. The festival was off to a good start.

Let me make a note about the layout of the place. The Jacob K. Javits Center is a big place, and the entire 3rd floor was divided into 2 huge show floors. There was a section with vendors on the right side, and an area for smaller vendors, gaming, and artists on the left. These were all Comic Con related stuff, except for a small corner on the right where there was the Bandai booth, and another small corner on the left with a stage. At the beginning of the convention on Friday, there were girls dressed up as the K-On girls and playing those songs. One of them was Mio’s dub voice actor, I believe.

The actual anime festival part was at a small basement area on the lower left of the building. An escalator led straight down to the anime artists’ alley. To the right was a “maid cafe,” which was just a bunch of tables and chairs in front of a small stage where some singers performed. Past those were 4 rooms for panels including 1E09, which was 3 times as big as the others and used for the main events. This was the room in which the Minori Chihara panel and the Disappearance screening were held.

Minori Chihara Panel

The first actual event I went to was the Minori Chihara panel that went from 3:15 to 4:15. I’ve never been to a voice actor panel before, but I’m guessing this was a pretty standard one. A translator and a handler was up there along with Chihara, and no photos or video were allowed until the end. There were some brief comments by Chihara, mainly about the trip to New York, and then Q&A for the rest of the time.

(Occult Academy spoilers below)

Chihara herself did an amazing job selling herself. She was absolutely adorable, both in looks and in voice. She spoke in a way very similar to how she played Mikaze in Occult Academy, which is fitting, because that was all just an act as well, designed to lure in the audience with a false image. Speaking of which, one of the questions that I considered asking was on how she decided to play Mikaze, knowing that she would ultimately turn out to be a villain. I decided against asking it, because it contained spoilers for a show that had just finished airing, but someone else went ahead and asked it anyway. And although the cat was out of the bag at that point, the handler decided against answering the question because of the same reason I didn’t ask it.

(end of Occult Academy spoilers)

I also wanted to ask her if she was afraid of being typecast because soon after playing Yuki Nagato, she had played similarly monotone characters in both Lucky Star and Minami-ke, but we ran out of time before that.

Anime in Academia Panel

Next was the Anime in Academia panel, a discussion panel run by Alex Leavitt, and featuring 3 panelists, Casey Brienza, Mikhail Koulikov, and Jennifer Fu. You can read about who these people are on Alex Leavitt’s own blog, Department of Alchemy, on which he also posted the audio of the panel. I’ll note that I had actually met Jennifer Fu before as well, at the MIT anime club, which is open to students outside of MIT. I found most interesting the parts when they discussed how to actually find research material, as well as the ethical dilemma of using pirated material. The difficulties of getting published and the extremely high quality of writing expected in academic journals, well, I think anyone who’s done research in college must understand that. I was mainly a math/science student in college, and even in those fields, the quality of writing has to be top notch, so I can only imagine how stringent the quality must be in softer fields like sociology or Asian American studies.

Minori Chihara Autograph

Next was the actual Minori Chihara signing at the Bandai booth upstairs. That was at 6pm, and I was very paranoid about missing the 8pm screening of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, because I assumed that people would line up for it around this time (turns out, my fears were unfounded, and I ended up getting a front row seat). Anyway, I was the last person in line, but Bandai did a great job moving the line quickly, each person only getting like 15 seconds with Chihara. I decided to get the cover of the DVD set I bought earlier signed.

So yeah, I then rushed back downstairs to room 1E09, only to find it mostly empty, and no one lined up. Across the hall was a Hatsune Miku panel, which featured guests from Crypton Future Media Inc, the actual company that created the Vocaloid software and characters. It was absolutely packed, and I could only stand at the doorway, but that worked for me, because I was keeping an eye out at room 1E09, in case too many people were going in. It was pretty cool to see the actual creators of Hatsune Miku and friends, and they mentioned that if 39,390 fans “like” their Facebook page, they would create an English speaking Vocaloid (3-9 is a pun on the name Mi-ku). Now, I’m sure they’re counting on the fact that there won’t be that many fans signing up, and at last count, it was only around 18,000, but what the hell, if you have a Facebook account, do it anyway and try putting them in a tough position.

And finally, to cap off the day at the convention was the screening of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Disappearance Screening

I was lucky enough to find a single seat at the very front of the room. The Miku panel was over at 7, so I waited for about an hour in the seat, and I met a couple of friendly guys from Maine who were into some of the same things as myself, namely, Type-Moon and Vocaloid. One of the two had even dabbled in making songs using Megurine Luka. Jay and Colin, if you’re reading this, you guys were a couple of the best single-serving friends ever!

When 8 o’clock rolled around, Minori Chihara appeared once again, along with her handlers and a representative from Bandai. There were just a few brief forgettable comments, and then the movie began.

It was a lot of fun watching the movie in a large room full of fans. Everyone laughed along at the in-jokes, cheered at the cute moments, and there were audible gasps at the truly OH SHI- moments. It was basically what I expected; a lot like watching a movie at a theater, just where everyone was a fan. There was a hitch in the reel switching midway into the movie – yes, this was shown from a full 35mm reel – but it caused us to miss only about 5 seconds, so it was no big deal.

As for the contents of the movie, well, you can read my full review of the movie. I will say that I went in extremely skeptical. I loved the first season to death, but I’ve hated everything else Kyoto Animation has done since, i.e. Kanon, Lucky Star, Clannad, K-On, and, yes, the second season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I had also already read the novel on which this movie was based, and I hadn’t thought too much of it. But everyone who had seen the movie had raved about it, which is why I was so dead set on watching it in the first place.

There was a dumb grin on my face all the way back to my trip back to the hotel. Day one of NYAF was over, and it alone had been worth the price of entry.

The Evening Afterward

The movie being 2 hours 40 minutes long, it was 11 by the time I got back to my hotel. I was pretty exhausted from the extra long day – even on workdays, I generally get up past 9 – but hey, I was in New York City, the city that never sleeps! I decided to take a walk outside, find a bar with some food, because I hadn’t had a proper meal all day (I did have a horrible convention center cheeseburger, but that was neither tasty nor satisfying). Unfortunately, even in New York, it seems bars close their kitchens for the evening, so I ended up walking a while before finding a nice Italian place called Mercato, on the corner of West 39th and 9th. I spent $47 on a lasagna and 2 mixed drinks. The first drink I had was called the Singapore Sling, and it was absolutely wonderful. And Mercato itself is great if you don’t mind paying the premium. Check it out sometime if you’re ever in the area.

A more interesting thing happened during my initial walkabout. I had my phone out, search on Google Maps for a place nearby that might be open, when a limo driver (he was standing next to an open limo) came up to me and asked me to use my phone. His phone battery was dead, you see. I’m usually very skeptical in situations like this, but I was feeling pretty good – probably a high from having just watched Disappearance and the sleep deprivation – so I offered to dial the number for him and to put him on speaker. There was a brief scuffle when he tried to grab the phone, but I held a firm grip and insisted that I’d be more comfortable holding it. Everything went smoothly, the dude made his call, and I walked away feeling a bit weird but good about myself, too.

It was about 1AM by the time I got back to my hotel room, and I probably fell asleep at around 1:30.

So that was the first day of New York Anime Festival for me. To be honest, I could’ve gone home happy at this point. But there were 2 more days, so stay tuned. And if you were also there, please leave a comment! Especially if you saw an Asian dude with glasses, a grey FLCL cap and a large camera bag slung over his shoulder.

If you’ve been following my Twitter feed at all, you know that I was at New York Anime Festival (combined with New York Comic Convention) this past weekend. I’m working on a proper writeup of the convention overall, but in the meanwhile, enjoy some photos of the great cosplayers I took over the weekend. You can find all the cosplay photos I took in my Picasa web albums: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3. The resolutions have been reduced from their original 12MP so that they don’t take up insane amounts of space, but if you’d like the full-res version of any of them, just ask. And to all the cosplayers during the convention, thank you!

Day 1

Friday was a short day, starting from 1PM. I also wanted to attend a lot of panels that day, so I didn’t manage to take a lot of pictures. Still, I got some good ones, including Alex Leavitt and his girlfriend as the pair from Toradora! – if you’ll recall, Leavitt is the guy who ran panels at both PAX East and Anime Boston earlier this year. He ran a discussion panel called “Anime in Academia” which I attended most of.

Day 2

Saturday was absolutely insane. I wish I had taken more, but most of the time, the area was so packed that a good photo just wasn’t possible. It was on this day that I noticed that Durarara!! seemed to be one of the more popular shows to cosplay. Makes sense, I guess, since it’s mostly pretty easy, there are some unique designs, and the guys are perfect yaoi material. Some good Shizuos that I unfortunately couldn’t get pictures of.

Also, there were a lot of Vocaloid cosplayers, just like at Anime Boston, somewhat expected because there was a Miku “concert” that day with a couple of the creators of Vocaloid, including the CEO of Crypton (the company that produces the software). Among those, Kagamine Rin seemed to be a close 2nd to Miku.

Day 3

Sunday might have been a short day just like Friday, but it was almost as busy as on Saturday. Again, not a lot of chances to snap pictures, but two really stood out to me. One was Tissue-hime, the Nico Nico Douga celebrity known for dressing up as Yuki Nagato, wearing a cough mask to cover his face, and playing the guitar. The other was a near-perfect replica of the Old Spice guy.

There was also a K-On cosplay event at the Bandai booth, to which I arrived too late to get any good pictures.

Well, those are some of the highlights. Again, plenty more in my Picasa albums, links to which I have at the top or as the headers for each section. I probably didn’t get even half the pictures I would’ve liked to just due to how crowded and busy it was, but, well, there’s always next year.

While I was away from the blog this past weekend, I attended Colossalcon in Sandusky, OH.  Outside of Otakon, this is easily the furthest I travel for a convention, clocking in at about 9 hours.  It’s worth the trip to attend a well run convention which has managed to capture a good venue for the show.  Also, I managed to see a few friends I haven’t seen since January and might not see again until next January.  Anyway, let’s get on to my time at the convention.

My group and I rolled into the Kalahari parking lot at 4 AM on Friday.  Yes, we’re a little bit crazy for this convention.  We managed to make our way up to our room and get at least a little sleep before the convention started.  The wonderful ladies in the con suite made breakfast, and in fact kept me fed all weekend long, so major props to them for doing a wonderful job.  At about 11 I went down to the con floor to get my badge and start poking around.

I ran into the Yu Yu Hakusho cosplay group, exactly who I wanted to see.  I spent a lot of the weekend hanging out with them.  We all stood around waiting to get into the Dealer’s Room.  They had a lot of variety this year, but nothing which really caught my eye.  I think everyone else I ran with was pleased in some way, because they all picked up merchandise at some point during the weekend.  I guess I’m just cheap and picky about my purchases.

At 3 I had my first of two events for the weekend, the Improv Experiment.  Basically, we try to run what’s known as a Harold.  One person tells a story, and then the cast tries to make scenes riffing on the story.  It’s far harder than it sounds.  It also went far better than we had planned, so I would call it a success.  We should be able to take what we learned from the experience and improve the event for next time we decide to run it.

Afterwards, I did some more hanging out up until it was time for the Friday Cosplay.  On Friday, they do a walkons and then a character portrayal competition, which is honestly something I wish more conventions would do.  Kuwabara stole the show, and pretty much all of Colossalcon at the cosplay.  Then I immediately went on to the Yu Yu Hakusho panel.  They were all cosplayers and ran the panel entirely in character, which I’d say was a pretty cool idea.  It went very well, and hopefully they can get together to do it again at some point.

I only went to the rave on Friday this year.  It was all just a bunch of generic techno mixing for the most part, but I was amongst friends so I still enjoyed myself.  They also had a guy playing Star Fox on the projectors, which was fun to watch.  Unfortunately, I managed to hurt my shoulder pretty badly and had to retire from it early.  Fortunately my friends had some very effective painkillers to get me back on my feet, and the next day I was pretty much back to normal for another day at the convention.

Saturday morning I met up with the talented Del Borovic, which added to my merry crew of con friends.  My only real agenda was to perform at Whose Line is it Anime, which is our usual show at conventions.  We played to an almost full room and got a lot of positive feedback on the show.  We also tried out a new game, which I’m calling Plot Twist for now since I can’t remember what it’s actually called.  In it, I have to act out a scene someone else narrates for me, while volunteers shout various plot twists which the narrator immediately has to use.  It’s quite chaotic and makes for some great physical comedy.

I spent the rest of Saturday just milling about meeting up with friends.  I did go down to the water park for a bit, and holy cow does it have a lot of slides.  Unfortunately, a lot of them require at least two people, and Alie couldn’t attend this year so I was a bit limited on options.  I still managed to have a good time though, and hopefully I’ll have more time to spend down there next year.

Late night Saturday went quite chaotically.  First, something triggered the fire alarm in the convention center, so everyone had to evacuate the building.  It was raining and a bit cold, so needless to say everyone was a bit unhappy.  We went back around to the hotel and started to turn in for the night when the tornado sirens blared.  I ran down to gather up my friends and get them all into the basement.  Fortunately, it didn’t go near us and no one at the hotel was injured to my knowledge.  Still, this is the second tornado siren this year, and I don’t want to deal with another one any time soon.

Finally, I spent Sunday at the Otaku Flea Market.  Again, this is a great idea I wish other conventions would use.  Everyone brings stuff they don’t want anymore to make a few dollars and pass them on to others who do want them.  People brought a little bit of everything: anime, manga, video games, toys, cards, and even some bits of cosplay.  I know my friends managed to collect a sizable chunk of money before the room closed down.  I’d call it a very successful event.  Afterwards, it was time for goodbyes and get on the road for the long trip home.  It’s left me really looking forward to next year’s 10^th anniversary, which promises to be excellent.

Anime St. Louis is really the impulse convention of the year for me.  I always decide to go at the absolute last-minute, and then somehow the arrangement just works.  This year, I have Heidi to thank for providing the little convincing needed to go.  Seriously, those puppy dog eyes are powerful stuff.  I also need to thank Alisa for providing lodging during the convention so I could attend all three days instead of just one.  Now, without further ado, the convention coverage!

First, the attendees and staff really had it together this year.  Gone were the crazy registration lines from last year.  The setup for this year avoided clogging an entire area of the convention.  When I got there, they opened a third line when only five people were waiting to get people through faster.  I still think the form asks for too much information, but I complain about that for every reg form.  Then with the lost and found this year, one of my friends lost her badge.  In the 10 minutes it took for us to realize it was missing, it was already turned in by someone and waiting for us.  I heard similar stories from others in passing.  We had a tornado warning during the convention as well, and everyone handled themselves very well despite the scare.  So, props to everyone who attended this year.

Now, I am not the panel attendee by any means.  I normally go to conventions to socialize and shoot group photoshoots.  I run panels because I enjoy doing it, and because it has some perks.  However, I don’t know nearly as many people in the central Midwest circuit as the eastern circuit, so I looked into it for this convention.  ASTL suffers from the same programming headaches as everyone else.  There were scheduling conflicts, a few blank spots on the list, and I felt the schedule overall was a little underwhelming.  Despite this, I feel the situation has still improved over last year.  I think I’ll try to get into the mix a bit next year.

The first panel on the talking block is Soul Eater, one of my favorite series.  I want to say this was the first time these girls ran the panel.  It was a little bare bones for my liking, but they were certainly enthusiastic about the subject material.  They also didn’t fall into the “tech trap” that occurs when you suddenly realize the projector will not work for you.  I’ve seen several panels in the past get totally derailed by tech failures, so my hat’s off to them for continuing with what they had available.  They have a lot of room for improvement, so if they get the slot next year, I expect some growth.

The only industry panel I went to this year was the “free-for-all” on Sunday.  Unfortunately, only three guests were still at the convention and available.  Voice actor Troy Baker, Internet personality Doug Walker, and musician Tadahisa Yoshida talked with us for about an hour.  I loved the former two and I regret missing their panels at the convention.  Fortunately, I have another opportunity to see Doug at Matsuricon this year.  Tada was a bit of a fish out of water at the panel, but I have to give him credit for showing up at a Sunday afternoon event.

Then I have the duo of Brad and Derek.  They ran the Code Geass panel with Kira on Friday, and the Naruto panel with Wyatt on Saturday.  These are truly fantastic panelists.  They know their material thoroughly, injecting both insight and humor.  They can also manage the freeform panel setup I enjoy so much more than dissertation style.  If you’re in this region and they have a panel on a series you’re interested in, go to it.  Seriously, if I ran programming at a convention, I’d offer them slots immediately.  I’ve run out of ways to suck up to them for now, but rest assured I have an R&D division working around the clock to develop new methods.

This year ASTL split up the Masquerade into two portions.  The first covered the walkons, and the second had all the skits.  It’s kind of odd when most conventions do both segments together, but I think it works out better.  You only have to attend the Masquerade for the aspects your interested in, which prevents people who just want to see walkons from blocking those who just want to see skits from having a seat.  From the attendance, many people just wanted to see the walkons.  A show of hands at the skits showed only a small portion of those people in attendance.  That’s a good thing because the skits pretty well filled the room.

The staff hosted two dances this year, and I went to both of them.  Friday was the 80s dance, which I liked simply because it was different.  I think song choice needs to improve for next year, but I still had fun in a setting different from the normal fare.  The rave techno dance was also a lot of fun.  The music had some nice variety and a good flow.  Nothing irks me more than a DJ who sticks to the same basic beat, or “safety zone”, for 15 minutes at a time.  I didn’t have that problem here.  I do have to say calling the rave a techno dance is about as effective a euphemism as calling H1N1 the flu, but whatever works for them is fine with me.

Finally, we have the Dealer’s Room, Artist’s Alley, and Game Room.  I’m not much of a shopper myself, and because I went to this convention on impulse I also had no money set aside for buying anything.  The Alley was somewhat small, and the Dealer’s was somewhat big.  The Dealer’s Room also felt like Colossalcon where they had a lot of stuff but it still felt underwhelming.  Maybe the likes of Acen and Otakon have spoiled me.  The Game Room, however, was more than satisfactory for a convention this size.  They had plenty of TVs and consoles setup, including a full Xbox 360 LAN.  They provided a DDR Extreme machine as well, but it fizzled out at some point on Friday.  I suppose you just can’t have everything.

TLDR: I thoroughly enjoyed Anime St. Louis.  In just two years, it has come from being a clustersuck to a solid performer in the region.  There are still faults but the staff has still improved year over year.  In 2011, I intend to plan my attendance instead of just showing up.

Rakuen is off to Anime St. Louis, so I’ll be doing this week’s Durarara post. Hopefully he’ll have as much fun as I did at Anime Boston.

Well, the plot certainly thickens. With the return of Niekawa Shuuji the reporter (along with a flashback of him getting beat by Shizuo in episode 7), I was wondering if this would be a narrative episode like some of the early episodes. The 2nd half obviously proved me wrong as, in fact, Niekawa himself proved to play an important role in this story. He was the “fool,” so to speak.

I believe that the operating theory that the slasher is Anri’s complimentary personality has been debunked with the appearance of the real slasher in this episode. Her dream and her remembrance of her past also indicates that she doesn’t have a particular reason to be angry at her mother. Still, the fact remains that Anri was the one who was spared 2 episodes back, and her vision during the attack was identical to that of Niekawa when he was trying to kill her. Also, Niekawa was specifically targeting Anri in that last scene. So there’s definitely some connection between her and the slasher. Just not as strong as previously thought.

And with Niekawa being turned into a slasher after his injury, we now learn that the slasher isn’t necessarily 1 person, but rather some concept that can possess people who get injured by the slasher. The Saika posting in the Dollars chat room had an obsession with Shizuo and “the strongest one” this time, so the Slasher also seems to gain the memories or experiences of whom it possesses. Saika’s obsession with “mother” and the fact that Niekawa was attacked when he was presumably trying to visit his daughter’s residence makes me wonder if the slasher is actually Haruna. Or, at least, a possessed Haruna.

I really enjoyed how the Kyohei’s gang, Celty and Shizuo, and Anri with the slasher came together at the end. Celty’s entrance in particular was dramatic, though at first glance, she appeared to have come from the same direction she blew away Niekawa. In any case, it was nice to see some of the actors come together and have things blow up, after all the building up that has been happening during this 2nd half of the show. Also, Shizuo looks hilarious with a motorcycle helmet on. Ironically, he wasn’t wearing it during the high speed bike ride.

It was interesting that even throughout his attack on Anri, Niekawa’s internal monologue seemed perfectly sane, perhaps even oblivious to what he was doing. Those hopeless thoughts about how everything will be fine again once he writes about Shizuo made me feel very sorry for the character. He was created just to become a tragic victim. But I guess characters like that are needed to really strengthen the hatred or disgust that we feel towards the antagonist, whomever it may be.

I’m greatly anticipating the next episode. The preview shows the slasher, or at least, the girl who always represented the slasher, clearly coming out. And Anri will get some attention as well, so maybe we’ll find out more about her connection to that girl. The title of the next episode, “Mutual Love,” has me wondering if the connection has to do with the teacher, Takashi Nasujima, who had gotten Haruna transferred out and is now hitting on Anri.

P.S. I actually watched this episode on Crunchyroll. They had a free 3 month trial for PayPal users, so I decided to give it a shot. Like most such deals, it auto-renews after the free period, but I’ve set up a reminder in my calendar to cancel before then. I’ll probably make a post on what I think of the service once the 3 months are up.

As expected, day 2 saw more cosplayers than day 1. Day 3 had fewer, of course, and had a more relaxed, muted atmosphere as well.

Again, I’ve uploaded the photos I took onto Picasa: Day 2 and Day 3.

Some that I found notable:

• A Bayonetta with a chainsaw she uses in one of her torture attacks.
• A Lucy and a Nyuu from Elfen Lied.
• The only Kino from Kino’s Travels I could find. That show’s quite obscure, so finding a cosplayer was satisfying.
• Princess Tutu, who actually stood on her toes for the photo.
• The only Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei cosplayer I could find, a very tall Itoshiki Nozomu doing the dance bit from the burebure opening.
• A girl as Pilaf from Dragon Ball. Talk about an obscure character from an ancient show. A show I grew up with.
• South Korea from Axis Powers Hetalia. There was a metric ****load of Hetalia cosplayers there, this was the only South Korea I could find. I didn’t even know South Korea was in Hetalia.
• The Jenova tube (that’s right, the actual tube) from which Sephiroth escaped in Final Fantasy 7.
• Windows7-tan. The best operating system out there right now, bar none. All you Mac users and Linux fanboys can suck it. (There was actually an Ubuntu booth at the dealer’s room – there’s apparently an on-going manga about Ubuntu that’s being published in Japan).
• I got a Lady cosplayer to hold her pistol in her mouth, like one of the cut scenes in Devil May Cry 3. She also had an excellent Kalina Ann.
• There were 2 Yokos from the My Stars music video based on Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. One as a bunnygirl, the other in the black suit with a guitar.
• Izaya and Shizuo from Durarara! It’s hard to find cosplayers of shows this recent, in my experience.

There were also a lot of Vocaloid cosplayers. Like, a lot. So many you wouldn’t believe. It was awesome.

I won’t go too deep into the panels. I attended 3 more by Alex Leavitt, one about anime pilgrimages which made me more interested in going on a cycling trip than on anime. He talked about how otaku in Japan were making so-called “pilgrimages” to actual locations that their favorite anime were using as backdrops. He used a shrine that was shown for about 5 seconds in the Lucky Star opening as an example. He provided a link to a site that attempts to catalog all the anime with real-life locations and provides links to photos/comparison shots. The list on the front page of that site is 453 long. Some people even went all the way to Spain, from where Sora no Woto’s backdrop was inspired!

I stood in line for a 2 hour Touhou panel that was absolutely packed. I was hoping to learn more about the fanbase and the entire sub-industry that this one series of games has inspired, but it was more about the games and official works themselves. They spent a little too much time on just playing the game on the big screen. I did learn about a boxer who cosplayed as Touhou characters during his entrance to the ring. Here’s one such entrance and here’s him KO’ing his opponent while his posse of (female) cosplayers celebrate.

I went to dinner on Saturday with founder and fans of Fakku, a site I won’t link to as it’s very very NSFW. Turns out the founder, Jacob, is a Massachusetts native, having grown up and still going to college in Worcester! Met some interesting people there, one of whom was kind enough to give me a ride back home at 2AM (Boston’s public transportation sucks, and part of the reason is that it shuts down around 1AM).

Other than photographing and attending panels, I spent a lot of time at the artists’ alley and the dealers’ room and spent a little too much money on the artists’ wares. At least the money’s going to support the artists directly. I bought 4 prints of Black Rock Shooter, 2 of Hatsune Miku, 1 of Hitagi (the only Bakemonogatari picture I could find there – the artist mentioned that he had the idea of painting a picture of her onto a stapler and selling it), and a couple bookmarks, including a Durarara!! one which goes nicely with the book I was already reading.

Anyway, I had a good time. Spent probably about $200-$225 for everything, including food, with a grand total of 12+15+7=34 hours spent at the convention center. Definitely a much more exciting atmosphere than PAX East, with more people just looking like they were having fun. Like me. Looking forward to it next year.

Well, Boston was blessed enough to have a gaming convention then an anime convention on back to back weekends, both at Hynes Convention Center, conveniently enough. Naturally I took the day off work to attend day 1.

First of all, there were a LOT more cosplayers in this con than at PAX East. You can see that in my Picasa Web Album. Expected, I guess, since PAX East is a more professional con with a lot of journalists and media, where as Anime Boston is more fan-oriented. I’d guess a good 75-80% were cosplayers. I was not one of them, though I did take photos of them.

Some of my favorites were:

• Master Roshi from Dragon Ball, who did 2 great poses.
• Lots and lots of Vocaloids. I’m probably a little behind, but I’m getting into Hatsune Miku, so I was happy to see that.
• A real gender-bending Senou Natsuru from Kampfer.
• A bare- and hairy-chested Sora from Kingdom Hearts Tidus from Final Fantasy X (thank you, Marx-Taich0u).
• The sole Bakemonogatari cosplayer that I could find, Hitagi Senjougahara. She had unfortunately forgotten her stapler, but she did have 2 pairs of scissors.
• Everyone posted on this very page.

There are plenty of other very good ones, so, again, just go to my Picasa Album.

I did go to some panels, but most of them were pretty uneventful. I did go to one run by Alex Leavitt, the MIT researcher who had the talk on memes at PAX East last weekend (he’s running a total of 8 at Anime Boston – check out his blog), on anime OPs and EDs, which was pretty fun. He did a good job summing up the various styles of OPs depending on the anime genre, showing off some interesting, more out-there ones (nothing by Shaft, I’m sorry to say), and some ones that the US really butchered.

But the rest were pretty meh. There was a talk titled “Vile Spectre of Moe,” which amounted to little more than one guy ranting against moe and calling its fans losers, without going into much detail as to why moe was so abhorrent or how the phenomenon had seeped into the otaku/anime culture. Half the talk was him talking about the glory days of the 60s-80s when anime was good.

The Life and Times of Akiyuki Shinbo was one that I had high hopes for, because Shinbo is one of my current favorite directors. If you don’t know him, he’s directed virtually everything by Shaft in the past few years, excepting the Ef series and the latest season of Hidamari Sketch. That means things like Pani Poni Dash!, all 3 seasons and various OVAs of Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei, the still-unfinished Bakemonogatari, and, of course, the recently completed Dance in the Vampire Bund that I’m blogging.

This guy was an old-school fan, tracking his works all the way back to the 80s. And he did manage to show us a certain continuity of Shinbo’s style throughout his shows. And there were several clips of Bakemonogatari as well, which is always welcome. But the problem was that it was too evident that he was not film or art expert – a fact he admitted a couple times in the talk. He did little to show how Shinbo’s distinct artistic style contributed to his works further than being “interesting” (a word he used too much). He and I also seem to be fans of Shinbo in completely different ways, as I like the latter half of Dance in the Vampire Bund, whereas he thinks it went downhill after the first half. So a mixed bag.

I also went to a panel on yuri, which was not safe for this blog. I did get to see some awesome scenes from the Utena movie. I never had any interest in Utena before, but after seeing some of the downright psychedelic scenes from that, I might have to seek it out.

Besides that, I ended up waiting in line for the Video Game Orchestra once again, and I was rather disappointed. I figured that they would play some of the same pieces from last week, but they literally played ONLY the pieces from last week. Not worth the 1.5 hours in line I waited for that.

I’ll be attending tomorrow as well, when even more cosplayers should come out. And more interesting panels, including one on hentai manga by Alex Leavitt.

There was more talk and less action in this episode than I expected, but I found that to be alright, because the talk brought back that very important issue that had been ignored for the last many episodes: Akira’s continued amnesia. And it ties it together with Telomere; what Akira still doesn’t remember is what Telomere wants. And Telomere comes back in this episode to get it from him. With just 1 more episode left, all the loose story ends have come together, for one last Dance… in the Vampire Bund (sorry, hate me if you want to for that).

The plot thickens! It seems that the 1st assassin was with Telomere, which means that one of the 3 clans, or all of them, are in bed with Telomere. It did put her in an awkward position, as it was her job to kill Akira for her master, but she also needed to get information out of him before doing so (explains why she didn’t kill Akira outright when she ambushed him at the border to the Bund). It really saved Akira’s butt a few times, as he got repeatedly stabbed due to his inability to transform. That was a nice little plot point, as it showed how much he really loved and was in love with Mina, despite him being in denial about it.

Speaking of impossible love and saving Akira’s butt, Meiren was pretty phenomenal in this episode. I found it humorous that she came in with a shotgun, and it had predictably little effect on the 2nd Assassin, managing just to knock him away for a little bit. But she took care of him using melee in the end, which gave us a chance to see that she was a wolfman – or rather, wolfwoman – as well. Her confessing to Akira – for serious this time instead of her usual playful flirting – was very sweet. I wonder how much of her emotions were driven by the fact that she’s supposedly the last of her kind, though. She’ll have to come to terms with her feelings just like Yuki did halfway into the show.

I enjoyed most of the action, seeing the 1st assassin’s true powers, her ability to shapeshift to really insane proportions. She was really the star of the episode, and I liked how some of her personality shone through, through her speech, her facial expressions, and her choice of attacks, making her a more complete character than just another enemy. Which is kinda what the 2nd assassin ended up being. Given his awesome weapons from the previous episode (naginata and claws), I was hoping for some good fight scenes involving him, but he was taken out very quickly by Meiren. Pretty disappointing, though it did emphasize what a badass Meiren is.

Both of the 1st 2 assassins were dispatched in this episode, which leaves the 3rd as the only obstacle lying between Akira and a happy ending. I wonder if Meiren is indeed the 3rd assassin, as joker76 posited in his comment on my post on the previous episode. Would make for a very interesting fight, especially with Akira finally having regained the ability to transform due to his anger at seeing Mina’s image dirtied by the 1st assassin.

And Mina has put everything on the line now. It puts an even greater weight to the outcome of the finale, but at the same time, it pretty much puts the nail in the coffin of whatever doubt you might have had that Akira wouldn’t pull through. I mean, I think it was pretty clear from the previous episode, but they won’t really have Mina lose everything in one fell swoop at the end… will they?

As for the creepiness factor, they showed again the final scene of the previous episode, and also some short clips from the actual verification ceremony itself. We also learn that Mina knew Akira since his birth 17 years ago, which puts a whole new twist in the creepiness factor of their relationship. She’s the one who’s “robbing the cradle” – almost literally. It reminded me a lot of the very unhealthy relationship between Buster and Lucille 2 in Arrested Development (“She changed him as a baby!”).

I’m looking forward to seeing what Akira’s still hidden memory is, and why Telomere wants it so badly. There were some hints that he was starting to regain this memory towards the end, but I found the flashbacks to be confusing. They brought back imagery from the nightmare at the beginning of the previous episode, and the flashbacks did seem to imply that Mina might be dead or something. And what Alphonse said to Akira implies that this was a piece of information that could change Akira’s behavior drastically, to the point of making him an enemy. It would be great if Akira’s remembrance forces him to make a Sophie’s choice in the next episode. But at this point, I just have no idea, and my approach is just to let it come to me, let the director tell me the story without theorizing needlessly. And so it’s with great anticipation that I await the finale of this show. There’s a lot that has to happen, but this show’s pacing has proven to me that 23 minutes is more than enough.

An aside:

I went to Pax East today for the final day. There wasn’t much in terms of cosplay, but I’ve added what I took to the Picasa album. I attended a panel by members of OverClocked ReMix, a site in which people upload their own remixes of video game music. I was a big fan of the remix “Save Me,” a remix of the save-point theme from Ico (the only parts in the game that actually had background music), which is why I attended. But that whole community reminded me of the microcultures that were mentioned in the Memes talk yesterday.

Speaking of which, I also saw Alex Leavitt, the researcher from that Memes talk, cosplaying as Ash from Pokemon attending a panel on geeks. He also made a comment on my post from yesterday!

Besides the panels, I spent a lot of time on the show floor. I got to play The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile and talked with its sole developer. Turns out he was a big fan of DMC3 and Bayonetta, which I figured from playing his game. I also got to play some DeathSmiles for the XBox360, and that game just might get me into shmups like Touhou.

Well, Penny Arcade kicked off their first PAX East here in Boston at the Hynes Convention Center, so I had to attend. I didn’t make it in time on Friday because I had to stay late for work, but today, Saturday, I spent the whole day there, from 10am to 10:30pm.

Went to a few panels, missed a few due to overly long lines. My favorite panel by far was Memes, Microcultures, and 2D Chicks: Our Future in the Otaku Gamer by Alex Leavitt, a researcher from the Comparative Media Studies department at MIT. He broke down how memes start and propagate, what kind of “grammar” is within them. He showed and explained the Hitler meme.

He went in length about the different way niche cultures develop in Japan (he called it microculture). Touhou was a main example, where the gameplay doesn’t matter, but rather the characters, about whom very little is revealed within the original games. But fans took that and built a world of their own, using Nico Nico Douga, doujin comics, animations. He showed some of Bad Apple as a very high production example, but not the insane stop-motion one, which itself is a great example of the meme propagating.

He also compared it to the Vocaloid phenomenon, which really interested me, because I’m a huge fan of Supercell, which got its start uploading Vocaloid vids on Nico Nico Douga. The use of Vocaloid really blew up after the company added characters, because the works became not just about the music, but mainly about the character. Showed parts of some of Supercell’s vids but didn’t mention them by name. Could’ve been a great example, as they became professionals due to it, even getting a real anime produced based on one of their their videos (Black Rock Shooter, which was recently revealed to have Miyuki Sawashiro and Kana Hanzawa as main roles). And their fame and success came precisely because others on Nico Nico Douga took their music and did their own things with them (e.g. Nagi, also known as Gazelle, their current singer, got her start by posting videos onto Nico Nico Douga of her singing Supercell’s songs – most famously Melt – and to this day ppl continue to post themselves playing them, including their professional releases, with real instruments), thus extending the phenomenon seen in Touhou and Vocaloid. He showed bits of the PSP game Project Diva, a rhythm game starring Hatsune Miku. It made me want to get a PSP and import that game, as it seems to have at least a few of Supercell’s songs.

I was surprised he didn’t talk about 4chan too much, as that’s where so many memes, at least in the US, started. Did mention visual novels and particularly Katawa Shoujo, an American amateur production from the folks on 4chan. And like the other examples he mentioned, it had its genesis in fans taking someone’s work and applying their own twist on it.

Besides that talk, most notable for me was the concert. I stuck around for just the first part, featuring the Video Game Orchestra (VGO). I’m a big fan of classical music, so I had to see it. The highlights for me: a wonderful rendition of the Super Mario theme; the Chocobo theme from Final Fantasy, which had a great light mood with highlights from the saxophone and flute; a very embellished and metal-ish arrangement of the Final Fantasy VII battle theme; a surprise vocal appearance, as a singer from the local Berklee music school sang Snake Eater, which was sandwiched by a very dramatic performance of the MGS theme. Overall, they had a great mix of classical music with their orchestral instruments and more modern rock/metal music with electric guitar, keyboard, and drums.

I’ve got some videos from the concert that I’ll upload to YouTube, but tomorrow, as it’s way past my bedtime already, and I need to wake up early for the final day of PAX East tomorrow.

But what of the cosplay? That’s probably what you really care about. Well, I was a bit underwhelmed by the amount. I saw more video game cosplay in Anime Boston last year (which is being held next weekend, same place, Hynes Convention Center). Seriously, I saw 1 Snake, whereas at Anime Boston, there were at least a dozen. Still, there were enough to make a nice album – I’ve interspersed this post with some of them. But I don’t want to deal with WordPress’s slow file upload system, so I’m providing a link to my Picasa album of most the cosplay photos I took today. Some unexpected ones are Green Man (Charlie) from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and C.C. from Code Geass.

First, the obvious: I’m off hiatus. Expect a few fun new things from me within a day or so.

Secondly and slightly more importantly, I got my college plans worked out… and I will be attending school in-state! This means good things for my convention schedule, because I will still be able to attend Matsuricon and Ohayocon each year. Theoretically, I’ll even be able to add Sugoicon, Anime Punch or another Midwest convention, if I can get rides. ^__^ Paneling, especially Anime Blogging 101 and 201, should continue, and maybe I’ll even manage to work with Rakuen, Dave, or others to do a new panel or two.

The bad news is that I have to start classes in the summer… but that’ll be okay, since it’s Japanese 101 and 102, which I could have tested out of but decided against because there’s big holes in my writing abilities. ;_; Sigh.

Thirdly (and even MORE importantly~) Borderline Hikikomori has two new writers! Raphael will start posting shortly, but lvlln jumped in already with a Dance in the Vampire Bund post since I dropped the series. We’re all looking forward to working with them and the fresh insights they’ll bring us!

~CJ

PS – Spring Preview will be up by Monday!