This last weekend, I went to Anime Expo. I discovered last year that Anime Expo was somewhat less fan-driven than Anime Central in Chicago was. That impression mostly followed this year. I believe that during the entire course of the convention, I never went to any panel which wasn't industry driven. That isn't to say that the industry panels weren't interesting--they tended to be so in fact. Nevertheless, the industry centric approach leads to a different feel to the convention overall.
I mostly organized my weekend by going from industry announcement/status panel to industry announcement/status panel.
Highlights (in no particular order):Bandai licenses
K-On!FUNimation licenses
Trigun:
Badlands Rumble (and had a screening on Saturday).
Nozomi/Right Stuf is rereleasing
Revolutionary Girl Utena with remastered video.
Bandai/Aniplex are releasing both
Gurren Lagann movies this month in the US. The collector's/premium editions contain the Parallel Works.
Bandai will be releasing
Haruhi Season 2 in a single box set sometime this year.
No release timeline for
The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi (the movie) from Bandai/Aniplex.
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I didn't actually pick up much stuff this year at the convention. I grabbed a couple of items that were on sale at the Bandai booth: Rocket Girls (the story of how not to run a human spaceflight program), and a movie that was on sale rather cheap. I picked up the first
Toradora! box set from NIS America's booth. I picked up the one DVD of
Project Blue Earth SOS that I was missing.
Most of the money that I spent at the convention was actually in Artist's Alley. I picked up about a dozen prints that I'm going to (somehow) put up in my apartment. I picked up a handful at last year's con, but there were quite a few that sparked my interest this year. Once I get frames, I'll take some pictures.
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