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2009 Jul 04 elly


Guy Blade Guy Blade---06:55:00


AX Day 2
Today, I arrived at AX later than yesterday because I there wasn't much that I was interested in going to see until around noon.

I started the day by checking the Exhibition Hall again looking for Utena season one. In that, I was unsuccessful. I did however manage to not buy anything else either, so that might be considered a victory of restraint.

Afterwards, I went to the Aniplex industry panel. They mainly showed off trailers of things that I'd already seen, but the main thing that suprised me was finding out that Guin Saga had been licensed. They didn't come out and say who had licensed it or even announce that it had been licensed, but they did show an English-language dub of scenes from the first episode which makes it seem almost certain that the show has been licensed given the incredible cost of dubbing.

At that point, I had about 1.5 hours to kill until the Morning Musume concert and there were no panels that even seemed remotely interesting. Instead, I went to a screening room where they were playing the first 4 episodes (00 and 1 through 3) of Haruhi. When I had originally watched Haruhi, I found it interesting and fun and enjoyable but didn't quite get it. I didn't really see why it was as popular as it was. However, rewatching episode 00 and 01 made me realize how brilliant the whole thing is. The 00 episode doesn't make a damn bit of sense the first time through, but seeing it now, it seems brilliant given the understanding of what is actually going on. Maybe it is the sort of thing that requires two passes...

Then came the Morning Musume concert. It was fine. I had a good seat (last row of the left-center-front section). However, I'd say that their style sort of brushes up against the edge of what I generally like. I found them nice enough to listen to, but tended to sort of wander off mentally while they were performing. I suppose not everyone can be The Pillows.

I grabbed some food and then went to the preimere of the Evangelion movie. It was...Evangelion. It was also dubbed, which I wasn't expecting, though the dub was competent. The main thing the movie seemed to have up on the series was an extreme lack of still-frame silence time. All of the angst is still there, compressed into the two-hour format of a movie, of course. The film itself didn't cover the entire series and is probably closer to maybe 6-8 episodes worth (at least if the fact of them making four movies is important). They've updated all of the Evas themselves with conspicuous CG. It isn't clear to me that this is an improvement. Also the movie did not introduce Asuka, which seems strange given her relative importance to the series. They referred to her offhandedly a few times as the "third child" being "trained in Germany", but she got no screen time.

Ultimately, Evangelion is Evangelion and if you liked it before you'll probably enjoy the movies since they've basically cut big swaths of filler. Also, the movie looked like it did a fair bit of animation recycling, but it's hard for me to say definitively since it has been something like 5 years since I last watched Eva (in contrast to the Gurren Lagann movie where I'd seen it like 4 months ago).

Once Eva was over, I decided to call it a day because there was nothing else on the schedule that I cared about.

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2009 Jul 03 elly


Guy Blade Guy Blade---09:11:00


AX Day One
Today was the first day of Anime Expo and, since I have a pass for all four days, I attended. I had some difficulty finding both the exit from the interstate to the Staples Center and then once off the Center itself, but I still managed to arrive by about 9:30. Waiting in line for my badge was relatively straightfoward, though they forced us to queue up outside in the July sun.

After looking over my options for the day, I realized that there was nothing that I was really interested in going to until the 5pm panel from Right Stuf/Nozomi. I initially tried the tabletop gaming room because I've been doing a fair amount of board gaming recently, but it was devoted entirely to people playing the Yu-gi-oh! boardgame. Also, the Exhibition Hall (a.k.a., the Dealers' Room) didn't open until noon, so I spent the next several hours waiting in line (outside again) to get a ticket for tomorrow's Morning Musume concert. I'm hoping that I didn't get a sunburn from the waits. In line, I saw a really good c(r)osplayer of Wander. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture because the cosplayer was taking off her parka at the time and she was like 2/3 of the line away around a bend.

After that, I went to the Exhibition hall. I mostly restrained my spending: I only purchased two things there. Those two things were box sets two and three of Utena which are basically impossible to find as far as I'd been able to tell. They cost me $65 and $50 respectively which seems like a hell of a deal when compared against Amazon used prices or buying the discs individually. I was also severely temped by a print of a painting rendition of the Disgaia 2 cover. It was listed at $325, however, and that seems a bit too much for a game that I've neither finished nor am entirely sure that I like. I'll hunt more for the first Utena box set tomorrow if I make my way to the Exhibit hall again.

In the afternoon, I went to an "Anime Debate" panel because my feet were begining to be tired of walking all day. It was mildly interesting, but two of the three debate options which came up were severely one sided (Is the Anime Industry dying?; Xbox 360 vs. Wii) due to the demographics of congoers. If I'd been on the first one, at least I could have made good arguments about the death of the smaller US licensors and the pain caused by easy access to fansubs. The panel there instead made arguments about nostalgia for the "better" old series like Macross. It went poorly for them.

By that time, it was almost the Right Stuf panel's start time so I headed over to it to get a seat. On my way, I got flagged down by Andrea which was a strange thing to be sure. Seeing her there was entirely unexpected, but seemed eminently reasonable given that she works in Arizona. I hadn't seen her in over two years, but I guess my trademark ponytail + labcoat is recognizable even from behind. We chatted briefly before heading to our seperate locations.

The Right Stuf panel was mildly interesting, they announced that they are licensing Aria, Rental Magica, the fourth season of a shoujo-ai show, and a pair of shounen-ai shows. I managed to snag a copy of the first DVD of Aria by asking a question.

After that was a panel by Mega 64 which was rather entertaining, but tapered off near the end. I personally would have prefered Loading, Ready, Run, but I don't think they make decisions that way.

The last thing I saw today before heading home about an hour ago was the US Official subtitled premiere of the Gurren Lagann Movie. It was about 100 minutes long of which the majority of the first 60-70 minutes were recycled directly from the series. However, the final half hour or so consisted primarily of new, awesome work which includes [spoiler]Simon climbing an enemy mech by stabbing it with drills[end spoiler] in addition to other brilliant moments. According to the person who spoke briefly before the showing, there is currently a second movie running in Japanese theaters, so we can expect to see it in the near future as well.

And then I came home and wrote this post, and then it was now, and then I don't know what happens.

Tomorrow, my main priorities are going to the Morning Musume concert and seeing the screening of the Evangelion movie. I'd also like to try to BESM 3E tournament, but it conflicts with the Eva movie, so it seems unlikely.

Saturday, I'm only really interested in the FUNimation panel and seeing the AMV contest replay (I don't want to go to the first showing because I'd have to stand in line at it to get tickets for an indeterminate amount of time).

Sunday, I'll probably just go to see what deals are in the Exhibit hall. One of the days, I'll also try to do a Collateral Damage "learn to play" session as it is a game made by the same people who did Whack a Catgirl which Nate used to praise quite highly. I'll also probably look into getting a new bag of some sort. My Lain bag is really a poorly designed courier bag and my old backpack is begining to degrade in some bizarre way that involves the fabric shedding some sort of plasticy stuff that (I hope) is the waterproofing.

All in all, decent start.

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