By Specky
No you didn't miss the LA Anime Expo, I just happened to be in Tokyo for the event and had the weekend free so I figured I would do a little summery now that things are over...
Of course I don’t have time to ramble too much so I’ll jump into the stuff you want to hear first.
Friday
Friday was pretty slow actually. They did have a fun panel that went over the 20 year history of anime from old classics like Megazone to Gunbuster all the way to Tenchi and Blue Sub #6. It was fun to hear just how and why they started them up. Apparently they began due to demand and the beginning of VHS tapes. That and the OVA (No they did not refer to them once as OAV’s during the panel for people that want to try and give me hell for using OVA…) was a medium where they could get away with stuff you of course couldn’t on TV. (I.E. tentacles feeling up girls and stuff.) It was also a formula for Si-Fi as well. There was one show that I can’t remember the name to but was apparently where a lot of Japanese feel that the Matrix story was ripped off from. It was also interesting to note that things are going full circle with the OVA format now. Where before it was a medium to be different where you had less rules to follow, it seems like now you have to abide more by the basics and follow the standard fare of the standard TV anime. Pretty interesting.
The next big thing I hit was the Megatokyo Panel. There was very few people there. I be Fred kinda felt a little upset with the handful of people turnout. Not a single Japanese speaking person was there until the final 20 minutes. Nothing exciting to announce or anything either here.
After that I walked around the dealer room, played some Stellvia and also a Sypon Filter-ish Stand Alone Complex shooting type game. Pretty cool. I have to wonder if it will make it to the states…
That evening they did a Concert featuring “Under 17” who are renown for the OP theme to Pita Ten as well as their latest work on Popotan. Their songs (Moe songs where “Moe” equals “Cute”) If you have never heard of Under 17 they are defiantly not for everyone with the Lead vocalists voice being so high pitched and high. On the other hand the other half of the band that does the guitar was pretty good. The band they had with them was also a lot of fun to listen to (And cute dancers always helps too…) They also played the theme to a new anime called “Judgement Angel Rabbie” that will be airing later this spring. (I’ll mention that more later.) All in all it was a fun concert though I really am glad they didn’t come back for an encore because I think I finally reached my threshold of tolerance for squeaky high pitched super Moe Japanese voices… ^^;
That pretty much wraps up Friday. Actually a pretty disappointing day considering that this was an Anime Expo thing. The only anime I watched was Yukikaze OVA 3 Raw (I missed seeing it before I left for Japan.) On the other hand I met up with one of the Guys from Insert Credit and we had a bunch of fun talking etc. and I really dig insert credit. If you like games and the Japanese game scene as well you should really go check them out. The articles are also very cool. www.insertcredit.com This isn’t the first time I have mentioned them and it prolly won’t be the last.
Saturday:
Here is where things started to pick up. I started the day with the Megatokyo signing panel. It was so slow that Fred was able to do sketched for everyone. (Maybe 30 tops. Again the Majority Americans. The one Japanese guy I saw didn’t even know the story at all he just wanted to get an autograph for his collection.)
After that the President of Peirrot got up and talked a bit about the studios works and the history of the company. Unfortunately the Studio presentations started and I had to cut out before he announced anything new.
Toshiba Entertainment:
First up was a premiere of the second episode of Burn up Scramble. They showed the second episode which hadn’t yet aired at the time. I’m not sure if that show is being subbed or not but honestly I would say don’t waste you time… It was pretty stereotypical and was honesty pretty poorly animated. I was starting to think that Toshiba was doomed to never do anything cool again but afterwards they had another showing that turned out really cool!
Daphne and the Brilliant Blue 光と水のダフネ Hikari to muzu no Daphne
(Brilliant Blue should be the correct Translation of the title, because that is what they showed on the screen during the show…) First episode this time and I don’t think that they had aired this one yet either. (Woo-hoo world premiere.) The story is about this girl from an upper class family that is living in a city surrounded by water. Mizuki Maia is used to the upper class life and when she fails to get into the career of her choice. This starts a cycle of misfortune that continues with a dramatic climax to be continued with the next episode. While there aren’t going to be any big robots or anything but a story of a girl facing reality and having to struggle for the first time in her life. I was hooked.
They also managed to get the gal that sang the OP theme to perform on stage. I will defiantly be picking that one up. If I can remember the name of the song I will try to post it. :P This should be something to keep your eyes out for.
Angel Rabbie
This is the one that Under 17 is doing the Music for it seems. At least an OP or ED though. This one is looking kinda Pita Ten-ish with the character designs and though they didn’t actually show a trailer or anything it has to deal with the differences with Magic users and normal humans. Apparently there was a big war that broke out and left these big demons running around the planet. The earth and Moon are unable to do anything about them now (I’m assuming that the power of magic and science somehow were lost) but there are Angels and other forces at work to restore peace to earth. It is suppose to be pretty lighthearted but with some dark overtones as well.
Imagica Entertainment:
First up was the new Divergence Eve season, Misaki Chronicle. While this looks like it trying to be more lighthearted than the previous season (?) Though I can’t really say it is going to end up being any better or anything. It is the same fan service with a new OP theme. Speaking of the new Opening theme (Done by Nagasawa Nao who also did the end theme if I recall correctly, Pump Up.) The new song is Kiss Kiss Kiss and is also pretty lighthearted and I can see it being too sappy for many. The music video they showed when she preformed it live though was pretty cool. Schoolgirls battling the evil teacher that doesn’t let the class have any free time to goof off… Kung Fu and Burning Passion insue. ^_^
They then talked about Godanner. For fans of that series they are planning a second season right now and the guy that did the OP theme (Which was pretty typical giant Robot fare) Kushida Akira also sang the Godanner theme as well as a couple of his other songs. Not my cup of tea but lots of fun none the less. Stuff like that is always more fun live I guess.
Bakuretsu Tenshi
This was looking really good! They showed a Kiddy Grade style preview and it was Awesome! Lots of action and 3D robots that give it a Vandread type feel and a Doujin Artist doing the character design. (Which seems to be the new trend these days… A la Tsukihime.) The story is supposed to take place at the end of this century. (2999 ish) Apparently the theme is Wild West in future Tokyo. Outlaws and not a sophisticated law system to keep them in check. Thus this team of girls is out to stop the bad guys etc. The Main Character Joe is the lazy type unless it is stuff pertaining to battle. Joe is the main heroine and is close friends with Meg (The one with the Cowboy hat and yellow clothes.) Apparently Meg is the one that always gets in trouble and is always having Joe bail her out. Joe of course is annoyed by this but once she enters battle all she thinks about is winning. Amy is your Lolita complex Ruri type. Smaller and good with the computers. The Leader of the group Sei is the Elder sister character that tries to hold things together. This of course leads to confrontations with Joe and they always seem to be arguing etc.
While this all sounds pretty typical the animation is looking very impressive and as the trailer stated (Girls X Guns X Gonzo) it should be a pretty ride if the plot does stay typical. Something I will be looking out for simply because the character designs and robots look slick. I walked away with this one being one of my favorites of the show next to Daphne. This one will be one of the new April releases. The other funny thing was the gal they had for the MC of the event ended up finding out for the first time that she was going to be the voice for Joe. (Apparently they had just decided and hadn’t made the announcement public anywhere yet.) It was fun to see her reaction and surprise. She should fit the role pretty darn well.
After that I headed over by the MediaWorks booth and they had the guy that is the Manga-ka for Twin Spica signing comics. I had seen an episode early one morning and was intrigued. (Though it airs too early for me…) They were selling the comic at the booth so I got one signed and was flipping through it on the train home. Pretty interesting.
The end of the day was an 8:30PM signing session by Akamatsu Ken of Love Hina and Negima fame. I was surprised he made it seeing as they hadn’t put him on the schedule for that day and he IS working on a weekly comic after all… But he made it out. What a guy! So I got my Negima vol 1 signed to put up with my vol 1 Love Hina. XD
Sunday
Full Metal Alchemist
Sunday started out with the Full Metal Alchemist panel. They showed the first episode subtitled in English and it was very well done other than mis-naming Gluttony Blateny. (Which just goes to show that ppl that don’t watch the show translated it and also that Japanese katakana pronunciation is a messed up system.) ^_-
They then had Yellow Generation perform the 2nd ED theme which was pretty cool of course and also showed the 2nd ED creditless. I have really decided that the second ending artwork just has more soul to it than the first one.
They had Paku Romi (Edward) and Kugimiya Rie (Alphonse) there to talk as well as the story boarder and director as well. Yes both are played by females… Paku really fit Edwards character though she seemed a little too rude for me. She was very harsh toward the guy trying to translate the conversation and also the nosiest one of the group. The Japanese MC for the event barely said a word once she showed up. They didn’t make much along the lines of new announcements other than the director saying that there will be an episode that doesn’t even have the Elric siblings featured at all during the episode. The Manga will end differently but they are hoping that they don’t disappoint anyone at the same time.
Planetes (Yes they say it all as one word planetEEES like T’s as in the shorter name for T shirt T’s. Not Planet E.S. or anything…)
I missed the first half of the panel due to the FMA running a little long but I did catch the director talking about why he wanted to make the show different from the manga and try to give the characters a little more depth as opposed to trying to tell a separate story about each chapter of the manga. That and if he made it the same it would kind of be pointless/boring anyway.
Appleseed
Entirely done in 3D CG and also done with lots of motion capture as well. This is looking pretty nice and will be a new retake on the older comic version. (The director and Masamune Shirow got together to re-tool the story) This one is looking fun as well. On the other hand compared to Innocence it doesn’t look as cool as it could. The other big problem I see for this show will be the character facial expressions. I have yet to see a CD anime character really get the facial expressions you can achieve with 2D animation. The trailer was older stuff and the director said that it will be much better in the final version but I still am left wondering if an anime production can make the full jump to the 3D realm and pull it off. April 17th in theaters in Japan.
Gadguard
I’m pretty sure this one has been announced before but in case it hasn’t for some reason that wasn’t clearly explained the last 4 episodes of Gadguard (23-26) were not aired on Fugi Television and thus became OVA’s and will only be seen on the DVD’s. Lucky us though we were able to view the last 4 episodes which I felt did a good job of wrapping things up. I was a fan of the show before anyway so I enjoyed finally seeing some conclusion though I did miss out on a couple ep. Toward the end around 20-21. Gadguard may not have been anything groundbreaking but it did end up being a good solid fun series for me. I’m sure once the final DVD’s come out Keep/etc. will fan sub the rest of the series.
Production I.G
This was the final panel I went to. The President was there as well as some of the production staff for Dead Leaves and the director for Innocence.
Dead Leaves looks cool but for some reason it just seems like it is trying to hard to be cool. They showed a nice long clip and all it seems to be is Violence and these two characters with no morals and no problem with blowing up cops left and right. If this one doesn’t raise some hell with Mom’s Against Violence in America or something I don’t know what will. p*nis and poop jokes along with plenty of South park style humor. Turns out it is only an hour or so long so no way I’ll be blowing 1500 Yen to see this one. The story also doesn’t really go anywhere from what I heard… Action and that is it. On the other hand the animation is very over the top FLCL style that looks really good (Remember the 5th EP. With Haruko and the Seaweed Eyebrow guy duking it out in the barber shop? Think that for 1 full hour.) Something about it just doesn’t do it for me I guess… I’ll wait for DVD or fansub. (Though Manga has the R1 rights so that should be interesting to se if it does see fansub release…) The one interesting thing was they did mention that the entire show is 2D cell animation with NO CG effects or anything. Pretty remarkable feat when you look at the way the action moves.
Innocence
They showed a new trailer for the Movie and boy is it looking really good. From the sounds of things the “Audience” sees things through the eyes of Batou and Togusa as they journey through a case of a malfunctioning cyborg that kills its owner. From there the duo are confronted with solving the case as well as dealing with a hacker as well. The movie seems to be a view of why humans create “dolls” (Cyborgs) to look like humans, except told from the “Dolls” point of view.
The visuals in the trailer were incredible and the movie really looks like it is coming along smoothly. March 6th in Japan. Things to watch out for (From the director) were the number 69 supposedly popping up in various places in the movie along with many of the CG scenes were also done with little communication between the different storyboarders so he mentioned watching out for catching the differences on the styles of the CG. Aside from that it was pretty much the usual panel chat.
And that about wraps that up. If anyone has questions or what not I will try to reply later but right now I’ve really got a test I should be studying for. Hope if nothing else someone gets some new info out of this that wasn’t blabbed about elsewhere already. ^^; Oh well. At least I tried to be quick about it. ^^; Off to sleep in my freezing cold room. I also apologize for crappy English and funky sentences. I am running on very little sleep and won’t be getting a good rest for some time yet… :P
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