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An Austrian soldier equipped with the standard-length Steyr AUG. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Well, I finally got around to finishing the short, rather strange anime series known as Upotte! which is basically a 10-episode series + OVA aimed at gun fetish otaku who are also into "moe" girls. It's a story about middle and high school girls who are anthropomorphized military rifles. They walk and talk like normal girls, but can basically summon their true form from virtual "hammer space", their trigger is located where their clitoris should be, etc. It's a very strange, strange story. It's mostly slice of life style b.s., some tournament anime b.s., and then a ginned up conflict between "Western" weapons (our protagonists) and Eastern Bloc weapons from Russian companies (AKs, Saigas, et. al.); it culminates in a climatic battle during a class trip to the beach...but it finishes inconclusively as a draw and some random philosophizing about arms races and the role of weapons in war, etc. It's rather incoherent.
Although a significant section of the show is gun-porn fanservice, describing the various actual weapons, etc, and while most of the info is correct, the show does make some glaring errors and some of the mini-lectures are superficial at best.
One translation error has one of the girls incorrectly identifying the Steyr Aug rifle as "Australian" rather than Austrian in the dub script. The description of shotguns is a little lacking, failing to mention the Winchester 1897 Trench Gun used in WW1 and to a lesser degree WW2. There's also a scene where the M16A2 character ("Ichiroku" = One Six) is squaring off against an opponent with an autoloading Saiga shotgun with a box magazine. Her companion states that the enemy (who has the pair pinned down) has superior range, which is utter nonsense. Shotguns are close-range ONLY, they're utterly ineffective beyond a certain range. The problem is the M16A2 is engaged in a close-range street battle versus the Russian shotgun, which is why the situation is so hairy. I don't know if this is a case of bad writing in the original Japanese or again a translation error. If the M16A2 were engaged in a fight on an open battlefield, its superior range and accuracy would make mince meat of the wielder of a Saiga shotgun, whose only chance would be an ambush at close range. I'm wondering if the Japanese script writer fetishizes guns but doesn't truly understand them beyond what can be gleaned from reference books.
The action centers around the Belgian FNC, known as "Funco". Basically the characters are named for Japanese shorthand for their formal military designations. Her best friend is a Sig Saur assault rifle from Switzerland. The Austrian Steyr Aug (known simply as "Aug") is revealed to be lesbian with unrequited romantic longings for Funco. Meanwhile, Funco herself seems to harbor a schoolgirl crush on her one human teacher, the newly hired Japanese instructor at their school, and even seemingly flirts with him from time to time.
One of the veteran teachers (also a gun) is modeled after the US WW2 M-1 Garand Rifle, voiced by Andrew Love and dressed up like a US Army Drill Sergeant from that era. Another teacher is named Mrs. Thompson, modeled naturally on the Thompson sub-machinegun and voiced by Cynthia Martinez. Brittney Karbowski voices the brash American M16A2 and delivers a quite humorous performance. The only reason to watch this Anime is for the gun play and the moe girl stuff. The OVA is, of course, a kind of "hot springs" episode insofar as the four main girls take a camping vacation at a large forested riverbank where they can swim and fish. They jerry-rig their own "natural" hot-tub of sorts and of course sit around topless just relaxing, etc.
The story itself is largely incoherent nonsense and there'd be zero point to having any second season, etc. It's sole purpose is to look pretty and fantasize about guns, and girls with guns, and to a lesser extent follow the emotional lives of these unusual gun-girls. It's not suprising they only managed to squeeze 10 episodes (+OVA) out of this very thin premise. But since I am something of an amateur firearms enthusiast myself (something I used to do more often, but largely have moved on from, as it's a very expensive hobby), I decided to give the Blu-Ray of this a chance. This is not a "good" anime by any means. Most anime fans would regard it as gawd-awful, and they'd be mostly right. But it scratches a particular itch for me (firearms) and I don't have the kneejerk reaction against moe and fanservicey perv-cams and nudity the way some fans do.
I'd say that Girls Und Panzer, by comparision, is a far superior story with a more compelling story and coherent narrative. It features girls + tanks and is far more interesting and engaging. I'd recommend giving Upotte! a pass unless you really actually care about military firearms and their specifications. There are far better "moe" shows than this; the militaria is really the "hook".
It's pretty to look at on Blu-Ray, but overall it's a pretty dumb anime.
Finally had an opportunity to finish the new-ish
anime series Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya (Fate/kaleid liner プリズマ☆イリヤ?), which is a Type-Moon spinoff that re-imagines some of the female cast of both Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero as "magical girls", and changes the warrior spirits into collectable magic cards that must be defeated in battle first. It borrows visual elements from both Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero, and it does help to have watched both of these series first before attempting to watch Fate/Kaleid Liner, because otherwise the viewer can't truly appreciate the significance of what she's looking at, in the same way I don't recommend watching Aquarion EVOL if you've not seen the original Aquarion. The reason is you simply will miss the great significance of what you're watching.
Fate/Kaleid Liner is visually appealing but also has a number of LOL/WTF!? moments interspersed throughout. The story focuses on Ilya von Einzbern; this iteration of Ilya is much sweeter and cuter than her realization in Fate/Stay Night (which does not end well for her, neither in the series nor in the recap movie). But she's also quite a bit more pervy and yuri-curious, too.
The voice cast is completely new, but since this is a re-imagined series it isn't as jarring as you'd think it might be. Rin Tohsaka, now voiced by Carli Mosier, sounds older and more mature, but since she's serving in a guardian kind of role, it actually fits. Shelley Calene-Black really hams it up as Rin's rival, Luviagelita Edelfelt (ルヴィアゼリッタ・エーデルフェルト Ruviazeritta Ēderuferuto?).
Illya lives with Shiro, who is described as her (adopted?) brother. Illya's mother (who we met in Fate/Zero) makes a brief appearance near the end of this short series. Illya herself is voiced by Cynthia Martinez, a veteran voice actress from the days of ADV Films. Illya's magical girl partner is the initially unfriendly and awkward Miyu Edelfelt (美遊・エーデルフェルト Miyu Ēderuferuto?), voiced by Caitlynn French. Illya works for Rin Tohsaka and Miyu works for Luvia. They were selected as magical girls because the sentient magic wands Magic Ruby and Magic Sapphire essentially grew tired of the bickering and infighting between Rin and Luvia and deemed them no longer worthy of being their masters. They leave and pick Illya and Miyu as their new masters, and Rin and Luvia end up taking on more of a guardian and teacher role. Miyu and Illya don't much like each other at first, but through hardship and adversity they learn to respect and even like and accept each other. Miyu is very blunt to the point of rude and doens't seem to get other people's emotions. She's extremely logical, almost Spock-like, but also emotionally stunted and rigid. She overthinks things and chokes sometimes. She seems to have many Asperger-y traits that make her charmingly eccentric and a little tsundere. The heart of the series is the budding, difficult friendship between Illya and Miyu.
This entire series is really entertaining to already dedicated fans of the Type-Moon universe, and it pays off visually when you can decode what elements are borrowed from Fate/Zero and which are borrowed from Fate/Stay Night. It has many epic battles with loud explosions and soaring musical scores. It also has moe girl nonsense and mild fanservice. The heaviest fanservices is of course the cameos of the warrior spirits. The series concludes in a satisfying way but leaves the door open for more tales to come. Those who make the mistake of watching this series first will probably find it entertaining but will not be able to decode the rich visual language of the series, which is the most important part. You will definitely want to get this series on Blu-Ray for the best possible visual experience.
I definitely liked this series way more than I thought I would, but mainly because I am a fan of Fate/Stay Night in particular and Fate/Zero to a slightly lesser degree. It's fun in the way the Evangelion spin-off mangas are fun. Take familiar characters and tweak them just slightly and put them in new situations, etc. I think this series rides on the coattails of a mini-renaissance of Magical Girl stories like Madoka Magica and the re-release of Sailor Moon and the new Sailor Moon Crystal. In any case, it works, but only as a value-added bonus to the pre-existing Type-Moon shows.
Wakfu (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Although my favorite entertainment medium is Japanese anime, I'm also attracted to other animated shows that show a heavy influence of Japanese anime, from Teen Titans to RWBY to the recent French cartoon Wakfu, which is based upon a videogame franchise. It's now streaming on Netflix (and was apparently on American television some time back) and has an English dub, and a Spanish dub (which I sometimes watch) besides the original French audio. The characters have definitely grown on me, especially Evangeline, the coaxing blonde female elf that every male character goes gaga for, even more so than Princess Amalia herself, who's definitely pretty too but also a "prissy princess", personality wise, while Evangeline ("Eva" for short) is a no nonsense archer & bodyguard. They are members of main character Yugo's traveling party, along with Az, Ruel, and Percedal. Wakfu is basically the in-world term for "magical energy", sort of like the Star Wars "Force" of this fantasy realm. It flows throughout the world and only those specially attuned can summon up and use Wakfu to create magical spells and manipulate matter and energy. Not unlike the Anime Fairy Tail, this world emphasizes the outsized importance of specifically Dragon Magic. Yugo is the Eliatrope brother of little dragon Adamai. In fact, Yugo is the last Eliatrope still living as far as anyone knows.
They oppose the evil Xelor who calls himself "Nox", a being who builds terrifying clockwork automata that wreak havoc upon the countryside. He has ambitions of capturing all the world's Wakfu and remaking the world anew.
It's definitely worth watching. The characters are likeable and engaging.
Heck, I watch it mainly for the Evangeline & Amalia fanservice...no no, it's not THAT anime, e.g. no panty shots, jiggling boobs, etc. It's just these characters are really easy on the eyes is all...
I just got back from a screening of the first 4 episodes of the new Anime series from Sentai Filmworks known as Log Horizon.
It was actually MUCH better than I expected, and I must admit, having seen all of the original SAO and a bit of "Dot Hack", I walked into the theater a bit jaded and cynical, doubting that I'd like much of what I was about to see. I have to admit I was wrong. Log Horizon was good--really good. The characters in particular were very likeable and memorable, and their chemistry together really hooks you and makes the show enjoyable to watch. Some immediate differences between SAO and Log Horizon, Log Horizon drops the SAO pretense of "if you die in the game you die in real life"...the characters ARE indeed trapped in their favorite MMO after a new DLC upgrade. But if they "die" (run out of hit points), they simply re-spawn in the temple of the territory where their character was originally created. It's not the end of the world, but it can be an enormous pain in the ass. The world of Log Horizon is said to be exactly 1/2 the size of planet Earth. Towns that are 8 km apart in the real world are only 4 km apart in the world of Log Horizon. There is eating & drinking in this MMO, but the food is bland and all tastes the same, regardless how it looks. The story is very vague about how the characters came to be stuck in the new DLC version of their favorite MMO, or why they can't log out, or what's "really" happening to their bodies in the "real" world. They don't seem--at first--to be the victims of any wider conspiracy, there's no all-powerful Dungeon Master who controls their fate, it's just more like an accidental glitch that's preventing everyone from logging out and nobody knows why or how they're supposed to leave the game. Also, the "jump gates" of the former game world no longer function in this 3D VR version, so all transport must be done on foot or by beast of burden. Horseback is fine, but eventually our heroes upgrade their ride to Griffins and stuff. The game in this world of Log Horizon (ログ・ホライズン Rogu Horaizun?) actually goes by the name of Elder Tale (エルダー・テイル Erudā Teiru?).
The story focuses on main character and protagonist Shiroe (シロエ Shiroe?) who is best known as "Shiroe the Strategist" or the "Villain in Glasses" (腹ぐろ眼鏡 Haraguro Megane?) from the Elder Tale game. His real name is Kei Shirogane (城鐘 恵 Shirogane Kei?). After he finds himself in the upgraded version of the game and rather nonplussed as to how he got there or how to get out, he decides to check his friend list and at least hang out with someone he knows. He meets up with Naotsugu (直継 Naotsugu?), who is Shiroe's best friend and was also a member of the now disbanded Debauchery Tea Party group. His real world name is Naotsugu Hasegawa (葉瀬川 直継 Hasegawa Naotsugu?). He's a bit of a shameless horn dog and always lusting after the ladies. Shiroe also adds to his burgeoning party Akatsuki (アカツキ Akatsuki?), a trained assasin whose skills he's very familiar with from past raids & alliances. However all this time, he never realized that Akatsuki (アカツキ Akatsuki?) is actually a girl. She asks Shiroe for a transformation potion and manages to use it to change her in-game avatar to be female and conform with her biological and mental gender. Although her in-game avatar looks like the body of a young teen girl of perhaps middle school age, she's actually in her mid-to-late 20s, same age as Shiroe who is a graduate student in Engineering in the real world, on the verge of earning his Master's degree.
My favorite character by far in the first 4 episodes is the mysterious Nyanta. Nyanta (にゃん太 Nyanta?) is a werecat Swashbuckler and a bit of a ladies' man himself, though far more of a "smooth operator" than lumbering Naotsugu. He's voiced by newcomer Jovan Jackson in the English dub and I was very happy to hear a black actor voicing this anime character...It's been a personal gripe of mine that there's not enough diversity in Anime voice acting. Some of this is the fact that many Japanese anime stories do not include black people or other ethnicities. Nyanta is a large "cat-man", so some artistic liberty was possible and I'm glad that they took the risk and cast a black actor for this role. It basically makes Nyanta the bad-ass SHAFT of the show and I love it. I remember getting into a bit of an argument with an anime voice actor who is also a casual friend, complaining about the production of Moonlight Mile where an obviously black character was voiced by an obviously white actor, yielding a performance that was downright cringe-worthy. My friend's argument was along the lines of "dude, they try, but there's just not that many black VO actors out there."; My contention was and is they don't try hard enough, so I salute this bold move from Sentai Filmworks and hope it is a sign of better things to come. Many of the cast and crew were in attendance at this screening and Jovan Jackson was a crowd favorite generally, but especially among the black fans who were thrilled to hear his character, and I was thrilled for them.
Some white voice actors are able to pull off a black character voiceover...I'm thinking Chris Sabat as Garterbelt in Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, say. Or the voice of Dutch from Black Lagoon. White men with deep enough voices and acting chops can pull it off. But Jovan Jackson's Nyanta is on a whole nother level and it's fantastic.
While I'm probably not going to rush out and buy this anime as a new release, I do think I will be adding it to my collection eventually, maybe as a birthday present to myself next year, say, after the first or second price drop. It really was a pleasant surprise and I look forward to continuing the story of these characters and learning more about the strange online world they're trapped in and how they cope and try to find their way back to reality.
Drawing of a revealing figure Sythatia with typical elements from manga and anime to illustrate the term ecchi. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I got in the latest Right Stuf! catalog and noticed that the "adult" section for anime is quite a bit smaller than it used to be in previous years. Indeed, the entire print catalog for Right Stuf! is much less thick than it used to be, which leads me to worry about the financial health of Right Stuf! AnimeNation finally shuttered its doors earlier this year, and I used to enjoy their podcast, too. Apparently they did want to keep their anime rental program going, but I've heard mixed reviews on how it works in practice, so I'll be sticking with Netflix and my FUNimation subscription.
It reminds me of a recent discussion on ANNCast where a guest in the industry noted that while there is actually some encouraging development in sexy adult manga, with Project H, there's less and less Hentai anime being licensed and dubbed for the North American market because increasingly so much of the stuff produced in Japan is so extreme and weird and wouldn't pass muster for importation to the USA due to legal restrictions, etc. And the guest was remarking how unfortunate because with Project H you have some very tasteful manga that is basically like your average romance story, only turned up several notches to include sex scenes that would otherwise be implied at most in "traditional" manga, and, having bought & read a series from Project H, I can testify they're pretty hot--every bit as fun as your average trashy romance paperback in the USA. But it's not abusive or gross or humiliating...I genuinely believe the main charaters in my story 1) genuinely love each other and 2) are horny as fuck. It reminded me very much of my first year of marriage with my now ex-wife. It's a shame there's not more anime adaptations of healthy romantic sexual narratives like this...but what apparently drives sales in Japan is the freaky gross sh*t that doesn't get licensed for north American release, much less dubbed anymore.
I did attend the Hentai Fest at Oni-Con XI this year, which, though curated, was mostly loud pandemonium. It was at times amusing, especially the sexy parodies of established Anime franchises, though there was also a lot of shock-and-gross-out humor as well that wasn't for the faint of heart. It's a strange experience to watch cartoon porn in a loud room of total strangers. They cheered for orgasms and spooge, of course. It was mostly something to point and laugh at, as spectacle. Very little of it was genuinely sexy or arousing, at least not in a setting like that.
I flipped through the Right Stuf! adult section of their current catalog, making mental notes. But mostly I think I'll be investing in more Project H digital manga from eManga going forward. I might pick up a dubbed Hentai title here and there, but of the Hentai titles available in the Right Stuf! adult section, many are prominently labeled as "sub-only". The dubbed Hentai content is a fraction of a fraction now. I'm glad I have the existing titles that I do. Quality dubbed Hentai seems to be dying out for the time being. It might have a renaissance in the future, but for now it seems to be phasing out and dwindling to a trickle out of Japan. I'd like sexy stories that aren't all about humiliation, domination, tentacle porn, bukkake, rape, incest, shitting, peeing, etc. I don't mind ridiculous and funny; I do mind gross-out stuff designed to make you recoil and say "ew!"; unfortunately the latter seems to be driving production back in Japan. That trend could change and I hope it does.
English: The back of an original Xbox console, showing its inputs and outputs. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We planned better for our "down time" this year, and as such, time went by much faster for this Oni-Con than last year at Oni-Con X. The main thing that helped was that I brought my PS2, while my friend brought along his Xbox 360. We got lucky in that the hotel TV was configured such that we were able to plug in both devices to the same inputs (though obviously not at the same time). My PS2 definitely worked, but I think the picture quality on the Xbox 360 was sharper and clearer, so we opted to stay connected with it instead. The Xbox 360 could NOT access Xbox Live because of the set up of the hotel WiFi which requires the extra step of accepting the hotel's usage policy, that the Xbox 360 was not able to acknowledge and therefore get past. No matter, we merely needed the DVD function, which can be accessed offline.
We finished watching all of the anime Sunday Without God which is a weird little fantasy show out from Sentai Filmworks. I also showed my friend more of the Sci Fi anime series From The New World, of which he had only seen the first four episodes that were screened awhile back at Alamo Drafthouse Mason Park in his hometown of Katy, Texas. I've seen all of Collection 1 of this series but was willing to re-watch it with my friend, so we picked up with Episode 5 and continued from there. We didn't finish, but I let my friend borrow the case & disc to finish on his own after the convention. This was a fun way to spend our down time between major panels & events.
I also attended the late night "Hentai Fest" on Saturday night. My friend had gone with his girlfriend last year, but this year I decided I'd check it out as well. It was very loud and rowdy and I could barely hear the MC's over the roar of the crowd. Likewise, since very little Hentai titles get dubbed anymore, it required a lot of reading of subtitles, which were too low on the screen and I was having to constantly peak over the shoulders of the people sitting in front of me to try and read them. It was less genuinely sexy and more just a point-and-laugh spectacle and send up, along with some really gross, disgusting clips for shock-humor effect. A good deal of the humor for me was the wide variance between what actual sex is like and what ridiculous anime sex looks like. We stuck around for about an hour and a half (the allotted time) but as the Hentai Fest was by no means over at that point, and as I was feeling physically exhausted, we returned to our hotel to get some ZZZs our last night of the convention. We also noted that the Rave was still going strong on the first floor, but that's a younger man's game and as I said, I was tired to the point of exhaustion and had no energy left for a dance floor. I was glad to note in several of the panels that I wasn't the only balding near or past middle aged fan in attendance.
I did give some thought to attending the Sunday events, but by the time Sunday morning rolled around, all I really wanted was to get the heck home. My friend agreed. It's just that we were on a time crunch to check out at 11am, and if we stayed for the con events, we'd have to deal with finding new parking and I just didn't want to deal with it. Plus, some of the panels got switched around at the last minute for the last day and the changes were much less interesting to me. I didn't get any autographs this year, but that was okay in the end.
The hotel was better than the Quality Inn last year overall, though one thing was awful, and that was the fact that I only got 1 hot shower the whole weekend, and that was on Thursday night when we checked in. All the other showers I took that weekend the water was room temperature or cold, and it was fucking miserable. We never got to use the pool, as it was too cold. There was a brief stretch of time Friday afternoon where it was warm enough to swim, but I passed on the opportunity.
I think that because Oni-Con happened to fall on the weekend of Halloween this inspired many more people to Cosplay this year, including me. My friend costumed himself as a character from the video game Assasin's Creed. I was dressed as a Star Trek TOS Science officer in a blue shirt; I had both the short sleeve version and the long sleeve with rank stripes, which I wore interchangeably depending on the weather and time of day.
All in all, I feel as though I had a near perfect convention experience. I'd been to Oni-Con before but it was only this year where I felt like I did nearly everything right by way of planning and execution. Finally I'm a seasoned convention goer, at least for Oni-Con. That said, I'm not entirely sure that I'm going back to Oni-Con next year. I am definitely going back to Anime Matsuri next Spring 2015, but as for Oni-Con, there I'm less certain. I might splurge on attending multiple days of Dickens on the Strand next December instead, or maybe I'll even look at attending A-Kon in Dallas again. I did bum around the artists' alley at A-Kon one year circa 2008 or 09, but didn't actually pay to attend the con itself. I know it's in FUNimation's back yard, but actually if I recall, FUNimation doesn't necessarily have a strong presence at A-Kon, or at least not as much as you might imagine. I feel like cumulatively I've gotten all I want out of Oni-Con these past several years. The special guests (beyond the regular guests) are always a crap-shoot and this year were two that I were really unfamiliar with. Anime Matsuri is going to have some really great guests next Spring so I'm already committed to attend that (plus I don't have to get a hotel for it).
I didn't spend any time in the video rooms because all of the shows being screened I had either already seen myself or had no interest in. Bringing along our Xbox/PS2 was definitely the right call, so we could set up our own "viewing room" in our hotel room. I even enjoyed some adult beverages while enjoying Sunday without God on Friday night (a 6 pack of Negra Modelo I bought at Kroger's on the way back from the Convention Center). The show was fun, but its ending is kind of bullshit.
Anyway, it was time well spent all around. Attending the RWBY marathon did mean we got to see less of Galveston itself than I originally had hoped, but I have no regrets. The RWBY marathon was awesome and I'm glad we were able to actually squeeze it into our busy con schedule.
Greg Ayres continued to be hilariously entertaining at every panel where he was featured that I managed to attend. The 18 and up panel was a blast; there was some repeat from the year before, but also some new material, which was great. The 3 man ADR Direction panel with Chris Bevins, Chris Ayres and Tallesin Jaffe was interesting and informative. I missed Clarine Harp & Carli Mosier this year, but did at least see Carli walking around the convention.
I'm still coming down from the emotional high of attending Oni-Con XI, bathing in the afterglow.
Rei Ayanami (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Just got back today from Oni-Con XI (that's 11 for you non-roman numeral reading types), which I, by pure coincidence managed to pair with a special marathon screening of Rooster Teeth's RWBY Volume 2 at Alamo Drafthouse Mason Park. The RWBY Vol.2 screening was awesome, you can see a definite improvement in overall graphic design, background detail, etc. between Season (volume) one and Season (volume) two. I was very happy to see the RWBY characters on the large cinema screen. The audience was a mix of hard core Rooster Teeth fans and casual anime fans, and more than a few of my fellow audience (especially the two RWBY cosplayers who sat next to us) we later saw in attendance at Oni-Con. Apparently they also attended RTX earlier this year. After the screening there was a live-streamed Q&A from the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas, but they accepted questions via Twitter from the remote Alamo locations.
After all that was done, it was still much earlier in the evening than I'd expected it to be, which was fortunate for us, because traffic on I-45 South was positively attrocious that night. Despite the headaches and traffic jams on the way to Galveston, we managed to put ourselves on the island just before 10pm. We checked into our room at the Red Roof Inn in Galveston, unloaded our car with our stuff, and traipsed over to the Galveston Island Convention Center to pick up our pre-registration all-con passes during the alloted pick-up time window (8pm to 11pm). It was a lovely, cool night out and a very pleasant walk both coming and going.
We got up bright and early, had breakfast at McDonald's over on 61st Street, then came back to our rooms, showered, dressed and headed to the Convention, I in my TOS Star Trek Science officer uniform, while my friend Stephen wore his favorite Naruto shirt. We hit the dealer's room first and I completed my first objective within 30 seconds of walking through the dealer's room door: finding an buying a full-sized Rei Ayanami figurine that would round out my Evangelion figure collection. I found her, pulled her off the shelf, handed the man my $40 USD and walked away beaming. I got an Erza Scarlet plushie that's coming with me to work next week. I also picked up some more adorable Fairy Tail keychain charms, including a Happy The Cat, a Lucy Heartfillia, and a Wendy; I also found a 3D charm/figurine of Mirajane that I added to my keychain also, along with my existing Erza Scarlet keychain figure.
And although as a general rule, I avoid purchasing DVDs and Blu-Rays at Anime Cons (prices are nearly always inflated and much cheaper online), I did make an exception and buy a remastered edition of the film KITE, which Right Stuf! keeps putting on back-order repeatedly. I decided to just grab it at Oni-Con this year so I can just flat out cancel that backorder (and maybe put in a pre-order for the next Kill La Kill volume instead). Speaking of Kill La Kill, I gave some serious thought to buying an awesome Ryuko Matoi charm but was at a loss to figure out where I'd put her. They had another one of her wielding her giant scissor blade but I didn't like that one nearly as much. I resolved to get it the next day but by then they were sold out and I was sad, because I'd had the flash of brilliance to add her to my ID badge at work instead of my keychain, but alas, not this year. Also, I found that Section 23 Films, a.k.a. Sentai Filmworks had a booth of their own doing direct-to-consumer selling, and I couldn't pass up the remastered Fate/Stay Night original series on Blu-Ray, nor the re-imagined Fate/Stay Night spinoff, Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya on Blu-Ray. I was suitably impressed by this "Magical Girl" re-imagining and its eye-popping visuals that I felt the Blu-Ray purchase was justified. It wasn't until I looked at my receipt later that I saw it read "Section 23 Films", which is one of the partner companies with Sentai Filmworks. I wavered over this decision a little, but not long.
I passed on some adorable plushies, in particular one of the "Palm-top tiger" tiger-stripped cat from Toradora! I do like me some plushes, but they attract dust like crazy and I'm running out of shelf space. There was also a plush of Aisaka Taiga herself, but honestly I'd rather have a normal PVC figure of Taiga than a plush doll. There were also some interesting/risque hug pillows that I gave a pass on, including one lewd one of Rei & Asuka from Evangelion going full lesbian on each other while half-dressed in their plug suits. It was kinda hot, but no way I'm keeping that one around the house where others might see it.
The figurines were once again very reasonably priced, unlike the Highway Robbery prices generally on offer at Anime Matsuri at the GRB in Houston earlier this year, that I mostly simply pointed at and laughed and walked away from. Speaking of figures, I'm also super stoked to pick up the second generation of RWBY figures that actually resemble the show's character designs like real anime figurines. The first gen figures were, let's face it, pretty rough. Looks like they hired someone who does anime figurines as their primary business and the 2nd gen versions look fantastic.
I had very good luck with the panels I attended, all were entertaining and/or informative, usually both. I do lament that the "Understanding Evangelion" panel failed to happen, but that was one of my only disappointments this con season.
More later as it's time for dinner, but that's the immediate "after action" report ;-)
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