Crispin Freeman at Super-Con 2009 in San Jose, California. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Sorry for my long absence from the blog. I have been doing a lot lately, just haven't been blogging about it very much. Anime Matsuri 2015 was a blast, way better organized than 2014. I attended Crispin Freeman's mythology lecture, which was awesome. I also got Stephanie Sheh's autograph. Alas, I did not get any of the other guests' autographs because starting this year they began an internal ticketing system for VA autographs that quickly sold out unless you were mega super on the ball about it. Also, they banned attendees from taking selfies with VAs, which really sucked. I know it was in the interest of speeding things along, but I thought that plus the ticketing system was overkill and it really really sucked.
I enjoyed Stephanie Sheh & Luci Christian's joint panel on the Business of Voice Acting and I hope it served as a reality check for a lot of naive fans who think they too would like to be VAs someday.
I attended a 3 "fan" panels of varying quality. The Psycho-Pass panel was a disorganized cluster-fuck. The Legend of Korra/Avatar: The Last Airbender fan panel was *amazing*, and an exemplar of how a good fan panel should be done. The RWBY fan panel on Sunday was enough to get me to attend the con that day (I usually skip out on Sundays at Anime Cons). It was hosted by a single Yang cosplayer but she did a decent enough job keeping it going. I was also disappointed more RWBY fans didn't stick around for it as I saw a lot of Ruby Rose & Blake Belladonna and Yang cosplay the previous two days at AM2015. Oh, and the Dealer's Room at AM2015 actually had reasonable prices this year and not the Highway Robbery prices I've come to expect at Anime Matsuri...which meant I actually spent some bank in the Dealer's Room, picking up a couple of figurines and paying about what I've come to expect to pay in the Oni-Con dealer's room. Although I didn't get Todd Haberkorn's autograph, I did get to attend his first Fan Panel of the day and that was fun. My friend Stephen stayed up for the 18+ panel and said it was great. One bone I have to pick with GRB, they have proprietary WiFi ($12 / day) that has a strong signal, but if you opt to go with cellular data you're sometimes screwed because phone reception in some of those conference rooms sucks goat balls. I mean, one, maybe two bars tops. It was a pain. And you can't always find a handy outlet or the time needed to use it to charge up your phone. I needed one of those emergency chargers with AA batteries inside. By the end of the day each day at the con, my iPhone 5 was nearly dead. I had a car charger, so at least I could re-charge on the drive home and thereby have a working phone with the hands-free link in my 2013 Honda Civic....
My cosplay was my usual Star Trek gear, and it was fun. I got a Vulcan salute from a Japanese lady manning one of the dealer booths, which I gladly returned.
I still haven't decided yet if I'm going back to Oni-Con this year or not. I had thought I wouldn't, but I've been reconsidering of late since it coincides with Halloween again. Moreover, if I go, been contemplating keeping my hotel room through Sunday evening, so I'm not in such a rush to get outta Dodge that morning and can actually attend the last day of the Con in a relaxed way and not worry about parking, etc, and moreover after the closing ceremony I can finally enjoy a bit of Galveston proper the rest of the day without having to dash back to Houston. If my friend can afford to take Monday off also, I'll invite him along. I did do a lot last year, like the Hentai Fest, etc. that I'd passed on in years past. Feel no need to see it again. It was fun/weird but I get the shtick, not interested in repeating it. I also liked being able to watch anime in our down time at the hotel on my friend's Xbox. We kept food costs down by relying a lot on fast food joints like Popeye's Chicken and McDonalds which were close by. Red Roof Inn WiFi was definitely superior to Comfort Inn's the year before that. I will plan on attending Anime Matsuri 2016 in any case, which will be in late February instead of over Easter as has been the case for some time now.
Other than that, have been watching a lot of Old School Anime via Hoopla! Digital, a streaming service available in Houston-area libraries. I recently finished up Dirty Pair Flash, Seasons 1-3, and the Dirty Pair OVA series.
Those were a lot of fun; I also finished up Season 1 of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and have started Season 2. I'm working my way through Season 1 of Irresponsible Captain Tylor, and Season 1 of the original 1970s Americanized Star Blazers which is cheesy as hell but pushes all my childhood nostalgia buttons. I also am watching assorted other series on Hoopla! Digital but I'm focused on the above titles as a priority. I also watched a couple of good Anime films, like Patema Inverted, Welcome To the Space Show, et. al. which were a lot of fun, and the Ghost in the Shell 2.0 movie, which I watched before starting the TV series. It was beautiful but the pacing is very slow. Speaking of Star Blazers, I also watched the live action Space Battleship Yamato on FUNimation.com. I watched the dub, featuring the voice talents of Rob McCollum and Trina Nishimura. Also, keeping with the 1970s vibe, for May the Fourth, aka "Star Wars Day", I watched Plastic Galaxy, a delightful documentary about the history of Star Wars toys and how it transformed the Kenner Toy Company from a bit player to one of the biggest toy companies in the world. It was the perfect soul candy for Star Wars Day and again pushed all my childhood nostalgia buttons as a Gen X'er who got to see the first Star Wars film in theaters in 1977 and couldn't shut up about it for weeks. The documentary was the result of a successful Kickstarter project, and backers got their names listed in the credits.
I also recently finished Mahoromatic: Automatic Maiden on Amazon Prime Video; it was okay. Not great, but okay. Product of its time, wouldn't fly today. Also finished up Tenchi Muyo: War on Geminar. I watched it streaming on FUNimation.com as I don't own a physical copy. It was mildly entertaining, slightly better than Tenchi Muyo GXP, say. Oh, and I've been watching the hell out of Ranma 1/2 on Neon Alley. Redheaded pigtail girl is hot & busty, what can I say? I'm so glad Neon Alley decided to post the first 40-some-odd English dubbed episodes of this classic show. I had been running out of things to watch on their platform, having finished Buso Renkin some time ago. I still have a few shows on Crackle.com that I aim to get back to eventually, like Ruroni Kenshin and Viper's Creed. I also looked at shows on Viewster but most are sub-only and therefore not of interest to me.
Speaking of, though, I did attend only yesterday a screening of the sub-only but critically acclaimed show Space Brothers at Alamo Drafthouse, where we got to watch Episodes 1-4 on the big screen. It was amazingly good. I was genuinely surprised how good. It's a very Japanese story, so I'm not surprised it was not dubbed. I don't normally go in for sub-only releases, but I do make exceptions (Aku No Hana, et. al.)
Well, that's a "quick" rundown of what I've been doing anime-wise of late. Hope you feel caught up now. Well, it's time to hit the hay. Stayed up late watching the Houston Rockets beat LAC in Game 2 of Round 2 of the NBA Finals. Arigato! Sayonara!