Animazement 2010!!!! Chansu's Review of DAY 3 (Saturday)

Guess what? This is chansu with another review of Animazement 2010, right as it happens! This time I’m reviewing Saturday’s panels, games, activities, cosplayers, etc. Well, let’s go shall we?

RPGHero and Chansu’s 4 Day Animazement Journal
Day 3 - VA’s got spunk, Makeup of bird gunk, Classic anime funk. Dig?!

Some notable cosplayers of today: Crocodile and Perona from One Piece (posing with RPGHero in the final post), lots of Fire Fist Aces, Heartless from KH, fem Ulquiorra, Avatars, Cheschire Cat, lots of Luffys, the whole cast of Kuroshitsuji, Lucky Star, and Persona 3, among others. Saturday is always the busiest, and by far the most exciting. There was so much to do that I was mind-boggled, and the late night partying the night before didn’t help any. So I took the practical route: I used Saturday to obtain things I can brag about back home.


Upon entering the con, the first place I went was the dealer’s room. Larger than any dealer’s room I’ve been in before, this place sold tons of anime DVDs, manga, figurines, posters, bags, wall scrolls, t-shirts, plushies, doujin, artbooks, kimono, and much much more. Being the poor inexperienced con-goer I am, I had very little money upon reaching this nirvana of anime goods and was only able to afford some mini-posters and a large poster of Naruto Shippuuden’s Kakashi Gaiden.


Of course I bought this poster on purpose because we were going to meet the infamous Kazuhiko Inoue! Besides being the Japanese voice actor for Kakashi, he also worked on Candy Candy, Gravitation, and other video game voices. His personality was refreshing; he had the feel of a pro but was humble and worked for the fans. He even said “I’ll always be by your side” and “I love you” 10 times in all 10 of his voices for the sake of a single fangirl. Inoue-sensei is apparently a “trooper” too.

[Inoue-sensei signing our poster!! I'm sure RPGHero was so excited at that moment!]

Next RPGHero and I got in line for autographs from Inoue-sensei and Kappei Yamaguchi-sensei, the voice of L (Death note) and Usopp (One Piece). So of course RPGHero needed his fix of what’s right: a signature on his Usopp nose. Of course all pictures will be in the final post so hang tight! But what a line that was, who knew voice actors were so famous?

[Richard commentining on RPGHero's question... too bad I didn't get the part where he asks about the Usopp nose!]

During the downtime we visited Paranormal themes in anime, which actually turned out to be cancelled and replaced with the Richard Ian Cox Show which was basically Cox stealing a panel for the hell of it. At first I wasn’t too into his sense of humour (like Vic more and in general I don’t enjoy standup comedy) but he was able to entertain us thoroughly with absolutely random and pointless anecdotes. He told us many important things: about an anime where the protagonist gets drunk off chocolate, "http://shitmykidsruined.tumblr.com/," how to dub your own anime, and many other things. It seems like most voice actors have phenomenal sense of humor and light-heartedness; making them a hit at cons. Is that just the difference between American and Japanese cultures or just voice actors?


Back in the Video Game Room, I discovered a new shmup (shoot-em-up, like Touhou) in an Impress arcade cabinet (I couldn’t read the name, gimme a break!). Like Touhou, the character choice is an all-female cast but with more… appeal per se? I think they’re called “cute em ups” instead of “shoot em ups”. But the motif is more military-like. It’s an arcade game so it took a while to get used to dodging bullets with a joystick, but it was just as much fun. Besides that I can’t say much about the plot, since it was in Japanese. So if you’re ever in a Japanese arcade or Animazement, check Impress out!

[I didn’t want to give the name of the game out, but it’s called “Muchi Muchi Pork”… please don’t judge me, I just like shmups…!]

The next panel we visited was Ana’s Ikimaru kabuki theatre hour with shamisen workshop. It was a nice little panel which featured video on Geisha, Kabuki, and Shamisen performances with a few commentaries by what I assumed was “Ana.” I pretty much blanked out when she started talking, but the Kabuki segment was very interesting. I didn’t know that the females featured in Kabuki were actually men in drag! And their performances are very artfully executed and actually intrigued me. Here’s an example below, one that was recommended!

[the narrations help a lot, without them the story is hard to understand]

And don’t forget the shamisen! Such an awesome instrument, made into a famous contemporary item by Yoshida Brothers. How about I give you a quick example? This is the video they played in the panel, watch how skilled these guys are! They take a historical Japanese instrument and ROCK!

Afterwards, I thought I’d go to the Anime Rave, but the music wasn’t as interesting as the day before (it was all my favorite songs... with a thick techno beat covering up their greatness, making it a disgusting trance of fail) so I decided to sit in on some late-night anime showings. The anime I saw were Ranma ½ and Nana. Who would’ve thought that the very first anime reviews would be from Animazement? Well, at least forgive me for knowing next to jack about these anime, since they only played 4 episodes at a time.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with Ranma, so Nana is basically about two girls named Nana who couldn’t be any different: one is from a normal country town and the other lived on the rough streets of the city. Although they look and act very different, they both share aggravatingly painful pasts when it comes to romance, and they’re both are on their way to Tokyo for love. They both happen to sit next to eachother and hit it off, and they fatefully meet again to become roommates. It may sound like a gushy happy-go-lucky anime, but it’s very dramatic and intense at moments, not to mention it holds very mature values when it comes to love. All in all it’s recommended!


So! That wraps up my review of Saturday’s fun! Check back later for the short review of Sunday, filled with images that will make you wish you were there!


Until later, my otaku brethren!


-chansu