AWA Update II
Gia of A Geek By Any Other Name [giapet.net] was live-blogging so I don’t have to.
links:
Funimation Presentation
Bandai Presentation
I’ll follow up with some of the items she glossed over from the Funimation panel (the “usual industry stuff” — likely combined with whatever nuggets I encounter at the Snapshot of the Industry panel in 10 minutes) and might even surf over to the respective web sites to post a few links (hopefully each co. has a single new release page, since I don’t feel like typing that much for what is basically an ad — an unpaid advertisement at that)
Also seen & heard:
- Attended Jake Tarbox’s panel on “Manga as High Art” — part of an ever-developing presentation that is going to make for one heck of a pseudo-academic commentary/polemic by the time he is done tweaking it and actually writes it up. (if he writes it up.) I saw him give the same panel at Dragon*Con — I’d post a summary but I’d hate to steal his thunder. Part II (his “how to read manga” panel) is Sunday so I’ll ask him if he’s posting, where he’s posting, and how handily I can link to it; I’m not sure if he’s online at all, though. And even so, I won’t steal his stuff unless he tells me I can. At worst I’ll say no more about it except to highly recommend his panel if you happen to catch his name in a future con program, at best maybe I’ll pretend to be a journalist long enough to conduct an interview. No promises, though, as despite (because of?) my print history at the old college rag I’m just *not very good* at that sort of thing.
(posting my own opinions, loudly? That I seem to have a real knack for.)
- Mr. Fernandez was kind enough to sign my Speed Racer box — Actually the tin that shipped with the special edition of disc 3 which surprisingly he hadn’t seen before. I hope the Sharpie stays on the metal. (Peter expressed the same concern; he signed it anyway. A living piece of American anime history, and a gentleman always; it was an honor to shake his hand.) I hate to cover it with clear packing tape (which I might do to prevent smudges) but since this is in fact the case I use to hold all 5 DVDs I’m thinking I need to do something or forever be extra-super-careful with it. Spray fixative is only for pencils and graphite, right?
Will think of something. And an aside: isn’t it amazing how casually we use the first names of people we don’t really know, just because they’re famous.
- The line for Speed Racer’s autograph was amazingly short (he was in the movie too, guys, in a cameo as the race announcer for the first race) so I was able to catch the last half hour of the Steampunk Cosplay panel. If you’re really interested then a GIS search will give you a feel for the panel — which was largely just a slide show of many many costume examples — though you’d be missing the expert commentary from the panelists about fabrics and finding steampunk ‘junk’ and inspiration, and goats (had to be there, sorry).
- Imagine a room full of Gundam otaku, watching Gundam trailers (in chronological order) and commenting on which one is their favourite — and… we’re done. The factual stuff (minus the downloaded video) is on wikipedia actually—there is a whole Gundam Wiki in fact—but then you’d miss out on the quintet of TruFans sitting right behind you with their own running commentary to go along side, over, and irrespective of what the actual panelists were saying.
Still… Giant Robots. Love Giant Robots. ♥
- Funimation and Bandai, op cit.
Jocks is better than the hotel bar but $7.75 for a Guinness? Robbery. Tasty, delicious robbery, mitigated only slightly by the fact that the mugs are in fact just a shade larger than an imperial pint (21 oz.). Still feel like I’m getting ‘mugged’ [har har]
One more panel, maybe one more post before midnight, but it’s home again — then back noonish tomorrow.
