Animazement 2012 Coverage
Justice was brought to Animazement thanks to 12th
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Hey cool kids! More con coverage time. Animazement held its 15th convention (my 4th attending) at the Convention Center in Raleigh, NC, USA. Jrow Weekend (Anime & NASCAR racing) was green, and it was a blast! Don’t worry, I won’t talk racing here… |
“Re-sublimity” by KOTOKO
MAPPA on the Map with Masao Maruyama
I attended a Masao Maruyama panel about MAPPA which, as you may know, is currently producing Sakamichi no Apollon. MAPPA is an acronym for Maruyama Animation Production Project Association. After an introduction about himself and Madhouse and what’s led him to form MAPPA, I asked a couple questions.
- How’s progress with Dream Machine (Satoshi Kon’s last movie) going? Maruyama-san explained that he formed MAPPA because Madhouse intended to stop production of the movie and he really wanted to continue making it. Dream Machine is still many years away from launching and funds still need to be gathered in order to make the movie. Let’s all cross our fingers and hope it can happen many years down the road, because we all know how amazing a Kon movie can be.
- How does the joint production of Apollon work with Tezuka? He was with Tezuka for some period of time and thinks of the staff there as family. Because Apollon is MAPPA’s first real project, there is a trusted head (Maruyama) but the studio is new, so as to not be considered a financial risk, he got help from a more established studio (Tezuka) to collaborate on production of Apollon. MAPPA has handled most of the work, though episodes 3 & 5 were produced by Tezuka.
KOTOKO in concert
(They were uptight about photography and video, so sorry for this only being a textual report.)
KOTOKO was there both performing and doing a Q&A. You can hear her in the Accel World ending theme “unfinished” and see that funny vid clip above. Not really the most enjoyable Q&A segment as the presentation was being read from the slides and the questions being asked were too basic which Kotoko didn’t really expand upon much. One thing I did think was interesting was her work with visual novels; she hasn’t played one, but when she writes music, she does read through the scripts. Autograph GET, but I wasn’t shelling $25 for a CD/DVD.
The concert was a better experience as you would hope. With her band cosplaying as the Lupin III guys, she performed many of her anime hits, including the aforementioned unfinished, Hayate no Gotoku, and closed it out with the one song I absolutely needed/wanted to hear, Re-sublimity (from this yuri anime).
La Clef does a good job covering more details about the concert from his/her blog with full setlist and such.
Cosplaying – Rule 63 In Effect
There were so many genderbent Luffys over the weekend. I didn’t see a male Luffy until late Saturday.
Link must’ve drank a sexy potion.
Hey look, a genderbent Saber!
Yukimura Sanada from Sengoku Basara
Madoka so kawaii ^^
Yosuke was headed to the late-night Persona 4 panel.
(btw, that panel was scheduled for 12:30 am instead of Midnight 😐 )
You don’t wanna see the gif of him charging up his saber 😛
photo courtesy Emma Marx, WRAL.com
My crush for a game character has been transferred to this girl <3
Full Cosplay Gallery HERE
Masquerade Comptetition – Please, more bits where anime characters dance to rock songs -_____-
It’s been a few years since I went to the Masquerade Competition. It was really funny the first time I went (as I still giggle about the Legend of Zelda dating show), but this time I thought it was really boring and disappointing. All but maybe 1 or 2 of the bits revolved around people dancing, some to songs I could hear on pop/rock radio. The only one that was anything close to decent was the Baccano! cast, but mainly just because there were 10 people on stage instead of 2 or 3. Also, the kid singing the Pokemon song wasn’t cute. Stop d’awwing because a youth is over-delivering on a song.
Loot – Buying the Voice of Kazuhiko Inoue
Let’s see here. We have a Nyanko-sensei figure with a talking base, nendoroids from Bakemono (with seemingly countless adjustable pieces), a couple Madoka Magica girls, and my mandatory One Piece figure purchase of Shanks.
Shoutouts
- Sean Ryan, Alpha Counter – I’ve podcasted with him before and met the guy for what felt like a maximum of 60 seconds where we basically admitted we don’t listen to each other’s podcasts. We didn’t actually admit it, but ya know, he does two shows, I do two shows; we’re creators moreso than listeners. Check out his podcast, though the flavor isn’t the same as that of MetaVerse.
- Boomslank – An artist site local to me, I walked by their art gallery a couple times and was really impressed by some of P-shinobi’s art. Imagine this, but in business card form. I’ve since gone online and ordered their “Long Distance” poster.
- @trancerdancer – The power of twitter. I had looked up #animazement and saw a tweet from her talking about her Inga cosplay. She was excited when I asked for a pic, and sure enough she was the same person I’d just seen.
- Yi, Listless Ink – I was surprised to notice her blog credited at a Yuri panel I went to Friday evening. The people hosting did not give their own credits, so I know not where to find them.
Fun times were had this year, but next year… I’m gonna get a panel for Anivision. I’ll force and nag the living F out of my buddies until they give up and say yes.
About Jrow
Produces the MetaVerse podcast. Also plays games and watches sports of all sorts. Is an actual Pirate King.
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 338 comments
YOU SAW KOTOKO IN CONCERT!!!! I HATE YOU!!!
figuratively speaking of courseI love her soooooo much~~~ the work she did for Kanazuki no Miko was amazing!! I <3 that anime so much, man that concert would have been so much fun to dance to!Man that Lighting cosplay was dam hawt~~ claps for her! That costume must have been a lot of effort. The Yukimura and Motochika costumes were amazing too. A Masamune would have been kewl.
I completely squealed over the FT picture from your gallery. Thank god you don't have man Faye from Cowboy Bebop -_-; he was always a hit at the con I used to go to….
So did you cosplay like OC? If not who would you consider cosplaying thou I think I already know the answer.
LuffyPOWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 338 comments
I just noticed the guy behind Lighting in cosplaying Rainbow Dash XDDDDD that is awesome XD
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
The FT people were cool, and I didn’t even know that Motochika was another Basara cosplay. Really detailed with the weapons.
I’ve wanted to cosplay since the first time I went, but I have not. The most I’ve done is a Luffy straw hat, but maybe I could do Lupin next year with green jacket, yellow tie, black shirt and slacks.
POWUH: 400-499 with 489 comments
Kokoro in concert. Amazing. The opening picture is epic. Need to save it on my computer
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
When I asked them for a photo, I think they had trouble seeing me and trying to gather the others, but it turned out real well.
POWUH: Meta Team and Ringleader Extraordinaire~ with 6433 comments
Lol @ the main pic. Looks like you had lots of fun! Your haul was pretty neat too (Bake cast and Nyanko-sensei~ <3)
Surprised at MAPPA panel but good thing you asked some useful questions. So, Satoshi's movie was the main reason behind MAPPA's creation, interesting!
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
“Neko Janai!” is one of the phrases. I’ll play his voice box on the next podcast. 🙂 And the Bake peeps are currently standing on the windowsill above my sink. Madoka/Mami went to office.
Very few panels featured current anime in the discussion. It was a crowd of me, Xcom and maybe 6 others asking other interesting questions about budget and how he chooses works to adapt.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Whoa, lots of Sengoku Basara cosplayers. The Motochika in the full album is pretty awesome. My favourite has to be the Mirai Nikki cosplayers in your header image though XD
Animazement always seems to have amazing guests for panels and concerts. SO LUCKY. I actually thought anime concerts were shorter than most normal concerts, but based on that setlist they’re pretty long. I hope AN gets a good band (that I know) one year…
It’s nice to hear about MAPPA, since I know so little about them. Did they have translators?
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
If I’d known that was a Basara character (Motochika), I’d a put it in the post.
Kotoko is easily the most popular musical act that I know of who has been to Animazement. With increasing attendance (7600 this year), I’m hopeful they can keep getting strong musical acts. I’ve always wanted abingdon boys school or some other rock band to perform, cause that would be awesome~
I cropped the photo, but there’s a guy next to him handling the translating.
POWUH: iLurker with 1 comments
Hi, I saw that you mentioned my blog when talking about the KOTOKO concert. I was surprised, but it’s cool. Thanks for that and for mentioning one of the songs performed (Hayate no Gotoku) that I had a hard time remembering (now I remember it). 🙂
I traveled about 600 miles just to see the concert (>_<), but it was worth it. 🙂
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
I didn’t have the full setlist because at one point I did go out looking for info about the masquerade competition, so you filled in the blanks and also mentioned her costume changes. Coming out with the samurai sword on her waist was really cool.
It is a very rare opportunity to see her in the states as she said during the Q&A (only her 2nd time), so any distance isn’t too far to see her.
POWUH: 400-499 with 406 comments
Got to love that header image! 12th brings justice everywhere!
Those Basara cosplays AHHHH
Nice loot! I couldn’t see any Bakemonogatari figures at Anime North when I went
I wanted some….POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
I was real close to buying this Senjougahara, but I much like the idea of having 3 characters over 1 for a cheaper price.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
More Anime convention goods. Bakemonogatari stuff, must get.
Long live the cosplayers.
A life sized Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII. Another achievement fullfilled.
I saw OC’s version of Izaya and now we a female Luffy. Who’s next on the list?
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
I’ve developed a memory bank of the people who sell stuff there, and on a personal bias, there’s at least 3 dealers I can’t buy from since they’re just there for business and can’t bother to look you in the eyes or be nice.
Who’s next? I’d like to see more crossover cosplay, like the Silent Hill/Sailor Moon pics on Kotaku just recently.
POWUH: 500-599 with 543 comments
I’m not sure if I wanted to see that genderbent Saber…
But Link was looking good.
And like many others have said, you are very lucky to have seen Kotoko in concert. I would have had $25 out so quickly.
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
Lol, luckily it’s not like a man-Faye situation as Kitty mentioned earlier.
I had the dealer’s room in mind to buy stuff, so that was what was preventing me the most to not get it. I still have her autograph in my program book at least.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Gender bent Luffy and Link? HAaawwttt <3
LOL @ Genderbent Saber that was hilarious xD
I WANT TO GO TO A CON WITH YOU ONE DAY! YES...
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
Whenever you go to one in Florida, gotta let me know ahead of time!
POWUH: iLurker with 1 comments
As a participant in the masquerade, I highly disagree with what you said about our masquerade. I am offended by it highly and everyone else who was in the masquerade I showed this too. I was in the masquerade, but I won’t say which group I was with. If you knew how absolutely exhausting and difficult it is to, first of all, write a skit under 2 minutes, then try and find someone who is even willing to participate with you, is more difficult than you know.
Before you post something negative, try actually participating in one of these competitions.
A lot of us have to rewrite things literally at the last minute because someone has ditched us without even an I’m Sorry, after months of planning and practice. Then in our heartbroken state we figure that we have put so much work into the skit that we should go ahead an perform and rewrite the skit.
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
I don’t want to respond like I’m not talking to an actual human being, so I want to at least be civil when addressing your disagreement. We’ll probably just have to live with agreeing to disagree on this item for 2012, but I don’t mind having a discussion as long as it’s healthy debate.
As I addressed in my opinions of the masquerade, the lack of variety in the sketches was what hurt it the most for me. I understand that Animazement probably doesn’t vet the show and it’s a fan-made show by fans for fans, but had the masquerade sported a more comedic-centric sketch or something borderline cool like the Jacabals (though they were professionals brought from Japan), it’s possible I would’ve taken less of a negative viewpoint on the masquerade as a whole and its individual performances.
It’s a shame that your specific sketch (judging from your second paragraph) involved a key person dropping out on you which I’m sure provided a lot of fuel for your argument against mine. I will at least commend you on trying to make something rewritten or new after an unplanned ditching. I’m sure it’s not an easy thing to get booked for those kind of events which is one of the convention’s biggest.
However, with what I saw up on that stage, none of the performances delighted me. I’d imagine that a high percentage of the fans in Ballrooms A-B would take your side in your disagreement with me, but in this blog post, I only intend on offering the reader my own opinion(s). I may not have the experience of cosplaying and performing that you have in my own playbook and any masquerade competitors at Animazement or other conventions across the globe can ignore my words if they choose to, but I still feel that I’m reserved the right to express my opinion as a fan who attended the event regardless of experience or lack thereof.
POWUH: iLurker with 1 comments
I’m not particularly sure what exactly you were looking for in the Masquerade, but keep in mind that these are NOT professional performers. With only 15 acts at 2 minutes max, you’re not going to get a whole lot of variety, especially considering that most of the acts in the Masquerade were relatively new to performing and dance skits are the easiest to put together.
My brother and I were one of those acts. This was his first Masquerade and he spent the better part of a year making his costume. We originally intended our skit as a walk-on… until our father died from a stroke the previous Wednesday.
We wanted to dedicate the skit to him. But we decided, if we did that, we had to do “more” than a walk-on and, in two days, put together an actual skit. The audience seemed to enjoy the humor we put into it.
For something we put together at literally the last minute, I believe we did an impressive job and I believe our prize reflects that. I couldn’t be prouder of my brother for the effort he put into his costume and more or less being the centerpiece for the skit.
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
I know they’re not pros, but I’m still allowed to think everyone sucked. Deal with it. I’m just one person and it sounds like you got the satisfaction you craved from the crowd.
And enough with the guilt tripping.