Ani-Gamers Podcast #022 - There Is a Fly on the Microphone

Hosts: Evan "Vampt Vo" Minto, Erin and Noah
Topic: New York Anime Festival 2009

Recorded live from the 2009 New York Anime Festival, this episode features none other than the fearsome anime podcasting couple, Erin and Noah of the Ninja Consultant Podcast! We talk about what we did at the convention and delve into some totally off-topic conversations that may or may not be completely enthralling. You decide!

Next episode will feature Al and Kate from the Reverse Thieves blog as we tackle shōjo anime that appeal to male viewers. It's already recorded, and I can guarantee that it's going to be a pretty fun show.

Show notes and links can be found after the break.

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(Runtime: 27 minutes)

[0:00:00] Intro: Wildarmshero, also known as "wah," recorded at the New York Anime Festival 2009

[0:00:11] Opening Song: "R.O.D Theme" by Taku Iwasaki (R.O.D. OVA opener)

[0:00:30] Right off the bat we get into the NYAF09 discussion, despite our full mouths due to delicious sandwiches, granola bars, and yogurt. (For more on Erin and Noah, check out their podcast and read Erin on Anime News Network, where she has recently taken over Bamboo Dong's "Shelf Life" column.)

[0:01:22] Noah talks about the yōkai panel he attended, and he and Erin explain what yōkai are.

[0:03:40] Erin ties in the news and announcements from the con with a discussion of the Del Rey manga Yōkaiden.

[0:05:55] More generally, Evan moves us along to the various industry panels and the relative dearth of manga industry representation.

[0:08:56] And OF COURSE, we talk about Tomino-Con as well.

[0:13:40] More license announcements (and definitions of gothic styles of theatre).

[0:15:20] The CPM Retrospective was really fun, especially since they were able to be very candid about the titles that they put out (since the company is now out of business).

[0:19:00] FUNimation announcements (Afro Samurai Emmy, Initial D rerelease, Blassreiter and Dragonaut licenses).

[0:21:26] Evan saw Cencoroll, but Erin and Noah didn't. We do our best to discuss it anyway.

[0:26:12] We get kicked out of the dining area before we're even a half-hour in, forcing us to end the recording! And then there's just some basic podcast information before the end of the show.

[0:27:17] Ending Song: "WORLD END (Instrumental)" by FLOW (Code Geass R2 second opener)

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Con Report: New York Anime Festival 2009

Or click here for the Photo Gallery New York Anime Festival 2009
September 25-27, 2009
Jacob K. Javits Center
New York, NY, USA

Last month we saw the final hurrah for a fantastic convention. The New York Anime Festival, started three years ago by the folks at Reed Exhibitions as an anime response to the New York Comic Con, is finally folding back into its sister convention. The merge means that the new version of the con will be filled with an incredible amount of events for all kinds of fans, but it also means that the anime focus of NYAF will be gone.

This year the New York Anime Festival once again impressed me with its wide variety of programing from both fans and professionals. There were the typical guest panels, with introductions to voice acting scheduled next to Question and Answer sessions with Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino, but there were also a fair number of fan-run panels about things like Korean MMOs and Japanese ghost stories.

Even so, I was disappointed with the way the events schedule turned out. There were times (mostly early in the morning) when the convention was hosting three different events that I wanted to go to, followed by hours of a thin schedule with panels in which I had little to no interest. Perhaps this year's events situation was perpetuated by the lacking industry presence at the con this year. Bandai Entertainment's massive booth from last year was missing in action, and Yen Press, a New York-based manga publisher known for their great convention showings, was almost entirely AWOL.

But with all that free time came a chance to delve into things that I would not normally check out. On Friday I watched Cencoroll, the new anime short created almost entirely by one man (Atsuya Uki), and later that night I stopped by the Cosplay Variety show, thinking I would find nothing more than silly fanboy/fangirl antics as usual. Much to my surprise, however, I was rewarded for staying through some of the more inconsequential presentations with an operatic performance by Mario Bueno and a whole troupe of cosplayers, who acted out the final scenes of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion to the tune of Coldplay's hit single "Viva La Vida." Not being a huge fan of cosplaying myself, I didn't think that anything at the Variety Show could impress me, but Bueno's breathtaking performance completely blew me away.

Saturday night was my personal highlight of the con, despite the fact that most of the fun wasn't even directly related to the con. (Not a ringing endorsement of the NYAF schedule, unfortunately.) We started off with a massive "Bloggers Roundtable" panel, featuring ten different outlets (Anime Almanac, Anime Vice, Anime wa Bakuhatsu da, Manga Worth Reading, The Gaming Dungeon, Manga.About.com, Ogiue Maniax, Reverse Thieves, Subatomic Brainfreeze, and, of course, Ani-Gamers) representing our varied views on the anime blogging scene. The panel – on video thanks to Anime Diet – went pretty well despite our being scheduled opposite the cosplay masquerade and the resulting lack of attendees, but the best part of our whole blogging reunion was the karaoke right after the panel. There are few things more fun than hanging out with a bunch of insane anime bloggers, singing "Take On Me" and "God Knows" late into the night.

Overall, I think the New York Anime Festival was really starting to come into its own this year, despite the crowded Javits Center with its expensive food and out-of-the-way location. With a truly big-name Guest of Honor (Tomino) and an open floor plan that allowed for more free navigation, it seemed like the folks at Reed Exhibitions were beginning to balance the needs of a professional convention with the desires of fans. It's a shame that the con will be folded into Comic Con next year, but my hope is that the lessons learned in organizing the past three years of NYAF will carry over to next fall's gigantic event. If it's anything like 2009's New York Anime Festival, it's sure to be a blast!

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Click for our New York Anime Festival 2009 coverage

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Bloggers of the Roundtable, in sweet video glory

You've read our blogs and heard our podcasts, but now you can watch me and all of my blogger cohorts make fools of ourselves in real life at our "Bloggers Roundtable" panel at New York Anime Festival 2009. The entire panel was captured by Anime Diet's Moritheil, so head on over to their site to watch the video. It was a pretty fun panel, even though we were scheduled opposite the Cosplay Masquerade, resulting in lackluster attendance. What really surprised me about it, however, is that we managed to move from very basic, pseudo-self-promotional discussion to some quite interesting conversations with the audience about blogger-reader expectations and the importance of comments in the general anime discourse.

The panelists include the writers from Anime Almanac, Anime Vice, Anime wa Bakuhatsu da, Manga Worth Reading, The Gaming Dungeon, Manga.About.com, Ogiue Maniax, Reverse Thieves, and Subatomic Brainfreeze. Oh, and Ed Chavez, previously of the MangaCast (now Marketing Director at Vertical, Inc.), comes up to the panel partway through to contribute his own thoughts and opinions to the conversation.

Watch the NYAF09 Bloggers Roundtable

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NYAF09: Viz Media panel report

Viz Media usually holds their industry panels in the lazy Sunday morning block of conventions, and NYAF 2009 was no exception. At the con to talk about Viz's new licenses were Candice Uyloan and Lex Scheuble (pictures not available due to some trouble with my camera), who went over all of the facets of Viz's anime, manga, and novel lines.

New licenses were of course the big talk of the panel, so here's what Viz has got going for them in the anime and manga spheres:

• Inu Yasha: The Final Act (simulcast on ShonenSunday.com/Anime): October 3, 2009
• Monster (premiering on SyFy channel): October 12, 2009
• Rin-ne by Rumiko Takahashi (simultaneous Japan-U.S. GN release): October 20, 2009
• Gente by Natsumi Ono (sequel to Ristorante Paradiso): June 2010
• Library Wars by Kiiro Yumi: June 2010
• Vampire Knight Fan Book: September 2010
• Grand Guignol Orchestra by Kaori Yuki: October 2010
• Nice to Meet You, Kamisama by Julietta Suzuki: November 2010

In terms of the current lineup, Candice and Lex were very happy to mention that Naruto Shippuden will be airing this fall on Disney XD, though they haven't gotten any word on how much (if at all) Disney will be censoring the program for American television audiences. The new 30-volumes-in-6-months release strategy for One Piece also got some mention prompting questions from the audience about the possible expansion of such speedy releases to other triple-A shonen titles such as Bleach or Inu Yasha. According to Scheuble, "We don't know, but we can take that back to our team and see." Pretty much, don't count on it, since Viz's production team is already working very hard to bring two series (Naruto and One Piece) to the U.S. at an accelerated rate.

SigIkki.com, Viz's new website featuring Viz Signature titles from underground seinen magazine IKKI, also received some time at the panel, alongside news that the service will be getting two new titles: Bob and His Funky Crew (Bob to Yukaina Nakamatachi) by Puncho Kondoh and What's the Answer? (Kotae Wa Mittsu) by Tondabayashi.

Last but not least is Viz's relatively young Haikasoru line of translated Japanese novels, to which they added four new titles:

• The Book of Heroes (Eiyū no Sho) by Miyuki Miyabe: January 2010
• Loups-Garous by Natsuhiko Kyogoku: January 2010)
• Slum Online by Hiroshi Sakurazaka: March 2010
• The Next Continent by Issui Ogawa: May 2010

[Thanks to the Anime News Network for clarification on some of the news that I missed.]

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NYAF09: Bandai Entertainment panel report [EDIT 1]

Bandai's NYAF panel, staffed by Marketing Director Robert Napton, Loy Fruel, and Bandai Entertainment President and CEO Ken Iyadomi, was unfortunately lacking in any major new announcements. The three simply went over their current lineup of anime and manga, including Kannagi, Kurokami, Code Geass (anime, manga, and light novels), Gurren Lagann (anime and manga), Gundam 00, (anime, and both the 00 and 00F manga) and Eureka Seven (anime and manga). However, Mr. Iyadomi briefly interrupted the show to let Napton know that it was okay to announce the only new information that the company brought with them to the convention: the home video release of the Eureka Seven -good night, sleep tight young lovers- movie will hit stores on January 26, 2010 for $24.19 (DVD) or $39.98 (Blu-Ray).

Not to be discouraged by the relative lack of announcements, some other manga journalists and I spoke with Robert Napton (who also heads Bandai's manga division) in a little mini manga summit in the NYAF press room shortly after the panel. I don't have the time to transcribe the whole thing just yet, but I'll be sure to post the high points of the discussion as soon as I'm done listening to my recording.

EDIT 1: Fixed some typos and added more clarification of Bandai's lineup of titles.

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NYAF09: Del Rey panel report

My first industry panel of the weekend was Del Rey manga, who always manage to bring a barrel of laughs with them wherever they go. (Not a literal barrel, though I wouldn't put that past them.) The wonderful Ali Kokmen (no bowtie?!), Trisha Narwani, and Mutsumi Miyazaki were up on "the dias" (Ali's words, not mine!) to announce their newest licenses, though their faulty Powerpoint was replaced for the first half of the panel with a guaranteed-not-photoshopped picture of Star Trek star Chris Pine posing next to Del Rey staffer April. I'll cut straight to the chase with a nice bullet point list for all you people who hate paragraphs:

• Here I Am by Emma Toyama (creator of Pixie Pop): Fall 2010
• Yokai Navi Runa by Miyoko Ikeda (creator of Mamotte Lollipop): May 2010
• Rave Master by Hiro Mashima (creator of Fairy Tail): September 2010 (picked up from Tokyopop, last three volumes in an omnibus edition)
• Arisa by Natsumi Ando (creator of Kitchen Princess): November 2010

After the new licenses, Ali launched into a discussion of Del Rey's current catalog, which includes X-Men Misfits (they're "very pleased" that it broke into the NYT Bestselling Graphic Novels list), Jason Thompson's King of RPGs (set for a January 2010 release), the final volumes of Samurai Deeper Kyo, which was previously dropped by Tokyopop, and Codebreakers, also by Samurai Deeper Kyo creator Akimine Kamijyo. After that, the folks at Del Rey launched into a Question & Answer session, though it didn't yield very much in the way of news other than Ali's roundabout admission that Del Rey currently has no plans to rerelease the older volumes of Samurai Deeper Kyo, though they will be "monitoring the situation" as time goes on.

And it's not a Del Rey panel without tons of fashion conversations and non-sequitur industry remarks, so Ali managed to slip in his reason for wearing a necktie instead of a bowtie (you've gotta stay unpredictable!), as well as his insinuation that a manga publisher that doesn't give you a free Moyashimon face mask (i.e. everybody but Del Rey) actually might WANT you to get swine flu. Oh yeah, and Dallas Middaugh of Del Rey would totally beat Kurt Hassler of Yen Press in an arm wrestling match.

Do I smell a challenge, good sirs?

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New York Anime Festival 2009: It Begins!

So I just finished up my travel plans (at the last minute of course) for the New York Anime Festival, which I now have to take a bus to reach thanks to my educational relocation (see: college) to upstate New York. So what this means for you, the reader, is that I will be providing up-to-the-minute coverage of the convention throughout the weekend. While I won't be at all of the industry panels, you can look forward to all of the news from Del Rey, Bandai Entertainment, and Viz Media, as well as a writeup of the Yoshiyuki Tomino Q&A and (possibly) another super-secret article from an event occurring outside of the con.

What's more, I'll be up on stage for a massive panel about anime/manga blogging, featuring the bloggers from the Reverse Thieves, Ogiue Maniax, Anime Almanac, The Gaming Dungeon, Anime Vice, and many more. So, if you want to hear all sorts of stories about the weird and wonderful world of blogging, or if you just want to meet any of us in "Real Life," come to our panel, titled "Blogger Roundtable," from 8-9pm on Saturday in Panel Room 4. If you're looking for some more laughs, Uncle Yo is also performing earlier in the day, from 11am-12pm on the Apple Kissa Stage, so definitely check that out. And if you don't get a chance to stop by one of those events, come to Uncle Yo's Artist Alley table, where he and I will be hanging out throughout the weekend. We hope to see you there!

That's about it. After the break, I've included my current schedule of panels and events, so you can stalk me and I can subsequently file a restraining order against you.

FRIDAY
5:00pm-6:00pm Arrive in NYC
9:00pm-9:30pm Cencoroll (I heard that this was a pretty cool movie, and it's short to boot!)

SATURDAY
11:00am-12:00pm Del Rey (Industry news, bowties to the max)
12:15pm-1:15pm Bandai Entertainment (Sorry, I've got no snarky comments for you Bandai)
1:45pm-2:45pm Yoshiyuki Tomino Q&A (or, alternatively, Manga Entertainment industry panel)
8:00pm-9:00pm Blogger Roundtable (I'm on this panel. BE THERE.)

SUNDAY
11:15am-12:15pm Gurren Lagann: The Movie (More burning spirit > less burning spirit)
12:15pm-1:15pm Viz Media (A new volume of Naruto will come out EVERY HOUR!)
1:30pm-2:30pm State of the Anime and Manga Industries (Big trouble. The end.)
3:00pm-4:00pm CPM Retrospective (Baww, we'll miss you Central Park Media)
4:00pm-5:00pm Anime Recruitment (run by your friends and mine, the Reverse Thieves)
6:20pm Depart NYC

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