Convention News (150)
Anime Expo 08 Day 4 Briefs- Jyukai/Astro Boy Movie
Written by Theodore MakWe interviewed Takehito Harada, full transcription will be available soon.
Our newest staff member Alice Yan interviewed AX's musical Guest of Honor, Jyukai. Jyukai also left a special message for all their American fans, we will have that video as well as the interview transcription up later this week.
The Masquerade was very short. Originally scheduled from 8PM to 12AM, all the skits from the Masquerade finished at 9:30. Regardless, t-ono.net was backstage taking pictures of each of the contestants.
Lastly, Imagi Animation Studios at Anime Expo was playing a motage of their new Astro Boy movie set to release Fall 2009.
Anime Expo 08 Day 2 Briefs-Concerts/Industry Panels
Written by Theodore MakGreetings from Anime Expo 2008! Starting oddly on Thursday this year, Friday had a decent attendee turnout. Definitely tomorrow (Saturday) it will be packed and we hope to bring you tons of photos of more cosplayers, and events. (Today we took around 500 photos.)
We were able to attend Jyukai and Yoko Ishida's joint concert. At first, there appeared to be some mix up, but eventually we were notifed that press were allowed to take photos of the band. We'll have those up later after the convention.
Quite a few panels we visited today including Dark Horse, Bandai, and ADV. In Bandai's corner, they pretty much listed each new title they would be releasing in the future with a short clip of each. (more details on that later) In ADV's case, mostly answered what happened to the company in their few months of withdrawl from the anime world.
For tomorrow, we've scheduled ourselves to visit David Hayter's (voice actor of the American version of Solid Snake from the video game series Metal Gear Solid) press panel. We will also be attending Shoko Nakagawa's concert, and will be bringing you pictures and video coverage if Anime Expo allows for it.
We'll also be taking pictures of the Masquerade, again if allowed to do so by Anime Expo. The rules and regulations this year at Anime Expo have changed a bit and a lot of confusion has ensued especially for the industry and press.
Regardless, don't forget we will have our one on one interview with character designer Takehito Harada tomorrow!
The staff is pretty much pooped, and we'll have a few full length reports ready in the next few days.
If you haven't already guessed, yes we will be in fact covering Anime Expo 2008! Currently planned, we will be hitting various industry and press panels. We try to provide as much live updates as possible so for the fans at home can also enjoy the experience. Our associate at Anime Expo will be directing AXBackstage, so you might see us on cam if you look hard enough. We will also be bringing you a one on one interview with Nippon Ichi Software's character designer, Takehito Harada which has been currently rescheduled to Saturday due to his late flight arrival. Our camera crew will be walking around the convention filming various gathers, events, and panels; while our photography team has over 12GB worth of memory space for pictures on hand.
So stay tuned!
A quick update, NIS America has released character designer Takehito Harada's schedule at Anime Expo.
Autograph sessions (@ NISA booth, #311)
Thursday, July 3rd: 4pm - 5pm
Friday, July 4th: 10:30am - 11:30am & 4pm - 5pm
Saturday, July 5th: 10:30am - 11:30am & 4pm - 5pm
Sunday, July 6th: 10:30am - 11:30am
Full release after the jump.
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A couple press releases from AX hit the air today: First off, they announced the 3rd annual SPJA Industry Conference with inclusive key notes and panels, at which we'll see reps from SPJA, Japan External Trade Organization, FUNimation, and Crunchy Roll. Among the keynote speakers/panelists: Trulee Karahashi (CEO SPJA), Shigeru Kimura (Chiefe Executive Director JETO), Gen Fukunaga (CEO FUNimation), and Vu Nguyen (VP of Business-Development Crunchy Roll).Anime Expo and Intermixi Japan Tours are giving one lucky Jyukai Concert premium ticket holder at Anime Expo 2008 an all-expense paid ultimate trip to Japan. 
In a newsletter sent out by NIS America on Friday May 30, character designer Takehito Harada will be coming to Anime Expo this year held at the L.A. Convention Center from July 3rd, to July 6th! Harada is most famous for his work on designing the characters from the hit tactical RPG series Disgaea. Harada will also be holding an autograph session most likely in our guess at NIS America's booth #311 in South Exit Hall. I'll take a stab at guessing that there probably will be a raffle ticketed sketch session. Definitely "Love Freak" Flonne for me if I get lucky. Anyone care to name their favorite character?
Offficial statement from NIS America after the jump.
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A few updates on how Fanime is going. The Masquerade was amazing this year, with a lot more fun skits than dull ones. Recorded every skit on film, and took pictures of every skit from the front row. Those should up ready by the end of ths week hopefully.
Incredibly I must note that the level of cosplayers have exponentially jumped this year compared to previous 5 years. Everywhere I go, I see costumes that really make my head turn with the amazing detail work involved. I've probably took around 200 photos so far and will have them up within the end of this week after resizing, white balancing, and watermarking.
Was unable to make it to the first Gainax Panel on Friday, but will be attending the Meet the Guests (Gainax) event and the "Animating and Unlocking Gurren Lagann" panel.
I was late about 15 minutes into Maika Netsu's panel, but we will be doing a one on one interview with her later today. Oddly enough, I was one of the winners for the raffle sketch session for Netsu-sensei. Will have pictures and scans up of it afterwards.
Troy, our Chief Photographer injured himself on Friday, and ended up returning home on Saturday morning. I apologize as the Head of The-O Network Online to all the cosplayers that had scheduled a photoshoot session with us. I will still be roaming around on Sunday and Monday doing my best to fill in for him.
We have dug up new confirmed information in regards to Gainax's appearance. Tony, a FanimeCon Forum Administrator and MusicFest Head, said,
"Ok, I'm told we have some really interesting guests coming from GAINAX, and a lot of them, but they themselves have requested not to publicize the details. They should be in the program guide. In any case, we're planning a lot of events with them, so there will be ample opportunity to get your GAINAX fix..."
Hiroyuki Yamaga, Co-Founder and President of Studio Gainax has a history of attending FanimeCon every year, but this year his name is absent from the Guests of Honor list. With a little digging into the FanimeCon boards, we have discovered some interesting details.
At last year's Gurren Lagann Panel, Yamaga-san promised to bring more guests from Gainax (see our coverage located here ). It appears he'll be keeping his word.