FanimeCon 2010 (7)
Yukie☆AniMelody took place on May 29th on Stage Zero Concourse. Yukie Dong is a local live anime song performer located in the Bay Area. She has performed live concerts at various events such as, FanimeCon, Anime Expo, and many more.
FanimeCon's Swap Meet is one of the place to be if you're looking to get rid of some of the old anime stuff lying in your closet. As a buyer, it's also a great place for some awesome bargains and rare goods. To make clear, this is not a traditional swap meet where people trade their stuff; instead, people buy and sell.
The event is held on Day 0 and on the first day of the convention from 8 PM until 1 AM in the gaming room. The hall was probably more packed with people than the dealer’s hall, with shoppers squeezing by each other in order to get around. The sheer variety of anime goods at the Swap Meet significantly outweighed what was available in the Dealer's Hall. Items ranged from huge selection of pencil boards, posters, keychains, and accessories, to rare figures and of course tons of manga. We found people selling manga volumes as low as $0.50 each.
For first time shoppers, I highly recommend going early to scout out some of the stuff you may want. Rarer items such as limited edition goods may disappear faster so grab those first. Don’t forget, most sellers are more than happy to haggle. If you can’t get it for the price you want, come back later and try again. If the item remains unsold, the seller might be more willing to sell at a lower price.
With the overwhelming popularity of the Swap Meet at Fanime, we can only hope that more conventions will hold similar events.
The Illustrations of Bishoujo panel was held on May 29th, in Salon 3 at the Marriott. This 18+ event was carded and the special guest speaker was Mamoru Yokota. Unfortunately this event was not very well planned, and instead of being a presentation of Yokota’s illustrations, it became more or less a Q&A panel about his work and his personal experience working in the industry.
Mamoru Yokota is an experienced character designer, director and producer. Mr. Yokota has also worked on well-known anime titles such as the Toei version of Kanon, the theatrical version of Air, Magical Kanan, DEATH NOTE, True Mazinger Impact! Z, Macross Frontier, Astro Fighter Sunred, and HELLSING IV. His most notable work is probably his illustrations in the light novel series, Rune Soldier Louie.
The first half of the panel was filled with Yokota’s personal experience at Fanime. He was very delighted to see that Fanime held a video room dedicated to hentai, but more so he was surprised that the room had guys--and girls. After the short monologue from Yokota, he opened the floor up to questions from the audience.
In summary, the audience asked questions concerning Yokota’s feelings about the growth of hentai visual novel games in America to his views about eroge companies blocking international visitors to their websites. He stated that he didn't know very much about America's preference for hentai games apart from what is heard from local news mediums, and he was a little surprised about the blockage of foreign visitors from eroge creator websites. He mentioned he would talk to one of his good friends back in Japan who is the founder of one of the companies mentioned.
The panel lasted until 11pm and ended with Mamoru Yokota selling off some of his doujinshis, figures, and t-shirts he had brought with him. None of goods he brought along were phenomenally amazing, but interesting at the very least.
On the evening of May 28th, FLOW performed at FanimeCon's MusicFest in the San Jose Civic Auditorium. FLOW has scarcely ever come to America to hold a concert; therefore this rare and highly anticipated performance was not to be missed. Unfortunately, the band requested for a strict no photography/no video policy during the concert, so pictures of the event are unavailable.
The concert started off with a brief introduction of the band by the main vocalist and then jumped right into the music. They played most of their popular songs that the audience would know including the Eureka 7 opening song "Days", Naruto Shippuden opening song “Sign”, Code Geass opening/ending songs “COLORS” and “WORLD END”, and finally the Naruto opening song “GO!!! (Fighting Dreamers)”. They even made it a point to perform one of their newer songs “CALLING”, which is the ending song to the new anime Heroman, created by Stan Lee and Studio BONES.
The overall performance was fantastic and the band did a great job of getting the crowded involved. Somewhere in the middle, FLOW played their cover of “Surfin' USA” and got everyone in the auditorium to do the wave. Though a little awkward at first, it was an extremely enjoyable and fun moment.
The concert ended before the scheduled time. As a whole, the concert felt a little short, but the band did play consecutive songs with little breaks in-between. The audio level of the concert was set louder than normal, and upon leaving the San Jose Civic Auditorium, the audience’s ears were ringing. FLOW managed an encore at the end, though unfortunately, when they returned to the stage, 20% of the audience had already left their chairs and exited the doors.
Overall, FLOW was a refreshing and nostalgic experience for old-fans and new-fans alike. FanimeCon’s MusicFest was a great success, with no technical difficulties; FanimeCon will have a hard time to top this off next year in 2011.
This year saw a return of many previous guests like Halko Momoi and Hiroyuki Yamaga, with newcomers including Mamoru Yokota and hit musical group FLOW! The swap meet was the largest one to date brimming with rare goods for sale. Check out our reports and interviews as we talk to Halko Momoi about her return to Fanime, and with Mamoru Yokota.
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The Fanime Charity auction has been around for awhile and every year items are sold off for an important cause. This year’s beneficiary was the Red Cross. The auction was hosted by Ric Meyers, who is a martial arts expert and has hosted Fanime for a couple of years. There were many items up for auction. While most items go for a little less then a hundred dollars, there were some that went up to a couple of hundred dollars. Of course these items are original art pieces and sketches. There were other items that were interesting including an acoustic guitar, tambourine, and a cow bell. All three instruments were sold with signatures of all the musical guests at this year's Fanime including Flow, LM.C and Halko Momoi. Probably the most interesting item sold was a unique figure that went on a special trip to Japan. Last year, the figure was sent to studio GAINAX and has returned this year to Fanime. The figure comes with a complete set of signatures from various artists and animators from the studio. In addition, pictures of characters from various GAINAX series and signed character accessories were included in the auction. The charity auction is always an interesting event to attend. The reactions of fans to high bidding is quite amusing. Charity auction is one way for otakus to do something good for the society instead of spending all of their money on items without a cause.
Fanime is known for its well informed panels and open forums. Many of these events are light hearted and for entertaining purposes. This year’s Fanime had a special panel that was just the opposite. Nujabes: Rest in Beats was a panel opened to the fans of the late and great Seba Jun aka Nujabes. Nujabes had died last February in an accident in Tokyo, but the announcement of his death didn’t happen until weeks later. News of his death spread quickly thanks to social outlets such as Facebook. Nujabes was well known for his soothing beats and music compositions from the anime hit Samurai Champloo. At the panel, fans were allowed to express their remorse and the impact Nujabes had on their lives. The panel was hosted by Austin and Thomas from eigoMANGA who are both fans of Nujabes. They were accompanied by two hip-hop artist Noka and Lonewolf who later performed a tribute song to Nujabes using the fan favorite Aruarian Dance composed by Nujabes. Nujabes will always be remembered for the great songs he made and it will live on in the hearts of his many fans.