This year marked the first ever AniMaid Café at Anime Expo (AX) 2009. The café began when a group of cosplayers put together an undisclosed private event back in March 2009 and some members of the Anime Expo staff were on hand to observe. After enjoying the event, they invited the group to hold a maid café at AX. "We trained immediately after AX officially announced the café, so we started training the maids for about a month. We trained every weekend, on Saturday" said Kchan, Head Maid of AniMaid Café.
Studio Gainax has made several visits to the United States in the last couple of years promoting their hit series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. In 2008, they brought around 30 members of the series' production staff to FanimeCon in San Jose. Unfortunately, Director Hiroyuki Imaishi and Character Designer Atsushi Nishigori were both busy working on the Gurren Lagann movies and could not attend. This year though, both men were invited and appeared as Guests of Honor at Anime Expo 2009. The panel began with a quick formal introduction of the guests Hiroyuki Imaishi and Atsushi Nishigori. It was noted that it was their first American event and focus panel, so they decided to open the floor up for questions and answers. Note, we have excluded some of the more obscure questions from this article.
Anime Expo has ended, but that doesn't mean our work has! Day 4 was the wind down day with most cosplayers wearing normal clothing doing last minute bargain shopping. The highlights of the day included the open autograph session where fans were able to get last minute autographs from remaining guests, the Charity Auction where fans can buy expensive signed and autographed goods for a good cause, and of course the Closing Ceremonies. We are working hard on all the interviews and articles relating to Anime Expo, so stay tuned as they should be ready in the next few days!Probably the businest day of the convention, the halls were packed with with people! Nightow unvieled a short clip of the new Trigun movie at his panel showing off new characters. Towards the evening, we went to the Masquerade and got a chance to visit the sold out Anime Expo Maid Cafe. Again, stick around as we will have full reports coming soon! Day 2 was a bit on the dry side, apart from the Gundam 00 Panel, and the Morning Musume concert.
It's 7:23 AM right now, and staff moral is quite low waking up this early. Saturday is probably the busiest day with the most number of attendees and large events.
Keep checking us out occasionally as we will be live blogging Nightow's panel today who promises to bring a first ever world premiere footage of the new Trigun movie. Full detailed panel reports, interviews, photos, and more are coming soon so stick around!
Welcome to The-O Network Online's Anime Expo 2009 Con Report! We have many exciting interviews and articles for you this year.
This was the second year that Anime Expo was held in the Los Angeles Convention Center and they were really starting to use it well, allocating different rooms and spaces to autograph sessions, combining Artist's Alley and Exhibit Hall, and holding events in West Hall. Of course, this meant that Nokia Theater had to be ditched, but the event felt tighter and closer as a result, rather than having convention goers march across the street for concerts and Masquerade.
The guests this year were mostly creators such as Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's Hiroyuki Imaishi and Atsushi Nishigori and BlazBlue's Daisuke Ishiwatari and Toshimichi Mori. Fans of the creative end of the process certainly got their fill this year.
We would like to announce that The-O Network Online will be starting to live blog for all the fans out there unable to make it to Anime Expo 2009. We will try to blog at as many panels as we can. So stay tuned!
Quick update, yesterday we were able to get a lot of interview: