Category: Conventions

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Anime World Order Show # 215 – Anime Was Whamageddon Even Before The Song Existed

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:13:10 — 61.0MB)

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We can copy this part of the otaku ideal. Just not the part where she can masquerade as a normal person.

So begins a new year of podcasting for us! We’re trying something new out by not necessarily reviewing one thing, but talking about a selection of Christmas-themed episodes of anime arranged from “least Christmas-y” to “most Christmas-y.”

This was not particularly Christmas-y.
This was not particularly Christmas-y.

Introduction (0:00 – 47:50)
We had the trivia episode last month, and so it’s only now that we’re able to get around to the fact that Daryl and Gerald both went to Anime Weekend Atlanta back in October. We report on the convention, some noteworthy aspects of programming we attended, ruminate on the convention’s future, and Gerald shares with us his first experience with going to Buc-ee’s.

Oh, here’s the video Gerald was referring to:

Promo: Right Stuf Anime (47:50 – 51:30)
It’s the end of an era, as a few weeks ago Shawne Kleckner announced his departure from the company we founded. We interviewed Shawne back in Show 183, and that sure doesn’t feel like it was back in 2019. But the Holiday Sale is on same as always, and there’s a lot of great deals to be had. Heck, even Aniplex Blu-Ray sets got a discount!

JUST TAKIN’ OUT THE TRASH

The Holiday Roundup (51:30 – 2:13:10)
There are plenty of anime with Christmas-themed episodes, or ones that take place around Christmas, but several have little to do with it. We watched an assortment of Christmas episodes and present them to you here, in the order of “least Christmas-y” to “most Christmas-y.” There are lots and lots and LOTS of Christmas themed anime stories, some of which are even good insofar as resembling stuff people might do around Christmas, and since we only talked about a handful here it’s almost a guarantee that we didn’t talk about your favorite. So let’s hear about it in the comments! There’s always next year, right?

Santa Company currently has THREE Kickstarters active for English language localizations. Santa Company: Secret of Christmas is the full-length version of what we were talking about.
Midsummer Merry Christmas is the newer entry released last year. There are also full-color comic books to translate. The goals are shockingly low, so with any luck these succeed. It’s tough, now that you don’t see many anime Kickstarter projects.

BIG CHRISTMAS, er HEAVEN’S DAY!
We imagine every anime club in the 90s showing Christmas theme stuff must have run Ranma 1/2’s.
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Anime World Order Show # 211 – Otakon 2022 Report With Dave no Kawaiikochans & Carl of Ogiue Maniax

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:09:38 — 59.5MB)

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We’re graced by a dangerous duo of mecha/mahjong enthusiasts this time around: Dave Cabrera (@Sasuraiger) and Carl (@SDShamshel) join us for a convention report of Otakon 2022 which was held in Washington D.C.

Intro (0:00 – 22:54)
Carl of the Ogiue Maniax blog and Dave of the Kawaiikochans webcomic and GamesoftRobo Substack introduce themselves. Both were panelists at Otakon 2022, and Carl was also Press like us; check out his interview with voice actor Mariya Ise.

We were initially going to jump directly into the con report, but wouldn’t you know it 24 hours prior to the recording it was revealed that Sony’s monopoly of the anime industry continues to grow, as Crunchyroll has acquired Right Stuf Anime. What does this acquisition mean for anime fandom in the US? We don’t know. Are we still going to be sponsored by Right Stuf now that they are under the Sony umbrella? That we also don’t know; note there’s no promo this time around since well, who do we even invoice now? For now, the only thing we DO know is that all merchandise previously classified as “erotica” has been de-listed, to now be sold on another site…which doesn’t yet exist. It’s possible that future episodes will be sponsored by Right Stuf once more, but now is probably a good time for us to start setting up that Discord and pushing some more Patreon incentives, huh?

Convention Report: Otakon 2022 (22:54 – 2:09:37)
The downside of going to conventions is that you don’t REALLY get to see people a lot, especially not in this COVID era (yes, contrary to what you see on TV, COVID is still very much a dangerous thing) which leaves us personally still gun shy about going to room parties and group dinners and what have you. If you see someone, it’s often in passing while they’re on the way to attending one thing and you’re on the way to attending another. On the bright side, it does enable us to expand our coverage of the convention, as Dave, Carl, and ourselves each went and saw a variety of things. There were, of course, multiple instances where all of us were present for the same event or guest, so all of us can weigh in on our thoughts.

There are also things we totally forgot to talk about at all which happened over the weekend, but that’s what the pictures are for:

The cost of the ride was as much as the meal, but where else can we get hand-pulled ramen noodles?
Gerald bought a slew of ultra-cheap tacky anime shirts. We were worried people might find them cool, but once we saw Justin Sevakis react to how garish they were, we knew we made the right call.
We got two such shirts for Mike Toole. Here he is in the Touch one. This image was selected for being the most unflattering of the set. Very important to catch him mid-blink.
Mike also got a Macross shirt, which he wore to the Bigwest panel since “we’ll all wear these shirts there!” We then did NOT wear such shirts. Confession now that it’s over: it wasn’t a prank, it was because we didn’t actually HAVE goofy Macross shirts of our own to wear. (At the time, we played it as though we had betrayed him.)
Move over, itasha dealer’s room occupants! The MODEL TRAIN OTAKU~! are on the scene. There were tons of fun little details in these dioramas as the trains made their loop around the track.
Among several other interesting historical artifacts, Carl Horn was carrying around this pristine copy of the August 1st, 1983 edition of Time Magazine. He may think his voice isn’t great for podcasting, but neither are ours! We recorded his Dark Horse panel for our own records, since it’s not just an industry panel but a historical retrospective of US manga fandom. He was there for it!
Here’s a new thing: gachapon dispensers in the dealer’s room! We were already surprised to see Bandai-Namco rolling these out in our local shopping malls, but they’re not going to have City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes merch like Otakon did. Gerald got Saori and Umibozu; Daryl got Kaori and Ryo/Kaori.