Anime World Order Show # 31 – Anime Festival Orlando Report with Erik Reiss

This week we deviate from the typical show format and devote an episode to giving our con report on AFO 2006, with our special guest via telephone, AFO vice president Erik Reiss. We talk about what went right, what went wrong, and why the search for THE TRUTH might have died for good at this convention!

Introduction (0:00 – 12:42)
Yes, Quinton Flynn’s hair really is just like in that picture. It contributes to his Beatle-esque aura. Tricia writes in to let us know that we’re the WORST PODCAST EVER (not to be confused with the Greatest Movie EVER podcast) and that the manner in which Gerald pronounces certain words betrays he’s not American. George writes in to tell us all about anime fandom in Greece and how terrifying it is, which makes us really want to hear these Greek anime dubs now. Finally, Max has a voicemail for us where he talks about how our bonus futanari discussion causes people to hate the handicapped and Daryl mentions how Mad Bull 34 is more than sophisticated, it’s super sophisticated. Supasticated? Perhaps.

Within a week, we have received about $175 in donations for the purpose of buying a mixer board and preamps so that the show can sound better. This is absolutely unprecedented since we assumed that we would get nothing. JACON has graciously offered to match all donations up to $250, so if you’ve got some spare change in that Paypal account or whatever, send us a few bucks if you feel like it. It all adds up. Hmm. Maybe we should come up with some sort of prize drawing incentive thing for the people who donate.

Con Report: Anime Festival Orlando 2006, Friday (12:42 – 33:54)
AFO’s the best! Around! Erik joins us via phone, and hopefully he’s audible to everyone since he doesn’t talk all that loud. We talk about what the responsibilities of running a convention are along with what makes AFO unique from other Florida anime cons, the joy of smacking down fangirls who complain that her “hugs for $1” sign got taken away by staff, and what happened on Friday. It involves Daryl getting hit in the face with a stick.

Promo: Otaku Generation (33:54 – 34:16)
Daryl ran into Alan and Jefferson momentarily back at Otakon, and he won their first Guess the Character in the Envelope contest, where he won a Lisa Furukawa Ray CD as well as some OG bumper stickers, pins, and the like. Say, maybe WE should consider getting some stuff like that!

Anime Festival Orlando 2006, Saturday (34:16 – 53:30)
For what may have been the first time ever in Florida anime con history, the fanfiction panel was NOT canceled. We talk about panels: what goes into approving them, the ones we did, and ones we attended. Also, THE TRUTH either died on Saturday or was seriously wounded. Does the soul still burn, or has everything been said? You tell us.

Anime Festival Orlando 2006, Sunday (53:30 – 1:21:43)
Topics covered include Gerald’s panel on giant robots, Project Cosplay, and we read some comments from message boards that will hopefully be construed as constructive criticism towards making the next AFO better.

Promo: Dave and Joel’s Fast Karate For the Gentlemen
Apocalypse Zero is one of the finest anime ever created, and everyone is encouraged to purchase the manga. Why, just listen to Dave and Joel talk about how wonderful it is!

Closing (1:21:43 – 1:23:46)
Next week, it’s our Otakon report with our special guest, Zac Bertschy who writes the Hey Answerman! column over at Anime News Network! Unfortunately the episode is terrifying since Clarissa forgot to be at that recording (she wasn’t actually at Otakon herself, but still) and Daryl was trying hard to tough his way through the bronchitis he’d contracted but hadn’t yet received medical treatment for. He didn’t really succeed.

Bonus – Otakon 2006 Interviews with Christine Auten and Nobuteru Yuuki

Nope, it’s not a new episode and is not representative in any way of how the actual episodes of Anime World Order are (the most recent show is listed below this update and is about Haruhi Suzumiya, Gall Force, and Requiem From the Darkness), but here’s the audio to our interviews with Christine Auten and Nobuteru Yuuki, conducted at Otakon 2006. We should be back on schedule next week with our reviews of the newly released Limited Edition of Patlabor the Movie 2, the manga Antique Bakery, and the anime series New Getter Robo, in which Daryl may or may not revive his “Anime Then and Now” idea last used in Show #4‘s Area 88 segment and compare the original Getter Robo series to this new one. Don’t you love how decisive we are?

This was recorded by just Daryl on his own, so after listening to this, you’ll have a much better appreciation for Gerald and Clarissa’s presence. Here are rough transcripts of the interviews for those of you who’d rather not hear Daryl or Gerald speak. For the sake of being obnoxious (what, you don’t want to hear ME talk?!), the files are in PDF format, so they not only require you to have Acrobat to view, but are also ten times larger than the original text file. Brilliant!

The following podcasters are folks I ran into at Otakon. Here’s hoping I’m remembering everyone.

Of course, if you’re reading this, you’re reading it off of our website, so all these links are already on the right-hand side of the screen, but whatever.