Obligatory Anime Expo 2010 Schedule Post
With the July 4th weekend just hovering around the corner means yet another trip to Anime Expo with all the madness of making the schedule just tight enough so that I can maximize whatever utility there is to be had by interacting with fans, industry, and of course, meeting people who have been nothing more than internet screenames with all the personality and such encapsulated in those virtual identities. Unlike last year, the concerts this time around are actually worth going to. Also unlike last year, there will be a bit of work involved since I’m on assignment for Original Sound Version. Which effectively means that any enthusing over the concerts will be found there once the dust settles. Of course, if anyone else wants to write up a concert report for Anime Instrumentality as a guest post, do let me know!
Anyway, the plan is to hit up Friday and Saturday. Specifics? Well, here’s the plan given the schedule I have on hand:
Friday:
Not much in the morning though I might go to half of Eri Kitamura’s panel before making a hasty exit to beeline towards what is the must-see event of the day.
Megumi Nakajima/May’n Concert
Is anyone really surprised I’m looking forward to this? Though I might not have liked some of Macross Frontier’s pop music, most of that falls under May’n’s performances; I’m perfectly happy listening to Megumi Nakajima’s stuff since she puts a solid effort in all of her songs. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll see any of her non-Macross Frontier material, but who knows, we could be in for a pleasant surprise there. It’d be cool is something like “Jellyfish” from Kobato pops up. So yeah, mostly going for Nakajima, but if May’n’s as good a live performer as rumor says she is, it’ll exceed my expectations by a huge amount!
Maybe after that, I’ll hit up the Rightstuf/Nozomi panel? I guess it’d be interesting to see if they have anything down the pipeline since I’ve stopped paying attention to their releases since the ARIA franchise finished. No Danny Choo though. Not even for the Black Rock Shooter OVA and I’m not sure Chinka is in the cards for me.
Yui Horie
You can’t really go for that long without having heard her voice work or vocal performances. Anyhow, a lot of this is nostalgia since one of the earliest series I remember watching is Love Hina. Plus, her recent work has been solid, even if I can’t claim to have been awed by her singing like I once was. Maybe that has something to do with the composers/lyricists who write her songs.
MELL Concert
No, I wasn’t all that fond of “Red Fraction” or of I’ve Sound in general, but hey, if she’s here, might as well make the most of it. And if she sings “Proof,” that’ll be enough to make me a happy person. That should about do it for my Friday.
Saturday:
Megumi Nakajima Panel
Why not, right? I’ve already gone to the concert. Might as well grab more tidbits. Guess that means I’ll miss out on the Toradora! panel, but that’s not a total wash since seeing Yui Horie makes up for that.
That’s really about the only thing that demands my attention at this point. If any of you have suggestions for how to fill up Friday or Saturday, do let me know. Probably a lot of that time that I don’t spend wandering the convention hall will be spent in putting faces to names as I meet up with people I’ve only conversed with through online platforms, so that’ll be pleasant since there are quite a few people I’d like to meet in person. (Anyone else I’m forgetting? A meetup might be in the cards as long as people tell me when/where.)
Whoa, kind of wish I can go. May’n does seem to do loads of overseas live anime conventions and stuff. She was here for the local Anime festival too. (Though I only heard two of her songs then and had such a low opinion of her I didn’t bother to stay till her performance)
I have sen a couple of her animelo live performances and they’re pretty good, though sometimes a little bit over the top…
I’m not surprised it’s all Macross F stuff. Having both May’n and Nakajima there almost guarantees it. I wasn’t a huge fan of May’n at first. There’s nothing wrong with her technically but he tone just never was that pleasant to me. That is until I saw some of her live performances and my respect shot up immensely. While her tone doesn’t exactly improve, the difference in sound quality of her voice from CD to live venue is not dramatic. Which is what makes her so impressive. She sounds the same live as on the CD. The same can’t be said for Nakajima.
Maybe Horie will perform Jet like she did at animelo. That’s a really fun nice song. If you get Vanilla Salt…well…the song just doesn’t translate well to live version imo. There’s hardly any chorus to speak of in it. Sugary Sweet Nightmare would be awesome as well if she performs it.
MELL is just lol. It’s sung in english you should totally understand it! Try singing along.
CCY is trying to set up something on Saturday … last I heard, it is supposed to be a late lunch/early dinner thing, but there’s nothing definite yet. I’d guess it would take place some time between 2 and 4 p.m. since that time frame has the least amount of stuff going on (to my biased eye, anyway; only Katsuyuki Konishi’s panel holds any slight interest to me), and the Trigun flick starts showing at 4 p.m.
I’d set something up, myself, but I’m not sure where the best place to meet up would be. (Whenever I did meet-ups in the past, they were always onsite, but they were smaller scale, too. xD) Any ideas?
Kuribayashi Minami pl0x. >_<
Too bad I’m not on the west coast… I would have gone… :p
Have fun and enjoy meeting people!
http://bit.ly/bfny6o Hope you don’t mind me plugging the meet-up planning post here. :p
Hope to see you at the Saturday meet-up! =)
@Jen
It’ll be interesting to see which way the performance goes. I’m going in with expectations low, so if she delivers the way she did in the actual CDs themselves, I’m not going to be disappointed. But if she pulls out all the stops and turns in a memorable performance, I’ll be all over that!
@Taka
Ouch. Well, I hope that Nakajima can deliver in the heartfelt tones that were present on the disc. I can forgive a missed note here and there, but lackluster emotions is unforgivable!
Too bad Yui Horie isn’t going to be performing, but with luck, maybe we can get her to sing or something during her panel!
As for MELL, well, maybe I’ll bother memorizing the lyrics. I guess that could be good for lols if I can get the people sitting next to me to sing along. In fact, that’d make it all worth it!
@Shinmaru
Thanks for kickstarting it! 5pm works for me and I guess if you see someone who resembles my mug shot on OSV and answers to either “Chris” or zzero/zzeroparticle, you’ve got the right guy!
@Panther
I have no fricken clue how MangaGamer is going to run their operations at this Con. I suppose if I knew where to look so that I have a better idea, I can go run off with it and get a better idea for my schedule.
@chikorita157
Definitely worth the pilgrimage. Even more so this year since there’s a lot to see and hear! Talk about having too much to do :p
@Yi
I most certainly will!
@Yumeka
Yup, it’ll be great figuring out who’s who and see just how our mental images of each other have become completely shattered =)
I so wish i could go =(
anyway have fun… *sob sob
@Fabrice
Well, you did have the chance to go to the symphonic concert in Singapore. Personally, I’d prefer that over AX because it’s just oh so slightly more relevant to my interests.
The two concerts on Friday made my day.
@Reltair
Same. Left me tired as all hell though. 2 is quite a bit, especially when it means about 3-3.5 hours of music!
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