Animé Los Angeles 3
Convention Report
by DGHS Staff
Tokenflipguy's Rant
Animé Los Angeles 2007 may be a small con, but it was a great way to start the year. The opening ceremonies were a bit funny with consecutive toastmaster Tadou Tomomatsu AKA "Mr. Shake hands Man" (who was now killed off in NBC's Heroes) and Svetlana Chmakova, creator of Tokyopop's 'DramaCon'. As usual the con visitors were greeted; chocolate was given, and pretty much livened up the atmosphere.
One of the my most fondest memories was the 'Console Wars' panel which surprisingly didn't devolve into you're average BBS (Bulletin Board) battle and was more of the most mature debates I've seen on that topic. Everything had even weight except for a few minor half-baked arguments. With each hardcore fan of Sony or Nintendo getting some sort of prize including those faux PS3 boxes which aren't even the size of Sony's next-gen monster. I remember getting a large Link sticker that's now attached to my door. It's really spiffy. I remember staying at that panel for 2 or 3 hours. By the end of it, it was already 1am and it was thoroughly enjoyable.
The game room meanwhile was packed as usual. The room was pretty much of the staples like Guilty Gear X, King of Fighters, Halo 2and Step-Mania. Due to the increasing popularity of the 360 the often praised Gears of War which I thought would've gotten more playtime than Halo 2... guess not... hype kills I guess.
The night had the anime con staple which is the AMV contest... my favorite one being a Cowboy Bebop based one using Frank Sinatra's 'Luck be a Lady'. It was refreshing compared to the other ones because it didn't use alternative rock or punk. I praise it didn't use Linkin Park or Evanescence because that would just be played out.
Saturday, meanwhile, was pretty good if not better than the day one, and the rain didn't stop anyone from dressing in cosplay or waiting in the outdoors for the dealer's room to open up. It got so packed that a line had to be formed up. As, I walked along I didn't have much money and decided to pick something that I wanted in a long time. The Mobile Suit Gundam movie DVDs and I am not talking about SEED or Wing, but good old Universal Century.
I went to a couple panels, the first one was a voice actors panel with Spike Spencer (Evangelion) who unfortunately was there, and Kyle Hebert, who's quite the con attendee. He talked about how he got into English voice acting for anime through connections with Steve Jay Blum (Cowboy Bebop, GTO, this guy's been in a lot of games and anime... too much to count) BTW, and how video game acting is like. He said it was pretty much a 15 minute session with some random grunting and the like. Kyle also said you don't even know what the voice acting is for. (Albeit cause of Non Disclosure Agreements) All and all, I thought he was a pretty nice guy, and very open to fans.
The second panel was the Mega 64 panel. The good ol' gang of Rocco Botte, Derrick Acosta, and Shawn Crawford were there. Their signature wit, sarcasm and random humor well full effect. I remember asking about... the Paperboy skit which was supposedly pulled at 4 in the morning. All they did were get a group of friends out there and intercepted the mail route. Another interesting and surprising tidbit is that the crew has never been arrested, but almost did with the Resident Evil 4 skit with Rocco impersonating the merchant. Supposedly he was reporting of being a terrorist. He also talks about doing the best Imo skit which was the infamous Hitman skit. They accidentally wondered into a death anniversary party at a park. Irony has its ways.
Sunday was pretty slow like every last day of any con, and I didn't remember anything except for the ending ceremonies which promised the con would be in a bigger place in Burbank. I think that's a wise choice by the committee, and would garner even more people. It's also more convenient transportation wise.
Unlike the chaos of Anime Expo, I thought it was a lot more fun because of it being so small. Familiar faces will show up constantly, and it doesn't take forever to get anywhere. As its motto says... this is the "Friendliest little convention in town".
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