Saku's AFK Corner » Events

ACG Random Pairs Party

Saku — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:32:16 +0000

When: March 13th 2010, Saturday.
Time: 11AM ~ 5:30PM.
Sign in: 10AM~10:45AM
Location: Bond Place Hotel.
65 DUNDAS STREET EAST, TORONTO, ONTARIO M5B2G8
416-362-6064 www.bondplace.ca

Who: ACG fans, otakus/otomes.
Age: 16 ~26
Cosplay: Encouraged (receive bonus points towards winning a prize)
Bonus: Lots of prizes to be won.
ACG NA VIP Membership Cards for sale & pick up.

ACG NA is organizing a social event for Otaku and Otomes on March 13th. We are looking for people between the age of 16~26 with strong interest in A,C,G and wishes to meet other people of the same interest and make some friends and win awesome prizes!

Participants will be divided into different groups/pairs through out the day to take part in collaborative activities, mini contests, challenges, and score points toward the end of the day to win prizes. Cosplayers receive bonus points at start up, also, candidates are encouraged to do performance (ie, dance, sing) on stage for additional bonus points. On top of that, ACG NA VIP Members get bonus points as well.

There will be many photographers, videographer, and make-up on site. The event will be recorded and made into a Reality TV-like production.

Participants MUST pre-register and purchase ticket before February 26th.
Female participants receive $5 cash back on the day of event.

Everyone who purchases tickets online before Feb 26th will receive complementary food and beverage plus a special 25% off coupon for staying at Bond Place Hotel! Tickets are limited!

Dos and Don’ts for Participants:

Do:
• Cosplay! You can come in costume or change while there.
• Make sure your costume is comfortable to wear and move around in.
• Put on make up and smile for camera.
• Eat breakfast!
Don’t:
• Wear masks or a costume that covers up your face.
• Bring any weapon of any kind!
• Wear high-heels

http://acgnarpp.eventbrite.com/

Updates (Feb 16, 2010)

Age cap removed.
Discounted Early Bird tickets on sale ($10 off) until Feb 23rd, and girls still get $5 cash-back at the door.
Cash drop off can be arranged (before Feb 26th) if you receive a lot of feed back about paying cash.

Anzu Chigusa @ Fan Expo

Saku — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:03:38 +0000

I was given the privilege to spend Day 2 at Fan Expo 2009 with Anzu Chigusa (ACG NA mascot) cosplayed by Kawano Fushi ….. lucky me ^^. Although I was hoping to spend the day with just the two of us, I got some interruptions from my friend, my girlfriend, Fushi’s friend and Ansa who tagged along with me ;P. Just kidding of course as I <3 my gf ^^. Expecting a call from her at any moment after I posted this ^^;

I wonder what she was looking at. Gazing upon the blue sky I guess ^^

Too be honest, I came little bit unprepared because she asked what pose she should make and my answer was “…..I dunno….” ^^;

I have no idea what she was trying to pose. Was she saying that she had a toothache ? ^^:;

Obligatory pose of Neko. Is it a must do for a cosplayer ?

Awww …. Moe Moe Kyun~ from Anzu, isn’t she lovely ?

“If only she does not have to study for final exams, life would be 100x times better” ^^

Anzu is a Green Party supporter and she is definitely environmental friendly. Her costume was made from environmental friendly materials (I think ? )

Anzu was welcoming everyone to Fan Expo 2009.

and Anzu were posing together. No idea what he was trying to cosplay as.

The lady was trying to be friendly and said ‘Hi’ but it was too much for Anzu.

Anzu and Astro Boy are coming soon to theaters near you 10.23.09

“Watch out behind you, Anzu”

Anzu’s Poking skill has increased by 1 level.

“My name is Anzu Ketchum. My goal is to become the best the world greatest Pokemon master. Pokemon, Gotta Catch ‘em All! .”

Anzu’s playing Nintendo DS and she didn’t seem to win. Better luck next time, Anzu ^^.

“Which one is stronger? Superman or me?”

Anzu’s reading Bleach for nth number of times.

She’s showing her skill at reading 2 comics at once although her eyes looked into Black Cat instead Bleach.

Anzu’s promoting that Oppai mouse pads are not just for guys ^^.

Anzu got invited to .hack world by Atoli. I hope she doesn’t get infected by the Virus >.<

“Neko Paw High Five” with one of AnimeXtreme staffs.

Chii…?

Anzu in Hollow form

Anzu’s looking dangerous.

Anzu thinks that she can beat Ryu.

Darth Vader uses his “Force” making Anzu to pose with him.

No related posts.

Anime Expo 2009 Day 3 + Cosplayers Hunt

Saku — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:49:04 +0000

Here goes Day 3 of Anime Expo 2009 coverage which is my last coverage of AX since I didn’t attend Day 4 because my flight left at 1.00 pm. It was nice and sunny on Saturday morning in LA. I got up early and took a shower. After this and that, I left my hotel and went to LA convention center. Since Day 3 was my last day, I came with only one purpose: Cosplayers hunt. I dedicated this day to take some pictures of the cosplayers. If you have not checked my previous Day 0, Day 1 and Day 2 post, please do so ^^. Note that this post is image heavy so if you have a slow connection, it may take a while to load all the photos since there are at least 100 photos ^^.

If you think of waking up early to avoid the line up, don’t bother because everyone thought the same thing. It was only 9am but I saw a lot of people walking around.

A huge banner of welcoming people to Anime Expo. I felt so welcomed ^^.

The architecture inside LA convention centre is quite interesting. A lot of pillars support each other and become the skeletal of the building.

Another view from inside LA convention centre. This view was what I saw when I entered the building. It was definitely a different feeling altogether compared to Anime North.

One of the mascots of AX 2009.

Since I didn’t get any breakfast, I stopped by at one of the food court at LA convention centre. As I was expected, food at the convetion is pricey. My breakfast below costed me about US$8 and it didn’t even fill me up ^^:;

After my over-priced breakfast, I went for another visit at Exhibitors/Dealers. AX Exhibitors/Dealers room are huge and located at LA Convention Center Hall E to H if I remember correctly. It required me couple visits to explore every vendors there and I didn’t have a chance to look at the artist alley booths except our ACG NA representative booth.

Hen Dai Ne booth was probably one of the booth that I visited quite often. If you look at the picture below, you can see why ^^;;

I took a picture of one of manga gamers booth girl and she was nice enough to allow to take pictures of her. She was wearing a uniform of Oubi academy from Kira Kira eroge, one of the titles that mangagamer localized.

T.T I want that Da Capo poster behind her

The above is Morning Musume booth and on Saturday, they had an autograph session for fans. Can you imagine how crowded it was ?

Interesting cosplay that this girl had. Tifa Lockhart from Crisis Core (Thx Chloe). She was holding a big pole (supposed for advertisement for a store) with a cowboy attire. Not only that, she was dancing around to the music being played on one of the booth.

Rin from Koi Aichaku is quite well-known for his tower of figure but can he beat this wall of figures ? ^^

To my surprise, I found this rare figure of Rize from Shuraki Trinity. US$80 is little bit pricey for me so I had to skip on this one.

After 2 failed attempts of getting an autograph from Morning Musume and Daisuke Ishiwatari, I was luckily spotted that Takashi Okazaki would be signing autograph soon. In a hurry, I went to buy a print for autograph and started lining up. It took me about 1 hour before my turn but it was totally worth it. Look forward for my loot post ^^.

Afterward, I went to mangagamer booth again and took a picture of her cosplaying as Oto-nee from Da capo II. She was holding a sign saying that Yuka Kayura, one of DC II eroge artist, was there and gave out sketches for $20 with her signature. This kind of opportunity might not come again in the near future so I ordered a sketch of Yume and Otome ^^ since those two are my favourite characters in Da Capo II and again, look forward for my loot post.

I spotted this Taiga Ousaka from Toradora by Cospa. It was not the best but it was not the worst either so the quality is pretty average. Does anyone own quite a few figures by Cospa ? how’s the quality ? Are they comparable to Kotobukiya?

Natsume Rin from Little Buster. $75 is pretty pricey for me since I am not really a fan. If it was around 35-40, I might buy it.

After I was done with the dealer room, I went to the main hall at LA convention center. It was the best place to spot / look for cosplayers from your favourite anime series.

As I was going down the stairs from the dealer room, I saw this R2-D2 look alike. I am not sure why a lot people around saying this is R2-D2 because it is not. As far as I know, R2-D2 has a blue colour and probably one of my readers, who are StarWars fans, can confirm this.

At AX, sleeping in hallway is not advisable unless you don’t mind getting your wallet stolen (note that the guy didn’t actualy steal his wallet as he used his wallet and pretended to steal his wallet).

That pretty much sums my Day 3 at Anime Expo. Below is cosplayers at Anime Expo 2009. If you see your photo and would like it to be removed and want the original one without the watermark, please let me know by posting a comment or emailing me ^^.

I saw quite a few cosplayers similar to her. Does anyone know from which series she is ? Ciel from Kuroshitsuji. Thx, Toast.

Street Fighter ^^. Best Dhalsim I have ever seen.

Haseo and Atoli from .Hack GU series

Guilty Gear

Allen and Lenalee in their red Black Order uniform

Suiseiseki and Souseiseki from Rozen Maiden series

Kamina and Yoko from Gurren Lagann

Name this character ^^ Kai from Heavenly Sword. Thanks Zenical.

Lovely Athena from Saint Seiya

Cloud Angeal (Thx for the correction, Amiami) from FFVII Crisis Core and Tifa from FFVII

Name that character ^^;;

Kaede and Asa-senpai from Shuffle!. They were nice enough to pose for me even though they were in the middle of having lunch. Thank you, ladies ^^

Sheryl Nome and Klan Klang from Macross Frontier

Name this character. She is from the latest game by NIS America but I couldn’t recall what game it is.

Ikkaku Bankai form from Bleach. Awesome cosplay ^^

Group cosplay from Hayao Miyazaki movies

D.grayman

Shinigami-sama from Soul Eater

Another pose by Shinigami-sama ^^

Name this character. It’s from a game I believe. Prinny from Disgaea. Thx Zenical ^^.

Road Kamelot from D.grayman (she is one of the Noah)

All Hail, Lulu

Eruka Frog from Soul Eater

Chii from Chobits

Eruka, Medusa and name this character Free from Soul Eater. Credit to Zenical.

Another name this character ^^;;

She was nice enough to do some poses ^^

“Will you marry me”

I think she said yes ?

Name this character. I know it’s from Ouran host club. Honey senpai from Ouran. Zenical is on the roll ^^

Chun-li. She is cute ^^.

Excalibur from Soul Eater.

Name this character and Dante from Devil May Cry series

One of the Power Ranger ? Power Ranger Dino Thunder. Credit to Zenical ^^

Sailor Moon

Lavi from D.grayman

Balthier from FFXII ( I think) Guy from Tales of Abyss

Cloche from Ar Tonelico II

Bleach

KOS-MOS from Xenosaga II

Another Kamina and Yoko from Gurren Lagann

Lady and name this character Michiko from Michiko to Hatchin. Thx anonymous ^^

Jill, Kagome and not sure what the other 2.

Yuna from FFX

Ami and Taiga

Name these characters. Reimu and Marissa from Touhou project. Credit to Zenical. This basically proves that I know nothing about Touhou XD.

Name these characters ^^;;

Pokemon cosplayers

Rin from Vocaloid

Al from Full Metal Alchemist

Nel from Bleach

Rin, Miku and Len

Kamen Rider not sure which one though ^^;;

Name this character

Azumanga Daioh group

Umi, Hikaru and Fumi from Magic Knight Rayearth. Oops almost forgot to mention Mokona.

Should I bother naming this character ^^?

Kaguya Sumeragi from Code Geass

Name this character. Her uniform looks familiar. Can’t recall from which series though. Lumiere from Kiddy Grade. Thx, LightningSabre. I can’t believe I forgot because Kiddy Grade is one of my favourite series of all time ^^;;

Yui from K-ON!

Lee. Nice eyebrows ^^

Rachel Alucard from BlazBlue

Pudding, Ichigo and Aoyama from Tokyo Mew Mew

Ouran High School Host Club

Here comes my favourite character, Saber from Fate Stay Night

And more Saber….

And again…

I could not stop taking pictures of her.

Someone…. stoppp me please >.>

Oh gosh, Saber is addictive ^^;;

I promise this is my last photo.

or not…. ^^;;

Salsa and March from Eternal Sonata.

Ishida from Bleach. Nice bow he got there.

Name this character. Ciel from Kuroshitsuji. Thx, Toast.

Fran from FFXII

Name this character Meeting stone in WoW. As expected from former WoW player, thx GN ^^.

Name this character Fox McCloud (Thx Amiami) and Donkey Kong

Afro Samurai

Sailor Moon

Name these characters. They are from Pangya golf games. Thx for the hint, LightningSabre.

My favourite CC cosplayer. I love her eyes ^^

Another photo

Sheryl Nome from Macross Frontier

Name these characters Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji) (Thanks, Amiami)

I couldn’t resist so I took another picture of her ^^;;

Mayuri and Nemu from Bleach

BlazBlue

Simca from Air Gear

Talim from Soul Calibur series

Name these characters Cowboy Bebop. Thx Chun ^^

More Sheryl Nome from Macross Frontier

And another Sheryl ^^. A lot of Sheryls at Anime Expo 09

Name these characters. Miku and Luka from Magnet Music Video. (Thx, LightningSabre)

Nnoitra Jiruga from Bleach

Can’t seemt to get enough Sheryl at AX ^^

Blood Elves from WoW

Vincent from FF Dirge of Cerberus

Inoue from Bleach

I believe they are from .hack//Sign. Subaru at the front from .hack//sign but I am not sure about the rest. Sniper, high wizard (I think), high priest and assassin cross from Ragnarok Online. Thx, GN.

Another cute Chun-li ^^. She has a nice smile.

Name this character

Name these characters Pikmin (Thx Aminami)

Riku from FFX

Gurren Lagann

Misha from Pitaten

Pedo Bear ? lol

Danny Choo Stormtrooper at AX ?

Name this character. Chii from Chobits. Thx, LightningSabre

Name this character. Chii from Chobits. Thx, LightningSabre. Didn’t see her ear.

Name this character

Ikakku Bankai form and one of the arrancar. I couldn’t recall what his name is Rudobone. Thx GN ^^

Dejiko from Digi Charat

Name these characters.

Rydia, Kain, Edge(?) and Name this character from FFIV (Thx Amiami)

Vash from Trigun. Cool hair ^^

Hawt cat lady ? I don’t think she was cosplaying a character from an anime series.

Sephiroth and Yuna

Name these characters. Tinker Bells and Jasmine (Thx GN , Amiami and anonymous)

Kureha from Shining Wind

Odin Sphere cosplayers

Name this character Belzenef from Ouran Host Club (Thx Aminami)

If you know the characters / series they are from, please let me know and I will give you credit and link to your blog ^^. In addition, if I mentioned the wrong characters / anime series, please do let me know so I can correct them and give you credit. Since I didn’t attend Day 4, there will be no Day 4 coverage…. sorry XD. My next post would be my loot post.

Anime Expo 2009 Day 2 – Ishiwatari and Mori’s Panel

Saku — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:36:45 +0000

It was a nice and sunny day in LA to start my Day 2 of Anime Expo. After much disappointments of not getting Morning Musume’s autographs, I looked forward Day 2 with a lot more excitement from the day before and also looked forwad to Ishiwatari and Mori’s panel at 10:30am and was hoping I can get them to sign my Guilty Gear (GG) PS2 game. I arrived at the LA convention centre at 9am and started looking for cosplayers to take some pictures. In the morning, it was a perfect time to take some pictures because there weren’t many people yet.

I saw a lot of people already at LA convention centre and they were all anxiously waiting for the Exhibitor/Dealer room to open at 10 am. After lurking around for cosplayers,

The highlight of Day 2 was Daisuke Ishiwatari and Toshimichi Mori’s panel. They both worked on Blaz Blue fighting which was just recently released on ps3 and Ishiwatari-san is the original creator of Guilty Gear series. The panel was running for about 1 hour before the moderator had to interrupt to end it. The whole 1 hour basically consisted of QA session only and I pretty much enjoyed this panel due to in-depth questions asked by the audiences in general.

The full length of QA session can be seen below which is about 52 minutes long.

If you don’t feel like spending 1 hour watching the video , you can read the transcript of QA session below:

Legends

Daisuke Ishiwatari : DA, Toshimichi Mori: TM and Audience Number x: A#

DA: The character design for fighting game is different from how it’s used to be and how it is today. Now, we start by coming up with what kind of attacks and abilities each character would have and then for example, a character would have a long reach or a long attack. We have to decide whether this character would have a weapon that would allow a long reach or whether his arm extends long and do the attacks.

A1: Hi, my question is what’s the story behind Bridget and could you imagine him being a popular character.

DA: Bridget is a new addition to Guilty Gear series of characters and there are already characters that are good looking ones , cools but we don’t have a cute character so that’s the inspiration. But a lot of fighting games already have cute characters so we want to have something that’s unconventional so that’s why we created a cute character that’s a guy. The big surprise was it didt not matter if the talking cute character was guy, there was a huge fan for talking cute character.

A2: I wonder how you got the moves name on Guilty Gear like master of puppet and rising force … and ride a lighting.

DA: Because I love it.

A3: Guilty Gear XX has had four different versions xx ,#reload, slash and Λ core. There has been rumour online that Arc. as a company, didn’t really have much to do with slash and Λ core. I want to know more if you could elabore more on that.

DA: They all are made by Arc but I was only personally involved up until reloaded and the subsequent series happened to be Mori’s work.

A4: This is more for Mr. Ishiwatari. I heard from various sources that Order Sol is your favourite character and that’s why you made him so cool and utterly awesome. Is there a truth in that? or …

DA: No, that’s not true.

A5: Hi, nice to meet you. My question is for Mr. Ishiwatari. In the gaming industry, what happened a lot is that when a fighting game is really popular that these game do not actually change much and they just go on on on the same thing over and over again but people still buy them because, you know, they are really into in it. My question was do you have anything to say about Guilty Gear debut on HD consoles being a different genre of gaming because it’s no longer fighting but more action oriented? I am just curious why Overture is an action game not a fighting game.

DA: When I jus got started designing games, I was very much influenced by Street Fighter 2 so that’s the fighting game that I wanted to make at that time but as Guilty Gears series went on, I started playing non-japanese games, I started to discover other genre of games for example, first person shooter or real time simulation so I came to realize to come up with genre of my own to see if that would gain popularity so that’s what Guilty Gear 2 is about.

A6: As a game designer, I would like to ask both of you. What drives you to put so many different mechanics in one game. Most fighting games, you have the super meter and everyone works of that but in your games, you have coins, wave, footing, steam and things like that. Why do you do that?

DA: When we were starting to design our game, this is not to badmouth our competitions but there are other games where you can have 50 characters but they were all interchangeable and they were like playing the same characters over and over. We want to have a character that’s really differentiable so each character has a unique system for gauging.

A7: I have a question related to Blaz Blue. If Tager is magnetic, why can he use a cellphone ?

DA + TM: *laughing*.

TM: You asked a very interesting question.

TM: He is capable of using a cellphone because it’s part of his abilities

A8: Hi, I want to ask what’s the most important trait for a game designer in the current industry. Do you have any advice for a young game designer?

DA: Now, there’s a lot of video games to choose from so it’s very competitive. Even if you come up with a great title, it will immediately be forgotten because there will be a new one that will come out afterward. This is my personal philosophy. I think video games would have a longevity and remember by players if it’s competitive and cooperative so you can play with other players. It’s something that I always insist on my design.

TM: Excuse me, I still have my answer. Are you interested in a video game industry?

A8: Actually, I am already in the video game industry.

TM: Wonderful. What you need is a spirit to come up with something great and that’s your motivation to keep on going. I hope you come up with a great product.

A8: Thank you.

A9: Do you based your games’ character designs on types of attack? Do you usually have a set number of characters you want to create then you go by what attacks you create or do you go vice versa, you have x amount of attacks and that determines how many characters per game?

TM: The basic flow is that we come up with the characters first then the attacks are filled in.

DA: Well first when we’re pitching a new idea for a new game. Lets say we want 12 characters and that’s when the president would tell us that 12 characters are too much and we don’t have a budget for that. That’s when we put up a fight and make sure we get 12 characters.

A10: I know Sol Badguy is like you. Were there any other characters that you recalled very fondly? Who the other characters that you’ve created that you like a lot?

DA: All characters are like my children but if you were to force me with an answer, that would be the main character, Sol Bad Guy.

TM: I was involved in both Guilty Gears and Blaz Blues but from Guilty Gear, I chose Dizzy. From Blaz Blue, my favourite character right now is Ragna.

A11: Personally, are you guys good at Guilty Gear X2 and I am just wondering what characters do you pick ?

DA: Do not believe that game developers themselves are very expert in playing the game but if I have to choose a character, I will choose Potenkim.

TM: For Guilty Gear, I play Strawberry Jam.

A12: What’s your favourite songs from the ones that you’ve ever composed from Guilty Gears and Blaz Blue?

DA: From Guilty Gear, I believe the English title is “Still int the dark”.

TM: For me, it would be “Rebellion” from Blaz Blue.

A13: My question is 2 parts. In Guilty Gear accent core, do you name Axl Lowe after Guns N Roses lead man ? My second question is no offernse to everyone but the character designs in Blaz Blue look kinda girly. Is it meant to aim toward females because I started seeing a lot of females playing it?

DA: The answer to the first question is a delicate matter so I would like to refrain from commenting.

TM: We do have female video game players in mind with the increasing of female players. I thought Bang Shishigami would be the most popular characters among female players.

A13: Actually in my area, Jin Kisaragi is the most popular one because he is very good looking.

A14: I really love all the musics of all the games you made. I was wondering for Blaz Blue, what’s inspired the music and if Mori-san had any directions on it.

DA: Thank you. The music for Blaz Blue was a contrast to Guilty Gear music since Guilty Gear was much more straightforward rock music and represented straight forward elements. For Blaz Blue, I couldn’t more classical , jazz or modern elements into the music.

A15: I have a question for Ishiwatari-san. I was wondering in the character designs of Sol and Kye, you have on their belt buckles says Free, Hope and Oath. Why do you assign these characteristics ?

DA: Those are the elements that incorporated in character designs. The characters’ background stories have not been told yet so that’s something that I hope there will be an opportunity to incorporate into future products.

A16: Being a Nintendo player, I was just wondering are we going to get any GG for Wii or DS out ?

TM: Isn’t there a Wii version already ?

A17: It’s pretty much a ps2 port.

TM: So you want a complete original ?

A17: Yes.

TM: It’s up to Ishiwatari to decide.

DA: I have to talk to the president about it.

A18: Since the back story is still in the dark , would you consider of making an anime series or a movie probably ? I am sure all the fans would love that.

DA: I personally would love to get these back stories animated. in fact, there had been several offers to do that but the unfortunate thing is that none of the projects never seemed to light a day so I certainly hope and will make the effort to get the series animated.

A19: I have a question in regards of music. When you are in the studio recording, I would like to know what actual guitars, bridge and effects that you use. Do you use ?

DA: I am sorry to say that I don’t remember the specific equipments. We try to accommodate the guitarist and make sure they get access to their favourite equipments.

A20: That’s just personal preferences?

DA: It’s their personal preferences and what they want to use.

TM: Don’t forget about the Macintosh.

A21: The general idea these days. Fighting games are more acccesible, for example, Street Fight IV, Battle Fantasia going back to more classic roots seem like fighting game going toward. Blaz Blue seems to take the more streamline route in comparison to GG. Do you personally feel that fighting game s are getting little bit too crazy and does Blaze Blu reflect any of that?

TM: For Blaz Blue , we do have the single connection for the attack blues. The threshold has been intentionally lower to be accessible to first time player. I believe it contributed to fighting game revolution, the single D button that allows you do this and that. I do have ideas for what should be the next evolution in this genre so I hope you look forward to my next title.

A22: Western 2d fighting seems to fail in a global scale compare to Japanese 2d figting games. Western developers are obviously taleneted but what do you think it is that they are not doing correctly and what do you think it is that you are doing correctly. if you could, what western 2d fighting games would you remake?

DA: Didn’t Mortal Kombat do well on a global scale ?

A22: It did alright but it’s pretty much dead right now.

DA: Is it because anime is a popular media in the world ?

A22: Could be but I am thinking more along the line of game mechanics.

TM: one thing that frustrates me about western 2d fighting is that they are too insistent on incorporating realism into the design and they don’t have enough style. Since america is big on producing sci-fi, I think they import fantastic elements into the style. In general, too strong of an AT field.

A23: My questions are regarding to several songs added in the console version versus the arcade version. Namely a song that’s added when Bang goes to Super Mode. How did you come with the song and how did you make it so awesome ?

DA: The first line of thought, who would be the best suited to be passionate singer for characters theme song? It would be only Mr. Kageyama. So I made the best effort so he could sing the most passionate song and put up the offer to him. And he thankfully accepeted the offer and it’s wonderful.

TM: Mr. Kageyama is a very passionate man.

A24: I was wondering How you created the character Justice specifically on how you gave her that peculiar design ?

DA: First of all, she was meant to be one of the final boss characters so her look was to look very non-human. The design was inspired by one of my favourite robot anime so that’s the inspiration of the design. It was a very sensitive matter to say which one because that might cause problems.

TM: I may have a liberty to have a slip of tongue and to say it’s Tekkaman Blade.

A25: Was any of the character designs for Guilty Gear + Blaze Blu inspired by people you know personally ?

DA: None of character designs was inspired by a real people although, the name character, Johnny , was taken from a nickname of my friend.

TM: For Blaz Blue, I won’t name which character but there is one character was inspired by Peter Fujioka.

A26: Long time ago, the first Guilty Gear was in 3d but then few years later, it came out as 2d fighting gamed. I was wondering what the reason behind is. I have one request for Ishiwatari-san. Can you do one of the Sol’s line in the game using Sol’s voice ?

DA: To answer the first part of your questions, the company was interested in developing 3d games back then so there was the proposal. I was always into more 2d games so when there was a personal shuffle in the company and there was certain amount of chaos , I took the opportunity to incorporate my desire into the design. Normally, alcohol and I don’t mix well but when I do Sol’s voice, I need to empty entire bottle of sake so I have to make a special session and make an exception.

DA: *yelling in Sol’s voice* Guy’s flame (44:00)

A27: I was just wondering where the idea for Mai coming from. Why does she hold a giant anchor and ride on a dolphin ?

DA: My inspiration for coming up with the character design is to be unconventional. Back then, when you watched conventional anime, you didn’t see a tiny girl with monstrous strength

TM: You must not ask why. You must not analyze why. If you look at the character and you find her cute then you are thinking correctly.

A28: What was your inspiration for Blaz Blue character, Ragna?

TM: I just want to have a good looking character and that’s how I got Ragna. If I were forced to come up with a source, I would admit quoting from Vash the Stampede.

A29: Why does Ragna like cooking ?

TM: He needs to survive so he can’t survive without being able to cook.

A30: Why does Rachel call Ragna her one sweet sin. Does she have a feeling for him? Does she like him ?

TM: That’s the question that could be answered in the Story Mode.

A31: In European version for GG x2, there was a small trailer for GG x anime. The animation was amazing and I love it but it’s such a tease because it seemed like it’ll become a full movie and it never happened. was there any plan to make to it into a movie ? My second question is how come it to cast Norio Wakamoto as Johnny ?

DA: I really do want to see Guilty Gear animated so that’s really up to the market to support us and make the project materialize.

The session had to end so they didn’t have a chance to answer his 2nd question.

After the QA session, I went to the autograph session but due to the long line up , I didn’t have a chance to get their autographs ^^;;.

Continuing from the day before, I went back to the exhibitor/dealer room because I didn’t have a chance to explore everything the day before. I saw this nice poster of Gatchaman and a trailer of the upcoming movie. It looked alright, although, I wish they didn’t do it in full CG ^^;;

My next visit is Mangagamer‘ booth which is a company who does localization for eroge such as Da Capo II, Suika, Shuffle and many more. For some reasons, they call it Shoujo games instead of eroge lol. Their booth is not visible from outside since they required you to show your ID because there’s a mininum age of 18 years old to enter it. If ID is required, it could only mean one thing. All the good stuffs are in there ^^.

My guess couldn’t be more correct, I saw quite a few delicious goodies inside and quite a few of them have bare ‘eyes’. I spent probably like 30 minutes in there and examined each item that they were selling. If I remembered correctly, they were also selling a dakimakura of Koihime Musou.

A nice poster Shuffle outside of MangaGamer booth. Why were all the nice posters not for sale ? >.<

My next visit was AAA anime distribution. This company is our main figures distributor for companies such as GSC, Alter and Kotobukiya for North America. Correct me if I am wrong but most anime/figure stores get their product through AAAanime.

At AAA Anime inc booth, they have bunch of clear glass cabinets to show off their figures. I am amazed by the amount of efforts they did to bring those clear glass cabinets since those clear glass cabinets are friggin heavy.

Since I have been to quite a few conventions in Canada, I think Canada conventions have a long way to go. Anime North may have been the 4th largest conventions in North America but it still lacks quite a few bits and pieces, mainly, guest of honours, exhibitors and sponsors so the gap between 1st to 3rd largest convention in NA to Anime North is wide. Unfortunately, lack of sponsors translate into lack of budget and lack of Japanese guest of honours in conventions in Canada. The last time we had a well-known Japanese GoH was back in 2006 at Anime North (Kotoko) and Dot-Con 2008 (Mazakazu Morita, Kurosaki Ichigo’s seiyuu). Do you have anime conventions in your area/country ? If yes, how big is it and are there many big / well-known companies having a booth at the con ?

Funimation is one of AX major sponsor among other AX sponsors, thus, they have their booth in the exhibitors hall. Will Canada conventions ever get a sponsor like Funimation ? only time will tell ^^;;, although, I do wish that we have big and strong companies like Funimation here in Canada.

I finally had a chance to stop by at Crunchyroll booth. In addition to showing the latest airing episodes (such as Naruto, Gintama, etc) during the 4 days convention, they were also selling some goodies (including figures and figmas). If you sign up for membership during AX, I think you get a cheaper price since I saw a lot of people signing up (correct me if I am wrong). There are more pictures of crunchyroll booth at its own website. Click here to view it.

My next stop was Capcom booth and as I was anticipated, it was totally pack. They setup 5 gaming stations and they all have the same game, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, the Ultimate All-stars. It is an upcoming release from Capcom. The game was originally released exclusively on December 2008 for Japan only so they are looking to localized this for North America. Unfortunately, this game is only for arcade and Wii for now. The release date is said to be on Q4 2009 but there is no specific date as of now. This one looks like Marvel vs Capcom series and why it only comes for Wii and arcade ^^;;. We need a PS3 version.

Like I said above, why are these cool posters like the one below are not for sale ^^;; ?. Such a nice poster of Rachel from Blaz Blue

ACG NA representative is here at the artist alley. I dropped by and was going to say hi , but, she was away ^^;;.

I am not sure what’s going on with those two but I found it interesting so I took a picture ^^.

That basically sums up my Day 2 of AX09. AX09 Day 3 would be my Day for cosplayers hunting so I will post all cosplayers from Day 1 to Day 3. Since I didn’t attend Day 4, there will be no post for Day 4 and will be replaced by loot post and total expenses.

Anime Expo 2009 Day 1

Saku — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:58:00 +0000

Opening day of Anime Expo had finally arrived. The time had come and I had been waiting for this day. My apology if I made it sounding so dramatic (too much) but I had been looking forward to it for a long time as far as I can remember since I got into anime conventions. I woke up around 7:30am and left my hotel at 8am since the registration opened at 9am. Even though, I was one hour early, as I was expected, the line was already quite long. I wish I didn’t oversleep yesterday so I could get my badge and didn’t get stuck waiting. The picture above may not be related but that’s how I imagined myself yelling ‘YEAHHHHHHHHHHH’ to let out my excitement for Anime Expo.

My oh my, the line-up was crazy and I thought Anime North was bad enough but Anime Expo was a lot worse. It was at least 3-4 times worse than Anime North. Waiting in the line-up was quite boring since I went to Anime Expo alone with any friends from back home. Maybe next year if I have a chance to go to AX again, I will try to drag some friends with me and come up with better planning.

The majority of people in the line-up didn’t cosplay so sadly I didn’t take any pictures of cosplayers. In addition, everyone seemed to be busy either playing PSP/DS or listening to some musics on their Ipods so I couldn’t randomly start a conversation with someone ^^;;. For con-goers out there, when you are at anime conventions, do you usually start random conversations with the person beside you while waiting in the line?

Around 9am, the line finally started moving and it was really fast. While I was walking toward the registration booth, I took a snapshot of this girl’s handbag. I don’t think Louis Vuitton is exactly appropriate for anime conventions but I am not one to judge and to each his/her own ^^.

After looking at her bag, I glanced over to her friends’ shoes. I questioned myself as of why they wore high heels. Wouldn’t skecher shoes a lot more comfortable to wear at Anime convention which was a place that required to be walking around a lot. A question popped in my head for my readers who are females (hopefully I do have some female readers ^^;;). Do you wear high heels at anime convention (assuming you don’t cosplay as a character that needs to wear high heels?

Despite the long line-up, it moved quite fast and within half an hour, I was about to get my badge. I like to give AX2009 staffs two thumbs up on how organize their registration booths were. They prepared bunch of computers where people scanned their pre-registered receipt to confirm their identity then printed it out and ready to be picked up on the booth accordingly.

In addition to AX badge, I was given a strap to hang the badge which was very usefull than having a clip-on type like I had at Anime North. AX didn’t have just one mascot but there were 2 (or 4 if you count the stuff animals) but I still like Anime North mascot for some reasons ^^. In addition to my name, I got my screenname/nickname on my badge so it’s pretty cool.

It’s pleasant to see that Anime Expo is fully supported by Governor of California, Arnold Schawrzenegger. He wrote a short greeting to everyone who gathered for the 19th annual Anime Expo and the greeting was put in the AX booklet which was given to me when I got my badge along with AX plastic bag. I wonder if our premier in Ontario will ever do something similar for Anime North for example ^^;;. Question for my readers, does your local government authorities involve in anime/otaku related activities in your area ?

After I got my badge, I went straight for another line up for Morning Musume concert ticket. The line might look shorter but it actually took me 1 hour to get to the ticket booth. It really sucked and such a time waster waiting in lines ^^;;.

Right after I got my ticket, I was going to check the exhibitors/dealers room but saw the long line up, I decided to just go directly to Morning Musume panel. It’s unfortunate that we were not allowed to take any photos during the panel, but of course, there was always someone dare enough to do it with a risk of getting kick-out from the room like the short clip below.

Another short clip of Morning Musume members going back to their hotel.

The Morning Musume panel was around 1 hour and in my humble opinion, there were not much interesting discussions going on other than hearing “I love you, ” ^^;. After the panel ended, we were given a ticket for autograph session and so much of my luck, I was sitting in the middle row so I couldn’t get a ticket because it’s limited to 500 tickets only. In addition, even though you have a ticket, it didn’t mean that you were guaranteed an autograph. There goes my plan to get their autographs -_-;;

To cure my disappoinment, I went to exhibitors/dealers room. Thankfully, there were no more line ups.

I visited Atlus booth to check out what games they have.

I saw this PS3 game called Demon’s Souls. It looks like an action adventure oriented game like Oblivion. Not something that I would get usually but it looked kinda cool. The game will be released on October 6, 2009. If you like Oblivion, chance is you will enjoy this game. Check out the cinematic teaser trailer below.

Not far from Demons’ Souls , Atlus was showing their upcoming release of Persona which was a remake of Persona in PSone and a recent release, Devil Survivor. Both games are for PSP. Check out opening movie for Persona below and Devil Survivor trailer on Atlus’ Official Website. I like the music from Persona OP movie. It’s quite catchy ^^.

Moving on the next game from Atlus, it is Neo Steam The Shattered Continent which is a free online mmorpg. It looks like just any other free mmorpgs out there and it’s slashing/swinging your weapons to kill monsters to finish a quest. It lacks a story line or characters development in my opinion. I haven’t found any mmorpg that is better than FFXI in term of story and that’s a reason why I look forward to FFXIV ^^. Check out OP movie and a game trailer below.

After I was done with Atlus’ booth, I went to its nearest neighbour which was NIS America. NIS America is well-know for localization of many japanese rpgs such Ar Tonelico, Atelier Iris, Makai Kingdom, Disgaea and many more. They were also selling bunch of game goodies like small figures from their games and their booth was quite crowded every day.

Too bad , they don’t sell these posters below. I want them so bad >.<.

After NIS booth, I went to Arc’s booth which is well-known for producing Guilty Gear 2d fighting game. There were so many people and took me quite an effort to take a picture of Blaz Blue gameplay. Does any play game this game ? I am not what the hype is with this game aside from cute characters ^^;; and cool OSTs. Check out its trailer below.

Unfortunately, the exhibitors/dealers room closed at 6pm and I was forced to leave by the securities and staffs. It’s quite disappointing for me that they closed so early since I was hoping to explore it more but oh well, there would be another chance the next day. I didn’t go back to my hotel directly but decide to stay around and looked for some cute cosplayers ^^.

Around 8pm, I had to call it a day since my legs were killing me and I barely could walk anymore ^^;;. That summed up my AX Day 1 coverage. Thanks for reading and I hope you guys enjoying it.