AnimeFest 2015

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3cp7n7hwjb99sxx/2015-09-04%2010.05.48.jpg?dl=0

Over Labor Weekend, I attended AnimeFest 2015. It seemed that attendance increased from last year by a LOT, so hopefully once the numbers are posted on AFest’s website I’ll add them here. I didn’t take as many pictures as last year, but all the ones I did take are on my instagram.

Day 1

First day of AFest went great! Attended a few panels, an autograph session for the Japanese guests, and presented my Working in the Manga Industry panel.

• Working in the Manga Industry
  I had a nice turnout for a Friday afternoon panel. I finished my presentation faster than usual and had to literally ad-lib since most of the attendees didn’t have questions. I was video-taped, but not sure where it’ll post.
• All About Atsuko Tanaka
  Atsuko Tanaka works for Studio Ghibli as an animator, so this panel was all about her animation works she did for Hayao Miyazaki. It was really interesting and fun. She showed animation cels from the Lupin the Movie and My Neighbor Totoro.
• Japanese Autograph Session
  Attended the autograph session and had Arina Tanemura sign my German version of Sakurahime.
• Vixen’s Guide: Voice Acting
  Stephanie Young is a voice actor for FUNimation and this panel was all about what strong female characters characteristics are.

I meant to go to the yaoi panels that night, but I passed out at 2100.

Day 2

Woke up at my usual time on Saturdays (0430) and groaned while looking at my phone. Since I was awake I went ahead and got dressed and went down for breakfast around 0730. It was good timing since my friends came earlier than they thought, but enough about that let’s get to the panels.

• Women in Voice Acting
  All the women voice actor guests were sitting on this Q & A panels, who are: Monica Rial, Stephanie Young, Jad Saxton, Kristen McGuire, and Jessica Gee-George. Like all voice actor panels it was really entertaining and fun.
• American Voice Actors Autographs
  Immediately after the panel was an autographs session with all the women (minus Stephanie Young who had to prep for her concert), Grant George (Jessica Gee-George’s husband), and Ian Sinclair. I was one of the last 10 in line, so I was able to chit-chat with each voice actor due to people in front of me having a lot of items for autographs.
• Manga Lettering 101
  I was surprised at the turnout for my second panel I presented. Had a total of 25 people stay for three-fourths of the time and toward the last 20 minutes it was just 3 awesome gentlemen. I think it turned out well even with a few technical difficulties.
• Hot Dads of Anime
  Like the title suggests, this panel was full of hot older men who happen to also be dads. Literally all my favorite “Oji-sans” were mentioned, which made for a fun fan-girling panel.
• All Yaoi Considered (18+)
  Of course like last year, I had to end the night with a yaoi panel. I had SO much fun squeeing over all the BL and laughing at the fun silly games/trivia that we played.

I didn’t make it to the Dealer Room nor to the Artist Alley, so hopefully I can grab some free time on Day 3 to snag more items.

Day 3

Spent most of the day in the Video Rooms watching a whole bunch of Studio Ghibli films and other anime films, which was really nice. Bought some more manga on my second trip to the Dealer Room. Bought a copy of Kristen McGuire’s Enchanted graphic novel, stopped by sakevisual’s table, and bought a Devil’s Candy comic group print from REM in the Artist Alley. I was totally surprised that REM had a table this year at AFest, so I was overjoyed to snag a print. Didn’t attend as many panels as I had initially planned, but still had another fun-filled day.

• Visual Novel Showcase
  Ayu Sakata of sakevisual hosted the panel. Visual novels she’s helped develop include: Backstage Pass and Jisei series. Upcoming visual novel game trailers were shown in the first half of the panel with some Q & A in-between each trailer. All the trailers shown were mostly upcoming indie games, but a lot of them sound really good. I wrote down a few to check out once they release.

Day 4

I watched a few more anime episodes before checking out early, so I’d have time to visit family who live in the DFW area.

All in all, this was another fun AnimeFest and I’m looking forward to AFest 2016. AFest 2016 will be August 12-15, 2016, instead of Labor Day weekend, which will be when San Japan 2016 is. So next August/September will be interesting with AnimeFest, CTC Geekfest, and San Japan being back-to-back.

Wishing a beautiful day and weekend!!