WCS Prelims at FanimeCon 2010

So for awhile I've been wanting the World Cosplay Summit Team USA Preliminaries to be held at FanimeCon. From my mind, it would be either be part of the Masquerade as done at the New York Anime Festival in New York City, NY when the WCS Team USA Prelims where at NYAF or be a separate event, probably squeezing it in on Saturday or Sunday before the FanimeCon Masquerade or MusicFest.

For a bit, it seemed that there would be no WCS Prelims at FanimeCon, until today.

Via a LiveJournal post, someone posted that they "*just* inked the deal for the World Cosplay Summit US preliminaries to be held at Fanime in San Jose!" Then the rumor mill started about how it would be done and where it be done. Eventually, Masquerade Coordinator Marisa via the Fanime Forums stated at the WCS Prelims will not overlap with the FanimeCon Masquerade - or not even on the same stage (as some people thought, including myself). Instead, the Prelims will take place in a panel room at the convention, where I'm guessing they'll do the judging in a streamlined manner than having a Masquerade skit.

First off, FINALLY!!! The WCS can have some West Coast representation since Anime Expo in 2005(?). And second, this should bring out the best in cosplayers, especially some well-known cosplayers, for a chance to show off their cosplays potentially to a worldwide audience in Japan in late July-early August when the WCS will take place in Nagoya. I wish those who are going to enter the best of luck, and I hope that everything works out for both the WCS and FanimeCon and that we can move on from the bad publicity that has plagued the WCS and Team USA for quite sometime now.

One Month To Fanime, Plus an AX Update

We are about a month away from FanimeCon. There is still much to be planned out in this last month, most of it probably within the last week because of college finals although I do have a free Thursday during Finals Week where I'll start to hammer things out for Fanime.

On the Anime Expo side, Ryan just booked us into the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Los Angeles. He was really satisfied during his stay for AX 2009, and he was really looking forward to booking when Anime Expo FINALY OPENED THEIR DAMN HOTEL BLOCKS. Maybe Anime Expo is shaping out to be a good convention after all with AKB48 being the latest Guests of Honor within the block of actually decent line-up. Like I mentioned before, transportation is still an issue depending on what happens to Ryan between FanimeCon and Anime Expo, but I'll probably let him elaborate on that a bit later.

This is looking to be a great two months for me and everyone involved in these trips.

AX Committed

So as I mentioned on Twitter and Facebook yesterday, I bought my badge for Anime Expo (while waiting for my friend and his mom to come to Applebee's on my phone at Applebee's, yet another reason to love my Droid) meaning I'm fully committed. Now how to get down there is something else depending on how things play out in the next month. I'm really excited to make my return to AX in 2010 and I have plans to return to Cosplay Chess and the AX versions of gatherings I go to at FanimeCon, not to mention I'm still waiting on getting a SoCal Host Club Info Panel. This should be setting up for a fun and exciting Anime Expo 2010.

AX Flashback: 2002 - #38 Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust

Now this skit was Best in Show, and there's a damn good reason to why it came out that way. Just one stunning skit from beginning to end.

AX Flashback: 2002 - #15 Ah! My Goddess & #34 Misato Kasuragi NGE

This one gets kudos points for great singing, craftsmanship, and Belldandy.



And this one...well, it's Misato from NGE, one of my favorite characters of all time.

AX Flashback: 2002 - #14 Jin-Roh Wolf Brigade

The 3rd video takes us to one of my favorite anime movies. Combine kick-ass costumes, humor, and dancing (before everyone started to do a dance skit) for a good skit that I liked.

Usagichan Company Search and Rescue

For awhile, I thought this site died off as "bigger and better cosplay websites" started to pop-up. Surprisingly, they're still around and are still attending conventions across American including FanimeCon and Anime Expo, taking photos and doing reports. I added a picture to the FanimeCon 2009 report with me sitting on Stage Zero during the "I got on there for a right answer then got kicked off for spoiling an anime" moment. I also found the Masquerade photo from 2008 as well as Ryan's Masquerade photo in 2009. I also look at their Anime Expo 2002 report for nostalgia moments, and back in 2002 after my first convention this was the first site that I went to find photos from AX 2002.

I added the link to the Related Links sidebar, or you can click here to visit their website. They've been doing this for a long time, and their experience shows in the coverage that inspired me to start the blog.

AX Flashback: 2002 - #06 Nataku

The 2nd skit is also Gundam Wing-related, but this one has some meaning. I'm going to guess that I have mentioned this before, but this skit was my first exposure to the hip-hop group Dilated Peoples (the song used is Worst Comes To Worst from the album Expansion Team) who are also located out of the Los Angeles area. Since then I have all their albums from Expansion Team to 20/20.



Just for fun, I'll throw in the music video.

AX Flashback: 2002 - #33 Stitchin Babes Gundam Wing

So in celebration of my first AX attendance in over 8 years, I decided to dig through the archives of YouTube for anything related to Anime Expo 2002. Most of them are from the Masquerade though, so these next few posts will be dedicated to some of my favorite skits from that Masquerade.

First we have #33 of the Masquerade. Why this one first? Well, my Gundam Wing fandom was at its height in 2002, and it was a toss-up between this one and #6, but in the end I had to go with this one first.





They won Honorable Mention in the Presentation category that night, and I will be posting the Best of Show as one of the last videos.

Close Lock to AX

I'm about near ready to seal the deal on attending Anime Expo for the first time since 2002. In the past two years, prospects of going to AX were dim because I would be the only one going and unless I found people to stay with me - I didn't have real SoCal connections prior to Ryan and my two roommates at ALA - the full cost of the hotel would go on me. With Ryan and his friends plus me plus the two roommates from ALA who are willing to stay with us for AX, AX just got a whole lot cheaper.

I'm going to buy my badge next week before the 4-day price goes up to $75.

Background Music on the Blog

So I mentioned last night via Twitter and the fan page on Facebook, I decided to add in some background music on the blog. It'll be a variety of instrumentals, ranging from music from anime soundtracks to hip-hop and rap to rock to whatever you guys want to request me to play - nothing out of the ordinary though, I'm not having a Rick Roll embedded on the site.

This is experimental as the music is on autoplay and that may cause the page to lag. As of now, it's via YouTube's embed code modified to only show the control menu. Again, please provide feedback with suggestions on how to improve the background music and its embed.

SoCal Host Club Info Panel at FanimeCon 2010 Update

We finally got our day, time, and location confirmed for the SoCal Host Club Info Panel at FanimeCon 2010.

Day: Monday
Time: 11am
Location: Panels 2 Marriott Salon III

Yeah, we're one of the last panels of the convention, but I think it's better that we leave people with our impressions as the last thing versus the first thing they see.

UPDATE 4/18 - We've been shuffled to Panels 2 instead of Panels 3, same time though.

Cosplay In America

I've been in contact with Ejin, the mastermind behind the book "Cosplay In America." Basically, he spent all of 2009 touring conventions including Fanime (now I know who was next to the Cosplay Gatherings table in the lobby area) and now he's putting all the photos he took together into one book.

He's going to be back at FanimeCon for 2010 and he will have an Artists Alley table in which he will be selling his book. I urge you all to stop by his table and check out this amazing book that he's got going. I've even lined up a short Q&A with him down at FanimeCon, which I really look forward to.

Facebook page
Twitter page
Main site (temp for now, new site coming soon!)

AnimeTV at Anime Los Angeles 6

So I forgot that I ran across the crew of the "revived" AnimeTV program (Johnny Young Bosch is the host, and I wish I could meet the guy). Anyways, they were at Anime Los Angeles 6 and I found the video.



So me nor Ryan were featured at any point, but I did have a good conversation with one of the crew members while at Anime Los Angeles...at 4-5 in the morning.

Google Seach Stories Series - FanimeCon 2010 Ver. 2

The last one was through my point of view, this one is through Ryan's point of view.



Updated with Ver. 2.5

Google Seach Stories Series - FanimeCon 2010

Updated with Ver. 1.5

Google Search Stories Series - Anime Los Angeles 2010

I found this neat product on YouTube that recreates the Google Search Story commercials -




So I decided to make one to tell the story of Anime Los Angeles (and to plug in my blog at the end).




I'll be making more of these in the near future.

Update: Ver. 1.5 up with better searches!

Figuring Out The Solution To The Webcam Problem

I may have another method in doing vlogs at FanimeCon and at future cons after shortly abandoning it due to technical error. Instead of going straight to YouTube to record, I will recording using the webcam software provided when I first bought the webcam. That way, I record a full file and then upload that file to YouTube instead of recording on the fly using YouTube and its webcam flash plugin.

I hope this works, if not I'll have to resort to using a digital camcorder to record vlogs, then reencode them and bring them up to YouTube.

April = Crucial For AX

As we work into April, Fanime is two months away but also Anime Expo is three months away.

I over the weekend I had discussions with Ryan and Matthew Lewis (also known as Maguma in the cosplay world) about AX and I told both of them that "April is going to be a huge factor whether or not I go to AX."

And this is going to hold true.

I really need to see some progress from AX: I'm still waiting to see if we can get a panel and/or event for the SoCal Host Club [the deadline for panels is April 30th, so I'll actually hold on more even if it costs me $10 more], more hotel rooms need to open up besides the Westin (screw having one hotel open because of an agreement to fill the Westin up first, FanimeCon had all four hotels available from Day 1!), and I need to see more "quality" guests of honor - those are the big three factors.

Like I told both of them in my conversations and posted over at the AX forums on Coscom, "AX, get your shit together."

AX has three months to turn it around.

Two Months 'Till FanimeCon 2010

We are within the two month window until FanimeCon 2010. For myself, there still a lot of planning and figuring out to do not to mention the plethora of schoolwork that remains.

Everything is starting to form, and as we get closer the picture of what exactly will happen will get clearer and my ambitions will become more relevant. But for now, I still have to wait...

Sac-Anime Summer 2009 Cosplay Fashion Show Commentary

So I told you guys awhile back that when she asked what game it was from, I answered "Blazblue."

Well I just found video that has "commentary" from me because you can hear me speak while this is going on. Yes, I did reference Jin's "ice car" spam attack.



I'm assuming since we basically sat next to each other that could hear me throughout the whole entire Fashion Show if you go through this person's video set.