Another year, another Anime Evolution. Costumed fans of anime and manga gathered around the core of the University of British Columbia during a sweltering summer weekend. There was lots to see and do, along with plenty of awesome costume, but the convention wasn’t as great as anticipated.
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I arrived home from work today and found an envelope marked all the way from Kazo, Saitama prefecture in Japan sitting on the table. After noticing the Present Tree logo at the bottom and the Konoha emblem on the back, I figured the contents had to be for the Naruto’s Forest campaign that ran this past June.
I opened the envelope and found five sheets of paper enclosed within; one of which was my certificate of the tree I’m sponsoring. Also included was a beautiful print of Naruto and Jiraiya resting under a tree, a card with an amazing forested landscape where the saplings are planted, another card detailing some of the various local plants and a brief paper covering how the tree will be cared for.
So, if you’re ever in Japan, stop by the forests in the Yamanashi prefecture and look for tree 11-04772. I hope to visit one of these days…
Ever wondered which of your favourite ninjas celebrate their birthdays? Grab a slice of cake, a shuriken and party it up with our fairly comprehensive listing of character’s birth dates within the Naruto series. Read the rest of this article…
Naruto volume 49
The five leaders of the hidden ninja villages all convene to decide how to handle the rising menace that is the Akatsuki. However, decisions are made which Naruto doesn’t know how to handle. Even worse, a new hokage takes over Konohagakure and issues a new order – one that doesn’t bode well for Naruto or Sasuke.
Volume 48 of the Naruto manga goes on sale October 5th, 2010 for 9.99 USD/$12.99 CAD.
Fullmetal Alchemist volume 24
Deep in the tunnels beneath Central, Hohenheim stands face-to-face with Father, the leader of the homunculus. Does Hohenheim have what it takes to unseat Father and defeat him?
With control of the military almost in Mustang’s hand, a surprise return by King Bradley shows that the colonel and his allies haven’t tasted victory just yet.
The latest chapter in the Elric brother’s quest to regain their lost bodies and save Amestris takes a long break before hitting store shelves. The fight continues on January 18th, 2011.
Weekly Shonen Jump is celebrating a major milestone: 100 million published comics. Fans of Naruto, which is published in Weekly Shonen Jump, can help sponsor a tree in Naruto’s Forest with a campaign put together by the Japanese publishing company Shueisha and PresentTree to commemorate this achievement.
The goal is to plant and nurture 7,510 trees on the mountainsides in the Yamanashi prefecture, west of Tokyo. The saplings will be cared for over the next ten years to help them mature into a forest. Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of Naruto, has sketched out an image as to what the forest will look like when the planted saplings grow up.
Both Japanese and international fans of the series are encouraged to enter the contest to sponsor one of the trees. Contest winners will receive a certificate that contains information about their tree along with a number. Each tree will have a posted sign with that number so winners will be able to locate their sapling.
Source: Anime News Network
Naruto drinks Starbucks in Seattle
You’re out enjoying weekend crowds at Seattle’s Pike Place Market when you spy a few out-of-the-ordinary people from the corner of your eye. You don’t know what they are but you’re curious to find out since they’re dressed up and it’s not Halloween. Such is the case whenever I attend Sakura-Con downtown Seattle, where I get stopped on the street when walking between the Washington State Convention and Trade Center and my hotel or the Pike Place Market. So what is an anime convention, and why does (almost) everyone dress up? Read the rest of this article…
It’s been thirteen years since Anime Central, or ACen for short, first made its appearance in 1998, and being my third time here, it didn’t disappoint. ACen is one of the larger anime and manga conventions in the United States and rightly so, seeing as fans of Japanese culture come from all over (myself being from Vancouver, British Columbia). This year, ACen returned to the Hyatt Regency O’Hare and Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois for all things dark and mysterious about anime, seeing as this was the thirteenth ACen.
View from the Hyatt Regency O'Hare
As per my custom of booking a hotel room at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare (seeing as I don’t like to travel too and from conventions during the day and it makes things easier to stay in the same building), our group checked in to our room. We discovered, to our delight, that we got a balcony and one that faced the entrance over Bryn Mawr Avenue. This would make for a great location when people watching over the weekend.
But back to our group – which consisted of four people: myself (as Vyse from Skies of Arcadia), Soul Eater Evans (of Soul Eater fame), Ban Midou and Ginji Amano (both from Get Backers). Of course, we had the obligatory visitors stop by for some balcony fun and dinner.
Ginji and Ban from Get Backers
This was my first time debuting another costume that wasn’t Naruto Uzumaki, this time going as Vyse from Skies of Arcadia, after I commissioned it from my friend. We set out and began our first full adventure of the convention for 2010.
The artist’s alley was spectacular again, including the return of our friend SHADi and new-comer, Joey Blondewolf2. Lots of talent and many with amazing prints and sketches and other neat trinkets were available for sale. I just wish I had space back home to display all of it.
The exhibitor’s room was expansive as always which makes it easy to get lost in, but you’d always find yourself at a booth that sold something interesting, unique or a shrine to Shaq-Fu. At the FUNimation booth, they had copies of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and the third Soul Eater box set for sale before their scheduled retail date which was pretty neat; a kind of bonus for fans of the series at the convention.
I purchased a few shirts, some Naruto Shippuden figures, the Soul Eater box set two and the entire Higurashi no Naku Koro ni box set (the latter alone was a steal primarily because HMV in Canada sells the individual DVDs for $40 CAD where this box set at the FUNimation booth for the whole series was $40 USD).
We also took advantage of DeathCom Multimedia‘s photo booth in the Hyatt for a few professional photographs together. I’d never done this before, but seeing as the Ban and Ginji in our group had done it and had shown how well their pictures had come out, I had to give it a try. Getting your picture taken is free, but there was a fee if you wanted prints (8½ by 11 or 4 by 6). It was worth it though.
Legend of Zelda photo shoot
Later in the afternoon, I attended the Legend of Zelda and Soul Eater photo shoots. Both featured amazing costumes and a lively atmosphere as everyone in character posed for the cameras. Amusingly, during the Zelda poses, the wind had picked up, and neither Links from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker were able to tame the breeze. My friend, as Soul Eater, had a fun time at his namesake shoot, being abused by Maka and frightened when Excalibur appeared. I unfortunately missed the Naruto and Fire Emblem photo shoots though. Need to plan better for next year.
Kouki Uchiyama signs a Soul Eater wall scroll
On Saturday, we picked up postcards from the FUNimation booth that listed the autograph schedules for the Japanese voice cast of Soul Eater. The first session was at 11:30 am with Yumiko Kobayashi (Black Star) and Narumi Takahira (Patty Thompson), where we were able to get a few wall scrolls signed. We returned at 1:30 pm when the rest of the cast would be available to sign my friend’s Soul Eater jacket. While we waited in line, Vic Mignogna made a brief appearance from behind one of the curtains dividing the autograph booths. My friend, who knows Vic quite well personally, was able to speak with him shortly until Vic’s fan girls found him and began screaming. For those who have never attended an anime convention where Vic was a guest, his fans are loud — not the good kind of loud at a concert, but the kind of loud that’s reminiscent of nails being dragged down a chalkboard. That sound even frightened Vic which was pretty amusing. After the line started moving, we were able to get our wall scrolls and my friend’s jacket signed by Kouki Uchiyama (Soul Eater) and Kaori Nazuka (Tsubaki), along with the producer of the animated series, Masazumi Kato.
People watching at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare
Most of the ACen attendees know how much trouble the elevators at the Hyatt can be, especially during the afternoon and evenings. Me and a friend had gone down to pick up our pizza from the front desk and upon entering the elevator (which also had a few other people bringing back their own dinner), we found that we were over the weight limit. Usually, the elevator makes a loud buzzing noise and the doors don’t close to alert the occupants. In this case, the doors did close and the elevator moved a foot before stopping – and then dropped about a half a foot which freaked me out. So about ten minutes later after repeating the same dropping motion over, some of the people exited and we were on our way (being stuck in the elevator wouldn’t have been half bad seeing as we all had food and drinks).
My friends however, made a smarter decision, and took the stairs instead; responding to comments of the building reminiscing the ShinRa headquarters in Final Fantasy VII.
Shinichi Watanabe strikes a pose
I found the convention to be much more organized and the staff was really friendly and helpful. I know in previous years, IRT would use brightly coloured zap straps or ribbons on approved props, but this year, they marked the back of the badges with a red star stamp. ACen badges are pretty unique among convention goers, since the administration has gone through varying styles to create something different and forgery-proof each year. This time, the badges were actual plastic badges with a printed label containing the badge name, number and other information on it.
All in all, Anime Central this year was pretty amazing. Only disappointment was that Doug Walker of That Guy With The Glasses fame wasn’t around all that much. Seeing as he’s busy making hilarious videos and was a last minute unofficial guest, I can’t fault the convention for it. But overall, it was well planned and was a fun weekend. I can’t wait to return in 2011!
Photos are now available online in Gallery. Videos will be posted shortly.
Soul Eater photo shoot
As another Anime Central has come and gone; now it’s time now for the memories. Most of the pictures taken have been posted on Gallery, however the videos are still being processed. It’s been fun, and of course, there’s always next year!
A convention recap will be released shortly.
The CEO of Bang Zoom! Entertainment, Eric P. Sherman, posted his view on why anime is going to die out. Eric attributes his reasoning of this due to the popularity of fan-subbing, where groups of people take recordings from Japanese television and translate them with English (or another language) subtitles. These videos are easily available through torrents or are sometimes chopped up and posted on streaming video sites like YouTube.
Eric has pointed the finger at fan-subs for the demise Geneon Entertainment USA and ADV Films which have gone under due to a lack of sales. If fans of the series continue to download and watch ill gotten episodes, more companies will follow suit and cease operations.
North American companies that perform the localization (which includes dubbing) and distribution of licensed series, companies such as Viz Media, FUNimation and Bang Zoom! Entertainment, have become very outspoken over fan-subbing. This is due to the idea that once someone downloads and watches the show on their computer, they most likely will not go out and purchase the DVD or Blu-ray. There are a few reasons behind this:
It seems that there are two sides to the story with a delicate industry caught in the middle. However, both sides — the fans and the companies, need to reach a plateau where they get their money’s worth for and from the end product, be it DVD or manga. It’s unfair though for one side to harbour all of the blame when the reasons behind it should be looked at. But in the mean time, go out and buy a DVD or Blu-ray and maybe send some (polite!) feedback to the company that holds the North American license to show how you feel about the pricing and content of your favourite series.
Source: Anime News Network
