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AnimeUSA con this weekend

The AnimeUSA con this past weekend was a lot of fun, even though the folks organizing it waited until the week before to announce the full schedule. They also abandoned the Guidebook app in favor of something I could not get to work on my iPad or iPod Touch, any of my Android tablets including my Nook (which will actually run the 3D graphical app for Second Life), or any of my computers. Because of some strange formatting that apparently required software to display it properly that I didn’t have, the PDF version of the schedule only allowed you to see what was scheduled on Thursday. I ended up having to track down the printer-friendly version of the schedule on their web site, print it out, and mark the things I wanted to attend with a Sharpie; how 20th century! It didn’t really matter, since the people who were doing all the different parts of the program worked their butts off to make sure their portion was done properly. Bottom line, a good time was had by all, thanks to the individual contributors and the wonderful attitude all the attendees carried with them everywhere they went. This matches the original concept for the event; BY Otaku, FOR Otaku. Most of the professional level guests were from Japan or the Left Coast companies who bring their Anime/Manga products our way. I loved the panels the Voice Actors put on, with the Inside The Voice Actors Studio segment perhaps being my favorite. The Cosplayers were fully represented and owned the hallways, and the panels I managed to attend were excellent, both Fan and Pro run.

I tried to take notes at the various panels, but was usually too busy enjoying them to remember to do so. Perhaps I can remember enough about some of them to post a few notes here. There was so much going on that most hours I had to pick between 3 to 6 things I wanted to attend that were scheduled at the same time. For those wondering, that is me in the picture taken at the con, holding up the sign for next year’s event, and wearing my Planet Tokyo shirt. Note that the shirt does not refer to the Puffy AmiYumi song, but to the radio show by Willow Leafstorm on Krypton Radio, Sci-Fi for your Wi-Fi.

Jer At AnimeCon 2014
Planet Tokyo At AnimeCon 2014

Something to Do: Movies

Ths weekend we get Dracula Untold, a story about the ruler and hero Vlad Tepes sacrificing much to save his family and his subjects from the invading armies. In some ways this is a lot closer to the historic facts of his life and times than most Dracula movies, and includes his Impaler tendencies, although with those scenes adjusted to retain the PG-13 rating. Except for that whole Vampire thing they could have passed this as a historical epic, but that just helps spice up the story. I will be in the theaters for this one.

Something to Watch: DVDs

Topping movies this time around we get Edge of Tomorrow, the movie based on the excellent book All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. I find it interesting that they changed the title of the movie to the tagline for the disc cover: Live Die Repeat. The other live action film this week is Sharknado 2: The Second One, so even a new rebooting of Howard The Duck would have gotten top billing over that. However, there is one more that is worth your time to check out; the animated Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart. It features a world class voice cast in both its English and French audio versions, and the animation quality is top notch. I don’t find that much of a surprise, since this is from the team that brought us A Monster In Paris, is produced by Luc Besson, and is based on the concept album by the French rock band Dionysos, and the graphic novel La Mécanique du cœur written by their lead singer.

There are several good choices in TV, beginning with Hemlock Grove: The Complete First Season, the made-for-Netflix supernatural series. I found it very interesting, and just spooky enough to make it a good selection for an October release. American Horror Story: Coven – The Complete Third Season is likewise an excellent choice for the month that includes Halloween. Bates Motel: Season Two, Houdini, and The Following: The Complete Second Season round out the selections this time.

In Anime, Rozen Maiden: Zuruckspulen is a twisted tale of time and fate unraveling, as the adult Jun speaks with his younger self. Their goal now is to try to revive Shinku to prevent Kirakisho, the seventh Rozen Maiden, from unleashing destruction on both of their worlds. Also this week Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet is a far future tale of what happens when several members of the space-faring branch of humanity accidentally finds their way back to Earth. This one was the best series in the Spring season of 2013 for me, I watched each episode as it became available before any other show. This release includes the entire 13 episode series, the two OVAs, and the 13 Petite Gargiantia Mini-Episodes as well as the Petite Gargiantia Special. In other words, everything they ever made for the series is in the box set, including a bunch of things not previously seen outside of Japan. I would have posted the Viz Streaming Anime link rather than the Crunchyroll for this one, except it didn’t seem to be working.

Mobile Suit Gundam UC – Part 4 is a slightly misleading title, since the original series consisted of 7 one hour episodes, and this 90 minute long release is the fourth and final part of it. If you are a Gundam fan, you will not want to miss this one. And a couple of non-Terrestrial Pirate shows are being re-released this time around, Bodacious Space Pirates and Space Pirate Mito.

Tokyo Ska Paradise

One of the best, and therefor longest lasting, Ska bands from Japan is Tokyo Ska Paradise. The first track is Diamond In Your Heart released in July, the second is SUIKINKUTSU featuring the Piano goodness of Hiromi Uehara. The third song is Sky without Canary with Chibayuusuke of Thee Michelle Gun Elephant fame on vocals from 2009, and the final track of tonight’s collection is Chuosame Yoshie singing Cat Playing in the Twilight. If you like jazz, or ska, or big band, this is a group you want to pay attention to when they come your way.

Ascension trailer

Syfy has a pitiful track record at made for TV movies, but both their original TV series and their miniseries have been excellent, and Ascension looks like it could be a winner. The premise is simple; what if the space race Kennedy started in 1962 didn’t collapse once humanity made it to the moon, but kept going. If that progress had been steady, by now we would be launching our first expeditions to the nearer stars… and what a different universe that would have been! Of course, to keep up that constant development, you would have needed someone to race against, who also didn’t falter or pause.

Printing Sand

3D printing is some amazing technology, usually done using some pre-processed plastic as your source material, but it doesn’t have to only use that media. Here is what one guy created using the basic principles but a different set of tools and sand as his source material. What source material would you select, and what would you create out of it?