Running the Karaoke room at Anime Los Angeles 2011

While I was at Anime Los Angeles this year, I managed to achieve a staff position in the Karaoke room. Despite what I was afraid would happen, there were no truly bad singers, aside from a few people who couldn't keep up with the lyrics on the screen. During this position, I learned such skills as how to run a switchboard, and more importantly what kind of music is popular in a karaoke lounge. 

The most requested Albums for this year were:

1. Rocky Horror Picture Show
2. Avenue Q
3. Wicked

While I am not surprised by the first two, I was a bit shocked by the last one. The most popular songs were:

1. Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)
2. I'll Make a man out of you (Mulan)
3. Sweet Transvestite (Rocky Horror Picture show)

Before this event, I had never heard the song “Sweet Transvestite,” but after the convention I had almost memorized it.

My duties involved managing the Karaoke machine, and announcing who was going to be singing next, along with the occasional munchie run. This managed to a lot more fun than my previous volunteer position held at Anime Expo, less because the job was easier, and more because of the nature of the work.

Being in staff allowed me to meet a lot of interesting people. I got to meet some fellow Pokemon trainers in the staff lounge, whom I managed to curb stomp. I also got to hear some of the con veterans tell me about the various conventions of old, and how things used to be run.

The people I REALLY got to know were the attendees and staff who spent most of their time in the Karaoke room. This managed to be one of the most popular locations for cosplayers to come goof off and show off their costumes. Notable people include Vash, the Organization XIII member with the lovely singing voice, the performer from the Rocky Horror Picture show who sang most of the soundtrack, that girl dressed as Jack Frost, a certain Haruhi cosplayer, and the infamous Hetalia cosplayers.

The infamous Hetalia cosplayers effectively took over the Karaoke room on Saturday night. While I understand that they made it nearly impossible to get on stage and sing due to the half-hour wait they caused, I found that they brought enough energy to the room to make my shift interesting.

Staffing at ALA proved to be about as difficult as volunteering at Anime Expo, which was quite refreshing. The management said they were trying to improve on some of Anime Expo's staffing issues. This was noticeable amoung the management on ALA, as while the manager in charge of Karaoke appeared stressed, the manager in charge of Anime Expo looked like she was about to collapse at any moment.

On a stranger note, actually hanging out the karaoke room managed to be the most interesting part of the convention for me, because it forced me to learn the most, meet the most people, and hey, it's where I met my date for the rave.

I will most likely wind up staffing Anime Los Angeles next year, although I have no idea what department I'll end up in. Hopefully it's one that manages to be as exiting.

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Overview of Anime Los Angeles 2011

^Believe it or not, the guy in the center was a great singer.

This weekend I managed to make it to Anime Los Angeles, the mini convention that exists for two reasons:

1. To give cosplayers and conventon addicts a fix until Anime Expo in summertime.
2. Because Anime Expo has gotten too big and sold out, man

I fit firmly into the first category, since I believe the most people's definition of “selling out” to be silly. Anime Expo wants to make money, and who are we to begrudge a group for making money in a perfectly legitimate fashion?

On the other hand, some of the more hardcore anime fans need something to tie them over until summer's convention's, such as Anime Expo, Comic Con, or AM2. Plus, it's a great place to test a costume, or to meet some convention going buddies. I used to beef up my work resume, so that I can get better positions at future conventions. Hey, con hopping is NOT an affordable hobby.

I spent the majority of my time in the Karaoke room, due to the fact that I was holding a staff position there. This was very entertaining, as I met tons of interesting people, learned what kind of music kids are listening to these days, and met the girl I would be dating for the duration of the con. Full report on the Karaoke room will be posted later.

The Scott Pilgrim gathering.

COSPLAY GATHERINGS: I only attended three gatherings this year, the Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Persona, and the Kingdom Hearts Gathering. Normally, I'd say the Persona gathering was the best, but instead I'm giving this award to the Scott Pilgrim gathering. This gathering gets the reward due to having the most complete cast, along with an interesting set of poses. They managed to acquire a complete League of Evil Exes, along with variants of Romona with several hair colors.

The Persona conga line

The Persona gathering lost because a large portion of the people there were also at the Anime Expo 2010 Persona gathering, including the person hosting it. While I greatly respect the man for his dedication to Persona and organizing herds of cosplayers, way too much content was recycled, including poses. Hopefully, the release of a new Persona or Shin Megami Tensei game will make future gatherings more interesting.

I recognized these three

The Kingdom Hearts gathering was interesting, although I am a bit behind on my Kingdom Hearts Knowledge, so I couldn't enjoy everybody's costumes as much. I unfortunately do not own a PSP or a PS3, so playing most of these games is impossible. However, anybody who knows me knows the first thing I'm going to do when I get a PSP is catch up on the Persona series, so the lack of hardware may not be the issue...

AMV CONTEST: The AMV contest at this convention left a lot to be desired. While the AMV's there generally left nothing to complain about, none of them really spoke to me. In fact I would go as far as to say that my little sister could make AMV's like that (Well, she's pretty good at AMV's actually) I was mostly disappointed because I expect the AMV contest at a convention to be a bit more exiting than an AMV contest on Youtube.

THE DANCE: This convention's rave managed to be much more exiting than the rave at Anime Expo 2010, about as good as the rave at Anime Expo 2009 (That rave was so awesome most people couldn't get in.) This rave managed to be exiting, while having a large enough dance hall to accommodate the ravers at the convention. Furthermore, the DJ played a larger variety of music than the DJ at Anime Expo 2010. This managed to be a good rave, that all people could feel free to attend, like a good rave should be.

OVERVIEW: While I feel more at home in the gigantic crowds of a large convention, this convention managed to have it's own charms. That being most of the people managed to be interesting. ALA managed to have a much higher percentage of cosplayers than any other convention I had attended, along with a higher percentage of good costumes. The actual programming could not compare to the programs available at Anime Expo, but expecting it to would be ridiculous. While I overall had more fun at Anime Expo, ALA satisfied my thirst for conventions for the next few months.

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Anime in focus: FLCL episode 6

There comes a time in every boy's life where he must become a super powered energy beam and use a pair of guitairs as a weapon.

Alright, now for the thrilling conclusion to a borderline incoherent series. It ends in the fashion that it started, crazy, fast and interesting.

At the start of this episode, the entire town has been covered by fog, much in the same fashion Inaba was covered in fog at the end of Persona 4. (FLCL came out first) This creates an aura of things not moving forward. Furthermore, Haruko and the TV headed guy vanish, as implied in the beginning of the episode. According to Naota, things have gone back to normal. This realization causes that guy with the huge eyebrows to congratulate Naota and give him a pair of gigantic eyebrows. He then explains to Naota about the great space pirate Atomos and what he was planning to do with Haruko.

This goes on until Haruko comes back, and they do that weird animated manga thing, and ask Naota if he’s figured out what fooly cooly means. I suppose they were going for the “ending in the same fashion it begins” approach. After this, Naota goes on this weird trip thing were he meets Atomos, and winds up in a lot of fights.

As an ending episode, this one wraps up things quite nicely. While I am not entirely convinced that weird stuff will quit happening to Naota, it does give a nice climax to this chain of events. Granted, while I cannot quite express what happened into words, due to the nature of the show, it emits a sense of completeness. To put it bluntly, watching this show is akin to listening to music without lyrics, while you may be getting meaning from it, the meaning is quite difficult to fully express. I’d say the only way to truly understand this series is to go out and watch it yourself.

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Facebook pull's Egg Finger's profile-do they hate creativity?

<- Does this look like a threat to society to you?

I should probably mention that Egg Finger's comic book is on sale now and that you can buy a copy HERE

I recently received a press release from the creator of the Egg Finger comic, telling me that his page got taken off Facebook. This is unsettling to me, as it seems to defeat Facebook's main purpose, bringing people together.

Does anybody really believe a cartoon rotten egg is out to kill everybody? NO! What was really going on here was a small artist's attempt to get out the word about his book, and interact with his fanbase. This reminds me of something (I hesitate to mention this) my ex-girlfriend occasionally did. She would a supervillian on her twitter account, (For bonus points, go on acting like you were looking for Fraiser Crane) and talk smack to superheroes and other supervillians, while making threats and griping about society. She's been doing since before I knew her, which means since before 2009.

While I have verified that the girl is entirely incapable of doing anything more threatening than making angry forum posts, (No seriously, her bone to muscle mass ratio was disturbing) what makes what she does worse than what Egg Finger was doing? A quick look through Egg Finger's profile would show that it was nothing more than an advertising campaign. An advertising campaign that could only be added through a person's conscious decision, and could be tuned out just as easily. If people didn't enjoy having a cartoon rotten make threats at them and the world, they wouldn't have friended said cartoon rotten egg.

This type of removal is bad, since it makes things difficult for smaller businesses to get the word out. Being politically correct doesn't attract attention, and small artists and businesses know this. Yet, Facebook is making it difficult on them by banning them for using the tools they provide.

Would warning people be too hard for Facebook? Can't people defriend of unlike people who spam them too much? Who was even being hurt by this?

And right before the guy's book release? That's kind of mean.

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Anime in Focus: FLCL episode 5

I just felt the need to point this scene out. Look at the size of that.... cell phone.

<- Previous Episode 

This episode’s theme appears to be hyper violence with a dash of Looney Toons.

This all starts out when Naota’s dad realizes that Haruko is paying more attention to Naota than himself (isn’t this familiar) and demands a gun battle with Naota. This garners the attention of the guy with the gigantic eyebrows, who winds up sending out his henchperson, whose shirt gets ripped in wonderful places. Still got no idea what these people are actually doing besides spying on Haruko. Anyway, these guys get into a rather large fight with Haruko, which winds up with nobody with a name getting killed. Clearly, everybody in this show has the aim of a stormtrooper. This suggests that every bit of violence was metaphorical and representing the characters internal struggles, or something.

Anyways, some giant thing that gets pulled out Naota’s head winds up attacking the medical building, but thankfully Naota has accepted his fate and fused with that TV headed robot in order to fight it. Haruko joins in, wearing a bunny girl outfit for some reason. While this is weird, it isn’t really enough to make me bat an eyebrow at this point.

Anyway, I’m not really sure if all of this is leading up to a finale, but there’s only one way to find out, right?

NEXT WEEK: FINAL EPISODE!

Anime in Focus: Ninja Nonsense Episode 3

<-No context could help this image make more sense.

<-Previous Episode

I’m moving right along with watching all of that anime sitting on my bookshelf. Good news is that I think I’m winning.

Here we have Ninja Nonsense episode three, where more hilarity ensues. Humiliated by his defeat by Shinobu’s little sister in the previous episode, Onsokumaru decides it’s time to consult the faceless army of ninjas to see if they can come up with a plot to get even. After a long time getting nowhere, Onsokumaru decides to join forces with the newest member of the ninja clan, the crocodile that tried to eat him in the first part of the previous episode.

This episode picks up when Onsokumaru winds up in a battle with a doppelganger of himself that he created, who fights using incredibly dirty tactics, such as the duct-tape diaper (shown above)

The second half of the episode revolves around Shinobu overhearing a secret ninja meeting, where she is lead to believe that she is about to be kicked out of the ninja mansion. This leads to her moving in with Kaede for a while, having some wonderfully yuri-tastic moments. Turns out it was all a misunderstanding, but we still get to see more wonderful yuri anyway. Everybody wins!

Overall, a pretty good episode, demonstrating the show’s ability to maintain a good sense of humor. Only time will tell if it’s capable of keeping this up.

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Anime in Focus: Rozen Maiden Episode 1

On my continuing journey to watch all of the unwatched anime sitting on my bookshelf, I decided to start watching this series, which grabs my attention with all of the pretty dresses.

Anyway, this anime takes us into the wonderful world of underground doll battling. This goes to show that if done correctly, anything can be made to be badass.

We start off by meeting our main character Jun, who lives in his room as a shut-in who doesn’t like doing things that involve leaving his room, such as ordering voodoo dolls online and answering chain letters. While normally staying in your room causes you to wither away and die, he has the help of his doormat sister to make sure he eats and that his weird packages get signed off, while taking his verbal abuse and not standing up for herself.

As luck would have it, one of Jun’s chain letters happens to actually work, and he winds up with a weird box containing an even weirder doll inside of it. After screwing around with it for a bit, he learns that the doll is in fact, alive, and believes herself to be the boss of the area.

Suddenly, Jun gets himself attacked by a killer clown doll. Normally, killer clown dolls are not very scary, since you can usually punt them out a window, but we have to realize that Jun has been sitting in his room making purchases off of websites instead of getting any form of exercise. This unfortunately means he has to make a pact with the creepy doll that was in the box in order to prevent himself from being stabbed to death by a killer clown doll.

The rest of the episode is dedicated to showing Jun’s relationship with his sister, and how he copes with owing his life to a weird doll that appeared in his room. Unfortunately, we don’t actually find out what being a servant to a creepy doll actually means, leaving stuff for the next episode.

This show doesn’t show many symptoms of first episode syndrome. It doesn’t spend much time on exposition, and instead gives the viewer an idea of what to expect in the rest of the series. I’m actually quite anticipating the next episode.

Coming soon! Next Episode

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