AM2 stands for Animation, Manga and Music and this is the newest convention to hit the busy Summer calendar in Southern California.

This convention is not exclusive to Japanese animation, music and culture but expands to the entire realm of the Asian market including China, Japan Koreana and South East Asia as well.

Since 2011 was the first year for this convention, Kim and I skipped one day of AnimeExpo (forgive us Maki) to check out the new kid on the block.

In this day we attended the panel for two great guest Akihiko Yamashita and Miho Shimogasa:

Yamashita-san is a celebrated director and has played different roles in the production of dozens of movies, from Stroryboard, to Key Animator, to Character Design, to Designer, to Director. His more recent works are Howl's Moving Castle, Arriety, Ponyo and Kokuriko; all of them under the Studio Ghibli flag

Shimogasa-san has worked as an Animator Directory for many anime series including for four different Sailor Moon series and TV series of Cutie Honey Flash, she worked as a Character Designer for Ultra Maniac, Psychic Academy and Gravitation just to mention a few.

Most recently she got the task of converting the U.S, based cartoon of the Power Puff Girls into a Japanese spinoff called Power Puff Girls Z

Take a look at their panel

Beto Jubei