Yoshiki Sakurai
Yoshiki's successful career as a screenwriter began while still attending collage when he participated in writing 8 episodes for the TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
After that, his career has skyrocket working at Production I.G with titles like Blood+, xxxHolic, Redline Appleseed XIII and Giovanni's Island.
You can watch his very funny his panel here.
Beto Jubei
The Aniplex Guy
The presence of Aniplex at Anime Expo has been on a constant growth since its humble beginnings but still filling up one of the regular LP rooms back in 2011 (watch panel here), and for the last couple of years they have been booking solid the Petree Hall with its 2,000+ seats
It is not a secret that they know what titles their fans want to see and how they go about to get it, that is the reason that year after year they put out a well organized panel full of news and release dates for their hottest properties, and of course, lots of swag.
Watch Aniplex's full panel here.
Beto Jubei
Goku Powering Up!
We have finally arrived to the inevitable "next step" in the list of power levels achieved by Goku and some of the Z fighters:
After more than 10 years since the last feature film, we now have Dragon Ball Z: Battle of the Gods where Goku once again must protect Earth from impending doom at the hands of Beerus the God of Destruction.
This movie will have a limited release in the United States from August 5 to the 9, click here to see a list of theaters showcasing this film.
If you missed the panel at Anime Expo, we have it here. See you at the movies.
Beto Jubei
Kyle Hebert
Once again Danny Choo and Courtney Kraft took to the stage to welcome the numerous guests of honor at this year's convention.
For the majority of the guest of honor this was their first time attending Anime Expo and they were impress by the level of enthusiasm not only during the opening ceremonies but at their respective panels as well.
Almost every single part of the anime industry was represented here with writers, directors, singers, voice actors\actresses, character designers, cosplayers, fashion designers, presidents and producers.
Watch the entire opening ceremonies here.
Beto Jubei
Once again this year's convention was held at the familiar grounds of the Los Angeles Convention Center and with an estimated 80k+ attendees (last year it maxed out at 61K people) it pushed not only the registration systems to its limits but also the brave volunteers that keep this convention together and the overall capacity of the convention center to handle the flow of people moving from one part of the building to the other trying to attend a panel.
I remember a line from the World War Z movie when Brad Pitt goes to Israel and meets with a mossad agent and he talks about the Tenth Man strategy, where if nine people agree on a plan or course of action, it is the responsibility of the Tenth Man to take the opposite stand and work towards that goal.
Maybe a Tenth Man could have said: "we are going to have more that 55k people trying to register on the first day", "critical data on the registration systems will be lost", "this year we are going to have an increase of attendance of more than 20%" and then workout a plan of action under these parameters.
Overall we have lots of fun and we were very lucky to be able to attend several key panels which I will be posting on out site daily.
Now if you excuse me, suddenly I have the need to wait in line in front of my bathroom... but nobody else is here... weird.
BetoJubei
The EMP Museum in Seattle has released a list of the new members for their Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
Hayao Miyazaki shares this honor together with Leigh Brackett, Frank Frazetta, Stanley Kubrick, and Olaf Stapledon
For more info, visit http://empmuseum.org/halloffame.
Congratulations Miyazaki san!
Sakura Con offered plenty of photo opportunities not only to take pictures of cosplayers walking around the convention center, but the Opening\Closing Ceremonies, the different panels with the Guests of Honor and of course the Cosplay Competition kept our trigger finger happy and our memory cards full.
You can see all the pictures we took at Sakura Con is here.
WIT Studio is a very young animation studio, founded as a subsidiary of Production I.G no more that 3 years ago, it has gain a gigantic respect in the animation industry for the quality and speed they create amazing animation.
In this panel, Tetsuya Nakatake (Animation Producer\Co-Founder of WIT Studio) and Kyoji Asano (Art Director and Designer) talk about the origins of this studio and their ongoing success with their anime adaptation of the Attack on Titan manga series.
Watch the panel here.
"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." - Confucius
"Someone will pay me to watch Anime, read Manga and go to Conventions; where do I sign." - Beto Jubei.
In this panel, L. B. Bryat will talk about his personal journey from his humble origins as a Anime\DVD reviewer to a journalist covering people and events with deadlines, editorial responsibilities and several bosses. Watch the panel here.
Giant Robots and Japanese animation go side-by-side like raw fish and rice.
But have you ever wonder what was the original giant robot, is there a limit to their size and capabilities? are there any guidelines each giant robot has to follow?
For everything you wanted to know about giant robots but were afraid to ask, watch this very educational panel here.
