Matt's Crazy Rants

Youmacon 2009

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:20:02 GMT

I'm not doing big con reports any more, I've lost motivation for doing them, so I'll just a quick run down that will be really long anyways.

Thursday:

Stood in line and got my badge. Talked to a couple of guys who I never saw again at the convention. There were two girls in line in front of me that may or may not be important later in my story. The back of the program said where the next Youmacon would be, downtown Detroit, this will be interesting, but I'm looking forward to it.

Friday:

I actually went to work for half a day, big mistake. I wish I would have just went to the con because finding parking was a bitch. Luckily someone left and I snuck in. I went and checked into my hotel room and I was on the ninth floor, and the elevators suck during a con weekend, that wasn't cool. I went to the Dealers Room and bought Death Note vol. 1 because Brad Swaile the voice of Light was there. After that I took a nap since nothing interesting was going on and I was really tired ^_^;;;. After that here is what I did.

Anime Name That Tune, I still haven't been picked and I didn't do very well overall anyways.
Anime Balderdash, really funny again this year.
Autograph Line: Travis, Laura and Caitlin. Caitlin saw me in line and waved to me, that was cool. Oh and even with my $100 platinum badge, I still had to wait in line for 20 minutes, at least it was better than the poor saps who didn't have one. They were all really nice and signed my stuff, Travis even signed something else for me even though I didn't ask (yes it was related to him).
Dinner time, do you care I had a steak and a SoCo w/coke? Walking in the cold back to my room and up the stairs killed the small buzz I had.
Nat-chan's Top 10 AMVs, I like watching AMVs although there weren't any this year I wanted to download. iDespair is pretty funny if you've watch Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei.
Anime Limbo, sort of like Anime Hell, but not as horrible, not great either though.
Kind of Midnight, a bad Scottish dub of Evangelion couldn't keep me up past 1:00 am.

Saturday:

M-Bro's Youmacon Otaku Pop Quiz 2! Very funny, a lot of good questions, the guy who sang the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles song was awesome. I wasn't picked to go up, but I did win a prize when they were giving everything away and I got Samurai Champloo's song right. Silent Hill the movie! Not really interested, but it kept my string of winning at Youmacon alive.
Anime Radio, wasn't as funny as last year, but still quite god.
Lunch time, walked up with my lunch eight flights of stairs to my room.......
The AMV Wars, funny and fun as always. One of my favorite parts of the con. I could have whipped the people in the Gainax game, I wish I wouldn't have chickend out.
No idea what I did for an hour after that, I think just walked around aimlessly.
Type-Moon, they all played the games, I didn't, but it was still cool to hear about them. I may try and play Lunar Legend Tsukihime or Fate/Stay Night sometime this winter.
Dinner time, I think I went to the mall and walked up 9 flights of stairs to get back to my room....
Why isn't Anime More Mainstream? Good panel, too many people talking at once though.
Are You the Cancer Killing Your Fandom? Another good panel, too short, I wish I would have heard it all.
Watched ep. 2 of Hayate no Gotoku! Funny stuff, the people in the room seemed to like it.
Death Note Mafia. Again the highlight of my convention. We started at 11:00 pm (well a bit after that) and played till 5:30 am, and that includes the hour fall back! so I think I played for 7.5 hours which is insane! I even bought the cards even though I don't have anyone to play with. A lot of the people I played with last year were back and there were two tables going till the late night. Good times and I can't wait to play again next year. I did better this year, but the best game was when I outed myself as "Near" and helped nail the three Kiras. Good thing Gellus believed me :D.

Sunday:

Like last year I barely got any sleep. The goal was to sleep into 9:30, take a quick shower and get my autographs and go back to the room. Of course it didn't work like that. I was up at 8:00 am even though I packed the night before. I just couldn't get back to sleep.....2.5 hours of sleep isn't good.

Autographs: Kyle Hebert and Brad Swaile. Both were nice, I got Brad to sign Jim's Infinite Ryvius disk and Brad said he wishes more people watched it. Oh and the two girls I stood in line for registration were next to me in the autograph line. I don't think they realized it, but after a few minutes I figured it out.......Kind of weird....
Imitation Hell: I did the same thing as last year where I just went into the AMV room and watched AMVs I was so tired. Some really funny ones.
Lunch: I had to eat, I was really hungry.
Caitlin Glass: Listened to Caitlin give a panel, it was really good, no horribly dumb questions, just a few. Then she sang with one of the Spoony Bards and has an absolutely beautiful singing (and acting of course) voice. I recorded the songs, so if I can figure out how to post them I'll add them to my live journal. I said good-bye to her and told her I hope she'll be there next year. I was going to stay later, but I was just dead tired and wanted to see the Packers play the Vikings, which I wish now I didn't ^_^;;;.

Overall Youmacon was a lot of fun. I didn't spend too much money, but got some nice things. The platinum badge was worth it. Best part of the weekend was definitely Death Note Mafia. I'll be sad if it doesn't come back.

Youmacon 2009

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:59:04 GMT

I'm feeling lazy tonight so no report, but I had a good time. I'll definitely do one tomorrow. And one day I'll finish my favorite anime girl countdown list, which is probably obsolete by now.

Matsuricon 2009

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:35:39 GMT

It's been a while since I last posted. I'm not doing a full write up, so this will be it.

Overall Matsuricon was fun, there were a little over 1000 people which is really small! But nice. It didn't seem like there were that many people, as I counted the seats in some of the rooms and they could barely hold 40 people! And the main events room held maybe 250? I went to a lot of voice acting panels, just because that's all I could really do. Juliet Cesario is really nice, but of course what voice actor/actress isn't? Stephanie Young's voice is really incredible and she's got some cool non-VA work coming out. And of course Caitlin's wonderful, I'm lucky she always takes time out of her busy schedule to talk to me. Tristan MacAvery gave an interesting panel on evilness and he has a book I may check out. The Voice Actor radio was fun even though only three voice actors showed up, but the audience was funny too. The only line I ever waited in was for autographs and while unorganized, I still got all my stuff signed. That's right! I didn't have to wait in line for registration, which is insane! I've never seen anything like it before.

Other than those panels, Strange Videos was fun, especially the guy playing the hacked Super Mario World level, although they did get their shots in at Michigan. WTF Anime Moments was interesting and the 2D Doujin Fighting games panel was slow, but funny, especially Arm Joe! (Look it up :P). I can't remember anything other interesting panels, but I went to the AMV contest, which had a cool Record of Lodoss, Clannad, Fate/Stay Night and Mahoromatic AMV, well not all together, they were separate :P. I finally found a figure of my Kyou, so I bought that, and actually took it out of the package, now I own three, but only one from a con . I didn't take many pictures, it felt kind of nice not having to ask anyone.

Matt's Favorite Anime Girl Countdown!

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:29:00 GMT

I'm not busy so I might as well continue.....

The highest ranking loli on my list. When Sasami grows up, she's going to look like Tsunami, how can you go wrong? Honestly, Tenchi should definitely pick her and not one of those other 'brutes'. Sasami is nice, a good cook, helpful and all around wonder. I haven't watched any of the spin off shows, because I don't want to ruin my image of her. Now I kind of want to re-watch the Tenchi OVAs, including the episode where she's sad about 'dying' and merging with Tsunami. That's one of my favorite episodes ever.

Anime Boston 2009

Thu, 28 May 2009 23:19:49 GMT

The last day and I've done an entry a day!  Amazing! Not working night's is nice.

Sunday's are always the slowest day of the con and this one was no different. We got up early and walked to Fenway Park just to see what it looked like. What an ugly stadium. Sure it has a lot of history and tradition, but goodness is it old. I still would have liked to see a game there, but oh well. We walked back and checked out of the hotel. The hotel had a place to leave our bags, but they charged $2 a bag!  Which isn't bad, that's normally a tip, but that's still annoying.

So we put our stuff down and walked around the convention center until the Dealer's Room opened. On Friday, I was looking at the cells and they had a Lafiel one there for $169, which was too much for me on Friday. I told Jim if it was there Sunday, I'd buy it. Well the first thing I did was look for it and sure enough it was there.  So of course I whipped out my money and bought it ^_^;;;. I did ask a really dumb question about it going through x-rays, not thinking it was a painted picture, not a photograph :P. It's a really awesome cell from Crest of the Stars that I'm going to get framed this weekend. Then we walked around some more looking for things and I saw John Sirabella looking 'sad' at the Media Blasters table so I decided to buy something from them. I ended up buying Lady Kasumi. Yay for soft core porn that's also a "B" movie!  It's so awful, but I felt good for buying it. Then Jim tried to convince me to get the Giant Robo collection, so I figured 'what the hell?', I had extra money left from the con and bought that too. I don't normally like giant robo shows, but for $20, I'd give it a shot, plus I was supporting Media Blasters.

Then we walked over to the Kalafina/Kara no Kyoukai panel. It was pretty much the same stuff I saw before, but I did get a free Kara no Kyoukai poster out of it (which was flattened because I put it in my suitcase). Sadly I didn't win an autographed Kalafina poster, but the other stuff I have makes up for it. Oh and the blogger compared Hikaru to KOTOKO, which is really surprising to me. I met up with Jim for Cosplay Chess, which was an interesting premise (at the dating game, someone killed an Tohru Honda and they were going to play chess to find a jury, then put Sailor Moon on trail). It was very involved, and we didn't have time to stay and watch, but it sounded interesting. Maybe some other time.

And that was it. We took the subway, then shuttle to the airport, made it through airport security, ate lunch, then boarded our planes for home. Overall Anime Boston was fun, having things too spread out and bad scheduling was the worst part of the con, but seeing Kalafina's concert was the best part of it. Jim and I probably won't go back (unless KOTOKO or Kalafina perform there and I'll be back), but it wasn't hard to get to or expensive and the food situation isn't bad. I'm going to rate all the conventions I've been to with a scale and I'll let you know where this one fits in.

Anime Boston 2009

Thu, 28 May 2009 00:06:20 GMT

So far so good. I can't believe tomorrow will be a week of me leaving for Boston. Oh and I maybe headed to a small con near Columbus in August, if anyone is interested (although I doubt it :P).

I can't believe I forgot about live action Gundam and Cardcaptor Sakura from Japanese Anime Hell, they were hilarious!  You should google them if you haven't seen them yet.

No special trips to start Saturday, we made the AOD panel first at 10:00 am. It was an interesting panel, Chris was very candid and honest with his answers which is always refreshing. Sadly they cut him shot by 30 minutes (damn scheduling!), and our group meet up wasn't until noon, so we had an hour to kill. We meet up with everyone in front of the California Pizza kitchen and since we didn't introduce ourselves, Chris asked who the hell we were ^_^;;;;. Lunch was nice, Chris, Hielostar (and her boyfriend), Doc Watson, machineger4, UEHacker (and his two friends) were in attendance. The pizza was kind of weird and UEHacker and his friends left early because they wanted to get in line for the concert which I did too. A bit after them.

I hurriedly rushed to put away my left over pizza in the room and went to wait in line. Wow that line was long. Luckily I sat near an aisle (pretty far back), but could still see things pretty well. Before the concert started they had this weird thing to get people fired up and the Video Game Orchestra played first. They were good, but nothing that I haven't hear before. Well playing Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross songs were cool.

Finally Kalafina was up! Okay the show started off a bit bad. I thought Hikaru's voice was a bit too high and the girls looked lifeless. It didn't help the crowd really wasn't into it yet, aside from cheering at the end. I don't think the crowd knew how to react to them and they didn't know how to react to the crowd.   Eventually things picked up and the concert was awesome. People finally got off their butts and it looked like a real concert. At the end, everyone thought it was over and started leaving, but then they set up a keyboard for Ms. Kajiura to play with the girls as an encore (on the keyboard). That was two songs long which was pretty awesome. Overall the show was excellent (probably the second best concert I've seen at a convention). I'll be a Kalafina fan for life. Especially Wakana who has an amazing voice (and wore an interesting skirt up there :D). I read some people are comparing Keiko to KOTOKO, which is kind of interesting. Another problem Kalafina had was they kind of just stood up there and sang, and didn't really get the audience involved, which goes back to what I was saying about neither knowing how to react, although Kalafina songs really aren't for dancing or jumping around.

I meet up with aquastar after the concert for the FUNi panel which was delayed (another great job AB!). It was good to talk with him again, I hadn't seen him since Oni-Con 2007 I believe. The panel was actually kind of interesting and they licensed Spice and Wolf. Maybe it's worth a rental. Oh I found Jim, Hielostar and her boyfriend all waiting in line. I guess they were excited for the panel :P.

After that, Jim and I went to eat, which was a mess getting our food, but you don't care about that story. I went to the Around the anime world in 4 min with vendors panel, which aqua was running, but left early so to catch something else. Unfortunately the left over AMVs weren't very good. So we went over to the Lame Anime panel which was hilarious. Koreans taught us all that communists are bad, they can't animate consistently. But the Japanese version of Titanic takes the cake. They stole characters from all kinds of movies and just made an awful movie which was hilarious (not intended to be). Oh and the Call of the Wild (I think that's what it was) dog was amazing and the show was another awful one. Great panel.

Finally we went to Dick and Buster's Hentai Dubbing Extravaganza.  There was a huge ass line and we didn't get in until it had already started. "Dick Tripwire" ran the panel and it was actually pretty funny. Watching hentai clips with a bunch of people is kind of weird, but listening to these people dub the voices was funny. Well some of them were. One of the first girls did a really good job (Jim thought she needed a cigarette after wards), but then the other girls were too over the top. The other funny one was when someone dressed as Chubacca went up there and the person with him (a guy for some odd reason), played it off really well.

Instead of going to bed, we went to the bar and I actually finished a beer!  It was a Newcastle (British) and was pretty good. While at the bar a drunk Mets fan (who was British) told me I was wearing the wrong jersey (a Manchester United jersey) and when I replied they were the Champions he said not of Europe and Barca would be (which they did win today). I'm guessing he was a British fan, I told him he was wearing the wrong jersey, but he didn't seem to care :P. Oh the reason we went to the bar was to see "Dick Tripwire" and he eventually showed up, but was hanging out with other people (not that we cared :P).

Jim and I walked around and I wanted to go to the dance just to see what it was like. It was so hot on the second floor and we weren't even by the dance room yet. We saw a line and thought people were still lining up, but it turns out they wanted the autograph of the other Japanese band playing. So we went in, where the air was really thick and I couldn't breath. I'm not even sure the smell was bad, because I couldn't breath and I made Jim get the hell out of there. We went outside (for the first time all day!) and someone asked us for money well a dollar for four quarters, but she didn't like my answer that I didn't have any money......which means I didn't have any dollars!  Oh well, Jim and I talked some more and that was one of the biggest problems with the con. Being there was no centralized location, there were people in the lobby, but not like Anime Central. Eventually the Mets fan came back and said my jersey was 'utter shit' and "Ji-sung Park was utter shit". It was really funny. Too bad he got the last laugh today, although I didn't find him threatening, just drunk.  I saw him walking and her purposely came over to us to talk more smack. Another British guy came over and said he was a West Ham fan, but didn't care about United and his friend said anyone bet Chelsea. Shortly after that, we realized the dance was ending soon and we had to get the hell out of the lobby, because we didn't want to share the elevators with this hot sweaty, stinky people ^_^;;;.

And that was the end of day 2.

Anime Boston 2009

Wed, 27 May 2009 00:06:19 GMT

I better stay at this or I'll never get done ^_^;;;.

Anime Boston started at 10:00 am, which was surprising. Most cons I go to, start later in the afternoon, but I guess a bigger con like this have to start early. Instead of going to the con, we went to the Sam Adams brewery tour. That was interesting. They gave us free samples of beer, at 10:30 am!  I'm not a drinker, so I struggled through that, while Jim had to carry the load for our table (we got three pitchers in al). The tour wasn't the most interesting, but free beer is good. We even got to keep our glasses and all we had to do was make a donation.

Getting back to the con, we had to eat lunch because Jim drank all that beer :P. We walked around the Dealer's Room to see what was there and I bought Kalafina's CD.

The first panel I went to was at 2:00 pm and that was the Kalafina panel! There was a long line for it, but I still waited and got a decent seat. When ever you have a panel where the guest is Japanese and the crowd mainly speaks English, it isn't always that interesting, but getting to see it was still cool. The three girls of Kalafina were there, Wakana, Keiko and Hikaru along with their producer Yuki Kajiura. At the end of the panel we had a giant game of Japanese Rock, Paper, Scissors, which I actually won (with a bunch of other people)!  It only lasted two rounds and I threw rock twice!  Actually I screwed up and didn't throw anything, so it looked like rock so I got pretty lucky the panel MC threw scissors both times (if you tied you lost). I was going to throw paper the second time, but in the Japanese version you throw on three, and the American version you throw on four, so I never threw anything (it didn't really even look like rock, well it looked more like rock than anything else). It's kind of funny because I was about to throw paper, but stopped myself when I realized it was too late to change, and one of the other people in charge of the panel said I was okay, so I took it. I won an autographed Kalafina card! It's from their fourth single 'Lacrimosa'. I'll probably get it framed. Then I left there like I child who stole something and figured I didn't need to wait in line for their autograph later.

I still planned on getting their autograph, but AB had a 50 person policy where if you weren't in the first 50 you weren't guaranteed an autograph, but they weren't letting people line up until 4:00 (for a 4:30 autograph signing), but people were hanging around because everyone was jockeying for position. The staff and security kept getting mad, but I didn't understand why they didn't just like them get in line, because everyone together was basically the same thing as a line. Sadly I wasn't going to rush to get in line, and I counted down and saw I wasn't anywhere near 50, so I left thinking I wasn't going to get an autograph.

I walked through the Dealer's Room then headed back to the same room because I remembered I wanted to see the Aniplex panel. But then as I was going back I saw someone who was in line for the Kalafina autograph line and knew they were pretty far back, so I went to the room to see what was up and there was no line!  After explaining I had bought the CD from the booth earlier and had not gotten their autograph yet, they let me through and got their autograph from them personally on my CD cover!  I even got Ms. Kajiura's autograph! Plus we were allowed to take a quick picture of them, but I'm not sure mine are any good as I haven't looked at them yet.

I caught the end of it for Q&A, and someone asked Aniplex about the second season of Haruhi!  Way to know your producers and companies jerk face! After that I went to the ADV panel and caught the end of that (which was their usual noncommittal bullshit). I made the Anime You Should See Panel next and I found some 'new' shows to watch. I finally met up with Jim after wards (he went to see the battleship in the Boston Harbor). And of course we went to eat. I had some New England Clam Chowdah. It was good.

After dinner, we made Anime Unscripted which was Whose Line is it Anyways, with Troy Baker, Greg and Chris Ayres and one of the staff members from Anime Boston. It was funny and I mainly pictochatted while there. Troy Baker had some good lines especially about if he could change someone's heart with his fist to keep them alive.   We went to the Chibi Project next where apparently they just blow anime related products up. It was entertaining watching their stuff, but when it came to the live action bit, they didn't do a good job with Ryo-oh-ki in a blender. Finally we went to Japanese Anime Hell (which I normally hate), but it had it's moments. They gave us 3D glasses, that didn't work so well, but it was still interesting. The most interesting one was the cult video made for the group that gassed the Tokyo subway in 1995. It was a weird video of their creator kind of floating around doing things, kind of comparing him to Jesus. Funny today I was taking an anti-terrorism class for work and they mentioned him and he looked a lot like the way the video portrayed him.

I think that's it. We missed the hockey game and basketball game, but the panels were fun so that made up for it.  Oh and at the end of the Kalafina panel, they took a picture of the three of them with Ms. Kajiura in the front and all the people in the back. Well they took a million pictures, but ended up posting it to the their blog. When I get finally post my pictures I'll show you all, but you can actually see me, although I have a weird look on my face :P. I wonder if you all could find me.

Anime Boston 2009

Tue, 26 May 2009 01:20:11 GMT

Wow I still haven't finished my anime girl countdown? That's pretty bad, maybe I'll finish by next year :P. But before I forget about Boston, let's get the convention report started.

You don't really care about me getting to the airport or my flight do you? Let's just say after we landed it took forever to get off the plane and I had to go to the bathroom really bad. So it wasn't the most comfortable landing and wait ever. Jim's flight didn't get in until around 3:00 pm, and mine landed at 12:30, so I had to wait about 2.5 hours for him, so we could go to the hotel together. I left him in charge of the directions of getting to the hotel. I'll just skip that wait too.

Finally he showed up and we went to the hotel via a shuttle to the subway station, then the subway to the hotel. That wasn't bad, although both were pretty crowded. Finally at the hotel we checked in and thought we saw the AOD webmaster while we were waiting in line, but he looked a lot smaller than I remember in the pictures so I didn't say anything. Check in wasn't bad, oh we were in room number 1704, not sure why anyone would want to know that.

We waiting around a bit and headed over to pre-registration, which we were an hour late for and the line was really long. Surprisingly the line moved really well and we were only in it for 45 minutes!  The express pass thing was dumb though. And the badges were dumb too. They put people's real name along with their badge name on it. Well mine got screwed up some how anyways and my badge name was written three times on it, but not my real name.

Anyways, after that we decided to go to Cheers. As we walked through Boston we took some pictures and went through Boston Gardens and Commons (I think that's where we were). But as we walked through there we got lost and complete missed where Cheers was. It didn't help Jim had a cartoon map that didn't really show where it was. So we walked around like a half hour, before we reset and eventually found the bar, which was to the left of where we came out of and not the right that we took ^_^;;;.  Jim had the 'Norm burger' which was gigantic, and he actually finished it!  They gave him a certificate for finishing and will post his name to their website as finishing. I had Irish Beef Stew which was good, but my mom's beef stew is better. Oh and I had a Sam Adams in a 'Cheers Mug'. Which I got to keep after wards, well actually they gave us a clean mug, so that was nice. Then we went to the gift shop and I bought my family t-shirts.

Let's skip ahead to our walk back. Maybe this is when we walked through the Boston Commons. Which at night wasn't a bad place. Maybe it would get worse later, but for the most part it seemed safe. Actually Boston seemed like a really safe place, which surprised me, since it's such a major city.

Finally back at the hotel we went to the bar to watch the hockey game. Luckily no one was watching the basketball game, because they said they weren't going to change the Sox game.   After that finished we planned out our day for Friday and that was it for the first day in Boston. One final thought was our waiter said 'wicked awesome' so we knew we were in Boston when he said that.

Matt's Favorite Anime Girl Countdown

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:50:48 GMT

You really didn't think I could have a list without her did you? I can't really explain why I like the show, nor why I like her, maybe it's her will as God (sorry the otaku in me is coming out :P). for me to like the show. But I really loved the show, the novels, the music and all aspects of it. I even bought a Haruhi bag that I'm going to use at conventions ^_^;;;;. Whether she's singing, playing baseball, making a movie, or anything else, I just love all aspects of her and she's fun to watch. Of course Kyon is the real main character, but she does it all for him so that he doesn't get bored. Eventually she'll realize her true feelings, but until that time comes, Mikuru and Yuki better look out. Yeah this picture is gigantic, but I've given up trying to make them all small :P.

Matt's Favorite Anime Girl Countdown

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:58:05 GMT

Opps maybe I shouldn't have changed my picture just yet. Oh well I should have realized who was up next. Hinagiku is my favorite Hayate girl. Although she was stolen from me at AOD, so she's fallen a bit on this list. She has most of my favorite characteristics, a type of tsundre, small breasts, too bad she doesn't have blue hair :P. She's so un-honest with her feelings, it's quite cute. Oh and her biker shorts under her skirt are quite charming. If you've read or watched any of Hayate, I'm sure you'd been drawn to her too. I wonder if she'll ever be able to tell Hayate she loves him?

Matt's Favorite Anime Girl Countdown

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 23:36:52 GMT

Fate/Stay Night wasn't a show I was interested in. Actually strawberryeggs got me into and I really enjoyed it. Sure the divine Ayako Kawasumi plays Saber, but that wasn't the girl I was interested in. For me it was always Tohsaka. Maybe it was her unique red shirt with black skirt outfit, or the way she did her hair, or the fact she's a 'tsundre' (which is probably spelled wrong) character, but I always liked her. She obviously had feelings for the main character and you wonder if those two were ever going to meet. Actually now that I think of it, Emiya was a pimp, but he was too dumb to realize what he had around him. I actually never bought a Tohsaka figure even though I really thought some of them were cool looking.

Matt's Favorite Anime Girl Countdown

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:51:25 GMT

"It's called a miracle because it's not supposed to happen." Oh the tragedy of poor Shiori. Of course things work out for the best, but it was still pretty tragic when she leaves Yuuichi and he thinks he'll never see her again. And even though she survives and has a better relationship with her bitch sister, she'll never get Yuuichi, because she was always just a little sister type to him. I really liked her voice in Japanese, there was just something about it I thought was cute. Plus I liked she was always wearing that blanket around ^_^;;;.

Matt's Favorite Anime Girl Countdown!

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:59:40 GMT

Wow, how long has it been since I updated this ^_^;;;. I wonder if my list has changed at all :P.

I believe this is the third Ayako Kawasumi voiced character on my list. I really wanted to watch this show after one of the Youmacon's I attended and I really wasn't disappointed. Sure the ending wasn't the greatest, but I thought it was good enough. But back to Mahoro, all she wanted to do was atone for "killing" Suguru's father. She was so sweet, kind, a good cook, pretty and all other kind of adjective you can think of. She also didn't really think she was deserving of his love, but they gradually grew closer and were a good match. Plus when you add the '-san' part to her last name, it sounds like mine :P (Ando-san). What made it even more tragic was when at the end of episodes it would say home days she had left to live :'(. And one last thing, who can forget her catch phrase? "Ecchi na no wa ikenai to omoimasu".

Youmacon

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:24:21 GMT

Now where did I leave off? Oh yeah Death Note Mafia. Which was really awesome, so I was planned on waking up at 10:30 or 11, because there was nothing I needed to do until checkout at noon. Of course I didn't sleep very well and ended up waking up at 7:30. Yeah that's about three hours of sleep. Needless to say that's the reason I got sick. Not enough sleep and I was feeling pretty shitty the rest of the day and for a part of the week. I just couldn't fall back to sleep and in the end it cost me.

So I really didn't do anything in my room and eventually checked out and took my stuff to the car. Then I went to the Anime Music Video Overflow entries and watched random AMVs when that finished. A few good ones, a few crap ones, but that's normal. I saw Caitlin in the lobby and she actually came up to me, since she knew I wanted to talk, but since she was headed to eat, I didn't want to bother her and told her we could talk later. Then I went to a panel about a girl who lived in Japan and talk English there, it was pretty interesting. By this point though, I wasn't feeling well and ready to go home. Instead I headed over to the mall to get something to eat to and watch the Packers game. But I only ate half my meal since I wasn't feeling well and headed back over to the con.

I caught the end of Otaku Family Feud, which was funny. Patrick and Caitlin always do a good job with it. After that I went up to Caitlin and told her I probably was going to leave early (since I wasn't feeling well) and told her to have a safe trip home and I'd talk to her some other time. I wanted to tell Patrick the same, but he was busy with all these people talking to him and I didn't want to bother. Then the voice actor panel was next. I probably didn't last 15 minutes. I just couldn't make it. So I drove home, watched the end of the Lions game and went right to bed. I woke up a few hours later, but I still wasn't feeling well.

Overall I had fun at Youmacon, especially Death Note Mafia and I can't wait to go back next year, but the lack of sleep really sucked. I'll have to figure out something for next year. Oh and I didn't take many pictures because the girls looked so young, I felt really old and perverted asking them ^_^;;;. Wow I'm getting old........

Youmacon

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 03:34:30 GMT

Well Saturday's are usually the best for cons and this one was no exception. I didn't sleep very well which is actually foreshadowing for the next day. I woke up earlier than I wanted, so I walked around the con for a bit and decided to watch an episode of Gurren Lagann. It was the bath house episode which was quite funny. Then I walked over to the Mike Sinterniklaas, Wayne Grayson and Evelyn Lanto autograph session. Mike and Wayne were both there last year, but I didn't get anything signed by them, so I decided to this year. I was actually 5th or 6th in line!  Then all the bad things happen. Mike was late, then the platinum badge members cut ahead and there were quite a few, then finally the people ahead of me had four things each!  Ugh!  Oh well, I was in line for over an hour, but at least getting things signed was cool, since I had Mike sign Piano vol. 3 which he said 'wow' to and was quite impressed I had it. Evelyn was nice and signed AMG vol. 6 and was happy to see I actually knew who she was and Wayne didn't seem too interested in signing To Heart vol. 4. Still cool, since I impressed Mike and Evelyn with Piano.

After that I wanted to go to the Ouran Pajama Party, but the room was filled and I wasn't allowed in. So I went to the Dealer's Room and bought two more DVDs and went back to my room to get rid of all my stuff. I eventually made it down to NYAV ADR Boot Camp which was interesting. They were fan dubbing a show that comes out in December and while the show was dumb, it seemed people were having a good time and I wish I would have caught it from the beginning. Next was the Voice Actor Radio, which was great. All the VAs were there and it was a radio drama from back in the 40s (or when ever they did them) about Flash Gordon. The VAs were all really funny and it was a great time.   Kyle Hebert runs the show and it's very funny to watch and listen to. I actually recorded most of it, but my memory card was full before the end, but maybe I'll post it later.

I went to the AMV Wars after that, which shows a lot of AMVs and two contestants try and make the best AMV in a two hour time limit using secret ingredients and a theme. They also give away prizes to people who answer questions correctly, and I've won something every year (year one - a strap to go around my neck for the badge, year two - Hare+Guu vol. 2, year three - Cardcaptors book) and this year I won Angel Tales vol. 4. I've never watched vols. 1-3, but hey it's still a prize. Maybe I'll get around to watching it. I won for answering a question about one of my favorite AMVs, and the correct answer was Idol Defense Force: Hummingbird. I'll link the video some time. I actually have it on my hard drive.

I took off from that panel early to make it to Anime Name That Tune. I've never made it to the final eight contestants and I still haven't :(. The two songs I knew in the preliminary round (Welcome to the NHK and Cromartie High School) I was beaten to the punch in answering. Then in the game, I only knew 11 of the songs, but I did answer one of them correctly that stumped the contestants (Bamboo Blade), so that wasn't bad. Even though I sucked again, I still had fun at the panel.

At 6:00 I had a choice to make, go to the Bandai panel, and I hate industry panels or walk around and waste time before 8:00. I chose to waste time and walk around until I went back to my room at about 7:00. The reason I wanted to get back to my room at 8:00 was to watch the Texas/Texas Tech game. There were a few things going on between 8 and 11, but the game seemed more interesting. So I ordered room service and watched the game. The game was quite boring, but had a great ending which I missed because......

I went to play Death Note Mafia! Death Note Mafia was the highlight of my con. We started lining up to play it at 11:00 pm and it took a while to get set up, and after being taught the rules the game probably didn't start till 11:30 and I missed the first two games, so I probably didn't start playing until 12:30, but then I played until 4:00 am. And don't forget the time change, so it was really 5:00 am. If you don't know what Death Note Mafia, I don't blame you, I had no idea either. But basically, it's like the party game Werewolf/Mafia (Wikipedia it if you still don't know, but I'll explain it another time). So all the times I played, I didn't win until the last game, which was pretty nerve wracking, but I still had a lot of fun.  The weird part is I actually made friends with people while playing. Isn't that crazy? And the even crazier part? They are still in high school. Wow I felt old and creepy when I realized that ^_^;;;;. Everyone at the table were a lot of fun and I enjoyed playing with them all.

And that was it for the day. That's the latest I've ever stayed up for a con, but I had such fun playing Death Note Mafia, I didn't want to quit. Hopefully we can play again next year.

Youmacon

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:46:22 GMT

Well I actually went to get my badge on Thursday and only waited in line for about half an hour. That wasn't too bad. Nothing of note happened so I can skip ahead to Friday.

I actually had to got to work on Friday, but I left at 2:00 so I could make it for 3:00 pm check in. Before I left, I received an email stating I could check in via the internet so I did that and my room number was 928.  That really sucked, I'll explain about that later though. Once I got to the hotel, there was no line for check in so I checked in and went to my room right away.  It was a nice room, nothing special though. I got the internet hooked up and I was ready to go. First I had to check the layout of the new hotel, Youmacon had changed venues since last year and this new place was odd to me.  So I walked around a lot, found the Dealer's Room and bought a new anime bag! Which was part of my plan for the convention. It's a Haruhi bag too! (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya that is).

So the first real panel I went to was, "The World Ends With You" which was about the DS game with the same name. It was interesting, but for the most part pretty boring, since they kept getting off tangent and not really saying many important things.Then I walked over to the mall and bought dinner from Subway and returned to my room. Oh I forgot that, in the Dealer's Room, they didn't have Suzuka vol. 9, so at the mall I picked it up and read that during the weekend. And now the crappy part about being on floor 9. I don't mind taking stairs, but going up nine flights all the time is a bit much, but the elevators were always so crowded and people were so pushy, so I did my best to avoid taking them all the time. Plus the wait time was awful. Well eventually I got to my room and ate my dinner in peace. Sure going to a convention alone is a bit lonely, but being able to retreat to my room wasn't bad. I spent a lot of time in my room this con, just relaxing and getting away from all the people.

The next panel I went to was Anime Balderdash, which was a repeat from last year. The same two guys were running the panel and they were quite funny again. if they have it again next year, I'll be sure to go. It didn't make up for not having 'Your Favorite Anime Sucks' but it's still fun. Then I went over to Nat-chan's favorite AMVs. That was kind of boring, but it helped me waste time before I went to get autographs I didn't get any new AMVs to download though.

For some odd reason Catlin and Patrick's first autograph session was at 11 pm at night, so I got into line and was actually 13th!  Unfortunately, it still took forever to get my autograph, so I'm thinking next year I want to buy a Platinum Badge so I don't have to waste too much time in lines (since you all know how much I love lines), plus the other people with Platinum Badgers got to cut ahead of me. Caitlin was dressed up as Haruhi (Ouran's Haruhi), I have a picture of her, but you'll have to wait until I post my pictures (I actually didn't take a lot of them). Oh since it was Halloween I wore my oranje Netherlands national team jersey, but nobody seemed to care :P.

After getting the autographs, I decided against going to another panel, just because I wanted to get up early and the panels after midnight weren't really that interesting. Although I keep wanting to see the Survival Horror panel where they play through Resident Evil and Silent Hill (and other Survival Horror games), but I decided maybe next year.

So that's it for day 1. It really doesn't seem like I did a lot, but it wasn't bad. Going to a con by yourself is lonely, but having a hotel room this time allowed me to have some alone time for myself.

Matt's Favorite Anime Girl Countdown

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:36:30 GMT

We finally made the top ten! And only about six (or is it seven months) later! This one was a difficult one. Because people who know me, know I love blue haired characters so Hecate was also in the running, but in the end I liked Shana more. Who doesn't like a bad ass girl with a sword? She starts off as a major uncaring bitch and transforms into a emotional person. She's another example off a character who doesn't know how to show her emotions properly, but she learns how to later in the show. Plus who doesn't think the nickname 'Flame-Haired Burning-Eyed Hunter' isn't pretty cool? Who wants some melon bread? And don't forget her famous line Urusai! Also you all know the story about me buying the show at Oni-Con, so that's another reason for me to rank her higher ^_^;;;

Marathon

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:38:37 GMT

So last night I told my dad I wanted to run in a marathon, half joking half serious. He told me I couldn't run around the block (which is probably true ^_^;;;). But looking up some info the more interested I am. There's a 99.9% chance I don't actually run in a marathon, but it would be a cool goal. I wish I had the dedication to start running again, but I'm just too lazy. I'm hoping by making this post, I actually really start consider training for it.

Oh and my anime girl countdown will continue.......................eventually...............

Matt's Favorite Anime Girl Countdown

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:47:42 GMT

Hiroyuki doesn't deserve her. Yeah you could say that about a lot of male characters, but he really doesn't. Sure he's got girls fawning all over him, but the only that's divine is Akari. She's loyal to a fault, and can't express her emotions too well, but she genuinely loves him. Plus I usually like the childhood friend which fits Akari perfectly. I would have liked To Heart more if it would have ended with a kiss, but alas it didn't. I actually had to find out the ending, because I didn't want to see Akari broken hearted. To Heart Remember My Memories brings out more of her personality, and I was satisfied with that ending. And of course she's voiced by Ayako Kawasumi, the most divine seiyuu. This is the second time she's shown up on the countdown and it won't be the last. One last thing for Nathan, Akari > Multi

Matt's Favorite Anime Girl Countdown

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:27:22 GMT

Let's do a checklist. Blue hair? check; small breasts? check; a type of tsundere? check! This girl is definitely a winner. So what else do I need to say about her? She passes all my requirements for being an awesome anime girl. Ninoymiya-kun was a show I watched on a whim and I ended up really liking it. Reika was a big reason why. I even drafted her seiyuu in the Seiyuu Draft. Her and Mayu were basically fighting for the main character whose name I don't remember, but he's Ninomiya-kun, I won't tell what the whole title means because that might be kind of a spoiler. I can't even explain why I enjoyed the show because it really wasn't good, but I just liked to see Reika. I even spoiled the ending because I was afraid the guy was going to pick Mayu and not Reika and if that happened I wouldn't have finished. Oh did I mention she because Shungo's (that's his name!) maid.

Matt's Favorite Anime Girl Countdown

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:14:59 GMT

Okay, it shouldn't be too hard, but Megumi Noda is Nodame. If I put her name in correct order it would have been Noda Megumi, which gives us Noda me :). Oh and look the first Ayayko Kawasumi voiced character! Nodame was pure fun. The premise of the show sounded interesting, but I couldn't get myself to watch it until Andrew (yes guyver!) recommended it to me. They play classical music which is cool, and it's pretty comedic. The live action is pretty good too. Back to Nodame, she's an amazing piano player, but has some strange habits, but she really does love Chiaki and they make a good pair, an odd one, but a good one. They are complete opposites of each other, he's refined, she's a slob, he's intelligent, she's dumb, but of course completely different people attract each other and that's what happened in their case.

And wow this is a big picture ^_^;;;;

Matt's Favorite Anime Girl Countdown

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:28:46 GMT

I'm doing really well at keeping up with this......

I know Nabeshinji hates Urumi and I can see why, but I absolutely love her. This is more because of the manga, than the show, so yeah I'm cheating here, but when she showed up in the anime I loved it too. I wish they would have animated her battle with Miyabi, that would have been fun to watch. I actually bought the specific manga she was in, just so I could see if there were any changes from the anime. So I own from GTO vol. 7 or 8 on until her battle with Miaybi ends :P.

She breaks away from the stereotypical "dumb blond" and is in fact more intelligent than everyone in the school. The fact she has two different colors eyes is a turn on for me too, and I'll admit, I love Asian girls first, but I'll always have a soft spot for blonds ^_^;;;. One final factor, I watched GTO in Japanese and her seiyuu was pure awesomeness. I notice she hasn't been drafted yet, but sadly I don't have room for her right now.....plus she won't last until round 7 anyways. Opps I wasn't paying attention, but bctaris took her, shows how much I've been paying attention :P.

Matt's Favorite Anime Girl Countdown

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:37:23 GMT

Thanks for the congrats Dani and Hfan!

And wow it's been a while. I was re-watching Gurren-Lagann and realized I made a critical mistake, I left a girl from that show off my list! Doh! Anyways back to the countdown......and remember there might be spoilers.....

My wings are my dream and onto the sky. Is that was she said? It's been so long I've forgot, but you get the point. Sora was awesome in the fact she never gave up and didn't back down from her dreams, well let's ignore part of New Wings :P. She always tried her best and even though she would get discouraged, she managed to pull through with sheer determination many times. Sora also had a great support group of friends and others that pushed to her to become the one true Kaleido Star. Of course being voiced by Cynthia Martinez helped me like the character even more. I always say I want to go back and re-watch the show, but I never actually do. I still like the Angel's Maneuver better than the Legendary Great Maneuver. I always thought it was cool how the dome opened up to the sun rise and you got to see Sora rising into the sky, it was a pretty cool moment. I actually think I watched that episode not too long ago.......Oh and here's the obligatory picture :).

I'm done!!!!!!!!

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:47:02 GMT

I just wanted to say I took my last final for school forever today and I'm pretty buzzed right now too :D. Now I just have to worry about those darn professional exams, assuming I passed the class ^_^;;;;.

Opps!

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:20:40 GMT

With FUNi rescuing a lot of Geneon shows, me buying all six volumes of Shana looks quit stupid now, but I'm still glad I did that. Although if the OVA comes with the box set only, I'll be pretty pissed. That being said I'm glad FUNi resurrected all those titles from both ADV and Geneon. I'm still not 100% confident in the industry, but at least FUNi, Bandai (thank you for Hayate!), and Media Blasters are still going strong (for now).

Oh and thanks for the congrats guys :).