The 2014 Anime Banzai event begins today and continues through Sunday, October 17-19th at the Davis Conference Center in Layton, Utah. This is the 10th anniversary for the event that celebrates Japanese culture in Utah. The event goes long into the night both Friday and Saturday with dances and panels restricted for anyone under 18. Don’t let that fool you though, during the day the event is kid friendly and families are encouraged to attend the festivities.
There are panels on Japanese culture, anime, acting and voice-acting, animation, comic books and manga, foods and even more. There are art contests, anime screenings, cosplay contests and an artist’s alley made up of local artists. The special guests for the year will fill panel rooms. Chris Patton (“Pokemon”, “Inu X Boku SS”), Jan Scott-Frazier (14 years in the Japanese animation industry), Vic Mignogna (“Tiger & Bunny”,”Soul Eater”), Chuck Huber (Actor “Dragonball Z”, “Full Metal Alchemist”), Warky (Singer & lyricist with “They Might Be Elders”) and Sonny Strait (Krillin in “Dragonball Z”, Comic book artist for “Elfquest”) will be attending the convention and hosting wonderful panels built around their specific expertise.
Make the trip to Layton and have a great time
Pre-registration for the event is obviously closed but single day tickets are still available and people are encouraged to make the trip to Layton and have a great time dancing with the cosplayers outside, attending anime screenings inside, learning something new in the panels, visiting the merchandise booths and artist alley for something amazing, and attending late night parties for a wonderful fall evening.
Big Shiny Robot will be at the event so be on the lookout for Zendobot (Mark Avo), Neverbot (Cassidy Ward), & BSR Anime-bot Gax-bot (Shawn Cogswell). If you think we’ve missed something that we need to let the Internet and the readers of Big Shiny Robot know, let us know. For those that cannot attend, we’ll be featuring Cosplay from the convention and telling you about everything we thought was amazing.
Mark Avo AKA Zendobot can usually be found reviewing comic books and picking out his favorite moments every week for “Five and Three” right here on Big Shiny Robot. You can also find him writing and inking The Salt City Strangers comic book or pretending he’s an expert for The Undead Soup Podcast (http://undeadsoup.com/undead2/). In fact, the crew from The Undead Soup will be podcasting live from Anime Banzai Saturday at 4PM so don’t miss it! You can delight or even heckle him with your tweets @MarkAvo and he’ll be totally thrilled.
The Salt Lake County library system held its second annual teen anime convention, ToshoCon, on Friday August 1 and Saturday August 2, 2014. The event encourages and empowers teens to take the reins by planning and hosting their own convention. To my knowledge it is the first and only convention held by teenagers, for teenagers.
I was asked to moderate a panel there on Saturday for the popular anime cartoon “Black Butler.” When I arrived at the West Jordan’s Virdian Center, I was immediately shocked by not only the size of the venue but the crowd as well. I’ve not seen any data regarding the number of attendees, I’m not sure that data is even available because the event was entirely free to attend so there are no ticket sales to go off of. However, if I had to take a guess at the size of the crowd, like some sort of strange carnival game, I’d say there were at least a thousand jelly beans in the jar- jelly beans dressed to the nines as every sort of fandom character you could imagine.
While most of those in attendance were repping their favorite anime characters there were plenty of other con staples to see, including comic book characters and more than one Doctor. With the exception of panel moderators (like myself,) parents, and library staff, everyone in attendance was between the ages of 12 and 19, including the panelists.
It was inspiring to see what a group of motivated kids were able to put together, if I hadn’t known ahead of time that it was planned by teens and pre-teens, I wouldn’t have been able to tell by looking it at, there were all the earmarks of legitimacy. Truth be told, ToshoCon looked better than some other cons I’ve attended that were presumably planned by adults.
I arrived ahead of my panel and had the pleasure of meeting the panelists, a lovely group of kids dressed as the cast of “Black Butler,” and they committed to their roles. The panel began with a skit that they wrote and performed involving the characters and themes of the show. In addition, they completed the entire panel in character, fielding questions from the audience as their respective characters; Ciel, Sebastion, Madam Red, Lizzy Midford, and Finnian.
I’ve attended many pop culture centric panels over the last couple of years and I can say this unequivocally and without hyperbole,
I’ve never seen a group of panelists, or an audience, more excited, they loved every minute of it.
After the skit, which involved a surprise birthday party and decorations completed via panelists and audience participation, the question and answer period began. A line formed and the panelists answered every question (with the exception of one rather R-rated one, that I had to dismiss) with gusto and passion. They often left their chairs to engage with their audience, and later participated in a spirited game of Truth or Dare, minus the truths. The panel concluded with birthday cake for everyone in attendance, provided by the panelists.
In short, I saw a whole lot of kids with a mutual love for a particular art form enjoying themselves in a safe place. It’s something we could stand to see a bit more of, I hope this convention continues for years to come.
Studio Ghibli’s ‘Restructuring’ and the Passing of Dreams
Rumors have been floating around for the past few weeks about Studio Ghibli – poorly translated and generally riling up fear among the faithful who have adored the studio’s creations for the past 30 years. I didn’t cover the news when it started trickling over a few weeks ago because I knew it was time to be patient. Miyazaki has been back and forth on his decision to retire over the past few years and I didn’t want to jump onto anything before I was sure. As a word of advice, this is something you’ll generally want to do when you read news in Japan. Ambiguously declarative statements like “I’ll think about it,” and pausing to reflect before speaking are the cultural norm when discussing difficult subjects.
Getting to the matter at hand, however, I can’t wait any longer to cover the confirmation that Studio Ghibli has made the decision to “pause” for the first time in its history. You’ve heard the panic exploding around the internet, but I’m actually here to defend their decision and to ask for your understanding. I think Ghibli is restructuring its production arm so that time can pass and they can evaluate their place in the world. This will make the potential sting of any future decision they make less painful, and will allow them to keep their existing creations alive in other ways.
It might be time for us to let the Studio Ghibli we know become a legend of the past, and for us to see something different.
Looking at the big picture, the last few Ghibli features have been shifting in tone and Miyazaki’s absence from the development process is evident. It’s not that I don’t want to experience more from the talented individuals working at Ghibli; I quite enjoy The Wind Rises and the other films coming from the new creative vision holders. I just think it might be better for the creators to take flight under a new name so that they’re not so closely associated with Miyazaki. Imagine how difficult it must be to create against both an established tradition of a certain type of film AND the ridiculously high expectations Miyazaki set when he made movies.
Miyazaki makes Ramen for the deadline-crunching staff of Spirited Away.
Every once in a while, we’re lucky to be given the creations of someone born to bring life to their ideas. They’re people that inspire us, dare us to dream, and get us to see things in a new way. Among my personal favorites are Jim Henson, Hayao Miyazaki, Gene Rodenberry and John Lasseter – each of whom have left an indelible impression on me and the way I write. For those of us that have loved Miyazaki’s films, we’ll likely never forget the first time we watched the struggles of Ashitaka, the whimsical journey of May and Satsuki, and the destiny of Nausicaa unfold before our eyes. Ultimately, we’re sad to see one of our favorite filmmakers retire, but does that mean we should expect Studio Ghibli to somehow stay exactly the same in his absence? It’s a bit unfair for us to expect such a thing, and to deny them the chance to try something new. We should be grateful for everything Studio Ghibli has given us, and respect their decision to take some time away from us.
“In our work, the question is, how much you absorb from others. So for me, creativity, is really like a relay race. As children we are handed a baton. Rather than passing it onto the next generation as is, first we need to digest it and make it our own.” ― Hayao Miyazaki
Everyone’s favorite mech series, “Robotech,” will be coming back to life, but they need our help to do it.
It’s no secret that I love “Robotech,” my daughter is, in part, named for the ace Zentraedi pilot Miriya Stirling. To see more of it come to life, and telling the stories about characters I love, is a dream of mine. Kick in some money to make it happen.
Gax – Alright, you’re a voice actor so we have to get all of the dumb questions out of the way that your going to be asked until the day you die.
CR – Great, lay it on me.
Gax – Did you enjoy playing that one character you did for the past 13 years? (asked in a dumb stilted voice)
CR – Yes.
Long pause, and then we both laughed
Gax – How did you get into Anime?
CR – When I was a kid it was called “Japanimation” and that’s what I knew it as. When I was 18, 19 years old I decided I was going to be an actor much to the dismay of my parents. And I began taking classes doing workshops and things like that. At the ripe age of about 26, I had a friend of mine Mike Mcfarland, who told me “Out in Fort Worth, Texas they are doing these cartoons you should audition”. So when I get there and see the sides (voice acting script) I realized what I was looking at and that’s Japanimation, but I had never heard about Dragon Ball Z or anything like it. But I guess I was a fan of this type of thing as a kid, I mean I used to watch “Star Blazers”, “Robotech”, a big favorite of mine was “Battle of the Planets” But at the time it was just another audition that day. But I got the part and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Gax – Battle of the Gods?
CR – I just recorded it about three days ago. I don’t want to give anything away, Hercule doesn’t have a big part in the movie but it all takes place at Bulmas birthday party. But on the DVD release I’m really hoping that the play this deleted scene. I don’t want to give to much away but Hercule gets drunk and starts some stuff… We had a lot of fun recording it.
Gax – Have you had any voice rolls that you would call difficult?
CR – Difficult? Difficult voice wise or difficult content wise? A lot of Anime sometimes has some very questionable content, and I have participated in such “content”. I remember one Anime there was ‘sodomy’ involved. It was a period piece and this was just something present in Japanese culture at the time. These men would go to these bathhouses and sodomize a boy and be on there way to do there business or whatever. I even remember being asked by Funimation “do you want your name in the credits”
Gax – Did you have them take your name out.
CR – No, I had them keep it in. I’m not really worried about that kind of thing.
Gax – Any good story’s from the recording booth you want to share?
CR – A good story? the character of Majin Buu is actually in real life my best friend Josh Martin, so it’s kind of a cool thing that Buu and Hercule became little buddy’s and were cooking eggs together and giving each other baths… Also the scene in which Bee gets shot, the guy who played the part Mark Orvik, is another good friend of mine. So we were all three in that little scene together and we’ve all been in comedy working together for a long time.
Actually that’s how Josh got the part, we did a live stage show and we have a character in that show called the “Pillsbury Home-boy” We made the “Pillsbury Doughboy” a rapper…
Gax- really..?
CR – Ya, Josh could do a really good Doughboy, so that’s why Chris Sabat, cast him as Majin Buu because Buu looks like the Doughboy.
Gax- Stranger than fiction, that’s what that story is…
Gax – If I remember right you had to do extra scenes on Dragon Ball Z because your character “Mr. Satan” has two different names because of TV. censorship.
CR – We had to record it both ways, anytime “Mr. Satan” was said we had to go back and say Hercule and vice versa. Any time Anyone! had a line with “Mr. Satan” they also had to rerecord it. Kind of a pain in the ass.
Gax – I’m guessing you were very familiar with your lines by the time you were done.
CR – Ya somewhat. There was a writer back in the day, I don’t want to say his name, not that he works for Funimation anymore… But I guess he being somewhat of a “religious man” did not care to write out the word “Satan” for whatever reason. He would write in “Mr. Mao Mao”.
Gax – Mao Mao..?
CR – I looked it up recently to find out what it meant and I was kind of shocked to find it was somewhat related to Hercules situation. I felt bad about being irritated over it for all of those years, but at the same time I always had a hard time reading the script, instead of seeing “Mr. Satan” it would say “ Mr. Mao Mao” and I knew I had to say “Mr. Satan”, for some reason it just bugged me…
Gax – That’s an interesting bit of trivia. Why didn’t he just use “word replacement”?
CR – I know right. The thing is he was just doing it for himself and nobody’s benefit. I was the one who had to read the damn thing and do the lines!
Gax – Tell me about Arlong, I love me some One Piece. :3
CR – Arlong was a lot of fun, I still have these fantasy’s that hes going to come back. People do tell me that there are some flashback scenes of Arlong coming up, so I will get to voice him again at some point.
Gax – You will, I just got done with that arc.
CR – I’m convinced that he will come back at some point. Because you don’t see a body, Luffy just brings the whole palace down and then everyone assumes hes dead. But he was a big Shark-man… a few bricks and lumber shouldn’t kill him.
Gax – You may be on to something, most fans think hes still alive.
CR – That’s why I have the fantasy that he’ll come back around. I really liked playing him it was my first chance to play an irredeemable bad guy. Some of the story’s I’ve heard about him he was a very, very bad Shark-man, just really awful with no remorse. It was fun playing someone who was just flat out evil.
Gax – why yes, yes he was.
Gax – Going over some of your older roles I was shocked to find you did the voice of Yuri, on “Baki the Grappler”.
CR – That’s been awhile and a day ago.
Gax – That was probably about 9 years ago.
CR – Feels longer, it really does… I think that it wasn’t too long after we got Dragon Ball Z started. I got cast the part because I could do a Russian/Mongolian accent, I guess most of the people at the studio couldn’t do one at the time. Which was fine with me, I like to do accents and big characterty type things. So when I get a chance to do an accent, and when I can do it well, I’m always excited about it.
Gax – That was the role I was really shocked to see you play.
CR – It’s been so long I couldn’t even tell you what happened in that show. I think I taught Baki how to Box?
Gax – You punched Baki a lot and then taught him how to box.
CR – That sounds about right.
Gax – And then later in the Manga Baki fights a thawed out Caveman and an imaginary Preying Mantis.
CR – Huu…
Gax – Ya, I know…Gax puts his face in his hands
Gax – How do you think your work differs from the Japanese voice acting process?
CR – I don’t fully know the Japanese process I was kind of surprised to hear that some of the sessions are done together.
Gax – It depends on the studio and the show, but sometimes they are done together mostly to get the actors to emote on the same level. Which to me as an American viewer speaking English I don’t understand the subtleties of Japanese emotive language very well.
CR – Well see, I think that’s what it is two. I don’t understand their nuance and subtlety of language like your saying and how they would react to something in every capacity. But the thing for me is that characters on the screen aren’t just Japanese, the characters on the screen are multicultural.
So my ear wants to hear that multicultural vastness whether the characters is Asian or Caucasian, Hispanic, Black, what ever. I don’t want to see them speaking just plain Japanese, I want to hear what helped form the roots of that character, and the Japanese track doesn’t do that for me.
I know some fans get really angry about this and they only want to hear us do things “the way It was meant to sound” but what I like to ask is, what if you could make it better? But at the same time I like to tell my voice actor friends not to get a big ego, because your the second guy to play this roll. Because at any given time in Anime we’ll never be the first…
Gax – I think more than a few times a lot of actors like you have made a show much better in the dub. Thanks for spending so much time with me Chris.
After weeks of teasers and fan speculation we finally have the Trailer for “Sailor Moon Crystal”.
The animation and art style seem to have been taken in a completely different direction then the shows previous incarnation – focusing on the characters more delicate features and using a very soft and flowing animation style as opposed to 1992’s “Sailor Moon” that had a very rough and cartoony look that utilized over-the-top facial expressions and reactionary comedy.
If I had to make a comparison I would say that “Sailor Moon Crystals” new art style draws heavy influence from 1997’s “Revolutionary Girl – Utena” which was a similar Shojo Anime adaptation that also had a soft, silky animation style that seems to be much more popular nowadays then “Sailor Moons” previous more quirky look.
Will old-school Sailor Moon fans be opposed to this change? We’ll have to see won’t we… “Sailor Moon Crystal” premieres July 5th. For those of us living outside of Japan you can see the premiere on Crunchyroll the same day as a simulcast.
Today we got to see the premiere of the teaser trailer for the “Adult Swim”, “Toonami” mini series “Intruder 2” on the “Toonami” “Youtube” page “Toonami Swim“.
Other then the overwhelming wash of nostalgia that poured over me for the original mini series the first thing that stands out to me is how high quality the visuals are for this thing. This honestly looks like a big screen movie trailer. I can’t tell you how excited I am to see just what they came up with for this protect!
With all of the hype for the upcoming reboot of the “Sailor Moon” Anime series “Sailor Moon Crystal” one must wonder where it will premiering outside of Japan.
Looks like today we got our answer, Crunchyroll will be doing the first of the simulcasts on July 5 starting at 3:00am.
Announced during this weekend’s Fanime panel, Crunchyroll’s latest addition is none other than the upcoming Sailor Moon Crystal anime. The series is set to kick off on Saturday, July 5 at 3:00am PT.
More information to come regarding available territories, along with an official page for the series. For now, get pumped for some new Sailor Moon!
Bit of a surprise seeing “Crunchyroll” getting first dibs for the premiere after “Viz Media” announced that they have the license at “Anime Central” on the 16th. I would have assumed that we’d be seeing “Sailor Moon Crystal” on the now revamped “Neon Alley”. I’ll take a shot in the dark and say I’ll be receiving a press release with details about this decision in the coming weeks.
Rojas is back with FUNimation Show’s Spring Season Breakdown. There’s the usual lot of overdone and stereotypical plots, but I think there might be some promise coming at us from Funimation this Spring Season.
Among the more interesting are the pencil-shaded “Ping Pong” and the ‘my-cards-have-personalities,’ (and we’re totally doing this just to sell another TCG) card-wielding “WIXOSS.” What look to be a lot less interesting from their previews are “Dimidaler” (a watered down Eva crossed with a horny-guy trope) and “Assassins” (I mean, seriously… “with boobs?”). “Date Alive’s” second season shows some promise, and “Puchim@s” has an unusual, cutesy animation style that will likely draw in a new audience.
I’m planning to check out “Selector Infected WIXOSS,” “DragonAr Academy,” and “Soul Eater NOT,” and will be sure to share my thoughts with you here on BigShinyRobot. Honestly, I’m kind of excited to have more Soul Eater back in my life!
