Japan Expo is a large anime convention in France that has gone over the 200,000 attendee mark and which I have been curious about attending. Instead of having to travel to France though, which I would'n't mind, as I have a positive view of France, the con debuted in the US this year in the form of Japan Expo USA at the Santa Clara Convention Center from August 23-25, the weekend before Labor Day. I had heard about it a few months earlier at FanimeCon but after checking it out wasn't sure if I would be attending. For one, I hadn't heard of any of the guests and at $50 for a 3 day ticket and $100 for a Premium, I would need some good reasons to shell out that much for a ticket, especially in the latter case. The tipping point came in July when the con announced that Yoshiyuki Sadamoto would be attending. Wow. For anyone who is an Eva fan, he is one of the two biggest names in the Eva pantheon, second only to Hideaki Anno. I held out for a little bit on spending that $100, but after discussing it with two acquaintances from FanimeCon who are also autograph and artwork collectors, I decided to take the plunge and spring for it. And was it worth it as the con utilized two means of getting autographs: first come first served and via a lottery system. This really favored the Premium memberships and made it more difficult for everyone else. Premiums got in at 8:30, a half hour before prereg at 9 and on-site attendees couldn't get in until 10, allowing them to line up sooner of the first come first served signings, which tended to be the initial ones if the guest had two in a day. For the drawing system, every other registration type could get one automated lottery draw per guest per day, while Premiums had additional autograph coupons to let them draw up to five times. Originally Sadamoto was supposed to have been at JX for all three days but his schedule was cut back to Saturday and Sunday and he only had a single panel on Sunday, originally there was another one on Friday. My plan was to get as many other autographs as I could on Friday to free up space for him. Another change was that initially there was a limit of one autograph per person for the entire con, but due to the lower turnout, this was relaxed to one per day. On Friday I recognized several of the Premium attendees as I had also seen them at FanimeCon before. A good number of us would be going for Sadamoto on Saturday so on that day I got up the earliest as he would be doing two signings, a first come first served and a lottery. I got down to the convention center at 7:30 and after obtaining a ticket, camped in line for a couple hours. Girl band Deepagumi.inc started signing at 10 and as they had a lot of people waiting, their signing pushed Sadamoto back by about 15 minutes. His signings turned out to be the most restrictive: personalization required and no photos. Even VIP and press were told they couldn't film and the next day You Kikkawa, who was covering the con as a reporter, got told to move. Sadamoto is the only guest who doesn't have a likewise or representation of his work on the con website. It seems that JX kept him on a tight leash during the con and his interpreter, Emmanuel, in particular was very much the guard dog, which turned people off, although I didn't have issues with him. I tried to get an Asuka sketch by telling Sadamoto that Eva was my favorite series and Asuka was my favorite character, which didn't quite work, as I got an Eva-02 mini sketch instead. Hoever I can't complain, as other people ended up with King from Nadia. Other sketches were Pen-Pen and the other pilots. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I didn't get any photos of the Rei sketch, it being Rei being the likely reason. There was another Sadamoto signing at 3, which was draw only. It was more restrictive than the first one - no blank shikishi, thus only the two con shikishi or merchandise. On Sunday I got down to the convention center at 8, which was my latest arrival time, but the heat was off on getting Sadamoto's autograph since most everyone had gotten it on Saturday and was back for seconds, although this one would be a draw. This was where having the autograph coupons helped out as I got a ticket with my first coupon but did hear of an instance where someone used up all five allowed coupons but didn't get a ticket at all. The signing was later at 12:30. Sadamoto was late by half an hour due to an interview and again there were no shikishi at all, although I did ask first before pulling one out. So I had the con shikishi signed instead. At the Tatsuro Iwamoto signing I noticed that Sadamoto had sketched a mini Haruko on the FLCL con shikishi for him, which the latter had done before he started signing and set aside. When I congratulated Iwamoto on it, he replied that he was a fan. As I hadn't been able to get all five members of Gamushara Oendan on Friday, I rectified that by getting a second shikishi signed by them. They noticed my Eva shirt and when I revealed that my favorite character is Asuka, was congratulated by two of them. The final event of the con that I attended was Sadamoto's panel. He was originally scheduled to have had 1 on Saturday as well but his original schedule was scaled back. No photo or video allowed for this panel, which was late by 15 minutes. In addition to Sadamoto and Emmanuel, Carl Horn appeared to provide commentary. It started out with a video compilation Sadamoto had put together of all the anime he had worked on from the beginning. Next was a brief Q&A. I was hesitant to ask a question but decided to do so and happened to be the last person who got to ask. I took notes on the Q&A. A couple as you can see are borderline spoiler. Q: Why did you decide to make the manga different from the series? A: The TV series wasn't the true ending. The manga was a way of thinking about Eva and a different line of thinking. Q: What influenced you growing up in your art? A: Tokusatsu was an influence. (missed some other things he mentioned) Q: What is your favorite genre? A: SF but not too far into the future. Q: In 3.0 why is Asuka's eyepatch over her left eye and Ritsuko has a shorter haircut as she was one of the more feminine characters? A: Didn't write anything down since I was shaking my head at this one, but IIRC the designs are what was asked for and he didn't give a concrete explanation. Q: Favorite scene from Rebuild? A: The end of 3.0 when the 3 are walking in the desert. Q: Who was the most difficult to design and who was the easiest? (my question) A: Mari was the hardest because he wants to show the difference between the current characters and the new ones but couldn't do this with Mari. Note: this was from Felipe Smith's liaison who said Emmanuel's translation was off. From what I wrote down: Mari was the hardest because he had to show the technological advances vs. being freer with the TV series. With Rebuild he had to conform with what was requested. Gendo was the easiest and Sadamoto even did the Gendo pose to emphasize. We then saw that Sadamoto had started a large drawing in pencil that he started to fill in with marker and were told that this was the first time he had drawn in front of an audience. While he was drawing Emmanuel and Horn had a discussion about Gainax and Sadamoto's role as well as anime in general. The sketch, and it is a masterpiece of course, was Asuka perched on the hood of an AC Cobra with Eva-02 at the top left. When Emmanuel asked for guesses as to what the car was I correctly identified it as a Cobra and got some applause. Before Sadamoto finished Emmanuel pulled out a second sketch but didn't reveal it, asking the audience to guess element associated with the area that appeared in it. These turned out to be the Golden Gate Bridge, palm trees, the Winchester Mystery House, and a sea lion surrounding the 3 pilots, Nono from Diebuster, and Nadia. I was dreaming that the Asuka on Cobra sketch would be given to the guy who correctly identified the car, but both are probably back in France now. A month later, ANN published their interview with Sadamoto and included a photo of the Japan Expo USA sketch. I also found a photo of the sketch he worked on during the panel. As for Eva merchandise, I only ended up getting an Eva-05 LM HG model kit from Tatsu Hobby, which was the best priced Eva item that I found. I opted to pass on the Complete Records Collections for 1.0 and 2.0 at the Kinokuniya stall due to their 50% markup and calculation that I could obtain them cheaper, as well as Sega bedsheet with Asuka on it as the Rei one was missing and both are cheaper on Amazon.
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This year’s FanimeCon on Memorial Day weekend was my fourth in a row (after going sporadically three other times) and was very memorable because it was very much an Eva-themed con for me in several ways. I will thus focus largely on the Eva aspects in this post. First I wanted to show off my Eva pride with two Asuka shirts that I picked up a month before from Eva-T with some help. These were the Stay Real shirt, which I was going to wear on Saturday, and the white Cospa shirt for Sunday as these are the biggest days of the con. I also wanted to sport the Asuka button by GE Animation but it was released about two weeks before the con started, so I planned to see if one of the dealers had it. Day 1 (Friday, May 24) Right after getting my badge I headed to the dealers' hall, which was quite early for me as I usually don't go there until later. Fortunately, Anime Jungle had the button and it was the only one that they had out. Coincidentally I had scoped them out on the list of dealers posted on the FanimeCon website to check the button's availability. This was my final button set up starting on Saturday with no doubt left as to what my favorite series was: One of the things I like about FanimeCon is the swap meet, which gives attendees the opportunity to sell off any anime related or other goods that they want to part with it to their fellow con-goers. I asked to find what I was looking for at swap meet, which was Eva primarily and damn did I get what I asked for, along with some other oldies, but goodies. Here's what I landed Eva wise: Day 2 (Saturday, May 25) In the morning I found this in one of the open areas of the San Jose Convention Center where registration is typically held (not this year due to construction): This was serendipitous, as after dinner I considered going home, but opted to return to the convention center to see if there would be anything worth seeing. Turns out that there was. Day 3 (Sunday, May 26) In the morning I went back to where the cockpit was and it was still there, but not as busy. I also talked to the guy who put it together. He selected one of the four cockpit designs and went with the coolest looking one. It is supported by several scaffolds where the pilot sits but can be assembled and broken down. As a veteran modeler he just goes by the feel of putting it up and taking it down. Construction took three weeks. Crunchyroll later covered it. This time it was the Asuka cosplayer who asked me first for a photo. I had missed out on the opportunity the previous day to get a sketch by Tsuyoshi Nonaka, who is an excellent artist to ask for robots and the like as he is a toy designer. I figured that since he had worked on the Chogokin-Damashii series of toys that he would be able to sketch the Evas and this was confirmed when I saw some photos of what he had done, including the Berserker version of Eva-01 and Eva-02 in Beast Mode. I asked for Eva Shogoki and Nonaka got right to it. I told him about the cockpit in the convention center and shared my opinion of 3.0 when asked, which was that some things are better off just not understanding, and he agreed. Later I saw two Asukas, one in the test plugsuit and one in the yellow dress. I had also seen this lady earlier but missed the chance to get a photo of her at the time. This Mini Cooper S was across the street in front of the Fairmont Hotel. The left side has the same design while the Nerv logo is above the Cooper logo on the back. Nothing on the hood. These are 2.0 designs by character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, who also did the manga. At McDonald's I ran into the only other person I saw that entire weekend wearing an Asuka shirt. He told me that he was trying to get his friends into Eva via the Rebuild route as they thought the TV series too old and long. His shirt can be found on Redbubble. Day 4 (Monday, May 27) The final day of the con and no guest signings, so this is typically my shopping day. From my earlier scouting around I had an idea on what to get. Now a big reason for this website is to document my Eva collection and avoid buying duplicates. I brought a binder of printouts of it (since I don't have a smartphone yet) and it proved its worth as it saved me several times. However for some reason I didn't consult it when I saw a Real Model of Eva-04, the only one I don't have. Thus I didn't pick it up. My priorities were the older goods showcased in E-Mono. From Kimono My House (they had the Eva-04 Real Model), I picked up a complete set of six gashapon and four idol cards. The two on the right are from the Death and Rebirth out of a set of four. The other items are a Real Model of Ruri Hoshino (which I had seen so many times over the years but never this cheap) and a Plastic Little shitajiki. Seven posters from Nikaku Animart: Asuka, screensaver, Genesis 0:1, 0:3, 0:5, 0:8, and Death and Rebirth. And from Toyslogic, two Rei bikini figures as they were doing a deal. I did not pick up any Asuka figures this time around. All in all it was a very enjoyable con despite having taken some steps backwards. I picked up a lot more Eva goods this time than ever before but overall I still came in under my total con budget. The Eva exposure was also much, much higher. Of course I myself had a part to play in that and will do so again in the future. This is modified from my original post on the EvaGeeks forum. I had the opportunity to play this game on August 25 at the J-Pop Summit Festival in San Francisco last year. Essentially it is a mystery simulation game that has the players looking for clues throughout a local environment and solving them, put on by Japanese company SCRAP. No prior knowledge whatsoever of Eva was required but it added to the enjoyment. You could play by yourself but it was best to play with others as a team. This was my first Real Escape Game and I wasn't going to do it at first but figured why not since how many other people around the world get to experience this? The way the game works is that practically everything that you encounter can be a clue and thus you need to keep an open mind to solve the puzzles. However you are also operating under a time limit. Tickets cost $20 if bought 30 days in advance, which is what I did, or $25 if bought 6 hours before the event and finally $30 on site. I signed up for the very first iteration of the game at 11 AM on Saturday. Eight games were played on both days for a total of 16. Got in line early outside the New People building and ended up talking to the people behind me. We were all given a blue Nerv ID tag and an envelope containing our game materials which we were not to open yet. At 11 we were allowed inside and went into the New People theater in the basement for the briefing. Since there was about 10 minutes of waiting I ended up partnering with the folks I had been in line with. Only 1 of us had played an REG before, The Crazy Last Will of Dr. Mad which had occurred the month before also in the City. Finally the briefing video started. This was a voiceover by Misato with English subs. The premise is that the players are new Nerv personnel joining the Nerv San Francisco branch. Suddenly there is an an unexpected Angel attack which threatens Nerv itself and the operatives have to escape. However the escape route plotted by MAGI has gotten scrambled and they need to gather the scattered clues to figure it out. There is a 60 minute time limit while Eva-01 sorties, so the game must be completed within that time period. We were then allowed to open our envelopes to find a map of Japantown, a clue card, and scratch paper before being set off. After an hour we were to reconvene at a predetermined spot for the game resolution. My team solved the first 4 clues pretty quickly and I was surprised that it had seemed so easy. We then got stuck on solving 2 passcodes for 2 areas but were eventually able to solve these, but were stymied again. However by then it was too late and the time was up. At the debriefing we learned that in addition to the 2 passcodes there were additional elements involving using the Nerv ID to solve a clue and then heading to a final destination that was the end point. Even here the player had to have recalled a prior clue that was given during the briefing in order to successfully escape. One group got to the end point but hadn't recalled this earlier clue and thus no one completed the game. In other words, all us players died. Despite the difficulty and getting confounded, all in all it was a fun experience and I enjoyed the chance to play something Eva themed with some fellow Eva fans. Afterwards we gave our comments to a reporter and as there were people photographing the event, maybe I might end up on the website. I had lunch with my teammates afterwards and we also checked out the Eva Pop-Up Museum. Would I play the game again, maybe - it depends on the theme. The upcoming one involves escaping from a treasure ship. |
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