Fanime Highlights: Part 2: I Love Reuben Langdon

Here is the second part of Fanime Highlights! Featuring my thoughts on the panels I actually attended!

Friday

Nothing much happened on Friday, usually nothing does. However my friend and I read that the Reuben Langdon panel was on that day.  Reuben Langdon. We attended his panel/autograph session last year. He’s such a cool guy. BUT. The panel was called in because he was doing some filming (?) for the film Avatar (no, not the Last Airbender, the James Cameron one). Luckily the panel was moved to the next day.

Besides getting lost looking for a place to eat, I also attended a showing of so bad, they’re awesome music videos. There was T.M. Revolution, YUKI, Go!Go!1788, Soul’d Out  and Halicali, but what took the cake wasn’t Japanese, but was this German group’s music video.

Saturday

Two of my friends were in the Introduction to Lolita & Fashion Show, and I offered to record. My hand shook a lot while recording, but you can see lots of the different styles of lolita fashion featured! I learned a lot about different styles I’ve never heard of and what constitutes as lolita, not a costume. Here is the first part of the show:

After the fashion show and meeting up with some friends, I didn’t have anything to do. However in the middle of the convention center is Stage Zero and on it was Reuben Langdon playing Street Fighter IV. It was a charity event and you have to donate money to play against him. It was very intense and exciting because it would seem like Reuben was losing, but he would turn around the battle with a sliver of health. He always played as Ken, as he voiced the character. Then of course he was pummeled by a state champion or few, but he put on a good fight, and it was all fun for a good cause. Then a challenger appeared, it was Keith Burgess, the voice of Akuma. Keith played as Akuma, and Reuben played as Ken.

Sorry for the small image. This was taken from Reuben’s blog . Actually if you squint hard enough you can spot me in the picture.

Another highlight is always Masquerade, (is it called Cosplay Spectacular now?) it’s an event in which people perform skits or dances on a huge stage. Sometimes people recreate famous scenes in an anime, do a dance in cosplay to a song/sing, but the best are the comedic ones. This year didn’t have any many skits I liked compared to last year’s. However I couldn’t help but sing along with the crowd in this skit. By far my favorite skit in the whole event.

It was a first ever sold-out event, and everyone was singing the Pokemon theme at the top of their lungs. I screamed so hard.

Sunday

Patricia Lee, Karen Dyer, Ken Lally, and Reuben Langdon

We waited an hour and a half in line for autographs for Reuben, but it was a line for other voice actors from Resident Evil 5 too. It was worth it, even if we only came for Reuben. We finally got up to Reuben and my friend and I created this skit which involved mentos. When Reuben was in Japan working on the show (B-Fighter), he starred in commercials for extra income. They were very cheesy, but we loved them.

So anyways, we both had a pack of mint mentos, popped them in our mouth in front of Reuben and yelled “JACKKKIIEEE!!!!”. Reuben, the other voice actors, and the staff started bursting out in laughter. Reuben then had the brilliant idea of asking for the mentos and some soda. Luckily I had a bottle of coke with me. He asked the other voice actors to join him and he gave them all a bunch of mentos to put in their mouth. He then passed the soda around to everyone and had them drink some. When nothing happened, one of the voice actors (Patricia Lee) gestured with her hands, in which I guessed correctly “the soda was flat”. After that Reuben signed my friend’s and my poster of Dante from Devil May Cry. We had such a great time, and just as we were leaving, he yelled out “MATHIIILDA!!”. And we responded back immediately with “JACKKIIEEE!!!”. Greatest moment of my life.

Next time! Hopefully Cosplay or anything else that comes to mind!

-shirokiryuu

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Internet browsing battle: PS wins against Wii!

People uses internet browsers to look for information. Two of the most important and obviously the ones that virtually owns the internet browser share are Internet Explorer and Firefox…Both are used on personal computers….but have you wondered what game console dominates that market as well?

A recent study made by Market Share showed that Playstation Owners (PS3 and probably the PSP is in the study) owns 0.04% of the browser market while the Wii only owns 0.01%

Both consoles feature capable browsers that are compatible with some of the most widely used online entertainment portals, such as the BBC iPlayer and YouTube, yet business statistics group Market Share shows that a larger percentage of internet traffic is delivered through Sony’s machine.

The PS3’s browser has a 0.04 share of the ‘internet market’, a miniscule proportion when compared to, say, the PC’s 88.7 percent majority, yet it’s a figure which sits comfortably ahead of the Wii’s 0.01 percent.

Worldwide estimates number the Wii’s global userbase at some 44 million, more than double the estimated 19 million PS3s sold internationally. The contrasts in web traffic bring to light the demographic trends in both audiences, with PS3 owners generally being considered more embedded in tech and game culture than most Wii owners.

Study: Market Share
Source: Edge Online

Obviously the PC´s dominates the internet browsing market but personally, I use my PSP to browse internet pages or check my email. I can´t really see why I would use a PS3 or Wii to surf the web because those systems are not portable.

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2009 is the year of the “9″

The date seems apocalyptic but it is not doomsday! It is the release date for an interesting CGI movie…and the images are really impressive! Tim Burton (The Corpse Bride, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory) and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Nightwatch) join forces to produce Shane Acker’s original and thrilling tale called just “9″!

9 takes place in a world parallel to our own, in which the very legacy of humanity is threatened. A group of sapient rag dolls, living a post-apocalyptic existence find one of their own, 9 (Elijah Wood), who displays leadership qualities that may help them to survive.

The conflicted, but resilient group includes 1 (Christopher Plummer), a domineering war veteran; 2 (Martin Landau), an aged inventor; 5 (John C. Reilly), a stalwart mechanic; 6 (Crispin Glover), a visionary and artist; and 7 (Jennifer Connelly), a brave warrior. [2][3] The trailer also shows two hooded rag dolls with the numbers 3 and 4 on them. In addition a large strong rag doll has the number 8 on his shoulder.
Source: Wiki

“9″ feels like a breeze of fresh air in the middle of just average movies. The background music, the plot, the characters…everything is just in the right place. The only thing that remains is the long wait until the release of the movie.

http://www.cartoonleap.com/wp-content/gallery/news_jan_2009/tb_9.jpg

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Celebrity Faces of 2008 in Japan!

Near the end of last year, Oricon conducted a survey of 1,200 men and women, asking them which celebrities they considered as the “face of 2008,” based on activity.

The #1 man was Yusuke Kamiji, who mainly rose to fame as part of the boy band Shuchishin, while the #1 woman was young actress Aoi Miyazaki, the star of the NHK taiga drama “Atsuhime.”

On the men’s list, musician DAIGO ranked #2, followed by Olympic medal-winning swimmer Kosuke Kitajima. The rest of the list were Masaharu Fukuyama, golfer Ryo Ishikawa, comedian Sekai no Nabeatsu, Shuchishin (as a group), Masahiro Nakai, Arashi, and Yutaka Mizutani.

The women’s list placed comedienne Harumi Edo at #2 and softball pitcher Yukiko Ueno at #3. Suzanne, Maki Horikita, Thelma Aoyama, Yukie Nakama, Namie Amuro, Aya Ueto, and Perfume also made the rankings.

Quote for the post: Aoi chan looks so “kawaii”

Source: Oricon via Tokyograph

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