Anime Central 2014
by Theron Martin,
This year's Attack on Titan) and the weather gradually warmed as the convention extended through Sunday May 18th. Attendance figures were not available at press time, but the convention looked no less crowded than last year's turn-out of 28,000, which would allow it to continue its standing as the largest anime 'con in the central Midwest and one of the largest in the country.
The Japanese guests of honor for Acen included the musical duo Helen McCarthy (The Anime Enyclopedia), Trevor Mueller and Josh Elder from the Reading With Pictures initiative, and a slew of special entertainers that included Samurai Dan and Jillian.
Guests and Other Programming
Festivities kicked offer late Friday morning with the Opening Ceremonies and continued unabated through the Closing Ceremonies late Sunday afternoon. Throughout the convention numerous musical performances were offered, including a pair of A New World concerts featuring music from the Final Fantasy franchise, a concert by angela, and a live performance by the Wake Up, Girls! to go with a screening of the anime franchise's seminal movie. Those with a taste for dance could attend Friday's Hardcore Synergy rave, the formal Crystal Ball, or The Soap Bubble, which claims to be the longest-running anime convention dance party in the States.
All of the guests were readily available to attendees via various Q&A, autograph g, and/or discussion sessions, and several were also available for press-only sessions. One such guest was Crispin Freeman, who reaffirmed a long-standing claim that he got into anime dubbing work because, as a fan, he could not stand what he saw as crappy English dubs and felt he could do better. (Wolf's Rain, respectively).
The full line-up of the Wake Up, Girls! in their corresponding anime series outfits, together with producer Yamamoto and director Takeuchi, also were available for press interview. While waiting for the girls to get changed the adults answered questions about what they saw which influenced them to make anime-related careers (both cited Laputa, while Takeuchi also mentioned Ordet, which produced the anime version. When the girls arrived, each of them answered each question in turn. They clarified that many personal stats (blood type and birthdays in particular) were retained for their anime equivalents, but otherwise how closely they resembled their characters varied; one had a birthmark in the same place as her character, another was left-handed just like her character, and another said that fans regularly say that she looks and acts like her character, though this was not the case for all of them. Although most of them mentioned that they had originally been aspiring voice actors, they also had mixed opinions about whether they liked voice acting or performing live better and further had scattered opinions about whether natto or okonomiyaki is better. All were visiting the States for the first time and most were looking forward to sampling genuine Chicago pizza. They, like all other Japanese guests who spoke publicly in either interviews or the Closing Ceremonies, where quite impressed by how excited and friendly American fans were.
Another major event held at Acen every year is Anime Hell, this time on Friday night, which packed one of the site's largest meeting rooms. This collection of animation clips, commercials old and new from around the world and comedy bits (Batman reacting in an undignified way to a variety of situations was one of the running jokes this year) is easily one of the 'con's rudest and most riotously funny fixtures. Also held at Sunday noon was the final round of the World Cosplay Summit American Nationals.
Industry s
While both Sentai Filmworks had dealer's room presences, neither conducted industry s. For the companies that did:
Hosted by Senior Manager for Anime Marketing Anime Expo.
But the big event was to come at the end, in a bonus session marked only as “Surprise!” on the schedule. Ms. Ingram had been teasing about this all session but offered no details or even vague hints other than that there could be an A or B version to the big announcement based on what was being settled in Japan as the was going on. No one knew what for sure to make of initial comments in the advertising clip about a legendary anime, but many gasps and cheers greeted the iconic image of Usagi's hand extending up towards a crescent moon, which led to the inescapable conclusion that Viz had licensed Sailor Moon Crystal series in July. All who attended for the announcement were given special memorial badges (pictured below) and asked to say, “Happy Birthday, Usagi!” in a clip that was to be sent to Japan.
A follow-up on Saturday simply recapped the bigger announcements from the previous day, with the further stressing that the new Sailor Moon English dub would retain all original names, character genders, and character relationships. The most interesting comment from it was Ms. Ingram's comparison of Sailor Moon to the queen on an anime chessboard if Dragon Ball is regarded as the king.
The timing and staging of the Sailor Moon announcement was such a publicity coup that no other industry could even come close to competing, but Crunchyroll did what it could. Amidst discussion of what all it was currently offering came their announcement that the live-action movie Ichi 1: The Origin (the live-action prequel to Kodansha requires them to take manga down from their site as the physical release of the manga becomes available. He also stated that streaming already-established dubs from catalog titles was certainly not out of the question going forward but that Crunchyroll had no intent to make their own dubs.
Funimation
Funimation's was led by here).
The representative for Aniplex opened his by talking extensively about what titles from Aniplex were currently streaming and/or available for purchase and showing trailers for several. He also talked about a few releases, including abec as special guests.
English Dub Premieres
Several English dubs for releases made their debuts at the convention, typically with two of the cast from the dub as hosts. Three of them are briefly reviewed below.
Red Data Girl
Doing an English dub for this title posed some special problems, as the original performance of Izumiko by Claymore), but overall it is a very solid dub.
Blood Lad
Only two episodes of its dub were available, but they were a fun listen. Unsurprisingly, Accel World's Kuroyukihime) suit well enough as Fuyumi and Hydra Bell. Other roles are at least able. Not an ounce of the humor or smarminess of the original is lost in this great script adaptation.
Four dubbed episodes were shown. Although some of the jokes get adjusted a little for American , script writer Monica Rial in a very brief performance as Emeralda. Overall the dub seemed pretty good so far, and they do have some great material to work with, but the verdict is still out on this one.
