makoto shinkai

since i posted about miyazaki retiring, i thought it would be good to write about shinkai's latest short film, dareka no manazashi...his animation is some of the best that you'll see, and his stories are bittersweet...he also released garden of words earlier this year






his most well known work is probably 5 centimeters per second (turn on captions for subs)

miyazaki

anime director/writer miyazaki announced his retirement...

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Animation-Legend-Hayao-Miyazaki-Retiring-39247.html

the link has a nice vid of him at comic con and the reception he got...this type of stuff is what hall h at sdcc should host more of instead of being just a hollywood movie marketing test venue...it might be time for a re-watching of my neighbor totoro

anime expo

found some good loot at anime expo...i overpaid a little on a couple of them, but i found a really hard to find die-cast model of galaxy express 999 for a good price...a quick check on amazon and ebay only had a few matches and were listed at much higher than what i paid...some of my earliest memories after moving to the states are of watching galaxy express and mazinger z

jackpot!

ships from one piece and a mazinger figure...

if i bought early, i could have gotten a full one day pass for $20, but since i got it at the door, it cost $30 for just the exhibit hall...with another $20 for parking, it cost $50 just to get in the show...in order to get my money's worth, i walked around the exhibit for over 7 hours straight non-stop (good thing i wore good shoes) and tried to look at everything...if i didn't make one final pass just before closing, i would have missed the seeing the galaxy express model, which was what made the trip worth it...i was also hoping to find a die-cast model of the space battleship yamato, but i could only find the super huge one and not the 1/1300 scale version circa '78 or re-released '98

the exhibit hall was only in south hall and the other halls had events and panels, which i didn't have access to...maybe next year, i'll get a full day pass and see the other stuff

what i saw as i walked towards the escalators to the exhibit hall...the anime costume looks a little scary in person

large gundam booth in the front

i never really watched gundam, but the figures looked cool...people might mistake them for robotech or macross (robotech is a US version of a mashup of various macross animes i think)

unfortunately, i didn't take many pics after this...the next time i thought of taking a picture, my phone was already running low on battery and was only able to take a pic of a couple steins gate figures before it shut off...the battery is old and can't keep a charge

steins gate figures...a fun, time traveling anime that was adapted from a video game...okabe and kurisu in their lab coats

the convention seemed to be a younger crowd than sdcc and had more cosplay...any google search of anime expo and cosplay should result in a ton of pics....the big three of naruto, bleach, and one piece were the most common...then next most popular costume was probably attack on titan...it started to get packed around noon, but nothing like sdcc...my main interest was in the toys and collectibles and to see how they differed from the stuff at comic con...the main difference aside from the obvious anime/manga stuff instead of star wars, marvel, and dc was that there was a larger focus on figurines instead of action figures...they were true collectibles for display and not toys that were meant to be played with

the majority of anime is targeted to teens and young adults and most are familiar with the standard formula of fighting and leveling up like in dragon ball, but there are anime that can be enjoyed by older adults and are probably better than a lot of what passes for entertainment on tv...the anime versions of mushishi and usagi drop (bunny drop) are two that i would recommend

mushishi is about a man named ginko who travels the land studying mushi, which are very primitive life forms that border on the supernatural and sometimes come in conflict with humans...the stories are about his travels and him trying to help people who are afflicted by mushi...it is an episodic series, and there is little continuity between episodes, so character development is a little lacking....however, the stories are quite original and worth watching...the series meanders at a leisurely pace, so it took a few episodes before getting a feel for the anime and some patience is needed...i was hoping to find any collectibles related to this at the convention, but i did not find any...i didn't read the manga version, so i can't recommend it

usagi drop is a "slice of life" anime about a 30 year old single man named daikichi who adopts his grandfather's illegitimate six year old daughter named rin after the grandfather passes away and the mother abandons her...the other relatives want to put rin up for adoption, but daikichi decides to take care of her...it is a very simple, heartwarming, and funny series about the two of them trying to be a family...i can't recommend the manga version of this one either

also, as with most anime, i think subs are better than dubs...the only exception to this that i can think of is cowboy bebop where the english voice acting was pretty good

not sure if i will go again, but it was different enough from other comic cons like sdcc, comikaze, and long beach comic con to warrant checking out once