This is about 1/2 of the room in our Sunday panel.
We at the Department of Alchemy (aka. Alex) would like to thank everyone who decided to come out for our/my panels this weekend at Anime Expo 2009. All two of our panels (as well as the two academic panels in which the Department participated) were thoroughly attended! The Problem with Otaku (photographed above) purportedly held more con-goers than the Crunchyroll panel in the previous one-hour time slot! Sorry that the panel had to be cut off; the presentation held a bit too much information. Also, after being featured in AnimeEXPOSURE (Anime Expo’s official newsletter) on Friday as a highlighted panel to attend, Without Watching the Anime: Opening & Ending Themes featured a full panel room, with a line extending around the bend in the hallway! Rumor has it that about two dozen people were even turned away, since as we neared about 400 members in the audience the fire code seemed about to be breached (though we still had a good number of people lining the back wall and even sitting on the floor in front). Unfortunately, our camera equipment wasn’t working during the panel, so we couldn’t nab a cool snapshot.
For those who attended the OP/ED panel, the list of videos shown is listed below. Thanks again for coming to see us! Remember, we’ll be speaking again at Otakon in two weeks! Check out our three panels:
1) Without Watching the Anime: Opening and Ending Themes – Sunday at 10:15 am in Panel 3
2) The Impact of Evangelion – Saturday at 9:00 am in Panel 1
3) Anime & Manga Studies – Saturday at 11:30 am in Panel 1
So, on to that list:
- Astro Boy 1963, English & Japanese versions [opening]
- Space Battleship Yamato, Japanese [opening]
- Mazinger Z, Japanese & English [opening]
- Big O, Japanese [opening]
- Serial Experiments Lain, Japanese [opening]
- Cutie Honey 1973, Japanese [opening]
- Cutie Honey: Flash, Japanese [opening]
- RE: Cutie Honey, Japanese [opening]
- Honey & Clover, Japanese [ending]
- Mobile Suit Gundam 0083, Japanese [opening]
- Lucky Star, Japanese [ending, episode 14]
- Neon Genesis Evangelion, Japanese [opening & opening during end of episode 26]
- Daicon 4, Japanese
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Japanese [opening & dancing to the opening in Akihabara]
- NANA, Japanese [ad promoting opening/ending music]
- Cowboy Bebop, English [opening]
- Gurren Lagann, Japanese [opening, episode 4 & 24]
- Macross: Do You Remember Love, Japanese [ending]
- One Piece, Japanese & English [opening]
- Honey & Clover, Japanese [opening]
- Nodame Cantabile, Japanese [opening]
- Eden of the East, Japanese [closing & opening]
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Sounds real awesome, mate. Can’t believe I missed you at AB ’09. Might try tracking ya down at another con. Either way, take care!
I’ll be at Otakon this coming weekend if you’re there!
I see myself in the picture! :O
Hey Alex! You’ve got an interesting 2nd panel there for Otakon. Hopefully you’ll find plenty of turn out for your panels there as you did at AX.
It’s a shame I had to leave before the end of your OP/ED panel Friday; would’ve loved to hear the comments you had about Higashi no Eden.
Thanks for coming out to both panels!
As for Eden of the East, I don’t think its OP & ED are revolutionary, but at least it’s something novel and interesting. Try to look for the Oasis music video online — basically, it’s a long version of the OP animation.
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Sorry I had to miss this — I actually live in Los Angeles and it would have been easy to pop over for a day — but other stuff came up that weekend and I wasn’t able to go. OPs are one of my focal points, so what kind of stuff did you talk about? Was it mostly a historical overview?
You could think of it as a survey course, trying to provide context for fans, get them to see some new series, and giving them hopefully new perspectives from which to view OPs & EDs. I’m going to post links to a fan’s account of my panel soon (he wrote it in 3 articles) if you’re interested in looking at what I covered.
Thanks — I read the fan’s account. Kind of frustrating, tbh: the way he talked about the music was rather shallow. When d’you think you’ll be back on the west coast? We should meet up and talk!
I don’t think you can call it frustrating if you’re looking for extreme detail. I only had an hour to present the entirety of anime OPs & EDs, so there’s only so much I can say. Wouldn’t mind talking about it though. Feel free to contact me!
I was at the openings/endings panel and I have to say it was the most informative and interesting panel I attended at AX. It was awesome that we got that extra 30 minutes and you got to cover more material. I enjoyed watching the openings and endings you played. [Mazinger Z with the flying fist was my fave] Hopefully you’ll be back at AX next year. Cheers!
Joe, thanks for the kind words, and of course thank for coming to the panel! I definitely agree that the extra 40 minutes was super helpful (maybe I’ll apply for 2 hours next year, hehe).