すみませんでした!

This was an actual error message I got many years ago…

Well, due to personal issues, I didn’t make any updates last week. Sorry! I’m still dealing with life at the moment, but I’ll try to put some kind of content up soon.

In other news, I’m applying to law school. I decided to トップをねらえ! and take the LSAT this September. The exam will interfere with New York Anime Festival, but I’m willing to make the sacrifice.

Also, if you sent me an email about Otakon, panels, etc. recently, it may have been added to my Spam collection and subsequently deleted. If you did send me a message recently, please be so kind as to resend it! Thanks.

次のことは。。。

So, now that our staff at the Department of Alchemy has returned from their much-needed period of hibernation, we’ll be bringing a lot more content to the blog in the next few weeks. Said content will most likely be encapsulated by the following three categories:

First, now that the summer convention season has (for the most part) ended on the East Coast, we’ll be presenting retrospectives on Katsucon, Anime Boston, Anime Expo, and Otakon as well as a few critical thoughts and theories on the contemporary fandom.

Second: audio. We’ve been recording a lot of panel content, which will slowly be thrown into an mp3 format for your listening pleasure.

Finally, and more experimentally, Alex has decided to compose reminiscent articles about his four-month experience living in Kyoto (since he never wrote them while in Japan). Many stories about delicious food, impromptu trips to rural temples via ママチャリ, and of course thousands of photographs.

Have a keen interest in any of these topics? Shout-outs in the comments are certainly welcome.

Otakon 2009: Success +2


Otakon, aka. Animation Fastival 2009

The Department of Alchemy met with another great success at Otakon 2009 this past weekend. We had large audiences come out for all of our panels: Impact of Evangelion (Saturday morning), Anime/Manga Studies (Saturday late morning), The Problem with Otaku (Saturday evening), and Without Watching the Anime: Opening & Ending Themes (Sunday morning).


Our immense audience on Sunday, albeit a poorly compiled image. Click to enlarge.

We may take it easy for the next week, since Otakon ends our summer convention circuit (until September), but look forward to a lot of analytical articles in the next few weeks, as well as many MBs of podcast fodder for the newly-named Department of Alchemy Audio Archive. Thanks to everyone that attended our panels, and it was great to meet a lot of new people down in Baltimore!