Moon Prism Poptarts
Though we stayed up until 3AM last night, we were able to get checked out of our hotel room by 10:30AM. We recieved a phone call from Jeff notifying us that the sign outside our panel room said that Moon Prism Poptarts would be held at 10AM, though we were told it would be at 11AM. It looks like Anime LA's sign staff had made a typo. We were able to set things up in the panel room without a problem, though it would have been nice if a staff person made sure that we were good to go because we ended up having sound issues part way through the panel.

Likewise, Moon Prism Poptarts covers the history of Sailor Moon in North America. This is an educational panel that talks about the early domestication of anime in the 90s. The other half of the panel is showing the best and worst of the English langugage dub from early memes (Jupter's Got Talent!) to tear jerkers ("My Only Love"). We had a good number of people who showed up to this panel and enjoyed it. We also learned after con, Hnilmk video taped the lecture part of the panel.

Dealers Hall
The dealer hall at ALA tends to be small with only a limited number of options. More often than not the team walks away with little to nothing. This year we were surprised to find some really good deals such as a copy of City Hunter: Secret Service for $3, a nice prop gun for $15, and a super rare copy of Lupin: The World’s Most Wanted for $7. We were surprised to find rare gems at the dealer hall, but we also heard many other attendees complain about there being very little of interest in the hall.

Angel Hearts Presents The Idolm@ster
You may have seen these ladies across the state singing and dancing to J-pop songs. Best known for their Idolm@ster cosplay troupe, Angel Hearts put on a holiday themed show. Dressing up in cutesy Santa Claus outfits, Angel Hearts not only sung and danced to catchy J-pop tunes, but also educated the audience in what Idolm@ster is all about. Each of the girls talked about their character.

Angel Hearts also talked about history and fan following of Idolm@ster including how fans at concerts in Japan will show their devotion by waving glowsticks and channeling energy of each of the performers. After the discussion, the girls performed several different songs from the Idolm@ster series.

V3 Cosplay Syndicate: Bridging The Gap
V3 Cosplay Syndicate is more than just a cosplay group. They are a fan organization dedicated on bringing fans together from all across different genres of fandom. The panel was focused on genres and medium that tend to cross over with anime. I was invited to speak at the last hour of the panel where we talked about video games that were adapted into anime and movies. We moved onto talking about horror and discussed if High School of the Dead might as well be a hentai though I argued that High School of the Dead takes more off from the Troma exploitation films. One of our more populart discussions of the afternoon was talking about live action adaptations of anime; particularly the fiasco regarding the Warner Brothers Akira remake. This panel lead to interesting discussions on politics regarding anime fandom, and these discussions need to happen more often at anime cons.

Jared's Perspective: Anime Radio Theatre

Earlier in the weekend Kyle Hebert told us about his Anime Radio Theater featuring Batman #1. While he wanted to use a modern book, he felt golden age would create bigger laughs due to the silly older dialogue. The team was lucky to get front row seats for the show. The panel featured nearly every voice actor guest of the convention including Julie Goldstein, Jon Allen, Taliesin Jaffe, Kyle Hebert, and several more. The show featured two stories each with a different cast allowing different actors to play different roles. Everyone had fun hearing the actors go off script during some of the sillier scenes. This was one of the major panel highlights at ALA and we hope it returns next year.

Jeff's Perspective: Anime Radio Theatre

One of Anime Los Angeles’ nice traditions with the Voice Actors is watching them do a cold reading of a radio play or as was the case this year a comic book in the style of a radio play and this year Kyle Hebert decided to include visuals so that the audience could keep up with what was being read by the actors. This year was a reading of two stories from the first Batman comic book feature Catwoman and the Joker featuring the voices of Cristina Vee, Kaiji Tang, Jon Allen, Kyle Hebert, Lauren Landa, Sarah Williams, Danielle McRae, Christopher Smith, Chris Cason, Tadao Tomomatsu, Jessica Straus and panel crashers Rachel Robinson and Taliesin Jaffe. Many laughs were had as the actors demonstrated their improv skills and vocal talents combined with hilarious 1940s writing. It’s always a pleasure watching actors do these kinds of panels to demonstrate what a cold reading is and it’s much closer to home on what goes in a recording booth where you don’t get too much rehearsal time and you have to think on your feet. Out of all voice acting related panels I go to at various conventions panels done in this style with very little Q&A at the end are my favorite format and I can’t recommend these panels enough to anyone even if you’re not into voice overs; it’s a great display of comedy and you will be laughing your ass off. Kyle is known to bring this panel with him on the road so look out for it if he does it at a convention near you.

Escape from Anime LA

As Anime Los Angeles came to a close there were still many people wandering the halls and talking. Even after everything was closed up and programming had come to an end the lobby was full and cosplayers could still be found on the pool deck. During this time the boys split off to watch the football game. After the game was over Jared found a quiet place to work on his satirical end of con vlog. As evening drew near the team and several of our friends gathered together to have our annual con survival dinner this time we went down to Red Robin for burgers and speckled lemonade. It was a nice end to a very interesting convention.

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