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American
Guest and Industry Panels |
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U.S.
Manga Corps, Central Park Media, and Right Stuf Inc. |
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Big names
in the anime distribution industry, attendees included John
O'Donnell (CPM, parent company of USMC), Chris Rogness (Media
Director for Right Stuf, Inc.), and Shawn Klekner (Right Stuf,
Inc.). Discussion started off by explaining that CPM
serves as the distribution arm for USMC, AnimEigo, U.S.
Renditions, Right Stuf, Inc., etc. Upcoming releases would
include the world's first anime cd-rom (Project A-Ko
screensaver). The focus for that year was to make a bold
entrance into the mainstream audience through TV shows, shops
like Tower Records, and downplay the sensationalistic nature of
the rudimentary elements of anime and show people more
enlightening and universally popular anime titles. For the
near future, a possible manga division was in development and
more focus is placed on subbing as much anime as they can.
Studio Nemo introduced itself as the subtitling arm for CPM,
working on such titles as MD Giest, Supergal, Humanoid,
Complete Rumic World, and Armageddon.
Right Stuf, Inc. introduced itself as focusing more on classic
anime, with very successful hit titles such as Gigantor,
Astroboy, Tobor the Eighth Man, and more.
USMC introduced itself as working on titles such as Dominion,
Project A-Ko, Venus Wars, Galforce, Crystal Triangle, Wannabes,
UY Beautiful Dreamer, and the Rumic World
series. Its first LD would be Project A-Ko
and the second would be Dominion.
Posed with questions about how to deal with introducing anime
into American mainstream audiences, they responded that many
people still regarded anime as cartoons and must always battle
with graphics violence, nudity, and mainstream shock
value. But the difficulties don't stop there.
Companies also have to deal with an extensive list of rights and
licenses to get a single title. Japan is not used to
exporting animation, and multiple companies have a myriad of
various rights to voices, music, animation, etc. 
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Anime
and Mythology |
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Moderated
by Jeff Okamoto, a healthy discussion was brought up about how
anime receives influences from ancient Greek and Roman
mythology.
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Subtitling
Anime Workshop |
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Attended
by Robert Gutierrez (Ranma Project), Robert Woodhead (AnimEigo),
Neil Nadelman (U.S. Manga Corp), and Jay Parks (Studio Nemo),
discussions started with arguing the use of different font
styles and perceptual systems and progressed into more technical
matters. Subjects varied on using different font styles,
color, kerning, and drop shadows to enable ease of reading, the
technology used to build good subtitles, arguments against dubs,
time codes, and more.
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Anime
Magazines |
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Attended
by Luke Menichelli (Art Dir for Animenomious!), Jeff Thompson
(Editor for Animenominous!), Chris Keller (Editor for V-Max),
Winston ??? (Contributing Editor for Ianus Publications), Robert
Fennilong (Editor for Anime Z Poster Z), Trish Ledoux (Editor
for Animag), and Toshi Yoshida (Senior Translator for Animag),
subjects included budgets, good reviews, wide varieties of
special articles, fan requests, and much more.
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Voice
Acting |
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Attended
by the entire cast of Macross II from U.S.
Renditions, Robert Napton introduced Dan Martin (Exagram),
Luther Garcia (Olsen in Orguss, Guyver),
Dave Hart (Head of SNN), Steve Woo (Feff), Jonathan Charles (Hibiki),
Susan Arquette (Silvi), Dorothy Mullinders (Shaiyai in Orguss),
Tom Charles (Kei in Orguss), and Debbie Rogers (Ishtar).
Discussions with fans included subjects such as worries about synchronizing
with the time codes, relaxing into the character once one gets
to know who he/she really is, memorization of many lines, range
of voice, and of course, practice practice practice.
Apparently, all the attended voice actors knew each other for
years, all having been hired to do many shows together
throughout the years and have relatively become a family.
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Focus:
Urusei
Yatsura |
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Moderated
by Jeff Okamoto, healthy discussion brought many subjects
dealing with the phenomenal success of Urusei Yatsura,
ranging from sales of manga and TV shows to artbooks and views
on why people like the craziness of UY and its wacky characters.
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Anime
in America |
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Attended
by David Ho and Eric tang of RIAP (Running Ink Animation
Productions), discussion subjects brought up some enlightening
facts about how difficult it is to produce any kind of animated
feature here in the States on a shoestring budget. The
RIAP project BayScape 2042 was funded by David's
longtime work on numerous 30-second commercials from his
broadcast background as well as some technical expertise from
his electrical engineering working experience. With an
extremely tight budget and deadline for AX92, computers could
not be used and so RIAP had to rely on the purchase and use of
an ancient 1970-80's camera body and lens for capturing all the
cels to film. Test shots were done in pencil with an 8mm
camcorder and pretty much everything was done in time with an
abundance of local volunteer effort from friends and anime clubs
who wanted to see what making a real anime was like.
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U.S.
Renditions |
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Attended
by L.A. Hero's Robert Napton and translator Toshi Yoshida, the
U.S. Renditions arm of anime releases have included such
specials like Macross II sub/dub simultaneous
release, Orguss, Guyver, Iczer1, Black Magic M-66,
Appleseed, and Dangaioh. |
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AnimEigo |
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Attended
by AnimEigo's Robert Woodhead, discussion started off with
announcing work on titles such as Madox-01, Riding Bean,
Vampire Princess Miyu, Bubblegum Crisis, Bubblegum Crash!,
Urusei Yatsura, Kimagure Orange Road, Otaku no Video,
and Genesis Survivor Gayearth. AnimEigo also
wants to take the plunge into animation cel sales, feeling that
an increasing number of fans want to own the artwork featured in
the anime shows for personal value.
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Focus:
Ranma 1/2 |
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Moderated
by Chris Swett, a fanzine programming chair for CA West local
anime club, he introduced himself as the first person in America
to publish a successful doujinshi to be sold in Japan under the
title Ranma in America. The fanzine
collected such Ranma-inspired works from the like of Ben Dunn,
Jason Waltrip, and Robert Dejesus. He also announced that
Viz Communications had started selling colorized versions of the
original Ranma manga series. Posed with questions about
the TV series and manga, Chris explained that by mid-1989, the
series had amassed 149 TV episodes and there is usually no predictability
between the TV series and manga; a TV episode could contain one
manga episode or two or half or completely diverge from the
manga altogether. Takahashi's strong point is in the
introduction of new characters, so like all her mangas and TV
shows, every story eventually ends up with tons of
characters. On a side note, the current character that was
both favorite to Takahashi and many fans was Gosunkugi.
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Panels
were also held for Streamline Pictures, Subbing vs. Dubbing, and many others. |
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