Five_X
Anime Revolution - Day 2
by , August 19th, 2012 at 12:52 AM (10241 Views)
I departed today a half hour earlier than yesterday, and because my friends and I (including one who was not there Friday) all had our passes already, we got in without having to wait in a two-hour long lineup.
We started out mostly by wandering around; we encountered the people running a paintball shooting gallery who tried to coerce us into doing a round of it. We were told that if we all came in costumes on Sunday it would be free, but that statement seems somewhat dubious. After that, we generally split up, with one friend of mine following me basically as a pack mule, since I didn't want to risk losing my gun from it falling on the floor - I needed both hands to work my camera, and I wanted to be quick with photo opportunities, so I basically had to have at least one hand on my camera at all times.
Soon after that I noted the line for the Jouji Nakata autograph and picture session, and I immediately got in that. There were tons of people already there, and I got into the back of the second full line, with four more showing up in the near-hour I was waiting. My friend ran off in that time, tired of waiting for me and with some other things he wanted to check out. Thus, I was sans-gun.
I eventually got up to see Jouji Nakata again, though, and got his signature on my Mami print, and then got a photo with him, too!
Check it:
Me and Jouji
Time past that was spent getting cosplay pictures and wandering around, especially in the Dealer's Hall where I was constantly tempted by merchandise - I was told at the Aniplex booth that I could get one of their awesome Madoka official art posters if I bought a volume of Madoka, but though I was tempted, I successfully made my Will save. After all, those Madoka DVDs were $30 each, and that's for each volume, out of three. I was then tempted by the complete season of Sora no Woto, but it was $40 and I reluctantly let it go.
Today I brought with myself a banana and a frozen water bottle, so there was no reason for me to go to the horrendously overpriced cafeteria. But I did anyways, and got a $2 Nanaimo bar, and it was delicious, as Nanaimo bars are.
I then went to line up for the Bright Side of Jouji Nakata panel, about half an hour early. People kept asking me questions as to which line was for each panel in the lineup room; apparently, dressed as Kiritsugu I looked very helpful or something. I saw a few other Type-Moon cosplayers in the line, including an Avenger and Bazett! No Tsukihime at all, though, which made me sad.
In the panel itself, which was occasionally interrupted with laughter from the panel behind us, we listened closely to Jouji Nakata's deep, manly voice. For the first bit he spoke some more English, and then the question period began. That's all it was, really: we just went there, and could ask Jouji questions. Was pretty chill.
One person asked to hear his Hody Jones laugh (from One Piece), and everyone burst out laughing and clapping at the greatness of it; Jouji is just a really damn cool guy.
There were a lot of questions and things that went on, but I'll note the more major ones:
Jouji got a few questions about his thoughts on the anime he's voiced, and he gave some really interesting opinions on it; it's pretty clear that he cares about his work, and he's remembered a lot of lines specifically, especially Hellsing ones.
For his role in Shangri-La (as the transvestite Momoko) he actually went to a bar with some friends, shaved and dressed as a lady. Yes, this happened, and it was hilarious to hear.
He was inspired to do voice acting by shows he watched as a kid; he liked the narrators, especially one guy (from a show I forget the name of now) with a silly voice, and as a kid he wanted to be like that narrator, voicing things. He did some example voicework of that, and it's really cool, the voice range he has. He did a lot of Sgt. Frog voices, too, a lot of Giroro lines.
The role he had the most fun with was the taxi driver from Canaan; it was the first for which he got to sing, and he enjoyed it a lot. Throughout the panel he'd just start singing along like the taxi driver, it was great.
He was also asked what character he thinks is the most cute, in all anime. He said that his character from Working!!, Mr. Otou, is the cutest, doing a voice along with it. In fact, he said in English, "Mr. Otou is the moe-est character." Another fantastic Jouji Nakata moment.
Regarding his roles with Type-Moon, it turns out that his voice acting was something Takeuchi and Nasu both really loved, and it was pretty much their dream to have Jiuji Nakata do voice acting for their stuff. He's pretty much a celebrity to them; he was asked specifically by them to do the opening and closing words for the Type Moon 10th Anniversary Festival, and he said, "No, no, let some younger, more popular guy do it, not me!" And then Takeuchi and Nasu explained to him just how much he means to them, and how they admired them back in their doujin days, and it was really cool to hear. Jouji himself is really glad that Type-Moon and Jouji Nakata are, for many people, nearly synonymous.
Oh, and plenty of people asked Type-Moon questions. Jouji said that he doesn't regret the actions of his characters, and he also talked a bunch about yuetsu, and how that shows up often in Fate/Zero. He even went into a bit of a character study on Kotomine and Tokiomi; some of the things he said included that his favourite Fate/Zero line was the one Kotomine says to Rin when he hands her the knife he used to kill Tokiomi; just as Kotomine was smiling during that line, Jouji himself was smiling as he said it.
On Tokiomi and Kotomine as characters, he said he was interested in how Tokiomi, throughout the series, was really calm and elegant, and when his face is shown after/as he is killed, it gains this sort of realism and depth beyond the elegance he had in life; Jouji liked that. And then, on Kotomine, he talked about yuetsu, and how young Kotomine was a challenging role to play due to all the elements he had to incorporate into the voice; he said that the animation by ufotable really helped get the emotion and intention of many scenes across.
And thus the panel was over, though I'll mention it once more later on, at the end of this blog post.
For the rest of the day, I wandered about and took pictures of people; yesterday I took thirty pictures, and today I got sixty. I'll try to make even more tomorrow, maybe even one hundred and twenty!
I got a ticket to the Maid Cafe for about $12, and it was surprisingly awesome. Though I forgot to pay for the photo addition so I couldn't get a photo with any of the maid girls, it was fun as-is. The basic $12 meal came with water, a turkey sandwich and potato salad; I was seated by one of the maid crew, while happy K-On! music was playing. Once the food was served, a maid came along again and asked which sauces I wanted on the turkey sandwich (I forget which I got) and she poured it out diligently onto the sandwich. After eating I left, a little sad that I couldn't get a picture with one of the maids. There was one really cute Asian maid who had bunny ears on, and she was totally into the maid cafe, very energetic and adorable.
I was going to get into the lineup for an autograph from Jessica Nigri (the guest cosplayer there) but the line was waaaaaaay too long for me to get into it.
And of course, I took cosplay pictures! There are way too many for me to post all of them, so I'll give you people the highlights reel:
Cosplay
And finally, time for the Jouji Nakata-related part I was mentioning.
Now, he's got a second panel tomorrow, and of course there will be questions again like last time. My question to you, Beast's Lair, is this: what question (or two, at most) should I ask Jouji Nakata? There was another Kiritsugu cosplayer there who gushed about Carnival Phantasms and Nero Chaoses, should I try to one-up him with references to what character Jouji would voice from DDD or Notes, or should I have him do a shout out to Beast's Lair?? It's all up to you, my friends; you can tell me to ask him anything you please, and I'll do exactly that. This is your chance, BL. Rejoice, for your dream is about to come true!
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