Five_X
Anime Revolution - Day 3
by , August 20th, 2012 at 02:18 AM (13138 Views)
Ah, the last day of Anime Revolution! As it happened, this was the day with the most rigid schedule, for me at least. Though, unfortunately, my friends and I left at 9 instead of 8, and so I didn't get there obsessively early to do everything at the convention.
There was about an hour or so before I planned to get in line for The Dark Side of Jouji Nakata, and in that hour I first got my commission ordered, for seven dollars from the same group of girls that sold me their awesome Mami print!
Here they are; the girl in the middle was the one who drew the Mami picture and my commission, and I'm really glad that they're planning on coming back next year!
Awesome Artists
After that I took a bunch of pictures, about thirty or so. Remember, I was making it my goal to get about 120 shots of different cosplays, and so I had to take that seriously. My pack mule friend was forced to follow me around as I rushed about the Dealer's Hall and Artist's Alley, getting pictures of anyone in what vaguely resembled a costume.
After that, though, it was time to get in the Jouji Nakata panel line, and as it turned out I was stuck in line for an hour or so; I thought the panel began about half an hour before it actually did. Luckily, as a result of this, I ended up near the front of the line! There were actually two full lanes of people waiting for Jouji Nakata's panel; a number of them were people who had been there the day before, just like me.
In the panel itself, once it started, I was one of the first to ask a question. I was honestly trembling as I approached the microphone to ask my question, but I turned my mind to steel and became a Beast's Lair superhero.
Yes, I had him record a shout out to us, and to the English-speaking fandom. At first, since the room was kinda loud, the translator and some other people couldn't get the forum name pronunciation right (Beast's Lair/Beast Slayer, lol), but eventually they did; then Jouji began his line to us, which actually went on for about a minute or so! I've got it saved on my phone, and since it's a tad bit difficult to get off of there, I'll be posting it up tomorrow when it's actually all configured and stuff. The quality isn't perfect, and he speaks most of it in Japanese, but it's him, and I found it really great. I was really happy that he did that shout out!
Jouji At His Panel
The rest of the panel was fun, almost as good as the first, and included gems such as:
Jouji Nakata giving a sneak peek at a few lines from the last Hellsing OVA, which he recently finished doing the voice work for; Jouji doing more Mr. Otou voices, which were awesome and showed off his vocal range; a demonstration of his loud, angry voice that was honestly quite scary; a rendition of "This is Sparta!" that he got to perform for the Japanese dub of 300; a sexy Nakata pick up line (Bath, dinner, or me?) done in his voice , asked by a couple of girls. It was hilarious, and he spoke half of it in English and half in Japanese, which made it even better.
He also gave an example of how he prepares himself for dubbing roles, with the central examples being his dubs of Leonidas of 300 and Mr. Big from Sex and the City: he gets the movie/show a few days in advance, and then he watches the whole thing once; he gets himself into an understanding of the character, and just as importantly studies the original voice, getting to know the emotions expressed in the scenes. He also takes care to pay attention to body language, like eyebrow movements and such.
When I went up to ask my question about the shout out, I also mentioned that the general opinion on Beast's Lair is that his voice is very sexy, and he laughed, along with the crowd.
One thing I found especially interesting was when he got some questions about his relationships with other voice actors; he's done a lot of work with fellow Type-Moon voices, like Maaya Sakamoto, Tomokazu Seki, and Akio Ohtsuda (who voiced Rider in Fate/Zero, if you don't know) - Akio in particular Jouji Nakata has a strong respect for, and he has a friendly relationship with Seki, with whom he often ends up in "partnered" roles, much like Kirei/Gilgamesh except with more fun bullying from one side or the other, which happens outside of voice sessions when they're hanging out, too. One notable part of his earlier voice acting career was when he, Seki and Sakamoto were working together on Vision of Escaflowne; Sakamoto was quite young at the time and still in high school, and so she would often come in to do her lines right after school, still in her sailor uniform. Nakata and Seki stood on the sidelines while she did her voicework in her school uniform, going, "Aww, she's so cute, she's so cute!" and messing around. So yes, Type-Moon voice actors have a lot of history together, even when it comes to the more recent ones like Akio Ohtsuda. Kirei and Gilgamesh are vitriolic bros in real life, and Shiki and Mikiya are married in real life. Funny how that works.
Finally, Jouji Nakata mentioned that if he could switch voices with anyone else, he'd choose a younger voice actor like Jun Fukuyama or Tomokazu Seki, but he also noted that his facial features are basically best suited to his own voice. In his time in Vancouver he went up to Whistler, but he didn't make it to the top, and there wasn't too much snow. Also, if he could make a wish on the Holy Grail, he'd want to be super rich. :P
Past the Jouji Nakata panel, I walked around in the Dealer's Hall and noticed that the Nostalgia Critic had a really short autograph line. Apparently it wasn't closed; it was just pretty empty, so I basically got to walk up to him and get his autograph, no line at all. He's a pretty cool guy, actually, and the way he acts in his videos is actually how he is in real life. I kinda wish I'd taken a picture, though. :|
My Autograph Art
My commission was still being worked on (the girls were quite busy with art!) and so I wandered around the area getting cosplay pictures. As it happens, I bumped into Jase, fellow Beast's Lair member! It was interesting to see him, and he was there at the Jouji Nakata panel as well! Hopefully he reads this! I can stalk you now, Jase! I'VE FELT YOUR TOUCH, THERE IS NO ESCAPE.
I was going to go to the Jessica Nigri Q&A panel, but I was lazy and wanted to up my cosplay photo score, so I did. Got my commission, too, and I was quite happy with it!
Commissioned Art
Though I was determined to only spend money on the commission (as it turns out, autographs are free if you just bring something for them to sign; it's the prints that cost money, lol), I saw a really goddamn awesome Rider and Waver poster, and I knew I had to buy it. I shelled out twenty bucks for that, and I never looked back.
The rest of the day was spent chasing cosplayers around, which I did with ruthless efficiency. You can see the results below!
Cosplay, Round 3
And that's it; Anime Revolution 2012 has officially ended!
I didn't go to the closing ceremonies, since my friends wanted to head out. Apparently it was pretty great, though, and maybe it would have allowed me to get more cosplay pictures.
By the way, I might actually have achieved near 120 pictures today. I'll have to count them more closely today, but I'm definitely sure that my total number of cosplays captured for all three days is at least 200.
I hope this blog series was interesting to you all, and I'll be sure to post both the Jouji Nakata Beast's Lair shout out and a picture of my Rider and Waver poster, so stayt tuned for more!
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