Sakura-Con was fun, but extremely tiring. I did my usual pseudo-founder retiree schtick by guest liaising. This year, I played chaperone for Todd Haberkorn, a voice actor from Funimation. I also got to hang out with Brina Palencia (also Funimation). Both of them were extremely cool and fun: professional, engaging, and just about everything you could ask for in a guest.

In the couple weeks leading into the con, I was starting to wonder if I should go. This is the eleventh year, and I'm one of a very small group who's been and staffed every year. Kinda wears after a while.

However, after doing the con, I'm really glad I went. It might have been the most fun I've had as a guest liaison. Besides Todd and Brina, I got to chat with Caitlin Glass (also Funi) and Steve Prince (LA area), who were likewise cool and fun.

Other highlights include seeing Nagahama-san again, who is always fun and engaging (even if there's a bit of a language barrier without a translator).

I only managed to catch one of the four music acts, a rather new rock foursome of Japanese girls (I think they're about 16) called Scandal. They're a bit poppy, rough, and manufactured, but seem to have a fairly strong core talent, a lot of energy, and catchy songs. No current CDs in release, but I'll probably keep my eye out in the future.

Plus, they are very, very cute.

Another of the Japanese bands, Ketchup Mania, seemed quite cool. I didn't get a chance to hear any of their music until after the con, but they've got an album on iTunes which I may get in the near future. They've got an energetic pop-punky sound.

I found out Funi is making a shift away from individual volumes, instead doing releases in ~13 episode boxes. This is an awesome change. They've got one or two series that will finish up the individual volumes, but from then on, this looks like the way of the future.

I picked up the first half of Aquarion and pondered strongly about getitng some Full Metal Alchemist. Once box sets are available, I'll need to get School Rumble, Mushishi, and xxxHolic.

Over the course of the weekend, I crashed at my brother's place, which was cool, but wasn't available for Sunday night. My initial plan was to head back to my grandparents' in the evening, but that got sidelined when I ended up becoming one of the drivers after dropping Todd off at the airport. It was necessary that I remain available for driving on Monday. Ultimately, the con got a room for myself, Loony, and James (all of us driving on Monday), which was great, because the Seattle Grand Hyatt is an awesome hotel.

OTOH, I had no change of clothes.

Monday was hectic, heading to the airport and back with vanloads of equipment and people. Eventually, most had been deposited at their airlines, so Loony and I made our way back to Tacoma to drop off one of the vans.

The evening was comprised of shower, laundry, and a nap before work. Today, I slept for about 9 hour.

Weirdest moment of the weekend had to have been running into Chris Frederick randomly while walking between the con and the hotel. A few of us in relations have been trying to convince him to get on staff. Perhaps next year will work out.

Oh, and after watching the first episode of Aquarion, it's really weird and creepy, but good. Seems to have a slightly Eva-esque vibe.

I'm going to be at Otakon again this year, working at the Megatokyo booth.

I notice from today's previews, that Alex is going to get his wish: In a couple months, neither of the two lead X-men titles will have Wolverine as a team member. Which will mean that he'll be showing up in New Avengers and Astonishing... at least whenever Astonishing comes out.

So we've got two new teams, both behind the scenes and on the pages. Ed Brubaker's taking over the writing duties on Uncanny, and he'll be doing Prof. X, Nightcrawler, Havok, Polaris, Warpath, and Marvel Girl. Not too bad. Plus, it's got Brubaker doing the writing, which is awesome. (His Marvel stuff that I've seen isn't quite as good as the stuff he had for DC, but it's still close to top tier.)

Over on the adjectiveless team, Mike Carey is doing the scripts. Normally, I'd be excited, except the team he's chosen is... well: Rogue, Mystique, Sabretooth, Iceman, Cannonball, and Cable. There's two and a half major missteps there. One is Cannonball, who's about as interesting as latex paint. Seriously, when Alex and I talked about this, we both came up with the exact same 20 year old line: "Ah'm invulnerable when ah'm blastin'!" (And thus, we summed up the entirity of Cannonball's character. Well that and he did Lila Cheney, but nobody mentions that.) The second and a half is Wolverine. Or rather, the pathetic attempt to replace him with two characters. Sabretooth is obvious, but far worse is the presence of Cable, who has long been a blight upon Marvel mutantdom. Sabretooth, at least, has a long and somewhat interesting history. Cable just brings up memories of Rob Liefeld, and that's one thing that nobody should have to remember.

In any case, I give it a handful of months before a few of the members get booted and replaced by Wolvie. I'm not sure if I'll read Carey's book, but I may check out Brubaker's once it hits TPB.

Meanwhile, I've finally gotten to the post-House of M Academy X, which has the new writers. Nothing against Weir and DeFillips, they gave it a great go, but for the last 10 or so issues of their run, it was really dragging. My initial reaction to Childhood's End is that it's not quite on par with the writing for X-23, and a few bits directly bugged me, but I am interested to see where they're going. Hopefully the next book won't take so long to come out.

I also got the new Power Pack volume. God, it's fun.


Over in the realm of DC, I'm picking at One Year Later. It's not quite living up to the hype. Some books seem pretty good (Catwoman, Birds of Prey), and I'm quite curious about others, but The Battle for Bludhaven is a total mess. It's like they grabbed every single z-rate character in the DCU and chucked them into one book. Boo to Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Grey for writing this tripe. And that's not mentioning the art. Ugh. At one point I -swear- a character managed to dislocate his own finger just by pointing at someone. Didn't feel any pain, though, and was magically healed a panel later.

I'm feeling middling interest in Green Lantern, but that's less OYL and more that Hal's just not as interesting as Kyle was.

Oh, yeah. Infinite Crisis hasn't finished yet. Holy fuck, though. I'm totally digging how it connects thematically to the original Crisis. Cain't wait for #7. Which I won't get to read until after my trip to Chicago. Poop.


On the thought of the trip, I need to pack. Heading to the airport in about 23 hours.

Must post this before I forget.

So, I will be going to ACen this year. And the whole thing, unlike my Friday appearance last year.

During con hours, I'll be busy working at the Megatokyo booth, but my evenings should be quite open, so I can hang out.

Umm, among the Impro crowd, is there any sleeping space still left? If not, it's not a huge deal, and I can get covered, but it's slightly easier if there's room already available.

(As a note, I tend to sleep light, so people who snore are my bane. Ironically, I think I also snore sometimes.)

Woo. It'll be fun to see y'all there.

March is a packed month. The last weekend has the con, which I suppose I'm still going to and working on, but I have to admit i have no idea what's going on, or even if I have a job to do. I've not heard from anyone about it, so far.

Gaming again this weekend. Still trying to find the right hook for my new D&D character. I think I've got a start, but I need to mull it out.

On a bit of a whim, I'm taking a trip the following weekend. This happens to cover my birthday, but I still want to have a party of sorts in town.

Which means I'm looking at the 17th or 18th for my party.

My current plans are
a) Go to Tutta Bella for dinner. With Pete along, it seems we can get a discount. I've never been there and it's supposed to be good.

b) ...?

Okay, they aren't fleshed out plans. Part of me wants to do some birthday DnD, but I think Chris is oppoesed to that. I may just suggest gaming for whoever's interested.

If'n anyone has suggestions, go ahead and post them. I'll try and get firmer plans down. in the next week or so.

Also, post if you can or can't attend. Be nice to get some sort of headcount.