RE: AX98 Galactic Heroes Panel News
Hank Wong (hankwong@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU)
Sat, 18 Jul 1998 02:17:51 -0700 (PDT)
On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Califf, Jennifer wrote:
> Okay, this has been sitting here for almost a week. I think it's time
> for a response. Come on people, surely some of this is interesting to
> you! ^_^
Just thought I'd jump in here. Sorry for the late response. Most of the
time, I try to let the list have the discussions, but heck, things are
quiet, and it was such a fun panel, I figured I'd put in my 0.02 now...
> > 93). First off let me note that Mr. Kikukawa was not an "official"
> > Guest of Honor at the con, so his name was not widely featured in the
> > program material nor was he mentioned at the opening ceremony. I
> > gather that this was by his wish, however I feel it is a bit unjust -
> > he deserves the same recognition as some of the other guests, not to
> > mention that the lack of publicity might mean that LGH fans could miss
> > his cool panel.
agreed. There was no publicity on it at all- just a simple entry in the
schedule saying "LoGH Panel." Heck, if I had known about in advance, I
would have tried to organize some sort of LoGH list meeting or something.
That would have been nice ^^.
I think the lady who moderated the panel is on the LoGH list as well. I'm
really sorry I can't recall her name though ^^;; but if you're reading
this, you did a great job!
> For me it was the BEST part of the weekend. And I don't mean that
> lightly. It was THE BEST!! ^_^
Yep, definitely the highlight of the con for me. In my eyes, it turned AX
'98 from mediocre to halfway decent.
> > And a cool panel it was, too, for a variety of reasons. Probably one
> > of the coolest of the con. Particularly nice was that the panel
> > scheduled after his, with Mr. Kitakubo (from Production IG) was merged
> > with a later panel, so we at the LGH panel were able to stay nearly a
> > full extra hour to ask questions! Also Mr. Kikukawa brought along a
that lame guy that thought Kikukawa was Kitakubo and asked him a Golden
Boy question was pretty funny...he looked somewhat drugged out :)
> > tape of the premiere of the new LGH side-story OVA "A Billion Stars, A
> > Billion Lights". This tape hasn't been released in Japan, so we at AX
> > were the first to see it outside the animators!! And possibly best of
> > all, he brought a number of LGH posters and cels, and everyone at the
> > panel who asked a question got one!! ^o^
Yes, this was a great OVA. As somebody else said before, no space
battles, except as a backdrop to other events. Mostly intrigue, but still
pretty good.
> And since it is a personal goal of mine to begin building an LoGH cel
> collection, I was VERY happy. ^_^ I'll be scanning my LoGH cels and
> adding them to my cel gallery in the near future. He even signed the
> Reinhart cel that I got. ^_^ Unfortunately, there were no cels of
> Yang. *sigh* Oh, what I would give for a cel of Yang (though I expect
> to get one in the next couple of months).
Yeah, only Reinhardt and Kircheis cels mostly. I did see one Reunthal
cel. At least that's all that were left by the time I got up there (I was
the last person to ask a question). I got a Reinhardt in uniform (as a
Lieutanent?) cel, though in retrospect I should have gotten the Kircheis
in battle-training-uniform cel. Ah well...
> > I personally will confess to a minor bit of irritation at the start of
> > the panel, though not resulting from anything Mr. Kikukawa did. His
> > panel was scheduled in the same hall immediately following the main
> > panel of the con's most popular guest, Ms. Yuu Watase, creator of
> > Fushigi Yuugi. As such her panel was packed with hundreds of people,
I heard some of the Fushigi Yuugi fans were camping out for the panel as
early as 3:30 in the morning. ^^; I must confess to liking the show, but
not _that_ much. I would have gone to the Yuu Watase panel actually, but
was up till 4am the night before, and didn't feel like fighting the lines
that early in the morning. I knew there'd be a short line, if any, for the
LoGH panel so I just popped in at 10:50 as Ms. Watase's panel was ending.
> > but when it was over and time for Mr. Kikukawa's to start, almost all
> > filed out leaving only a mere 20 or so left in the huge hall. I
> > personally felt embarassed that this dramatically conveyed the relative
> > popularity of LGH in the US. But the upside was that this meant the
> > discussion was more close and personal, feeling like a small fan get
> > together and less like a formal panel.
Yes. Although the attendance was small (although it did go up to 50 or
so by the time Q&A started) it's nice to get a front row seat
and be able to ask questions in an informal setting, rather than being an
anonymous hand buried in the teeming masses. In that way, I like the
smaller fandom of LoGH and other classic animes. The smaller the fandom,
the more friendly and close-knit the fans seem to be.
At least the AX people were cool about extending the panel and combining
the later panels. I was half expecting them to cut it short ("okay, we
have to get back on schedule cuz our last panel ran late...and we have a
more important panel coming up...") which would have totally sucked.
> > First up was the new side story OVA, "A Billion Stars, A Billion
> > Lights".
>
> Which was a lot of fun, even without subtitles. I'm very glad you asked
> for the synopses though. ^_^ It's so nice seeing all the main
> characters alive and well in new stories.
The opening animation was a bit ^^;;; Young Reinhard and
Siegfried running in slow motion on a grass field, with Annerose standing
in the background. Like some scene out of "The Sound of Music"...
I must say that in addition to the excellent voice acting and story
we're all used to, the animation quality in the new OVA is greatly
improved, much better than in the original series.
-Hank
-----
Hank Wong hankwong@soda.csua.berkeley.edu
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