Anime Fest 2016 Cosplay Contest Highlights.

by Gaby

I had the pleasure of attending the cosplay contest at The Majestic in Dallas, TX, during Anime Fest last week.  It was truly a magnificent cosplay contest held in a really beautiful theater with a house full of eager anime enthusiasts and with guests from Japan.

The guests of Honor from Japan consisted of Fumi Hirano, Toshio Furukawa, Shino Kakinuma, Akemi Takada, Shingo Natsume, Chikashi Kubota, Shuhei Morita, Kazuhiro Miwa, and Ayana Nishino, shows that they were involved with consists of favorites such as Urusei Yatsura, Tokyo Ghoul, My Hero Academia, One-Punch Man, DragonBall Z, and Space Dandy.

There was a special pre-show where guests picked the best cosplay from shows they were involved in.  After the Japanese guests awarded cosplayers with a small gift to the winners then the main cosplay contest was able to commence.

check out this video with some of the main highlights from the Anime Fest 2016 Cosplay Contest at the Majestic Theater in Dallas, TX!

Favorite Deus Ex Heroes

by Dwreck Johnson 

 

A Deus Ex Hero in a series is a character who often shows up only to solve a problem too big for the regular characters. They are insanely more powerful than the other heroes, often times completely broken, and I love them!

This is not to be confused with a normal or main character, these characters often show up only to help the writer get their characters out of situations when they don't have a better way to them through danger. Many times though these characters exist purely for the enjoyment of the artist and fans.

Here is a list of some of my favorite Deus Ex Heroes:

Levi (Attack on Titan): Levi is a character from Attack on Titan a popular horror anime/manga where giant zombie like creatures called "Titans" have taken over most of Earth. He is known as the "Hope of humanity". His combat skills far surpass any other humans in the show which is often seen through his almost inhuman 3d maneuver gear movements.

The Skull Knight (Berserk):The Skull Knight is a character we still don't have the full story on but is amazing enough already. He somehow exists inside and outside of time and has a great arsenal of magic weapons. He is even strong enough to fight and defeat demon apostles. The best parts of the Berserk manga wouldn't even exist if not for The Skull Knight since he saved Guts from the eclipse and later gave him the berserk armor.

Gildarts (Fairy Tail): Gildarts is the strongest wizard in the Fairy Tail guild and possibly his whole continent.With powerful destruction magic his power makes most enemies attacks completely useless. His great power has even brought other heroes to feel helpless and intimidated before while in its presence. You can be sure that when Gildarts shows up that FT is about to win the fight.

Escanor (The Seven Deadly Sins): Escanor is my personal favorite at the moment. The last and most powerful member of the Sins to be introduced you wont even see him the existing anime. Those who read the manga will see that Escanor is reminding us all what the real meaning of B.A.M.F is. Escanor's solar powered strength is directly related to the time of day making him weak and useless at midnight, and nigh unstoppable at noon.

Well that's it for my list. Who are some of your favorite Deus Ex Heroes? Mention them or any other comments in the the section below.

And You Thought There is Never a Girl Online? Review

by Gaby

Netoge no Yome wa Onna no Ko Janai to Omotta or "And you Thought There is Never a Girl Online? Is one of the trending anime today, it really seems that virtual reality game type of anime have really taken off. This particular anime, is about a group of students in high school who know each other in the online game "Legendary Age." The main male protagonist, Hideki Nishimura,  decides to have his online gaming character, "Rusian," take a wife in the game, so he declares his love for a character named NekoHime, but is brutally shot down when NekoHime tells him that she is actually a man in real life and cannot accept.  Nishimura swears off online marriage until one day a character named Ako declares hers love for him and he decides to give it another go with the mentality that it's just a game so it doesn't really matter in real life if the player is a man or a woman. 


One day the other members in Nishimura's (Rusian's) guild, including his wife, Ako, decide to meet up outside of the game in real life.   Nishimura is shocked when he realizes that not only are the people in his guild in the same high school as he is, but they are all girls! 

The main plot of this anime is basically about Ako, and how she can't exactly distinguish reality from the game.  It's slightly annoying actually because she keeps calling everyone by their game name at school, even when they don't want to be called that.  So the guild members establish a club to help Ako differentiate between real life and game life.   

There is a lot of fan service in this anime if you are into that kind of stuff, you may like it.  At the beginning of the show you see that there seem to be male members in the guild but once they reveal that the characters in the game were male but the actual players are female, they are portrayed as female for the rest of the anime, and some with very skimpy outfits (student council president has a very revealing outfit). 

It't not bad though, it got my attention, it has some fantasy and adventure aspects, some romance, and some regular slice of life. I think its a really good blend of everything.  Overall I think I would recommend it if you are into either one of those genres. You can catch this series under recently updated on Funimation!

Neko Neko Maid & Host Club at A-Kon 27

by Gaby

So while at A-Kon 27, I checked out a sneak peak at the Neko Neko Maid and Host Club.  What is a Maid and Host Club you might ask?  Highly popular in Japan, Maid and Host Clubs are like small cafes where clients come in to hang out with the maids and hosts, its like a mini escape from reality, customers are entertained by the lovely hosts and maids that play board games, card games, sing songs, and dance.

The Neko Neko Maid Cafe did a good job entertaining the guests, they have at least one maid per table, having fun with guests as they played card games or board games.  The maids are very cute, with positive bouncy attitudes!  If you want a cute picture with the maid or maids of your choice, they offer take home Polaroid portraits that the maids decorate all cutesey.

The partiuclar show I got a sneak peak at was just a regular show but it included a lunch buffet, they also have a lot of themed shows, like magical girl theme, or Neko Neko Academy.
If you want to have a maid cafe experience without leaving the country, check to see if Neko Neko Maid and Host Club will be at a convention near you, or if you would like to audition to be part of the Neko Neko crew go to http://nekosquared.com.

Check out the sneak peek reel and pics below! 

The A-Kon 27 Experience

by Gaby

This Year A-Kon 27 delivered quite well! Despite Fan Expo being a few minutes down the road on the same weekend, it seemed that attendance at A-Kon was still quite well.  This is purely my opinion but A-Kon is the better convention to attend if you are in it to make friends and be social.  Ok sure if you want to see some big stars like Stan Lee and William Shatner, go ahead make a trip to Fan Expo, but A-Kon has a lot more social events that last well into the night.     The Cosplay is also way better at A-Kon...again purely my opinoin.

A couple of pros and cons that I do want to mention at A-Kon this year...

PROS: 
* The registration Line was FAST!  I went to pick up my badge on Thursday and this was the fastest ever! I expected to wait in line at least half an hour to an hour (Last year I also went on Thursday and waited half an hour), but the line went by so fast I basically blinked and I already had my badge!   That's right the scan and go method this year was superb!

Otaku Acoustic at a Demo space

*I didn't see much of an elevator line, I was in the atrium the whole weekend and I never had to wait forever for an elevator. Not sure how the tower was doing but every time I passed by I didn't see a huge line.
*There were a lot of really well placed demo areas for performers, It was also really great that they were actually on the schedule so that people could stop by and watch these performers do small concerts.
* The dealers room and artist alley where actually pretty good.  For there being two cons in the same weekend, the dealers room and artist alley seemed like they were pretty well packed with dealers.

 *They got rid of the hotel food ticket system food court, I personally liked this because it was such a waste of time to go get tickets and them cash them in for food, instead where the food court was in years past they had the registration set up, what they did for food instead is they put out tables in an open area where people could just go in, either pick pizza, chicken tenders, or wings and basically go in and get out, ok so they didn't have places to sit, but at least there wasn't a line to get food!

* A-Kon Facebook Group was amazing! I highly recommend if you ever attend A-Kon to get connected to the Official A-Kon Facebook Group, many people were kept informed through their own peers on Facebook it was a really good way to get in the know of what was going on throughout the convention. 

CONS: 
*Everyone complained about the badges....  They were printed on heat sensitive paper too so if you went and had them laminated they turned black and were voided by the convention.   What I was understanding from people on the Facebook group was that the convention should have warned everyone about this, so that people could bring their own badge covers....or better yet they could have provided a plastic badge cover along with the lanyard, especially because it was raining pretty hard on the first day of the convention.
*The one day pass badges looked like the 3 day weekend pass and people were abusing this.  Unfortunately it seemed like badges weren't getting checked as thoroughly as they should have been so a lot of people were mad they paid for a 3 day pass and someone with a one day pass kept using more than they were supposed to.   From what I understand is that there were fewer volunteers at the convention than anticipated so that is kind of a bummer.
*There was no courtyard this year at the Hilton Anatole.  It was under construction because they are building a new aquatic center set to open next month, so basically everything was indoors and photo shoots had to be relocated to smaller areas around the hotel.
*And this is just a personal one I wanted to throw out...THE DANCE WORKSHOP ROOM WAS TOO SMALL!!!!  I went to several dance workshops and they were all in the same tiny room! It was unbelievable, you would think that they would assign the dance workshop room as a larger room because people need to move around when they dance, but instead they put everyone in a tiny room, people still had fun being squished in there but I heard from a lot of people that they wished the room was bigger.

Well all in all I think the convention was great! Great socializing, I even made new friends!  Be sure to check back later this week because on Day 2 of A-Kon I got to check out the Neko Neko Maid Cafe, I'll show you and tell you all about it!  And now without any further delay, here are some pictures from A-Kon, Be Sure to checkout the Facebook Gallery as well for all the pictures I posted during the con!

*For the Facebook Gallery Click Here!!!!

The Neko Neko Maid Cafe

see what I mean about the dance workshop room...too small!!!

A-Kon 27 Time!!!!

by Gaby

All right so I am basically all done packing, getting ready to head out Thursday for A-Kon!  For the latest updates and pictures during the con I'll be live tweeting and uploading pics on Facebook!

Facebook.com/PleaseAnime
Twitter @PleaseAnime


I'll be posting A-Kon Aftermath pics when I get back, so check back right here after Sunday!

One Week till A-Kon 27!!!

by Gaby

I made a quick video about what I am currently doing one week before A-Kon 27...I know I'm probably going to end up scrambling.

I think the best note here is to seriously plan out your schedule.

So...Dallas has two major nerd conventions scheduled on the same weekend. 

I have been hearing a lot of stories about people who are upset that Fan Expo is the same weekend as A-Kon, well unfortunately it is what it is.  For me, I am all about the anime, so I will be at A-kon 100% of the time, but if you are going to be balancing time between Fan Expo and A-Kon this is where those schedule planners come into play.
Worksheets.com has really good make yourself planners that you can plug in your own hours and make your own slots for what times you want to do what. 
https://www.worksheetworks.com/miscellanea/calendars/hour.html

I like to either highlight or bold the things that I can't miss and then either pencil in or lightly write in other things that may be of interest but is not a big deal if I miss.

DO REMEMBER:

A-Kon's new TICKET POLICY:  Show up at the large panels that require tickets an hour early to receive a ticket, this ticket will guarantee that you get into the panel without having to wait in a long line that takes up space in the hallway.

PANELS DO FILL UP: so have a backup plan or something else prepared in case you sadly do not get into the panel you want to see.  Sad story but it happens sometimes.

See you there! 

#RoadtoAkon27  #Akon27 #Akon2016

My Hero Academia Is My New Hero!

Go Beyond! Plus ultra! 

A great new catch phrase for a great new anime. On July 7th of 2014 a new manga appeared on the pages of weekly Shonen Jump "Boku no Hīrō Akademia" or as it would come to be known later "My Hero Academia". This superhero based shonen manga started picking new fans in a mighty storm like something out its very pages, and on October 29th, 2015 Anime News Network announced that My Hero would receive an anime series produced by Studio Bones.

On April 3, 2016 the first episode of the anime aired and was met with great enthusiasm not just in Japan but in America as well with Funimation Entertainment announcing that they would be licencing the series in March 2016 and even held a live stream event to premier what they called "The next big thing in anime" where they streamed the series premiere in Japan.

So what is that makes this new Anime so fantastic? My Hero Academia follows the events of a young boy named Izuku Midoriya (sometimes called "Deku") who lives in a world full of heroes with amazing powers. In this world Human kind has changed to were it is common for people to develop strange powers at a young age called "quirks". Following this change many of these people choose to try to become heroes or villains, who can use their powers to accomplish amazing feats. 

The greatest of these heroes being a man known as All Might (Seen Above) who has a strong resemblance to western superheros such as Superman or Captain Marvel. Midoriya has admired heroes, especially All Might most of all, since he can remember and has lived his life with the dream of becoming a hero himself. However those dreams take a heavy hit when Midoriya becomes old enough to get his quirk and then finds out that he doesn't have one and never will. Despite this though Midoriya does not give up on his dream of being a hero and is determined to continue the journey of becoming a hero even if he doesn't have any powers. Eventually a breath of fresh air is breathed into midoriya's dream when through a chance encounter he meets his hero All Might and discovers he truly can become a hero.

Above is a clip for the Funimation broadcast English dub, I encourage you check out this astonishing new series. My hero Academia  is the story of what it truly means to be a hero and the struggle to overcome adversity, which is a story every reader can relate to. As I write this there are currently 8 episodes of the My Hero anime and I have no doubts that the fandom of this series will continue grow with every passing episode.

A-Kon 27: 2 WEEK COUNTDOWN LIST!

by Gaby

It is two weeks before the biggest anime convention in Texas, A-Kon, you may either be getting super excited, or be panicking.  Don't worry this is supposed to be fun, don't panic!
Here is a bit of a checklist for you to start thinking about so that your convention experience is fun!


So what do you need to check 2 weeks out into the con?

1.  ONLINE COSPLAY ORDERS: If you need to order something you may have forgotten online then do so, but I highly suggest using expediated shipping or if you have Amazon Prime same day delivery.  Some things may be easy to obtain like small accessories or props, but if you are looking for certain collectible cosplay pieces or wigs that come from Japan, you may be cutting it to close and may have to start thinking of a plan B in case your items don't arrive on time.

2.  PACKING THE SUITCASE :  Ok some people may say it may be too early but I don't think so, if you are big into cosplaying and your cosplay is ready and done, don't be afraid to start placing it in or near the suitcase.  You can also start packing things you will not need until the convention like wigs, or bobby pins that you may need for the wigs, cosplay shoes, USB drives that you plan to take, Swap meet items you plan to swap, and stuff like that.

3. MAKE THE LIST:  Yes make a packing list of stuff that you will need to pack and place it by or in your suitcase, once stuff starts getting packed then you can eliminate it off the list.   And this includes toiletries, hair straightener, brushes, underwear, etc.

4. SEWING KIT:  Pack one. If you cosplay you will want one.  If you are done making adjustments on your cosplay, just pack one. 

5. SCHEDULES: By now A-Kon has already released the convention schedule.  In order to avoid being overwhelmed with tons of activities, I highly suggest looking at the schedule early and figuring out what panels you are interested.   I like to print out an hourly planner page for each day and write down the panels I will be going to or that I am interested in that happen at that time.  You can get printable planners at www.printableplanners.net or you can google "blank printable planners" to find one that best suits you.

6. REHEARSALS:  I am going to throw in this last checklist, make sure you rehearse anything, if you are competing in a competition like a singing competition or a cosplay skit contest start getting all the final details ironed out.  2 Weeks before the con your routine should be pretty well set. You never know if something happens within those last two weeks that prevents you and your cosplay team to not be able to do last minute practices, so just go ahead and make sure you are ready two weeks prior. This should just be last minute touch ups by now.

7. DON'T STRESS:  I am so guilty of stressing over things that are not in my control, but remember the convention is for you to have fun, its a getaway from reality so just have some fun! If you are worried about your package in the mail, don't worry about it, there is nothing you can do, that's why I said before to have a plan B so don't stress.  Keep your cool and jam out to some fun anime songs while you wait for the badge pickup line to open!

Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto

by Gaby

If you are looking for something laid back to watch this season, something to enjoy on your spare time then try "Haven't you Heard? I'm Sakamoto. 
Sakamoto is cool, cooler, actually he is the coolest at the school and all the ladies love him and everyone wishes they were him, either that or they are jealous.
It juse seems that everything Sakamoto does just comes out with such a suave flare, even when people try to steal his chair in class, he just finds a way to make sitting on the windowsill the coolest ever!

This is the type of anime that doesn't seem to have a huge storyline that you need to follow, you can jump on in and start watching Sakamoto being cool at any episode.  
See how he deals with bullies, girls who have a crush on him, and how his Senpai treats him. 
This is a good one to just go ahead and try out see if you like it.

Crunchyroll has current episodes streaming online on Simulcast