ACEN 2018: Guest Round-Up

[labsenpai]

This past weekend marks my 9th voyage to Rosemont for this "close" convention. Although the session tactics were a bit confounding, I made the effort to see most of the guests from Japan. My apologies for not having video coverage or such; I'm really unaccustomed to using a phone as a lifestyle archiving tool. I'll sort the encounters based on my level of preparation

KIKUKO INOUE: No intro necessary for everyone's favorite 17 year old voice actress (Oi Oi fanchant accomplished). I decided to attend all of her sessions, since I had not seen her at other events. She conducted her two panels almost entirely as open Q&A with the audience, with the occasional demonstration of a popular role (Ranma, Clannad, etc) to delight the fans. I supplied one question about her early work in Otaku No Video. Everything went well, save the one time a person blubbered about some personal crisis instead of asking a question. Plainly, Inoue-san was sweet to us, and allowed fans to have just about anything signed and selfie photos taken.

MITSUO ISO: I don't think Iso was used to engaging with gregarious US fans; he had that "fish out of water" look most of the con. At his panel, we watched him thumb through his rare book of key frame art, without much personal elaboration. I asked him to autograph an EVA and FLCL poster. The attendees that hoped for a sketch usually only received a quick doodle of the funny dog from Dennou Coil.

PROJECT "BB" - KENICHI SONODA, SHUZILOWHA, MARCO AMBROSIO: After almost 20 years, I got to see Sonoda again, this time with his support staff for the new Riding Bean project. Regrettably, a lot of his sessions conflicted with Kikuko's, and I only made it to one signing and his live drawing panel. Since no sketching was done at their first autograph time, I was dismayed. Luckily, both Sonoda and Shuzilow created lots of quick illustrations at their panel, which were given out as jan-ken-pon prizes. You can see the art I won in the photo below, shown paired with another from 1999. Of course, the audience requested weird subject matter that almost made Shuzilow say WTF. Graciously, Sonoda continued to draw for fans at his remaining autograph sessions. Furthermore, he had a signed poster with his KS BB art you could buy. As an invitee, Sonoda gets an A+ from me.

VOFAN: My interest in seeing this book illustrator was increased by the con promotion done by his publisher, Vertical (?) They had a booth with a special Bakemonogatari poster for sale, and a cross-promotion with KInukuniya Books. The latter was a free signboard with purchase of a novel. He didn't do any sketching that I'm aware of, but at least high-quality merch was readily available. I attended most of his panel about being a commercial artist, where he joked about drawing girls with attention grabbing "charm points". He raffled something later, but I had to bail beforehand to catch a signing. Curse all these overlapping schedules!

PART 2 to discuss Yokota, Yoshimatsu, and Nogami >>>

[labsenpai]

ROUND-UP PART NI!

TAKESHI NOGAMI: I figured I'd have to sacrifice meeting Nogami until the end, when he had the last signing on Sunday. He is the artist for the popular "moe girls and WW2 machine" series Girls + Panzer, which I didn't watch. This negligence didn't stop me from trying to scour the Dealer Hall at the last minute to find something for him to sign. Luckily, he was drawing sketches, so all I had to do was pretend I knew about the tankerettes. I was almost exposed as a noob though, when he asked me why I picked a certain character! I responded smoothly by saying I liked her VA As you can see in the art, Nogami was using a brush pen, which takes some skill. I can also attest to his talent at sketching actual tanks.

MAMORU YOKOTA: Last year, I wanted to see Yokota in Detroit but wasn't able to. Fellow lounger Akage mentioned that he was peculiar in regard to sketch work, which was proven at ACEN. At his live drawing panel, you could sense he was focused on instruction like an art teacher. However, acquiring anything other than advice required an "industry scale" commission (profiled in Japanese) at his booth. He also seemed strict about acceptable autograph goods. He refused to sign a Macross Frontier item, even though his bio states he did work on the opening. Heck, even his printed handout (shown below) featured Sheryl and Ranka. Eventually, he added a 30 second doodle for me, probably because I amused him with my 90's era collectibles. I want to say the doodle is Ranka, but I can't be sure. Guesses, anyone?

TAKAHIRO YOSHIMATSU: Takahiro and Mamoru seemed like college bros or studio coworkers, appearing at panels and signings together. They were the most amusing when ribbing each other. I think he was embarrassed when I presented some old Slayers art for him to sign (Yokota's comment: HAHA GOOD JOB). He didn't offer sketches, but there was a printed handout with character "balloons" and some HUNTERxHUNTER prizes. I suppose that show is popular, but I was hoping for Slayers or Overlord goods. I did win a banner and some knick-knacks shown below; they are available for sale or trade since I don't follow that show. The cloth banner is signed by Yoshimatsu.

[Akage]

I had a really good time at ACEN this year. This was my first time in Chicago and ACEN. With their ticketed lines, it reminded me of the Anime Expos I attended back in 2009-2013, back when you could still get some decent stuff if you were willing to put in the effort to get it.

I’ll break this down per artist guest, or else it’ll be just one long, massive read.

Deadman Wonderland - The writing was on the wall when Viz announced them as their guests that you’d receive nothing but an autograph from them. There’s a reason why I try to support Viz as little as possible and this is one of them.

Vofan - After meeting him at SakuraCon years ago, I knew there would be a slim chance of receiving a sketch, and upon seeing Eugene, his handler and former SakuraCon head of guest relations, that chance became non-existent. Eugene is not exactly the nicest person and I think he still blames me for having to deal with Jo Chen’s 15 minute angry tirade at SakuraCon back then as well. Vofan drew little doodles if you went to the Vertical signings, but not at the official convention signings. I gave Vofan some saltwater taffy. He mentioned that he had never had any because it’s not sold in Taiwan, so despite Eugene trying to interrupt him when I showed up for an autograph, he was happy and ignored Eugene.

Iso -Iso’s style is sorta shaky. He draws his characters using shaky lines. I didn’t notice that he had any particular difficulty with muscular control, but rather, that’s just his style. He would draw whatever you requested. I ended up getting two quick doodles from Dennou-Coil and some rando radish. I had tried to get him to draw Char but he said Gundam was too difficult.

Nogami -I had a lot of fun with Nogami. On the last day, I lined up for a second run through the line and was at the end with two friends. The one in front of me was waffling between Kay and Katyusha from “Girls und Panzer”. He asked my other friend and I what we were going to get. We both mentioned that we’d get Katyusha as there’s a meme of her drinking vodka and we thought it would be funny, especially if we could make it cannon with these sketches. Upon getting to the front of the line, the waffling friend decides to go with Katyusha. Nogami was amused by the request, so he drew Katyusha five seconds after the meme picture. I requested drunk Katyusha. He told me he wouldn’t draw the same thing twice, so he said he would draw Katyusha five seconds after the first sketch. Once mine was complete, my other friend requested the same and another Katyusha five seconds after mine was drawn. We created a 3 Koma with our sketches. Nogami had a great time with these requests, so I’m glad we ended things off on a high note for him.

Project B.B -My heart sunk upon seeing Rick at the autograph sessions. I know Rick. He runs a business. He brings guests so that they’ll draw for him and he’ll later resell those sketches for $$$. I was surprised that Rick allowed both guests to draw at both sessions for the first 30 or so people in line. I managed to get sketches from both. I decided to support his new Kickstarter because of this. Shuzilow drew some little mascot the first day. On the second day, we were informed that he would draw from ”Solty Rei”, but my friend Preston, who was behind me, asked Rick if he’d draw from other things he worked on, and Rick said it was ok. So..kinda envious that he walked away with a Dorothy sketch from “Big O”.

Yokota -We go way back, so running into Yokota is like running into an old friend that does really awesome things for you as long as you are willing to treat him in return. I put in two commission requests and supplied him with some beer. My friend and the guy that brought him advised me that I’ll probably be waiting close to a year for the sketch because, when it comes to people that he knows, he’s really far behind. I requested Emiya Archer for myself, and Yokota’s eyes lit up at the prospect of drawing my request. Yokota really likes drawing men. I did go to his first autograph session but did not bother asking anything because of the commissions. I also went to the combined Yoshimatsu and Yokota panel on Friday, which was just them drawing. I didn’t win anything because I never win at panels. Thanks to the friend that brought him, I also had dinner with both Yoshimatsu and Yokota on Sunday. The portions at the restaurant were huge, and my mouth was left agape as I watched Yokota finish a bone-in 20 ounce steak.

Yoshimatsu -Yoshimatsu did take commissions as long as you saw him when he was at the booth. He rarely appeared there, but he did take sketch requests as long as you paid him. I managed to get something from him this way, and then because I felt that he didn’t charge me enough for the work involved, I bought the unloved sketch he had in the front of the booth. I didn’t bother to ask him for anything during his first and only autograph session that I attended, but my friend Preston did and was shot down.

Despite not being to go to the panels, I thought the schedule worked out well his year. The gap of things to do on Saturday meant that I was able to go to Lincoln Park with some other friends and take advantage of the Pokémon GO Community Day event. Caught a bunch of shiny Charmanders.

[labsenpai]

I suppose I should give in and watch Girls + Panzer now...
I was likely in the middle of the Nogami line, wearing my windbreaker and white cap. The Yokota/Yoshimatsu panel I won the HxH stuff at was the second one with Q&A. I asked them about their motivation for side projects like dojin, which I think they misinterpreted. Instead of a reply, I was asked to give my age. Apparently, their thinking was that anyone 30 or under would be told "this was before your time". Strange, because any kid with a computer can find out what large body of prior work went undisclosed in the guidebook.