Con Piece: Flow with Anime Matsuri

Hey! Did you hear about the anime convention that was back in the The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel & Convention Center? It was a calling to be there between April 6th-8th  for all anime fans! Anime Matsuri!

Anime Matsuri housed a garden of cosplays and anime fans! There was even some One Piece appreciation among the fans, along with Funimation. Anime Matsuri kept gold with guest such as Flow, Mike Mcfarland, Luci Christian, Stephanie Young, Vic Mignogna, Clint Bickham and many more!

Onto the details of Anime Matsuri!

One Piece and Anime Matsuri 2012
It would look as if the One Piece fandom has settled down since the last Anime Matsuri. There was surely less One Piece cosplays roaming the halls and it was saddening to see that there weren’t as many despite the presence of two panels dedicated to the series.

The first panel was the “One Piece Fan Panel” on Friday which was hosted by yours truly, due to the original presenters being absent. It was a simple panel hosted by four volunteers talking about One Piece and doing a trivial contest, as great as any panel that had five minutes planning done prior to the start of it.

The second panel was on Saturday and was “The Voices of One Piece” on Saturday hosted by the Funimation Talent behind One Piece: Clint Bickham (Writer) Luci Christian (Nami), Mike McFarland (ADR Director, Buggy) and Stephanie Young (Nico Robin). They took questions concerning the series and gave out valuable information concerning the current status of the dub. Below are some tidbits that I took from the panel:

• Luci is pregnant with a girl. No word on how that will affect dubbing.
• Clint is a One Piece fan who reads the chapters weekly (hopefully on SJ Aplha!).
• Mike has no idea if Season 4 will be on Blu-ray.
• Clint would want to have the Slip Slip fruit so he can look pretty.
• Based on what Stephanie said, at the time of the convention they had dubbed up to where Aokiji froze the ocean. (Episode 225).
• Luci was the first voice actor picked for a role back in 2007.
• Clint and Mike are (at the time of the convention) were working on scripts for episodes in the 230s. 
• Everybody would love to do anything involving One Piece which includes the movies and video games.
• Patrick Seitz will be reprising his role as Franky.
• Mike would love to replace the commentary with outtakes. They just need the Japanese company to approve of that.
• Some actors may not return to their roles. This is mainly concerning some that were cast for Unlimited Adventure. 

You can tell they all love working together. Throughout the panel, Mike would taunt Stephanie concerning the events in Water 7 which involves her character. Stephanie knows some about what will happen to Robin and a bit of her backstory so she is a bit prepared for it.

"One Piece is charming because it is weird."
-Mike McFarland

Also, to people who will be attending future One Piece Funimation panel, do not ask about Ace and Whitebeard. They know already and it is a huge spoiler to those that follow the dub! Two people asked about that and both times people just gave a sigh.

The Funimaton Talent is excited about the Foxy Arc! They kept hinting that the voice actor for Foxy is amazing and funny but they would never reveal who it is! They are building up the hype among the fans! Mike claims that it was fun recording all the unique laughs during the moment where all of Foxy's crew was laughing.

The Dealer's Room had plenty to offer for the heavy-spending One Piece fans. They had the typical Chopper plushies and Portrait of Pirates figurines and so much more. Where else were you going to find a Transponder Snail plush or a set of Funimation One Piece playing cards? The playing cards are really nice and each suit has a different photo of the character assigned to it. For example, each Queen card has different images of Nami and Robin while the King has Luffy on them. They are perfect for autographs!

The one thing that was disappointed to see was the lack of One Piece DVD and volumes. I was hoping to buy Volume 61 at the convention but I couldn't find a single copy! At such a big spending place, you would think those items would be present.

Con Overview
Anime Matsuri is always a fun con to attend and has something to appeal to fans of all times. However, there are some things that are not good about Anime Matsuri. First, let’s go over the things that were not enjoyable about it.

One of the things that proved a constant problem at Anime Matsuri was panels that involve audio in Panel Room 1. It looks as if they did not prepare well in advance to make sure it was working. You would be sitting in the huge panel room waiting for the event to start for ten or even thirty minutes into the panel and they will still be working on audio issues! This is very annoying to the con-goer and it makes everything else in the room go behind. Everything else in the other panel rooms was fine when it came to audio and setting up.

The last negative thing to note is that Anime Matsuri needs to put a bit more consideration in where they put panels. The My Little Pony Panel and Hetalia panel shouldn't be housed in the smallest panel room for the convention. Both series have huge fandoms and a panel room that seats fifty-five isn't going to be big enough. It was nice that Anime Matsuri had a backup plan to host the panel outside but there was a lack of foresight to not expect a huge fan turnout for the panels. I know they wanted to put the fan panels in the smaller rooms but those two series are known for having huge number of fans that Panel Rooms 2 or 3 (the larger ones) would have been better for them.

Onwards to the good stuff about Anime Matsuri! First off there were many panel rooms which meant a great deal of panels! If listening to voice actors talk isn’t your thing, and then you could have gone to a fan panel in the one of the smaller panel rooms. Lacking knowledge on how to basic cosplay or perform skits? There was a panel room dedicated to that exactly! There was even a panel to talk about how anime and manga affected your life. The large array of panels made it easy to find one that interested anyone!

There was a stew of guests there too featuring returning guests such as Matt Mercer and new faces such as Clint Bickham. The convention did a great job in making sure fans were able to see their favorite guest by having panels dedicated to them. That was good seeing that everybody wanted to some of their Vic Mignogna! Personally, I prefer the lovely voice of Stephanie Young. It was awesome to attend the Formal Dance and have Stephanie sing her jazz styling as an opening to the event!

The main musical guest was Flow, a band that is famous for its own music and is involved in anime!! I am not a huge fan of theirs, but I appreciate that Anime Matsuri was able to book a band whose music has been featured in anime. It was also fun to hear their responses during the Q&A on Friday.

The best part about Anime Matsuri? The convention had returned back to the Woodlands! Woot! After the fiasco with last year's location, I am glad that Anime Matsuri realized that this hotel matched their needs better. The hotel was nicer and had a lot of room for the convention to play with! The best part was that the escalators were kept on for a majority of the convention (one of the escalators was turned off during the last three hours of the convention) as promised because usually the escalators are turned off after the first hour of the convention.

Anime Matsuri felt like more than an anime convention because of how much Japanese culture it incorporated. Still, it stayed true to its anime roots due to panels and activities. It had a vast amount of things for fans to do and I appreciate the industry talent that came. It isn't often that you get to talk to a writer for Funimation or ask a Japanese band which Pokémon they like!

This convention is always fun for me and I can't wait to see what great stuff Anime Matsuri has to bring for next year!

Still, you guys can expect even more great things as I will be posting up One Piece Cosplay from Anime Matsuri soon and an interview from Clint Bickham in the near future! Stay tune!