Adventures in Sakura-Con 2014 (With Roger)

Sakura-Con 2014: Where even the greatest rivalries can be suspended...for a while.

Hello everyone. Roger here, and I am finally back from Seattle, Washington. What a weekend! For starters, yes this was my very first anime convention, and not only did I live to tell the tale, I may have just established a new yearly tradition for myself. I met a ton of new and awesome people, ran into a few acquaintances, and hey, who doesn't enjoy being in a crowded convention center surrounded by thousands of others who share your passion. So without further ado...


This is Sakura-Con 2014

"A twisted horror filled environment where only the bravest souls dare to venture." _Little Kuriboh

Even though this was my first con, I had a few expectation of who I might run into. Basically, you know what's always going to be popular every year: Adventure Time, Dragon Ball, Mario, Pokemon, Zelda. You can always count on those guys showing up to an anime convention...and now Loki I guess (yeah, of all the Marvel characters, Loki takes the cake in the anime scene). However, there were two very clear hits from this last year that I was certain would show up in droves. The fans did not disappoint.

You just can't..."Let it Go!"

I'm sure she made that little girls day.

Did I mention that every time I hear "Let it go!" I imagine Aokiji playing the piano in the background?

She was my favorite.

 And the second series that stole Sakura-con 2014, the actual ANIME of the list...

 

Yes, Attack on Titan was huge. Especially given a good chunk of the production staff from Japan (art director, producer, the original voice actress of Mikasa, among others) came here stateside to talk about the process of bringing this latest anime juggernaut to life.

I myself have only seen the first few episodes. It's good, and I intend to watch more, but I had my own guest appearances to attend. The ones that I believe One Piece fans had more in mind.

Leah Clark

Leah Clark played the voice of Coby, the very first focal character of One Piece who would grow to be our hero Luffy's friendly rival, (if such a thing exist). I got her autograph on my copy of Season 5 Voyage 5, which marks Luffy and Coby's first reunion since they parted ways in Episode 3.

Unfortunately, she is no longer playing the character (he is now voiced by Micah Solusod) given his growth spurt. I planned on asking her why Funimation felt it necessary to change Coby's voice entirely and why they couldn't just ask her to deepen her voice slightly or make him sound less nerdy. Upon meeting her, I didn't have the heart to bother her about it (that and the lines were pretty busy at that moment.)

Leah also held a panel on Script Writing for Anime (She's written for One Piece a little bit, but she specializes mostly in romance and comedy series.) As a writer myself, I learned some interesting logistics and technicalities of what goes into translating a series. She also mentioned to get the job she had to be very aggressive, and while you'd think most writers are not the kind to get in front of the mic and do the performing them-self, she did mention that starting off voice acting for Funimation does help.

During her panel, we also had a good laugh about a little back and fourth between her and fellow voice actor Todd Haberkorn. Todd plays the voice of Siam (one of the Meowban Brothers) from the Syrup Village Arc, Nero (CP9's new recruit that Lucci killed out of incompetence) from the train portion between the Water 7-Ennies Lobby arcs, and Koza from the Alabasta Arc (which I still consider some of his best voice work in anything, not just including One Piece). Anyway, he chose to have a panel about, and I'm not even kidding about this, his phone of all things. Sorry to say I can't comment much more on that as I did not catch a chance to see him. However, an acquaintance of mine cosplaying as another character that Todd plays did, and got him to sign his fireball.

This guy.

Christopher Smith

Christopher Smith was holding a panel about voice acting villains. If there are three things every actor wants to do at least once during their career: it's die on stage, kiss a pretty girl, and be a villain.

It was only as his power point was scrolling through his various roles that I realized he played the voice of Spandam, often hailed as the most hated character in all of One Piece. Quite the pleasant surprise, although ironic seeing as I just watched his commentary with Mike McFarland and Stephanie Young (Nico Robin) on my copy of Season 5 Voyage 4 not that long ago. I guess you can't plan for everything. We had a good talk about how Spandam works as such an effective villain because he's got this sense of humanity where he truly believes that what he's doing is just and that he is the hero of his own story. Yet, he's so twisted and insecure about taking on or even surpassing his father Spandine's footsteps (whom Chris plays as well) that he goes way too far and becomes the monster that we cheer like it's Christmas (or in this case Easter) when he finally gets his just desserts.

Chris was just all round a very down-to-earth guy. Hearing him talk about his excitement over his Joker role in the Lego Batman 2 game and how he got to work with legends like Clancy Brown and Rob Paulsen. That's the kind of excitement I'd have if I ever broke into this business.  

Patrick Seitz

Now this one I did plan for. One of the Straw Hat Pirates himself, Patrick Seitz plays everyone's favorite Shipwright cyborg with a blue pompadour, a Hawaiian shirt, Popeye arms, a speedo and a fridge in his stomach where he stores cola.

For him, I presented him my friend's copy of One Piece Unlimited Adventure to sign. When Funimation first took over the rights to One Piece from 4Kids, this Wii game was the first thing they were tasked with dubbing. That meant that they had to cast all the first eight Straw hats right away AND get those choices approved by Oda and all the execs from Toei across seas. After the dubbing of the game was completed, they then proceeded to record the series, Mr. Seitz had to wait over half a decade before Franky would show up on the show proper. Because Funimation restricted the actors playing the Straw Hats to playing just their one character (they didn't want to have a repeat of DBZ where Chris Sabat was 60% of the cast) he wasn't able to play anyone else on the show. Unlike the Japanese voice of Franky, who got to kill time playing Jango and Mr.2 Bon Clay.

Patrick seems to be a genuine fan of the show. Obviously, he does work in several other shows and games (Fairy Tail, Ouran High, Sengoku Basara, Bleach, World of Warcraft), but during his Q&A when he asked who watched One Piece and only got a handful of responses, and people started making excuses: It's too long, 4Kids ruined it, whatever, he just gave one of the best responses ever: 

"Oh man, a big grand adventure that spans the entire world starring epic pirates that kick all kinds of ass? Yeah, stay away from that!"

I may be paraphrasing, but he did say something like that, and it tickled my heart a little. Now that Franky's officially a member of the crew, I hope the wait turns out worth it for him.

But at the end of the day, it's all about the fans.

Day 2 of the con (the day of the One Piece Photoshoot) was definitely a highlight for me. Par for the course, the most frequent One Piece characters were exactly the same as the most popular characters on the show (Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, and Chopper, in that order, followed by Law and Ace).

At first I was going to go as Young Gol D. Roger (myself essentially) but because he only appeared in one episode and even then we didn't get a real clear look at him, not a lot of people got it. I eventually caved and heeded my friend who begged me to go with my second choice. Yup, that's me as Lucy. I figured there would have been at least a couple others as Lucy, (given how recent of a character it is) but I must have lucked out, because I didn't run into any others. It turned out to be the perfect choice, not only did I get a ton of complements, it went along great with all the other Dessrosa Cosplayers, whom by the way, all looked super awesome too.

The two girls dressed as Bartolomeo and Cavendish were especially cool, and they actually got me hoping that those two characters become a real duo in the actual series. (Similar to the Coby/Helmeppo, Jango/Fullbody, Buggy/Mr.3 parings we've seen in the past.) Think about it: One of them is a super fan of the Straw hats, a living representation of why the other one hates the Straw Hats. That alone just spells hilarity. Plus they were both characters that started off as annoying canon fodder that we thought were only there for Luffy to kick their asses in the Colosseum, but actually grew on us when the plot thickened and their personalities and skill sets were elaborated on (or was that just me that thought that?)  Maybe after all the chaos finally burns over in Dressrosa those two can start a second division of pirate crews that support the Straw hats. (After all, Luffy's going to need a fleet of pirate ships at some point.)

"Big BRO!"

 Sabo showing up was pretty epic too, especially considering the manga chapter where he officially showed his face was only two weeks before the convention.

In addition to that, so many others turned up: Doflamingo, Baby 5, Shanks and Buggy, Smoker and Tashigi, Admirals Sen Goku, Akainu, Kizaru, even Fujitora (that guy looked so awesome), and Straw hats in outfits from all generations. I was on stage for a lot of it, so I missed my chance to get photos of the whole shoot myself. If any of you readers out there were at this year's Sakura Con and either attended the One Piece photoshoot and/or know a good place online to find a good database of photos, please share in the comments below.

Or comment about whatever else, there's no rules. Stay tuned as I bring you guys my latest article of Roger's List. It's going to be a list of all the greatest lessons I learned at my first con, and what I intend to improve for next year, so keep a lookout for that.

And of course, no anime convention is complete...

without Ivan photo-bombing the Sailor Scouts.