Luis Cruz

First time caller, long time listener

2 minute read

I have been holding off writing this up as there is simply not much to say. Headed into Boston to catch the AnimeOnDVD.com panel. Left a few minutes early to hit the dealers room; Jm picked up the rest of her manga series that was available; she also hit the artist alley and picked up two nice calligraphy prints. I picked up the Nendoroid Yoko – too cute. Wasn’t impressed with the dealer selection this year.

Grabbed some lunch and then hit the presentation from the Japanese consulate. It was geared towards tourism and could have used some polish for their presentations. However, one presentation, despite some DVD related technical difficulties, introduced me to Tottori Prefecture. Had never heard of the sand dunes there. Might be worth checking out some day.

While waiting to get into that panel, a translator was showing the other Japanese guest band Bespa Kumamero around. The guy from Bespa was surprisingly tall. The previous day Jm and I had passed the Kalafina entourage in the hall. After the tourism panel finished, we headed down to the main hall to see if we could get into the Kalafina concert. Was a bit concerned we wouldn’t given the packed house last year for the pillows concert.

Found the line moving into the auditorium and hopped in the end; there was a good crowd for the concert but nowhere near as packed as last year. The upper balconies had one small group, and that might have been staff. Opening for Kalafina was the local Video Game Orchestra; they brought a chamber music version of the group as a full orchestra and choir simply would not fit. Good group… would love to see a performance of the full group at some point.

And then it was time for the main act; while Kalafina’s music isn’t my preferred taste, it was worth it simply to see what their live show is like. They were good sports when reading their prepared English statements and had some fun with the crowd to compensate. The one error they made was not coming back out quickly enough for their encore by Kaijura Yuji. A good chunk of the crowd had already filed out by the time she came on stage. We saw them come back out but decided to head out to the next things we wanted to see.

Jm split off to go to another voice acting related workshop; I headed off to Funimation’s premiere of Romeo x Juliet. When it first made the rounds in fandom, I wasn’t sure if this would be something I’d watch through. Coming out of the (dubbed) showing, I’m still unsure; it is an interesting spin on the story but really didn’t hook me overall. Might wait until a decent sale to pick this one up or try to convince Chris to let me review it.

And that was it; thought about staying for the dance hosted by Bespa Kumamero, but there wasn’t anything I really wanted to do to kill the three to four hours until then. I am hoping that the industry will rebound enough to allow the con to book more Japanese industry guests.