In any case, I’m (more) back than I was last week, so I’ll try to start chipping away at what I’m sure is a significant episode review backlog at this point.  I know I missed the podcast last weekend, and there is a chance I may miss it this weekend since I’m not really sure when I’ll work on it.  The problem is that I’m going to be gone next weekend too, so doing one next weekend if iffy as well.  I may end up just putting one up next Thursday or something (or at least record it Thursday and post it Saturday) just to get one up.

As for an Otakon podcast, it’s getting a little late for that, and considering how things turned out, I’m not sure if I have enough stuff to really do one – at least one that is informative at all.

Starting next week is my 2nd of 3 semesters for my master’s final project, so that may also make me cut back on how much I post and how much I blog in the fall, but I’ll try to do my best.

In any case, if you’re wondering where i went after Otakon, basically I’ve been vegitating and watching the Olympics for the past week, but I should be crawling back now.

If you didn’t hear elsewhere, Bandai announced the .hack//G.U. trilogy at their Bandai Surprise panel last night which I had been planning on attending.

In theory there should be a lot of stuff goingon at the ADV panel and I really want to go see it. *curses at foot*

I’ll reassess my schedule tomorrow morning, but I am just axe everything before the Bandai panel just so I can get as much rest as possible.  No podcasts come out tonight…I’m too tired.  Pray that I’m not this beat tomorrow or else I might just end up making one digest Otakon podcast on Sunday.

There does not appear to have been any new license announcements today.  I already knew that Funimation and Media Blasters didn’t have any, but I didn’t know if any of the smaller companies might have had any (though I think only one or two had panels yesterday).  Saturday may be big as both Bandai and Kadokawa have panels, with Kadokawa’s specifically called “Kadokawa announcements” I think.  Of course, they announced 6 new licenses at AX, so I doubt they’ll be announcing more, but they may be announcing who is going to produce and distibute those titles.  We’ll have to see if Bandai has anything new to say.

In any case, I better go to sleep before I completely collapse.

If I ever would use it at any other time, I would get a phone with web or a wireless service through a cellular company for my computer.  However, since I would probably use it like…once a year, it’s not really worth it.  My cell phone’s text message thing is getting a workout, though.

In any case, I was booted from Funimation since there weren’t any chairs left, so I chilled outside for half an hour and came back to stand in line for Media Blasters.  I’ve learned my lesson and I’ll probably make sure I have nothing for at least a half hour before any industry panel now.

Also took my first trip through the dealers room and bought the Scrapped Princess Collection for $40 (yay!) and Air Volumes 1-3 for a total of $70 (borderline).  I was looking at getting all the Kurau DVDs, but I would have had to plop down $130 for that where I looked, and that was a bit much for me.  Maybe I’ll try to see if one of the other dealers has it for less.

And oh yeah, an actual nugget of news: Kurau: Phantom Memory has been discontinued.  I hadn’t actually seen that mentioned anywhere, but the people at the ADV distrubtor table confirmed that, so yeah, ADV even lost thought (or at least discontinued it) as well.

In any case, the TBA movie ended up being something I didn’t recognize, so probably once I’m done eating, I’ll head up to the arena.

However, it looks like I got there at the right time, though, because about a half hour later (after I had already gotten in the BCC) it decided to rain like heck…and the line was still wrapped all the way down the Howard Street side of the BCC.

Like I said on twitter, I saw a Lucky Star badge and a Code Geass badge, along with the Fullmetal Alchemist badge that I got.  I’m not even sure what the rest were.  Last year they had a thing with all the badges on it up halfway through the line, so you could look at them before you get to the booth, but they didn’t when I went through, so I didn’t get a good chance to see all of the badges.

As for the schedule, it still looks the same as it was online.  There is still a big ol’ TBA in the HD hall between 8:30 PM and 10:30 PM as well as Panel 1 between 6:00 PM and 7:00 PM, both on Monday.  I have to think that they are either really big shows to not even tell us what they are the day before, or they really have no clue what they’re going to show there (and really, I’m sure they could come up with something).

Now, here is my as definite-as-it-gets schedule over the next 3 days.  As always, there may be changes that throw a wrench into all of this:

Friday

9:00 AM – 11:00 AM: El Hazard 1-4 (Video 3)
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Chiko, The Phantom Chief (aka The Daughter of Twenty Faces) 1-2 (Hall D)
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM: Tsubasa Season 2 1-4 (Hall D)
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM: Funimation Q&A (Panel 2)
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM: Media Blasters Q&A (Panel 2)
4:00 PM – 10:30 PM: ????

OK, yes, I know, having a huge question mark after 4 is kind of problematic.  Here is the issue.

4-5PM doesn’t have much that sounds interesting other than maybe the Kappei Yamaguchi panel.  I may use this to either get early dinner or go to the dealers room.

Then we run into an area where there are several things I want to watch, but other TBAs which I don’t want to just write off.  From 5-7PM, there is The Place Promised in Our Early Days, from 6-8:30PM there is the Death Note live action movie, from 6-7PM there is a TBD panel, there is the JAM Project concert from 7:30-10:30 PM, and there is the TBA HD movie from 8:30-10:30PM.

I’m guessing that the TBD panel probably won’t be something huge enough for me to want to go to, but who knows.  The movie, however, is something else.  If it’s, say, Evangelion 1.0, then I definitely want to go see it.  The problem is that, if I decide to go to Death Note instead of JAM Project, and the TBA ends up sucking, there is pretty much nothing else to do.  So, if the TBA sucks, I’ll probably go to the JAM Project concert, and if it rocks, I’ll probably go to Death Note and see whatever the TBA movie is.

If I go see Death Note, I can’t watch Place Promised, so I’ll probably take that hour either eating or wandering the dealers room.

whew.  On to…

Saturday

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM: ???
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM: Bang Zoom Q&A (Panel 2)
11:00AM – 12:00 PM: Bandai (Panel 2)
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM: Kadokawa USA (Panel 2)
3:00 PM – 5:00 PM: The Girl Who Leapt Thorugh Time (HD)
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM: Fansubber and Industry Discussion (Panel 4)
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM: ???
9:00 PM – 10:30 PM: Bandai Surprise (Panel 2)

OK, the first question mark I may just skip and come in at 10 AM, especially if I’m wiped after the first day.  The gap between 12PM and 2PM is food and dealers room.  It’s not missing because I don’t know what to do, it’s missing just cause I’m doing other stuff.

The final question – 7PM to 9PM – it looks like I can either spend it doing dinner, or going and seeing Lucky Star 5-8 and The Third 1-4.  Already seen both, but they might be cool to hit again.

Sunday

9:00 AM – 10:45 AM: Maetal Legend (Video 2)
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM: State of the Industry (Panel 4)
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM: ???
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM: ADV (Panel 2)
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM: Closing Ceremonies (Panel 4)
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM: Con Feedback (Panel 4)

The 12-1PM question looks like an obvious food break to me, but there are a couple of things I may try to hit.

Last year’s schedule ended up mutating quite a bit, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this years did too some.