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So, the feeling in the house was that we were distinctly in need of a con. We knew AnimeUSA was coming up this weekend, so we decided to make a day trip of Saturday. We also decided to give the Bear a chance to enjoy an anime con. This is my first time to AnimeUSA. It was started up a few years ago by guys from the NVA anime club, from my understanding. It has grown into a decent sized con, enough to move into the old Katsucon hotel, the Crystal City Hyatt. It certainly brings back some old memories, back in the day when you could get import CDs from Japan and garage kits in the dealers room. Anyways, there are differences. It is a lot more gamer oriented than most anime cons. There is a strong RPG track and it looks like some decent board game space. There is also a Maid Cafe and a Host Club set up, which I haven't seen at any other con. Also, there is a dedicated room for AMV programming, which was nice for me. We weren't able to get there until noon because Bear had his Tae-Kwon-Do class in the morning, but we got plenty done. We went to the dealers room and I picked up the boatload of cheap manga that I usually come away with, course as usual I didn't have a list of what I owned, so I ended up being conservative in my choices. I also got decent deals on box sets of a couple of series I was interested in: Claymore and Fate/Stay Night. I've seen a few episodes of Claymore a couple years back and I found it interesting. Fate/Stay Night I became interested in after seeing a few AMVs based on it. We also ran into Jen at her booth at artist alley and said hi while my wife bought some things from her table. As for what we saw, my wife saw a couple episodes of Letter Bee and found it to be an intriguing series which she wouldn't mind seeing more of. As for me: Fairy Tail: Fantasy world where wizards belong to guilds. Lucy is relatively new and is looking to get established when she meets a wizard who claims to be a member of the most notorious of these guilds: Fairy Tail. It turns out that he lied and is using that to enslave women. She gets rescued by the guy the other wizard was trying to impersonate. He invites her to join the guild, which she finds out are an odd group that mostly likes to drink and fight with each other. But, they all seem to be capable. Nothing really new here, but it is entertaining. Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood: I'm not sure what the point of this new FMA series is, since it seems to be retelling the story of the first series in a slightly different way. I'm not sure if the goal is to be more like the manga or not. Not sure what to think of it. It was a question going in how Bear was going to react to the video rooms, since just about everything was subbed. It didn't seem to bother him much that he wasn't really understanding what they were staying, but he seemed to have a tolerance of one hour for that before he needed to move onto something else. Unfortunately, because of the late start I didn't get to see the AMV contest, nor could I see the awards ceremony, which was at 10PM. I did snag a ballot, tho, so I know what was shown. I did get to see the ones who didn't make the final (most deservedly so) and the AMV staff show, which showed some interesting videos that the staff made which probably made up for the fact that most of them weren't eligible for the competition. I saw some faves from previous contests plus some new ones I hadn't seen. (And I was right. The cover of "Wind Beneath My Wings" was by Sonata Arctica.) Tags: anime, animeusa, con Current Music: Edenbridge - My Last Step Beyond
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Taking place after the defeat of the Foot clan and its leader, Shredder, Master Splinter sends team leader Leonardo to Central America for a year to work on his training. Meanwhile, the rest of the brothers try to fill their time. Donatello takes a side job as a IT help desk guy. Michelangelo works as a clown for childrens' birthday parties. Raphael disguises himself as the vigilante Nightwatcher and fights crime at night. After getting a visit from April O'Neil, Leo decides that it is time to come back and help his friends. Unfortunately, that turns out to be a tougher problem than expected. In the meantime, there are monsters on the loose and it seems that 4 stone warriors and the remainder of the Foot clan are working to retrieve them. For what purpose? Overall, this is a pretty solid film, reintroducing the Turtles to a new generation. Fortunately, it isn't a reboot and they do a good enough job of introducing the characters so that you get the idea of who they are. There isn't as much action as you'd like to see in a film like this, since a good part of the film is about knitting relationships back together. Most of what you see is what you'd expect from the series, with probably the exception of April, who is far more capable here than she usually is. Apparently in the break she had been training with the Katana and is apparently quite proficient in its use. She also apparently changed occupations from being a reporter to being an archeologist. No new ground here, but that's fine. It is a solid adventure and the plot is pretty tight. Tags: animation, movie, review Current Music: Primal Fear
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...from Israeli metal band Orphaned Land for their new album... http://www.orphaned-land.com/From the press release: Commented vocalist Kobi Farhi: “As people that were born into the tragedy of our region, we have always been devoted to creating harmony between conflicts, a musical heaven on earth, a tango between God and Satan. Even in the album’s artwork we combined Hebrew and Arabic, regardless of the fight between Jews and Muslims. I found a Jordanian guy, specialized in calligraphic artwork. He took letters from Hebrew and Arabic and moulded them in his art to create a symbol of peace. Same goes for our band photo, where we portrayed a synergy between the three monotheistic religions that believe in the same God and yet ridiculously have been killing each other for centuries ‘in the name of God’ and turned the holy land into an orphaned land. Naturally, we continued this idea of union on a musical level as well and the result is as always crazy, it’s a miracle — in our concerts: our Jewish fans sing in Arabic and our Muslim fans sing in Hebrew, brave friendships have spawned and our Middle Eastern metal music destroys all this political witchcraft we have been trapped in for so long. This is a musical journey of hope in lands of war, creating heaven on earth, building a new Jerusalem.” Personally, I like it. Tags: music
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