What a difference a year makes! A year ago we attended enmasse the San Diego Comic-Con where we had a great time except for how Naoko Takeuchi was handled. At this year's AnimeExpo we had a terrible time except for how Kazuko Tadano & Hiromi Matsushita were handled. Could someone get it right please?

AnimeExpo 99 (AX), presented by the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA), was held Friday, July 16 through and including Sunday, July 18, 1999 at the Anaheim Hilton and the Anaheim Convention Center in Orange County, California. Most of the convention seemed organized; organized to be user unfriendly.

It was so bad that we don't even think it's worth critiquing. Who needs details when it was all so excruciating? We will attempt to impart some details but a full story would do no one any good. The less said the better. So here we go and as briefly as possible. (Now there's a first!)

Attendance

First, let's make it clear that AnimeExpo's problems did not stem from any record-breaking attendance. Please keep the attendance question in mind as we review the problems below. The number of attendees were actually inconsequential to the way events were handled or organized. We're not buying into the old, "But there were so many people this year!" Great, wonderful, congratulations. That's not the problem as you'll soon see.

Registration

Some of our members who preregistered waited in line longer than members that showed up at the same time. In other words, if you had paid in advance, you could have ended up waiting longer than someone who just showed up to attend. Reports of 3 hour waits were not uncommon. Only one of our members reported waiting under an hour--but they were registering late and had already missed some events.

We were not manning the keyboards so we're not sure what the AnimeExpo's problems were in this area but in this day and age we know that it should be relatively easy to have a system which calls up a reservation and prints out a label.

And we have to question the entire idea behind Registration. The impetus now is to get attendees on a Mailing List and get a consumer spending profile to sell to companies. Why not just collect admission fees at Registration and gather this other information through other means at the convention? And, to try and collect all this information at one point creates a bottleneck. It should be spread through more of the convention--creating less of a bottleneck.

And/or why not have attendees type in their own profile and when approved by a staffer via a mirrored screen they would receive their souvenir booklet, trinket or general entry ticket to the Masquerade? (Folks, there were empty seats at the Masquerade and AX staffers were seen going through the halls trying to get people to enter.)

Meet the Guests

Expertly run and surprisingly efficient, this was one of the best organized events at the convention.

Normally we'd be against an unadvertised $10 surcharge to an event publicized as being part of a convention admission but we won't complain as the extra cost dramatically cut down on those fans who really weren't all that interested in meeting a specific guest. Only those who were truly interested showed up, paid the extra money and waited in (what turned out to be) one of the shortest waits of the weekend.

At our sitting (the first) with Kazuko Tadano & Hiromi Matsushita we engaged in a pretty detailed, concise comparison of the anime industry versus our own animation industry in the United States. (Plus plenty of specifics concerning "Sailormoon.") It was a pretty short half-hour. Other (later) sittings with the two seemed full and entertaining.

The most popular guest seemed to be Mari Iijima, the J-Pop recording artist who has also provided voices for anime.

Hiromi Matsushita & Kazuko Tadano Focus Panel

We won't comment on the other panels as they weren't as important to us as this one.

It was one of the better organized events of the weekend.

Things got off to a rocky start as AX staff members needlessly kept fans waiting in a line for absolutely no reason (as far as we could gather). The room sat pretty much empty as the staff members kept everyone waiting outside. Once we were allowed entry, things unfolded pretty nicely.

We experienced none of the problems associated with Naoko Takeuchi's appearance at the Comic-Con. Every question was repeated for the audience and table mics sometimes picked-up Kaz & Hiromi's answers. It's too bad that the audience didn't seem to know what to ask them.

They confirmed that on "Sailormoon" they were Animation Directors. Kazuko said that she tried out as Character Designer for the series against several others but got picked for the job. As the designer she and Toei had a disagreement over how high the skirts were to be. Kazuko prevailed with the short version we know today.

Kazuko stressed the importance of keeping the characters on model and getting the human anatomy correct. Hiromi revealed that he never planned on being animator and got drafted into the industry during (our phrase) the boom period of anime. Kazuko has been drawing since an early age and has always wanted to be an artist. They said they met (fell in love) and got married during productions before "Sailormoon."

They said that on average they had only 4 weeks to animate an episode and that some episodes (after Inking & Painting and Camera were completed) were delivered on the same date as the initial airing.

Today, Kazuko is running her own web site and plans to premiere her own manga character there. Hiromi is designing a new videogame.

Video Screenings

As we said last year, what should be the easiest part for a convention to organize proves to be the hardest for AnimeExpo. As far as we could tell, the schedule was not available until the first day of the convention and then was often wrong. For example, all three "Sailormoon" features were each scheduled for just half an hour which then threw the rest of the programming off by at least half an hour for the rest of the day. AnimeExpo has made clear by its actions over the years that it's never going to fix this. They've amply demonstrated that they're incapable or simply not interested in fixing these problems.

The 3 "Sailormoon" Features One of the best times we had was watching the features with an audience, so that we could all cheer and cry together for a change--rather than in small clustered groups around the country. Pioneer supplied not-so-good dupes with visible SMPTE windows. (So those features do run under an hour!) There were a number of spelling mistakes and possible translation errors (particularly in "Sailormoon-S") but we'd have to see the subtitles again to make sure. We hope the final copies look better than these!

Further, Video Projection has deteriorated. These may or may not have been the same projectors as last year but their image seems like they were. Video Projectors don't age well, and these seemed inferior. It didn't help that so much spill light was allowed to hit the screen and (for those of you who noticed) that part of the image was routinely projected on the ceiling (which seemed intentional in order to fill the width of the screen and allow a spill over the height). Amateurish.

It doesn't help that some of the fans have seen the new Texas Instruments Digital Projection system. We here at the SOS recognize that the AnimeExpo would not be able to rent these projectors (there are only 5 in existence) and that they are way too expensive. But these projectors are the future and provide the best image we've seen yet.

Film Projection

While we're all in favor of 35mm film projection it was kind of painful watching the projectionist destroy at least two sections of a brand new print of "Tenchi Forever." This is why studios & distributors loathe to give conventions any prints at all. (Hey projectionist! You're supposed to inspect the print with kem wipes feeling for perforation damage or bad splices BEFORE projecting the print!)

Dealer's Room AKA Exhibit Hall

Stu Levy Does Something Smart! The penguin stays caged! We couldn't help but notice how "Mixx Entertainment" didn't have a booth this year. If they did, a lot of fans would have probably complained about Mixx's subscription policy and lack of customer service. But wait a minute! What's that booth over there? The one manned by all the Mixx Entertainment staff people? Why, it's "Tokyo Pop" Magazine! Isn't that owned by Mixx Entertainment? Ahhh! Now this is making sense! By presenting a new identity, Stu Levy gets to avoid all the problems he created with Mixx Entertainment. This is the smartest thing he's done in over a year! Mr. Levy has finally recognized that he has a problem and has done something about it! Here's hoping that he doesn't have to create still yet another identity by next year and starts addressing the problems of his company. Stu has time until he runs out of "Sailor Moon;" and then the cash cow is over.

What a waste of space! AnimeExpo spent the big bucks to rent out the Arena (the crown jewel of the Anaheim Convention Center) for three days to house the Dealers instead of putting in the Masquerade for just one day and make use of all those empty seats, excellent sightlines and preinstalled audio system.

Yes, we know that the Dealer's might have had to been split up elsewhere. Guess what? Fine! We'd much rather go through that than have another Masquerade on a flat floor.

The Masquerade

One of the worst run events we have experienced anywhere at anytime. It started one hour and fifty minutes behind schedule.

But the "fun" started hours before as AX announced that attendees had to get separate tickets to attend. So there was suddenly (now try to follow this) a line to get tickets to stand in a line to see the show.

Tickets came in three colors: red, white and yellow and in different sections. Lines were encouraged to be formed hours earlier. Waiting in this line, one person quipped, was "...just like waiting for Star Wars--minus all of the excitement."

Each line was lead up through the back entrance stairs and into one of the meeting rooms. Each row was filled one after the other but with some of the later lines getting better seats (sitting up closer on the far sections).

This system proved to be ruthlessly efficient in making sure that there were no empty seats in sections but extremely time consuming and frustrating to the fans. It took over an hour and a half to send the lines through a single entry into the room and to fill the rows.

We know of a better system. Some of you might have seen it.

Have you ever attended a movie? They fill up theaters (through multiple doors) in less than half an hour--plus you get to pick your seats! Having the event repeatedly at a location such as the Arena would eventually calm the fans not to arrive hours ahead of time and/or wait forever in a line--since the Arena is large enough to accommodate everyone and provides excellent sight lines with raking.

But AX staff members weren't content to organize just the tickets and seating--they applied the same expertise to setting up the sound system. Their overall agenda seemed to us as follows:

1. Have peoples stand in line to get color coded and section numbered tickets.
2. Have peoples stand in different lines with tickets.
3. Move lines together to eventually form one giant line.
4. Send peoples into room and fill each seat in every row.
5. Test sound system.

The sound system didn't work.

But once again the methodical AX crew had organized this as well:

1. Get several thousand feet of black XLR cable.
2. All cable must be the same. No color cables, no numbered cables.
3. String all the cables together and then dump on floor in front of mixer.

So when the sound system failed, AX members had to trace each cable (which looked identical and had been dumped together) to find where the problem was. But the problem turned out to be not with any cable but with the Mixer.

But What About The Contestants? Oh yeah, they were good. Widya Santoso proved an excellent host although it was sometimes hard to make out his Australian accent. Widya provided the two highlights of the evening as he seemingly, spontaneously started to dirty dance with a giant Pen-Pen penguin on stage. The audience went wild with the sight of the host suddenly interacting with one of the contestants. (Of course it had been choreographed beforehand.) The other highlight was when Widya reacted to a skit and hid behind his speaker's dias. The best "Sailormoon" group was led by Renee Scofield as Eternal Sailor Moon. She, with others dressed as the Inner Scouts, performed a choreographed dance to the Sera-Myu version of "La Soldier." It was very well done. The audience loved it. (Renee told us that she had to cut her hair recently as the ends were getting bad.) The only other choreography of the evening was performed by Sara Oromchi and Saeko Setoguchi, who, as the "Little Sailor Team" were costumed as characters from "Card Captor Sakura." They won best Kids Performance. The audience also loved this skit as well. As a whole, a number of skits depended upon "Jerry Springer Show"-like fighting as a climax. Hiromi Matsushita would later comment that these skits seemed like "WWF" wrestling to him.

It's easy to play Monday Morning Audio Quarterback, but some of us would have loved to have been sitting behind that console that night. For upon finding out that certain feeds were consistently not working BESIDES the microphones (such as the Left Rear Video Audio Send) we could have leapt to our feet instantly and proclaimed, "Mixer!"

But the problem may not have been with the Mixer alone. One of our members reported that some of the AX staff seemed absolutely frantic about the feed of the show to www.pixelshow.com rather than the problems in the actual house.

During the long wait some of the contestants dropped out--frustrated at the interminable delay. And yes, we spotted that most of the Japanese guests were there to experience all of this. Indelible impressions were made.

At one point, some of the AX staff encouraged a sing-along in the audience which we found most irritating. Thankfully, the fans didn't quite buy into this and the singing stopped.

When the problem(s) had been fixed an AX staff member proudly announced that it had taken over 6 hours to have setup the audio and video system. Frankly, we don't care how long it takes to setup a sound system that doesn't work. They could take several days or weeks to setup a sound system that doesn't work and we still wouldn't care. We only care about a sound system that does work. Did you know that a good audio system can take less time to setup than a bad one? Yes, it's true! ;)

But wait! The fun's not over!

AX used too few speakers (monitor cabinets) in the room. This meant having to raise the volume for people to hear but which also raised the possibility of feedback. This caused the Mixer to ride the floor mikes (the ones which contestants use) lower--causing fans not to be able to hear what was being said. Add to this that the mikes being used for floor mikes were the wrong kind for this sort of work. (Attend any decent legitimate theatre and you'll see the kind to use.) More directional speakers in the room with lower volume would have caused less feedback with the Mixer able to ride the floor mikes higher.

There were the usual lack of music cue starts and we can only suggest to AX what we've grounded into the heads of the San Diego Comic-Con--to put the Audio Cassette/CD Operator in the wings with the contestants.

After all the contestants performed or simply modelled on stage, the judges left to argue about how they should vote in another room. When a show goes this long, we begin to favor the Boxing approach to judging. In Boxing, the judges handover their cards immediately after the last round and the totals are tabulated. It takes about a minute to declare their decision. We were ready for such a technique that night.

During the wait for the judges, some students from a performing arts-like school in Japan performed some live dubbing. This too took forever to setup but in the scheme of things what's another half-hour when it's around midnight? The audience liked it but then again maybe it's because they have never spent years of their lives holed-up in dubbing studios.

Music Video

With the Masquerade running way past Midnight, one of our Industry Contacts from 20th Century Fox, an MTV Staffer and a Warner Bros. executive we know of all left. None of them saw the Music Videos and all of them expressed a desire to do so. Needless to say, more indelible impressions were made that evening.

We would strongly urge the SPJA to move this event to another day/time and to stop punishing the fans who spend so much time creating their videos. Perhaps these fans could band together and rent their own room nearby, thus ensuring a time and a place to show their editing skills?

Next Year

The AnimeExpo has announced that it intends to go to four days next year. Four days of torture rather than just three? No thank you. A number of us can no longer recommend this event to our professional friends or fans. We would much rather see the SPJA concentrate on improving the existing three day disaster than fooling itself that four days somehow means that it's better or more successful.

Increasing the length will probably increase their costs by 20 to 25%. (We suspect that they've underestimated this.) Rather than increasing the length they would have been better off spending their money on getting a better and more professional staff.

AnimeExpo is now beyond the crossroads. The choice was made and we suspect that no one will lose their low paying or nonpaying job over the fiasco we witnessed.

The whole Anime convention business is ripe for takeover as we see it. If someone (who was more attendee friendly) would schedule their event just one week before this bomb they could takeover the market. As it stands now, AnimeExpo has imploded.