Spirit of Japan Miami is a first-year convention at Miami Beach. Literally located in the big con center (that was renovated last decade) just to the side of South Beach, this new con brought big con guests which drew people like myself. It also is the Funko Pop Private Signing Wonderland that you might have heard about. Still I got to see Fruits Zipper and that made things all OK? Maybe.
The story really started at around AX time, because Sayaka Ohara went to AX and I want her to sign my Aria stuff, naturally. Of course, because MangaGamer, it couldn’t be done there, nor did I get a ticket anyway due to POS fail at MG booth first day of AX. I didn’t really get a chance to go back to do that either. So I said to my self, “Ohara is going to this first-year con in Miami, let’s just do that.” So I did.
I didn’t think much about Hiroaki Hirata much, or that Yuki Kaji will do a zoom panel there. Then the con added Ryo Horikawa, who is a staple of this kind of events nowadays. Oh, Burnout Syndrome? I guess Fake Star is involved. Then there was Satomi Akesaka??? Fruits Zipper???? Wow they called in that A-Kon rain check! Wow Diana Garnet (again)! The list is impressive say the least, not to mention for a first-year con.
Turns out, this con is largely run by One Guy who is a Japanese-American business man who really want to bring the stuff he loves together. The face he made when talking about Yui-chan on Sunday says it all. I was able to talk to him briefly and it was pretty fun to see this sort of thing being thrown down.
The event is a combination of a cultural festival and a pop cultural con. There was a “dealer room” setup with AA art walls and random lifestyle brands, mixed in there some vendors with merch. And by merch, I just mean walls of Funkos. There was a board game part with tournaments. There is a corner with actual arcade games and a few playstations set up. I give them props for that. There is also just a corner with all the autographs, across from the one and only stage. Lastly the entrance and exit is right by the cultural booths where you can learn tea ceremony (I wanted this but it didn’t pan out time-wise), wear a yukata, learn to draw manga, calligraphy, and what have you. There is also a sake tasting thing in a corner that is gated (of course).
I actually attended day 1 of Animethon and days 2-3 of Anirevo 2024. Part of this has to do with the stacked guest list for Animethon this year. Part of it also has to do with how the flights and prices were to go to Edmonton from Vancouver. Lastly, part of it has to do with that I had never done two (full-sized) cons in the same weekend, and wanted to give it a try. So I did.
I’m still in the middle of a series of four weekends of anime cons so I’ll keep this not so wordy and more focused on the journey. It really started on Monday when a series of rainstorms would pummel the US Northeast. I went to Yoasobi’s stop in NYC on August 6 in the middle of a downpour. I think the weather forecast said it would drop 0.97″ of rain in one hour at some point that night. Needless to say I got wet. Later on this series of rainstorms would affect airport operations in the area and cause delays, albeit not a lot of delays, but enough to cause some real problems.
I decided to fly American Airlines out to Vancouver on Thursday night out of EWR. This proved to be a rough journey as I had to connect at DFW, and the equipment was delayed getting in, because it was also delayed from the even earlier leg. My 1-hour layover turned into basically 5 minutes and I had to rush from Terminal D to Terminal B, and a friendly and super fast gate agent was able to make it work. Thankfully the plane going from DFW to YVR was also delayed at gate for mechanical issues. It did mean I was able to make it to YVR on Thursday for my trip to YEG on Friday early morning. But it also meant I landed just before midnight in Vancouver and got about 2 hours of sleep for my 6am flight on Friday to YEG.
After the schedule for both cons were released, I figured Anirevo has a very light day Friday where the main 3 items at the con were the opening ceremony (which is often skippable even if it’s good content for the general audience), the Oshi no Ko panel, and Igoma’s autograph session (1 session out of 2). On the other side of the Canadian Rockies was Sally Amaki’s concert, a Konomi Suzuki panel and autograph session, and a KIHOW autograph session (since TomxHack half of Myth&Roid was sick at home). All the guests also would appear at the Animethon opening ceremony. Plus, I would also be able to say hi to twice as many people, and go to Edmonton for the first time in my life.
The flight from YVR to Edmonton (YEG) that I took was from Flair Airlines, a Canadian low-cost carrier mostly serving customers based out of YEG. The flight was uneventful, but the airline doesn’t do a good job posting delays, and it forces all the customers to check in at the desk if they didn’t buy a carry on. This means I got to the airport a tad too early, and the flight was delayed for about an hour due to crew timeout, which I only found out 2 hours before departure, which meant I could have slept at least 1.5 hours more. I tried to make that difference up by sleeping at the gate, to varying success.
Flair’s service schedule between YVR and YEG was mostly in the early morning, late night, and 1 flight in the day. I guess it works out just as well for someone going to a con for a day there, but the quality of service at the airport during those non-business hours are not great, and generally everything is closed at the airport. I did get to Animethon, which is at downtown Edmonton, in time for badge pickup (took about 5 minutes in a fast-moving line) and the opening ceremony.
Animethon moved to an online autograph lottery system for the first time this year, which had multiple rounds where people can get randomly drawn as winners, up until “standby” time after the session has started. To access the system you need to buy an badge online which spits back at you a personalized link that lets you reserve each session. This worked well enough for attendees, but some improvement can be done such as having a closer watch on how fast the lines go. Konomi Suzuki and KIHOW’s lines Friday went super fast and I don’t know if every standby got them, although they probably could have, for example.
Other notables about Animethon is that it had about 16k in attendees this year, and Edmonton is a place without a lot of stuff going on for it in terms of youthful-ish activity or nightlife. It seems like the city government really wants to lean into the event as a way to reach out to young people. I mean, it makes sense, other local governments have made similar appeals before that I’ve seen. Anime cons are definitely a way where local government can support younger people. The opening ceremony featured several local politicians saying more or less what I’m saying. It also helps to fund the event, which partly explain how suddenly the guest list exploded for Animethon in 2024.
Anyways, living on 2-3ish hours of sleep is not a great way to enjoy the con, and my flight out at 10:20pm meant I had to vacate the con at around 8pm, which I did. That let me hop into the Sally concert and eek out a smile in the group pic? Sally always puts a smile on my face anyway. In retrospect the cost was just a LCC ride and a couple friendly Uber/Lyft drivers convos away between two places in Canada that are probably as opposite to each other as you can get up in mapleland. It was a great side trip.
Anirevo Saturday and Sunday are decided less chill and much more line-up heavy. Thankfully there was nothing super early that I had to deal with, other than getting a badge and having breakfast along the downtown Vancouver waterfront at a cafe. It felt like I was an Asian tourist or something. The Oshi no Ko live recording panel was pretty wild in that it recreates the afureko environment so much so that it felt like work, or that it is kind of boring. The acting was fun to watch, but they spend a lot of the time talking about edits and directions for each demo cut that becomes a drag. There was also a lot of them all at once so it becomes slightly hard to follow everyone’s directions. Anyways, I enjoyed it.
The autograph situation at Anirevo follows last year, which premium badges get a priority line and it’s capped properly this year. Badge checking was enforced more so to prevent hopping, but we suspect many perps from last year were actually at Edmonton this year instead. Anyways, this is the last year, according to Anirevo, that they will offer this perk for the Premium badge. For the three Oshi no Ko seiyuu guests, you can at best get a shikishi or your badge/program signed. For ZAQ and TRUE, you can get their merch. It was a good time otherwise.
Due to the price I paid in the alternative of going to Athon, I had to grab Igoma’s autograph on Sunday, which pushes me out of the running for TRUE’s panel and autograph. Still, I was able to go to ZAQ’s panel Sunday, and one autograph from ZAQ, Rumi, Igoma and Megumi Han. It is wild that I did last saw Megumi Han at Animazement 2013, and I’m just glad she’s such a big time voice actress now in Japan, and so quickly since. That gap of 11 years I followed dozens of seiyuu with less success than her, she’s literally like the 90th-percentile or higher at this.
The big event at Anirevo is the Saturday Night Concert. The Animusix brand lives on. ZAQ and TRUE threw it down, although I think my friends and I agree it was “okay, if good” but not lit like Calgary’s set for TRUE or the average ZAQ set. I think the covers really saved me, as ZAQ did Tutti and Guitar to Kodoku to Aoi Hoshi.
Overall, besides fatigue and cost, there was no huge drawback going to two cons. Pretty sure I spent about $100 USD total including a VIP badge for Sally and a 3-day badge, and about another $200 on flight and rideshare. The anexiety of not making my DFW connection was the worst part, but I guess it’s just lesson learned that I should just work at the airport the next time I go out there, just like what I did last year…
PS. Can’t talk about Vancouver without talking about eats. I got some FIFTYLAN. I had some nice Shanghainese dinner on Sunday. We went to a nice seafood joint Saturday, not because some guests went there in 2023 or anything. There was an interesting bear that we took photos of, hmm. Nah that cannot be it. I rather liked that place actually, it’s in a touristy part of town and very walkable, plus nice bayside/riverside views. The happy hour begins at 9pm which is perfect for uchiage timing.
I went back to Japadogs by the Waterfront station on Saturday…and ran into Anirevo staffer buying for their guests, so I had to wait extra long, LOL. There was a cafe down the street that they went to and we also went to, which was expensive but very nice. And full of foxes.
I went to a nice place for lunch Friday at Animethon with a friend, it was chill and full of nobody, certainly pricing out most attendees (my bill was more expensive than Sally’s VIP event let’s just say). I do enjoy the food though, and the story about a famous steakhouse used to be there and went into bankruptcy or something. Most importantly, I felt so much better after that nice lunch. Travel is a pain if you don’t take care of yourself! Don’t forget to take care of yourself!
Otakon this year came and went in my whirlwind August. It is the first stop for this eventer choo-choo…uh, did you know Otakon has a train theme last year? This year the theme is “30” because technically it’s not yet the 30th anniversary but just 30 years? Anyways, I have Anirevo next week, Spirit of Japan in Miami after that, and finally staying home for AnimeNYC before ending the month at Anisama. So yes, it’s recap really rapid-time.
This year the guest list is actually impressive. So impressive that I know I won’t have them to see them all. I actually missed out on most of the male seiyuu cast members from Blue Lock….most, because I was at the autograph area for some of their signings so I was able to see them from afar. For the josei seiyuu fans, this year’s lynchpin is Uchida Aya. Some friends flew in from all over the country just for her, and why not? She is fun and cute, and definitely entertaining.
I didn’t blog about AX2023 because it was not a good con, despite the best we made of it. Thankfully, the 2024 version of Anime Expo was much improved.
The new layout meant that people are more spread out. Additional entrances meant people flowed into the con during peak hour quickly–it took me about 30 minutes on Thursday around 9 in the morning. The exhibit hall pushed more vendors into the AA hall (Kantia) and spaced things out more. The R18 vendors also moved downstairs. It was easier to get around the hall than ever.
The badge-required space at the LACC expanded to include all of the front yard along Figuroa. The cross street by the Crypto.com Arena also belonged to AX for the entire time, not just on the weekend. It added more food vendor, drift space, and they put more performers there.
The autograph system moved online, and even after the snafu on day one when the printers failed, going barcode and ID check has been way superior. It seems even day-of tickets were distributed using showclix and email. The gnashing of teeth that was the 4pm-8am camp of yesteryear is done. We still got nasties like this but I am so thankful of these improvements. That said I only got a Kawamori Shoji autograph out of all this, because I didn’t really try for the others. I probably could have snatched one from Arifureta though…
In terms of content, we are closer than ever to Anime Japan on the industry track side, and there were still room for fan panels and side content to flourish. I think this year AX really struck that balance really well with the street MJ gang. There were rave/concerts from day 0 to day 5 of AX. I particularly enjoyed the One Piece Orchestra where Kouhei Tanaka belted out We Are along with Kitadani Hiroshi while the audience also sang along. Moments of Anibash reminded me of Mogra so much seeing Mizushima in the back vibing lol. It was chill and fun mixing during Constellation vol 5 on Monday, which gave me an excuse to hang out with local homies during the day on Monday/Tuesday. Hamu is amazing as usual, along with Teddy (a good set from him!) and Kotono House (the set was too mainstream for me but technically impressive).
Uma EN was a huge thing for me on my list at AX so I hit that Cygames booth the first thing on Thursday. I took videos of the whole thing but I think there’s no need to put it up anywhere, you can find it fine on Youtube. Cygames also had the party game in demo so I tried that, which is fun enough. That said Umamuusme fans are great, especially when I know half of these goofs having a blast.
I was able to drop by the usual IM@S gathering and appreciate a Matsuri cosplayer. Is this the power of anime?
On the industry side, it was wild seeing Sumipe doing her oversea stuff. Numerous others crossed path at the Entertainment Hall (like the gang promoting HypMic or moments when Mamo and KENN crossed path)? Sumipe’s anniversary panel allowed for photos at the end. She also ran into the crowd to hi-five people along the aisle. It was unhinged and fun. She also lucked out into a signed t-shirt for a fan.
I was able to see Seto Asami in person for the first time at AX, that was great. I also went to a talk from Aviot featuring Hirose Yuya and Wakayama Shion, which is this brand shilling character-voice earphones and headphones. They sponsored Kawamori also, along with two of the Gridman voice actors, so I saw them talk about Gridman and the Gridman headsets you can buy.
Otherwise, it still take some prerequisite camp time for every panel so it was hard to drift to multiple panels. In addition the schedule just had a lot of conflicts, so I literally saw Kuwahara Yuuki for about 60 seconds and Kito Akari for about 30 minutes. My greatest regret was skipping the Bocchi the Rock panel to go see the Game.
I watch MLB games casually so it was always on my list to hit up Dodger Stadium once. I go to LA often enough as is (second trip this year). When the Hololive collab dropped on AX Friday it was a sensible choice. It clashed with Anibash but the DJs I wanted to see was late in the day anyway. Then Aniplex dropped the shoe with Yoppi… Anyways, I don’t really regret it, the game was fun–Will Smith solo-dinging the Dodgers back from a Brewers Grand Slam was fun, and the home crowd responded well to the comeback win. What was less, well, well, was the massive buppan line for the Hololive collab merch. The baseball cards you get from going to the game sold for thousands of dollars on JP Mercari. It was wild. My friends stayed in the line for hours to get some shirts, and seems like the line to sell those shirts and hat went from gates opening until gates closed and people were kicked out.
— Donie Darko ?Gooba Shrimp? (@DonieDarko3) July 7, 2024
The drone show was great, so was letting the fans go on the field. What does it take to have a Gindaco in Yankee Stadium! Seeing and hearing Suisei (and Inotac lol) at a MLB game was surreal. Thanks LA Dodgers, I hope you learned your lesson and have more than 8 cashiers next time you do a Hololive collab.
I made time to drop by the Akiba Maid Wars collab cafe at Asayoru Little Tokyo Sunday, because there was zero conflicts on Sunday–there was literally nothing to do but maybe gawk at the charity auction. In fact we went to karaoke with friends until pretty late after the con closed. Anyways, the collab cafe was impressive, and Asayoru did a good job. Shoutout to our maid, Nana. I enjoyed the extended cosplay skit as it were.
In conclusion, AX2024 actually became not terrible. I always ding AX being the worst anime con in the USA because it’s a safety hazard from crowding and heat. This year it did much better on the first and somewhat on the second–still EMS had to come in for the CDawgVA/Ironmouse line, and someone passed out at the Cygames booth on Thursday (probably from exhaustion entering the con). It’s a big con, stuff like this does happen. But it’s all the more important that AX gets the fundamentals right. This year it seems it has taken a major leap away from the designation of “worst con” but time will tell how much better it can get.
Barely one month in, there’s enough about the Gakuen IDOLM@STER game beyond the pre-release hype cycle to talk about the first new brand for the IDOLM@STER series in 6 years. It’s fun! Also I need some place to flaunt my gacha rolls?
On that note, I was able to pull every P SSR thus far, except for Kotone’s current banner (Big Bang) and the base Kotone SSR. (I farmed the base Kotone P SSR since.) I guess the game and I are just not into her? It was not immediately clear to me why you would roll for P SSRs, but they do have stronger items, higher starting stats, and generally stronger special skill cards. Maybe the “end” goal in this game is also just PVP where you assemble groups of 3 teams going head to head with other idol teams. I don’t know.
A key thing about the game is that much of the game is locked behind the P level progression. This includes many powerful SR and SSR skill cards, not to mention the “pro” produce mode. What you can do in this game is different than many prior IM@S games, so it’s worth spelling it out a bit before going forward.
Most IM@S games you gacha for characters and outfits, but in Gakumas you gacha for outfit, music, and SSR skills. It’s more like IDOLY PRIDE in that the cast of characters are limited and they are outright available to play with, or close to it. Having the SR and SSR P cards do help make getting a good produce run easier, and you can make stronger memories.
Memories are the output of each produce run. Each memory carries with it a skill card that can be used in a subsequent run, a set of skills to boost your run when you use that memory, and a deck+items for PVP. Oh, you can also take a photo from the final performance of each run to use as the icon for that memory. So yes, the game surrounds memories.
The gameplay, being a roguelike battle card game, the skill cards are important as a tool to carry over on each run. There are some strats here where you play normal mode to get a B or B+ memory with just 1 SSR+ so you have a 50/50 rate to obtain the same SSR+ (or SR+) in your deck in the output memory. Rather than whatever a higher scoring run requires, if you aim low, you can get by with just 1 SSR. It’s something worth trying once you get a special card that you think you really want to keep, because you also have to thin your deck with various tricks yet still get as much stat as possible.
Playing it more normally, you’d want to just play a lot and hope the inherited (lack of a better term) skill card is the one you want, and upgraded if possible. At higher score levels you can get more boosts for your subsequent runs, so ultimately you want memories that have both skills you want and as many highest tier of boosts you want (and of the right types).
The split between (P)roduce SSR and (S)upport SSR was introduced through Shiny Colors, so it’s nice to see they basically carry that idea into Gakumas. In Gakumas both P and S SSRs are the same banner too, so it’s already quite a bit less exploitative than either Shinymas game. There is so far the base banner and the new banner, which has a rate up on the new cards, and seems like the new cards are not in the base banner. The free roll tickets also seems to only work on the base banner so I wonder how often they would update it…or reset the rolls on that.
Support SSRs are basically like memories, except they only carry either an item or a skill card, and have much stronger boosts that maps to the support card’s level. You need to earn blue support tokens to spend to level them up, which you get from achievements and runs, and the plethora of stores/kuji pools in the game.
From a gameplay perspective, this is Slay the Spire, IDOLM@STER version. Stats play a big role on your midterm and final scores, but winning the training games efficiently is also how you can get big stats. Having to carry less slots for gameplay means you can carry more slots for stats, also. But that’s pretty much it for that–we are gatekept by level 60 SSRs being so hard to obtain right now (as you need up to 5+1 borrowed).
From the usual content delivery machine point of view, Gakumas is unlike previous entries in that it’s a lot more anime-like. Maybe that’s just QualiArt for you, but the main commu is basically shuraba-kei writing from the OreImo anime scriptwriter, played out as a video that you can stepwise skip line by line. Some would say this is “Iori-core” especially with Saki being the lead Red character. Temari is a big dork and Kotone is more the audience perspective. The drama ensues. The game postures the character-specific commu based on affection levels which are unlocked by specific achievements. During a produce run you can unlock them in the middle of the run and it presents a continuous story to you. It’s got this “anime as you play” vibe especially when you get the “ending” commu at affection level 10, complete with a ED sequence.
Part of what makes it more anime-like is that there is a lot of interaction between idol from the get go. We have the head-turning move of introducing us to the True Red character, Ume, who is more of the archetypical main IM@S red character, then to show us that Saki is actually the main Red. After reading the SSR+level 10 commu for both Saki and Ume it became really clear that until late in the production process, Ume was really the main character and Saki was the ultimate rival. They switched it partly because Ume herself is a bit countercultural in the way she is like Saki, and ultimately Saki would make more sense as the main character if things played out that way. So yes, things are playing out that way. This is not to mention the wide spectrum of cast members. China, Hiro and Temari are all quite eccentric and their interactions with everyone are amusing. Well, I guess so are Saki and Ume.
It’s hard to not praise Gakumas for sticking to being an IM@S game yet going against the grain in all the right ways. Maybe it’s not perfect, but overall it is doing everything right. I guess the gameplay itself is a bit of mixed bag because it is Slay the Spire, which is a popular genre-specific game. I guess it is part of the 2020 zeitgeist with board games being more popular in Japan as well as with indie games, but I suppose it works.
And in a similar vein, while I put in about 40 hours in Slay the Spire before taking a hiatus, you can also hit the content cap by getting to level 10 affection for every character in Gakumas. It probably will also take roughly 30-40 hours! Not bad for a free to play gacha game where none of this is gated per se, it just takes longer without stronger cards. The time-limited events thus far are kind of not in a set pattern, and it all seems to be the trivial “get stronger by playing the game more” kind of thing. I guess we will see what the future brings and if this franchise has the sauce for longevity.
For what it is worth, I’m still not 100% decided who to oshi–still leaning towards Rinami because it’s what I like, but the Ume is the riceball rolling straight into my heart. It is definitely a good problem to have.
