Most of you must be wondering what I purchased at Metrocon. Well, the only thing I got was Asuka Shikinami Langley -Plug Suit Version- by Kotobukiya. I already own the Rei version of this figure, and Asuka was automatically a must have for me. I hope you enjoy this figure photo shoot.
It feels like someone is missing, but who?
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I'm finally back from Metrocon. I will say it off the bat, this year was not that great compared to previous years I have attended. However, something memorable happened to me this year.
I normally take a lot of pictures of the convention, but I forgot to pack my camera. I thought that I placed my camera inside the camera bag, I should have double checked. At least there was not that many well done cosplayers that I missed out on. Also, a tropical storm was pasting by Tampa. There was so much rain.
I will say it right now, I will never ever buy anything at an anime convention. The vendor's room was crap because almost everything was marked up by around 20% to 50%. Hell, I saw some guy trying to sell a Black Rock Shooter figure for $275 U.S. dollars. There were a lot more bootleg vendors this year. There was this old lady trying to sell me a bootleg Reimu plushy. Another vendor was selling anime wallets, the one wallet that stood out the most was a Bleach wallet with Luffy from One Piece on it. Metrocon needs to fix that bootleg issue.
There where a few okay panels this year but most were more targeted to female anime fans. I am a little disappointed that I missed the one panel I was waiting for, it was a Maid Cafe. It sucks that it was going to be opened for only 2 hours and the line was nuts.
I did managed to meet the author of the Cosplay in America book. Ejen is a really cool guy to have a great conversation with. You should buy his book, its really good.
As for the memorable thing, when I got to hotel with my girlfriend, I asked her to marry me. She said yes.
At the end of it all, the convention was okay, but it has a lot of room for improvement.
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By the time you are reading this post, I have already left to attend Metrocon. I normally leave on the morning of the convention, but I want to avoid arriving on the day of the convention already exhausted due to the drive. Another thing that I will avoid is driving because I'm taking a Greyhound bus.
Since I'm going to have a few days to relax before Metrocon, I'm going to check out the city of Tampa. It's funny that I have only gone to Tampa for Metrocon in previous years and never really explored the city. I will be taking my laptop with me and I will try to make posts if I can get an internet signal at the hotel.
There is some bad news. The two panels I was going to be a part of have been canceled. My panel "How to build an Arcade Stick" was canceled because I needed to bring my own tools for the panel. I know that the convention has a weapons policy and asked different staff members if it was ok to bring my tools. I never got an answer. So, to avoid getting in trouble, I had to cancel. As for the Anime 3000 panel, it was canceled due to some circumstances. If you still want to meet me, I will be in the AnimeBelle's Trivia Challenge on Friday at 4:00 pm in Ballroom A or just look for the guy wearing that backpack in the picture above.
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We have now reached the middle of July and its time to check out all the new figures that are up for preorder. Come on in and check out these new figures.
A few of these figures are pretty nice. It looks like Alter did a fantastic job with Fate. The Iwasaki figure looks really cute but is too expensive at the moment for me. At the moment I'm thinking of preordering either Taiga or Hachikuji. So, what are you planning to preorder?
For the debut post of Dissecting Fandom, I will cover the Moe fan. This is a psychological understanding of this type of fan.
To understand this fan, we must first look at his adolescence. There was one point in this person's life where something traumatic happened involving a person of a strong character. It could be rejection or humiliation of some form permanently hurting his ego. Now, if we go even deeper when psychosexual development(see Sigmund Freud) was at the Latency stage, this person's oedipus complex never dissolved and ended up in the unconscious mind. With these 2 factors, the Moe fan goes for anime characters who are sexually non-threatening to them.
I will have to say that there are 2 types of Moe fans. I will label them as type A and type B. Type A is devoted to a single character. This person loves this character and shows it by buying and collecting any form of merchandise with this characters image. All sexual desire will be focused on this single character as if they were in a relationship.
Type B is the more common of Moe fan. Type B will have the same habits as type A except, they view the character as an object of sex and once bored with said character, they will move on to another. The interesting thing, while they are satisfying unconscious sexual desires, they are psychologically evolving. However they regress back to how they once were when they move on to a new character.
So, what are your opinions or theories on this post?
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Well, This is the final part on my thoughts on the new summer anime season. In today's post, I will cover Strike Witches 2, Occult academy, and Asobi ni Iku Yo!
I missed Strike Witches so much. When I learned that a second season was coming out, I was filled with joy. I do enjoy watching Yoshika flying around in that outfit. I'm going to have fun with this anime.
The horror comedy Occult Academy is a little odd. The story is about Maya Kamashiro, she become the principal of a school that focuses around the occult after the death of her father. The thing is, she hates the occult with a passion and wants to shut down the school. The animation looks great, the plot interesting, and the characters are kind of cool. However, most of the humor comes from Maya's hated for the occult and her facial expressions to absurd things. I hope that there is more development with the plot in future episodes. 
At first glance, Asobi ni Iku Yo! looks like a silly alien catgirl meets weak kid and their crazy adventures anime. However, there could be potential that this anime be good. Within the first episode, it has been established that there are terrorist groups and the government are out the capture the alien catgirl. To make it more interesting, the close friends of the weak kid are secretly part of the government or terrorist groups who are investigating the situation. I'm hoping that it gets better over time.
So, what are you opinions on these three anime series?
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Well, sorry that I have not made a post in the last few days. My insomnia has kept me awake for over 72 hours and when I was able to sleep, I was out for about 15 hours. While I was awake, I got the craze idea to fix and change my blog roll.
I first removed all blogs that have been inactive for over 6 months. The blog roll was moved from the side to its own page. The reason why it was moved, it was kind of in the way and it made my site look cluttered. I reorganized the sitse in to three separate categories; Podcasts, Blogs, and Other. I am planning do to a banner exchange in the future.
The next three show that I will talk about in my summer anime preview are Seitokai Yakuindomo, High School of the Dead, and Sekirei -Pure Engagement-.
Seitokai Yakuindomo is about a young man joining his high school's student council, which is only made up of female student. Wait a minute, this is the exact premise to Seitokai no Ichizon. However, the male protagonist is not a creepy pervert who wants a harem but, he's a normal down-to-earth guy. Pretty much, there was an all girl high school that became coed and now male students are being allowed to attend. The comedy of this anime is a hit or a miss, because most of the humor comes from sex jokes done by the female members of the student council. I kind of hope that the comedy improves over time. By the way, there are vibrators in the opening.
High School of the Dead was one of the new shows i was excited for and it delivered. I'm a fan of George A. Romero's zombie films, and I could easily see the influence painted all over the first episode. I do know that the manga this anime is based off went on hiatus back in 2008 and I wonder what will be the direction of this show.
The first episode of Sekirei -Pure Engagement- picks up from where the last season left off. It reintroduce the characters and the story. Nothing else to say here.
So, what are your thoughts on these three new series?
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My original plan was to make an individual post for each new anime series that is coming. I had to scrap that idea because I'm watching 9 anime series this season. It would get boring if I had to do 9 individual reviews. So, I decided to cut it down and make 3 posts instead.
I found Okamisan and the Seven Companions to have an interesting first episode. Pretty much this anime is about a high school club who "fixes" problems within the at the request of the students. These problems could be beating a stalker or tailing someone. So, pretty much they're mercenaries but funny and cute. To me, it feels like this anime is going to be to one series that almost everyone is going to be talking about.
I have been waiting for Amagami SS. It's your standard romance anime based off of a visual novel game. However, this anime is different. Most series in this genre tend to cover the storyline of the true ending of the game. Amagami will not be doing that, it will cover all 6 storylines to each individual girl within 24 episodes. I like that idea because after an arc is over, the anime will reboot and we can see something new. The one issues that I'm worried about is the pacing because the first episode felt rushed.
Mitsudomoe, it has loli characters with an odd but cute character design. You will either love this anime or hate it. Just watch the opener, if you like it, you'll like this anime. 
So, what are your thoughts on these series?
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It is the first of the month and you know what that means, new figures are up for preorder. Come on in and check out these fantastic figures.
Every since figure in this post, I want to buy. The problem is, I'm still saving for Metrocon, a DSLR camera, a PS3 , and a Dreamcast. Figma Luka and Ami are hot. That Soso figure looks incredible and the detail is pretty sweet. I may preorder Nendoroid Saber because I find her to be really cute. So, which figure are you going to preorder?
