Broccoli Books Blog

San Diego Comic Con
Day 1 (July 20)

Real-time report from San Diego~

My convention reports are usually retroactive reports, but we have free wi-fi at the hotel in SD. Not that we can’t pay for internet access, since we did at Anime Expo. But I’m also not as busy at Comic Con. No guests. No be-in-charge-of-a-busy-booth. Not a whole lot of meetings.

I’m getting 6 hours of sleep, which is a miracle by my 6+ years of con experience.

Today started with re-doing the entire Broccoli booth display.
Even though we had two days of set-up, there were lots of issues (unloading took 8 hours, we forgot some connector thingies, etc etc)… so the staff ended up doing a rush job.

Then president Kaname and former US-president (now VP of production of Broccoli Japan) Hideki both woke up late. So they had to rush to the convention center using a taxi. Because we had a meeting w/ Square Enix at 11am.

We met with licensing manager Mr A and two others from licensing and publishing to talk about Title X (E’S, if you already read Broccoli Book panel reports). And about the state of US manga market.

After that, I spent most of the day passing out KAMUI stickers. Production assistant Krystal worked on putting KAMUI tattoos on people’s necks. So if you’re in San Diego this weekend, come by the booth & get your tattoos. And ask “Are you production assistant Krystal?”

Oh, licensing manager Mr S from GAINAX came by the booth. So I showed him the Kaching brand Canti vinyl figures. He was very pleased with the actual size. He said it works well w/ the size of the FLCL dolls.

GAINAX licensing manager Mr S is a big big big toy collector, and he tries to make it to Comic Con every year. But he doesn’t know his schedule until the very last minute, so he just arrived earlier today & was waiting to check into his hotel.

I introduced him to the UART people, and he already knew UART production manager Kagitani-san. Apparently production manager Kagitani-san is a famous (infamous?) producer of figures, so anyone in licensing knows him. It’s a love-hate relationship, said UART president Hirai-san.

I had to head off to the Broccoli Books/Synch-Point panel, so I left them at the booth.

At the Broccoli panel, we actually had a pretty decent turn out. It’s surprising that we get a bigger draw at Comic Con than Anime Expo.

Freelancer S@ki took photos of the crowd, so I’ll post them soon.

So the main announcement was the license of E’S.
I’ve been a long-time fan of E’S, so I’m really excited about it.

Graphics intern Jessica is working on the images for the Broccoli Books website, so we’ll have an E’S section sometime next week.

Q&A related to Broccoli Books:
Q. Will there be a Juvenile Orion anime?
A. No plans, although we tossed around ideas about maybe making an OVA. In fact, start an online petition and get your friends to sign up. We’ll definitely re-visit the idea if there’s a real interest.

Q. How many volumes of E’S?
A. There are currently 13 volumes released in Japan. Vol 14 will be released in September & there will be a limited edition that includes a DVD w/ a promotional anime video of E’S.

Q. Will Broccoli Books finish the Di Gi Charat series?
A. Definitely. We stopped production b/c we thought it would be better to wait until the anime was released. Since then the book market has changed quite a bit, and we’re trying to find a good timing to release them. Leave it to Piyoko vol 2 production is completed & we’re ready to print at any time. Dejiko’s Adventure vol 2 is almost completed.

Then I reminded everyone to read this blog.
I found 5 of the 10 people who read this blog at the panel.

And I also told them about the Broccoli Books Fan Club mailing list.

Like I said before, there’s lots of give-aways (especially when we have guests from Japan). I wonder if it’ll be a big thing if we can get Sakurako Gokurakuin to sign the Juvenile Orion illustration book when it comes out. Okay, time to talk to Broccoli US licensing staff Z.

After the panel, I got to talk to the press folks.
And I finally got to meet Osaka Ed of AnimeOnDVD.
(who reads this blog regularly, but never comments. bu~)

I headed down to the Broccoli booth.
Great Eastern president Kent and AAA Anime president Richard were hanging out at the booth. So I talked to them for a while. Naruto vs Bleach. Hey, let’s talk about Di Gi Charat or something!

After that, I had to go back to the hotel to drop off all the extra boxes of merchandise in the mini van, so we can have dinner with the Square Enix staff.

Multi-media manager Kurashige-san wanted udon as soon as he stepped onto the plane at Narita, so we found a Japanese restaurant nearby. The staff are 100% Japanese. The dinner was 75% Japanese.

Like me forcing them to eat Philly roll (cream cheese & salmon roll). Or trying out the chicken tempura (a lighter fried chicken). Of course we ate normal Japanese food too.

Kurashige-san ended with udon. And the rest of us ate ice cream.

So that was my day.
I have NOTHING planned for the rest of the convention, so I might roam around & bug other industry people who are busy.

I heard former anime-dude Jerry Chu is around.
He never called me. Time to give him a guilt trip.

Geneon marketing dude Stephen came by the Broccoli panel. But I didn’t get a chance to talk to him, so I have to hunt him down.

Voice actress Jennifer Sekiguchi is coming over tomorrow, so maybe I’ll hang with her a bit. Oh, visit her website at http://www.jenseki.com.

Time for bed~

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 20th, 2006 at 11:34 pm and is filed under Convention. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.