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May 27 2008

Categories: anime, gurren lagann
Tagged: gurren lagann

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The obligatory loot post.

(Or as I like to call it, “I better write this down soon before I forget.”)

Well, the first piece of loot was also the cheapest. I got my name badge signed by Takeda-san and Yamaga-san after the first panel. Before I got that signed, no one recognized me. After I got it signed, I guess because people were looking at the signatures, people started going, “Hey, you write for Derailed by Darry!” Fortunately, no one asked me to do a “Yep… these are my readers.”

Every time I’ve been to a con, I’ve looked for a cell phone strap or a key chain that is cuter than the reigning champ: the Shia cell phone strap that I bought in Akihabara (on the left). Did I succeed? You judge. I tossed my gashapon Suzaku in there because I found one booth selling actual recent stuff, and they had this last Code Geass R2 gashapon… and I couldn’t help myself. If I got a Rolo, I might have given it away.

I didn’t pick up any DVDs, but I ended up buying more manga than I probably should have.

But the favorite thing I got from Fanime was my Revoltech Gurren Lagann model. It also comes with a core drill that many fans were walking around Fanime with. I took the model to the GAINAX meet and greet and got it signed by various members of the staff. My only disappointment was that the mecha designer, Yoh Yoshinari, took off almost right after it started, so I couldn’t get him to sign. And we only had about 40 minutes with the staff with like no translators there. (There were there, but they were too busy getting their stuff signed, which is understandable.) Other than that, it was fantastic. Most of the names I got during the initial introduction, but it was rowdy so a few weren’t clear. Plus, they’re Japanese names, so I had to romanize on the fly if I couldn’t find it on ANN.

The back was signed by Takami Akai, who was one of GAINAX’s founding fathers, but he works on the Princess Maker games and was responsible for the Gurren Lagann 2ch incident. Funny thing was that other GAINAX people said that Akai’s participation never wavered. My guess is that they just took him off the credits, and that’s it. They also joked that Akai quits and rejoins GAINAX a lot. He was very nice and seemed to love bunny girls. For everyone else, he drew bunny girl Nia. For me, for whatever reason, he drew Boota. Can’t complain. The bottom is from すしお, who is GAINAX’s self-appointed “super animator.” He’s like Pele with the one name. He’s also the key animator for pretty much all the battle scenes as well as the director for episode 15. Uh, yeah. I was excited.

The top has Hayatsu Ryota signing with the Gurren Lagann sketch. He does the DVD art and some in-between work for Gurren Lagann. I had a very broken conversation with him in Japanese about photography, and we traded yahoo.jp screen names. The blue one on top is from Watabayoshi Hiromi (sp?). He’s a design team manager (I think… can’t read my own frickin’ scribbles). The top black signature is from Kazuma Shudo (sp?), who is– tada– the guy in charge of making mecha toys for GAINAX. Once I handed him the box, he got really excited. He marveled at it a bit and said, “Wow, you got it here fast!” and “You have great taste!” His English was good, and then we talked a bit about how he spent $300 shopping for toys in San Francisco. He also laughed at Sushio’s sketch and told me that Sushio basically did the whole fight in the last episode.

The front was signed by Goto Nozomi. GAINAX seems to have a lot of young, female animators, and none over 32 years old. She did key art for Gurren Lagann, and I didn’t get much more info than that. She did a pencil sketch first.

The side has a blue Gurren-dan from Shigeto Koyama, who did a lot of design work for Gurren Lagann and Gunbuster 2. He’s not on the GAINAX staff. He knows a little English, and we talked about his visit to Boston and Los Angeles for other cons. (Otakon and AX, I guess.) I asked him which one was his favorite, and I didn’t fully grasp his answer. Below that (feint, since it was done with a not-so-great pen) is one of GAINAX’s most famous name’s… Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. Character designer for many shows including Evangelion, Gunbuster I/II, FLCL, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and Nadia. For Gurren Lagann, he worked on the manga as well as three cuts of episode 27. Very cool signature.

Needless to say, I’m bumping both my God Knows Haruhi and my limited edition Powered Natsumi off the shelf for Gurren Lagann. Now, just don’t remind me how much I overpaid for this Revoltech model in the first place.

I have like 25+ more photos and 10 pages of notes from the meet and greet, and I hope to get them up sometime in a coherent fashion.