Otakon 2017 — Panels

David Cabrera
Aug 22, 2017 · 4 min read

I always try and take in at least a couple of panels at any convention I go to. You have to be picky, though. Don’t go to the fan panel for the most popular anime of the moment; always go to the fan panel for the obscure subject you’ve never heard of. Don’t go to the corporate panel unless there’s an important guest or a really good prize at the door.

Personally, I try to prioritize the Japanese guest panels. These are often people you will never see again. If you don’t get a Japanese PR-style presentation (“I’m excited about this project. Please look forward to…”) you will probably get some unique insight and stories about the actual creation of the works you love.

So let’s talk about the best panel, the one that Shiho Kakinuma runs. Kakinuma is a voice actress (her best-known role is the small role of Naru Osaka in Sailor Moon) and she happens to be married to the legendary Toshio Furukawa, who’s voiced so many major characters from DBZ’s Piccolo to One Piece’s Ace that it’s just too hard to list. Most importantly, these two are adorable.

I don’t know if Shiho wants photos of her maid costume out there, so I’m only going to post the first slide of the panel. “Vintage Japanese Anime Quiz,” complete with buzzer. The couple had brought a ton of memorabilia of their own characters, and they were giving it away for every correct answer. As the panel unfolded it became apparent by the extremely deep amount of content about Piccolo and Naru Osaka that like the prizes, almost everything was about a character Kakinuma or Furukawa had played.

It was actually a really good range of trivia, from basics (what’s this girl’s name?) to plot events (why did Videl cut her hair?) to really hardcore stuff like “What is the number that’s printed on the body of Kai Shiden’s RX-77 Guncannon?” Furukawa would raise his hand to every question about his own characters, and Kakinuma made increasingly silly “I can’t see you” gestures as the show went on.

The crowd handled their questions pretty well; a panel loaded with DBZ and Sailor Moon trivia is going to work out at a US anime convention, where we all know those better than anything else. The crowd had legitimate trouble with a few questions when the quiz dipped into Urusei Yatsura and Dr. Slump territory. The one that gave the crowd the absolute most trouble was “What does Taro’s family do?” They’re barbers. This appears pretty frequently in Dr. Slump, but the crowd just isn’t that familiar and hell, I forgot too.

Furukawa also told a story of improvising a DBZ battle cry by just yelling the name of what was in front of him at the recording studio. That was “Piano.” “Pianopianopianopianopiano!!”

There happened to be a few itasha in the dealer’s room. The Asuka one even had an Asuka cosplayer (the owner?) doing a race queen thing and posing all over it.

I got my prize on the question “An itasha is a car decorated with anime characters. What does the “ita” part stand for?” My response: “it hurts.” “Ita” is kind of an “ouch”, and you say it because you see the car and go “ouch, whatta nerd.” The Akibarangers also say that pain is power.

After the panel we told a friend that one of the questions was “What is the number that’s printed on the body of Kai Shiden’s RX-77 Guncannon?” and he instantly blurted out “It’s 108! What the hell! I coulda won!”

The second-best panel was with a veteran Sunrise writer who’d worked on pretty much every major anime adaptation from Gundam to Naruto to Inuyasha. This was his first fan panel, and he had the experience of a vet and no filter whatsoever, to the point where there was stuff in that panel I’m not going to repeat.

I will tell you that when asked about long anime, he specifically brought up Naruto filler and specifically apologized for it. His insight into that was pretty simple: it’s quite tough to keep writing stories for a character which obligate them not to develop as characters at all… for several years straight.

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I finished up my panel fun (and indeed, my Otakon) at Discotek’s panel, which is kind of a “people who know each other” in Anitwitter circles. First and foremost I wanted to say goodbye to people, but second, I’m always curious about Discotek’s eclectic and loving range of anime releases. I still don’t really like Bananya — it’s more an advertisement for keychains than a cartoon — but I was delighted to hear everyone’s buddy Mike Toole lend his radio voice to the narration. Their announcement of Robot Carnival though… oh boy am I ready.

The person I really regret missing was MAPPA’s Masao Maryuama, the actual human being who was dramatized in Shirobako as the kindly studio head. He’s been coming to Otakon for years and he’s always great. There wasn’t a “with Maruyama” panel on the schedule since he was showing off In This Corner Of The World, so I never got to him.

You will always miss something at the anime con; probably ten things.

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