hiidenkonttibeta

If Finncon was not as interesting as last year (for me, that is), Animecon (arranged at the same place at the same time) was even better than last year.

The first Animecon program I attended was “Kristinusko animessa” panel, which was so-and-so, and crowded. The second one was Markku Mulari’s lecture “Samurai japanilaisessa animaatiossa ja sarjakuvassa” which was interesting and crowded:

In the end of the day there was about two hours long Anime Music Video competition. There was a few really nice ones, but most of the “comedy” category videos weren’t too comical.

Sunday was the great day: yoshitoshi ABe’s guest of honour speech was of course the highlight. There was at least three Haibane Renmei characters in the second row:

ABe told how he got into drawing manga and anime, a little bit about the series he’s made, and displayed some of his pictures and video clips:

Clockwise, from upper left: Lain, Texhnolyze (apparently not yet released in the west?), and two pages from some new work the name of which I either missed or he didn’t mention it. I’m definitely looking forward to it!

Two hours after ABe there was another great presentation: Jonathan Clements told about “Early anime and manga”. Clements was in last year’s Animecon too, and he was great this time, too. He showed us some rarities, like Japanese propaganda anime from 40′s.

Of course I took photos of the cosplayers – but far too few, and with a real camera (the film is being developed) so I don’t have any pictures to share now. But here’s a teaser, a maid playing Dance Dance Revolution: