Saturday kicked off with two simple and fun panels. “Kaiju 101″ ran down the origins and history of the genre, drawing connections to the films of Ray Harryhausen, and touching upon some of the most important reoccurring themes in them such as something big stepping on something small. This was followed by “All the Mecha You’ll Ever Need,” which was packed and which was essentially a trip through the history of the mecha genre with an eye towards classic series such as Mazinger Z, Tetsujin 28, Mobile Suit Gundam and more. It was a nice primer for the genre, though I get the feeling that they weren’t a whole lot of new mecha fans in attendance.

Afterwards, I spent some time in the Dealers Room before heading towards “Panel to the West” hosted by Mike Toole. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this; a panel on Journey to the West could go in some many different directions that it’s not even funny. Things got off to a rough start and apparently Toole had been plagued with technical problems all day. Computer issues had forced him to run off to Radio Shack, something else had happened which forced him to borrow a friend’s computer, then when the panel started there were some audio problems too boot. Despite the stumbling blocks he encountered, Toole still managed to put together an interesting and enlightening panel which covered the history of Japan’s obsession with Journey to the West. The basics of Monkey’s (Sun Wukong, Sun Goku, etc.) tale were touched upon before the discussion went into the various anime and live action series that it inspired, going from the obvious Dragon Ball series, to Monkey Typhoon, to Goku the Midnight Eye and more. It ended with the introduction used by the BBC for their 2008 Olympic coverage, an animated video created by Albarn and Hewlett featuring various characters from Journey to the West. It was a fantastic video and since then I’ve tracked it down on Youtube. It’s definitely worth a look.

Following a quick food run I headed off to catch the Funimation panel. Once again it was hosted by Adam Sheehan who kicked things off with some charts and graphs showing an increase in the number of their releases from last year. He also reassured the attendees that despite the current economic climate, Funimation was going nowhere. This was followed by the usual plugs for their various online endeavors: blogs, twitter, website, digital distribution methods, etc. Finally we got to the upcoming release info and trailers. For the most part they were the same things shown at the “Funimation Previews” panel on Friday, but they did scatter in a few other trailers for previously announced shows. The Last Exile, One Piece: Season 2 Part 1 and Shin Chan: Season 2 Part 2 were a few things that turned up here but not at Friday’s panel.

Sheehan also plugged the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and One Piece streams, and took a moment to mention that Funimation is aware of the buffering problems with the videos on their site and are working to fix them. He then went on to talk about the Fullmetal Alchemist: Premium Collection OVA which is on the way, complete with the reunited original English dub cast. They’re hoping to get it out sometime this summer, possibly even in time for the San Diego Comic-Con. Also on the menu is the long-awaited release of Sgt. Frog Season 1 Part 1 in September, and Sheehan assured the crowd that this would be coming untouched, with all the Gunpla and other Japanese pop culture references in tact. At that point the two big announcements were made. First off was news that Funimation has picked up Spice and Wolf and are aiming for a late ‘09, early ‘10 release for it. This was followed by the Evangelion 1.0 announcement, complete with ADR Director Mike McFarland making an appearance to list off the English dub cast for the series.

As the panel began to wind down Sheehan took a few quick questions. Apparently, the version of Evangelion 1.0 being used will not be the current international version that some folks have been complaining about, and while they currently only have the rights for the first movie they are working to get the others as well. As people began to leave someone asked about the new Slayers series, to which Sheehan said they were hoping to get the original English dub cast back together for it, but that it was still to early to say whether or not that would be possible. After the panel I was able to ask Sheehan about the live-action Ichi movie, something I’ve been interested in ever since it was first announced in Japan. According to him it’s tentatively slated for next spring, so I guess I have something to look forward to.

At this point I was faced with a small dilemma. I wanted to catch the “Edogawa Rampo” panel at ten, but it was eight and there wasn’t anything between eight and ten that really piqued my interest. After some wandering I settled into the Swap Meet. For those Boston area folks looking to get rid of their manga, anime or anything else that’s manga or anime related, the Anime Boston Swap Meet is definitely for you. Aside from the standard manga and anime, some of the items present included a MPD Psycho/Bride of the Water God two sided poster, decks of Pokemon cards, classic NES games, T-shirts, and there was even some guy trying to get rid of a broken Hello Kitty mouse (it was missing the ball). There’s definitely a certain randomness to it, but it’s still worth checking out if you’re looking to clear out some of your collection.

Finally, I made it to where the “Edogawa Rampo” panel would be held, and plopped myself down on a bench before burying my nose in some manga. Before I knew it ten o’clock rolled around and it was time for the panel.

The “Edogawa Rampo” panel was sparsely attended; I counted fewer than a dozen people in the room. Still, the presenter, CapyBaron, was incredibly well informed about Rampo and came equipped with a slide show and several untranslated novels and manga based upon Rampo’s work. The small number of people in attendance made these doubly useful as show and tell items since everyone was able to get a chance to peruse them. For the next hour the host went into detail about the various factors informing Rampo’s work, ranging from the political climate at the time, to earlier works and cultural trends he would have been exposed to, to the work of some of his contempories. By the end of the panel the host had done a fantastic job at painting a portrait of the era that informed Rampo’s work, while touching upon several of the prevailing themes in them as well. All while fielding bizarre questions from one attendee regarding Japan’s involvement in World War II.

Sunday rolled around and everything was beginning to wind down. The Dealers Room was offering some fantastic final sale prices promotions, with New England Comics “Buy 1 get 1 half off” being the best on the floor. Also worth noting was the booth handing out free Manga Sutra previews to anyone with valid ID. How could one resist the screams of “Free porn!” that filled the hall? The panels were pretty scattered and nothing really jumped out at me with one exception. The “State of the Industry” panel.

The “State of the Industry” panel was something I was looking forward to as I’ve never actually attended one before, but have enjoyed reading the various reports about them from other cons. After waiting a few minutes in a short line the con staff opened the doors and allowed folks in and… nothing happened. For several minutes people came in, sat down, and some con workers and one other man milled around at the front of the room. Finally the man grabbed a mic and introduced himself as Neil Nadelman and quickly explained that he was a freelance translator and that he’d take the mic and do what he could until the panelist showed up. They never did. The panel ended up being Neil Nadelman, who latter said he wasn’t scheduled for the panel but showed up in the hopes of taking part in it, and Eric Stehmer from Toonzone who Neil pulled from the audience. For the next hour or so the two fielded what questions they could about the industry and the direction it was going in and did a pretty good job given the circumstances. Most of the discussion ended up focusing on the various means of digital distribution and how viable it might be, getting into the nitty gritty about payments for episodes, possible methods, the old Sony DVDs that had a limited life span, and so forth and so on.

What exactly happened to the other panelists and just who were they? I’m honestly not sure. During the brief period before Nadelman took the mic there were a lot of questions and mutterings about what was going on by the crowd, and even afterwards there was speculation as to who was supposed to be on it but never anything official. It was an interesting experience to say the least, and frankly if it wasn’t for Neil Nadelman we all would have been sitting there twiddling our thumbs for an hour wondering what the hell was going on. I can’t thank Neil Nadelman and Eric Stehmer enough for stepping up and providing some sort of discourse, even if it wasn’t exactly what had been expected.

With the panel finished there wasn’t much else to do but go home, and thus ended my second experience with Anime Boston. I have to say that I enjoyed it a lot more than I did last year. Spreading out the various panel rooms over a wider area and doubling the size of the Dealers Room made getting around far easier. The few times lines formed for panels or events the staff seemed much better prepared and right on top of the situation, as compared to some of the confusion of the previous year. So kudos to the entire staff of Anime Boston for recovering from the 2008 debacle in amazing fashion!