Day 1 of AB2013 over, looking forward to tonight and tomorrow!

Before I begin, check out the video game and Anime recaps I did for specifics in those areas.

Opening Ceremonies set the tone for the year’s convention and in a big way. It opened with remarks on what happened at the Boston Marathon last month. It then went right into Guest of Honor introductions. Strangely, A-Chan and B-Kun (Anime Boston’s mascots) were not there. I did see them 30 minutes before Opening Ceremonies on the second floor, though. Based on the videos I’ve seen so far they’re definitely around, which is good ^_^

After opening ceremonies the Dealers’ Room opened up. Comicopia and New England Comics–both having a location in Cambridge–were back this year. They have the best deals on Manga and the largest inventory compared to the others. As I said on my Game Blog I bought a Game Boy Advance SP and 2 games from Level Up Gaming in the Dealers’ Room. I also bought 2 Anime sets from another vendor in the Dealers’ Room. I will also be buying Manga tomorrow before my 11:30AM Panel (Fanfiction: Because AU Can Be Fun) so that I won’t be running up and down the Hynes during the 30 minutes between my two panels or the 30 minutes after my 1:30PM panel (ends at 2:30PM) trying to get buy Manga before the Dealers’ Room closes at 3:00PM.

Anyway, after buying those I bought an Anime Boston Hoodie and T Shirt. I will be wearing the Hoodie tonight and the T-Shirt tomorrow. I had lunch at Wagamama in the PRU. I then ran back to the Hynes and upstairs to David Matranga’s panel in Panel C. Yes, the same room I will be having my Clannad panel in TONIGHT at 8:00PM–I get excited just thinking about it!–was the room where Dave had his panel Friday. After the panel I personally invited him to come to my Clannad panel. He said he has a prior engagement around that time but he’ll come for as long as he can.

He also talked about his cameo on CSI. Here is the clip on You Tube:

If you didn’t know who he was at the time that’s normal. Despite his impressive resume as an Actor and  Voice Actor he’s not as well known as, say Luci Christain or Greg Ayers (both of whom he’s worked with several times). One interesting thing of note he mentioned that many people outside the industry may not be aware of is how difficult voice acting actually is. It’s rare all of the voice actors are in the same room together and even rarer they even know about the character they’re dubbing ahead of time. Unlike live actors there’s no guarantee you’ll be called back for another project, more so if you’re an unknown.

David did offer some tips to someone looking to get into voice acting. The first is figure out how you sound, record yourself, build rep and THEN look for work. Most people usually jump to the last step not really understanding there is a process involved if you wanna be taken seriously. If you want to dub Anime it would also help to live in Texas or at the very least, near Houston. That’s where Funimation and Sentai Filmworks are based. Concidentally, David and Luci Christain are both Texas natives and they both live in or near Houston. I’m not looking to become a voice actor professionally but I will do the first two steps today just to see how I sound as different character types.

Moving on, after the panel I walked around the Dealers’ Floor for about an hour. I ended up buying a hat after spending 45 minutes chatting with some of the vendors. At 4:00PM I went to a panel called Fanfiction 201. As soon as I made it known to the panelist I was doing a Fan Fiction panel on Sunday in that same room (Workshop 313) at 11:30AM, things got interesting. The panel was for intermediate-level writers but I did see a bit of overlap with what I’m going to do tomorrow. Nothing major though now everyone else who was there knows to come to my panel tomorrow!

After that panel I walked around for the next 3 hours before calling it a day. I found out yesterday the hard limitations of my iPod touch’s camera in terms of video length and photo quality. I’m buying a digital camera next month for taking high-quality pictures and video. I also had my 3DS and all 16 of my games with me. I was constantly refreshing the Streetpass ques for the Mii Plaza, Fire Emblem Awakening, Kid Icarus: Uprising and Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy throughout the day. I finished one puzzle, got another through Spotpass and will soon finish two more at the rate I’m going.

Finally, I’m offsite for a few more hours. I live in Boston so I’ll probably have to give myself extra time due to how the MBTA runs on Saturdays. Getting back will also be tricky since it’ll be well after 11:00PM when I leave for the night. I’m not in a hurry since I am going to be bringing my Swap Meet items and a stack of surveys for today’s panel as well ^_^