Starting now, ending later: a summary / review of everything and everyone I did at Fanime 2009, for the purposes of entertaining the masses and enlightening future congoers on what I think is a good idea to check out. It’s how I found a couple interesting panels and things to do, myself.

There’s enough witticism to follow, so let’s get into it; this part covers all the panels and panellike substances I headed to over the weekend, in chronological order. If you have any questions or want clarification, feel free to ask.
Nerd Courting
+ Quite funny stories about anime conventions next to gay/lesbian square dancing clubs
- Not actually ‘How to Talk to Girls’ on crack
- Like most panels of its ilk, gets majorly off-topic and devolves into ‘nerds are cool’ circle-wanking
Rating: 23 out of 44 broken relationships. The panelists were reasonably funny, but if you ever go to these events looking for useful info and not just for entertaining stories and questions, you’re probably in the wrong place. Decent, but not three-hours-hours decent.

Local Bay Area Anime Fans
+ Good info if you’ve never been a local anime club
+ Handout for local anime club had Chinami Ebihara on it
- You don’t actually know who that is, do you?
+ Let members in the audience introduce themself, in what was a very relaxing free-form meeting, moreso than a panel
- Introductions took all hour, so if you were hoping for something other than a club meeting … eh.
Rating: 7 out of 10 Type-Es (hint, hint). There wasn’t a lot of substance, per se, but I learned about a lot of local clubs which I’ll be checking out, and the atmosphere allowed for us to meet a lot of interesting people.

Fan Sites: Going Professional
- I was asleep, sorry.
Rating: 1 out of 5 references to something that happened in the panel.

Meet the Anime Vice Squad
+ Free stuff.
- Icy didn’t punch anyone in the tit.
Rating: 3 out of 6 bottles of melted chocolate crack. To be honest, I don’t know much about Anime Vice, and the panel was geared more towards fans of the site. If you know more about AV (stop snickering, you in the back), I’m sure you’d enjoy this. For me? Eh.

Create that Anime
+ Flakkake.
+ 5 witty quips per second.
+ 5 -good- witty quips per second.
+ Basically flat-out, non-stop hilarity and ridiculousness.
+ MERMAIIIIIIIIIIID … TENTACLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLE … BUREEEEEEEEEAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
- Not for the weak of heart or those who like order and sensibility.
- No one took my suggestion for Create that 4Kids-Sanitized Anime or Create that Hentai.
- Ended.
Rating: 10 out of 10 rapes per second. And by rapes, I mean laughs. Great seller SSS+++ would create again.

Anime for Parents
+ Guy running this panel was seriously the most knowledgable, mature person I saw all weekend.
+ As a result, I was the most mature I was all weekend.
+ Atmosphere was very relaxed, allowing panel to be informative yet not stuck-up.
+ Parents were not paranoid of anime as ‘the tentacled monster’.
- Not enough parents to prove above statement.
Rating: 77 out of 80 anime I haven’t heard of, that I should have. Informative and soothing, mature yet lighthearted, this panel is … I don’t know … Aria? I’ll go with that. That will get enough people to believe that I enjoyed this panel. But likewise, if you’re not into relaxing, this panel isn’t the be-all end-all. But it’s a good start and gives me hope for the future of young anime fans (although all the parents here knew anime and were fans).

Visual Novels
+ Saw a boxed copy of Air.
+ Nearly everyone knew what they were talking about, resulting in high-level discussion.
+ They demoed Narcissu, which is something I reccomend.
- First VN they demoed was boring and stereotypical and had poor art
- Guy a few rows in front of me was more annoying and sarcastic than I usually am.
Rating: 3 out of 5 visual novels by Hirameki. Visual novels are essentially my lifeblood in anime, so I was both excited and disappointed by the panel. Because of the topic matter, I was instantly into it, but as a a result I had higher expectations. In the end, I don’t think I learned a lot of important things from the panel, but I feel enriched with niche trivia about games I don’t know. And about how many million Da Capo games there are.

Smile! You’re on Nico Nico Douga
+ Best opening to a panel ever, not going to exaggerate at all.
+ Found out some new video trends on NicoNico – ever seen Little Busters EX’s OP set to Russian Prime Ministers?
+ Enthusastic crowd sung the Nico Nico Ryuuseigun together.
+ Fills you with ENERGETIC PASSION.
+ Still convinced that zalas can’t screw up a panel.
- Some video issues, but I just needed to find something to harp on.
- I found out I don’t know half the words to Ryuuseigun.
Rating: 11 out of 11 \SHAMEIMARU/s (seriously, like a tenth of the crowd shouted that after a wave started). Nothing like embarassing yourself with a bunch of other anime fans who aren’t afraid to be embarrased, as well as basking in the general insanity that NicoNico brings. A definite must-see.

Restricted Rock, Paper, Scissors
+ ANDOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
+ Still strong, like last year; gameplay was solid and included zawa zawa soundtrack
+ I still have the best plans ever, except for real this time: made it back up to 5 stars with just 1, and ended up finishing 6th out of 50.
+ I wasn’t the only one with nefarious plans, either, which made for good mindgames.
+ Crushed a plastic cup with my bare fists.
+ Having the losers dance to Night of Fire was more amusing than the Lucky Star dance.
- Prizes for winners were just food this time, instead of loot. At least it was delicious.
Rating: 11 out of 12 SAHARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAs. Great fun if you know the Kaiji anime, and the atmosphere for newbies doesn’t seem too bad either. Interactive is cool, zawa zawa is cooler. Definitely for the scheming and cunning.

The Gong Show
+ Only had to stay 5 minutes before I ragequitted
+ Some of the horrible acts were funny, kind of
- None of the hosts were funny, kind of
- Basically felt like I was in 4chan or somewhere where trolls pretended to be funny but weren’t
- That is, like Create That Anime but where straight-up insults were ‘funny’, so not as amusing nor cool.
Rating: Gonged after 5 minutes, after all, no? If you have no pretenses about being ‘mature’ or perhaps enjoy seeing people intentionally act dumb and get insulted, you’ll have a great time.

Legal Anime in the US
+ Full title was actually ‘How Anime Comes to the US Legally’ (more or less), so wasn’t actually a raging war about fansubs.
- Not actually a raging war about fansubs.
+ Vaguely informative, with some useful tips I didn’t know about the industry.
+ Free stuff, including shot glasses potted-plant-holders.
Rating: 30 out of 50 groups illegally legally illegally etc subbing Haruhi Suzumiya no Keionbu. Learned some cool things, and the guy did a good job at wink wink nudge nudging us some info about the industry, but I feel like I could have just looked up a lot of the info.

Top 100 AMVs (24-1)
+ ‘Recollection’ was a really nice AMV, assuming that it wasn’t ripped straight from a visual novel.
+ lk has got me hunting for some elusive Kanon AMV which apparently features a bunch of real-life footage and looks really beautiful
- AMVs fell into two categories: Naruto and FMA.
Rating: 11 out of 20 emo rock songs. Not a waste of time, especially on a slow Monday, but … I don’t know Naruto or FMA, and I don’t particularly care for AMVs. There were a few good ones, and a lot are shiny, but as a whole I’m not massively impressed. A good time-kill, at least.

-CCY