Summer of Anime (Expo)! The Panels

Anime Expo, or AX, as it is known to its fans, it's Los Angeles biggest Anime expo, taking over all of the Los Angeles Convention Center and showcasing anything anime related, with panels, signings, movies, after hour dancing, cosplaying, you never have a dull moment on 4th of July weekend! 
Unfortunately, we can't all be all places at once, so we will concentrate on what we did get an opportunity to attend. 
Every year there is that one "must go" panel, and this year wasn't the exception. We made our way to the Overwatch panel, where we got a full hour with  lead writer Michael Chu and voice actors Anjali Bhimani (Symmetra), Charlet Chung (D.Va), Fred Tatasciore (Soldier: 76), Jonny Cruz (Lucio) and Keith Silverstein (Tjorborn). The energy was very high, with fans laughing and engaging the panelists throughout. They talked about what they do for inspiration, what type of music they listen to, pineapple and pizza? All in all it was a fun hour.

Overwatch Panel

After Overwatch, we went to the Attack On Titan Panel with the Japanese voice of Mukasa,Yui Ishikawa, the English voice actor Trina Nishimura & Producer George Wada for an hour talk about the show, showing clips and talking about the difference between the English and Japanese scripts and comparison between the manga and the  show, which contained lots of spoilers for season two!  

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After Attack On Titan, we went to our last panel of the day for Resident Evil Vendetta:

After the film, panelist included Kevin Dorman (Chris Redfield), John DeMita (Glenn Arias), Alex Von David (ADR Director), and Mami Okada (Casting Band Zoom! Entertainment) came out to talk about the film and have some fun with the audience. We were all glad to have another entry on the animated version of the series, got to hear how it all came to be and what to expect from the future of the franchise! 

More to come on day 2 of Anime Expo! 

Photos by Lauren Label
Text by Humberto Sandoval

LA Auto Show Kick Off Party

If you know LA, you know its car subculture, after all, it was the car industry that got rid of LA's public transportation back in the day. But for those that don't care about history but about the newest and the best cars coming out, the LA Auto Show has been around since 1907, not in its current form, but in a less showy incarnation.
Nowadays, the AutoMobilty LA is a four day press and VIP event that lets the press experience the LA Auto Show without the riff raff, with drinks and special tours given for further comfort.

Another one of the privileges press gets is attending the Kick Off Party, in which there were no stops pulled! All kinds of food were available to try, meats, pork, chicken, beef, desserts, fruits, even donuts! And drinks, there were open bars all over the place as well! For entertainment you had Cirque De Soleil style performances, dancers, jugglers, DJs and a Cuban band playing. This was the place to be!

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KCon 2016

If you walked by the Staples center this weekend, you may have seen a mini food festival going on at LA Live. Lots of Korean delicacies from local and known vendors were available as part of KCon, which took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from Friday, July 29 to Sunday July 31.

What is KCon? Well, it's a celebration of all things K-Pop!
What is K-Pop? Hmm... well...

For those not in "the know", and from the look of the attendees the target audience is girls from 12 to 17, "K-Pop" is "Korean Pop", which, as its name describes, it's a musical style that, if you've ever been to Koreatown in Los Angeles, you'd know. Their music videos are always blasting as you're eating your All-You-Can-Eat BBQ, and if you haven't... what do you have against BBQ? Well, for the vegetarians out there, here's what KCon was all about!

Created in 2012 and expanding to NY and  Japan last year, the convention lets fans of the genre close to their stars, having different groups performing throughtout the three days such as Block B, Gfriend, TTS, BTS, Monsta X, as well as panels such as "A Day in a life of a Kpop youtube Superstar", "Korean celebrity inner beauty secrets", "How do you Hallyu" (beats me as well, should've gone to check out the answer). Movies were also shown, but the fact that they used a curtain to divide a room that had panels with the screening room, and that they didn't dim the ligths, made watching a movie unbearable, as you could hear the sound of panel next door.

Now if any of that doesn't grab your attention there's also the exhibit hall, where the sponsors sell/give away/demonstrate their products, with the target audience being the main focus as 60% of the sponsors were for beauty products. They also had some dancing contests, you could try some sauce on dumplings, take a 360 photo, experience VR, but, principally, buy K-pop products. There were dancing lessons as well as a small stage for some featured bands.

This is KCon in a nutshell, and from the look of the long lines and the excitement in the faces of the young girls at the Convention Center, it was also a fun time.