The Comic-Con Post!

As expected, this year’s Comic-Con did not disappoint. The crowd was enormous, the exhibit hall was a blast, and the cosplayers were out in full force! But rather than explain everything in words, I took pictures to help give everyone an idea of the general craziness of this wonderful place. :D

BEST.  SORA COSPLAY.  EVER.  (* 3 *)

More cosplaying!

Obligatory shot taken from lobby escalator.

Even superheroes have to wait in line.

Really cool Ironman Lego statue!

I found Pikmin!!

POWDERED TOAST MAN! (you will only get this if you are familiar with Ren & Stimpy.  XD)

An Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag ship was docked outside in the harbor!

On the way to the Distant Worlds concert, the Ghostbusters drove by!

This familiar villain was seated at our table at the concert! Nothing quite compares to sharing a table with Kefka!

I had to buy the Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Chocobo plushie! Kweh!

On Friday I found Ironman! (Real this time, not Legos!)

I tried to capture just how big the Exhibit Hall is from the mezzanine, but I didn't get it all. Trust me when I say IT'S HUGE.  So many people!!

Well, that was most of my Comic-Con experience in pictures!  So much fun!!! I also got to say ‘hi’ to the wonderful voice actors, Tara Platt and Yuri Lowenthal for the third year in a row (they remembered me, yay!) Strangely, we got talking about books and writing and Tara had lots of helpful advice for me regarding publishing! Thank you, Yuri and Tara!!! :D 

The Distant Worlds concert was wonderful, too. Being in the front row was so awesome. Such a delight to see Uematsu-san and hear him sing “One-Winged Angel” with the choir again!  \(^o^)/

In other news, I’m trying to play all the Final Fantasies that I haven’t so far. Just finished FF II last night, so only III, V, and VI to go! (I also haven’t played X, but I’m waiting for the HD collection. ^_^)

Getting Ready for Comic-Con...

As much as I often bemoan the place where I live, it does have a couple of bright spots. One of those is Comic-Con. :D  It’s a frenetic four days of awesome (if you’re lucky enough to get a ticket). My friend and I have jokingly dubbed Comic-Con as “the place where dreams come true”.  It might be a slight exaggeration, but I have certainly seen things and met people I never would have had the chance to otherwise.

The first time I attended the con in 2008, it was a little overwhelming. I had never seen so many people in one place!  It was nuts. That year was a bit of a blur, but the highlight was going to Jeff Nimoy and Quinton Flynn’s Adventures in Anime panel, then meeting them in-person the following day. I still have their autographs sitting beside me on my desk. :3

I did not go in 2009 because of a bout of anemia, but 2010 more than made up for it.  Although I did not spend much time at the convention itself, I did go to the Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds concert performed by the San Diego Symphony.  Nobuo Uematsu was in attendance and I had the great honor of meeting him after the concert was over. 

In 2011, I got to meet two of my favorite voice actors, Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt.  I bought a copy of their voice acting book and they each signed it.  Later I went to a voice acting panel which included the very, very talented Dee Bradley Baker.

Last year, I had to visit Yuri and Tara again just to remind them how awesome they are. :D  I also went to a couple panels on writing and probably walked the length of the exhibit hall three or four times. 

I can’t wait to go this year.  The panels, the vendors, the venue, the people, the general craziness… I love all of it. I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures and make a special Comic-Con blog post!!!

I’m also attending another Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds concert that is being held this year! So excited!!! ^o^

In other news, I am playing the Final Fantasy XIV beta.  I haven’t really played an MMO since my Runescape days (sheesh, that was a while ago), but I’m having so much fun; I might have to pre-order the actual game. I also have an illogical amount of fun playing as my male Miqo’te character and randomly perching upon light posts and street signs. :3

A special thank-you to everybody who takes a second to come to my blog!  Anybody else going to Comic-Con this year by chance?  Or even the FF concert?

Blog Post: The Sequel! (a.k.a. my thoughts on E3)

Exciting, exciting things out of E3.  Trailers for Lightning Returns (Final Fantasy XIII-3), a trailer for Final Fantasy XV (formerly known as FF XIII: Versus), an official announcement for Kingdom Hearts 3, and more stuff about Pokémon X and Y!

I don’t care how many people are tired of Final Fantasy XIII.  Lightning is awesome, and with every new trailer I watch, my excitement for this game increases.  Too bad we won’t be able to play it for another eight whole months. Oh well. I’m kind of digging Snow’s new look as well, and I’ve never even really liked Snow that much.  He looks oh, I don’t know… haggard and world-weary?  Like a tough, broken man with nothing left to lose.  And I guess he is.  It’s kind of cool…? xD

The trailer for Final Fantasy XV… pretty much blew my mind. Those graphics!  Amazing!  The setting looks resplendent and original.  Also, it doesn’t hurt that Noctis is pretty. (* 3 *) Whaaa--?  I’m not creepy. You take that back.  Anyway, looks like I’m gonna have to figure out how to afford a PlayStation4 when the time comes for FF XV.

I never thought I’d live to see the day Kingdom Hearts III was announced! Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it’s how I felt, darn it.  I mean, it’s been SEVEN years since KH II, and in that time we got a bunch of handheld games (some a bit superfluous, some not), as well as a few remakes.  But just because we’ve been told KH III is in development doesn’t really mean we’ll see the game anytime soon.  I’m gonna go out on a limb and say we might get KH III within the next two years, but even that seems soon given Square-Enix’s track record with announcing things.  Still, I don’t know.  Maybe they’ll surprise me.  I’ve become quite cynical since the first game 11 years ago. That’s not to say my internal fangirl didn’t squee and dance about when Sora walked out on the beach and picked up the Keyblade in the sand. :D And are Heartless back in this game?  It looks like that was what Sora was running from through Twilight Town. Then again, it’s still too early to make assumptions.  So much stuff will change from here until then as the game is developed, but I greatly appreciated the little teaser. 

Lots of Pokémon stuff was revealed at E3 as well.  I like everything that I’m seeing so far, especially that Pokémon-Amie thing, despite the odd name. Getting to pet, feed, and interact with 3D renderings of my Pokémon? Freakin’ awesome. I feel like I've been waiting for something like that ever since I first started playing Pokémon 15 years ago.  Oh, and the new type is officially called Fairy type. Eh, I am okay with this. The one thing I just don’t really understand is why they have to convert Pokémon like Gardevoir and Marill to half Fairy-type. Why can’t Marill just be Water-type?  Why does it have to be dual-type?  Aaagh.  It’s seriously gonna give me a brain cramp trying to figure out how Fairy interacts with, what, like 16 other types?  My head hurts just thinking about it. 

So, those are all my thoughts about what I’ve seen from E3.  I really need to go in-person one of these years. Maybe next time. This year I’ve got Comic-Con to look forward to, which will likely have even more new stuff, video game-centric and otherwise, that I will report on as in-depth as I can.  Anybody else looking forward to a particular title showcased at E3?

Stuff that's going on (a.k.a. my first blog post!)

Hello!  For lack of anything better to blog about, here’s a list of some stuff I’ve got going on right now.

What I’m reading: Nothing at the moment, but I have Howl’s Moving Castle ready to go on my Nook, as well as a couple others. I just finished Let the Sky Fall by Shannon Messenger and enjoyed it very much! Now I want to control the wind like a sylph! :) 

Manga-wise, I read volume 15 of Pandora Hearts the other day, and it was heartrendingly brutal. (; 3 ;) To cheer myself up, I decided to read one chapter of Black Butler volume 13… but ended up reading the whole thing.  It’s Grell’s fault!  I kind of hope they get off the zombie-infested cruise ship soon… it’s been like three volumes already!  A change of scenery would be nice.

What I’m writing: Since finishing my third manuscript and editing it twice, not much writing has been done. I have been thinking hard about my next three stories, though.  I’m always intimidated with starting a brand-new story, especially when it comes to the world-building; if there’s a magic system, what are its rules?  Where does the story take place?  What’s the town called?  Is it rural, or more like an immense metropolis? Then there’s the whole other matter of the plot… and characters… it makes me dizzy. For now, I think I’ll try to focus on one thing at a time.  Yeah… easier said than done.

What I’m playing: Persona 4: Golden on the Vita for the second time.  Yay!  I’m about mid-July in it right now, just after the part where Naoto tells the group that the police have found the suspect. OR HAVE THEY?  Dun dun dunnn…

I’m also playing Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon on the 3DS, but I’m near the end I think. Luigi is awesome! 

Music-related stuff: I have six song arrangements ready to record. SIX. That’s an atypically-large amount for me.  They are all from the same game series-- one I haven’t even covered yet.  No, I won’t tell you which series.  It’s a surprise. :D  I will be sure to post the videos on here and Twitter when I get them uploaded to YouTube.

In other news, I am so excited about the upcoming Comic-con!  Yeah! (a special thank-you to my friend for the millionth time for securing my tickets after my laptop crashed during the ordering process!) I can’t wait to see what the schedule is for this year.  Alas, it probably won’t be posted for another month.

Well that’s about it.  If you managed to find my blog, thanks for dropping by!