Today was a little more relaxed and less hectic. Seems like there weren’t as many people crammed into the con either.

First thing I attended was the Bandai panel presented by none other than the President of Bandai USA. They have some interesting things coming out, but nothing that struck me particularly as a “gotta have it” at this point. Lucky Star really does look pretty funny though and The Girl Who Leapt Through TIme looks pretty cool. The biggest thing I wanted to find out was their schedule and plans for Hayate The Combat Butler, which sadly they don’t have much on yet. They basically showed the un-subbed episode opening, but that was at least exciting; their release plans are “Coming Soon” and “Sometime next year” at the moment. My pointed question to them was “Are they committed to bringing it out quickly AND completing the whole series of 52 episodes” and they affirmed they were. (I also made sure to get a public dig in against Viz since they seem to think it’s not important to complete what they’ve started.)

The highlights for me were having time to have some pretty nice conversations with Jerry Jewell, Justin Cook and Todd Haberkorn (not all at the same time). They’re all such great people and I really appreciate them remembering me and taking time to chat—yet another indication of the great work that Funimation does. High quality product, innovative distribution and very, very nice people who actually care about the fans. I hope everyone reading this who is an anime fan goes out and buys everything they can from them!

I also made the decision to sign up for another Bang Zoom Voice Acting seminar, this time with Tony Oliver on September 20. It was a bit more of a chunk of money than I have at the moment and will need to find someplace, but I have this feeling it’s important right now. It’ll be fun and a good experience.

So the con is winding down. I did end up buying another show—the complete set of .hack//SIGN for a pretty decent price. I really wanted .hack//Roots which I saw yesterday, but that’ll have to wait for a Right Stuf sale and preferably a complete series box set.

Tomorrow will be just a quick swing by in the morning, one last spin around the sales hall and another chance to thank and say goodbye to the great VAs one more time. As usual, I’m torn between wanting to stay to the bitter end of the con (they actually do have some cool stuff planned) or getting on the road before I’m stuck in bumper-to-bumper, post-Labor Day Weekend traffic all the way back to L.A. Usually my abhorrence of driving in traffic wins out…