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Category: Anime

Youmacon 2009 report

When I wasn unable to attend this year's Youmacon, longtime reader Patty Hammond offered to be my eyes and ears. And boy, did she deliver.

It sounds like the event was a rousing success, and here are her impressions (along with lots of photos and some Youtube videos -- Caitlin Glass as "The Little Mermaid"!)

Voice actors

Caitlin Glass is very excited to be an ADR director for "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood," which has just started the dubbing process. She also sang three songs during her panel with Dave Kitsberg from the Spoony Bards accompanying her on guitar.

Laura Bailey showed an episode of "Soul Eater" during her panel, and she starts her dub work for the role of Lust on "FMA: Brotherhood" this week in Texas.

Travis Willingham did a special signing in one of the panel rooms for those attending either Laura's panel or his panel because there were so many people in line for autographs that they had to cap the line at 100 before anyone who was attending either of these panels could even begin to line up.

The con itself

They Hyatt Regency Dearborn was so crowded, elevators became an issue, and some guests were late to their own panels. There was a good variety of dealers, and they had to impose a strict limit on crowds.

Manga presentation

The manga-ka team Konohana Sakuya (Kohei and Tsugumi Nishino) did a special presentation about the industry in Japan and about the production process. It was a very interesting presentation and showed many aspects of the manga industry. They also took the time to answer questions from aspiring artists on such topics as types of pens and paper used, how best to utilize computer technology in the process and the three paths to becoming a published manga artist:

1. Be an assistant to an established manga artist

2. Be a Dojinshi artist

3. Submit a manga story directly to the publisher, usually through the monthly contests (this is how they got their start along with the artists for "Naruto" and "One Piece").

Be sure to click on Patty's user name to see more of her videos from the con.