Anime Weekend Atlanta 2013 - ZUN, Asakawa and Iwata, Furukawa

Earlier I said I'd detail what I remembered of Iwata and Asakawa's panel in its own post, as well as what I remember of ZUN, so here it is.

I can actually start out with ZUN, though, since it actually will be the shortest I'll talk about. As it turns out, I came across another post on another blog that remembered more from ZUN's panel than I do, so I think I can just refer you to that one. More or less, in a few bullet points...

• Guys get in the way in Touhou games, so no guys in the games.
• Favorite beer is Kirin, and is asked this question a lot.
• Thinks that in America, the meals are too big, and the beer too small.
• Advice for aspiring game developers: just finish that game.
• ZUN draws from his own experiences himself for his own games.
• Doujin developers need to learn from what they and others have done in the past.
• Noticed that around 90% of Touhou cosplayers were guys.
• Also noticed that most those guys were cosplaying as girls.
• To note, I only saw two Rinnosukes (only male in Touhou), other than myself.

Link: http://www.wordofthenerdonline.com/zun-awa-panel-recap/

And with that, I'll get on to what Iwata and Asakawa talked about.

... However, I must admit I don't really remember much of what Asakawa said. For some reason, she didn't leave a big impression on me, and part of me kinda wonders what she thought about Atlanta as a whole. Either way, what I remember about what she said... was that sometimes she'd get pretty bored waiting for things to come in for her to do. Maybe she didn't have anything else, and decided to take AWA up on their offer because it was something to do. She does speak English somewhat decently, and switched back and forth between it and Japanese whenever she talked, but her Japanese accent is pretty heavy.

Asakawa is a pretty big fan of Resident Evil as well and was mindful enough to refer to it by its English title while in the States. It's something she does in her spare time, and also something she uses for stress relief. She also likes beer, which she also uses for fun and stress relief. I wonder if she and ZUN had a drinking contest? I'd have liked to see that.

Iwata... a lot of people know him as the voice of Kaneda from the movie Akira. What people might not know about him is that he got that role relatively early in his career. It turned out to be the role he needed to get everyone in the industry looking at him, though even he didn't know how popular the movie would be at the time. The thing is, he actually had an audition for another voice not too long before he took the one for Kaneda... which he failed. Had he succeeded in that audition, he might have never tried out for Kaneda, and might have never got his name out there.

For some reason, Iwata has some strange obsession with Target. As in, the super-cheap general store, Target. Don't ask me why, but he was shown the place (along with Asakawa) when he got here, and got to the point where he says he wants to live there. In the Friday panel, he and Asakawa actually got matching shirts and showed them off during the panel... though it was obvious that the shirts were both lifted from the women's clothing aisle, including the one Iwata wore. Maybe he lost a bet.

I think it was mentioned that Iwata did some acting as a child, and that one of his roles then was Peter Pan. Fast forward to when his voice acting career got started, and he managed to land the role again, as the official Japanese voice. He later went back to Target and found a Peter Pan outfit to give to his son for Halloween.

Speaking of his son, he loves Pokemon. Apparently, his son will constantly pester him about two things: wanting to go to the Pokemon center, and that he wants Pokemon X and Y. Iwata asked for our opinion on which his son should get at the panel, and I think the loudest of us said to give him Pokemon Y. So that's what Iwata's going with for now... though he said that he'll get him the other one for Christmas, since he's sure his son will start whining about not having both games sometime around the end of the year.

He will admit his hobbies are a little more lame than most people would expect, though. He likes going to religious shrines and churches of all kinds, and is also a bit of a coffee and tea connoisseur. When he's stressed... or when he's just milling around the house during the day, he does a lot of housework... except for cooking. Apparently he really likes folding laundry and cleaning utensils, and thinks himself a better housekeeper than his wife.

And finally, he has no success in ordering anything in English. The one time he thought he got through, he was trying to order a coffee. When he got his order, he ended up with a cola, and a large one at that. He then was quite perplexed - how did he get a cola instead of a coffee, and what in the world would a Japanese person do with such a large drink? I don't think he ever found an answer.

Iwata does like America, though. He said that he feels that people are a lot more open and gung-ho about their otakudom here, so he feels more free to express himself here.

I suppose I'll also say what I heard from Furukawa, though it was brief, and in the Sayonara, AWA panel. I only have one fuzzy picture of the man, and that's it right there.

First thing that struck me as funny, was that he referred to Iwata as, "Iwa-chan." I guess they're good friends, to be able to talk to each other like that.

Why he came to Atlanta was a little interesting as well. From what I remember, he's been in the States (on tour?) before, and is aware of the culture behind the city. So he was already interested in Atlanta from a historical perspective. Then he heard Iwata was going, and thought to himself, "I have to be there, it will be great."

When times are tough, he says the best medicine is time with his wife, who did actually attend and was in the audience at the panel. Contrast this to all the other three guests who had beer or alcohol in their answer somewhere. ^_^

... And that's the AWA 2013 Japanese guests. Not really straight from the horse's mouth, but enough to know a bunch of stuff they talked about when they came here.