Fanime 2025: Cthulhu is Dead, Long Live (Not) Cthulhu
It’s the most wonderful time of year again. With all of my work commitments sorted at the last minute, I was VERY ready to enjoy Fanime this year. Which I did on Thursday since I didn’t have spend most of the afternoon wandering around downtown looking for an ethernet cable. Instead I caught a screening of “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning” at the nearby IMAX dome. While the movie was great and the action benefited from the extra-large screen, its curved nature meant I was struggling to focus on everything in front of me while I was watching.
After that, picking up my badge went off without a hitch and I had the whole evening to relax and prepare myself for the onslaught of panels, cosplay, and fanart to take in over the next four days. Which consisted of:
The Society For the Eradication of Gen 5 Pokemon
FanDUMBS: A Fair & Balanced Analysis
What are fandoms and why do they suck so much? That’s the thing chief Society instigator Max and his co-panelists, Mams and Kay, were looking to explore with this panel. This is after demonstrating their own shameful fan histories – like Max’s history as a Russia cosplayer for “Hetalia” and Kay’s prodigious “Fire Emblem” fanfic output – to let us know that they were the right people for the job. So they traced the origins of fandom from the Canterbury Tales in the 1400’s with its live readings, fanart, and unauthorized sequels/spinoffs, to the polite fan outrage that greeted Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when he killed off Sherlock Holmes and forced the writer to bring his character back lest he face personal and financial ruin.
Trekkies, however, are the precedent for our modern fandom and if you’re thinking that this is a more serious and focused panel than the Gen 5 people usually deliver, you’d be right. There’s an accounting of anime fandom through anime conventions with its Yaoi Paddles and Anime Boston Incident (it involved Axis-themed Hetalia cosplayers and a Holocaust museum) and the Homestuck infestation and its modern analogue in Genshin/MiHoYo fans. It wasn’t the kind of panel that you’ll want to source for your academic paper on fandom, but it was informative, funny, and provided catharsis for its panelists after the awful Hazbin Hotel panel they sat through a few months back. In the end, they concluded that there was only one truly good and not-terrible fandom: The one for the “Jackie Chan Adventures,” because of course it is.
Yog-Sothoth for School Board
In a continuity mind-bender for this write-up, this panel came right after “(Not) Cthulhu for President” and even featured Max (going solo this time) trolling Andre for a bit about the ongoing failures of his presidential campaign. (Andre wasn’t here for that because, “I was doing important shit like getting a fruit bar.”) The big issue was that Cthulhu was said to be trying to bite off more than they could chew by running a third party campaign for president. They needed to start at the bottom and work their party all the way up into multiple parts of government, which is how Max – working off of a random suggesting years ago from his friend Clayton – came up with the idea of having Yog-Sothoth run for school board.
In Oklahoma City, of course. There’s just too much money in the mix already to run for school board in San Jose.
Policies that were stated to be adopted by the Elder God included bringing unlicensed mental health professionals onboard from Better Health to manage kids’ mental health. Banning gender itself was also on the docket, with the adoption of themed school uniform days (like Femboy Fridays) brought on to manage order. Strong teachers like Piccolo Mrs. Frizzle, Uncle (from “Jackie Chan Adventures,” naturally), Mr. Simmons, and none other than Shou Tucker were also going to be brought on to keep the kids straight. Talk of Walter White being hired as a science teacher was also mentioned which was in line with the overall plan to allow all forms of drug use in the school – which suited Waluigi fine as he noted that these kids were good at moving his product. Oh and of course the Necronomicon is on the reading list.
Overall, it sounded like a solid plan from my perspective. By “solid plan” I mean “I have no kids and it made me laugh,” so Yog-Sothoth has my vote… whenever I’m in Oklahoma City during voting season.
Fall of the House of Miyazaki
Max, Andrew, and Todd were on hand to talk about how Hayao “Anime Was a Mistake” Miyazaki’s output was trash and how only his son Goro’s work can save us all. At least, that was the vibe I got when remembering this panel. This was a terrible one to take notes on as the jokes were coming fast and furious and it was hard to take them all down or to get a general point on things. This wasn’t like “FanDUMBS” where there was a point lurking underneath the sarcasm, irony, and condescension, it was the Society in full trolling mode and you were either in for the whole thing or out the door within five minutes of its start.
If you did stick around, then you were rewarded with their analysis regarding how Miyazaki’s work on The Wonderful World of Puss in Boots barred him from contributing to the Shrek Shared Universe. The “Dark Totoro” theory that Mei is already dead and the movie is all about Satsuki bargaining with the god of death for the soul of her sister. That Miyazaki didn’t send Harvey Weinstein that katana to mean “No Cuts” to “Princess Mononoke,” but to show him the honorable way out for all of that sexual harassment and assault he perpetrated. All this is in addition to Miyazaki’s contribution to video games with the creation of the Soulsborne genre with “Demons’ Souls,” “Dark Souls,” “Bloodborne,” and “Elden Ring.” … which were definitely created by the same Miyazaki.
All in all, this was an entertaining bit of ridiculousness, but not one that I think I need to attend again if they host it next year. If nothing else, I’m sure Max can work in his take on the “Ranma ½” love triangle into any other panel.
Super Mario Bros. Super Panel
Did you know that Mario has been in lots of different animated (and even a few live-action) shows before his most recent cinematic breakthrough? The Society was on hand to let us know all about them – and to provide a pasta-based rating scale to describe their worthiness (which I didn’t take notes on, so feel free to ascribe your own rating). They started way back in the 80’s when Mario was playing second fiddle to Donkey Kong in the “Saturday Morning Supercade.” Then we were told about “Mario Mario in the Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach” which has not received a proper English release, but perhaps more shocking is the fact that it has received a fandub that hasn’t been DMCA’d by Nintendo yet. We got an extended talk about everyone’s favorite episodes from the “Super Mario Bros. Super Show” and were then made to Do The Mario, because in case you haven’t realized this, the Society is made up of a bunch of trolls.
We then got a speedrun through subsequent animated series and PSAs until the infamous “Super Mario Bros. Movie” from 1994, which Andrew made sure we all knew that he absolutely HATED. Then we got everyone else’s thoughts on the most recent “Super Mario Bros.” movie, which most everyone hated, but Andrew was neutral on. Then there was an effort to involve some reconciliation between these stances as the other panelists let everyone know one thing they liked from the recent movie, while challenging Andrew to say something good about the ‘94 live-action flick. It should not surprise anyone that was when the panel ended.
Anime Survivor
Last year, Chika Fujiwara secured the three-peat. She could’ve retired (or the Society could’ve retired her) but you can’t keep a good pink-haired agent of chaos down and she was back again. Would we be looking at the continuation of an Undefeated at Fanime reign for her tonight? Or would the likes of Darkness, Hayao Miyazaki, Makima, Truck Kun, Laios, Edward, and a Yaoi Paddle be able to take her down?
In case you haven’t read one of these write-ups before: Anime Survivor has Max putting various anime and anime-adjacent characters, or just whoever he feels like into an online “Survivor” game meant to simulate the flow of the long-running CBS reality series. Characters compete in challenges to win prizes and immunity from being voted out at the end of each episode. Along the way they bond, form alliances, and have disagreements, with the Society leaving it up to the audience to explain the reasoning behind these things.
This installment of Anime Survivor was no less insane than previous ones with Chika forming an alliance almost immediately that went on to persist to the end of the game. We also had the redemption of feminist Wario who kept voting out bad dudes like Edward. Waluigi also worked to shore up his school-drug-smuggling pipeline by getting in good with “Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun’s” Nene Yashiro. Danger Dog wound up in Truck-Kun’s tailpipie on multiple occasions. Nearly everyone in the audience was hoping to see “Naruto’s” Sasuke booted from the game. And then there was the time that Hayao Miyazaki won immunity four straight times, causing special guest Andre to posit that he was actually Cthulhu in disguise.
In the end, it came down to a three-way (no, not THAT kind) between Chika, Waluigi, and Nene. The daughter of diplomats had managed to fly under the radar for most of the game this time, but her gift-giving and manipulative skills were still working for her. It was a closer vote than in years past, but Chika Fujiwara emerged triumphant in the end as the four-time Anime Survivor champion at Fanime. Can she… will she ever be stopped? It’s going to take a special Survivor to manage it at this point. Maybe a certain half-blooded Oni (who’s also a full-blooded Troll) will be able to do it if the Society has actually seen his show and can remember that it exists.
Andre Pena
(Not) Cthulhu for President
Last year was the year that finally broke Andre. After sixteen years of campaigning for the Elder God of Madness, they lost again to the least qualified candidate. So this year (Not) Cthulhu is (not) campaigning for president and is (not) outlining their cabinet and (not) laying out their platforms. Which means we had a lot of new cabinet members – which weren’t just the old ones sporting sweet handlebar mustaches – and Andre masterminding things from the front of the room not in his usual business attire, but in a green hoodie and shades that were giving off genuine Unabomber vibes in addition to his general demeanor.
Which is how he opened the floor up to questions from the audience after a quicker-than-usual setup. True to form, this was the most entertaining part of the audience as it’s always great to see Andre be a complete dick to those who deserve it. Which included Waluigi asking if (Not) Cthulhu would continue DOGE policies with the DEA so as to not affect his side hustle (and for everyone to go see Waluigi Time at 6:30 on Saturday). Other questions include should Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico get representation in congress (sure), where should prisoners be sent to (Laos, and definitely not Detroit), how to handle immigration (“Running Man” style games), and what’s the deal with “Star Citizen” (it’s the new “Duke Nukem Forever”). Wario even showed up to ask if he could get his show back from the Onion and to plug his panel at 11AM on Sunday. Which I didn’t attend because I stayed up late for…
Midnight Madness
Back within walking distance of the downtown con scene for the first time since the pandemic, and I almost considered not attending. After all, Andre will be running this again from his Twitch channel this Saturday night. What got me in the room, however, was the fact that I’d be hanging out with the man himself and a group of degenerates ready to party with the best this program had to offer.
Which was exactly what I got. There wasn’t anything obviously new, and the things I hadn’t seen were likely just new to me, but it was a strong selection of evergreen favorites that never failed to disappoint. We got everything from the Zelda Rap, to Steiner Math, “Garbage Day,” Segata Sanshiro, Alien Jones commercials, Bollywood Videos, and more cat videos than you could shake a stick at. The audience was completely into it and there’s nothing like being in a room of people yelling “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY, MY ANUS IS BLEEDING!!!” during Rejected. Even the Sakeru Gummy video saga was entertaining again with everyone going “LONG LONG MAAAAAAAAAAN” at the right points. While the constant influx of new videos is part of the lifeblood of Midnight Madness on a month-to-month basis, the in-person experience we got here was a treat all on its own.
Cosplay Wrestling Federation
Fanimania Night 1
No actual wrestling was done and was still thoroughly entertaining. The first night of the two-night “Fanimania” extravaganza focused on several specific matches and some games of “skill” in between. First up was the Arthur Battle Royale which was originally supposed to be a one-on-one between the staff’s King Arthur, and Arthur King of the Britons (from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”), but also wound up including Saber Artorius (from “Fate/Stay Night”) and then Arthur (the kid aardvark) when it was revealed that perpetual screw-up Hiki just wrote “Arthur” on the sign-in sheet. While I was pulling for the King of the Britons, it was clear from the start that Arthur the Aardvark had the audience fully on his side – to the point where attacks on him drew lots of boos. He won the match easily, and even got his own Excalibur to boot.
Then we found out that the gambler D’Arby from “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders” would be running three games of “skill” over the course of the evening. “Skill” is in quotation marks because he was forced to use Mark Satan from “Dragonball Z” as his henchman. This resulted in a screw-up that had Mark switching the wrong dice and losing the first match. Things went better for D’Arby in the second match as his trickery took the soul of audience member Eric, but wound up creating the one true hero of the night. The audience latched onto Eric’s regular-guy-ness and continued to cheer for him after his soul was stolen. It even made the final game of skill, a game of high-low between Mark and Soldier (dunno what he’s from) kind of feel like an afterthought.
It should also be noted that the second game of skill was brought up as the staff had to dance around some technical issues. These were bad enough that they had to break kayfabe, but the staff deserves credit for how they worked to keep everyone entertained while these issues were ongoing.
Amidst all this we had the Tag Team Championship between Team Love M.U.F.F.I.N. and Isaac & Miria. The former was a team-up between Dr. Doofenshmirtz (from “Phineas & Ferb”) and Dr. Ivo Robotnik (c’mon, you know who he is) and two fun-loving immortals from “Baccano!” I really enjoyed the energy Isaac and Miria brought to their performances, the guy in this team is always a standout at these events, and they even pulled a clever move by announcing that they were going to adopt the orphaned Doctors and form one big family. It was close, but that wasn’t enough to get the audience to choose them over the villainous grumbling delivered with glee by the two mad scientists.
Then we had a real Battle of the Bands which involved Nero & The Pussycats, made up of two “Fate” characters and the referee, and Ballad Club which consisted of Parappa the Rapper, Saiyaman, and… Sea Dog? I don’t remember that guy’s full name, but it essentially boiled down to a match of cats vs. dogs, which should’ve been an easy choice for an avowed cat lover like me. However, Ballad Club had the verbal and the vocal moves that allowed them to not only put down their opponents with trash talk, but sing circles around them with ease. Particularly with Parappa on their side as he could not only rap, but sing in Japanese with ease.
Finally, we came to the title match of the night which had Doctor Doom facing off against Dr. Doofenshmirtz after the former stole the Blackout title belt from the latter at Anime LA. Doom may have had all the lackeys on his side with D’Arby, Mark, and Loki, but when it came down to actually talking trash against his opponent you could see him sweat it when he was going against the other doctor. This led to Doofenshmirtz winning back the belt, in spite of the audience’s repeated calls for Eric to take it home. They… we, are nothing but trolls after all. Doom didn’t leave empty handed, as Magumasa the Beltmaker came onstage to present the Doctor with his own personal belt as an act of charity. Which is a move that I’m sure will have NO RELEVANCE WHATSOEVER to the action on night two. (Update: No, it didn’t have any relevance at all!)
Fanimania Night 2
With all of the undercard matches out of the way, it was time for the main event: The battle for the CWF Championship belt against its current holder Shadow the Hedgehog. There were some familiar faces in the mix: Parappa the Rapper, Onii Ares, Bill Ding, the Helltaker, Bay Area Anya, Batman/Joker/Harley, and Duolingo. This was in addition to many new (to me at least, I’ve only attended Fanime CWF panels) wrestlers like (Persona Phantom Thief) Joker, Chiitan, Hollywood Persian, Carl Wheezer, Blackbeard, The Stig, Jack Garland, American Goku, and Jaymee Goems.
This was a more eclectic group than usual as several had gimmicks on hand beyond their outside personalities. Phantom Thief Joker had video messages for Shadow from some familiar wrestlers. Blackbeard came armed with his own custom sea shanty about gacha games. Carl Wheezer brought his body pillow of Jimmy Neutron’s Mom (which he was very amorous towards throughout the show). American Goku brought his copy of “Dragonball: Evolution” which he waved in our faces throughout. Shadow, of course, brought his gun and a special T-shirt.
Also of note were two wrestlers who came prepared to win by getting the audience to absolutely hate them. American Goku was one and he played the aggrieved, failed star role perfectly. The man snarled at the audience for rejecting his movie and shouted back “YES I AM” to the audience’s cries of “NOT MY GOKU!” Jaymee Goems was the other, and the less successful one in my opinion. He may have made it past the initial round, but the concept of the arrogant racist douchebag HOA overseer was just too close to real life to be genuinely entertaining.
As for the battles themselves, the majority of them were thoroughly entertaining with Joker, Parappa, American Goku, Blackbeard, and Jack Garland being standouts in my opinion. In a real surprise, the chaos-hating protagonist Jack from “Final Fantasy Origin” actually got disqualified before the finals by knocking out perpetual CWF whipping boy Hiki because he was causing too much, well… you know. That said, I was looking forward to seeing either Joker or Parappa, the latter of whom had lost the CWF championship belt to Shadow after winning it here last year, take the belt from the Ultimate Being.
That… wasn’t what happened. In a surprising turn of events, Carl Wheezer wound up competing against Shadow. So you had a gun-toting hedgehog trash-talking a dweeby kid with a body pillow of his best friend’s mother, and vice-versa – only at CWF everyone! I wasn’t looking forward to rooting for Shadow, but this matchup changed my mind as seeing the Ultimate Being and his love of Latinas (which I didn’t know was a thing before tonight) was certainly preferable to the alternative. That’s what happened and Shadow retained the belt at Fanimania!
Of course, if he had gone up against Eric, the audience made it clear that it would’ve been a completely different story…
All the Other Panels and Panelists
Anime & Manga For Parents
Gilles Poitras has been hosting panels at Fanime and other cons for a long time. This panel itself has been around for over 20 years between this con and Otacon, and started as a way for the man to inform parents about these new mediums that their kids were getting into. I may have been the wrong person for this panel as he started off by talking about the likes of “Sailor Moon,” “One Piece,” “Great Teacher Onizuka” and “City Hunter” pseudo-sequel “Angel Heart.” There were other recommendations such as “Rail of the Star” about Japan’s occupation of Korea, and “Night Raid 1931” which dealt with Japan’s occupation of China tossed in as well, but the first half of the panel didn’t really have much for me.
Things did pick up in the second half as he started talking about titles that had been showing up on banned book lists (or were under attack in other forms) for gay or trans content. Some of them were of the “This? Really?” kind like “Cinderella Boy” “Kashimashi,” while others did have more sensitive and intelligent approaches to the material like “Tokyo Godfathers,” “Sasaki & Miyano,” and “Revolutionary Girl Utena.” It was a welcome reminder that anime and manga still aren’t safe from conservative interests in this day and age, while also serving as a reminder of some titles to check out if you haven’t already.
A History of Controversy in Videogames (and Why it Matters)
Trickssi and Fractali were our hosts for this look back at how games have been running afoul of public opinion over the last five decades. From the fears that the Atari game “Death Race” would drive people to run down pedestrians with their cars, to the videogame violence hearings focusing around “Mortal Kombat” and “Night Trap” in the 90’s, to independently created controversy magnets like “Super Columbine Massacre RPG” and “Ethnic Cleansing,” a lot of ground was covered. Every time, however, it was usually down to someone trying to stoke the outrage machine in order to generate outrage which they would then turn into money or power for themselves or related parties. The panelists handled all this with good humor and insight throughout, making this trip down memory lane an entertaining one.
Then they started talking about later (post-2000’s) firestarters like “Ready or Not,” “Rule of Rose” and “Rapelay.” This culminated in an extended discussion of a recent game called Mouthwashing, which explores the time before and after a transport ship crash lands on a desert planet. It’s reductive to say that bad stuff happens on both sides of the divide, particularly in light of how Trickssi discussed it in relation to her own life. She certainly made the game sound like something worth playing, particularly in light of how it relates to our current social climate. That may have made things feel too real than I’m comfortable with for this kind of con experience, but that just means it’s not something I’m likely to forget anytime soon.
Your Guide to Kinky Video Games
Hosted by The Holesome Pervert and The Protean, who are the developers behind their own kinky game, Gooning Simulator. Surprisingly, there weren’t any Japanese H-games mentioned here. This was a panel about English-language games with an emphasis on kinks, how to define them, the differences between content and trigger warnings, and a look at how things are in the industry. The current state of it is a giant trash fire, with Holesome specifically noting that most developers couldn’t promote their games out of a paper bag. With that said, they had plenty of quality titles to recommend.
These included some that had actually received mainstream coverage like Ladykiller in a Bind and more niche stuff like Mice Tea, Play Things, Deathblossom, Paradise Inc., and Secretary. Nods were also given to titles that were described as titans in the kink game space: Corruption of Champions, Trials in Tainted Space, and Summertime Saga. While legitimate storefronts like Steam and Itch.io were mentioned as places to find these games, one particular pirate site was also mentioned as well. The panelists were quick to emphasize that they didn’t endorse pirating these games (including their own), just that this site represented a unique kind of gathering space on the internet for horny talk about horny games. I don’t think it’d be hard to find this site, but I think the panelists would rather you go support Gooning Simulator over at https://www.patreon.com/holesomepervert – which I got a free six month subscription to because, during the quiz show section, I knew what paizuri was!
(Abridged) Team Valkyrie Redub: City Hunter .357 Magnum
I’ve never been a fan of “City Hunter.” It’s not funny, the action isn’t very exciting, and protagonist Ryo Saeba has always come off as an unlikeable dumbass. So when I saw that this was an “Abridged” redub, I thought I could sit back and settle in for an extended session of “City Hunter” being deservedly shat on.
That’s not what I got from the first ten minutes. I mean, the lack of jokes should’ve been my first clue, but they never arrived. Then it slowly dawned on me: There were no jokes because this was a literal fandub. A dub of an anime done by fans.
Good on Team Valkyrie for putting this together. That said, if I’d known this was what it was, I’d have never made the trek over to the Signia to check it out.
How Goblin Slayer Saved Anime
It was a clickbaity enough title that I wanted to see what these people had to say about the subject. All I really knew about “Goblin Slayer” was that there was this guy, who slays a lot of goblins, because they needed to be slayed. The panelists’ main point here was that the series presented a move away from familiar Eastern fantasy tropes to more Western ones. This included drawing on Tolkein as much as D&D, which there was a lot of with the latter as we have characters with proper classes, spell slots, min-maxing, and leveling up. I could see what they were saying here, but I didn’t feel particularly convinced by their point by the end of the panel.
That said, this was put on by the Nakama Podcast who also did what was arguably the most disappointing panel I attended last year, “Americans in Anime.” This was definitely better than that, but it still felt unfocused and insubstantial regarding the point they were trying to make. They definitely got points for the energy that was put into their presentation, with the leftmost panelist doing his best to drive the conversation and keep everyone engaged. Still, I’ve seen better and if nothing else, seeing this made me feel better that I’d be missing out on their Sunday panel “Anime’s New Genre: Berserk-Lites” opposite Night 2 of “Fanimania.”
The Everyone Dies Ending
I thought I knew what I was in for with this panel. A spoiler-filled catalogue of anime where everyone dies at the end. That’s not what I got. Which wasn’t a bad thing as the panel’s host, Maz, was here to talk about the nature of an Everyone Dies Ending. He talked about it in the context of the monomyth and Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero With Many Faces” and how most shonen anime follow it to a T because that shit prints money. However, if you want to break it, how do you go about doing it? By doing two things: Introduce extreme mental hardship and convince your audience that your protagonist is not the hero.
If there’s one anime series that fits these things, it’s “Neon Genesis Evangelion.” Maz spent a lot of the panel talking about how “Eva” sets up its endings with a point of no return, doing something disruptive and bizarre, one meaningful montage, and total annihilation. It was very well done even if it was only focused on one series (with nods to a few others). I did ask him if he could recommend any other series that did the Everyone Dies Ending well, and while he mentioned “Berserk” though he hadn’t seen it, he also declined to provide a list because spoilers. Which was fair enough, but I will keep an eye out for what panels he has to offer in the future based on how well this turned out.
Viking Sagas in Anime
If you guessed that this panel focused a lot on “Vinland Saga” then you’d be correct. Host Jeremy Gleick had a lot to say about how that series was influenced by Viking sagas and culture, and most of it was positive. According to him, the series is very well researched in terms of its look and the weapons used in it. As for its more over-the-top touches – seen in his clip from the opening battle where Thorkell cleaves a bunch of dudes and ship’s mast in two – they’re actually how the action in the Sagas themselves are described. We also learned a bit about the specific sagas that inspired the manga, and Thorfinn’s real-life history. While some of the broader strokes are true, in that he did meet Leif Erickson and go to Vinland, most of it was fictionalized for the sake of drama. Though, it’s still possible that he can trace his lineage back to Odin himself.
As for other anime that drew on the Sagas, the connections were a bit harder to draw. Episode 8 of “When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace” was called “Holmgang Battle,” a reference to a kind of Viking conflict in a confined circle. Famous swords like Gram and Dainslef have been name-checked in anime like “High School DxD” and “Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans.” Additionally, anime and manga series sure do love using the name Fafnir even if they’re not referring to a legendary dragon. All-in-all, it was a very informative and entertaining panel, and made me regret that I wasn’t going to be able to attend his secret panel about the Volsung Saga later that evening.
Food Reviewing Delicious in Dungeon
This panel was originally scheduled for two hours on Friday afternoon. It was subsequently moved to Sunday afternoon and shortened by half an hour. That caused Yelp Elite reviewer Ann T. and her crossdressing friend to toss out a bunch of stuff regarding how the monsters in question would be caught and prepared. So the focus was just on rating the kinds of food found on each dungeon floor while providing the audience with a real-life equivalent.
It was fun enough as Ann and her co-host were able and funny commenters. Better still was the fact that even though the con was in San Jose, the recommendations were from this area and L.A. So there’s a chance that I might get a chance to check out one of these places at some point. That said, if you’re looking for the best equivalent of something like the Man-Eating Plant Tart, the French quiche cuisine from Little Providence Cafe in Arcadia should have you covered. Same goes for the Rotisserie Chicken of California if you’ve got a hankerin’ for roast Basilisk – though the Rotisserie Chicken from Costco was also mentioned as an acceptable substitute.
In My Y2K Era
Member “Akira?” Member (the original) “Ranma ½?” Member the Anime Web Turnpike? Member Geocities? Member Toonami? Member when you’d brick your computer trying to download an uncensored episode of “Sailor Moon” from KaZaa only to find out that it was just some data with a virus embedded in it? Eri, Geki, and Azur sure do and they were here to tell us all about it as some Elder Millenials who lived through it all.
As a fellow Elder Millenial (I think we’re called Xennials?), I lived through all of this too and I can’t say that I experienced any surprises here. The entire panel was a fun little bit of “Remember This?” from its hosts who were all agreeable, knowledgeable, and even funny at times. This was the last panel I attended at the con and it was an okay note to end it on, though it didn’t match the dizzying heights of previous Monday panels like the one where I learned about how to create my own catgirl.
…
For years I’ve come down to Fanime for Day Zero and left on Monday after one last panel and some shopping. Even with three full days of con in between, it never feels like enough. Sure, there may be the odd disappointing panel tucked in there, trying to take in everything that I want (and find time to eat in between) makes the experience go by insanely fast. To the point where I’m never ready to leave when Monday rolls around.
This will sound very familiar to anyone who’s read these post-con summaries over the years. Yet my feelings about it are consistent every time. So even though Fanime 2025 has come and gone, I’m already looking forward to the 2026 edition now.
