Feature: Con Report – Animation On Display Crunchyroll Panel

Have you ever been to a Crunchyroll panel at a recent anime convention? I'm ashamed to admit that I have never attended one until now. I went in not expecting much other than talking about anime and that's exactly what went down at the AOD Crunchyroll panel.

At this particular panel on January 25th at Animation On Display at the Hyatt Regency Hotel at the San Francisco International Airport, the internet was not working for some unknown reason, but the show must go on and that is just a part of con experience that many of you may have already been familiar with.

Here is Crunchyroll's lovely Social Media Marketing Manager, Victoria Holden or SailorBee as Tsunade looking serious about anime.

Billing Specialist, Danika Harrod also known as DarlingDaniChan as Mizukage-sama was perfectly complimenting the Hokage theme at the panel, although she admitted that it was hard to read with her right eye covered during the panel.

Software Developer, Evan Minto as himself.

After establishing that "Crunchyroll is awesome" (please attend the panel for the full statement), some recent development were shared in the slides. In this particular slide, One Piece and TORIKO, two of the big titles from Weekly Shonen Jump, Rurouni Kenshin subbed and dubbed, the experimental RWBY and Crunchyroll Manga were discussed.

Crunchyroll Manga started with 12 Kodansha titles, and soon will be increased to 20 titles available from various publishers in Japan.

The audience consisted of subscribers and people who are interetsed about the service, but it{s safe to assume they are all anime fans judging by the turnout.

The panel then went on to talking about this season's anime! Even the tsundere Crunchyroll-Hime looks happy. Nobunaga The Fool, Wizard Barristers, Wake Up, Girls! and Nisekoi were discussed.

There were a lot of anime from this season introduced and discussed during the panel, with the above slide consisting of information about Wizard Barristers that was shared with the audience. It was particularly interesting to hear Victoria and Danika read the anime description, which was clearly not edited from the original translation done on the Japanese side.

And of course, there was a special announcement! Look how cute Hime'chan looks in the bodysuit of a kaiju-like creature.

The broadcast of Robot Girls Z was also announced for the first time at the panel. Passionate discussion of young girls as retro robot heroes was had by all.

The Q&A session at the end of the panel also included a giveaway of Gunpla!

Many interesting question were asked during the Q&A session, including the hot topic: "why pay for membership when anime is available free online".

This young boy had to be the youngest audience member at this panel, who was there with his mom who was generous enough to give me permission to put his photo in this report. His question was "How did it get the name Crunchyroll?". Attend the next panel and find out yourself!

Finally, the panel ended with more giveaways! At the end, everybody was invited to grab lanyards.

Some of the audience who asked questions at the Q&A session also received T-shirts.

Check out these adorable fans with Crunchyroll's Hokages. Below are photos are from the AOD Masquerade.

This Love [Shinhwa] Shingeki no Kyojin - AoD 2014 Masquerade - Best Presentation

Click here to watch the performance on You Tube!

Masquerade Half-time show by a local performance group, Angel Hearts.

Read more here: Crunchy Roll