Anime Hunt

So following the 2nd BAMCon being a success, I've become interested in watching some anime again (at least temporarily) and I've realized that I haven't seen anything new (or at least new to me) that I've been able to enjoy in years.

The last anime I was introduced to that I enjoyed was Rune Soldier and Record of Lodoss War which I only watched because we owned them already. Most everything else I've seen in the past few years just isn't interesting to me.

I enjoy fantasy and sci-fi most of the time and love Shonen type things. I loved Trigun, Hellsing, Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, Akira, Spriggan, Transformers, Dragonball Z, Bastard!, Full Metal Alchemist, some Gundam series, Voltron, Yu-Gi-Oh, the first Pokemon series, and a bunch of others of a similar vein.

I've tried to watch things like Vandread, Gurren Lagann, and a few others that have been available on Netflix. I found them too goofy/formulaic/other random complaint for my tastes and never got into them.

I didn't enjoy Naruto. I did enjoy Bleach, the little bit I've watched. (I keep meaning to go back to it...)

Hmmm, I'm really just rambling here. I just want something creative and entertaining that doesn't follow predictable patterns and doesn't murder my eyeballs. Is that too much to ask?

If anyone has some suggestions let me know. I don't have the money to spare going out and buying up discs and I'm not going to pirate things so please make suggestions that are available through Netflix/Hulu or other legitimate places.

BAM-Con Panel Ideas

So some of you have heard about BAM-Con (Berkshire Anime and Manga Convention) that the wife and I have been a part of for the past two years. Some of the talks we've had about it are about expanding it beyond just the themes of Anime, Manga and Japanese culture. Mostly adding in more mainstream Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Geekculture themes.

Our convention is going to continue to be in early May. It's just a good time period to run one. It puts us between a couple of the big ones in the area and is early in the season so people aren't already burned out by other conventions. I can't talk about some of the things the organizers have been talking about yet, but the early May timing means that the convention happens around some important dates in Star Wars fandom. Which is of course one of my favorite subjects.

So I'm being told that I should be designing some type of Star Wars panel/panels for next year's convention. I'm not sure if I am going to do it, but before I figure out if I want to do it or not I need to figure out what types of panels I could do well at and what type of unique talk I could bring to the convention.

I'm not sure what I can do based upon my own interests and knowledge that can be turned into a half hour to an hour long panel though. I'm open to suggestions if anyone wants to post some ideas. I'll be trying to figure out some ideas myself. Hopefully I will find something that will stick.