 I talk about "final first drafts" when it comes to panels a lot, and this is what I think J-Pop Y2K has finally hit. Seeing as how I did it in a much tighter time slot at LA Comic Con, LVL UP Expo was the first time I was able to do the "full" 90 minute version. There were some hiccups here and there in the first half, mainly in that it speeds by before slowing down a lot at the end, that I'm going to have to work out, but I'm happy with it for now. Starting what is essentially the "final stretch" for this panel is a bit sad though, as it makes me start thinking about what I'll do next. Then again, I'm not at all out of ideas! This panel was great though, and I still have lots I want to try out and throw in before FanimeCon. Anyhow, be sure to come to a panel near you, and thank you to everyone who has either attended one or somehow made it to this page! Lastly, the songs from the opening montage can be found below:
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 I talked about it at the con itself, but a lot of panels that I write on my own are me working towards what I consider a "good final version". This doesn't mean that I've created the perfect version, but that I've done one that I feel finally managed to include everything I wanted to, and nothing short of finding another co-panelist to breathe in new ideas will ever make it feel as fresh again. Since I don't like doing the same panel twice, this means that I'll then "retire" said panel. That's where we're at with the '90s J-Pop one. Even though I had some odd mistakes with this one live (like mixing up MY LITTLE LOVER and Every Little Thing in my head), but I don't think I'll do this panel again any time soon. I hope to maybe record a reading of it or something if the video I took at LVL UP isn't usable, but we shall see. Anyhow, be sure to come to a panel near you, and thank you to everyone who has either attended one or somehow made it to this page! Lastly, the songs from the opening montage can be found below:
 This updated version of the '80s idol panel was mostly made from my notes on the first one. I actually wanted to implement some of these changes (namely the ones around Onyanko Club) before the panel at ALA, but I didn't have time due to prepping for the rest of the con and our interviews. Though I still don't think this panel has reached a version that I consider its "final first draft", I do think it's one step closer to that. Also, there's another version of it coming soon to FanimeCon, so perhaps that one will hit that ever-elusive goal? Oh, and I used the same opening montage as I did at ALA. Though I did change nearly every other video, even the ones where the song itself stayed the same. What I found funny about the panel was that both me and a friend heard people talking about the panel during the day, but the turnout wasn't too high. Maybe it conflicted with something big? Who knows. Anyhow, be sure to come to a panel near you, and thank you to everyone who has either attended one or somehow made it to this page! Lastly, the songs from the opening montage can be found below:
 Doing a panel on Journey to the West, or Sun Wukong specifically, has been on my mind for a while. I did two DTL presentations during the lockdown that were sort of workshop ideas of how the panel would work, but then I changed my course when I saw the GTV video about the song "Monkey Magic". That video predates my DTR presentations with that song, and used clips from "Monkey" in it, I figured it would make a really cool thing to center the panel around. This especially made sense after most of the post-pandemic panels focused on J-Pop music in one way or another. Of course it wouldn't just be "Monkey Magic", but songs from other shows and anime too. I can't say for certain that this panel has hit that goal, but I think it's a good first draft. I can't wait for future versions of the panel (there's one coming soon at FanimeCon!) because I already have ideas on how to format it a bit better down the road. Until then, here are the slides from the LVL UP EXPO version for posterity's sake. Also, I did add another video slide with clips from "Monkey" only because I forgot to do so somehow before. It's not in the slides below, but it was just a montage I borrowed from YouTube. That montage can be found HERE by the way. Anyhow, be sure to come to a panel near you, and thank you to everyone who has either attended one or somehow made it to this page!  This panel was an interesting one to write. Rose and myself (Manuel) usually do one brand new panel at every con we show up at together. We've done one-off J-Horror panels, a cool Body Horror-centered one, and one examining what makes art Eroguro. (As opposed to just a history of the topic.) This one came from a conversation we had back towards the beginning of 2023, and we literally chose to do it once we brainstormed the title a bit. Racheal joined us later after it was accepted by ALA since she was going to be there anyhow, and her and I have hosted mecha-focused panels in the past. The problems arose when it came to the actual writing. This is truly a collaborative panel, but in a lot of the wrong ways. We all wrote bits of it, and we all had different views of what the panel was going to be. We eventually managed to get it together right before the con, but the result is a panel that I'm not at all satisfied with. It's not a bad concept, but it definitely needed a complete rewrite. Racheal and myself plan to take the panel idea to FanimeCon, but focus on important female characters in various mecha media. So look forward to that. Maybe we'll give it another stab with Rose at a future con, but we tend to have so many ideas that we rarely do a panel like this twice. As usual, be sure to catch one of our panels at a convention near year, and thank you to everyone who has either attended one in the past, or somehow made it to this page! J-Pop Idols of The 1980s: The Golden Age of Showa Era Pop (Anime Los Angeles 2024) Panel Slides1/4/2024  Hosting a panel solely on 80s idols has been something I've thought about doing many times in the past. I actually hosted one at Kraken Con way back in 2015, but a mistake in the program guide convinced me to make half of it a general idol panel at the last minute. Also, no one went to it, and I didn't know half of what I know now, back then. At various times I'd tailor later panels to focus more on the 80s if we had a relevant co-host, such as when the late Greg Hignight hosted a few with us in 2015/16, but there never seemed to be an audience for an 80s one until after the "Plastic Love" boom. Even though some of the artists here have been covered in the 1980s J-Pop panels, I didn't want to do an idols only one since I wasn't sure how to approach the topic. This was because I wanted to have a showcase of artists and get my own theories out regarding the decade. Basically I wanted to approach it as an examination of what caused and ended the idol boom of the 80s. This version is heavier on the showcase aspect, and I actually already have an idea for a 2.0 version, but I think I managed to get in everything I wanted to. I'm hoping I get a chance to do it again soon. Maybe at FanimeCon 2024? Anyhow, be sure to come to a panel near you, and thank you to everyone who has either attended one or somehow made it to this page! Lastly, the songs from the opening montage can be found below:
 This was a completely brand new panel that I wrote after Fanime. I had just found a source for the complete Oricon data I needed for the 80s (in Japanese) and after I went through all the trouble compiling all the info I needed, and romanizing it, I figured I might as well start on a potential 2000s list since I was already on a roll with the 80s list. It was then that I started seeing all the familiar songs that really took me back, and a few that I was surprised made it into the criteria I had set (such as "Taiyou no Uta"), from there I wrote the outline and submitted to the only con that I hadn't already submitted other panels to, LA Comic Con. I was a little surprised they took it if I'm being perfectly honest, but I was extremely excited to do a panel outside of the normal round of anime ones A-to-J usually attends. Doing this one was really easy too since I had a lot of this knowledge already in my head, and didn't need to rehearse it as much as other panels. Since it was at LA Comic Con though, that meant I had to do a 50 minute version of it, but I've already thought up the ways I'd do this one as a full hour, or even a 90 minute, version. Maybe I'll get that chance at FanimeCon 2024... Anyhow, be sure to come to a panel near you, and thank you to everyone who has either attended one or somehow made it to this page! Lastly, the songs from the opening montage can be found below:
Music of The Lost Decade: A Guide to Japanese Pop In The 90s (San Diego Anime Con 2023) Panel Slides11/20/2023  Even though this panel was written way back at the start of the year, I assumed that there'd be several versions of it by now. Maybe because so few cons took it, and I had to create so many variants of the 80s panel, I realized that the 90s one was barely moving forward. This SDAC one was actually just the Sin City one, but like truncated and with a couple new slides that I never really liked. I had started making a version for ALA that was going to be like 75% different content and even format, but since they didn't take it I only had the outline of it. That said I decided to take the parts I'd actually written for ALA and incorporate them here so that it would be distinctly different from past versions, at least a bit. What's interesting is I almost took out the KAN slides, but decided to just leave them one last time and we LITERALLY got back to our hotel room after the panel when I saw a post from a friend on Twitter that KAN had passed away that day. That's just crazy to me since I was a huge fan of "Ai wa Katsu", and had just been talking about him hours before. Anyhow, be sure to come to a panel near you, and thank you to everyone who has either attended one or somehow made it to this page! Lastly, the songs from the opening montage can be found below:
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