Forum - View topicNEWS: Breaking News: Halko Momoi Slams Anime Expo on Blog
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W-General
Posts: 280 Location: Ithaca, NY, USA / Taichung, Taiwan |
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Not to hijack a Momoi thread, but Hirano-san has started updating her blog again.
It's mostly about food, but on one post on July 4: "できる限りの事はしました。 みなさん楽しんでくださったので本当に良かったです。 ただ、日本から来てくださった方は申し訳ありませんでした。 日本でやっているようなパフォーマンスが十分にできなかった事、本当にすみません。 悔しいので、最後にも言ったけどまたここに来て挽回します。 必ず。" Which translates to: "I've done everything I can. It's a good thing that everyone had fun. However, my apologies to everyone who came all the way from Japan. I couldn't put up a performance that's as good as the ones we had in Japan, I'm terribly sorry about that. I am extremely regretful about that, so I'll say this again: I'll definitely come back again and make it up. For sure." Awwwwwwwwww Aya-san We'll always welcome you! It's not your fault!!! It's f**king AX's fault. *AX STAFF BURN IN HELL* Not all hope is lost. Come back again! Maybe Otakon next time? Next time, I'll be sure to fork out $$$$. I'm willing to pay up to $1000 to Bandai just to interact with Hirano-san and take a picture with her |
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Dargonxtc
Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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That last bit sounds pretty scary...
Like 'The Fan' scary. |
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FiliKlepto
Posts: 17 Location: Nakano-ku, Tokyo |
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I agree but at the same time, if etiquette hasn't been outlined for you, then it's very easy to make a social faux pas, particularly with someone from a different culture! (Look at all the movie stars who go abroad and cause an uproar, IE Richard Gere kissing Shilpa Shetty.) And based on all the unpreparedness we've witnessed in this situation, I doubt that the Americans on stage were briefed.
THANK YOU. Immediately after the first Hare Hare Yukai finished and everyone left the stage, Johnny actually apologized and said he wasn't trying to be a do*che (my word choice, not his), that he honestly didn't know the dance. I believe he had no idea that he would be called upon to do that much on stage at the concert, maybe he wasn't even expecting to do more than show up for a few minutes and then leave. I mean, they made him do Kyon's part because Crispin Freeman was not there. He looked even more confused than Patty, who at least knew she was going to be called upon to emcee.
Yes, but I believe that Kana and Haruka are nihonjin, not nikkeijin (Japanese-American). Or at least that was the impression I gleamed from speaking with Haruka personally. Also weren't you saying above that the Japanese are a very polite society? To quote, "the japanese are a very polite bunch." Anyhow, I haven't heard anyone say anything against these two. Most of the negative comments have been directed toward Patty and Johnny. I just hope that enough of the misunderstandings can be clarified so that people don't get the wrong impression. As I said before, let's blame the people who caused the problems, not those who were caught in the crossfire. Those people have been through enough as it is. (Edit: By the way, to steer this back towards Momoi, has anyone checked out that 2chan link posted a few comments back by Midori Kou? The response to Momoi Halko's blog were pretty... mixed, and some were kind of harsh, I'd say. For instance, Halko talked about feeling disrespected (paraphrashing here), and several commenters replied with something along the line of "Respect? From administration? LOL") |
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W-General
Posts: 280 Location: Ithaca, NY, USA / Taichung, Taiwan |
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Well I definitely think they deserve all the respect they get, as long as they are fulfilling their part of the contract/deal. If they give the fans a good time, then they deserve the proper treatment from AX, and AX failed on this part.
From what I read, looks like the ASOS/America VAs really did not know what to do as well, and that makes the blame on AX staff even deeper. (burn in hell please!) |
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jvowles
Otakon Representative
Posts: 219 Location: Maryland |
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You may be confusing pay with cost. Pay is about 30k-40k for an experienced admin assistant. A good rule of thumb is that it costs roughly twice the salary to actually employ someone. Add in some reimbursable expenses.... it doesn't take long to reach the number I quoted. |
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Zoe
Posts: 898 Location: Austin |
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30K-40K would be pay for a FULL-time assistant, and that's actually rather generous. You clearly stated part-time. A quick glance at craigslist showed the average pay to be in the range of $10-$12 in the LA area. That's under $15K a year before taking the other costs into account. Pay + federal taxes + state taxes + unemployment taxes do not add up to anywhere near that amount for that kind of job. Being part-time, benefits wouldn't have to be taken into account. I would argue that expenses are a non-issue because those would be occur whether somebody is in a paid position or not. (I used to be in charge of these things when I was an administrative assistant, BTW) Paid positions are very common in non-profit organizations and can even pay well. If a large, successful convention (or the organization in charge) can't even afford part-time help when it's clearly needed, I'd have to question their priorities. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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There is NO reason to hire an admin assistant for a con for more than 16 hrs a week (and even that is heavy IMO) outside the con. Let's say you give em a full 40 for two weeks before the con. And then for fun, let's say 40 hrs overtime (at time and a half) right there around/during the con. If you pay them $20/hr (which would be INSANE for an AA) that's still less than $20k for the year.
As noted by Zoe, you have no real reason to give benefits, so even with miscellaneous expenses surrounding the hire, there's no reason to exceed $30k or so. Now, if you wanna argue a competent administrator could even cost you in the six figure range, that's a whole different question and plausible. But then, I think you SHOULD be able to find someone "on the cheap" BECAUSE they would want to do it for love of anime, but granted, it is debatable how good the people you'd get under such a criteria. But really, there's no reason a good AA should cost that much. I respect you a great deal Jim, but c'mon. |
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razberry_yum
Posts: 169 |
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In terms of technical difficulties, I would say this year was the worse. I'm completely with you regarding the SOS event. That was such a HUGE disappointment, and I felt REALLY bad for the three seiyuus. I didn't mind Patricia Lee, and I actually thought her sarcasm added to the event more than anything, but what I found more annoying was them dragging out the dub voice actors out on stage. No offense to the American voice actors personally, but I didn't pay for the premier tickets and stand in line for hours to watch THEM. I actually felt bad for them because compared to the original seiyuu's, their skills were clearly inferior. Actually, when they had Patricia Lee do Haruhi's voice instead of Wendy Lee, it only showed how miscast the American Haruhi is (a general issue I find with dubs, but that's another topic for another day). When the American voice actor for Mikuru was on stage and responded to the question about voice acting training by saying she didn't go to any school, it only made me think maybe she should have. I hate to bash the American voice actors because I'm sure they're underpaid and underappreciated as it is, so I really blame the SOS organizers for putting them up against the original seiyuus and actually forcing us to make a comparison. Not to mention, that whole bit was just LAME. Other than the really retarded technical difficulties, it was also embarrassing that they were obviously ill-prepared with the questions. It was almost as if someone who was completely unfamiliar with Haruhi, the seiyuus, or just anime voice actors in general was put in charge of the event. The questions they came up with were so pathetic! Also, was ANY rehearsing involved for this event? I find it hard to believe that there was. Even if there was a delay, weren't the people involved given scripts at least days before hand? I shudder when I think of the negative impression the Japanese seiyuus must be bringing back with them to Japan about the American con experience. Sad, really sad. Whoever organized and ran the SOS Brigade tour should be ashamed of themselves. |
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jvowles
Otakon Representative
Posts: 219 Location: Maryland |
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You know, you're kinda right. We'd looked into so many different options, I got them confused in my mind. $30k-$40k was the range for a full time admin assistant; I believe the $50k I'm thinking of probably included the cost of leasing space and/or paying for internet/phone/whatnot. (The $30-$40k came from Salary.com.) Or possibly I'm remembering the cost of a virtual office assistant. Whatever the case, the duties included dealing with pre-reg questions, playing phone tag with hotels and vendors and venues, dealing with travel arrangements, routing and prioritizing mail and messages, shipping for the online store, etc. I'd argue that you'd want to hire your admin person *outside* the world of people who think it's cool. Hiring "on the cheap" frequently results in getting exactly what you pay for. (Kinda like "free" legal advice.) And you want your admin person's priority to be getting the job done, not getting off on the coolness factor. It's also worth noting that the labor market is often quite different in the DC/Baltimore/Philadelphia corridor than it is in California. I do recall we were looking at 20 hours a week or possibly full time, because there are endless details (travel arrangements, company contacts, etc.) that can be challenging to do in evenings and weekends, and we kinda wanted someone there on the phones all day. Playing phone tag eats up an enormous amount of time for volunteers. And as you mentioned, there'd be a spike in hours as the con approached. At any rate, even *cheap* paid staff can add up considerably, which was my overall point. (That's partly why we haven't done it -- that, and it takes time to interview, find the right fit and supervise them, and nobody could spare the time from their other duties to be in charge of that.) |
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LydiaDianne
Posts: 5634 Location: Southern California |
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I wrote this on another forum but I think that this fits in with what has been said here:
AX is broken, IMO. And broken badly. The problem is...how is going to be fixed. |
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FiliKlepto
Posts: 17 Location: Nakano-ku, Tokyo |
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*appluase* Thanks, guys, for bringing up a lot of really good points. Personally, I found Patty hilarious as Haruhi (especially when they made her do the voice over!) I think that part of the reason people may have misunderstood her behavior is that she was staying in character as ASOS Brigade Haruhi. Anyone who's seen the ASOS Brigade videos before attending the event probably understood better that she wasn't being an a*s -- she was being Haruhi! But I agree; she did look unprepared on stage. That's because she probably wasn't prepared just like everyone else, which wasn't her fault, and she deserves no more blame for it than the English voice actors (I haven't seen anyone accusing them of disrespecting the seiyuu). I'm surprised that no one else is saying anything about the one person I am incredibly irked with - the BangZoom! translator. That woman only exacerbated the problems that were already there. She kept trying to emcee rather than translate, and whenever Patty attempted to steer the show in one direction, the translator was all like, "Let's do this instead!" It was ridiculous; she wasn't even doing her job half the time and addressed the audience in Japanese. -_-; No wonder whenever she said "On three, everybody say ______," the audience appeared lackluster to the seiyuu. Edit: I agree in particular that the English voice actors should not have been on stage. This event was all about the seiyuu, and it was a bad move by the organizers to bring the dub actors on stage. However, don't take what Stephanie Sheh said the wrong way when she told the audience she did not go to voice actor school. She explained that there aren't any established schools to teach you how to match your timing to the animation as exist in Japan, but there are workshops, etc. and the technique is taught as on-the-job training. (Also keep in mind that many voice actors do have prior experience with stage and improv). Am I the only one who thinks Stephanie Sheh's Mikuru is pretty cute? Much better than her Eureka anyway. Wow. Looking back on it, I feel like I absorbed every moment of that concert. If anyone else has any questions about what was said / occurred, just ask. J/K |
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PantsGoblin
Subscriber
Encyclopedia Editor Posts: 2969 Location: L.A. |
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I mentioned my dislike for her in my write-up of the concert. She was probably the worst translator I've seen at AX. |
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Kaguzuchi
Posts: 18 Location: Monterey Park, CA |
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Regarding the Haruhi event, I also agree that the english voice actors were not at fault for anything. I thought they did quite well actually, better than most dubb actors I've heard (though I have to state that I hate most dubbed things and that the majority of dubbed voice acting I hear is strictly from previews or when I channel surf through tv).
The main people I hold responsible were whomever planned the event and especially whoever wrote the damn script. I gather there was a specific script when Patrica Lee gave her opinion about having to say "psychedelic" (or some word like that) and pointing to her script. I also believe that no one was probably given there script till probably about an hour or two before the event started judging by how the majority of them were holding papers and how they reacted (frantically looking through said papers) when unexpected events occurred. The guest are all professionals, and I'm sure if they were given the script within a reasonable time they would have had them memorized and knew exactly what would be happening. The result of this was that everyone was unprepared and it really looked like they were winging the majority of the performance. It was still enjoyable and the encore left me with a good impression but it could have been much much better. So once more, whoever planned the event and wrote the script should be the main targets of blame (along with the tech people). However, I do understand why they did some of the things they did such as bring the ASOS crew into this. The event was titled "SOS Brigade Invasion Tour" rather than "SOS CONCERT" or something to that effect. I'm guessing they were probably trying to market to a more centralized American audience than the diehard Haruhi fans (they already have our souls so they're trying to attract new blood ).Though I also agree that it's not what the majority, including me, wanted to see. On a related note, Was I the only person that was bugged by the fact that over 80% of the questions at the Hirano, CHIHARA and GOTO panel were all directed specifically towards Aya Hirano? I know she is the fan favorite seiyuu (including mine), but the panel was for all three of them. I felt pretty bad for both Chihara and Goto because they were just sitting there looking kinda down 3/4's of the way into it. When they did have a chance to speak, they were very energetic and cheerful but those times were very few and far between. I did notice that one of the more general questions regarding the three of them was tackled by Hirano as the primary speaker but I felt that some of the questions should have been ask that gave all three of them a chance to speak. I remember a few years ago, 2005 I think, is when we had Tomokazu Seki as a GOH and during that year, there were online submissions and polling for the desired questions to be ask. During that panel, there was a Q&A session which still involved questions from the audience as well as a mediator which interjected at points with the polled questions. This resulted in a very insightful and gratifying panel on both sides though time was limited as always. I wonder if they can maybe implement that type of question structure for some of the more popular guest in the future especially for panels with more than one guest. Any opinions on this? or was I just looking too far into something that wasn't there? |
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FiliKlepto
Posts: 17 Location: Nakano-ku, Tokyo |
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Oh, good, someone else noticed too! I believe the word was "freakalicious" maybe?
Agreed on both counts. I didn't really want to spend that much time on the American voice actors, but I could understand the purpose of having them there.
I missed the panel, but I'll make sure to show Chihara-san and Goto-san some extra love in the future~ |
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Viga_of_stars
Posts: 1240 Location: Washington D.C. in the Anime Atelier |
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Well I guess its never to late to say good things eh.
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