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Kunicon, St. Louis


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This past weekend, I attended the Kunicon that was held in St. Louis, MO. This was the very first anime convention I have ever attended. Since I knew that a fair number of people on know online (Macross World, Arcadia, and Robotech.com) were going to be there, I made sure I was going to be there!

I left Omaha, NE Friday morning and made a 7 hour drive down to St. Louis. After checking in, I had some other business to attend to and came back to the Millenium at about 9:00. I found Steve Yun at the Harmony Gold booth in the dealers' area and we talked for a while. Eventually Kevin "Bankofkev" McKeever and Tom Bateman showed up. The first Robotech panel, which included the showing of Codename: Robotech, was held at 11:00. Richard Epcar (who has voiced Ben Dixon from Robotech, Guld Goa Bowman from Macross Plus, and has been voicing Bataeu from the first Ghost in the Shell movie onwards) was there in attendance.

Here's some pictures from Friday night.

First of all, here's Tom and Steve at the Harmony Gold booth. I had the chance to talk to Tommy Yune about the Minmay poster and what it took to design the artwork. The short mini skirt was inspired by the ultra short skirts worn by the Macross 7 Bridge Bunnies!

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Richard Epcar and Kevin talk over Richard's involvement with Robotech and his other voice acting jobs. Pretty soon it was time to hand out prizes... I managed to win an MPC Ben because I a answered a question I thought any of these Robotechies should have beaten me to! (This is my third one and at the rate I'm going, I'm going to be start getting paid to take these things! :p ) I got Tommy and Richard to sign my other MPC Ben which I already had with me and I got Tommy to sign Robotech issue 0 which he did the cover.

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Here is Richard to the second power (I'm a Richard, too)! I had the chance to talk to Richard for a little bit and it turns out that he did the voice over for one of the flight instructors in Aero Elite Combat Academy for the PS2 even though they didn't credit the American voice actors for their work. Richard, along with some of the other voice actors like Scott McNeil, were pretty enthusiastic to be there and I was quite impressed by how they hung out with the attendees at the convention all weekend.

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This pic will probably hack a few people off, but here I am with one of Robotech's most infamous fans and now current Harmony Gold staffer...

BAAAAANNNNNKKKKYYYYY!!!!!!!

Pics from Saturday coming tomorrow!

(this should be the last of the higher rez shots)

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Edited by Apollo Leader
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Memo, you surely mean this picture! I guess whoever took those two pics took them a few minutes apart from each other. That is me at the window AND on the far right hand side of the picture next to Azoric. Most of my time at the party was spent by myself sitting up against the windows trying to get fresh air and get some rest. I had been up since 5:00 Friday morning and I didn't get to bed until about 3:00 in the morning on Saturday. I was (and still am) pretty beat!

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Edited by Apollo Leader
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Now for Saturday's pictures!

I finally got back down to the convention at Noon. With the Robotech Nostalgia panel to be at 1:00, I decided to get in line to get my Kill Bill Vol. 1 signed by David Carradine. The line took forever to move!

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A bunch of MPC VF-1 Ben's and a number of MPC Alphas were handout out at the three panels throughout the weekend; of course there were plenty of Ben's to handout since they are still trying to get rid of them at robotech.com! :lol: Friday night I had won a VF-1A Ben type for answering a question correctly (which voice actor who did Khyron and Scott Bernard in the old series is now voicing Scott again - Greg Snegoff). Now I got three of these things! The first Ben I bought in early 2003 for $50. A few months later I got one for $30. Now I get one for free! Next I'll be PAID to take one! :lol:

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(Picture courtesy of Andy "Azoric" Zoric)

And the winning streak continued! The question came up regarding what Hikaru/Rick's name was originally in the Macross English pilot. After a bunch of people got it wrong, Tom finally pointed to me and I blurted out "Rick Yamata". This time I got a a Lancer Alpha! Funny thing was I had just gotton my first one via the Valkyrie Exchange a week earlier. Now I got one I can play with and one to store away. :)

Fortunately, I didn't stick around for the Panel on Sunday, cause I surely would have needed a shopping cart to carry off with the loot! :lol:

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Edited by Apollo Leader
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I tried using my camera's night mode to get a better picture of the screen. The colors now stood out better, but things got a blurry. This was a shot of the command bridge of the so called SDF-4.

According to Tommy, everything that was presented to us in the Panel and for some of us in private represented the project over three months ago. A fully rendered still shot was presented (unfortunately I had put my camera away by then).

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I just wish I had more money and I would have bought the PG Zeta, the PG Mark II. :( I did buy my first Gundam Fix Figuration figures at this show - Full Armor Double Zeta, and Ramba Ral's Zaku I (with the additional stuff to make it a Zaku II). :)

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Edited by Apollo Leader
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Just a stone throw across the Mississippi is Illinois... and river boat casinos! This reminds me of home back in Omaha... river boat casinos on the Council Bluffs side of the Missouri River! :p

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Edited by Apollo Leader
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