For those who haven't heard yet (all three of you) it turns out that with as many attendees as they had, and in the new location in Long Beach, the Anime Expo staff and the Long Beach Convention Center couldn't get it together, and the result was what people are calling the worst AX ever. Apparently they spent so much money on the silver bullets, they forgot to buy a gun. Guest Momoi Halko dissed the con on her blog and canceled everything except her main concert. The SKIN concert (with, I didn't even realize, Yoshiki on drums, wow!) started hours late, the SOS-dan event was (according to my friend ININ) "30 minutes of talking and 30 minutes of karaoke", and the signing session with the SOS-dan consisted of about 100 pre-signed posters being given out to the first few fans in a poorly-managed line while the seiyuu themselves weren't there. There are other negative reports floating around, including rumors that the American voice actors were rude to the Japanese seiyuu, though that's just the way it was scripted, according to Johnny Yong Bosch (American Itsuki). But I'd really rather not go on in detail about old, depressing news, so if you really care to know, you can read the AX thread.
More importantly, El Cazador's soundtrack has a release date and a tracklist! Since the music in this show has been top-notch (as expected), I'm just dying for it to come out. Oh yeah, and as another anime blogger mentioned, the last track on the CD is an insert song from episode 14 sung by Emily Bindiger, who has performed English-language vocals for both Yoko Kanno and Yuki Kajiura before. It definitely resembles some songs like "To Nowhere" from .hack//SIGN, though, a little happier, I suppose. Flutes, chimes, strings, great solos, and Kajiura's distinctive touch. Fans like me will be dying to pick it up come July 25th.
So that's about it for now, but tomorrow, I'll be back with word on the summer anime season, which is just now starting. Ja, ne!
