Lain World Tour - Anime Expo 2001

On Saturday July 7th in Long Beach, CA, I hosted the serial experiments lain Fan's Discussion Panel at Anime Expo 2001.

First off, I just wanted to thank any TEL readers who managed to attend. Secondly, many thanks to the CJAS crew who helped me set up the multimedia portion of the panel. Thirdly, thanks to James Kao for his general assistance and being on the panel with me. And finally, I'd like to thank Carol Kim, my fiancee, for her constant encouragement and invaluable help. I appreciate all the support. ^_^

I thought the panel went fairly well, and I hope you found it informative and fun.

For those of you who couldn't attend, here are the lain product announcements that I made:

1. There is a new lain DVD box set tentatively scheduled for release in late 2001. Unlike last time, the box won't be a lunchbox. Instead, it will be a cardboard box featuring new artwork by Yoshitoshi ABe. At this time, no further bonus materials have been announced for the box set. (source: Chad Kime of Pioneer)

2. Guardians of Order, a Canadian company that produces the anime role-playing game "Big Eyes, Small Mouth" and also various anime fan guides, will be releasing a lain fan guide:

"The Serial Experiments Lain Ultimate Fan Guide will debut in November 2001, with a price of $24.95 US. It will contain detailed episode summaries, character analyses, and explorations of theme, plot, and setting. 80 full colour pages, 48 black and white. Role-playing game stats for the major characters for our anime RPG "Big Eyes, Small Mouth" will be included." (source: Mark Mackinnon from Guardians of Order)

In addition to product news, I also showed footage from the lain promo DVD and the lain Playstation game (thanks to Yu Cheng Koh from Digital Angel for providing the game footage), presented an unpublished interview with Chiaki J. Konaka (the writer of Lain), and had an open discussion about numerous aspects of the show. At the end, people came up to view the lain merchandise I had on display and to ask questions about it. During the panel, I also gave away little "powered by Navi" stickers and about 20 Niea_7 postcards that the Pioneer people graciously gave me to distribute.