The-O Network Blogs

So did everyone watch the Golden Awards? Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were hilarious am I right? Did you enjoy the show? Well did you ever think that the show has some connections to Jrock or anime? Well I am here to say it is true well let me show you the connections.

A bit of background information

First we are familiar with the Anime “X” right? One ED of the series is titled “X” and performed by the legendary band X-Japan. X-Japan’s leader and co-founder is Hayashi Yoshiki or Yoshiki as his fans know him. Yoshiki is not only the leader of the group but also the drummer, pianist, composer, and songwriter. He has composed epic ballads to epic rock songs; he also composed and performed by the request of the Japanese government a classical song in celebration of the 10^th anniversary of Emperor Akihito’s enthronement. He has discovered and signed many jrock groups in Japan (i.e. Luna Sea, and Glay). In 2005 he composed the theme song for the world’s fair expo in Japan. He has come to the US and composed “I.V.” for the film Saw IV.

Which brings us to the Golden Globe Awards; Yoshiki has composed the theme for the 69^th annual Golden Globe Awards of 2012 and was asked to return to compose the theme for the 70^th annual Golden Awards of 2013. If you are familiar with his music I think you can hear his special touch to the theme. Also you can buy the song on iTunes after 1/15/13 so look for it.

How would you like to have a private dinner with Yoshiki (Yoshiki Hayashi) group leader and co-founder of X-Japan? Well it’s not free it’s an auction from BiddingForGood website. The dinner was donated by Yoshiki Foundation America. The auction is for a good cause and well the winner gets to have dinner with Yoshiki.

This auction was for a private dinner with Yoshiki with some rules attached. The rules were simple the dinner must be scheduled and agreed by both parties. Dinner will take place in Tokyo or Los Angeles this will be chosen by the winning bidder. Either Tokyo or Los Angeles due to the fact that this is where Yoshiki commutes back and forth due to his studios and homes. Winning bidder must be 18 years old or accompanied by parents or legal guardian. Winning bidder can bring one additional guest to the private dinner. The length of the dinner will be 90 minutes in which the winning bidder and guest can talk to Yoshiki and just have fun. The last thing is very important the winning bidder and guest will have to pay for there own travel and accommodations. This auction was open from 9/7/12 till 9/21/12. The auction started at $1,000.00 and close at $37,100.00 with 129 bids. This auction was a perfect gift for a fan of X-Japan or SKIN or classical music or whoever had some extra money to spend this was a great way to donate money to a good cause and at the same time enjoy a nice dinner as well. This reminds me when he auctioned one of his Kawai Cristal Grand CR-40 piano that he used on tour (the site was shutdown when it crashed due to a $20 million dollar bid I think it was a bidder thinking it was yen currency but once the site came back it was sold for $134,931). Well just so you know Yoshiki posted on his twitter account that he will bring roses for the winning bidder.

For those of you that have followed us over the years, first let me thank you all for being with us. This April saw our first major breakthrough when we migrated our site to an updated platform which opened up new possibilities.

After years of struggling on finding a design model that would fit our goals, I have decided a professional blog/magazine style would be best for our needs. This entails some massive reorganization and implementation of some new tools.

If all goes well, we should be able to launch the new site within the next week; however, it may take an additional few weeks to hammer out all the bugs. So far from the beta version, I am happy announce that the new site is a step closer to my vision for The-O Network.

Stay tuned!

After so many years that I dedicated to Anime it has finally paid off somebody has finally noticed my contribution to the Anime industry. I am attending SalAnime as in Sal short for my name Salvador (which reminds me I have to let them know they have a misspelling on their site it reads SacAnime) which I take it’s to honor me for all that I have done for the Anime community. It was nice of them to hold it the weekend after my birthday (can’t blame them since it would be hard to have a convention during mid week) but Aug 31^st – Sept 2^nd still works for me I just hope my many fans bring me gifts.

(manager-san walks in to my office and whispers in my ear)

What?...So that is not a misspelling?....I see….Oh…..Oh….I misunderstood then…So that means no limo for me?....and no entourage?...and no bodyguards?....I guess I need to make a few calls and cancel some services then.

Ok back to what I was saying um…. It happens that I will be attending SacAnime in Sacramento and not SalAnime as I thought (I see what they did there Sac=Sacramento *Sigh* not Sal). Even though I won’t be the center of the attention *sigh* there will be a lot of events to attend such as AMV contest, Maid Café, Open Gaming Room with lots of games, Karaoke contest, Matsuri festival, J fashion runway (gothic, lolita, visual key, gothic lolita, and more), Live outdoor concerts with 'Akai SKY' and 'Eyeshine'. Also a lot of GoH such as: Johnny Yong Bosch (Adam Park from Mighty Morphin Power Ranchers and Vash the Stampede from Trigun), Jennifer Hale (Naomi Hunter, and Emma Emmerich from Metal Gear series and Commander Shepard from Mass Effect 1, 2, & 3), Laura Bailey (Henrietta from Gunslinger GirlLust from FMA, Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket), and more to see the full list go HERE I will also be there if anyone cares. Did I mention a Rave? Well there is one which goes from 10pm till 2am on Friday and Saturday. Plus there will Itasha’s from Team LoveHATE who are from NorCal and are professionals in the Itasha scene and they will be showing off 3 new designs or their art I am so looking forward to seeing them maybe we can get one for T-ono soon. There will be the vendor hall, artist alley, and masquerade so there is a lot of things to attend. This convention is small if compared to other convention but don’t be fooled it is jammed packed with activities for those who want to go to the Q&A for actors, or get autographs, or just go buy stuff from artist alley or vendors hall. Also if you just want to cosplay it is great convention to dress up and make new friends while taking pictures at the same time. If you are a new convention attendee then this is a good one to attend you won’t be overwhelmed and also make sure to read this before you attend Convention Survival Guide.

This year was my first time going to AX as press; every other year I was a general attendee. This year, after working as a staff writer for different outlets and presently for T-ono, I got to see things through a press member’s perspective, and boy was I in for a shock; the experience, both good and bad, was not like anything I had in mind.

First, let’s talk about the bad: mandatory attendance of panels and events translates into a lot of running and no time for rest. Also, the walking from panels to interviews to events, then back again for more interviews, was just as intense. Plus, the sense of not having up to date information on events we had to cover was very frustrating. I swear, some information kept changing more frequently than the stock market ticker. We had some details change on us at least three times from when I left my room to when I got to the convention, and that was just the first twenty minutes of the con. Since it was my first time, I was more confused than shocked, and I felt like a complete newbie. The last gripe I have is that I was in the exhibit hall not to walk around and look at vendor booths and artists, but to attend events. My schedule was so constrained, I didn’t get to spend my money in the exhibit hall, but I’m not sure if this should be considered a bad thing or a good thing.

Now for the good: I got to do my first face to face interview and sat in on another to do a live tweet which I also did from panels. One of the highlights of my experience as a press member was interviewing ANIMETAL USA. Further tempting my inner fanboy to gush, I also got to give a Stitch Disney figure to LiSA as a late birthday present and interview gift before we talked (I think she liked it). I had a great time and now that I have gone as press, I don’t think I can ever go back to going as a general attendee. I kind of like the craziness of not knowing if the schedule, or any other aspect of my plans, has changed. It is chaos, but there seems to be a slight order to all this madness that we like to call an Anime Convention. I hope to do it again soon.

Hello guys and gals! It has been a long time and I apologize for not updating the blog. There has been a lot of new exciting things going at The-O Network and we've been swamped with the convention season in full swing!

As promised, I'll try to use the blog to discuss a little more about our own personal thoughts and experiences covering events and running The-O Network. So instead of trying to recount everything that's happened in the last couple of months, let's get started with Anime Expo 2012!

Today was Day 0 (the day before the official start of the convention) and we were able to interview the awesome American rock group AniMetal! Senior Editor Jason and Staff Writer Salvador did a great job talking with these seasoned rock stars about playing anime related music and it was a real eye lifter. I really hope you enjoy our interview with them which we should have up hopefully soon!

Probably the main highlight of the day for me was hosting our video coverage of Anime Expo's Red Carpet Event with our resident translator and reporter, Arthur! It was pretty exciting talking with some of the guests as they walked in and it was definitely surprising near the end when Japanese pop star LiSA walked in and chatted with us and we got mobbed by cameras from other media outlets! Although Arthur did most of the work (great job Arthur!), this was a great learning experience and I hope personally I can grow to be a better host in front of a camera. All in all, I think it turned out pretty well for our first try. Definitely check back later as we'll have the video compiled and ready for viewing and as usual we'll have all the photos available for viewing in our gallery!

As I am writing this, we are offloading videos and images, transcribing content from earlier, and prepping for Day 1. We will definitely try to get you more video from the convention. Stay tuned as we will be covering LiSA's and Fiction Junction's press panel as well as interviewing them! Thanks for reading this and I'll do my best to remember to do a post for Day 1 later tonight!

Make sure to keep an eye on our twitter page as there we will post any live updates from panels or live streams of events! twitter.com/tononet

Wow, it's been 2.5 years since I last foot in Japan, and oddly enough, after dropping my bags off at the hotel, it was off to Akihabara! For better or for worse, I felt a real connection prowling the streets, almost like visiting a favorite relative. It's a Sunday evening, and the roads are closed for the weekend to allow shoppers easy access. The streets are flooded with cute maids on every block corner handing out pamphlets.

The biggest change was the disappearance of the Radio Kaikan which was torn down after the 2011 earthquake. Most the stores that were in there such as K-Books and Volks have relocated into new buildings with the former having their very own building northwest near the Mandarake store.

If you are seeing this, then hopefully that means the migration was successful. We have also updated the platform our site runs on so there will be a vast amount of changes. We've spent months moving all our content and making sure everything works fine; however, there were several things such as the URL paths which we could not test until we ran it in production.

We decided that it would be best if published the site and work out the little things such as formatting and layout later.

We will continue to post new content as well as fix any broken links or articles.

Thank you for your patience.

If you are reading this, either the site has successfully migrated over or you are a staff member. Lots to do left!

This is a test area for The-O Network Online Staff blogs!