I just woke up with a throbbing headache. I feel like I’ve spent the past two days walking. Of course, this comes nowhere close to the time when I queued overnight in the winter rain for Comiket 73 and fell asleep on Big Sight’s ice-cold wet concrete floor. That was just crazy.

AFA 09 has finally come and gone. I went for both days of the event and managed to get a decent feel of the whole thing, though I did end up spending most of that time chatting with people and taking pictures of cosplayers outside the event hall. I also managed to catch the concert by May’n and Yoshiki Fukuyama, a pretty worthy climax for my AFA experience.

On the whole, I think AFA 09 improved from last year. The use of space in the event hall was much better and the level of industry participation was also noticeably higher.

Unlike last year, there weren’t any odd empty spaces in the booth layouts this time, partly because the stage area was expanded and isolated from the rest of the event hall. This made the concerts more professional and authentic, but on the flip side made the whole event seem less lively. On-stage events in the afternoon, such as the regional cosplay competition and the live-dubbing session by the K-On! cast (most of it anyway), drew considerable crowds away from the main event hall.

Ideally the huge black curtain separating the stage area from the rest of the event should only be there for the evening concerts, but I guess that’s logistically infeasible.

Bandai had a pretty prominent exhibition area celebrating the 30th anniversary of Gundam. There were some event-exclusive and early-release Gunpla models too. I spent 15 minutes watching a video on the construction of the 1:1 Gundam that was recently assembled in Odaiba. It’s pretty amazing to watch these engineers and technicians put something like that together from scratch. Watching them fine-tune the speed of the Gundam’s head rotation and adjust the positions of the jet exhausts makes me feel kind of funny inside. I think the next closest thing I can think of is watching Disney Imagineers at work.

You know, the feeling that after these people have grown up, gone through college and become professional engineers in various fields, they can take the serious stuff they have learnt and use it to create something born from childhood wonder. It’s magical.

Danny Choo had a booth collaboration with Good Smile Company where all the usual (figurine) suspects could be found. He was also helping to promote Otacool, a book published by Kotobukiya that compiles photos of “otaku rooms” from all over the world. It’s like a printed copy of the internet! I think it’s about time someone did something like this for epic 4chan posts that are of historical significance to serve as primary sources for future O-level source-based questions. (“What is Anonymous and what do they not do?”)

I have this one. Yay!

Interestingly, COSPA has decided to set up a South-East Asian branch, COSPA SEA. Damn it man. It’s already hard enough as it is to wear a COSPA shirt to a local event without bumping into someone else wearing the exact same shirt. Back in the old days we had to physically fly to Japan to get our COSPA shirts and they were like rare Epic loot. Young anime fans these days have it too good. *Swings walking cane around wildly*

I hereby proclaim Shirt.Woot the next indie mass-market apparel trend for geeks. Considering they still do not ship to Singapore and will unlikely do so in the near future, our bought sense of individuality should be safe for some time.

Tatsunoko Production

Local comic Freedom Formula — soon to be a major Hollywood production

Hottarake no Shima — Production I.G.’s new family-friendly box office release

During Production I.G.‘s presentation on Friday, the speaker mentioned that the studio was founded by people who, having seen how girls are drawn to men who do sports, poetry, etc., decided that they want to make anime that can help them score with chicks. (I imagine telling a girl that you were responsible for a scene in Kill Bill can be quite a turn on.)

And having successfully achieved their primary goal, many of them are now happily married and starting families. Hottarake no Shima (Oblivion Island) is the result of that transformation. Heh.

Summer Wars — coming to a Cathay cinema soon

Storm Lion booth babes

Animax Asia live broadcasting

Doujin merchandises

Doujin posters

Moe Moe Kyun maid cafe

Danny drew quite a crowd when he went into the maid cafe in his Storm Trooper armour. All the maids were fighting to serve him. ;)

Reine Hibiki (illustrator for Marimite light novels) autograph session

And finally, the cosplay photos. I know I say this after every cosplay event, but AFA 09 has finally made me decide to buy an external flash for my Canon 400D. Eventually. Yeah.

A familiar face

GO GO POWER RANGERS

Hetalia will be the cause of WWIII

She’s Japanese

That reminds me. Speaking of K-On!, there was a live on-stage dubbing demonstration by the seiyuu cast on Sunday. Four of the girls were present. Guess who was missing? It was Yoko Hikasa, the voice of Mio. The audience was noticeably shocked and confused when this was finally revealed.

The session still went great and watching the voice actresses do their job was pretty interesting. The fans, once they got over the initial shell shock, responded quite positively. As a bonus, I found it amusing to observe the reactions that took place immediately following the unexpected revelation. In fact, I was kind of waiting for it to happen. I am a bad person. :(

Okay, so we all know that I’m probably never going to buy an external flash and when the next cosplay event comes around, I’ll be back here posting under-exposed and out-of-focus photos again. Damn my lack of willpower.

I missed the concert on Saturday but managed to catch the one on Sunday. Although better than last year, the acoustics still left much to be desired this time. Most of the vocals were hard to make out over the loud synthesized pop tracks and the booming bass speakers that were pointed right at me.

May’n performed a few of her latest non-anime songs before ending off with Northern Cross, Lion and Iteza Gogo Kuji Don’t be late. The crowd, being who we are, reacted much more favourably to her Macross F songs. Yoshiki Fukuyama’s performance was more audible, partly because he has a louder voice and partly because he played his own chords on a guitar.

The best part of the concert was of course the two duets May’n and Fukuyama performed for the encore. Fukuyama did an impressive rendition of Diamond Crevasse on his guitar and sang along with May’n during the chorus, and May’n did a surprisingly good job with Dynamite Explosion from Macross Dynamite 7. Personally, I was looking forward to a Totsugeki Love Heart duet, but I guess I shouldn’t be greedy. Music — the one good thing about Macross 7.

That about concludes my AFA 09 coverage. Now I shall pray to the great Cherokee gods for Maaya Sakamoto to come to AFA 10.

Having been to similar conferences in the IT industry, I didn’t have high hopes for this one. Often, it’s a bunch of really boring people in suits talking about how Asia is an emerging market and Singapore is poised to be a regional hub. AAC on the other hand turned out to be a rather pleasant surprise.

I stepped into the Suntec Convention Centre auditorium on Friday morning with great reservations. I was nearly half an hour late and the keynote address by Mr. Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, CEO of Kadokawa Group, was already coming to an end. I entered quietly through the back door, just as I did the numerous time I was late for lecture in school, and resigned myself to inevitable death by boredom which, no disrespect to Mr. Kadokawa, was only made more certain by the last few slides of his presentation.

The first speaker was Mamoru Hosoda, the director of Tokikake and Summer Wars. A prior glance through the list of speakers had given me the impression that he was going to be one of the few interesting speakers for the day. This rare spot of optimism was quickly overturned when it became apparent that instead of a personal presentation, the format was going to be a mock interview conducted by ANN’s Justin Sevakis.

I was puzzled by this arrangement because all it did was to add an additional layer of interpretations to the whole process as Justin was asking the questions in English… The interpretor was pretty bad and half the time Hosoda was answering different questions from the one asked. It wasn’t the engaging presentation I had hoped for.

Justin Sevakis and Mamoru Hosoda on stage

Hosoda mentioned that Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo was made for Japanese high school students and he didn’t expect it to do so well overseas. His main sources of inspiration are Hayao Miyazaki and Disney and he sees Pokémon to be the first to show that anime do not need to be adapted for local tastes in order to succeed globally. I’m not so sure about that one…

Edmund Shern, CEO of local media company Storm Lion and the founder of the ever popular Imaginary Friends Studios, went on stage with a few guys from Production I.G. to talk about their latest collaboration, Titan Rain.

Titan Rain

Given that Storm Lion was only incorporated last November, it’s pretty amazing that their comic series Freedom Formula has already been picked up by New Regency to be made into a live-action title distributed by 20th Century Fox. And considering the large number of collaboration requests from Hollywood studios that get rejected by Production I.G., Edmund must really know his stuff. Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, president of Production I.G., mentioned that he decided to do this with Storm Lion because it presented a creative vision as opposed to a profitable business proposal. Hollywood, take notes.

Edmund Shern and the Production I.G. guys

Of course, while it’s great that a Singapore media company has managed to find a place alongside the big industry players, I suspect this has more to do with Edmund’s personal experience than the local scene as a whole. Time will tell.

Mr. Phoon Chiong Kit, deputy chairman of Imagi International Holdings Limited, gave a talk about why he believed Astro Boy has failed rather badly in the box office. The title of his talk is “Distributing Animation Across Markets and Cultures” and frankly I thought it was going to be a real dozer, but I was proven wrong. It was actually pretty interesting.

Apparently Astro Boy did pretty good in China, flopped in the US and was dead on arrival in Japan. Over 80% of the viewers in the first week of its release in Japan were older men instead of the targeted teenage audience, which on hindsight is not that surprising. He speculated that the movie didn’t do well in US because it is an unknown franchise and looks kiddish to older audience but is perceived to be too violent and full of adult themes to actually draw in kids. It did better in China because Astro Boy is a recognized classic there and the audience does not have the same expectations that the Japanese audience has when it comes to staying true to source materials.

Astro Boy adapted for Hollywood sensibilities

I think the fact that Imagi is a Hong Kong company may have something to do with it too. Given that Chinese authorities have an annual quota of twenty on the number of imported foreign films, there’s a artificial lack of competition when it comes to box office sales. I wonder if Astro Boy was considered a local film and given certain preferential treatment.

Shiro Sasaki, CEO of Flying Dog (a division of Victor Entertainment), gave what I feel was the best presentation of the conference. Flying Dog manages many of the big names in anime music production, such as Yoko Kanno, Yuki Kajiura, Akino Arai, ALI PROJECT, Round Table and my all-time favourite Maaya Sakamoto. Looking at the number of titles for which Sasaki is credited as music producer (Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Noir to name a few), it is no exaggeration to say that he basically shaped our entire perception of what anime music is all about.

He did a presentation on Macross Frontier where music plays a particularly important role. For each Macross title, Flying Dog looks for fresh voice talents so that the audience associates the songs with the characters instead of any established singer. The talents are then developed in parallel to their fictional counterparts using various real-life promotional events that mirror those found in the anime until eventually they become established enough to release their own work. This is standard industry practice now, but Sasaki and Victor have been doing it since the original Macross.

Sheryl Nome’s blog

I think the commercial success of Sheryl and Ranka in Macross Frontier points to the inevitable future of all-digital idols. When a future iteration of Hatsune Miku eventually successfully navigates its way through the uncanny valley to emerge on the side of ultra-realism, real idols will be out of work for good. Considering how precious little is real when it comes to idol marketing, it’s really the next logical step.

Danny Choo did a presentation on his Mirai Gaia ecommerce platform which is interesting as usual, but I think I had already heard most of it before.

Kotaro Sugiyama, creative czar of Dentsu Inc., presented on Dentsu Japan’s past and recent unconventional advertising campaigns, including their recent idea to build a giant Gundam in Odaiba to commemorate 30 years of Gundam and the viral Big Shadow campaign for Blue Dragon on Xbox 360. Their folllow-up plan is to build another Gundam in Paris(?!). Although most anime fans would not have heard of the advertising company Dentsu, they are actually a huge player in the industry. AFA itself was created by Dentsu’s Singapore branch.

Vince Shortino, president of Crunchyroll Kabushiki Kaisha (their operations in Japan), talked about how Crunchyroll managed to convince Japanese right-holders and turn itself from an illegal den of pirates to a fully-licensed online business model.

The Crunchyroll presentation was very thought-provoking, mainly because it mirrored my views from two years ago at the time when the Odex crackdown appeared to be a foreshadowing of a wider industry backlash against fansubbing. Unfortunately, Odex, despite its wealth of industry connections, was and continues to be stuck in the comforts of the status quo and did not have the right combination of ideas, resources and luck to take advantage of what it saw as the doom of creative media. Crunchyroll, a California-based startup with all the right experience (or lack thereof) and can-do optimism that has been the heart of the Silicon Valley’s numerous successes, managed to do just that in spite of having to start from a difficult negotiating position, given that they were perceived to be a huge source of piracy back in 2007.

I pitched this exact idea (online streaming of the latest shows paid for by a combination of subscription and advertising) to Peter Goh, the CEO of Odex, back then and was given a long lecture on how it was impossible to obtain such concessions from the Japanese studios and how I was young and naive (or something to that effect). This seems to be a problem with the mindset of a lot of local businesses — we as Singaporeans are just too used to toeing the line. It was “impossible” to get Japanese support for an online streaming service, but only because no one seriously tried it until Crunchyroll. I hope Odex learnt a lesson from this, but I doubt it.

Crunchy roll iz in ur industry, destoyin’ ur bizness model

Interestingly, there was a short discussion after Vince’s presentation and one of the invited participants was Mr. Steve Tan, a digital IP lawyer from Rajah & Tann LLP. The very same law firm that represented Odex in its aborted crusade against illegal downloaders. It doesn’t take a genius to imagine what his main points were. He started going on about how right holders can only successfully defend their properties if they band together and launch a legal “blitzkrieg” against illegal downloaders, a transparent reference to Odex’s failure due to it being perceived as acting on its own accord. Vince tactfully shot him down by pointing out that it is the advancement in technology that has made past distribution models obsolete and not any intentional evil on the part of the consumers. Forcing fans to return to less convenient means of obtaining anime through legal threats will only drive them away from anime and the only way to discourage illegal downloads is to make legal ones available. It’s a self-serving argument to be sure, but it’s a valid one.

However, I do find it somewhat ironic that Crunchyroll offers anti-piracy tools to the content owners that indexes other video-sharing sites looking for infringing materials. It makes sense from a business perspective because it gives added value to its corporate customers, but the elephant in the room is that such tools would’ve been used against Crunchyroll itself had they been made available to the studios in 2007.

Enforcement essentially prevents any new competitors from following its footsteps, giving Crunchyroll virtual monopoly over the streaming model, and I think there is some conflict of interest for Crunchyroll to take an active role in targeting infringements on competing sites. It’s not necessarily a bad thing and in the long run, should this new model prove viable, established distributors with sufficient capital can still enter the market (like how Microsoft successfully forced its way into console gaming). It’s just too late for the rest of the garage startups.

AFA preview event during the lunch break. Photo provided by Alafista

AAC was on the whole a very meaningful experience with quite a few pleasant surprises. Well, I’m off to AFA now. Hope it will continue this positive trend and outshine my humble expectations. ;)

Mirai-chan, dannychoo.com’s new mascot
Illustration by Yuuko Azami
I want one too…

You can view the episode on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

I translated the portions of the show that feature him. You can take a look after the jump.

~ on-screen text.
// translator notes

BlogTV Episode 30 Part 1/3
(Danny appears at around the 2-minute mark)

Tokyo, Akihabara. Here walks a living urban legend.

Good evening to everyone watching BlogTV. I am reporter Danny Choo.

~ Danny Choo
~ Possesses indepth knowledge of anime, manga and otaku culture.
~ Revered as a god-like figure by Western fans.

Today I shall bring you into depths of Akihabara.

The legendary cosplayer: The God, Danny Choo.

~ Danny Choo Akiba Report
~ Illustration: Yuuko Azami

Danny, with his huge collection of figures, is creating waves across the net.

The first store we are visiting is called Kotobukiya.

~ Hobby Shop Kotobukiya (Radio Kaikan)
~ Tokyo-to Chiyoda-ku Sotokanda 1-15-16 Akihabara Radio Kaikan 1F2F

They sell many different figures and they have a lot of the latest stuff.
You can find many types of figures inside, such as Star Wars, Gundam and anime ones.
I just bought this one this week.
It’s a figure of Mikuru-chan from an anime called Haruhi.
Isn’t she cute?
I think she’ll look perfect on my desk at work.
You can even consider giving it as a gift to your superior.

And next we have Mirei-san.
It’s a Kotobukiya-exclusive figure.
A lot of my blog readers are awaiting her release.
I want her too.

Here we have various mecha models.
Like Armored Core and things like that.
These are pretty cool.

BlogTV Episode 30 Part 2/3
(Danny appears at around 5:41)

~ Danny Choo Akiba Report

~ Exclusive to Akihabara
~ Akiba Cookies
~ 800 yen

Well, the next shop is Asobit City.

~ Asobit Character City

This particular branch focuses on figures and toys.

// ZOMG Younha‘s Houkiboshi playing in the background!

~ Danny greeting a pair of girls who have come for interviews to be Akiba maids.

Why don’t you introduce yourself?
I came from England, my name is Danny.
Right now, I am studying the Way of Otaku.
That’s why I am learning about cosplay, figures and maid cafes.

~ Danny walking to the maid cafe with the two girls.

This is my regular outfit.

Eh?
Show us your face.
Oh! Umm, I’ll take it off later.

// ZOMG Mai:lish. I love that place!

~ It seems that filming isn’t allowed inside.

Danny told me that although there are still more footages left unaired, he isn’t sure if they will be shown in next week’s episode. We’ll see. Maybe Danny Choo Akiba Report will even become a regular section of BlogTV… LOL.

Picture shamelessly taken without permission from dannychoo.com

It took Danny Choo to get me to watch a Japanese talk show. And me being me, I decided to take my first shot at translating one. It’s a whole new world out there. I’ll translate anime and games over incoherent talk show ramblings any day! Well, it’s incomplete but I did my best… どうぞ

BlogTV #16 3/3 (Aired 20th October)
{ } = Translator’s comments

Woman: This is the corner of our show every week where we showcase “Super Blogs” with in-depth coverage of a chosen theme.

Woman: Our theme this week is “Figures”.

Woman: And here he is.

Man: Here he is!

Man: Die Imperial scum! {okay, I lied. I don’t know this. something-domo niwa ankoku wo!}

Man: I want to wear it too.

Woman: Oh, you can see the jealousy all over his face. But please stop looking at me. Kowai~

Man: I want one!!! I want one!

Woman: So anyway, I’m sure you are all wondering about this outfit here. After selecting a few Super Blogs out of the numerous figure-related blogs, we have invited this gentleman today to introduce us to them.

Man: Eh? He is going to introduce them?

Woman: Yeah. This is Danny Choo, the site owner of dannychoo.com, a blog that introduces the various aspects of the Otaku Culture, such as figure, anime, idols and cosplay, to the world. Welcome, Danny Choo-san.

Man: Yay! Welcome!

Danny: Nice to meet you.

Woman: The armour looks scary but he’s actually such a gentle person inside. I’m relieved. ^_^

Man: It looks great.

Woman: May I know why are you dressed in that?

Danny: Oh this? This is my normal appearance. ^_^

Danny: See, I wear civilian clothings in the daytime…

Man: {LOL} civilian?

Danny: …and change into this when I get home. Yup.

Man: Which one’s the real you?

Danny: This one is.

Woman: Aren’t you supposed to keep your identity secret? {I’m not sure about this either}

Danny: SHhhhhhh *wink* kinsoku jikou desu {ok I lied again}

Man: By the way, how much did this cost?

Danny: Hmmm, well… It’s about 300k yen in total, somewhere around there. {Nearly 3000 USD}

Man: 300k?!?

Danny: Yup

Man: Well I guess it’s just nice that Halloween is around the corner.

Danny: Yeah.

Danny: I do plan on walking around {on that day}.

Woman: So anyway, before we ask you to introduce the other blogs, may we first have you tell us more about what kind of site is dannychoo.com?

Danny: Okay, let’s see. I cover topics such as event reports for anime, games and figures, figure reviews and occasionally idol events. It’s an Otaku blog with a focus on figures. Yup.

Man: Wow. I can feel the overflowing Otaku spirit.

Woman: As you can see on the site right now, there certainly are a lot of figures. Danny-san, just how many do you own?

Danny: Well, I’ve never actually counted them before, but I probably have 98.

Woman: Down to the exact digit? And you say you didn’t count them. {my translation is awkward but I think you get the idea}

Man: Is this your house? {can’t hear what comes after. I hate talk shows desu}

Danny: Yeah.

Danny: I display my figures outside of shelves, so they often collect dust. Once in a while, I clean them and take the opportunity to line them up on the stairs.

Man: This is almost like Hinamatsuri. {Wikipedia explains it better than I can}

Woman: The title for this entry is “Stairway to Heaven”, right?

Woman: I heard your blog has an English version too.

Danny: Yeah. In general, 60% of my readers read the English version and the rest read the Japanese version.

Man: So when you post, do you write the English version first or the Japanese version first?

Danny: Oh, it depends. But generally, I write the English version first and then translate it into Japanese.

Man: Are the contents the same?

Danny: Well, sometimes I have Japanese-only entries and sometimes I have English-only contents.

Woman: Just a question, what do your foreign readers think about the Otaku Culture?

Danny: Well, the people who link to my blog are generally self-acknowledged otaku. That is to say, the foreign readers tend to have a rather cool image of otaku.

Woman: Oh, I see.

Man: Cool?

Woman: So it’s like the Otaku appeal?

Danny: Yeah like, “I’m an otaku”.

Man: I see, I see. In Japan, when we say “otaku”, it’s often like “Otaku? Ewww”. I guess it really depends on the culture.

Woman: Yeah, Akiba culture has really grown these days. It’s almost like a link to the rest of the world.

Danny: Yeah, I agree.

Woman: Well then, may we have Danny-san introduce some of his favourite figure blogs now?

Man: Well Danny-san is so well-versed in the topic himself, his recommendations must be really good.

Woman: Yeah, totally… BTW I just have to add this useless line to make my presence felt. {I kid, I kid}

Woman: Here’s the first one.

Danny: Yeah, this is Akiba-blog. This is the first Akiba-kei blog I’ve visited. {Me too!!!} It talks about the events at Akihabara and the occasional Sunday cosplay displays. {note: they seal off the whole street of Akihabara on some Sundays for pedestrians to walk and cosplay on} They also report on figures, new shop openings and shop closings.

Woman: There are some pretty ecchi stuff too, huh? {ecchi = sexual/porn}

Danny: Yeah, just a little. {Oh come on Danny, that’s such a huge lie…}

Woman: Certainly makes your heart beat faster. {no yaoi kthx}

Man: I heard that foreigners who come to Japan don’t just go to Akihabara for the cheap electronics these days. They are also interested in the Otaku Culture and see Akiba as an Otaku Mecca, {so true, so true…} almost like a real holy land.

Danny: Yeah, the people who read my blog generally want to go to Akihabara first when they come to Japan, not to buy the electronic products but to get figures and things like that.

Man: Do you think it’ll take off if we have something like Akihabara in Silicon Valley?

Woman: I heard there are plenty of places like that in various parts of the world.

Woman: I wonder why {something I can’t catch}. Well, let’s continue on to the next blog. What kind of site is this?

Danny: It’s moeyo.com, a very Akiba-kei blog. It mainly focuses on figures. The site owner often receives figures before they are released and take pictures of them. I often use refer to this site to decide whether to pre-order certain figures.

Man: Ah, I see.

Woman: It says “Moé-kei“. The site’s certainly moé. {Moé!!!}

Man: Yeah, it sure is.

Woman: It’s getting quite popular these days.

Woman: It really is quite amazing. Just looking at this site makes you go “Wow”.

Man: But actually, I’ve seen a lot of figures at Akihabara personally. Somehow they seem to look a lot more moé in these 2D pictures than the real 3D ones which are quite small.

Woman: So you don’t like them in 3D?

Man: Yeah, somehow I prefer them 2D instead of 3D. {what a bold statement desu}

Woman: Danny-san, how do you think your hobby will grow and develop?

Danny: Well, I just can’t imagine a world without figures. It’s like a soothing presence to me. In this stressful society, I think my growing collection will keep me going and I’ll continue to blog about them.

Woman: So, as your collection grows and grows, {something I can’t catch}

Man: Do you think that small figures are better? Or do you prefer them to be bigger?

Danny: Well, the small ones are good for carrying around.

Man: So it’s like a memorial?

Danny: Yeah, a memorial figure.

Danny: And the large ones, I leave on the desk at work or at home.

Woman: I wonder how large will your collect go. Maybe eventually your floor will disappear. Danny-san, what do you think figures mean to otaku, including yourself?

Danny: Well, as I said just now, they are a really soothing presence.

Woman: Oh, so that’s the whole thing behind it? {for some reason, I just have a hard time phrasing her words}

Danny: Yeah, indeed.

Woman: As you can see, his face is so full of joy.

Man: Yeah, it’s good to smile.

Danny: Yeah, it is.

Woman: And that was Danny-san. Thank you very much for today.

Man: Thank you very much.

Woman: And that’s it for this “Super Blogs” corner. Interesting.

INSERT SPONSOR MESSAGE BRAINWASH PROPAGANDA

Woman: Ahh! He’s really kowai!

Man: Oh that was great.

Woman: Please don’t shoot at me!

Man: Oh man, I want it so bad… I want it…

Woman: Isn’t this Darth Vadar?

Man: No, it’s a Stormtrooper. We are alright.

Woman: But I’m still scared. Oh oh, you’re hit!

Woman: Well, we are really done for today.

Man: We talked a lot about figures today, a topic we hadn’t really covered before.

Woman: Yeah, it’s like a whole new world.

Man: Yeah, I really learnt a lot.

Woman: Welcome to the 2D world.

Woman: And this week, we have a live webcam view from {some place} in Germany.

Man: Doesn’t this look cool?

Woman: Well, see you next week. Bye bye.