Prior to my trip to South Korea, I brushed up on the Korean language in preparation to survive roughly a week in order to get around. It may not be necessary, but it doesn’t hurt to learn some survival phrases, or at least get an idea of how the language is structured for future reference.
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Update 4/5/2020: Due to the current impact of the outbreak, I have not been able to keep up with the events that have been delayed. But it is safe to say that many events scheduled between April and June have been called off. However, I will check in to relay news of conventions and events happening beyond June based on the level of the virus activity. Stay safe, everyone!
List updated on 2020/03/16 @ 7:45 PM US Eastern Daylight Time
All of you are aware of the current turn of events surrounding the outbreak of the Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, that has amassed over 120,000 cases of infections throughout the world. As a result of the virus’s lethal effects based on varying conditions of the patient, many large public gatherings are being postponed or canceled for 2020 in an effort to contain the virus.
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Thank you for sticking around the blog and for following the Seoul Searching Chronicles series! As a bonus, I wanted to post my thoughts about my recent trip to South Korea, and talk about some things that I would really, really like to see in my home country (although that is easier said than done, as the thought of it wouldn’t “make any sense” to us Americans).
This is the third and final installment of the Gundam 101 series. If you’ve been following this, then I thank you! For the newcomers… the Gundam 101 is a “Crash Course” into the world of Gundam for potential fans or for Gundam vets are not up to date with what’s going on.
Welcome to the second installment of the Gundam 101 series. In case you were wondering what this is all about, it is a “Crash Course” into the world of Gundam for first time viewers, or Gundam vets who are not up to date on their “Gundaming”.
On Monday, Part 1 went over Gundam series created from 1979 to 2000. Today, we will go over series made in 2000 to 2009. Friday will conclude the series as we take a look Gundam Movies and OVA (Original Video Animation) series.
Back in 2009, I was approached by the original founder of our local anime club, Scenic City Anime & More (at the time known as Boogie BAM Anime Jam Club when we met weekly at Books-a-Million), wanting to know more of the Gundam franchise and to share with other members, especially to watch in the order that I have watched them, to make sense of the 40 year-old franchise. This eventually led to sharing my love of the franchise in the form of panels at Anime Blast Chattanooga and Connooga. Enter: Gundam 101: Anime Crash Course series.
Working on the presentation, I discovered that there were too many series and movies to explain in one day (the meetings ran for roughly an hour and a half), so I had to split them up into 3 weeks of content. The first week focused on the TV anime series made between 1979 to 1999. The second week covered TV series made between 2000 to 2009. And the third and final week concluded the presentation series with a guide to the Gundam movies and OVAs (Original Video Animation).
In the time since I published the series, Bandai Entertainment discontinued home video releases of all their anime titles, including the Gundam franchise. It wasn’t until a few years later, with the release of the Gundam Unicorn OVA series, Right Stuf stepped in and rescued every Gundam series released by Bandai, even a few that was skipped over due to fan “demand”, such as ZZ Gundam. As we enter 2020, nearly every Gundam series has been released for purchase in North America on DVD and Blu-ray thanks to the efforts of Right Stuf!
To those curious about Gundam, and/or missed the previous presentations from back in the day, as well as the original series on the original CEN.TAKU.ME blog, this is a reboot of the very same series I worked on, originally clocking in at about 10 pages! It will be explained in the same order as in the meetings–and in the original article series–along with any extra information I might have forgotten, including the latest TV anime, movies, and OVAs that have surfaced in the years since. Following the conclusion of the republication, there will be an additiona post in this series of essential TV anime, movies, and OVAs released in the 2010s.
Welcome to part five of The Seoul Searching Chronicles! Today we highlight our last day in Seoul with a trip to the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, and Lotte World–which is said to be the Six Flags Theme Park of South Korea.
We kicked off our last day emerging from the subway to the bustling area of Dongdaemun, which also houses many street vendors, and the interestingly designed Dongdaemun Design Plaza, which is home to many modern design exhibits when it comes to architecture and fashion. (It even as a SMTOWN store located on the second floor, which totally caught us off guard!)
Welcome to part four of The Seoul Searching Chronicles! In this post we went back to the COEX Mall to check out the COEX Aquarium, where we were told that we had to check out during our visit! It’s an aquarium that looks small on the outside, but it was very worth the price of admission (around $20 USD)–and you get to see sharks! Pardon the lack of words moving forward as this was in a format of a “speedrun” so to speak, while at the same time more of being in awe of the attractions. Although I think I took more pictures from this place than anywhere else in Seoul, so only select photos of interest will be highlighted in this post. More pictures and exclusives will be on the Centaku Media page on Facebook following the conclusion of the Seoul Searching series!
