And now! The first guest has been announced. His name: Seiji Mizushima. He's known mainly for being the director of FullMetal Alchemist (though not the movie; at least, I don't think so), and he was also the director of Shaman King. This is awesome for a few reasons. First, we've seen FMA and Shaman King, so we're actually familiar with his works. Though, the way we've been watching anime lately, I don't think that will be a problem anyway. We are going to have to figure out some way to watch those last few episodes of FMA, though, to avoid spoilers. We had them all downloaded, but stuff happened when they first were released so we didn't get a chance to watch. Then we kept forgetting, and by the time we got back to it, we had to get our hard drive wiped. Ah well.
Another reason this is good, potentially, is that people don't seem to pay enough attention to animation directors to fill up hotels. If it was a musical guest, a famous voice actor, or CLAMP, it might be another story. Of course, the way anime has been gaining popularity in the States, it might be another story anyway. Fortunately! We have money now, and once we get our finances figured out bill-wise, we'll know whether we can reserve a hotel room. I'm thinking of putting it on the credit card (formerly only used for overdraft protection), which is a trap I'd hoped to avoid for a long long time. But now we have three people counting on us to share a hotel room and show them around the convention, and I really don't want to let them down. We'll see what happens.
And once we get the hotel reserved, we can anxiously await more guest announcements! Yay!
Tonight I'm thankful for being able to eat honey-nut Chex Mix, Cadbury Creme Eggs, being able to talk to someone about getting a ride to Target, getting to play the piano a lot at church today, and getting to eat cereal for breakfast tomorrow.
EDIT: I posted before they had the official press release up at the forums. Apparently Seiji Mizushima did direct the FMA movie, as well as Slayers Next.