We're back from the Anime Overdose convention in San Francisco, California this past weekend. Admins in attendance were $spyed, $dygel, $spot, $fluffy, $skittleboi, ^mangapunksai, and $melodymaker.

We all had lots of fun, and many of us carried home our fair share of loot. Personally, I picked up an import Final Fantasy soundtrack, a plush soot from Miyazaki's Spirited Away for my wife, and a Full Metal Alchemist shirt to wear around the office. I know for certain that both ^mangapunksai's and $fluffy's bags were weighed down with at least an extra ten pounds of anime stuff for their respective trips home.

In case you missed the previous announcement, we were invited to Anime Overdose for a panel discussion on deviantART and its position in the anime world. It's worth noting that this is the first panel discussion we've ever sat on ourselves, and we thought it was appropriate that it was at an anime convention.

The panel included:
Angelo Sotira ($spyed), Chief Executive Officer
Andrew McCann ($mccann), Chief Technical Officer
Eric Kolb ($dygel), Director of Artist Relations
Allison Carmichael (^mangapunksai), Anime Gallery Director

Here are just some of the facts discussed during the panel:
Anime and fan art categories alone make up 25.8% of all digital and traditional art at DA.
The anime community is responsible for at least 4.3 million favourites and 110 million deviation views.
46% of the top 100 deviations on deviantART are anime- or manga-styled.
21% of all artists at deviantART have submitted anime more than once, and 12% of all artists have submitted fan art more than once.

Unfortunately, we didn't have the option of having the panel discussion recorded, so we can't present the complete panel to everyone, but we're very much appreciative of everyone who showed up - at least 80% of which were already members of the deviantART community!

Inspired by the overwhelming percentage of deviants in the panel crowd on Saturday, we decided to have an autographs sheet at our booth all day Sunday. Here's a list of the people who stopped by on just the last day of the convention:
~Zydeco, ~Sekhimet, ~Kreyana, ~PsychoCat
~fanatical-neo-zealot, ~MeEightMonths, *uniqueartist43, ~swamp-monster
~kura-x, ~lilkitty, ~Ms-Ichimonji, ~juumou
~cali-t, ~graphite-graffiti, ~a-go-go, ~Mehagian
~Jessami, *junkeemunky, ~lostelwood, ~ryuutenshi
*jeraldineschreiber, ~akindcruelty, ~gambitgurlisis, ~sweethart772002
~Screemo, ~aquakirbyyoshi, ~Vault18, ~shadowpriestess

Thanks to everyone who came by to visit us, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday! I was certainly an encouraging event for us, and we hope to be able to meet a lot more of you at other conventions (perhaps even the deviantART Summit) in the future!