Paneling World – This Week in Anime

Coop


We’ll even end it with an in-joke that’s highly specific to this column, Chris!

Ah! That’s right, we used to talk of a Transformers column last time…

Outside of the convention’s guidelines and amount of stage time you’ve been given, the structure of the panel is up to you. Trying to strike a conversational or academic tone? Are you showing clips or keeping it to stills? Looking to create an esoteric piece of performance art? Or are you like our good buddy Kurt and want to rank some ugly giant robots, but do it arbitrarily?

The panel room is your oyster.

But to your point, Chris, a classic panel-ass panel tends to be a sole host getting into the weeds of a particular subject. However, the open-ended nature of putting a panel together still applies.
In fact, you have a little experience in running a one-man-panel show, right?

A good meme keeps the momentum going!

Regardless of how many people are running the panel, it’s difficult to keep a panel moving. However, I can easily imagine how hard it can be to keep yourself on pace without someone occasionally nudging the conversation along. People love it when the panelist goes to town on their subject, but they might not stick around if the panel focuses on a single point for too long or is feeling a little dry. To a degree, you’re also fighting for attention at a con. Especially when you’re booked against big events like the premiere of Magic Knight Rayearth or the official Kaiju Girl Caramelise panel—like we were at Otakon.

Based on the rock-solid crowd we drew, I’d say the competition didn’t CLAMP down on us too badly. Then again, we were there as ANN representatives, meaning that we probably had certain benefits that the average panelist didn’t. For example, the fact that we could advertise the panel within this column beforehand. That isn’t the case for most people.

But I’ve also been on the “advertise it yourself on social media” side of things too (which has its own, similar caveats involved). Back when Russell and I put on the Super Dimensional Crash Course in 2022, we got a little lucky because BIGWEST and the folks from Creative Sphere were presenting at the show as well. It probably made our panel a no-brainer for the Otakon panels team when scheduling time came around. Oh, and the two of us were also given some cool goodies to give out after the panel too.

Again, to quote Scott Steiner, “I’m not normal.”
However, I CAN relate to how difficult it can be to PUT a panel together. How are you going to script it out? How often are you going to rehearse it? Is there a specific style you’re going for with the presentation? There are many little questions to answer before getting to the big day.
For instance, I’d bet that making your slides look and feel like the back of a G1 toy box was incredibly important.

Absolutely! If you’re not confident in your knowledge on a particular subject or research abilities, you can always step back and let it cook before submitting it to be presented. And no, having ChatGPT or Claude do all your research and slides isn’t a valid option. There was a panelist at Otakon 2025 who allegedly got caught using it, but was invited back to the show this year with the same presentation. In fact, there have been allegations of anime or game studios using AI to build their panels, and it’s never a good look. Final Fantasy XIV‘s Localization Director, Michael-Christopher Koji Fox, used AI-generated images in a recent Fan Fest panel and it didn’t go well. Even if he was perhaps trying to make a passive-aggressive jab at his bosses, that wasn’t it, chief.

Well, there’s a reason many panelists (including us) have taken to adding “No AI” disclaimers to their panels.

If you use AI to create your panel, here’s what you’re basically saying to anyone watching: “I didn’t care about this enough to write my own slides, do my own research, make sure my findings are correct, or even bother to do any work. Oh, and I’m a plagiarist too!”

I simply have no patience for any of this nonsense, because it comes down to this—you either show up and do the work or get the hell off the stage.

You’ve nailed it right there, Chris. It doesn’t matter if your presentation is a little worse for wear in some areas; it’s that you put yourself out there and did it! And if you’re worried that your panel might be even rougher than you expected, you can always poke a couple friends on Discord and ask for some feedback. Without the many great notes from our friend D-Train, Russell and I would’ve had a much tougher time talkin’ Macross. Not to mention that practice makes perfect…and also helps with the nerves, even if you’re still shaking a little onstage.

I, too, have been long-infected with the theatre kid affliction, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t felt the jitters either. Even if I’m good to go during a presentation, I can guarantee that I feel the steam rising in my head. However, it’s that experience (and lots of rehearsal, along with planning) that manages to stem that tide for me.

Before the three of us stepped on that stage, we’d gone through numerous rehearsals and made tweaks as we went. I’d also had everything laid out on a slide deck so we could easily keep track of where we were in the presentation. It all paid off, because when we did an in-person run-through, we let the panel ride, tapped into our newfound in-person chemistry (which amplified the chemistry we already had), and managed to cut down our runtime by fifteen minutes.

But again, much of that came from experience and simply doing the work.

Or our bag of cats, which is a loosely structured convo with points we’re working through.

To be fair, that’s also this column.

It goes back to what I said earlier: the panel room is your oyster.

You’ve probably already noticed the lengths I’ve gone to replicate the column’s visuals in our panel, but it was also built on the back of the Macross panel’s slide backgrounds. Yes, I did go out of my way to make that panel look like a Gunbuster science lesson (shout outs to Tama for the amazing chibis!). Again, “I’m not normal.”