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June 14th, 1.5mo before the con, the Otakon twitter account announces that 3 Japanese Fruits Basket voice actors coming to Otakon (🍙+🐀+🐮).
In the replies, Otakon says there'll be a panel and a signing. I was interested in getting the Shesthaal funeral frame signed by his VA (🐀), so I asked about non-Fruits Basket merch. I got told they were working out the details. 
June 24th, Otakon releases their schedule. No Fruits Basket stuff on the schedule. Time to be concerned...? Someone asks about the signings in the replies. Otakon says it's still being worked out.
June 27th, Otakon posts another announcement about the Fruits Basket vas coming. Again, no details about the signing and panels and such.
July 4th. It's now the month of the con, and there's still no info about this signing, panel, if you can have non-Fruits Basket stuff autographed, etc. Someone asks Otakon on Facebook about it. 3 days later, they reply and say that "it's only a meet and greet".
Also on July 4th, Funi tweeted out an announcement about the first volume of the Fruits Basket BD. This might seem irrelevant, but it gets relevant real fast.
July 10th. Finally, 2.5 weeks before the con, Funimation and the Fruits Basket english twitter account both tweet out info about the events at Otakon.
funimation.com/blog/2019/07/0…
Here are the details: There is no autograph signing. It's a meet and greet. In order to go to this meet and greet, you have to pre-order the English release of the first volume of the Fruits Basket BD.
Here are the details: There is no autograph signing. It's a meet and greet. In order to go to this meet and greet, you have to pre-order the English release of the first volume of the Fruits Basket BD.
Additionally, pre-ordering does not guarantee you a spot at the meet and greet because the occupancy is capped at 50. The first 50 people to sign up for it on Eventbrite and input their valid pre-order order number at 11am PST / 2pm EST on July 12th will be allowed.
Then Funimation's news post says you can get an item autographed, whereas Otakon says that you only get the pre-signed shikishi and there is no autographing.
Fwiw, I asked Funimation about it on their Twitter and didn't get a reply.
So Funimation was asking you to pre-order a $64 item to get a chance at getting into a 50 person "meet and greet" (the details of what exactly this "meet and greet" are is still unknown lol) in some Fruits Basket Hunger Games on Eventbrite on Friday afternoon.
And all this time, people have been making plans before getting hit with this. Imagine spending money on a plane ticket and an Otakon badge under the assumption you could get an item signed by 1 of them, only to get told only 50 ppl get an autograph, and it's a pre-signed item.
At this point, someone must have said, "Could this get any worse?"
Enter Murphy's Law.
Friday actually rolls around. Despite the prior announcement that the link would be on Twitter at 11am PST/2pm EST, it went up an hour early.
Enter Murphy's Law.
Friday actually rolls around. Despite the prior announcement that the link would be on Twitter at 11am PST/2pm EST, it went up an hour early.
People got filtered out by each new announcement, meaning only people who were actually willing to buy the blu-ray were still interested in this today, and now they got left out for showing up at the previously announced time. Really hope those people cancel their pre-orders.
I feel bad for the JP VAs as well... like, apparently their schedules are all busy which is why they're only there for a panel + a brief "meet and greet" (meaning still unknown) before getting thrown back on the plane. (Do the JP VAs even know they're going...?)
Personally, I find the use of Japanese VAs to promote "buy the English BD" fucking weird too, esp when Funi's gimmick for Fruits Basket 2019 was, "Look! We got the original cast from 10yrs ago to play high schoolers again! Uguu nostalgia~!"
I'm honestly amazed that the Fruits Basket panel is an open event for everyone to attend and not a 100 person max capacity event that you have to queue for at 4am but only after buying $500 worth of cat and rat statues.
(Btw, when I say "queue for 4am", I actually mean "queue for at 3am".)
