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It’s Saturday in Chicago, and you know what that means: Day Two of C2E2 2013. The lines are longer, the crowds are bigger, and the cosplayers are bringing their A Game.

As part of my morning coverage, I conducted a Hi 5 interview with comic artist & writer Tim Seeley (Hack/Slash) and tried to avoid getting crushed to death by the maddening crowd. More after the break…

“My name… some call me Luc. Last name is …secret.”

It’s that answer that adds to the question: Just who is Rukunetsu Rindorou? While his government name is still in the air, what isn’t questioned is the 25-year-old’s work on the fan music remix scene. Ruku is based in the Bahamas, which is fitting, given that his smooth HYBRID style of music can often make your favorite video game and anime songs sound as if they were on some type of cosmic vacation in a floating island above Earth.

Take the funk soul vibe of Earth Wind & Fire, mix it with the work of Japanese composers like Yuzo Koshiro (Streets Of Rage), Masashi Hamauzu (Final Fantasy X) and Junya Nakano (Final Fantasy X), and loosely tie that to some influences from the 90’s music scene and you’ve got an idea of Ruku’s music style.

Tune in as we Hi 5 Rukunetsu and find out more about this remixer.

Pop surrealism artist Luke Chueh caught the eyes of his peers and art aficionados in 2003. Despite having a background in graphic design, the Fresno native took to painting to make ends meet. Trying to distinguish himself from other artists, the self-taught painter incorporated an ironic concept to his art which helped make a splash in the medium.

You may have seen paintings of Luke’s characters around before. They’re often of cute animals (usually a bear) depicted in disturbing and morbid imagery, yet rife with universal subtext and messages, both positive and negative.

Read on as we Hi 5 artist Luke Chueh!

Recently, I had the chance to meet a few people at Riot Games, and a couple of them had given me the opportunity for this “Hi 5”.

Meet Hollymonster! She is a Game/Account Lead at Riot Games and a sweet bubbly girl. Her duties are, but not limited to:

• Lead the technical team of Player Support Specialists while providing guidance and taking an active role in their career development
• Collaborate with Training and Communication specialists to identify weaknesses and ensure that your team has the resources it needs
• Ensure optimal coverage across queue resources
• Generate in-depth reports, including trends and forecasts
• Build the team by helping with hiring and onboarding of staff

Continue after the break to see what she has to share with us. ^_^

Recently, I had the chance to meet a few people from Riot Games, and a couple of them had given me this opportunity for a “Hi 5”.

Meet Bear! He is a Player Support Project Manager at Riot Games and a pretty cool guy. Continue after the break to see what he has to share with us. ^_^

As a result of participating in my chat during Reader Appreciation Week, Robbin aka yuumegari, met the bare minimum requirement to get a chance to get Hi 5’ed by the chat host—that awesome dude being me. (Haha) After a week of intense pondering, she got singled out to have this once in a lifetime opportunity! 

Although she is from the West Coast and stands eleven inches shorter than me, we did find several things in common. We both studied Japanese as a major in college and that we have a profound love for GO-related hobbies. Through my exchanges with her, I had the pleasure of getting to know her and giving her a Hi 5… if only she could reach.

Despite my assumption of how I would treat her should we actually meet, here is my interview with yuumegari in a civilized and orderly manner. 

Hit the break and check out what she has to share! 

As a qualifier from my chat session during Reader Appreciation Week, I have had the pleasure of interviewing SetosNiceGirl for a Hi 5 segment. 

“I would like to say that I rarely ever use the word otaku to describe myself. I’ve always used the word fangirl. However, if you think about it, then yes I am an otaku with a mixture of geek, if that makes sense.” - SetosNiceGirl

Read on as I Hi 5 SetosNiceGirl, a reader whom we appreciate, just like we do you.

I am pleased to introduce everyone to a great geek/otaku (geektaku?) the winner of my GO Chat during Reader Appreciation Week: Byron Howard aka peacefulcalamity!

Read on to find out what makes him appreciate things geek/otaku and some of his personal favorites!

“I recently banged my head on the toilet while hanging a clock and have unlocked the secrets to time travel among some other items of super technology…don’t be expecting me to use this knowledge for the good of humanity.  Mainly just going to be years of physical debauchery.”

So says, myinnerfrankcastle, a fellow geek whose impressive collection of geek-related items almost rivals his edgey humor. Think of him as Dave Attell if he played Dungeons And Dragons.  In the meantime, this Nine Inch Nails and Mastodon loving US Air Force Senior Airman is biding his time till he’s stationed in South Korea by doing what he loves: geeking out with comics, cartoons, games, and Warhammer.

Throw the horns for a Hi 5 with myinnerfrankcastle.

Tumblr is an amazing place to meet some really cool GO-oriented people. Our next featured reader is one of my personal art idols and an amazing person in general. We at Pop GO are proud to introduce to you orangyorange!

You may be familiar with some of OrangyOrange’s work if you follow the fandoms of Young Justice or Homestuck, having drawn fanart for both of them. By her own admission, she’s “a casual geek” and is interested in a wide variety of things, from manga to comic books to doodling. To learn more about this awesome artist, hit the break below!

Well, with our recent Reader Appreciation Week now totally a thing that already happened, so comes a heaping batch of holiday Hi 5’s! I recently had a chance to get in touch with one of our readers and ask her 5 seemingly random questions. Hit the break to check out my interview with onkay (a.k.a. Allison).

When I picked electricneonpanda to ‘Hi 5’ after our Reader Appreciation Week, I didn’t realize that our origins in the geek world were so similar.  My first gaming system was the NES, and I remember making my babysitter play Mario for me until it was time for me to get shipped off to bed.

Our introductions to anime were also the same; catching Sailor Moon on Toonami after school.  We both cheap out on other things in order to fund our hobbies, and neither of us know what we’d do without our geek hobbies.

Hit the cut to learn more about my panda twin!

As most of you readers know, we hosted a Reader Appreciation Week back at the beginning for December and a few lucky readers were picked during our chat sessions to be featured in our Hi 5 segment.

Well, my lucky reader is cieru-! She is a former contributor and current fan of Pop GO.

So hit the cut to know more about her as she tackles questions about her otaku interests, namely animes, anisongs, VOCALOID covers, Japanese cuisine and the Persona series.

When you think about having a virtual girlfriend or boyfriend, do those crazy anime/manga stories that you watch and/or read about make you think, “only in Japan”? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have your own virtual gf/bf here in the USA?

Well, now you can!

Pop GO is happy to introduce you to Mike Amerson, Co-founder of WET Productions Inc., and the creative direction behind the 3D dating simulation games, My Virtual Girlfriend, and My Virtual Boyfriend for iPhone and iPad.

Read on as we Hi 5 Mike Amerson of Wet Productions and see what it takes to create successful mobile games!