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09/07/2003 Entry: "Con reports 2003"
It's been a long time without an entry, so I figured I'd finally post my long-overdue con reports. You know, I wasn't sure whether it was better to refer to people by their RL names or their LJ handles, so in most case below I've used handles. If that's weird, well, sorry. ^^ First up: Otakon So I didn't so much decide to go to Otakon as wander vaguely Baltimoreward. In fact, it wasn't until I hit Delaware that I realized, "Whoa! Dude! I'm going to Otakon!" The drive down was a little over three hours, and for some reason it completely wiped me out. I usually manage long drives better than that. Tired and raw-nerved, I was then confronted with mandatory valet parking at the hotel, which threw me completely out of kilter. I'd been planning to leave my stuff in the car until I'd found Starshadow, with whom I was rooming; instead I had to deal with checking in my car, then checking my baggage in at the bell desk, and then trying to call Starshadow only to get her cell phone's voice mail. Since I don't have a cell, there was no way for her to call me back, so I left a message saying I'd be waiting around in the hotel lobby. While loitering about unhappily and stressily, I got hit upon by one of Baltimore's notorious pan-handlers--in the hotel lobby! I gave him money anyway, because I couldn't muster up the brain cell and will to say no. At that point, I decided a large part of my trouble was that I really needed to eat something. Fortunately Starshadow turned up just as I was trying to call her back to leave another message saying I was going in search of food, so we were able to get me into the hotel room and then over to the convention center. (She was very patient with my twitchiness and urgent mewlings for something to eat.) We got sandwiches at the convention center's concession stand--and then I was promptly thrown out of the building because I hadn't gotten my con badge yet! Argh! Not a good start. Once I actually managed to find some place to sit and eat my sandwich, however, my mood and everything else started to improve. The at-con registration line was way shorter than the pre-reg line; don't ask me why. I got my badge relatively quickly, checked in with Starshadow again (who was waiting in one of the weekend's hall costume judging lines) and then did a quick sweep of the dealers' room. It was huge, as others have said. I also found it rather annoyingly laid out--the way they stuck the large, odd-shaped industry booths here and there and the number of cross-aisles made it very hard to do a systematic up and down sweep of the room. I think there were a few dealers that I never really visited because of odd traffic patterns. Still, I got a bit of stuff--all RahXephon-related, no surprise, considering that it's the nearest thing I've got right now to an obsession. Then met Starshadow again, went back up to the room so she could change, and a group of us went out to dinner, which was nice. After that we line-sat for MAT3K--in the short and boring line, thank you--enjoyed the evening's entertainment, and then went to bed. Saturday was mainly wrapped up in helping Starshadow with various costumery. (You can check out her LJ for my adventures as Cosplay Minion.) Stuff finally started to appear in the art show; there were some pieces I rather liked, but I didn't want to get bogged down in auctions or payment lines on Sunday, so I didn't bid on anything. There was more line-sitting for Masquerade, but in addition to Starshadow and her boyfriend my friend Amy was there, so it was really nice to spend some time with her. The masquerade was full of things that could have been terrible but somehow were brilliant instead (like the Super Mario Brothers villains dancing to "Thriller," or the guitar-playing Black Chocobo), so it was lots of fun. We wandered out during the "fashion show" because everybody pressed up toward the stage or stood up on the chairs and you couldn't see anything anyway; we came back just in time to catch the end of the "It's Tricky" music video, which was actually pretty good, and to see all of the horribly, horribly wrong CCS one. (My eyessss! My brainssss! It burnsss ussss!) Then there was the fun of hearing Starshadow's yip of shock when she won the first of her two awards. After the rest of the prizes were given out, it was time for bed. Hey, I'm not a night person. Sunday was way too short for the amount of things I wanted to do. Hit the art show again, then *finally* did my turn around artists' alley. Unfortunately, a lot of the artists weren't there on Sunday, or at least not that early in the morning. Starshadow and I did a half-hearted final stab at the dealers' room, but we were pretty much shopped out, so instead we sat around and people-watched for a while, and then it was time to go. Dropped Starshadow and BF at the airport, then drove home. It took me five hours going back due to evil traffic, but I was actually less tired than I'd been going down. And that was pretty much the con. I didn't end up going to any panels. The yaoi one was kind of late, and I was tired; I didn't get back from helping Starshadow until the fanfiction one was pretty much over, so I decided it wasn't worth going. I'm not surprised it was underwhelming, according to other people's reports; a lot of fanfic panels tend to cover the same ground. The mailed-in questions thing sounds kind of lame too. Way to kill the audience-panelist synergy. Actually, I didn't really do a lot of con-stuff in general. The whole trip was mainly an excuse to hang out with Starshadow and Amy, and to pick up a little swag in the dealers' room. I ended up getting some of the RahXephon DVDs, the first OST (can listen to "Hemisphere" as much as I want!), an art book and series bible (bought from Sasuga, cuz they're cool--and way cheaper than the other place that I almost bought from!), and picked up my Kajiura Yuki CD that Amy'd been holding for me. A couple of other random comments about Otakon: I loved the convention center itself. Huge spaces! It made me want to run around, or stage photo shoots with the characters in my head. What was up with all the begging signs this year, though--"Will do X for Y" or "I need hugz!" That was just kind of weird. I actually didn't see any cosplay that inspired me to glompage, although there were a number of cool and/or fun costumes. (Loved the Godzilla and Tokyo group--how often do you get to see Tokyo going down the escalator to the dealers' room?) Actually, the defining moment of the con experience for me was cosplay-related. I was heading for the dealers room after getting my con badge, and I was finally starting to lose my stressed-out edginess. In the crowd I spotted a group of people who were wearing robot costumes made out of cardboard boxes--and suddenly I was thoroughly and insanely happy. Because I was in a place where grown-ups could walk around wearing cardboard robot heads, and this was generally accepted as an okay thing. I love fandom. ^_^ ------------------- Next up: Dead winged catboys are wasted on twelve-year-olds, and other tales of Shoujocon I got a pretty early start on Friday. Actually, I was really twitchy to get going, so much so that I ended up forgetting to take stuff that I needed, and I also skipped making a stop at the supermarket in favor of getting on the road *right now.* Luckily other people in the room brought food, since the one downside of this particular location is that aside from one not-cheap and rather unspectacular hotel restaurant there's no conveniently walkable eating place. (There's a small shopping center a couple of minutes drive away, which is where all food needs not met by bread, ramen, pocky, and goldfish were taken care of.) Other than that, though, I love the Rye Town Hilton, aka the Escher Hilton. I go to Lunacon there every year, and between the pretty foresty setting and the mind-bending architecture of the Transdimensional Corridor and the Pink Zigzag of Doom it has an atmosphere like no other. It's also really easy for me to get to. I got there in the late morning, and only then realized that among other things I'd forgotten Canis_m's cell number. Not that it mattered much, since there were only about ten people at the con by that point, and we ran into each other in the hall almost immediately. We went out and got breakfasty stuff, and then hovered impatiently for the dealers room to open. The guy from USAnime who was at AX was doing his thing here too--namely, yellling at the top of his lungs variations on "Get yer red-hot yaoi doujinshi here!" How mortifying. He didn't really have anything I wanted anyway. The lovely ladies of Shoujo Paradise, however, were a different story. But more on the swag later. So there was shopping. There was a gradual accumulation of WA-tachi. I sat on the Myth and Magic panel, where I was largely superfluous, since the other two panelists had much more interesting things to say. It wasn't too bad, though. In more exciting news, I got fanmail! Along with really cool fanart courtesy of Rackhamrose, which will probably become an LJ icon at some point when I next get off my butt and into Photoshop. (Thank you again! ^_^) Dude, I'm starting a kitty pirate Jack collection. I actually got to bed reasonably early on Friday night, which meant that I was able to get up around seven-ish, take the laptop out to the comfy chairs in the Transdimensional Corridor and get a little writing done, which made me very happy. Accomplishment, er accomplished, the rest of the day was mainly taken up with watching stuff, along with periodic trips to the dealers' room and artists' alley, and also the fanfic panel in the afternoon. The latter went rather well and wasn't too much of the same old, same old. It was just me and Erica Friedman, along with a moderator, and I think I managed to hold my own better than at Friday's panel. At any rate, I had fun, and I hope the people in the audience were at least somewhat entertained. As for the weekend's viewing, here's the breakdown: Music videos: watched in two batches, some Friday, and some Saturday. I kept having to close my eyes for Utena movie AMVs, since I haven't seen all of the TV series yet, let alone the movie. I have to say that nothing really knocked me out, though some of them were fairly entertaining. Muraki lipsynching David Bowie's "Within You" (sung to Hisoka) was kind of wrong. Or maybe it's just that I'm so not a fan of that pairing. There was a Kenshin vid to "Butterfly" from DDR, which I ended up seeing twice, and so I kept getting the damn song stuck in my head. Overall, though, the main result of watching the AMVs is that I once again want to make my own. (Too many projects....) Juuni Kokki (Twelve Kingdoms): I concur with Canis_m about the unicorns. A bit confusing, but very pretty--the anime, I mean, not the unicorns, although they were also confusing and pretty. Kind of like Fushigi Yuugi but grittier and less fluffy-soapy, and without the "I'll do my best!" genkiness on the part of the heroine. Full Moon wo Sagashite: Kawaii! Twelve-year-old Mitsuki wants to be a singer, but she has throat cancer and has only a year to live. The two shinigami sent to watch over her inadvertently reveal themselves and her fate; out of kindness, catboy shinigami Takuto transforms Mitsuki into a healthy sixteen-year-old so she can go to a singing audition. Against all odds (except those of shoujo heroines) she wins the audition, which means that Takuto and bunnygirl Meroko are stuck with helping her keep up a double life. Train wrecks abound, especially where Meroko is concerned. The shinigami also have plushie forms, which, as GhilleDhu commented to me, gives new meaning to "death by cute." Zany and improbable, but loads of fun, and I'm mildly obsessing on Takuto right now. (Dude! Where's *my* flying catboy shinigami? Yes, I know, I'm extremely predictable.) I was even dreaming about him just after the con. This is really sad. Tokyo Mew Mew: Noooooooo! The wrongness! The wrongness! *cries* And that's all I have to say about that. Shounen ai love-in: As usual, a mixed bag. I came in partway into a Kizuna OAV--not the US-released ones, but a different one. It was actually rather good. Next up, I finally got to see Ai no Kusabi. Wow, was that depressing. Scenic but depressing. Also somewhat slow. The crowd was a bit restless by the end, and it didn't help that the next thing was this bizarre, completely incomprehensible thing with no discernable shounen ai content except for the fact that the two boys share a bed when they sleep over at each other's houses and they're obviously very close. I can't even begin to tell you what it was about, except that there was an evil spirit (dubbed the "naked evil bitch" by the audience) who apparently was after one of the boys and therefore got the other one hit by a truck so his spirit would leave his body and she could take it over. So then there were two of him floating around. And the boys and a few of their school friends apparently flew through the universe in their school, for no discernable reason, watching volcanos explode and galaxies being born, or something. And then the naked evil bitch had regrets about what she was doing and turned back time so that she didn't possess the one boy after all, and then the two boys fell off a cliff into the ocean and were lost, except that then they weren't and their friends were all happy to see them. All of this was interspersed with flashbacks of the two boys as little kids being cute together. And there was something about light and darkness too. Now picture this with a character design that was something like CLAMP School Detectives meets Samurai Troopers, and you'll understand why my brain was breaking. The audience was in hysterics by the end. It was followed by Beboy Kidnappin' Idol, a random and very silly bit of lite shounen ai fluff, during which the crowd got even rowdier. After that came something that I would tell you the name of, except that by now I've lost my listing of the videos, and I can't remember the title, except that it was something about a crimson moon. This one actually had potential to be interesting, though it was hampered by really gratuitous effects and was rather disjointed. It featured a powerful onmyouji, possibly with fox blood, and his companion, a pretty, androgynous cat spirit who would only attain gender upon first having intercourse. Much was made of the honeylike scent that it emitted as it began to go into its first heat, which very scenically attracted butterflies. Oh, yeah, and there was also a plot about an evil magician who was trying to discredit and drive away the onmyouji. Despite what you might think, this was also smut-free, although it was obvious enough where things were headed. I left after this because I didn't really want to see Legend of the Blue Wolves, and besides it was way past my bedtime. On the way out, Mei-chan, Nyahnyah, and I were laughing so much that we were falling down in the halls, and security had to shush us for giggling. You'd honestly have thought we'd been drinking. Didn't really do anything much on Sunday--a last zip around the dealers' room, once we finally got up, and then home for me. All in all, the con was good--it was great to see Canis_m and company, and to get to hang out with Petronia and Acadine for a bit. I had an excellent time watching stuff and getting to meet various people. The only down side was that from time to time I'd have an attack of feeling acutely dorky and incapable of intelligent conversation. It might have been because I was a bit twitchy, especially on Friday and Sunday--I'm not really sure why, I just felt unsettled and awkward. It may just have been that I've been running around so much this month. I really need to have a couple of quiet weekends at home. Other than happy fun memories and a bit of overtiredness, I came away with--swag! Not a lot, but some. Here's the damage:
* X TV DVDs 2-4 and 6 (nobody had 5, for some reason) And there you have it. That's all the cons for me until January. |
Replies: 1 Comment
| I was cleaning up my room when~! I found~! The shoujocon video schedule. According to it, what we were watching was:
Ai no Kusabi (but you knew that) I still can't believe how rowdy we got. That's good black material right there. XD Posted by Bell @ 10/12/2003 01:10 AM EST |
