Well, here's my little bit of the madness. ^^;
AX98 con report
Thursday.
After 8(3.5 of them alone) hours of driving, we arrived at the
Hilton(around 9 PM)and picked up out badges with out any problem.
Aparently, there was a huge mob earlier(1800 ppl got their badges on
Thursday?!) but when we were there it was walk up, hand over
confirmation card, flash ID, and go. In and out in less than 5
minutes. Note for future:Arriving around 9:00 is a good thing. After
that, we went and got our room and got moved in. One further note. I
think I managed to get one of the best parking spots in the place.
Right in front of the elevators. ^_^ Our room was on the 12th floor,
which incidentally is a *long* way up. Since the room was over looking
the convention center entrance, there was much idle discussion of how
many con goers could be taken out by someone swan-diving out of our
window. ^_^ Then, we had a quick run to Dennys for some (SLOW!) dinner
and then we crashed for the night.
Friday.
We got up a bit early in order to get a jump on things. My roomies and
I got down to the line for the opening ceremonies around 8:30 or 9 and
we ended up with a pretty good spot in line. A number of Cosplayers
were allready in evidence most notable was the guy with a Gundam(RX?)
costume. He only had the head and chest on, but it looked kinda
cool(wide too).
The opening ceremonies were kinda neat, it was nice to see that the GoHs
had a sense of humor(quote:This is my first step in the conquest of the
universe. ^_^). Watase Yu got her first shock of the con(massive
applause). She wasn't expecting the reception she got. The Taiko
drummers were a nice touch. I really hope they come back next year.
Once the ceremonies got out, people began forming up for the dealers
room. I ran into Eric Jones(who was working the con) for about 30
seconds while he was attempting to control the aforementioned line. The
line was rather impressive, and my friends and I didn't feel like
waiting around in the line, so we wondered off to go watch Final Fantasy
for a while. Final Fantasy, if you haven't seen it, is a bit bizarre.
^_^
Before I knew it, 4:00 rolled around, and it was time for the FFML
dinner. Among the group were Damon Castle, Kun-chan and her sister,
Wing Wong(two of them?!), myself, and a bunch of people whos names I
can't remember(gomen!), totalling 12 in all. The first interesting bit
about that particular experience was during the walk to the
resturant(Tony Romas). I was talking to Wing a bit and trailing Damon
by about 10 feet. Suddenly, Damon yells out "YES! I AM THE DEPUTY
BASTARD TASKMASTER FROM HELL!!!" And then starts in on a bout of
maniacal laughter. He admitted to being none other than the infamous
Mouse around that time as well.
There were a few other bits of oddness during dinner itself and I am
currently under the impression that certain otaku might have given
Kun-chan a bad impression of us Americans. We're not all that bad,
really. ^_^ Anyway, I didn't catch much else of interest during the
FFML dinner, seeing that I was attempting to meet my weekly allowance of
red meat in one sitting... Mmmm.... ribs... ^_^
Once everyone had eaten, we walked back to the hotel, and went straight
on to the Fanfic panel. The panel consisted of Ryan Mathews,
Kun-chan(who got a few cheers for just being there. <g>), Brian Edmonds,
Megazone, Anand Rao, Damon Castle, and Larry "R-Type" Mann.
Incidentally that was the seating arangement for the panel as well.
^_^ Larry was quickly apointed court jester and the panel got under
way. It was probably fortunate that Zoner was taking pains to avoid
turning the panel into an Eyrie panel(which it almost did anyway). The
panel was fairly interesting, there was a bit everything covered. Damon
became something of a target for someone in the audience(if she's on the
list, care to identify yourself?) after she discovered he easily turned
a nice shade of red. Quote:Aww, but you look so *good* in crimson! Good
panel, I'll leave it to someone with a slightly better memory to cover
it better.
Soon after that, I discovered the game room and got whomped in the
second round of the Armored Core tourney. That blew. Oh well, I
haven't played AC in months anyway. <g> After that, more videos and
then I crashed for the night. Unlike some con-goers, I don't see the
attraction of running yourself into the ground during the con. <shrug>
Saturday, again an early start, this time to get in line for the Watase
Yu panel. One of my roomies was in line at 7:45. One person had been
there since 2:30 for some bizarre reason. Now THAT is dedication. The
wait to get into the panel room was a bit interesting by itself. First
off, the line kept on growing. It'd snake itself down to one end of the
hall, and then work its way back up. It did this about 4 times by the
time the doors were opened.
There were also ALOT of Cosplayers in the line highlights included the
impromptu skit/mock fight/photo shoot between Tamahome, Evil Tomahome,
Miyaka, Nuriko1, Nuriko2, Suzaku No Miko, and Tasuki. Also present in
the crowd were Cherry and Lime(Saber Marionettes), the Norns(AMG), most
of the Ruroni(sp?) Kenshin cast(I think there were atleast 3 Kenshins
around), a Natsumi and the bike cop(YUA), Ayanami Rei and Ikari
Shinji(in plug suits!), the requisite Sailor Senshi(*NOT* guys, thank
god), and who knows how many others that I've forgotten. Some of the
costumes were *real* good.
The panel itself was good, Watase Yu has a quick wit and took no time in
firing back at the questioner when a silly question was asked. At one
point, she denied basing Miaka on her self, but later got nailed for
revealing a few to many similarities between Miyaka and her self. ^_^
Believe what you will. She also was very suprised by the depth of
knowledge some fans showed about her works. At the end of the panel she
recieved a standing ovation. I don't know what type of reception she
was expecting to get in the US, but mass adoration probably wasn't it.
^_^
The rest of the afternoon was spent wondering about the con and blowing
a tremendous amount of money on CDs and artbooks. ^_^ That evening the
Eyrie panel took place. In stark contrast to the Fanfic panel, there
were only two panelists(Zoner and R-Type) and a handful of people in the
audience-this was attributed to the masquerade. Zoner had a quick bitch
about the masquerade being a crowd control nightmare(he's Chief of
Security for the con) and then that panel got moving. It was quickly
discovered that if given a chance, Zoner can talk a long time with out
additional prompting. The first 40 minutes or so of the panel he spent
just talking about how the various Eyrie stories came about, and what
the status was on each. For the curious, I'll detail what I remember in
a few moments. There were two questions asked(both by me) during the
entire hour panel. Now, for the Eyrie status report.
UF:There is a TON of stuff nearing release. Zoner has stated that they
have alot of stories that they will release once the fifth season of
Babylon 5 ends(this pertains to a request by JMS). In addition, the
next part of the Seals story should be out very soon.
Hopelessly Lost:Yes, it's still alive. Zoner said they were slowly
working on it, and might put out the next part soon. There will be a
total of 5 parts in the complete story.
Gods Willing:They want to work on it, but right now, no one knows where
it should go. Untill they figure out that small problem, it won't be
doing anything.
NXE:It will also be continuing soon. Gryph just needs to get his life
sorted out first. Incidentally, NXE came about due to Gryphs intense
hatred of Shinji. Zoner said it's the first time he's seen Gryph truely
hate a character. ^_^ It's been something of a black hole for the
Eyrie crew. Gryphon started it, then it began sucking people in, one
after the other.
Warriors Legacy:Urr... gomen... I don't remember what he said about this
one. Gomen.
I also asked about what happened to Martin Rose. He's still around, and
slowly writing. He's currently helping Philip Moyer with Serendipity,
which, I believe should be out Real Soon Now(tm). Interpret that as you
will.
After the panel Zoner scurried off to go try to control the herd o'
otaku and I went of to the Tekken 3 tourney.
Just for the record, I really, REALLY hate the 4 billion obnoxious
cheap-ass Eddy Gordo players out there who don't know how to do any more
than repeatedly hit the kick buttons! AAAARRGGGG!!!! Can't you bloody
idiots develop ANY bit of skill?!
If you can't figure it out, I was eliminated in the second round by one
of the aformentioned button flailers. They really tick me off.
Grrr....
So, that over with I stalked off in something of a bad mood and wondered
into one of the showing rooms to watch some anime and cool off a bit.
This turned out for the best, as I wondered into a pre-release screening
of "The Dog of Flanders." If you haven't seen it, I HIGHLY recomend
it. It's a very good movie. It's also almost as depressing as Grave of
the Fireflies. There was a lot of sniffling to be heard at the end.
The general consensus of the audience was "good, but sad." Pioneer(who
was doing the screening) now has a lot of questionaires that say about
the same thing. ^_^ Hopefully, it'll be making its official appearance
in the US sometime soon.
Soon after that, I went off to the A-Kon party. The A-Kon party quickly
became known as the Attack of the Hilton Gestapo. I got there 15
minutes after it was supposed to start. I didn't get in. There was a
security guard standing around telling everyone to go away, the party
was shut down. This did NOT endear the Hilton to anybody, considering
that special arrangements had been made ahead of time for the party with
the hotel. Security over reacted. Plain and simple. So, instead of
that, I lazed about my room for about a half hour, and then went on down
to the showing room where the music videos were going to be shown. Once
again, bad fortune turned out to be good, and we got a good spot in
line. Unlike some other lines, the goal this time was to get in the
*middle* of the line since they were seating rows front->back. We were
somewere in the middle, which was nice(no neck strains ^_^). The videos
were broken down into 3 sets of eight(comedy, drama, and action). They
recieve alot more entries than that, but they showed the top 8 of each
catagory. I don't envy the staffers for the job they had before hand.
^_^
The comedy videos were shown first, and were fairly good. A Golden Boy
video came in first, closely followed by a mixed series video put to
"Stickshifts and Safteybelts" by a group I can't remember for the life
of me.
The drama catagory had much stiffer competition. They were _good._
There were a plethora of Miazaki clips used(I think EVERY movie, plus a
music video he did got used). There was also an Escaflowne video and
the winner, an Eva video done to a bit of latin hymn(?). Creepy. It
captured the spirit of Eva quite well, IMHO. Short though.
The final catagory was action. To be blunt, most of it was rather
mediocore. Well, except for the last entry. The last entry was
"Magnetic Rose" from Memories put to a dance remix of "Phantom of the
Opera." In one word: Damn. Not only was the music selection about as
appropriate as you can get for a video it was VERY well assembled.
There was no contest on who was going to win the action catagory, and
who was going to win the best of show. Ironically, the SAME GUY did all
three. He also won the staff awards. The guy got 5 trophies and two
signed directors chairs(signed by all the GoHs) for his work. I'm going
to get a copy of the Phantom video if it kills me. ^_^
Once that was over, I tried to get the aforementioned Phantom video out
of my head(I failed, it's still there) and went to sleep.
Sunday was a rather lazy day. I gave into my urges and bought most of
Eva, and the only thing that stopped me from buying the rest of the
series was that everyone was sold out of the tapes I didn't have.
D'oh. I also came very close to buying a stuffed Mokona for the sole
reason of annoying one of the guys I came down to AX with(he can't stant
Mokona for some reason<veg>). In the end though, I decided not to. I
wasn't going to get enough enjoyment out of it to be willing to spend
$40 on it. I think I might be able to find it for less anyway.
I missed the fan auction and most of the charity auction, but I did
catch the final part of the charity auction. A full color sketch of
Miyaka, Tomahome and Nakago. $3200. o.O The thing just kept on
climbing. The woman who bought it recieved a standing ovation and a
picture with Watase Yu as well. If I had that kind of money, I might
have bid as well, if only because it was for a good cause. Reports
later stated that the auction raised upwards of $16,000 dollars for the
City of Hope. Damn.
Anyway, the closing ceremonies were cool. All the GoHs appear to have
had a great time. All wanted to come back next year. I'd bet money
that Kamiya Akira will be here next year, and maybe Watase Yu as well.
The conquest of the universe joke continued, I believe it was boing
between Kitakubo Hiroyuki and Yoshimatsu Takahiro(yes? no? help?).
Takahiro claimed to have gotten his first subject, in the form of
Hiroyuki. Hiroyuki later confirmed this. ^_^ He also commented on the
culture gap between the US and Japan, and how it probably got worse
during the con, and that he'd like to help remedy it by coming back next
year. <g> The audience loved it.
Another funny bit during the closing ceremonies was noticing Mike
Tatsugawa(the president of SPJA) walk by me wearing a business suit...
and Birkenstocks. ^_^
Well, that covers most of the con. I know I'm forgetting a few things,
but if any one wants to fill in the blanks, go for it!
Damon, if you want to put any of this in the scrapbook you mentioned, go
for it.
One last thing I almost forgot about Cosplayers...
Naga... ADV... Wow... @.@
-Josh