Well, I'm back from my first anime con, and since I've seen loads of other
people write these, I thought I would too.
First of all, I'd like to say it was a decidedly mixed experience. I really
feel that my money was NOT well spent in going to this con. Colin, my
con-going sidekick, agreed with me.
Friday
------
A curse upon all stupid travel agents, especially the dim little gits who
set our reservation for 7AM as opposed to 7PM. I did NOT enjoy waking up at
5AM to catch a plane, especially since I had been getting little sleep the
past few days.
So there we are in Toronto, at our hotel at 9AM. Joy and thrills, we can't
check in til 1PM! So, Colin and I went wandering around. That was when we
discovered a blessing of our chosen accomodation: It was near downtown
Toronto - the edge of Chinatown in fact - sowe didn't have to walk very far
to get to the con, or to any of the other sights that interested us. We
went and spent a couple hours making like hick tourists and went up the CN
Tower, then we went over to look at the Eaton's center.
At 1PM we returned, checked in, and I slept for about 5 hours, until Colin
dragged me out of the place so we could go eat. We returned, and I read
late into the night, since it's kind of hard to fall asleep after a good nap
like that.
Saturday
--------
We reached the con around 11:30AM, just in time to catch the last 20 minutes
of MKR OAV. Neat show that, a lot more like the second season than the
first though...much more violent. Then, after that, we caught the first
episode of the dubbed Bastard OAV. One word: CRAP! Good lord, did they
butcher that. Didn't even keep all the name puns. Bleah. We ducked out to
see the end of a panel on the Tenchi Universe(s) interesting points there
about how much of the cells and AIC artwork have NOTHING to do with the
show. I saw John Demita there (played Seriyo in the OAVs), and it was a
kick.
THEN we had the General Fanfiction panel. That was where I discovered (much
to my shock) the ammount of um...fame?...notoriety?...I have among fanfic
readers. One guy actually said to me: "You're no Biles, Davies, or Lawson,
but you do good work." That was a kick, but not as much as meeting Bert Van
Vilet. He showed up for Saturday only, and sat in on the two panels I was
on...more on that later. However, I'd just like to say meeting Bert was the
HIGH POINT of the whole experience. The panel was disappointingly
unfocussed, but we managed to touch on some fun topics. For some reason,
people kept on eyeing my bokken suspiciously, though.
Hime-chan no Ribbon called to us, so we watched the first two eps of that,
followed by eps 2 and 3 of Tetsuan Birdy...wheee!
Then we had my second panel: Self Insertion Fanfiction. Gee, I guess
someone saw me coming, hey? ^_^;; Anyway, that one went decidedly better,
especially since Katchan (sp?) was decidedly against the genre, mostly
because she had been jaded by all the bad DBZ ones she'd seen. Bert sat in
on that one too, and I TRIED to get him to be involved, but he had to duck
out anyway. GRRR. We mostly focussed on the differences between quality
SI's and...well...crappy ones.
Food run...heh. There was an "anarchist" demonstration near the con hall,
and the cops warned me to keep my bokken out of sight, I might get attacked.
Heh. Sat in Subway and ate, never saw anything.
Went back, watched Psychic Wars (dumb), tried to get in to watch a panel on
Sailor Moon Censorings, but it was WAY too packed, so we went to watch Hyper
Police (fun). Saw Alexander next...all I can say is if you like Aeon Flux,
you'll love it, they're by the same people.
Next, a panel I watched on Shared Universe fiction. Most of it was centered
around the Revenge Wars, but I thought it went well overall.
Headed home, and discovered the BAD part of out chosen accommodations: It
was near downtown Toronto. Lots of people sleeping on the street and street
youths wandering around. I felt decidedly...uncomfortable, coming from a
much smaller and cleaner city.
Sunday
------
Checked out of our rooms, and wandered over to the con again. Watched a
panel on Disney and Miyazaki - John Demita was there again. From what he
and the others said about the deal between Disney and Miyazaki, I was left
with the impression that it would be a more or less good deal...I still hope
they bring out subs though.
Watched KOR TV eps 1 & 2, and once again considered buying the set from
AnimEigo. Went to watch ep 4 of Birdy and a couple of the music video
entries...then wandered over to sit in the last few minutes of a
Self-Publishing Manga panel. That was followed by a panel on war in Anime
which touched on some really good points, although one of the panelists was
a little too hung up on the older stuff for my tastes...he spent to much
time saying everyone should watch Star Blazers and Harlock, and not enough
discussing the topic. The physicist guy they brought in was a welcome
voice...he talked about a lot of interesting things.
Finally, we had my last panel...on Sailor Moon fanfiction. THAT was a
disaster! 3/5 of the panel were part of this one SM group, and they
essentially dominated the panel with self-plugs and telling us all about
THEIR works. THe rather roudy set in the front row didn't help either. I
gave up about 15 mins in on getting anything done, and was happy to leave
when I could.
Went to the airport, caught our plane (it was late) went home (arrived 1.5h
late).
Epilogue
--------
As I said, I really feel my money was wasted. I think the panels could have
used an acutal moderator, instead of just being free-form the way they were.
I also felt that things were planned poorly - damnit, I never got a chance
to see Fred Perry!
Lovely weather the whole time, BTW. Hot and humid, yay - I HATE Ontario.
Anyway, I can say for sure I won't go back next year. Maybe to CNAnime, or
I might just save up and go to one of the BIG ones in the US...
BTW: Doug, Flashman - you guys shoulda been there, you would have rescued me
from terminal disappointment.
--
Christopher 'God-Boy' Angel
c_j_angel@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/~ca_godboy