Saturday evening at about 6:15 pm I went to the bar, where
I found Anthony, Sky, and Tom drinking and eating snacks like
deep-fried cheese sticks and spiced french fries. They were going
to eat dinner, but the bar didn't serve anything else food-wise, so
they were drinking for the moment and planned to head over to
the fifties restaurant in the west wing later. I ordered a drink and
sat with them, working on a short story for a while and waiting
for the other fanfic writers to show up.
The waitress seemed especially clueless. They'd asked if
they had Pyramid Ale (a Northwest microbrew) but she didn't
know, then she said no. Later she realized that they had it after
all. I asked what soft drinks they had, but she didn't seem to
know that either. She mentioned Sprite, so I ordered that, but
then she came back and asked if Slice was okay. Then some rock
music started playing, pop-metal that Sky and Anthony decided
that they liked, and we asked the waitress who it was. She didn't
know, of course, but she said it was playing on the jukebox, and
that you could select music from it for free. I went over to the
jukebox, but it was turned off.
Like I said, she was clueless. Later, Sky found out that the
pop metal band was called Lit.
Nicholas Leifker wandered into the bar and I said hi. He
asked if I was still planning to go with them -- the rest of the
group was already out front. I have gone to dinner in groups at
conventions many many times, and it is almost always difficult to
get everyone together at one time and place and get them moving
together, but these guys were punctual... when they said 7:00 pm
they mean 7:00 pm, not 7:01 pm. Anyone who was late got left
behind.
I rode in Stephen Tsai's car with Chris and David Tai. Zen's
car was the other vehicle, with Nick and three other people that I
didn't know the names of. As we drove, I introduced myself to
David who was in the back seat with me, but he's partially deaf
so, as the car bounced along, I tried to write down who I was and
a couple of the fan fiction stories that I've written. My writing
was very sloppy, so we didn't hold a long conversation.
I Told Stephen Tsai that I had been meaning to buy his
doujinshi for a long time but hadn't gotten around to it. He said
stop by the table, I'm selling them here at the con. D'oh! I made
plans to do that first thing Sunday.
The place we went to, Tokyo One (I think that was the
name), is a sushi restaurant that is served buffet-style, all youcan
eat. And boy, did everyone at the table take that to heart!
Stephen chided me for being a sushi wimp, which I readily
admitted. I am no stranger to Japanese food, or Chinese or Thai
or Vietnamese; there are a wide variety of asian restaurants in
Seattle, which is a pacific rim port after all. But I'm not into raw
fish. Kappa maki I can handle, or other vegetable and non-raw
fish sushi such as california rolls. I had a couple of other things
like the egg sushi and the like, and I did have one of the shrimp
sushi. But I'm a sushi wimp for the most part. I had a lot of fruit
and salad and teriyaki-style cooked meat, and I saved room for
desert. Yum!
Back in the parking lot David Tai and I saw Zen's sports
utility vehicle for the first time. It has 3WA on the side, and
"trouble consultant" and various other 3WA labels and slogans.
It's very cool. David nearly died of laughter when he saw it, had
to take a picture of it.
I told everyone to see Cowboy Bebop the first chance they
got. They thought the name sounded dumb -- it does -- but
someone pointed out that Bubblegum Crisis sounds just as weird.
Back at the hotel I found Anthony and Sky drawing at
one of the tables downstairs. They'd heard that, after the fan
artists and the doujinshi dealers had closed down for the night, the
entire area was taken over by artists who hung out all night and
drew. It was true -- the tables against the wall were crowded with
artists -- but there was no more room so Sky and Anthony were at
a table in the middle. I pulled up a chair and hung out with them
for a while, then at 10:00 pm I went in to one of the theatres to
see "Those Who Hunt Elves."
"Those Who Hunt Elves" is a fun attempt to find another
way of doing comedy fantasy a la Slayers or Sorceror Hunters.
The premise is fun -- three humans, a tank, and a need to find five
parts of the spell that will transport them back to Japan. The
problem is the parts of the spell are tattoo'd on the bodies of five
unknown elves, so they travel around the land looking for elves
to strip naked in an attempt to find the spells. The animation is
sub-par (another reason it reminds me of Sorceror Hunters and
early Slayers) and some of the slapstick humor is flat, but a lot of
it is very funny, and the opening and closing themes are catchy
enough.
Sky wasn't feeling so good and went upstairs to crash, but
Tom watched it with me. Afterwards I hung out with Anthony
again, and he showed Tom and I a portfolio of some of the last
work he did while at Wizards of the Coast. He talked about
getting fan mail and how strange it was. He had one person write
to him from China claiming to be his biggest fan in China. He
didn't know he had ANY fans in China. ^_^ Some of the people
on the fanfiction panel talked about similar things... getting fan e-
mail for their stories, people who are really really into their work.
It's a strange feeling I think.
Jeff showed up and we hung out some more. At 1:00 am
Tom, Jeff and I caught tape two of Those Who Hunt Elves.
More wacky fun!
After that, I went back to the room. While everyone else
crashed, I wrote for a while on this report, then finally crashed at
about 2:30 am.
The first thing I attempted on Sunday was to track down
Stephen Tai's doujinshi, but I didn't find it on the first attempt.
We wandered through the dealer's room and Sky bought another
art book, one by Minene Sakurano called "Shitenrin". She's an
artist who does a very cute manga that is more than a little
influenced by Ah! My Goddess. After that, Anthony, Sky and I
attempted to see the Mini Adventures of Urd, Skuld, and
Belldandy, but after waiting a while and watching some fan
videos we were told that the person who owned the tape had
packed up and gone home. Lame! So intead, we went to the
west wing for lunch.
We wandered through the art show for a while. All I can
say is that none of us have very high opinions of the kind of art
you get in a typical anime art show -- I'm too used to science
fiction art shows, where a majority of the art is by professional
and semi-professional artists. In any case, Anthony's a
professional artist, and Sky's a graphic designer, so they're both
hyper-critical when it comes to art.
I went looking for Stephen Tsai's doujinshi again and found
the right table this time. I bought Kimagure Orange College #2
and #3, and Sailor Ranma #1. Sky also bought a couple of
Sakura Wars Japanese doujinshi that were (gasp!) not x-rated.
Then we went back to the dealer's room for one last pass
through, and Sky broke down and bought three Utena doujinshi
that were definately x-rated. He also picked up the Spirit Of
Wonder manga (English version), while I picked up two more art
books: one of Pretty Sammy, and one of the art of Takami Akai,
which includes, among other things, Princess Maker art. ^_^
By then it was nearly 4:00 pm, and the con was nearly over.
Our hotel room is booked through Sunday night, so we'll still be
hanging around, and hopefully there'll be something to do. But
for the most part, that's it. They're still playing anime until 5:00
pm, so I may go catch some Slayers Try before they shut
everything down.
Miko