A two-part disclaimer.  First, I am generally less sociable than 
Ryan Mathews, who has gone on record as saying that he doesn't really 
enjoy the more social aspects of convention-going.  When among large 
numbers of people, I tend to be very quiet, listening to conversation 
rather than talking.  (Unless I'm ranting, in which case, well ...)  So 
don't expect a lot of "and we had a fun conversation about yakkety 
shmakkety" discussion in this.

	Second, AnimeThon has always been, and (unless something 
unprecedented happens) always shall be a smaller, more intimate 
convention/festival than the big American conventions that many of you 
attend.  The dealer's room has only a few local stores, and this is the 
first year that we had representatives from an anime company present.  
Don't expect a lot of "I wandered for hours", complaints about line-ups or 
overcrowding, or humourous anecdotes about the hotel.  I live in this city, 
for heaven's sake.

	This is the third consecutive year that I've been to AnimeThon 
(sixth year it's been running) and I made a decision not to watch anything 
that I'd already seen.  I didn't really keep to this vow, but so it goes.

	On the morning of the tenth, I woke up at 8:00, an hour before the
'Thon was supposed to start.  I figured that I'd have time to get a shower 
and have some breakfast before the 10-15 minute walk to Grant McKuen 
Community College.  Nope.  Make that time to have a shower and figure out 
what clothes to wear.  Oh well.

	Some physical details:  GMCC is a building shaped a bit like a 
castle (and it's located more or less in the center of the city, so it's 
exactly where I'd *put* a castle if I ever indulge my plan of empire 
building from this my cap-- um, anyway).  There were six rooms showing 
anime during the 'Thon hours, plus two large "theatres" doing the same for 
the shows the planners expected to draw a lot of interest.  The dealer's 
area is located just across from the cafeteria.  I suck at giving 
directions, so I'm not going to try and do that ... suffice it to say that 
if you walked a thousand steps from any location connected with the 'Thon, 
you'd be at another one.

	As I arrived, donation for the FoodBank in hand, I was told that 
the guidebooks had not yet been printed.  No loss, I wasn't planning on 
buying one. After wandering for a bit, checking out the schedules placed 
beside each of the viewing rooms (and being warned by my associate Megan 
that another of our mutual associates, whom I'll call Kotori (same girl 
mentioned in the author's notes of my Utena fic) would stop at nothing to 
steal the Sailor Mars pin that I wore) I finally got into see "Porco 
Rosso".

	Need I really review that movie?  It's Ghibli; they couldn't make 
a bad movie if they *tried*.  I loved it, of course.  My one real 
objection was that the subtitle only printed the English words of Gina's 
song, rather than the French ones as well.  (Like many Canadians, I am 
fairly bilingual.)  Still, a great movie, full of warmth and humour and 
the wonder of flight.

	Afterwards, I wandered for a bit, meeting up with Megan and Kotori
(neatly dodging her first attempt to steal my pin) and checking out the 
dealer and display room.  I didn't intend to buy anything, of course, I 
was merely watching out for Kotori.  Okay, watching out for her and taking 
every effort to pat her on the head, something she professes to hate, but 
I think finds amusing.  I also watched as a local balloon artist, an anime 
fan, made a balloon Sailor Mars for Kotori.  (She really likes Sailor 
Mars.  She *really* likes Sailor Mars.  Of course, she also really 
suspects that Sailor Mars would kill her if she found out how much she 
likes her, so she's fairly easygoing about it.  Kotori is a neat kid.)

	We examined the display room, and I was pleased to discover that
Elizabeth Hegerat (an afsm acquaintance who uses the alias "Ophelia") 
*was* at the 'Thon, as she'd left a selection of her Fan Art for sale 
there.  Sadly, no one had any idea where she was.  (She later revealed 
that she was wandering around in a daze as no one from Calgary had gotten 
much sleep the night before. Ah well.)

	I let Megan and Kotori wander off while I pause to watch a bit of
the second episode of "Irresponsible Captain Tylor".  Now I've seen this
episode, but I figure that since I don't watch the whole thing and am only
in the room to watch "Lost Universe" later, it doesn't count as breaking
my vow.  But then I decide that I'm not really interested in "Slayers in
Space", so I wander off, and head up to the theatres.  Dubbed Tenchi in
one, dubbed Ranma in the other.  Since I've seen Tenchi before, and I
haven't seen these particular episodes of Ranma, I drop in and have a few
chuckles.  Don't get me wrong.  I'd just as soon see this series wiped
off the face of the Earth (except that would mean no Biles fanfic, which
would be bad) but it's okay in small doses.

	At this point, I discover that something called Anime Family Feud 
will be held tomorrow.  My interest is piqued.

	Determining that the next thing that I wanted to see, episodes of
"Cowboy Beebop", wouldn't be shown until 4:00 that afternoon, I went home 
at around noon to get some dinner and take a bit of a breather.  And also 
to dump my heavy black coat.  It's an important part of my online persona, 
but not really a great thing to be wearing during the hot days of July.

	Anyway, I returned a little bit before "Cowboy Beebop" was shown, 
and discovered something *very* odd.  AnimeVillage was showing a display 
of their release of "Cowboy Beebop" and "Outlaw Star" near the dealer 
room.  But the episodes of "Beebop" shown in the video room were 
fansubbed!  This startled me when I realized it, since it seemed to be 
almost a slap to the face of the company.  Well, who knows?

	"Cowboy Beebop" is *cool*.  And I say that as one who does not 
award the word *cool* to very many things.  From the opening sequence with 
jazz music by Yoko Kanno ("two three four let's jam") to the high-tech 
low-life style of the series itself, it is one of the best things I've 
seen since "Utena".  It combines the best elements of the old "Dirty Pair" 
series (I'm talking about the series, not not *not* the two of you, leave 
me alone, go bug Zen!) with a style that seems very influenced by film 
noir.  The only thing that I didn't like about the first two episodes was 
the fact that the very interesting seeming character Faye Valentine wasn't 
in either of them, despite her prominent placement on this year's 
AnimeThon tee-shirt!  Sigh.

	I exit the room, and go looking for more information about "Anime 
Family Feud".  I'm told that Paul knows all about it, and believing that 
refers to the gentleman running the projector in the room where it will be 
held, I ask him.
	
	"I dunno, you'll have to ask Paul."

	Now I get a bit testy.
	
	"Paul who?  Paul Hogan?  Paul Reiser?  Paul who was Saul of 
Tarsus?  Who the hell are you talking about you little heathen?"
	
	"You know, Paul.  The guy who comes into the club office and plays 
his playstation."
	
	"No, sadly, I'm not acquainted with the personal habits of every 
member of the blooming Banzai Anime Klub of Alberta.  What's his last 
name?  Is it your last name?  Is it the same last name that both your 
parents had before they were married?"

	"Uh ... isn't it Paul Cordeiro?"
	
	Why yes, in fact, I do know a Paul Cordeiro.  How sad that my 
blood pressure has to go into double digits before someone makes the 
connection.  I begin to look for Meinherr Cordeiro.  Happily I find him 
before I have an embolism.  I ask Paul (whom some of you may remember from 
his days as a rec.arts.anime.misc regular) whether I can volunteer for the 
Anime Family Feud and am told that I just did.  Okay, I say, what are the 
prizes.  He tells me that they'll be giving one member of each team -- the 
teams will be composed of people from BAKA and one non-member each -- a 
free half-year membership.
	
	Such luxury.  Okay, it's worth it for the bragging rights, I tell 
myself.  I go find Kotori and Megan, and we spend a little more time 
wandering.  Megan points out that someone messed up with one of the 
schedules and mistitled "Card Captor Sakura" as "Card Captor Utena".  She 
finds the idea amusing.  Immediately afterwards, so do I, as an image of a 
chibi-Anthy following chibi-Utena around with a video camera streaks 
through my mind.  I let out my trademarked evil laughter, startling 
passers by.  God I love being a ham.  By now I'm fairly tired so I head 
home and have some dinner before hitting the hay.

	Second day, I don't really have anything that I want to see until 
noon, so I plan to sleep until 11:00, and get up with plenty of time to 
spare. Unfortunately, I spend too much time working on something and by
the time I think about brunch, it's around quarter to noon.  I rationalize 
my decision to miss the "City Hunter Movie" by figuring that it will 
probably be the one recently released by ADV, which means that it's one 
I've already seen.  (I was right, by the way.)

	So, when I arrive, I wander aimlessly and meet up with Ophelia!  
Yay!  And I buy a piece of her fan-art, a little portrait of an SD-Usagi 
hugging an SD-Rei, who's winking, entitled Fire Soul Love.  (Awwww!)  I'm 
so impressed with Ophelia's artwork that I consent to let her take a 
picture of me with the portrait.  Watch, it's going to get spread all over 
the net as proof that the picture on my page looks just like me.

	Ophelia drags me into watching the "Amateur Anime Dubbing" panel,
something for which I will never quite be able to forgive her.  My 
position on Mystery Science Theatre style bashing is quite well-known.  
What the panelists did in this was worse -- they took an anime, removed 
the soundtrack, and proceeded to improvise their own lines, with helpful 
suggestions from the audience, all of whom seemed to *love* South Park.  
Sometimes I worry for the future of mankind.

	I wandered a bit alone before heading for the room where the Feud 
would be held.  Here's where I broke my vow.  Showing was that 
underappreciated classic "My Dear Marie", which I've seen and which I 
wrote an unfinished continuation of.  But the last episode of the OAV 
series is *so* damn good that I decided to watch it again.  I really, 
really ought to write the final part of that series some day soon.

	And then there was the Feud.
	
	I should have seen the warning signs as I watched Paul trying to 
figure out how the overhead projector worked.  But no, Chris was faithful 
one hundred per cent, and sat through the most ... arrrrgh.  The memories 
are still painful.  After it's over (Did we win or did we lose?  Yes!) I 
stalk off fuming.  Paul catches up to me and begs my forgiveness, asking 
me not to hold the fact that he's an idiot against him.  I agree not to 
hold something like that against him.

	Adding to my anger, the theatre which would shortly be showing 
"Sakura Wars" was showing "X:1999", preventing me from going in and 
cooling my anger with some good anime.  I've seen that ... *thing* once 
and there's not enough money in the world to make me do it again.  "X" is 
on my short list of anime that I genuinely have no use for.

	Anyway, people start coming out of the theatre and I head in. "X" 
is over, moody music by Japanese Kurt Cobain-wannabes is playing, and I 
sit down expecting to spend half an hour waiting for "Sakura Wars" to 
start since it's only 4:30.  Much to my stunned amazement, the zombie 
projectionist starts the show, meaning that it'll end half an hour before 
scheduled too.  Oh well.  And another weird moment.  The first episode of 
"Sakura Wars" is a fansub, while the second is from ADV.  What gives?

	Now let's talk about "Sakura Wars" for a moment.  It's based on 
the very popular anime-based Playstation games of the same name.  Now, a 
year and a half ago I had something of a hate-on for these games, since I 
thought they were too cute and cliched to be believed.  I even intended to 
use Shinguuji Sakura as the Magog figure in my aborted "Kingdom Come/ 
Anime" story.  Well, I guess I've de-matured a bit.  I still think the 
story is cliched as all hell, but what it gains by throwing all the old 
mecha, martial arts, and relationship anime cliches into a blender is a 
lot of energy, something that seems to be lacking in a lot of anime that I 
see lately.  ("Cowboy Beebop" usually has a very languid pace, for 
example, except in the opening sequence.)  Also, it's brilliantly animated 
with great voice acting from, among others, Tomizawa Michie and Yokohama 
Chisa.  So I'll forgive it a lot.
	
	But I still think my initial assessment was right, too.  Sakura 
makes for a very good Magog figure.  Like the Liefield/Image "heroes" that 
Magog represents, she throws a lot of cliches together to create something 
with great energy but not much originality.  And some of the noise we're 
hearing these days about anime creators finding better paying work in the 
field of computer games art gives her creation by Fujishima Kosuke a 
certain ominous element.  So I like "Sakura Wars", but not without a 
twinge of concern.
	
	Anyway, the show ends half an hour early, so I wander down to 
check out the Anime Rant, where Ophelia is one of the panelists who just 
talk about anything they want to talk about.  It's pretty interesting, 
although I've honestly heard most of their concerns repeated a few times 
over on the Net.  The most interesting thing about it from my point of 
view comes when one of the panelists comments that many of the publicity 
problems that anime fandom faces originate with anime fandom itself -- 
"Like, with Sailor Moon you can go online and download all those hentai 
pictures and fanfic and junk and --"
	
	"You know, there's a mad fanfic author stalking up behind you."
	
	"Oh.  Hi."
	
	"Hello yourself," I say, showing my teeth.
	
	"Anyway ..."  He continues on a different topic completely.  One 
of the audience members is looking at me oddly, so I look right back at 
her.  After the panel ends, she comes up to me and we enter Davies 
embarassing moment #101.
	
	"You write fanfic?"
	
	"Yes, yes I do."
	
	"What have you written?"
	
	"Well, there's this one story called Five Minutes --"
	
	"You're Chris Davies."
	
	"So people keep telling me."
	
	"Oh wow."
	
	(Kotori is the only one whose jaw ever dropped when I introduced 
myself, but some people come pretty close.)  It turns out that the lady in 
question is an old acquaintance from the Taronga Sailor Moon mailing list, 
who used/uses the alias Trouble.  I can't recall her when we meet, but I 
think I may remember a brief conversation we had back then.  (I have no 
memory for names, and very little for faces.)  It turns out that she's a 
fan, and has turned on several other fans who hated Sailor Moon by showing 
them "Five Minutes".  I've heard this or something like this a few times, 
and I never know how to react.  I'm pleased, of course, but ... I mean, 
how can you reply to such a compliment?  (Granted, it's better than the 
backhanded compliment "You're the only author who makes the dub names 
readable" that I sometimes get.)  I don't really consider myself to be 
anything remarkable, I'm just an unemployed overweight shmuck with a small 
talent for making fictional people miserable.  So it goes.
	
	Anyway, that's the end of AnimeThon VI.  I check in with Ophelia, 
and she promises to come to the next one, and I promise to do the same if 
I live.  Kotori had to leave around 4:00, so I can't pat her on the head 
one last time.  So I pat Megan's head instead and she beats the crap out 
of me.  Fun!
	
	All in all, it was really a good time.  Not as good as last year, 
but I really did have a good time.  I really am looking forward to next 
year's event.

Chris Davies, Advocate for Darkness, Part-Time Champion of Light.
"It's not THAT different from [a] traditional comic-book superhero set-up 
... it just adds in the fact that modern media personnel are starving 
piranhas." -- Jon Hickman, speaking about White Wolf's "Aberrant".
Fanfics: http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/banks/277/index.html
Fanfic Revolution: http://come.to/hauthor/