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Saturday: Rose Latulipe va � Toronto, or The Friends of Bell
---
Every year, Anime North awards their Momiji award to an outstanding
member of the Japanese animation industry, in recognition of a
lifetime's worth of contribution to the production and promotion of
Japanese animation and popular culture. Hayao Miyazaki has received
this award in years past. This year it is the turn of Carl Macek, who
is finally receiving recognition for his planting the seed of much what
became North American fandom through his reworking of _Macross_ into
_Robotech_, and later, his founding of Streamline Pictures. I am glad
he is finally getting some of the recognition and thanks he deserves. I
still remember when hardline fans considered his dubs abominations for
often playing fast and loose with the sense of the originals, even if
those dubs of (say) _Akira_ were doing more to popularize anime in
North America than the hardliners ever could--and selling better by
several orders of magnitude than the subs of Animeigo, the hardliners'
darling, ever did. Not that I have anything against Robert Woodhead and
Animeigo, who after all brought the West _Oh My Goddess!_ and _Urusei
Yatsura_, but the fact is Macek and Streamline did the heavy lifting in
the early Nineties, and certainly in the _Robotech_ Eighties.
Unfortunately, admission to the award ceremony was limited, and by the
time I got around to registering, all the tickets were sold. I can't
even go to Macek's panel at 10 am on Saturday. It conflicts with the
fanfic panel, which (as a writer of a con report for the FFML) I am
morally obliged to attend.
The fanfic panel is in the Mississauga room. The first order of
business, after the chairs have introduced themselves (Steven Savage,
student of pop culture, and Greg Taylor, prominent in SOAP), is to
announce the winners of Anime North's fanfic competition. Contrary to
what one might expect, the quality of the fanfics submitted to the
competition has increased over time. Problems. The booklet that was
supposed to be available containing manuscripts of the winning fanfics
isn't, thanks to the printers given the job of printing them up being
incompetent. As it is, I don't catch all the name of the several
winners, and I hope the reader will forgive me for cribbing a bit from
the manuscript which eventually is posted to the Anime North website.
(If I ever do this again I'm bringing a tape recorder.)
For overall quality, Nikki McKnight wins an award for "The Bitch Fic,"
set in Clamp's _X_ universe, in which she puts the _X_ characters in a
bar and lets them bitch their hearts out, instead of simply angsting
sexily. I like the idea. Marie Ouellette is cited for her character
piece _Fushigi Yugi_ fic "Water Wound." It would have been nice, mind
you, if Marie had shown up. Absenteeism is becoming a running theme at
Anime North. A certain Kevin Bane wins an award for his _Twelve
Kingdoms_ fic "Soul of Shadow, Vision over the Sea," notable for its
plotting and originality, but Mr. Bane isn't in the room.
Poor Kevin becomes our running gag for much of the rest of the panel.
Anybody entering the room, including con staff and technical support,
will get asked, "Are you a Kevin? We're very Kevinless today."
Other winners by category:
Best use of setting: Wendy Zo, for a _Tales of Symphonia_ fic. (Yes,
children, a videogame fanfic of all things.)
Best characterization: Erica Turner, for her _Sailor Moon_ fic
"Remember."
Best use of prose: Casey Millar, for an _Inuyasha_ fic "River of
Illusion."
The grand prize goes to Rachel Whitman for her "Honour among Thieves,"
set in the _Berserk_ universe. Her prize is a crystal in the shape of
an inukshuk, a man-shaped marker made from rocks that the Inuit
(Eskimo) used to leave to mark their trails. Inukshuks have become
increasingly popular as a symbol of all of Canada, not just the far
north. (The mascot of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler, British
Columbia, is styled after an inukshuk, even though no Inuit ever lived
anywhere near Whistler. It doesn't help that the candy-coloured Olympic
inukshuk looks like nothing so much as Gumby.)
It is about then that a young woman slips into the room with her male
companion. Is he Kevin? No, but she does ask me, sotto voce: "Have they
asked for Marie Ouellette yet?" So of course, I announce the arrival of
Marie Ouellette, who now can approach the chair to claim her award.
After all the awards are handed out (except for Kevin's), Mr. Savage
calls for judges for next year from among the winners, as long as they
are over 18. Rotation helps to make sure the same people aren't judging
year after year, ensuring (a) they get a rest and (b) their particular
prejudices aren't biasing the results year after year. To further
ensure that judge prejudice doesn't affect the results more than
necessary, judging of each fic is on a point system in each category,
which tends to be reasonably consistent across judges. Obvious outliers
in the point data tend to be marks of favouritism.
To pad out the panel, Mr. Savage now invites the contest winners to
join him on the panel and take audience questions. That, and make the
half-hourly call for Kevin.
I am more or less at the back row. Sean Gaffney, a few rows in front,
fires first.
Sean: Hi, I'm a first time author who's never written a fic before...
Savage: [teasing; they know each other well] Ones fit for mixed company
anyway...
Sean begins by voicing his concern that the release of such anime-based
prose works as the finally-translated Slayers novels will depress
fanfic activity. Mr. Savage begs to differ. After all, people don't
write fics for want of stuff to read; they write it because they _have_
had something to read, and have thought about it enough that they want
to extend it in a way they never hope to see done in print. Case in
point: in the manga, anime or any future official novel, the characters
of _X_ (for example) will always be stiff, dignified, and bishonen.
Only a fan like Nikki McKnight (say) would dream of putting Team X in a
bar and getting them as drunk and undignified as possible. "What if?"
is the starting point for many (if not most) fanfics. Particularly
fertile in this regard are potentially huge worlds like (say) that of
_Naruto_; the ninjas that Team Naruto might conceivably fall foul of
are only limited by the imagination, as were the bizarre martial
artists of _Ranma_ fics past.
Mr. Savage offers as an aside a circle of fanfic writers whose mailing
list he frequents devoted to highly unlikely pairings-which, for all
that, must be written very well indeed. For instance, if you can't
imagine Snape versus Jesus, you're obviously not trying hard enough.
("Was Jesus from Gryffindor?" Sean wonders aloud.)
I decide to bite at this point. Are songfics fics at all? Because
fanfiction.net obviously doesn't think so. The consensus of the panel
is that songfics are legitimate fics--_if_ the fic actually supplements
the song. After all, what is the point of (say) simply describing Duo
Maxwell singing a karaoke version of the latest disposable pop song of
your choice? Mr. savage mentions a strange subculture in the fanfic
universe, namely fics about real people. One can find fics about the
actors who play Buffy and Angel in _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_. Some
ficced celebrities take it in better humour than others. N'Sync
actually encouraged some of the fics about the boys in the band,
apparently thinking it no worse than what one might find in _Weekly
World News_. Eminem, on the other hand, was not amused when he learned
of fics devoted to "slashing" him with Elijah Wood.
Me, I'm not sure what Pierre Trudeau might have made of the fic I wrote
shortly after his death where Nanami Kiryu meets him in Montreal. Mind
you, it was probably no worse than editorial cartoons in the Canadian
press wondering aloud why the Conservatives, led by Stephen Harper,
were co-operating with the separatist Bloc Québécois, led by Gilles
Duceppe, to bring down the Liberal government, even though the Bloc is
leftist on all issues except that of greater autonomy, not to say
independence, of Canada's provinces. Typical caption:
Gilles: You know, Stephen, mon amour, there's a reason I'm not opposed
to gay marriage...
Stephen: [sweatdropping] Eep...
I considered asking in Artist's Alley for Stephen/Gilles yaoi, but I
decided against it. In the event, I bring up my Great Big Sea songfic.
I was fairly sure I had supplemented "What are Ya At?" with my tale of
Osaka visiting Chiyo in America, though I joke that I probably deserved
to be tempbanned from fanfiction.net for using Great Big Sea tunes in a
songfic in the first place. Mr. Savage hears me out politely, then asks
me a question.
"Who's Great Big Sea?"
I'm glad folks don't facefault in real life. That could have gotten
ugly, even if most of the Canadians in the room were on the Ontario
Health Insurance Plan. In the event, the Canadian audience groan in
unison. Mr. Savage is outed as a Yank.
Heckler: Oh for...They're a Newfoundland rock band!
Savage: There's such a thing as Newfie rock?
Sean: So...what? Do they perform their gigs in raincoats?
Heckler: No!
[Enter a man with a TV, oblivious to the argument.]
Savage: Kevin? Is that you?
Excellent save, allowing him to change the subject. Originality. It can
save even the worst fic idea. For example, an oddly popular _Pokemon_
fic. A post-apocalyptic _Pokemon_ fic, no less, where, for example,
characters might skate on "frozen lava," otherwise known as "rock."
Complete rubbish, but for all that different, and gained a huge
following.
A related topic: original characters. Mr. Savage's studies suggest that
"Mary Sue" has become as much a genre in and of herself as anything
else. "Mary Sue" for that matter isn't even always an SI any more, as
Sean points out, even though formerly, and notoriously, she often was.
Wendy Zo points out, however, that even now many people will refuse to
even look at fics with original characters, for fear of Mary Sueism. Of
course sometimes use of original characters is unavoidable; it is
suggested, for example, that if one wants to give Sailor Pluto a
boyfriend he must be original by necessity, though I've often seen her
paired with Professor Soichi Tomoe.
Someone raises anti-fics such as one often saw in _Ranma_ fanfics,
where everyone beats an unpopular character to death? Also observed,
especially (say) in _Harry Potter_ fandom, are pseudo anti-fics, where
the whole point is to bash the concept of a particular pairing. That
brings up the issue of Harry Potter fandom in general. Mr. Savage
suggests that HP is the first Internet driven fandom. It's a young
fandom, and heavily dependant on the book-publishing cycle; the chances
are high that it will implode after the final volume appears in
bookstores. Sean suggests, on a related note, that fandoms can be
briefly revived by releases of classic anime. Fics based on moribund
fandoms often take the form of fusions; Eva fusions are raised as an
example.
Mention of the release cycle drags us off topic for a few minutes, as a
discussion about the industry ensues. To be blunt, evidence is growing
that the market is becoming overextended. ADV, for its part, recently
cancelled three-quarters of its projected manga releases and cut its
translation staff in half. It's hard to say just who is buying all
these box sets that the US industry keeps putting out, particularly
when the black market in fansubs is as healthy as ever, CDs and even
DVD fansubs having displaced VHS, with quality competitive with
legitimate releases. Surely these compete with legitimate releases?...
A few years ago, when I was still in graduate school, I made notes for
an empirical paper on the anime industry that would have tried to
quantify the degree to which the fansub market depressed sales and
licensing fees for legitimate anime releases in North America. The
paper was never written because, as companies immediately told me,
sales figures and especially the terms of licensing agreements are
confidential. However, the only evidence they would divulge that heavy
fansubbing had stopped or delayed legitimate releases was anecdotal,
and mostly extreme cases of "fan favourites" where fansubs had been
widely available for years, such as _Video Girl Ai_ and the _Kimagure
Orange Road_ TV series. "People will buy the titles anyway," sums up a
man in a green hat.
Of course this evidence is several years old. Probably more likely to
dampen the spirits of distributors in North America are licensing fees
that have reportedly reached such heights that ADV could have easily
made its own shows for what Japanese licensors are asking for their
titles nowadays. According to _Anime Insider_ ADV, Geneon and other
companies are looking at forming some sort of collective bargaining
agreement to hold out for better terms from licensors.
Sean has just mentioned that people still ask when _Sailor Stars_ will
come out on video, not realizing that SM fandom is moribund and the
videos are going out of print in North America, when Wendy Zo announces
she has to go. But all is not lost, for--hallelujah! Kevin is here!
Kevin duly collects the award that has waited for him all morning and
joins the panel with honour.
So, I ask, is there a place for CanCon ("Canadian content") or Canadian
themes in fanfic?
Sean: Let me refer you to a certain fic. "Sovereignty Association Girl
Nanami."
Me: Um, Sean...I wrote that one with Alan Harnum. That makes a grand
total of one.
The actual Canadians in the room clearly haven't really considered it.
Maybe they should, because the "Canadians" that show up in fics tend to
be low-rent Americans (often as not written by Americans thinly masking
an SI fic). The nice thing about Alan's fics is he does CanCon
properly, much better than I ever could.
On that note Sean has to go. He tells me that Alan plans to be at Anime
North sometime that day. I called at the panels that Sean was on later
in the day (the shojo-ai and yuri panels), figuring those were the most
likely events for Alan to attend given his most recent work, but if he
did show up at the con and at either of those panels, I must have
missed him.
The panel has about run out of time anyway. There is brief discussion
of such future events as a Writer's Workshop and/or an Iron Fic
contest, as well as the question of whether the contest should be
subdivided (for example, to allow a separate contest for lemons).
Before adjournment an announcement comes from the con staff, reminding
us that crossing the four-lane Dixon Road should only be done at the
traffic lights. Also, only ten people should enter a hotel lift at any
time. They are designed for fifteen, but otaku tend to be heavier than
average. (The lifts break down for several hours on Saturday, forcing
hordes of otaku to take the stairs to their rooms. God knows I need
more exercise myself, but I didn't really need to start it that
weekend, surely?)
After the panel lets out I manage to take a few minutes out with Steven
Savage, who turns out to be from Columbus, Ohio. I think at first he
might be a student of anthropology at Ohio State, but in fact he has
pursued the study of pop culture purely as a hobby. Out of his interest
has grown, for example, the site www.fanthropology.com, a forum for
academic and amateur researchers of pop culture and the anthropology of
fandom. I offer that pop culture occupies the place in modern
industrialized societies that folk culture occupied in traditional
societies, and wonder aloud whether (thanks to fan appropriation and
decreasing barriers to entry) pop culture is taking on more
characteristics of the folk culture it displaced. Mr. Savage doesn't
think I'm far from the truth. He mentions a mystic he knows who has
incorporated characters from manga and anime into her occult system.
Now that's eclecticism even 12-Step groups can't top.
Misato K.: Hi, I'm Misato, and I've got a bad habit.
Assembly: Hi, Misato.
Misato K.: To break my bad habit I've decided today to give my life
over, one day at a time, to my higher power, whom I choose to call
Belldandy...
Random 12-Stepper: Who?
Misato K.: The goddess of the present from _Oh My Goddess_. It's a
Japanese cartoon...why?
12-Stepper: (sweatdropping) Uh, yeah...keep coming back...
Another 12-Stepper: (indignant) What's wrong with Jesus, girl? Keep it
simple!
Chair: Um, Misato...I don't mean to say you're not welcome here, but this
is the Friends of _Bill_ group. You might want the Friends of _Bell_
group down the hall, a'right?
I wonder how the "Neo-Queen Serenity Prayer" would run.
---
Amelia is an anthropology student at Kent State University. KSU
apparently has an excellent undergraduate program in the field, though
its real strength apparently is physical anthropology. Amelia for her
part finds cultural anthropology far more interesting. She even has a
tentative dissertation topic picked out for her graduate work; much of
the theory of myth, such as Joseph Campbell's, has been criticized for
being to male-centred, so she'd like to examine how, if at all, the
"Heroine's Journey" differs from the "Hero's Journey."
She has broad research interests, mind you. While we eat lunch across
Dixon Road at Swiss Chalet (a chain restaurant specializing in chicken,
a French Canadian favourite, prepared a hundred and one ways--I have a
pot pie), Amelia and I--when we're not singing "Rocks and Trees" for
the hundredth time--wind up discussing (after I tell her about the
fanfic panel) how modern pop and literary culture rework folklore. Most
obvious are modern parodies of folklore, "fractured fairy tales" such
as _Shrek_ and even _Spaceballs_ (a parody of that modern folk epic
_Star Wars_), though even Perrault might fall into this category.
(Perrault's Prince Charming is amazed to find Sleeping Beauty dressed
in clothes his grandmother might have worn when she was young.) Another
reworking fanfic writers will recognize is perspective change; the
musical _Wicked_ (one of Amelia's favourites), for example, retells the
story of _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_ from the perspective of the
Wicked Witch of the West.
Still another is "historifying," where a fairy tale is retold as a true
story set in a particular historical setting, as if to say, "Forget all
the mumbo-jumbo you heard in the nursery about (say) Cinderella, here's
how it really happened." Amelia offers as an example _Ever After_, for
example, which sets the tale of Cinderella in the court of King
François I of France. One more is something Amelia calls
"modernization," re-imagining a folk tale in a modern setting. I'm not
sure what she means at first. This isn't as simple, as, say, setting
the story of the chasse-galerie in the Quebec forests of the twenty-
first century, as opposed to the nineteenth. The obviously fantastic
elements will often be changed, for example, but the subtexts of the
story would still be evident to anyone who knows the original.
I try to give an example to see if I have it straight. Every village in
French Canada (and many other countries) once had a tale about a
flighty young woman--called Rose Latulipe in the literary retelling of
the tale by Philippe Aubert de Gaspé--who spurned her betrothed to
dance with the devil, disguised as a handsome man, on the night of
Mardi gras. Only when the devil has seduced Rose into dancing past
midnight into Ash Wednesday, a day of repentance, does he reveal
himself as the king of Hell. What happens next depends on who's telling
the story. In many versions, including de Gaspé's, Rose was saved in
the nick of time, but was so traumatized she was scarred for life; de
Gaspé has Rose take holy orders and die young. In other versions,
however, for breaking the taboo against merrymaking on Ash Wednesday
Rose was carried off to hell.
The modern Quebec rock band Mes Aïeux modernize the tale in the "Rose
Latulipe" track of their concept album inspired by French Canadian
folklore, _Ça parle au diable!_ ("We Talk to the Devil!"). The devil
often appears as the most handsome of men, but that's just one of his
many forms. Mes Aïeux reimagine Rose as a raver-girl, foregoing love
and even sex in favour of slowly killing herself with party drugs. She
tells a would-be suitor:
Je ne veux pas de mari I don't want a husband
L'amour je n'y crois pas I don't believe in love
Ma dope me suffit For me my dope's enough
Cette vie est ephèmere This life's a fleeting thing
Je ne veux pas de mari I don't want a husband
Maintenant laisse-moi Now leave me alone
Mon trip est pas fini My trip isn't done
Je retourne en enfer... I'm going back to hell...
I have passed the test. This is a perfect example of what Amelia had in
mind. I must say we have very high-level conversations in my family.
Where some families will talk about movie stars we wind up talking
about what we learned on the Discovery Channel about "Mysteries of the
Bible." It is great to be a nerd. You at least sound smarter, anyway.
After lunch Amelia wants to go to Hall D to check out the dealers'
room. I warn her I really don't think she'll find many good deals
there; all Canada's anime is imported from the States, making it
expensive by US standards even after the exchange rate. The idea most
of the folks in the dealers' room have of a deal is of eating the
federal sales tax (GST) and provincial sales tax (PST), which, to be
fair, takes 15% off the retail price right there. (The American dealers
are mostly taking Canadian dollars at par.) Amelia doesn't care;
there's plenty of anime she's been planning to buy anyway, and here's
as good as anywhere.
At any rate, I want to go to the Shojo-ai panel at two o'clock to see
if I can't find Alan Harnum there, and so we part company at lunch.
When I do make it to the panel at the New York room, though, the affair
seems on the whole a bit dull, in spite of the chair's best efforts. At
any rate, I don't see Alan, so I don't stay long. I decide to head over
to Hall D after all. I've decided now's as good a time as any to offer
Lady Oscar my "Nanami at le Troquet" commission.
At Artist's Alley, Angela is not there. A young man is sitting in her
place; he tells me she's gone to see her boyfriend who is visiting
Toronto, but she is due back later. But of course. It makes sense that
Lady Oscar would have an André. There's no point sitting and waiting,
so I head over to the dealer's room after all to give myself something
to do more than anything else. Me, I might browse in a dealers' room,
but I generally don't buy much at a con. If I do, it's because I'm
pretty sure I'm not likely to find it elsewhere. For the most part,
that means particularly rare art books, dojinshi and (of course) nice
fan art, which I like because they're customized to my tastes, as well
as one of a kind.
I do end up buying something that afternoon. After the writeup of
Svetlana Chmakova in one of the final issues of the late lamented
_Animerica_, I would have never thought that a new celebrity would be
likely to return to Anime North unless specifically invited. But there
she is, hard at work at her place in the dealer's room, offering
postcards featuring her artwork and an anthology of short stories by
several authors including herself (one of which she is kind enough to
sign for me).
Ms. Chmakova is struggling to finish a "24-hour comic," which she had
been challenged to complete (pencil, ink and all) in twenty-four hours.
Suffice to say she started her comic more than twenty-four hours ago.
Her _Animerica_ write-up mentioned her fan comic _Svetlana Wheneverly_.
I tell her I am looking forward to her _DramaCon_, her full-length
graphic novel about a romance at an anime convention, scheduled to come
out soon from Tokyopop. Nostalgia for an older fan, especially one with
not nearly the time for anime he used to have, but still dreams of the
days of his youth, when he still had the chance to find the love of a
beautiful girl who actually understood anime. For her part Ms. Chmakova
seems most worried about making the deadline for publication. Just as
well I don't do this for a living myself.
Ms. Chmakova is a Russian, raised in a provincial town about an hour
from Moscow. When I ask her what she's doing in Canada, her story
proves not much different from mine. Her father, having been hired by a
Canadian firm in Russia and later transferred, quickly realized there
was no reason for his wife and children to remain in Russia, and
Svetlana left when she was sixteen. By now she speaks perfect English,
without an accent. I, who was taken to the States by my father and left
Ireland at thirteen, and was raised an Anglophone, still can't pass for
an American, even though in Canada some Canadians say I could pass as
someone from Newfoundland.
Then again, I actually like Ireland. If Ms. Chmakova has any nostalgia
for Russia, it's lost on me. Certainly she doesn't describe Russia as
any place for an artist. Her schooling in Russia didn't give her much
means to express her artistic skills, given the continued communist-
inspired emphasis on science and engineering in Russian education.
That, and she tells me a place like Russia where one has to become a
corrupt backstabber to get ahead is not a place she really cares to
live. I don't doubt it for a minute. I've always found it's the people
just off the boat, as it were, who most appreciate what Canada's done
for them, while many natives do nothing but complain. Where else but in
Canada (or the States) could a Russian woman break into drawing manga?
I thank Ms. Chamkova for her time, and after a few more minutes
browsing head back to Artist's Alley. Angela Jordan has returned by the
time I pass her table again; I find Lady Oscar back in uniform,
sketching a portrait of a young girl, jealously chaperoned by a man I
guess is the girl's father. Along with sketches Angela has for sale
bandanas with slogans in Japanese such as "Number One in Japan" (Amelia
buys one during the weekend). When she's done I ask how much she would
want to make it worthwhile to do a nice watercolour similar to the
pictures of Utena and Anthy (or for that matter Yumi and Sachiko). It
turns out she hadn't really thought about it-she'd painted the
watercolours for fun, not profit. My respect for Oscar François de
Jarjeyes continues to prosper and grow.
Angela is willing to paint Nanami for me, if I have a photo of the café
I have in mind for her. Of course. I look in my bag of con materials,
where I have stored my book of photos. A moment of panic. I can't
immediately find le Troquet. I excuse myself and head over to an empty
table, rifling desperately through the book of photos. I am there long
enough that another artist arrives for the day, and I feel obliged to
move over so she can set up. I really should have put the photos in a
better order. Ah-hah! Le voil� ! I show Angela the photo; it's a good
bit darker than I would have liked, but for what she wants it for it's
entirely serviceable. When she quotes the price she wants for the
painting, it is very reasonable indeed. I don't want to give away the
details, but I would have been very lucky to get my painting of Nanami
done in the States for the amount Angela asked for in US funds, never
mind Canadian, and Angela wasn't lowballing by Anime North standards. I
don't complain, of course. She is pretty sure she can have the painting
done by Canada Day. I agree to pay her by Sunday.
4:30 pm: The cosplay will be starting soon. Judging from ACens past, I
need to start lining up. I leave Hall D and head back to the hotel.
Looking at the cosplayers is another thing making me feel old. Not that
I don't see some lovely cosplay of characters I know. A 14-year-old
Yukino Miyazawa, accompanied by a tall, beared man, presumably her
father, who for all that looks nothing like Hiroyuki. A Toru Honda with
a Kyo-cat plushie; she is white, but Toru is even accompanied by a
slightly too pretty young Asian man (Yuki Sohma perhaps?). But I, who
remember when _Eva_ and _Ranma_ cosplayers dominated ACen, am pretty
sure I only see one Asuka Langley the whole convention.
My personal favorite cosplayer of the con, however, is "Generic Fantasy
Soldier No. 17."
Overlords Served: 9
Good Causes Stopped: 6
Tricked by men: 15 times
Ditto children: 75 times
Ditto boobies: 1370 times and counting.
Also impressive are a couple as Vash the Stampede and the White Mage
from Final Fantasy I. The original. Yes, children, there was an
original Final Fantasy game.
The cosplay, of course, is to be in the Plaza Ballroom on the second
floor. I don't head right there; I want to collect Amelia from the
"Traveling in Japan" panel in the Montreal meeting room on the same
floor. The corridor next to the Montreal room, when I get there around
5:00 pm, is lined with cosplayers waiting patiently for staffers to co-
ordinate them for the cosplay due to start in a few hours. By the door
are several Utena cosplayers, including one who appears to be Nanami
Kiryu, dressed in a yellow Rose Bride type dress which I don't
recognize from the series. Amelia I do not see. I try not to step on
the cosplayers underfoot as I go to the door to peek in. Apparently the
panel has run over, and I can't see Amelia from the door. I just hope
she didn't slip out some other way. After a few minutes I go over and
peek again, then again another few minutes after that...
"Do you find us interesting?"
Thus spake Nanami, in a very unpleasant tone. Apparently she thought I
kept going over to the door to gawk at her. I reply, yes, I find
cosplayers interesting. I know better than to add that if she _didn't_
want attention, she should have known better than to cosplay in the
first place--or that there's such a thing as being too much in
character, especially when your character is generally agreed to be a
cow. I'm tempted to offer her poutine.
Speak of the devil. I hear behind me an animated discussion in French,
the first French I've heard spoken at the con. A few men and a woman
dressed as characters I don't recognize; the woman seems to be asking
about something.
Moi: [snapping into helpful civil servant mode] Puis-je vous aider?
Elle: Vous parlez français?
Moi: Ouais...un p'tit peu...
Elle: You should probably speak English then.
She didn't need any information after all. It breaks the ice, though.
The group are from Montreal; they turn out to be dressed as several
characters from Final Fantasy XI, including one as some sort of goblin.
Apparently their entry in the cosplay has been months in the planning,
but they claim to have only met each other in the flesh half an hour
previously. I don't envy them their seven hour drive from Montreal, and
we wind up discussing how Montreal badly needs its own anime
convention. I can see it now (though I know better than to say so right
there): every year, Québécois and Québécoise anime fans of all ages
would gather at la Stade olympique under the aegis of the blue-eyed and
blue-haired beauty Yuri Hoppono ("lily of the north,"), Momiji's
sophisticated bilingual cousin (Japanese/French), during her annual
visit to Montréal to bring the joys of Japanese pop culture to the
people of Québec...
A watched kettle, etc. Amelia doesn't take much longer to emerge from
the panel. I take her to eat dinner in the hotel restaurant;
overpriced, but I want to get to the cosplay as early as possible. I
have my armband, of course, but I'm still thinking in terms of the
several hour wait and standing-room only that I remember from ACens
past. Amelia reports from the _Tsubasa Chronicles_ anime preview.
Again, nobody bothered to supply water, and while she managed to hold
out to the end, about half the attendees bailed before risking
dangerous dehydration. Hence, by the second episode the crowd had
thinned enough for a short person in the back (viz. Amelia) to be able
to actually see. A major change: the second episode drops the re-
incarnation of Li Xiaolang into a new world, without any background,
while the manga brings the action to a halt while a character from X
explains to Li the fine details of this new world. World-building is
obviously not something one wants to waste episode two on, never mind
even episode one. Apparently the background music was excellent, by the
way.
The "Traveling in Japan" panel was enlightening too for the uncommon
sense tips on how to survive in Japan, one of the most expensive
countries in the developed world to travel in, without going broke.
Obviously one shouldn't eat at five-star restaurants every night, and
those on a budget needn't worry about going hungry. Street vendors
selling sushi as well as takoyaki, the local equivalent of the
purveyors of hotdogs and poutine to hungry Ottawa civil servants, will
obviously sell to tourists as well as Japanese bureaucrats, allowing
the tourist to eat very well on the equivalent of five dollars
Canadian. As for housing, stay away from the "tourist hotels" and try a
ryokan. One will sleep on a futon in a straw mat room, and be hurried
out before 8 am by staff who are highly unlikely to speak English, but
they're cheap, and you can tell your friends you stayed somewhere that
looked like something out of _Kenshin._ The speaker, being an otaku
herself, wouldn't have passed that experience up for the world.
Getting there and away. Don't even try landing in Japan with a passport
due to expire in six months or less, because you can count on being
denied entry. See if you can't get a deal from your travel agent that
allows you multiple stops throughout the Far East, including Japan. Ask
the agent as well what they can tell you about deals on train travel in
Japan, by far the easiest and cheapest way to travel long distance
within Japan. It helps a lot if you can find an excuse to travel there
on some sort of business too. At the Bank I know many people combine
trips to conferences with holidays in Europe, staying a week or two
after the conference ends. I must ask Yasuo if he knows a conference in
Japan that is conducted in English.
I hate to eat and run, but I pay in advance, and leave before Amelia's
finished her meal. We agree to meet at the "Create Your Own Anime"
panel later.
---
Best sign of the convention: "No, I live in YOUR mother's basement!"
---
A few words about the line to get into the cosplay contest. There isn't
one. The most pleasant surprise of the whole con. When I show up at the
Plaza ballroom at about six o'clock, after a quick check of my armband
I can just walk in and sit wherever I please. The armband rule is being
strictly enforced. I see a mother and daughter being turned away for
want of armbands. I suggest the closed-circuit feed, but they're not
staying at the Doubletree. I feel bad, but it's a small price to pay
for wiping out the cosplay line. It turns out, anyway, that all is not
lost for those without armbands and not staying at the Doubletree; the
feed is being shown in International Room C, watched by (among others)
Amelia, who apparently thought better of not getting her own armband
and eventually heads over there to see the show--after she'd gone back
to Hall D to browse some more.
The room, at best, is only half full when I arrive, but needless to say
it is quite full by 7 pm, when the contest is scheduled to start. Of
course I know by now how fictitious the starting times for the cosplay
are. I don't envy the contest organizers their job: organizing otaku is
a bit like herding cats. However, instead of keeping the assembled
masses waiting in their seats until the last possible moment before a
riot breaks out, there is a pre-game show. The 404s!
I cheer. I've seen the 404s website, but I've never gotten a chance to
see them perform their brand of anime stand-up comedy. The basic
structure of a typical 404 performance is reminiscent of _Whose Line Is
It Anyway?_, with the performers playing several games obliging them to
improvise sketches, the twist being the material is often (but not
always) anime-related.
The four players are from metro Toronto: Erin and John are from Oshawa,
while John and Mike are from Mississauga. However, the moderator of the
game is Mark, a proud Albertan. Before the game begins he observes that
May 2005 saw both the last Star Wars movie and the demise of televised
Star Trek. He imagines what each camp of fandom is thinking about now.
Star Wars fanboys: Heh heh heh, Star Trek is over, losers!
Star Trek fanboys: Heh heh heh, Star Wars is over, losers!
Girlfriends, if any, and other loved ones of above: Hallelujah! Star
Trek _and_ Star Wars are over!
Fortunately, anime isn't going anywhere, and certainly neither are the
fans, so best to start the show. I'm probably wasting space trying to
record the night's performance in detail--the thing about standup is
you have to see it to really appreciate it--but I can't help repeating
a few of the better gags of the night:
Mad Director. A scene is first played straight, but the mad director is
never satisfied, and pushes the actors to the limit with his outrageous
demands. So:
Take 1: Straight. A boy and his slightly slow brother argue over the
chores with mother.
[But no! The mad director wants more laughs, so:]
Take 2: Ditto, except everybody has to do silly walks like in the Monty
Python sketch.
[The take is stopped short for being too silly. The mad director has a
better idea...]
Take 3: A la Star Wars. Mom is now the Emperor. The slow brother is
now...Darth Vader!?
[Surely the director's satisfied? But no! Have to cater to the
fangirls!]
Take 4: As Take 3...except now dripping with homoerotic innuendo.
Emperor: [fondling Vader] Well, now...why aren't the dishes done, my
_children_?
Human Props. Two teams of two, one of which has to serve as all the
props for the other team as they improvise a generic Mythic Quest to
Save the Princess.
This includes horses (the fangirls go wild), doors, even stairs.
"We climbed the stairs of the Magic Tower! All two of them!"
Word Box. One player can improvise at will; however, all others must
read lines from _Demon City Shinjuku_, _DN Angel_, and Naruto.
Shinjuku: "Want to try me?"
Naruto: "I'm not allowed to do that with students."
Naruto: "Don't you have what it takes to be a ninja?"
DN Angel: "It is too late to save her..."
Sound Effects: Two volunteers from the audience must supply all sound
effects for a sketch. Preferably badly.
Excerpt: our heroes are driving along in their car, which, thanks to
our volunteer, has an odd sounding engine...
Car: [sound of engine] Kyan kyan kyan kyan...
Passenger: What sort of engine is that?
Driver: Engine? That's a duck.
Marriage Sketch: In honour of the RL marriage of Justin Trudeau
(Pierre's son) that very day. Lines suggested by staff.
Priest: (as in a samurai drama) "Do you know how I am?"
Overheard on the wedding night: "I don't think that goes there."
"Is that Pocky in your pocket, or
are you just glad to see me?"
Scenes From the Hat. Situations chosen by con staff, and drawn from a
Maple Leaf Hat.
Stuck in a yaoi fangirl elevator: "I touched Scott NcNeil!"
Things not to say to fangirls: "I took a bath today!"
"Wanna touch my Pocky?"
"I've seen naked pictures of your
character..."
_Gundam Wing_ Opera: "I'm...not compensating for
an-y-THING!"
Worst possible merchandise: "Life size Gundam plushie!"
(What? I'd buy one...)
_Star Trek_ versus _Star Wars_: "Use the Force!"
"Use the PINCH!"
(Winner: _Star Trek!_)
The only false note of the performance was another scene from the hat:
"Things not to say to George W. Bush." I couldn't help but bristle. It
wasn't that I have much love for or even much confidence in President
Bush myself. I've long since lived to regret, not so much voting
Libertarian in 2000, as then going home to root for Bush all night. In
2003, I even attended anti-war rallies at MSU. That said, it was a bit
like hearing somebody insult someone in your family; you may be well
aware he's a jerk, and the rest of the family might laugh at him too
behind his back, but anybody else insulting him around you is still
risking a fight. Of course when Alan and I wrote "SAGNanami" I'd never
been to Canada for longer than a week, so I was probably asking for it,
but I couldn't have been the only American in the room, and at least
one might have been a Republican.
Certainly it was the policy at ACen that the main stage of an anime
convention is no place for politics. It was stated explicitly in the
con brochure under the cosplay contest rules, and it was enforced. I
remember at an ACen one year a young woman cosplaying San from
_Princess Mononoke_ got on stage and started into a radical
environmentalist tirade. She got her just deserts; she was booed off
the stage.
It didn't help that I'd heard all the jokes before. ("Pronounce
'nuclear.'") Fortunately, the 404s redeem themselves quickly:
Gundam's in the Shop. A hapless car repairman falls foul of the proud
owner of...a Gundam. We get to hear their inner monologues:
Gundam pilot: He's never seen a Gundam? Either he's playing dumb...or
he's drunk.
Repairman: I don't know if this thing flies...blends...or what. Hm. It's
kinda shaped like a man. Maybe he takes it for walks...
(The 404s. They put the 'dum' in Gundam.)
If You Know What I Mean. Finish every sentence with "If you know what I
mean," preferably as suggestively as possible. The scene: The last day
of Anime North.
"What an early wakeup...if you know what I mean?"
"I want to stay in bed holding my 'bot...if you know what I mean."
"I got a special autograph from Scott McNeil...if you know what I mean."
[Beat.]
"No, actually I don't know what you mean."
Last and not least: Change. Players improvise a scene, mostly as they
please; however, the moderator reserves the right to call "Change!" if
he's not satisfied with a line.
Scene: Godzilla is attacking Toronto! What are our heroes to do?
"I have to call the air force!" [Change!]
"I have to call the army!" [Change!]
"I have to call my mommy!"
Alas, Mommy lives in Ottawa and is of little help. What have our heroes
at their disposal right now?
"Let's fight Godzilla with...robots!" [Change!]
"Rhododendrons!" [Change!]
"Fangirls!"
Now the fun really begins. The players motion for volunteers, and there
is a veritable pitch invasion as at least a dozen females take the
stage.
One of Our Heroes: "All right girls! Imagine J-pop idols making out!"
Cue the fangirls screaming like mad, their piercing shrieks frightening
Godzilla back to Buffalo. And so the day is saved, thanks to the power
of fangirls!
Cheers and applause. It's at that point the curtain should have fallen;
Mark goes as far as to ask the audience, just before the 404s go, to
let him take a photo with his cellphone of the audience saying "hello"
in Albertan, that is to say "Yee-HAH!"
But no! We are to be treated to more Scenes from the Hat! The crowd
groans audibly. Using the 404s as the time-stalling tactic was a stroke
of genius, but only as long as it didn't become obvious that's what
they were. Mind you it isn't the 404s fault that they've been left on
stage long enough to start to wear out their welcome, and they stay
calm.
Failed Pocky flavours: "Duct tape!"
"Acid!"
"Yaoi!"
[cretinous] "Tastes like chicken!"
Yaoi panel survivors: [breathless with fright] "Yaoi, men...yuri,
women...yaoi, men...yuri, women..."
"AAAAARGH!"
"The room was filled with women. Not a man as
far as the eye could see. So far so good.
Then...the screams, oh dear sweet God, the
SCREAMS..."
[mild disgust] "Oh, so _that's_ what that means.
Ew..."
Star Wars Survivor: "Luke...the tribe...have spoken."
At that point the 404s bid us adieu, but not, of course, because the
contest's about to start. Another time-stall tactic: free Miyazaki
stuff! Staff stand at the head of the lines that rapidly form for what
I think at first are posters for the _Nausicaa_ posters, but turn out
to be for _Howl's Moving Castle._ I can't wait any more; I simply have
to find the men's room. I ask the couple beside me to keep my seat and
run out, running right in front of the screen erected outside the hall,
intended as the background for cosplay photos. I introduce myself as
Otaku Number 7.
I needn't have run so fast. The contest still hasn't begun when I get
back. The assembly start methodically clapping, a sign I know from
ACens as a sign of diminishing patience. Fortunately we don't wait much
longer; at 8:10 pm, the cosplay MC arrives on stage, resplendent in a
kilt; he apologizes in advance for mangling any names he might
announce, for he is bilingual, but that would be in English and
heavily-accented SCOTS. After he announces the standard interdictions
against flash photography, the judges file on stage, themselves all in
cosplay. The MC makes perfectly clear that he will _not_ be introducing
them, an announcement greeted by cheers.
The show begins with the Youth Division.
1. Sesshomaru from Inuyasha. So far so good.
2. The first no-show of the contest, and not the last. Fortunately the
MC shows great ingenuity in mocking them. They should have been Alucard
and Fr. Alexander Anderson from _Hellsing_, but they're not here.
Apparently Alucard _ate_ Fr. Alexander Anderson.
3. Another AWOL. MC: "And oh god, all those cute little hamsters." (The
crowd cheers.)
4. An Alucard! Really, there he is!
5. Light Chi and Dark Chi. Quite nice, and not just 'cause they're from
Ottawa.
6. Two very cute little girls of African extraction, no more than eight
years old, are characters from _Daphne of the Brilliant Blue_, their
dance and song designed to charm a soldier--a little white boy who
couldn't be more than six. "Aw" quotient off the scale.
7. The invincible Bandino (?), dressed in a white shirt, sings a silly,
short song and gyrates.
On to the Adult Division. I've taken the liberty of changing the
numbering to the order the teams took the stage (and that I wrote them
down), but that doesn't necessarily correspond to the numbers they were
announced as. For example, the first entrants on stage were actually
announced as number zero. MC: "Math is the tool of the devil."
1. Turns out to be the _Utena_ cosplayers I met (fell foul of?)
earlier, performing the number "Popular" from _Wicked._ In _Wicked_,
Glenda the Good Fairy is unmasked as a sometime sadistic schoolyard
queen who, when they went to school together, delighted in torturing
the Wicked Witch, giving her (for example) tips on how to be popular
actually designed to make the Witch look stupid in front of the whole
school. Obviously inspired by Glenda's example, Nanami Kiryu proposes
to make Anthy Himemiya popular, "just not quite as popular as me..."
A woman dressed in grey has joined the other _Utena_ cosplayers on
stage. I didn't see her earlier. Who could she be? I don't figure out
it's Chuchu, who's having none of Nanami's tricks, until she flashes
her red butt. MC: "Wrong, but in a good way."
2. Two swordsmen in choreographed fight that I don't recognize. The
names are garbled. (God, I wish I had a tape recorder.)
3. Koyama Mitsuki. What's she from again?
4. Pimp Daddy Toga! (Not Kiryu...don't recognize him.) An accomplice
insults his fashion sense, and deeply offended, reaches for his
sword...only to pull out a feather.
5. A woman dressed as a fox demon of some sort. The introductions of
each cosplayer are written by the entrants themselves, and we are
instructed to "please note gravity defying tails of doom." The woman
laughs madly at us, posing absurdly; in the main hall we are as polite
as we can manage, but in the overflow hall (Amelia reports) the
spectators hoot in derision.
6. Yuna from Final Fantasy, introduced as "Songstress Yuna." She
doesn't sing, though she does dance.
7. Kuroneko, the black cat from Trigun! The man-sized animals always
bring the house down, and this is no exception. Kuroneko waves, boogies
as best it can, then turns around to reveal its tail is an Anime North
badge.
8. Sister Rosette, everyone's favourite nun with a gun, and Chrono from
_Chrono Crusade._ He asks to marry her; she carries _him_ over the
portal.
9. AWOL. The MC reports that number 9 was disintegrated by an alien
from planet Ten.
10. Inuyasha and Nuroku. Inuyasha's sword won't work. Ruins his day...
11. The Final Fantasy team from Montreal, explaining that goblins
aren't such bad people; you just have to look past their habit of
running people through.
12. AWOL. MC: "Looks like the goblin needed a snack."
Before the contest goes on, a break for the Ninja Shuffle! Con staff in
black run back and forth across the stage to comical music.
13. Characters from Clamp's Rg Veda. One in white, one in black, one
with a harp. I need to read that manga some time.
14. I hate it when not only can I not recognize characters, but I can't
follow their sketch.
15. AWOL. MC: "Ninjas have beaten up the entry."
16. Several Final Fantasy characters do an impressive dance with fans
(Chinese fans, not otaku). One of the better choreographed numbers of
the night. Costumes not bad either.
17. Misha from _Pitaten_. Walks on to cute music-box music--which
quickly cuts out to dance music. Misha seems content...
18. The world is out of joint. Gabriel and three other angels are on
vacation, and the mortal realm falls into chaos, Gundams falling out of
the sky and into the ocean...what show are they from again?
19. Another fight, swordsman versus staffman. Don't recognize either
one.
20. Someone must have been misinformed about Anime North. "A young
senator dreams of her Jedi husband," reads the MC dutifully as a Star
Wars cosplayer takes the stage. When she walks off, he adds, "That
won't end well."
21. Chocobo! The crowd goes wild!
22. Two women in beautiful outfits, one white, one black. Wish I knew
who they were. I catch a name "Kariva..." Anyone?
23. Vash the Stampede does a silly dance, and then looks down his
glasses at the fangirls...
24. A normal day in the life of Dejiko. Dejiko's upstaged in her dance
number by Rabi-en-Rose.
25. Aoi Sakuraba from _Ai yori aoshi_ walks on, then off.
It is just then that the MC finally gets his podium light to work. Cue
cheers.
26. Battle Royale for Dummies. Among the tips:
--Distract your enemies with a cool dance number, then kill them.
--When the ending theme plays, people will bow. Use the opportunity to
shoot them.
27. _Card Captor Sakura_'s Sakura and Li--are AWOL. Apparently they
eloped.
Cue Ninja Shuffle! Wait...the music didn't kick in...[beat; cue music]
okay. Cue Ninja Shuffle!
28. My notes: "Tabarnak! Sketch in Japanese!" The same lot as before.
If you want to know what "Tabarnak" means, ask any French Canadian.
29. Someone from _Samurai Deeper Kyo._ No, wait, five characters. No,
seven!
30. The only Ranma cosplayer of the contest (and the con, at least that
I saw): Tatewaki Kuno, in an excellent dance number. Kuno dreams of
fighting with two swords, his old bokken--and a light sabre! The crowd
goes wild. The MC admits: "That was seriously cool!"
31. Chi from Chobits, while visiting an anime con, is hassled by
fanboys--until she's rescued by a really cool cosplayer.
32. Dark from _DN Angel_ shares the stage with another winged bishonen-
-and a kiss!
33. How to piss off Rukya from _Bleach_:
4. Steal her powers.
3. Die.
2. Actually have a body.
1. Insult her art skills.
34. Vegeta and Goku trade insults ("My Dragonballs are bigger than
yours!"), about to have a cataclysmic fight over a girl, even though
she likes them both. Problems. Her blue wig flies off at precisely the
wrong moment.
35. Another Sesshomaru. MC: "Please refrain from calling him Fluffy."
36. A character from Final Fantasy VIII I don't recognize...
37. A character from _Card Captor Sakura_ I do. Yue, aka Yukito. Good
god, fangirls love a boy with an enormous...wingspan.
38. Tsukasa from _.hack. Even I recognize him.
39. The Zion Army from _Gundam Wing_ announce their annual recruitment
drive! Thrill to goosestepping Zion soldier girls! The crowd cracks up
when they're not cheering.
40. Lulu from Final Fantasy X. In lieu of her usual fire attack--
bubbles!
41. FLCL. Haruko poses with her guitar for publicity photos--taken by
Mamimi.
MC: "Chicks love musicians. I should have learned the bagpipes."
42. A character from _Phoenix_, which apparently is a original story.
Written by the cosplayer herself, no less. Talk about self-promotion.
Amelia reported being pigeonholed mercilessly by the woman, giving a
blow-by-blow account of her clearly mediocre novel.
The glowing staff is nice, though. "Like Sauron's eye," says the MC.
43. A dramatic monologue from Yuna from Final Fantasy.
To break the tension: Ninja Shuffle!
44. The Beatles' "Get Back," performed by--the GetBackers!
45. A sketch by characters from Star Ocean. As during Friday's contest,
the dialogue is pre-recorded; performers lip-synch their lines.
However, the playback on this sketch is so distorted as to be
incomprehensible.
46. Final Fantasy characters, the boys taking off their shirts to
dance, the girls running like hell off stage. (The fangirls love it, of
course.)
47. A character from the video game _Catamari Demasi_. Costume signed
by Scott McNeil.
48. Tamari (who?) and Belldandy, their series ended, being out of work,
turned to fanfic. In increasing desperation they slid down the slippery
slope...from drama...to comedy...to (God help them!) lemons... (OMG's
actually still running, but I still laughed.)
49. Witch Hunter Robin defeats her opponent, with streamers (in lieu of
her usual flames).
50. Various characters do the Macarena! Talk about time warp...
51. A demon has an epiphany. Which demon, alas, I couldn't tell you.
52. A clash of worlds; Tsubasa Chronicles and Full Metal Alchemist.
Edward tries to get a quick dance with Sakura while Li's away...
53. A character introduced as the Queen of Spades. She stands there for
a moment, looking as regal as she can. Apparently there was supposed to
be music, but the sound has chosen just then to act up. She regards MC
with a regal air. The MC, playing along, bows low before the Queen.
Finally, wiht no music forthcoming the Queen walks off. The MC suggests
that Alucard must have gotten in the orchestra pit. "Vampires suck."
54. Inuyasha and Sango trade weapons. Kagome refuses, however:
Kagome: I'm almost as good as Kikyo with my bow now.
Inuyasha: You could _never_ be as good as...
Kagome: Sit!
55. Another Yuna, then...
56. From the live action _Sailor Moon_ (a guilty pleasure of my own),
Evil Sailor Mercury. (Ami was bound to snap eventually!) Who can defeat
her? None other than Sailor Luna (yes, Luna the cat) and the power of
cute!
57. Was eaten by Alucard.
58. A momentary musical failure, rectified in time for five cosplayers
to perform a choreographed battle, justly described by the MC as "also
frickin' cool." Too bad I don't recognize them.
59. Greed from _Sin_, to the tune of ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man."
60. Lloyd Irving, whoever he is.
My notes: "Home stretch. Il me faut pisser." Better that than
dehydration, but still...
61. A Moogle from Final Fantasy. Its purpose? Cute!
62. A Scroll of Shadow sketch. Very nice touch is elaborate scenery,
including flowers and fake trees. A love theme segues into rock.
63. Princess Garnet and her consort look great at their wedding, she
resplendent in her train, he resplendent in a tail. Who's Princess
Garnet?
64. Last but not least, Yuna...and Princess Toadstool! I cheer loudly,
and mean it. I'm not the only one, and not just because Toadstool's the
last entry. God bless _Super Mario_...
Another pleasant surprise: we won't have to stew in our own juices
while the judges make their decision. It is now past ten o'clock, and
the room has to be cleared out and rearranged for the dance due to
start at eleven. The MC thanks us and dismisses us after announcing the
winners will be declared at the dance, with their names to be posted
tomorrow at the cosplay desk.
---
I emerge from the cosplay hall and go to the Mississauga room to find
Amelia. I had taken the "Create Your Own Anime" panel to be an intro to
animation panel, but it turns out to be a fan game, MC'ed by Steven
Savage. Randomly-chosen panel attendees are given a generic anime
title, prepared using a random word generator, handed three clichéd
anime plot elements and then must "create that anime."
An example I thought was good enough to be worth preserving:
Take the following clichés:
An ineffective authority figure;
A slimeball authority figure; and
Gainaxing (ask your mother).
Add the title, "Nervous Saint Hell." And Create That Anime!
It seems Satan (slimeball in authority) has gotten bored in hell, and
decides to hold a "Hell Idol" contest. The grand prize: a ticket out of
hell straight to heaven. A damned soul--call him Fred--gets a break
from a kindly angel with enormous...wings who gives him a great power--
coming into contact with fire will turn Fred into a beautiful woman,
able to leave any number of (Gainaxing) demon women standing. The
catch: if Fred gets the least bit nervous, he will change back into a
man. (Hence "Nervous Saint Hell.")
Naturally, Fred makes into the final, where his opponent is a cute
demon child who is, just as naturally, an evil mastermind. She is,
however, no match for Fred, who by rights ought to have won hands down-
-except that the judge (ineffective authority figure) managed to sleep
through the whole contest.
Worst of all, even Satan has lost interest at this point, and to decide
the issue simply flips a coin. Hallelujah! Fred wins the toss! Not only
does he get to go straight to heaven, but with his new sex-changing
ability, he can now be his own best friend!
_Nervous Saint Hell_. Coming soon from ADV.
---
We return to our room. Amelia sets about make herself beautiful for the
dance, which she has been planning to attend since she first heard
about it. She's not going completely alone, mind you; she plans to meet
up there with some girls she's met over the weekend. It has occurred to
me that we ought to figure out what we should do if she meets someone
at the dance, and they want to be alone. I don't object to that-there's
no point, she's a big girl now, and in an odd way I rather hope she
does find someone. I suppose I am living vicariously. I remember Ucchan
thought I thought I was running out of chances to meet the right girl.
I don't know about that, but I know my chance to meet her at something
like this is long gone, with me near thirty and the average female
Anime North attendee barely Amelia's age.
Amelia, however, is still young. She has always been pretty. I have one
of her senior pictures on my desk at work. Every man who has come into
my office and noticed the picture, not realizing at first who it really
is, has openly envied my luck in finding such a beautiful woman for a
girlfriend. I like to tease Amelia about being the fantasy girl of the
men of the Bank of Canada. She will have opportunities tonight, I'm
certain. Your place or mine? If it's his, I make her promise to call me
and tell me what room she'll be in. If it's hers...well, that's what the
"Do Not Disturb" sign's for, right? I could find a couch in the lobby...
"Oh come on, Paul, I'm not going to sexile you!" Amelia says.
"Sexile? Is that a word?"
"It is in college."
It's new to me, but I haven't been an undergraduate in seven years.
A few minutes after Amelia finally leaves for the Plaza Ballroom, I
leave the room myself. I'm not quite ready for bed, and the "Naughty
Yuri Panel" lets out at midnight. Maybe I'll find Alan...? But when I
make it there, he's nowhere to be seen. I decide to go for a walk
around the hotel before bed.
In the lobby a man and woman are offering free hugs, the first I've
seen at Anime North. Visibly absent (today's oxymoron) at this con are
the panhandlers I remember from ACen, offering hugs, yaoi poses and/or
services as a (non-sexual) girlfriend for change or Pocky. The con
brochure notes panhandling is contrary to local solicitation laws,
though I'd cheerfully trade the panhandlers on Bank Street in Ottawa
for poor otaku.
I wind up walking all the way to the Plaza Ballroom. I suppose I am a
little worried about Amelia after all. Outside the hall bunches of
young otaku are gathered outside, some, I presume, taking a rest from
the dance, which, when I make it there, is already well underway. A few
of them have taken to building castles with plastic water glasses.
I decide it can't hurt to have a look inside the Plaza Ballroom itself,
but when I try to enter, the bouncer tells me to get rid of my water
glass. I suppose they don't want to have to clean them up, but even I
know how dehydrating a business dancing is. But there's no point
arguing. I step inside and look around. The dance platform only
occupies half the room, and is lit up with coloured lights; on my end
of the room a few people are either sitting out this number or just
playing the wallflower. Anime music is being played to a dance beat.
It's unlikely I could see Amelia from where I am even if the room was
lit.
Staying in the ballroom would be pointless. When I emerge from the room
to head back downstairs, I see a sight I thought I'd never see outside
a _Kimagure Orange Road_ lemon; a young man sitting against the wall,
looking most comfortable with two good-looking young women. I like to
think of the annual anime con as otaku Christmas, but I'm reminded more
and more of Mardi gras. Not in a good way either.
A friend of mine at MSU had a T-shirt that read something like this:
"If video games affected kids' brains, all they would be doing is
swallowing pills and dancing to electronic music." Anybody who's seen a
flyer for a rave with anime-inspired art will see the (obviously
deliberate) irony. Rave paraphernalia is in evidence everywhere;
glowsticks, pacifiers. Even I know teeth grinding's a notorious side
effect of party drugs. Another scene I saw in the main lobby still
haunts me. A young woman and man sit on the floor, his finger in her
mouth. She's not fellating it suggestively, as if to say, "Oh dear,
have you anything else I can put in my mouth?" No, it's between her
teeth, as if to keep her jaws apart. She obviously mislaid her
pacifier.
I was a teenager once. God knows I don't remember my peers needing
anime as an excuse to screw themselves up. But I still find myself
humming "Rose Latulipe." I wonder if Rose was at Anime North that
night--or if she'll live to show up at the Friends of Bell.
Oh la belle, tu es cruelle Oh my belle, you are cruel
Tu continues � danser You'll go on and dance
Moi je reste dans mon coin Me, I'll stay in my corner
Et je vais t'observer And I'll watch you dance
Je t'ai vu au moment I saw you the moment
Où t'aurais dû dire non When you should have said no
Quand le grand méchant loup When the big bad wolf
T'a offert d'autres bonbons... Offered you those other bonbons...
Of course, my dark warning, like that of Rose's suitor, might just be
sour grapes. Rose's suitor, mind you, is young enough to find another
girl. Me, I'm too old for most of these, at least if I want to stay out
of jail. I don't actually sit in the corner watching the ravers come
and go all night. I didn't come to an anime con to brood, not on
purpose anyway.
And so Paul Corrigan, the sole guardian of moral certitude at Anime
North, headed off to check out the hentai room. It should help me sleep
once I get back to my room.
Or not. I stay long enough to catch parts of two hentai features: _Can
Can Bunny_, a porno version of _Oh My Goddess!_ released some years ago
by Softcel/ADV, and a fansub of a new hentai whose title I have
forgotten. The problem with much of hentai, alas, is it's either too
soft or far, far too hard. _Can Can Bunny_ I'd seen before, but it's
aged badly, and takes itself too seriously, spending (say) three
minutes on sex and twenty-seven on melodrama which (frankly) was much
better done in OMG the first time around. I stick around after that in
hope of improvement, very quickly dashed. One scene featuring rape
perpetrated by Amazons with the ability to grow a penis at will is
quite enough. How anyone can find that arousing I don't know. I'm open-
minded, but for me to enjoy something like this, everyone must be seen
to be having a good time. I decide I could get better than this in my
room.
By the elevator I see two young men indulging in a hot shonen-ai
makeout session right in front of me, with an obvious option on yaoi.
The real yaoi action, alas, I'll have to leave to the fangirl reader's
imagination.
Fortunately, nobody has put out the "Do Not Disturb" sign. Having said
that, it occurs to me that buying a pay-per-view movie from the hotel
might not be a good idea; Amelia and God Knows Who Else could come in
at any moment. In any event, the hentai did nothing to put me in the
mood. In bed I wind up watching TFO, Ontario's French-language
educational network. They're showing a samurai drama, of all things.
---
I am just about to fall asleep when Amelia returns to the room. Alone.
Not that the dance was uneventful, mind you. In particular, she wonders
aloud how otaku got their reputation as shrinking violets, given the
characters she saw. Couples all but tearing their clothes off on the
dance floor I could write off as drug induced. The fellow who plainly
pointed to his crotch and asked Amelia's group, "You wanna piece of
this?" would, however, be more difficult. Or, creepiest of all, the man
of at least thirty who made a point of telling her, "Miss, you dance
really well," and even touched her shoulder. It was just as well I
wasn't there; I'd have probably broken his jaw.
Fortunately that wasn't Amelia's only opportunity of the night; there
was a young man, a real bishonen type (just her cup of tea) that she
was getting along really well with until he asked her age. It turned
out he was seventeen, and was shocked to hear she was nineteen. She
quoted him as saying, "You're so...slight." This while looking at her
chest.
She clearly found it embarrassing. She said she felt like a pervert for
her interest in a minor. I point out that the consent laws were
designed to protect 12-year-old girls from 30-year-old perverts, not
17-year-old boys from 19-year-old seductresses, and no 17-year-old
would be crazy enough to report said 19-year-old to the police for
giving him the opportunity of a lifetime. At worst Tsuwabuki would have
followed Nanami like a puppy dog all Sunday, begging for another piece,
at least until I (in lieu of Toga) asked Tsuwabuki what business he had
with my sister in that threatening variant of the Irish accent normally
heard only in movies about the IRA. To paraphrase Spike Milligan, only
an Irishman can make good morning sound like a death threat--which,
depending on how late the Irishman was up the previous night, it just
might be.
But that's clearly not the whole story. It never ceases to amaze me how
she can be so embarrassed about her "slight" figure, as if it had ever
stopped her from gaining admirers, even that night. But of course, my
saying any of that won't help; God knows I've tried. After all, I'm
only her brother. That, and I'm not the one who had a 30-year-old
pervert try his luck with me because he thought I was twelve.
TSUZUKU
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