you say that you have good feelings associated with this color. is the color perhaps pink or magenta
So, Otakon.
Even though Baltimore's my hometown, this was actually only my second time going to Otakon. I went with my brother (his third time, I believe) and my cousin - a complete virgin whose knowledge of anime is virtually comprised of only Miyazaki films. Yay corrupting the innocent ;)
I made sure to drag them to some panels and things, because my brother hadn't really sat through them before. We took to high-fiving people when our line would move (for those who've never been. Otakon uses taped lines on the floor for the larger rooms, for people to line up in. So you're snaking around this small area. What else are you going to do, but high-five the people moving with you? It's like a congratulation line at the end of a game). We often ended up just high-fiving the same people (like when we saw The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, ironically it was a trio of two boys and one girl - just like us) but it was a funny way to pass the time walking through the lines.
Day-by-Day Play!
Friday
*Went to the Inu Yasha panel and Kappei Yamaguchi's first panel. The Inu Yasha panel was okay, nothing too spectacular. They didn't want to spoil the audience, so they banned discussion of the manga BUT I didn't know that the producer is interested in picking up the anime again, to continue it for a little farther. Which would be nice, because I'd love to see Kagura's whole character-development arc animated.
Yamaguchi is adorable and so very very friendly and energetic. He did a lot of similar things like he did at the second panel - asking a Kagome cosplayer to tell him to "Oswari" in which he did Inuyasha's face-fault, discussed his favorite roles (his current ones - Ranma and Usopp), the characters he's most like (the ones from Eyeshield 21 and Samurai Pizza Cats. Also, apparently he did some spot as a Pachinko character and he feels rather connected to that XD), said lines as L, Ranma, Inu Yasha and Sogeking (someone asked him where the Island of Snipers was, so he told us in Sogeking's voice XD XD XD).
He also said that everyone Straw Hat seiyuu is pretty much exactly like their character so they have mad fun times, and that Oda gave him Sogeking's song lyrics but basically said "Make up a tune!" ...So he did XD Also, a Luffy cosplayer asked him what it takes to be a Brave Warrior of the Sea, and as Usopp he says, "Eight thousand followers, good companions and you, Luffy!" I about died.
*AMV contest this year was...okay. I never really like the action or romantic sections - they bore the crap out of me. Some of the best ones were the DBZ one, which had the footage of the infamous "IT'S OVER 9000" quote in it, and everyone cheered when it happened XD, the Evangelion spoof of the 300 trailer (again, much reciting of "THIS. IS. SPARTA!" and "TONIGHT WE DINE IN HELL"), and the Nodame Cantabile one to the song from Once was awesome, as was the last 5 Centimeters/Girl Who Leapt Through Time video and the Eureka Seven one.
There was a Baccano! video, which made me cheer (Fuck yeah, not-so-popular-as-the-Adult-Swim-series represent! :D :D :D), and I got to try to explain the series to my cousin and brother, with limited success. But they seemed interested once the video was over, so.
The funniest one was probably the Haruhi one, which I was prepared to loathe because it was to "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne (:O); it was the stereotypical yaoi take on it, but yet funny enough and plotted enough that I didn't care. The Gravitation one to "Tribute" was fun too in the beginning. My brother was dreading it, because he hates Gravitation, but I was waiting to see who they "cast" as the singer, brother and shiny demon. And I wasn't disappointed XD The ending was a bit weak, though. And the "Harder Better Faster Stronger" various was as goofy as it could be.
*Never got into "Bad Anime, Bad!" so if anyone got into that panel, let me know how it went!
Saturday
*Peter S. Beagle seems like an awesome guy to sit around and chew the fat with. He just seemed full of stories about a whole mess of people, one of the guys who can relate a story to just about anything. His agent/lawyer guy got a bit on my nerves (I showed up late, so I have no real idea who he is >.>; Stupid 9am panel times) because he'd override Beagle's stories to tell his own, but he did have some funny things to say, so I guess I can forgive him.
And good news for all Beagle fans - there's going to be a sequel to The Last Unicorn and they're going to be re-releasing his old works through a brand new publishing company. I can't wait, I really want to read more of his books. I wish I had had the forethought to reread A Fine and Private Place before I went, because everyone seemed to have questions on The Last Unicorn only, and it got kind of boring just discussing only one of the many things he's written. I guess this is what happens when the publishers don't think an author will sell, so they don't publish his works; no one knows enough about them to talk to the author D:
*Hellsing premier of Hellsing Ultimate 4 was awesome. I loved that part in the manga, covering all the parts before the destruction of London in the manga - basically the Major's declaration of war and Alucard taking back the British ship - EPIC BY THE WAY, LOVED THAT PART. The dub was delicious, too - I had never seen it dubbed before - but the German (and attempts at an Australian? I wasn't too sure of that) accents, while wonderful to hear that they were willing to go that far for accuracy, were a little too thick at times to get what was being said. That said, if one was watching it at home rather than in a large room with about 200 other people, one might understand it better regardless of accents.
I had forgotten how Rip died at the end, though. That was hard to sit through :T Especially since I had my cousin with me, who, while 18 and probably has seen bloodier things, didn't really know anything about Hellsing (except that it was about vampires and Nazis. Turned out we took him to the one episode that really focuses on the Nazi angle, and he doesn't like it when people glorify the Nazis. Ooops. Not that Hellsing glorifies the Nazis, but I think the whole focus of them as the main villains made him uncomfortable :C Bad form on my part).
*Ate at Hard Rock Cafe. Our waiter was a fan of Record of Lodoss War. YES.
*Went to second Kappei Yamaguchi panel in hopes that some other brave soul would ask him to sing the Sogeking song. Was not disappointed at all. Taped the first 35 minutes of it off of my camera. Here's the first 13 minutes in wmv form (sorry about that!), in which he sings the Sogeking song (around 8:30). His voice echoed off the walls, it was amazing. If anyone else wants the rest, I'll try to upload it. The original file's almost 800mb, so uploading the whole thing is kind of hard :/ Stupid 300mb limit. Mostly it's people asking about his favorite roles, if he thinks he's like certain characters, saying certain lines - one guy did ask for him to tell us a story as Usopp, but it was really short because of the time constraints, although I thought that it was a pretty cute suggestion.
Also, I wish they handed out autograph tokens in the lines or something, rather than telling people that they'll get one if they're picked - it's just seemed rather unfair to the people who did have a valid question that there's at least two, if not more, people who got picked solely because they wanted a token and not because they had a real question. But whatever.
*The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was dubbed fairly well, and surprisingly funny in a physical humor/face-faulting kind of way (also, the expressions/reactions of some of the characters are priceless), but definitely a chick flick. Some bits were goofy (the whole running sequence was a bit WTF), but overall not a bad movie. The best thing about it (aside from the artwork, which was gorgeous) was at the end - trying not to give away the ending here - the guy love interest comes over to the girl at the end, and everyone started cheering because yay they're back together. But as we're cheering, the guy LI starts to say something and we totally missed it because we were all clapping. I don't know how many people fit inside the HD theater, but it was a lot, and we all missed it. People were groaning and laughing (I was one of the ones laughing XD XD Because come on, it was practically perfect).
*The Masquerade was a mixed bag as usual. The best one I saw had to be the skit "Broaden Your Horizons", where the kids filked Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," rewriting it to include all these anime titles. I'm such a sucker for song filks, and this was too, too cute. The flautist who always does the songs from Legend of Zelda was amazing as usual, with a one-up competition between her and Navi. I only saw until the oboe (clarinet?) player played the first theme from Ranma 1/2, because then I went to stand in line for....
*The Phoenix Wright mock-trial, where I arrived about an hour before it was to start to wait in line. This thing was mobbed, I was in the second group of people waiting (we conga-lined to the room entrance), it took them half an hour of the hour allotted this thing to get everyone seated and then we find out that one of the panel members had gotten food poisoning (Ironically, it was the Ema Skye cosplayer. I felt really, really bad about it, but all I could think was "Was there something wrong with her Snackoos? Did Kristoph get a hold of them? As part of some convoluted revenge plan?" Because you know any plan he comes up with is convoluted) and I think a second panel member took her to the hospital. Or something.
So instead, they brought people up to ask questions to figure out who the murderer (a member of the audience, who I think was chosen at random and had no idea they were suddenly a murderer?) was. It was...okay, I guess. The person who was fingered seemed a good sport about it. When it became really obvious really early on - the person was wearing a bright blue spandex suit that covered everything, including her face, and a V mask - she'd slump in her seat and try to hide, or alternately stand up (like when the Phoenix Wright panel member said the murderer might have been wearing blue) and kind of look around, making us all laugh.
I do wonder what it would have been like with all the members there, though.
*The less said about the OP panel, the better, unfortunately. It was more of a "let's get together and lament that we have all these questions and no way of knowing the answer, and then let's bash the 4kids dub because we haven't done that enough already!" than anything worthwhile.
*The Shinsengumi panel, on the other hand, was deliciously informative, covering the history of the group and going over all the stories of the important members. I just wish it hadn't been at 11:30 at night, but then again it may have been mobbed if it had been earlier. As it was, the group was really small, with one presenter who talked the entire time and was incredibly knowledgeable. I almost wonder if she was a teacher on Japanese history, or if she just really liked the Shinsengumi, because she really knew a lot. Was very impressed, and am probably going to try to check out a few mangas that she recommended. I just wish I could remember the one book she suggested - it was originally a historical fiction, and then the author claimed it was non-fiction. A bit suspicious, but the presenter said she compared the information in the book to all the other facts she knew, and that generally they agreed. So that's something.
It surprised me to learn there's not a whole lot out on the Shinsengumi - the presenter said that she has a large stack about as tall as she is of Japanese textbooks, and only one has a line on the group - even with the group recently pardoned officially by the Japanese government, and all the mangas/animes that mention them. It makes sense, in a hide-the-worst-things-about-your-history, but still, it makes me a little sad. We're supposed to learn from our history, not hide it.
Sunday
*Because my long-suffering, overloaded cousin had lasted so well on being dragged to all these odd events by his nutjob relatives, we went to the Studio Ghibli panel, which was also wonderfully organized and detailed. Two people led the discussion - one had to have been a film professor or teacher, because of the way he led the discussion, the things he said and how much he had read up on the subject - and basically went over two films, then opened it up for questions, then went on to discuss the other films. It never really clicked in my head that (practically) everything Studio Ghibli produces is hand-drawn - I think they said that all of Miyazaki's films are hand-drawn and that he's a hard man to please, and that only one of Takahata's was done on the computer. Also, made me laugh to find out that Toei Animation's mascot came from a Puss in Boots that Miyazaki had worked on; I hadn't known that before.
I need to look for Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns, because they sound like something right up my alley.
*Spent time in the Dealer's Room spending money I shouldn't have, and spent time in the Artist Alley watching the auction before we decided it was time to say goodbye to Otakon.
Damage to Wallet: approx. $200
12 volumes of manga (;___; Must repeat to self I do not need any more books.)
01 Chopper phone keychain
01 Luffy phone keychain
01 Grab-bag
01 PW t-shirt from the Artist Alley
01 button of Cthulhu
Favorite Cosplayers
+ Kusuriuri from Ayakashi and Mononoke - *____* Amazingly detailed and colorful, and I loved just seeing someone from something as rare as Mononoke represented :D :D :D
+ Haku who may be there every year? Maybe? I remember seeing him before...
+ Dread Pirate Roberts
+Professor Layton :D
And now I've got to get working on everything I neglected to do last week because of the stupid internet problems and Otakon. Also, am finally reading Watchmen. About time I got around to it.
How was everyone else's weekend?
Even though Baltimore's my hometown, this was actually only my second time going to Otakon. I went with my brother (his third time, I believe) and my cousin - a complete virgin whose knowledge of anime is virtually comprised of only Miyazaki films. Yay corrupting the innocent ;)
I made sure to drag them to some panels and things, because my brother hadn't really sat through them before. We took to high-fiving people when our line would move (for those who've never been. Otakon uses taped lines on the floor for the larger rooms, for people to line up in. So you're snaking around this small area. What else are you going to do, but high-five the people moving with you? It's like a congratulation line at the end of a game). We often ended up just high-fiving the same people (like when we saw The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, ironically it was a trio of two boys and one girl - just like us) but it was a funny way to pass the time walking through the lines.
Day-by-Day Play!
Friday
*Went to the Inu Yasha panel and Kappei Yamaguchi's first panel. The Inu Yasha panel was okay, nothing too spectacular. They didn't want to spoil the audience, so they banned discussion of the manga BUT I didn't know that the producer is interested in picking up the anime again, to continue it for a little farther. Which would be nice, because I'd love to see Kagura's whole character-development arc animated.
Yamaguchi is adorable and so very very friendly and energetic. He did a lot of similar things like he did at the second panel - asking a Kagome cosplayer to tell him to "Oswari" in which he did Inuyasha's face-fault, discussed his favorite roles (his current ones - Ranma and Usopp), the characters he's most like (the ones from Eyeshield 21 and Samurai Pizza Cats. Also, apparently he did some spot as a Pachinko character and he feels rather connected to that XD), said lines as L, Ranma, Inu Yasha and Sogeking (someone asked him where the Island of Snipers was, so he told us in Sogeking's voice XD XD XD).
He also said that everyone Straw Hat seiyuu is pretty much exactly like their character so they have mad fun times, and that Oda gave him Sogeking's song lyrics but basically said "Make up a tune!" ...So he did XD Also, a Luffy cosplayer asked him what it takes to be a Brave Warrior of the Sea, and as Usopp he says, "Eight thousand followers, good companions and you, Luffy!" I about died.
*AMV contest this year was...okay. I never really like the action or romantic sections - they bore the crap out of me. Some of the best ones were the DBZ one, which had the footage of the infamous "IT'S OVER 9000" quote in it, and everyone cheered when it happened XD, the Evangelion spoof of the 300 trailer (again, much reciting of "THIS. IS. SPARTA!" and "TONIGHT WE DINE IN HELL"), and the Nodame Cantabile one to the song from Once was awesome, as was the last 5 Centimeters/Girl Who Leapt Through Time video and the Eureka Seven one.
There was a Baccano! video, which made me cheer (Fuck yeah, not-so-popular-as-the-Adult-Swim-series represent! :D :D :D), and I got to try to explain the series to my cousin and brother, with limited success. But they seemed interested once the video was over, so.
The funniest one was probably the Haruhi one, which I was prepared to loathe because it was to "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne (:O); it was the stereotypical yaoi take on it, but yet funny enough and plotted enough that I didn't care. The Gravitation one to "Tribute" was fun too in the beginning. My brother was dreading it, because he hates Gravitation, but I was waiting to see who they "cast" as the singer, brother and shiny demon. And I wasn't disappointed XD The ending was a bit weak, though. And the "Harder Better Faster Stronger" various was as goofy as it could be.
*Never got into "Bad Anime, Bad!" so if anyone got into that panel, let me know how it went!
Saturday
*Peter S. Beagle seems like an awesome guy to sit around and chew the fat with. He just seemed full of stories about a whole mess of people, one of the guys who can relate a story to just about anything. His agent/lawyer guy got a bit on my nerves (I showed up late, so I have no real idea who he is >.>; Stupid 9am panel times) because he'd override Beagle's stories to tell his own, but he did have some funny things to say, so I guess I can forgive him.
And good news for all Beagle fans - there's going to be a sequel to The Last Unicorn and they're going to be re-releasing his old works through a brand new publishing company. I can't wait, I really want to read more of his books. I wish I had had the forethought to reread A Fine and Private Place before I went, because everyone seemed to have questions on The Last Unicorn only, and it got kind of boring just discussing only one of the many things he's written. I guess this is what happens when the publishers don't think an author will sell, so they don't publish his works; no one knows enough about them to talk to the author D:
*Hellsing premier of Hellsing Ultimate 4 was awesome. I loved that part in the manga, covering all the parts before the destruction of London in the manga - basically the Major's declaration of war and Alucard taking back the British ship - EPIC BY THE WAY, LOVED THAT PART. The dub was delicious, too - I had never seen it dubbed before - but the German (and attempts at an Australian? I wasn't too sure of that) accents, while wonderful to hear that they were willing to go that far for accuracy, were a little too thick at times to get what was being said. That said, if one was watching it at home rather than in a large room with about 200 other people, one might understand it better regardless of accents.
I had forgotten how Rip died at the end, though. That was hard to sit through :T Especially since I had my cousin with me, who, while 18 and probably has seen bloodier things, didn't really know anything about Hellsing (except that it was about vampires and Nazis. Turned out we took him to the one episode that really focuses on the Nazi angle, and he doesn't like it when people glorify the Nazis. Ooops. Not that Hellsing glorifies the Nazis, but I think the whole focus of them as the main villains made him uncomfortable :C Bad form on my part).
*Ate at Hard Rock Cafe. Our waiter was a fan of Record of Lodoss War. YES.
*Went to second Kappei Yamaguchi panel in hopes that some other brave soul would ask him to sing the Sogeking song. Was not disappointed at all. Taped the first 35 minutes of it off of my camera. Here's the first 13 minutes in wmv form (sorry about that!), in which he sings the Sogeking song (around 8:30). His voice echoed off the walls, it was amazing. If anyone else wants the rest, I'll try to upload it. The original file's almost 800mb, so uploading the whole thing is kind of hard :/ Stupid 300mb limit. Mostly it's people asking about his favorite roles, if he thinks he's like certain characters, saying certain lines - one guy did ask for him to tell us a story as Usopp, but it was really short because of the time constraints, although I thought that it was a pretty cute suggestion.
Also, I wish they handed out autograph tokens in the lines or something, rather than telling people that they'll get one if they're picked - it's just seemed rather unfair to the people who did have a valid question that there's at least two, if not more, people who got picked solely because they wanted a token and not because they had a real question. But whatever.
*The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was dubbed fairly well, and surprisingly funny in a physical humor/face-faulting kind of way (also, the expressions/reactions of some of the characters are priceless), but definitely a chick flick. Some bits were goofy (the whole running sequence was a bit WTF), but overall not a bad movie. The best thing about it (aside from the artwork, which was gorgeous) was at the end - trying not to give away the ending here - the guy love interest comes over to the girl at the end, and everyone started cheering because yay they're back together. But as we're cheering, the guy LI starts to say something and we totally missed it because we were all clapping. I don't know how many people fit inside the HD theater, but it was a lot, and we all missed it. People were groaning and laughing (I was one of the ones laughing XD XD Because come on, it was practically perfect).
*The Masquerade was a mixed bag as usual. The best one I saw had to be the skit "Broaden Your Horizons", where the kids filked Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," rewriting it to include all these anime titles. I'm such a sucker for song filks, and this was too, too cute. The flautist who always does the songs from Legend of Zelda was amazing as usual, with a one-up competition between her and Navi. I only saw until the oboe (clarinet?) player played the first theme from Ranma 1/2, because then I went to stand in line for....
*The Phoenix Wright mock-trial, where I arrived about an hour before it was to start to wait in line. This thing was mobbed, I was in the second group of people waiting (we conga-lined to the room entrance), it took them half an hour of the hour allotted this thing to get everyone seated and then we find out that one of the panel members had gotten food poisoning (Ironically, it was the Ema Skye cosplayer. I felt really, really bad about it, but all I could think was "Was there something wrong with her Snackoos? Did Kristoph get a hold of them? As part of some convoluted revenge plan?" Because you know any plan he comes up with is convoluted) and I think a second panel member took her to the hospital. Or something.
So instead, they brought people up to ask questions to figure out who the murderer (a member of the audience, who I think was chosen at random and had no idea they were suddenly a murderer?) was. It was...okay, I guess. The person who was fingered seemed a good sport about it. When it became really obvious really early on - the person was wearing a bright blue spandex suit that covered everything, including her face, and a V mask - she'd slump in her seat and try to hide, or alternately stand up (like when the Phoenix Wright panel member said the murderer might have been wearing blue) and kind of look around, making us all laugh.
I do wonder what it would have been like with all the members there, though.
*The less said about the OP panel, the better, unfortunately. It was more of a "let's get together and lament that we have all these questions and no way of knowing the answer, and then let's bash the 4kids dub because we haven't done that enough already!" than anything worthwhile.
*The Shinsengumi panel, on the other hand, was deliciously informative, covering the history of the group and going over all the stories of the important members. I just wish it hadn't been at 11:30 at night, but then again it may have been mobbed if it had been earlier. As it was, the group was really small, with one presenter who talked the entire time and was incredibly knowledgeable. I almost wonder if she was a teacher on Japanese history, or if she just really liked the Shinsengumi, because she really knew a lot. Was very impressed, and am probably going to try to check out a few mangas that she recommended. I just wish I could remember the one book she suggested - it was originally a historical fiction, and then the author claimed it was non-fiction. A bit suspicious, but the presenter said she compared the information in the book to all the other facts she knew, and that generally they agreed. So that's something.
It surprised me to learn there's not a whole lot out on the Shinsengumi - the presenter said that she has a large stack about as tall as she is of Japanese textbooks, and only one has a line on the group - even with the group recently pardoned officially by the Japanese government, and all the mangas/animes that mention them. It makes sense, in a hide-the-worst-things-about-your-history, but still, it makes me a little sad. We're supposed to learn from our history, not hide it.
Sunday
*Because my long-suffering, overloaded cousin had lasted so well on being dragged to all these odd events by his nutjob relatives, we went to the Studio Ghibli panel, which was also wonderfully organized and detailed. Two people led the discussion - one had to have been a film professor or teacher, because of the way he led the discussion, the things he said and how much he had read up on the subject - and basically went over two films, then opened it up for questions, then went on to discuss the other films. It never really clicked in my head that (practically) everything Studio Ghibli produces is hand-drawn - I think they said that all of Miyazaki's films are hand-drawn and that he's a hard man to please, and that only one of Takahata's was done on the computer. Also, made me laugh to find out that Toei Animation's mascot came from a Puss in Boots that Miyazaki had worked on; I hadn't known that before.
I need to look for Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns, because they sound like something right up my alley.
*Spent time in the Dealer's Room spending money I shouldn't have, and spent time in the Artist Alley watching the auction before we decided it was time to say goodbye to Otakon.
Damage to Wallet: approx. $200
12 volumes of manga (;___; Must repeat to self I do not need any more books.)
01 Chopper phone keychain
01 Luffy phone keychain
01 Grab-bag
01 PW t-shirt from the Artist Alley
01 button of Cthulhu
Favorite Cosplayers
+ Kusuriuri from Ayakashi and Mononoke - *____* Amazingly detailed and colorful, and I loved just seeing someone from something as rare as Mononoke represented :D :D :D
+ Haku who may be there every year? Maybe? I remember seeing him before...
+ Dread Pirate Roberts
+Professor Layton :D
And now I've got to get working on everything I neglected to do last week because of the stupid internet problems and Otakon. Also, am finally reading Watchmen. About time I got around to it.
How was everyone else's weekend?