Baltimore, Part 2: Friday continued
I had one of those nights last night where I just couldn't get comfortable and fall asleep, so even though I went to bed at the usual time, I still feel badly underslept. I hate when that happens. :P
So since this thing turned out so long, I'm going to break up the Otakon posts by days. Just because.
After I finished with the AVAM, I returned to the convention center in time to catch the "Best of AMVs" retrospective. It was quite awesome. I'd say about 70-80% of the videos were ones that I'd seen before (or even already had on my computer). I missed the first twenty minutes, so I'm not sure if they showed "I'm Gonna Be" (set to Ryoga), "I've Got a Girl" (set to various anime) or "True Faith" (set to NGE), which were some of the earlier and best AMVs I saw when I first got into them.
Afterwards, I started developing a headache, so even though Brian and a bunch of our friends were going to try to catch the annual AMV Contest, I had to pass, figuring that as much as I'd want to go with the others, watching more AMVs would only exacerbate my headache. For a little while, I just found a quiet corner of an unused stairwell and sat quietly in the shadows, but when the headache just got worse, I ended up calling Sarah and one of her friends in Video Ops came through with some Advil, which was super special awesome of them :)
Anyway, when I was feeling a little better, I decided not to go to the Dealer's Room (which would be loud and noisy and crowded), and went instead to a panel called "Phenomenology of Ikari Shinji", which was looking at the deeper philosophy behind some anime. What really drew me to the panel was their list of primary sources: not just the obvious "Fullmetal Alchemist" and "Neon Genesis Evangelion," but also "Trigun" and "Utena" and "Irresponsible Captain Tylor". The girls who ran it were all philosophy majors in college, and there was a great deal of Kierkegaard, and discussions of the character of Vash the Stampede vs. Tylor, and the roles they fulfilled, etc. Granted, the audience kept bringing the discussion back to NGE and FMA (it was a very audience-driven panel), but I managed to catch one of the girls after the panel and we discussed more of what they theorized about Utena and Vash and Tylor, and also Princess Tutu, of which she was also a big fan. Then I talked a little more with a man who was writing his thesis on the ideas behind "space westerns". All in all, very stimulating conversations.
Afterwards, Brian and I tried to get into "Bad Anime, Bad!" which is generally a fun panel, focusing on the worst of the worst anime ever. But the place was filled to capacity and there was *still* a line outside, so we weren't going to get in, which kind of sucks, since they didn't have that panel last year and we really missed it.
So Brian returned to the LARP Room, and I chilled a little outside and relaxed with some Sudoku, then we returned to the hotel at around 11:30 since we had an early day Saturday.
So since this thing turned out so long, I'm going to break up the Otakon posts by days. Just because.
After I finished with the AVAM, I returned to the convention center in time to catch the "Best of AMVs" retrospective. It was quite awesome. I'd say about 70-80% of the videos were ones that I'd seen before (or even already had on my computer). I missed the first twenty minutes, so I'm not sure if they showed "I'm Gonna Be" (set to Ryoga), "I've Got a Girl" (set to various anime) or "True Faith" (set to NGE), which were some of the earlier and best AMVs I saw when I first got into them.
Afterwards, I started developing a headache, so even though Brian and a bunch of our friends were going to try to catch the annual AMV Contest, I had to pass, figuring that as much as I'd want to go with the others, watching more AMVs would only exacerbate my headache. For a little while, I just found a quiet corner of an unused stairwell and sat quietly in the shadows, but when the headache just got worse, I ended up calling Sarah and one of her friends in Video Ops came through with some Advil, which was super special awesome of them :)
Anyway, when I was feeling a little better, I decided not to go to the Dealer's Room (which would be loud and noisy and crowded), and went instead to a panel called "Phenomenology of Ikari Shinji", which was looking at the deeper philosophy behind some anime. What really drew me to the panel was their list of primary sources: not just the obvious "Fullmetal Alchemist" and "Neon Genesis Evangelion," but also "Trigun" and "Utena" and "Irresponsible Captain Tylor". The girls who ran it were all philosophy majors in college, and there was a great deal of Kierkegaard, and discussions of the character of Vash the Stampede vs. Tylor, and the roles they fulfilled, etc. Granted, the audience kept bringing the discussion back to NGE and FMA (it was a very audience-driven panel), but I managed to catch one of the girls after the panel and we discussed more of what they theorized about Utena and Vash and Tylor, and also Princess Tutu, of which she was also a big fan. Then I talked a little more with a man who was writing his thesis on the ideas behind "space westerns". All in all, very stimulating conversations.
Afterwards, Brian and I tried to get into "Bad Anime, Bad!" which is generally a fun panel, focusing on the worst of the worst anime ever. But the place was filled to capacity and there was *still* a line outside, so we weren't going to get in, which kind of sucks, since they didn't have that panel last year and we really missed it.
So Brian returned to the LARP Room, and I chilled a little outside and relaxed with some Sudoku, then we returned to the hotel at around 11:30 since we had an early day Saturday.