Otakon 2009
One of my rare opportunities to attend happened this year, with it being two weeks before Pennsic. Leaving the Bear at my parents place and having a weekend mostly to ourselves is something we needed.
Rather than a blow-by-blow account, I'll just summarize what we did, since it is mostly a short list.
Live action films:
She-Cat Gambler: Second in a series of films following a woman out to avenge her father's death. This is along the lines of the films that influenced Tarantino in making Kill Bill. Sonny Chiba is featured prominantly in this film.
Big Man Japan: A mocumentery about the man who defends Japan from giant monsters. The guy is kind of a sad sack individual who gets paid by the government to be on call, which he goes to a power station and gets pumped with electricity, which enlarges him to giant size. With the lack of monsters, his type have gone out of favor, often having to scrape up late night TV appearances and advertisements on his body to pay his way.
It is a bit slow moving and defintely has its moments. Unfortunately, it seems to go off the rails at the end a bit. I think it is worth watching, tho.
Animated Shows
Zegapain: Only watched one episode. It looks like one of those standard "Mysterious girl shows up to recruit HS boy to fight in mecha". Looking at the description, it looks like there is going to be some questioning of reality in this one. It didn't look particularly special.
Romeo X Juliet: A different take on Shakespeere's play in a fantasy setting. In this one the Capulets were the rulers of Neo Verona until they were ousted in a bloody coup. Juliet is the lone survivor of the family and helps out the people in Robin Hood fashion. Juliet and Romeo meet at a ball and fall in love at first sight, but then Juliet learns about her past and becomes conflicted between the love she has for Romeo and the hatred she has for the Montagues.
Overall, kinda interesting for the couple of episodes I watched. Juliet is certainly made of sterner stuff in this one, tho she's still very much 16. It looks like there is a Shakesphere stand-in who wants to make a play about the couple. Also, it looks like they insert a lot of lines from other plays as well.
Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone: The first of 4 movies retelling the story of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Apparently directory Hideki Anno, after rewatching the TV series, wanted antoher go at it to clarify certian concepts and to not have any budgetary restrictions. The film covers the first 6 episodes of the TV series, and while a lot of scenes look familiar, others have changed.
Unfortunately, I didn't watch the whole thing because of all the technical difficulties they were having, but what I did see was impressive. I'll be interested to see how he ends this version of the story.
AMV contest
I couldn't go Friday night since it was full. I did get in Saturday and it was well worth it. It was overall a very strong contest. They've added a seperate category for trailer spoofs now, so it doesn't have to share time with another category. It definitely gives me food for thought about series that I want to see.
And of course I got plenty of pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/95582424@N00/sets/72157621631172165/
I've said before, I really love this con, if just from the massive amounts of fen all over the place. The enthusiasm is infectious. At the end of the con someone with a set of bagpipes started marching people around the convention center with chants of Otakon! at various stops. The yells of "Backscratcher!" (Family Guy reference) and "Marco!" "Polo!" was rather amusing.
Rather than a blow-by-blow account, I'll just summarize what we did, since it is mostly a short list.
Live action films:
She-Cat Gambler: Second in a series of films following a woman out to avenge her father's death. This is along the lines of the films that influenced Tarantino in making Kill Bill. Sonny Chiba is featured prominantly in this film.
Big Man Japan: A mocumentery about the man who defends Japan from giant monsters. The guy is kind of a sad sack individual who gets paid by the government to be on call, which he goes to a power station and gets pumped with electricity, which enlarges him to giant size. With the lack of monsters, his type have gone out of favor, often having to scrape up late night TV appearances and advertisements on his body to pay his way.
It is a bit slow moving and defintely has its moments. Unfortunately, it seems to go off the rails at the end a bit. I think it is worth watching, tho.
Animated Shows
Zegapain: Only watched one episode. It looks like one of those standard "Mysterious girl shows up to recruit HS boy to fight in mecha". Looking at the description, it looks like there is going to be some questioning of reality in this one. It didn't look particularly special.
Romeo X Juliet: A different take on Shakespeere's play in a fantasy setting. In this one the Capulets were the rulers of Neo Verona until they were ousted in a bloody coup. Juliet is the lone survivor of the family and helps out the people in Robin Hood fashion. Juliet and Romeo meet at a ball and fall in love at first sight, but then Juliet learns about her past and becomes conflicted between the love she has for Romeo and the hatred she has for the Montagues.
Overall, kinda interesting for the couple of episodes I watched. Juliet is certainly made of sterner stuff in this one, tho she's still very much 16. It looks like there is a Shakesphere stand-in who wants to make a play about the couple. Also, it looks like they insert a lot of lines from other plays as well.
Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone: The first of 4 movies retelling the story of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Apparently directory Hideki Anno, after rewatching the TV series, wanted antoher go at it to clarify certian concepts and to not have any budgetary restrictions. The film covers the first 6 episodes of the TV series, and while a lot of scenes look familiar, others have changed.
Unfortunately, I didn't watch the whole thing because of all the technical difficulties they were having, but what I did see was impressive. I'll be interested to see how he ends this version of the story.
AMV contest
I couldn't go Friday night since it was full. I did get in Saturday and it was well worth it. It was overall a very strong contest. They've added a seperate category for trailer spoofs now, so it doesn't have to share time with another category. It definitely gives me food for thought about series that I want to see.
And of course I got plenty of pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/95582424@N00/sets/72157621631172165/
I've said before, I really love this con, if just from the massive amounts of fen all over the place. The enthusiasm is infectious. At the end of the con someone with a set of bagpipes started marching people around the convention center with chants of Otakon! at various stops. The yells of "Backscratcher!" (Family Guy reference) and "Marco!" "Polo!" was rather amusing.