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Aug. 4th, 2004 03:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kodalaiOkay, where did I stop? Saturday afternoon, that's right.
I managed to lose track of Lockheed in the dealer's room, but I shrugged and went on shopping anyway. The only real danger was that I would lose track of time, since without my cell phone and watch (My watch stopped working months ago and it seems pointless to get a new one) I was pretty much time-less.
While I was wandering around in the dealer's room, an announcer came on and told us that the L'Arc-en-Ciel concert was now accepting people without stickers. I wish now that I'd gone at that, and maybe I might have if I could have found Lockheed. But, we didn't have stickers, and I hadn't planned ahead. I hate changing my plans at the last minute, even if it's for something awesome, so I begged off of the concert. Now I wish I'd gone! By all accounts it was a really great concert, and even if their music isn't my favorite in the world, I've gone to several concerts in the past where I didn't even know the band and always enjoyed it. Plus LEC performed Ready Steady Go, which ought to be more than enough for any band. I wonder if they opened the concert with that? It would have made sense.
Ready steady can't hold me back
Ready steady give me good luck
Ready steady never look back
Let's get started ready steady go
...At any rate, I hear that the audience was happy to be there, the band was happy to be there, and a good time was had by all. Sigh, missed opportunities.
On the other hand, not going to the concert, we managed to meet with people for dinner. :) We went to the Wharf Rat, a restaurant I vaguely remembered from past years as being acceptable if not exceptional. I do wish we could have gone to the Thai place nearby instead, but Christine said that come 6 o'clock that whole area would turn into a madhouse and our chances of getting a seat there would be almost nil... Would like to have tried though. The meal was enjoyable, as I showed off some of my purchases to people at the table, and we talked shop (i.e. fanfiction) and I burbled on about various anime, which would be fine, except that because of the seating I was mostly enthusing at Jay, Sharon's husband, so some of the effect may have been lost. >_>
At a little after seven we decided that if we were going to catch any of the alleged dub episodes of FMA, we should go now -- mostly, we just wanted to duck in, see how they were, and determine whether the dub actor was worthy of Edward or not. Of course, there was some confusion as to whether the showing in question was actually the sub or the dub -- announcements said it was the dub, but the schedule said it was the sub. Either way, it was irrelevent, as when we got there, the showing had been cancelled. Eliza later said that they'd shown one episode and stopped. What was going on there? Not sure. Maybe that was a sub showing and the panel event titled "FUNIMATION" with no explanation was the supposed dub.
What did we do between dinner and trying to get to the masquerade? My mind is blank, but there must have been something. At any rate, around 8:30-ish we decided to hie over to Main Events so we could get into the cosplay. We should have started five minutes earlier, because as it turned out, we were twenty people back from the door when the staffers announced that they could only take fifteen more people. *sigh*
They said they had a simulcast going on in Video 7, but we got about halfway there before deciding it was too damn far to walk. Instead, we went down to the fountains lobby in order to get in to see the showing of Zato-ichi, the blind swordsman. I was curious about it because a character based off the legend of Zato-ichi turned up a few times in Usagi Yojimbo -- Zato-Ino, the Blind Swordspig. XD I would have liked to see the original that that was based off of, but when we got there the line packed up most of the lobby and we decided, again, that standing in line was just more work that we were willing to go to.
The next most even in our itinerary, Fruits Basket, wasn't until 11:30, so we had something like two hours to kill. We spent it taking lots and LOTS of pictures. Here are some:
Akito from Martian Successor Nadesico; a bunch of Gravitation pics including Bad Luck, Nittle Grasper, and Yuki and Shuuichi; a Trigun shot that included the only Knives cosplayer I've ever run into; I finally caved in and took a picture of one of the zillions of Narutos running around -- yes, Sakura is a girl -- this shot doesn't have Sasuke, but I co-opted a Sasuke's older brother (whatever his name is) in his place. A pair of Evas, the same Evas later on but with Gendou and Shinji -- I really love this shot. Shinji is just so damn cute, and the pose is really artful. A Wesley/Man In Black, with Neo in the background -- and WHY? That's not anything LIKE an anime -- a shot of the Gokuu and Hakkai we kept seeing around but not photographing, a group shot of the main villians from the Kyoto arc of Rurouni Kenshin, a Rakka and later a Reki from Haibane Renmei (whose wall scroll is currently looking quite gorgeous and ethereal on my window,) a Squall who was even hotter in person than she is in this pic, a Strongbad from Homestarrunners, a Shannon Cathule from Scrapped Princess, a Sally and Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas (aren't their costumes awesome?) a group shot of Ranma including Cologne and Happosai dolls -- Ryoga was talking on a cell phone during this, but I asked him to turn the non-cell-phone side towards the camera -- a Nancy and Yomiko from Read Or Die -- Nancy doesn't quite have the chest to pull off this outfit, but who am I to complain? She looks great. And here's one of me and Lockheed, looking rather tired, in front of the fountains, and a shot I took of a bunch of the GW fans just sitting around being sociable. Right to left, that's an unknown pair of boots, Christine, DC, Lockheed, Sharon, and Jana.
Somewhere in our sitting around and waiting, killing time, we were assaulted by many many signs. Have you heard the saga of the signs yet? "Hug me" or "Glomp me" signs are a staple at anime cons, that I've seen; you'll always see one or two. Well, this year, they were an epidemic. Especially as Saturday night wore on, everywhere you went would be someone holding one of these signs. Not far from where we were sitting was a whole group of boys (the smelly fanboy type, not the cute bishie type) with signs, entreating various passersby, including us everytime we went back. They refused to hug each other, which I found quite unfair, and they could get quite obnoxious about running up and shoving their signs in your face.
Oh, the signs. So many variations -- "Glomp an Inu-Yasha" "Will Trade Hugs for Hugs" "Free Glomps" "Naruto Needs Hugs" "Hungry for Love, Please Hug" "I am a Ragnarok Online addict; please give me a tie to the physical world" ad infinitum. And then there were the really sketchy signs; signs asking for sexual favors, blowjobs, sex, anal sex. This at a family-friendly con, no less! And many of them were written really badly in light pencil, so that you had to get up very close to read them, by which time you were within their Touching Zone.
Sitting around and looking at these, we decided that we needed signs of our own. Lockheed, who had no costume, wanted to make that Envy sign/nametag we'd discussed on Friday. Here it is. If you can't read it, it says, "I am Envy pretending to be a bystander." Hee. Many people walking by stopped and laughed, and she even got her picture taken a few times. Me, I just took a piece of paper, and made a blank sign.
I kept count. Thirty-five people glanced at it, then came over and tried to read it, despite there being nothing on it. Twenty-one people felt the need to inform me that "There's nothing on it!" or "It's blank!" as if I didn't know. Sixteen people told me it was the best sign ever. Eleven people stood around and pretended to "decipher the code." Eight people thought it was some kind of zen thing. Five people tried to turn it over to see what was on the back. One person jumped to the (correct) conclusion that it was a silent protest against all the dumb signs. One person threatened to go and get a pen and come back and write on it. One person angry at being 'tricked,' (and I think he was drunk,) tried to take the sign out of my hands and rip it up. Jerk.
Anyway, despite the occasional annoying or aggressive person, we were having so much fun -- just standing there, holding our signs, and looking at the reactions of the people walking by, that we totally missed Fruits Basket. After all, we can pretty much see it any time, but the signs come only once a con. So we stuck around until we started getting tired (and our hands cold from holding up the signs) and went back to our hotel room.
Zania was totally sacked out, asleep with SNL on. Eliza was going through her stuff, and Zeal was drawing cute 3x2 neko bathtub scenes. I decided then that I was going to wear the Roy costume on Sunday too, instead of the Heero costume as I had planned. I had more fun as Roy; more people wanted pictures; it was a more impressive costume. Heero was a lazy costume, and not as many people were interested in taking pictures unless I was doing something impressive. At any rate, it was a good end to the day.
You know, looking back on it, we *tried* to get into an awful lot more events than we actually succeeded in. We tried to get into the Masquerade but couldn't, we tried to get into the FMA showing but couldn't, we tried to get into the Zato-ichi showing but didn't, we tried to get to watch Fruits Basket but never got there. Sorta makes our schedule look pathetic in the retelling, but we had fun. ^^
Warg.
I managed to lose track of Lockheed in the dealer's room, but I shrugged and went on shopping anyway. The only real danger was that I would lose track of time, since without my cell phone and watch (My watch stopped working months ago and it seems pointless to get a new one) I was pretty much time-less.
While I was wandering around in the dealer's room, an announcer came on and told us that the L'Arc-en-Ciel concert was now accepting people without stickers. I wish now that I'd gone at that, and maybe I might have if I could have found Lockheed. But, we didn't have stickers, and I hadn't planned ahead. I hate changing my plans at the last minute, even if it's for something awesome, so I begged off of the concert. Now I wish I'd gone! By all accounts it was a really great concert, and even if their music isn't my favorite in the world, I've gone to several concerts in the past where I didn't even know the band and always enjoyed it. Plus LEC performed Ready Steady Go, which ought to be more than enough for any band. I wonder if they opened the concert with that? It would have made sense.
Ready steady can't hold me back
Ready steady give me good luck
Ready steady never look back
Let's get started ready steady go
...At any rate, I hear that the audience was happy to be there, the band was happy to be there, and a good time was had by all. Sigh, missed opportunities.
On the other hand, not going to the concert, we managed to meet with people for dinner. :) We went to the Wharf Rat, a restaurant I vaguely remembered from past years as being acceptable if not exceptional. I do wish we could have gone to the Thai place nearby instead, but Christine said that come 6 o'clock that whole area would turn into a madhouse and our chances of getting a seat there would be almost nil... Would like to have tried though. The meal was enjoyable, as I showed off some of my purchases to people at the table, and we talked shop (i.e. fanfiction) and I burbled on about various anime, which would be fine, except that because of the seating I was mostly enthusing at Jay, Sharon's husband, so some of the effect may have been lost. >_>
At a little after seven we decided that if we were going to catch any of the alleged dub episodes of FMA, we should go now -- mostly, we just wanted to duck in, see how they were, and determine whether the dub actor was worthy of Edward or not. Of course, there was some confusion as to whether the showing in question was actually the sub or the dub -- announcements said it was the dub, but the schedule said it was the sub. Either way, it was irrelevent, as when we got there, the showing had been cancelled. Eliza later said that they'd shown one episode and stopped. What was going on there? Not sure. Maybe that was a sub showing and the panel event titled "FUNIMATION" with no explanation was the supposed dub.
What did we do between dinner and trying to get to the masquerade? My mind is blank, but there must have been something. At any rate, around 8:30-ish we decided to hie over to Main Events so we could get into the cosplay. We should have started five minutes earlier, because as it turned out, we were twenty people back from the door when the staffers announced that they could only take fifteen more people. *sigh*
They said they had a simulcast going on in Video 7, but we got about halfway there before deciding it was too damn far to walk. Instead, we went down to the fountains lobby in order to get in to see the showing of Zato-ichi, the blind swordsman. I was curious about it because a character based off the legend of Zato-ichi turned up a few times in Usagi Yojimbo -- Zato-Ino, the Blind Swordspig. XD I would have liked to see the original that that was based off of, but when we got there the line packed up most of the lobby and we decided, again, that standing in line was just more work that we were willing to go to.
The next most even in our itinerary, Fruits Basket, wasn't until 11:30, so we had something like two hours to kill. We spent it taking lots and LOTS of pictures. Here are some:
Akito from Martian Successor Nadesico; a bunch of Gravitation pics including Bad Luck, Nittle Grasper, and Yuki and Shuuichi; a Trigun shot that included the only Knives cosplayer I've ever run into; I finally caved in and took a picture of one of the zillions of Narutos running around -- yes, Sakura is a girl -- this shot doesn't have Sasuke, but I co-opted a Sasuke's older brother (whatever his name is) in his place. A pair of Evas, the same Evas later on but with Gendou and Shinji -- I really love this shot. Shinji is just so damn cute, and the pose is really artful. A Wesley/Man In Black, with Neo in the background -- and WHY? That's not anything LIKE an anime -- a shot of the Gokuu and Hakkai we kept seeing around but not photographing, a group shot of the main villians from the Kyoto arc of Rurouni Kenshin, a Rakka and later a Reki from Haibane Renmei (whose wall scroll is currently looking quite gorgeous and ethereal on my window,) a Squall who was even hotter in person than she is in this pic, a Strongbad from Homestarrunners, a Shannon Cathule from Scrapped Princess, a Sally and Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas (aren't their costumes awesome?) a group shot of Ranma including Cologne and Happosai dolls -- Ryoga was talking on a cell phone during this, but I asked him to turn the non-cell-phone side towards the camera -- a Nancy and Yomiko from Read Or Die -- Nancy doesn't quite have the chest to pull off this outfit, but who am I to complain? She looks great. And here's one of me and Lockheed, looking rather tired, in front of the fountains, and a shot I took of a bunch of the GW fans just sitting around being sociable. Right to left, that's an unknown pair of boots, Christine, DC, Lockheed, Sharon, and Jana.
Somewhere in our sitting around and waiting, killing time, we were assaulted by many many signs. Have you heard the saga of the signs yet? "Hug me" or "Glomp me" signs are a staple at anime cons, that I've seen; you'll always see one or two. Well, this year, they were an epidemic. Especially as Saturday night wore on, everywhere you went would be someone holding one of these signs. Not far from where we were sitting was a whole group of boys (the smelly fanboy type, not the cute bishie type) with signs, entreating various passersby, including us everytime we went back. They refused to hug each other, which I found quite unfair, and they could get quite obnoxious about running up and shoving their signs in your face.
Oh, the signs. So many variations -- "Glomp an Inu-Yasha" "Will Trade Hugs for Hugs" "Free Glomps" "Naruto Needs Hugs" "Hungry for Love, Please Hug" "I am a Ragnarok Online addict; please give me a tie to the physical world" ad infinitum. And then there were the really sketchy signs; signs asking for sexual favors, blowjobs, sex, anal sex. This at a family-friendly con, no less! And many of them were written really badly in light pencil, so that you had to get up very close to read them, by which time you were within their Touching Zone.
Sitting around and looking at these, we decided that we needed signs of our own. Lockheed, who had no costume, wanted to make that Envy sign/nametag we'd discussed on Friday. Here it is. If you can't read it, it says, "I am Envy pretending to be a bystander." Hee. Many people walking by stopped and laughed, and she even got her picture taken a few times. Me, I just took a piece of paper, and made a blank sign.
I kept count. Thirty-five people glanced at it, then came over and tried to read it, despite there being nothing on it. Twenty-one people felt the need to inform me that "There's nothing on it!" or "It's blank!" as if I didn't know. Sixteen people told me it was the best sign ever. Eleven people stood around and pretended to "decipher the code." Eight people thought it was some kind of zen thing. Five people tried to turn it over to see what was on the back. One person jumped to the (correct) conclusion that it was a silent protest against all the dumb signs. One person threatened to go and get a pen and come back and write on it. One person angry at being 'tricked,' (and I think he was drunk,) tried to take the sign out of my hands and rip it up. Jerk.
Anyway, despite the occasional annoying or aggressive person, we were having so much fun -- just standing there, holding our signs, and looking at the reactions of the people walking by, that we totally missed Fruits Basket. After all, we can pretty much see it any time, but the signs come only once a con. So we stuck around until we started getting tired (and our hands cold from holding up the signs) and went back to our hotel room.
Zania was totally sacked out, asleep with SNL on. Eliza was going through her stuff, and Zeal was drawing cute 3x2 neko bathtub scenes. I decided then that I was going to wear the Roy costume on Sunday too, instead of the Heero costume as I had planned. I had more fun as Roy; more people wanted pictures; it was a more impressive costume. Heero was a lazy costume, and not as many people were interested in taking pictures unless I was doing something impressive. At any rate, it was a good end to the day.
You know, looking back on it, we *tried* to get into an awful lot more events than we actually succeeded in. We tried to get into the Masquerade but couldn't, we tried to get into the FMA showing but couldn't, we tried to get into the Zato-ichi showing but didn't, we tried to get to watch Fruits Basket but never got there. Sorta makes our schedule look pathetic in the retelling, but we had fun. ^^
Warg.
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 01:35 am (UTC)As for Sasuke's bro's name, its Itachi.
Nifty idea regarding your sign. The sign stuff though does sound like it would've been annoying, though the ones I find the most annoying are those willing to do whatever for money.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 10:01 am (UTC)Okay, good to know.
I can forgive a lot of things. For instance, the Sally and jack things -- well, at least Nightmare Before Christmas is animated, even if it's not anime. Ghostbusters and Spider-man (I saw costumes for both) have been made into cartoons at some time. But, things like The Matrix? Princess Bride? Harry Potter? Pirates of the Carribean? They've never been anime, or even animated! WTH?
Trust me, in the context of Saturday night, my sign was *very* funny. ^^; The only problem was that since they saw I *had* a sign, a lot of people assumed that I wanted to be hugged. I developed a sort of perimeter alarm, and whenever anybody came within it I would say "No hugs!"
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 03:19 pm (UTC)O__________O Indeed. I think it was Akon '03 when there was just alot of hoopla with some peeps dressed from the Matrix that it was sickeningly annoying and they were hogging up the areas for ppl to walk by cause of them posing for ppl. They could at least tell ppl to meet them somewhere else with more room to pose for pics. Don't think I seen any PB before but I know that PoTC and HP are usually there too. Yeah I saw pics of the Ghost Buster peeps as well.
I don't think I ever saw THAT many ppl with hug signs at Akon or Afest. Seems like the two biggest cons (AX and OT) have morons with signs like that. The majority of ppl aren't even worth hugging their smelly bodies (unless they were hot though but why would a hot looking person want to be burdened like that w/ annoying fangirls is beyond me).
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 04:10 pm (UTC)Wonder when the comparative statistics will come out? They're both really big, though being on opposite coasts and all, they don't really get the same crowd.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 04:17 pm (UTC)#1. AX
#2 OK
#3 Akon
As for attendance records, I'm sure that on the con sites themselves probably say and I know the guy on fansview when he makes his closing statements about roughly how many ppl were there from what he was given.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 01:42 am (UTC)3x2 NEKO BATHTUB SCENES?!?!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 09:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 10:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 03:10 am (UTC)but! i was super amused by a shirtless guy who had written "insert costume here" with permanent marker on his nekkie torso. i asked him how long he thought it would take to wash off. (because one halloween i went as "grafitti" and let people draw on me with fabric pen it it didn't come off my skin for days... ^^;;;) he said that the people who see his naked chest on a regular basis are not concerned with the writing. ^O^
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 09:59 am (UTC)In the past cons I went to, I haven't seen very many. It's only when they multiply out of control that they get to be a problem -- well, that and when they're being carried by guys who obviously just want an excuse to feel up girls. XP
The "insert costume here" thing, much like the Envy sign, is funny. The first time. :3