Preface:
I live in Seattle, where we have a Kinokuniya bookstore and several other places to find anime goodies, not to mention Vancouver, BC is only a 2 or 2 1/2 hour drive north. Despite this, we've never had an anime convention in this area until this spring, when Bakacon 1 arrived. My friends Sky Rigdon, Jeffrey Cornish, Tom Hayes, Tom Milliorn and I all attended this con and had a good time. Afterwards, Sky and Tom H. started talking seriously about attending a real anime con, and Jeff and I went along for the ride! Anime Expo '98! What would it be like? ^_^
I wrote this report for a mailing list that had some non-anime fans on it, so I might wind up explaining things that most anime fans probably know... anyway, onward!
An Anime Expo Con Report (A Semi-Outsider's Perspective)
First Part:
We booked a flight on Alaska Airlines for 9:30 Thursday morning, July 2nd, 1998, and were told they were overbooked so get there early. Given that this was 4th of July weekend, we chose to arrive at 5 am, which mean being picked up at 4 am, which meant going to bed at 8 pm Wednesday. Unfortunately, I was already partway into a fan fiction series (Thy Outward Part) by Richard Lawson (an extremely talented anime fan fiction writer) and I vowed to print up the rest of the series so that I could read it on the plane. This took a bit longer than I had anticipated.
First the printer wouldn't work. It took me a while to realize that it really was finally out of ink, but I had the new cartridge ready to put in. Next I ran out of paper. Well, I'd bought a new ream of paper at a discount store two weeks ago in anticipation of this, too, so no problem -- except the paper turned out to be pre-punched with three holes down one side, and my printer didn't like that.
By this time it was 11:00 pm and I was bound and determined to print my stories. I figured I could be awake and mad at myself for the trip down, or I could be asleep but at least not mad that I hadn't accomplished my goal. I drove to the 24-hour grocery/goods store in the area (Arts), paid an almost reasonable price for paper, and was happily printing my stories by midnight. Some of these stories were quite long. One was over 50 pages. I spent the next two or three hours printing, getting ready, and then I took a shower. When Sky and Jeff showed up, Tom and I were very tired (he stayed up all night too) but we were ready to go.
There was a long wait at the airport, during which we talked and I listened to my walkman, and read. On the flight down I did a lot of reading, so all of my printing wasn't in vain. At LAX we were about to check on available transport to Disneyland, when a man approached us and offered to take the four of us there for $65.00. It seemed a little odd to just walk off with some strange man, but the price seemed okay. He apparently runs a taxi service out of his car -- he had the dispatch radio, the cell phone, the works. I have no idea if it was legal or not. It was cramped in the back seat and hot, but he got us there fast enough.
We checked in and collapsed on the beds. Nothing was happening Thursday, so we spent most of the afternoon exploring the Hilton (a massive hotel), reading, or sleeping. Dinner was at Carl's Jr. which was a new experience for three of us. They're as good as advertised!
Next: Something actually happens! The Con gets under way!
Miko's Anime Expo report, part two:
One of my biggest complaints about Anime Expo is that, for a con that boasts over 5,000 people (some disputed that figure), there was not enough programming. First, programming didn't start until noon on Friday, and wrapped up by 3 pm Sunday (except for an awards ceremony and closing ceremony). That accounts for little more than two days of programming. I'm used to Norwescon and Westercon and Orycon and the other sci fi cons of the Northwest, where things start to happen by Thursday evening, are rolling along by Friday morning, and don't end until Sunday evening. Given that Friday was a national holiday, I thought AX could have been rolling quite a bit earlier.
Second, the amount of programming was not great. Granted, there were five video rooms, which I would expect at a large anime convention, but beyond that the video rooms did not operate from midnight to 8 am and were not broadcast on hotel room channels -- there was no con channel on the hotel's tv's at all. There were only 3 tracks of programming, which usually ran until only 6 pm and still had plenty of hour-long gaps between scheduled programs. What was offered consisted mostly of "meet the guest of honor", "the goh talks about his/her work", and "meet Pioneer Entertainment/VIZ Communications/AD Vision/Central Park Media" sort of stuff. Every guest and every major American anime company had their own hour-long segment, but there was very little in the way of programming for the fans, programming that let fans toss out their ideas or interact. A typical Norwescon has a dozen tracks of programming, not including three movie channels which are broadcast to the rooms.
There was a room for video game tournaments, but nothing provided for card or role-play gaming. There really wasn't a lot of fan-oriented activity at all -- you were apparently supposed to listen to what the goh's and the anime companies said, watch a lot of anime, and buy a lot of stuff in the dealer's room, and that was it. There weren't even a lot of parties going on, and some of those got shut down before they even got started. No artist's alley either.
I realize that an anime con is different from a science fiction con, but even Bakacon had more fan-oriented programming than this. I guess that's why it's called Anime Expo, rather than Anime Con... it's almost more of a trade show than a convention. I've attended San Diego's Comicon several times, and that's definitely a trade show with a con attached to it. This almost felt similar.
There were four of us, thought, so we managed to have fun. Friday morning we lined up for registration at 7:30 (it opened at 8:00). The line was exceptionally long... around the corner, down a very long, very wide hallway, then bending around and coming back. This was a concert line or a movie line, something you might get on opening night of a major blockbuster, with people sitting down and playing cards. To their credit, AX was organized enough to decide to open registration at 7:30, half an hour early, and the line moved quickly, with a dozen people behind the counter registering everyone and spotters keeping the line moving and organized. We were registered by 8:30, which was pretty impressive -- I've never seen a con registration go more smoothly, and when we said so they only said that "everything was screwed up". Well, that's normal for a con, but I didn't see any evidence of problems myself.
Jeff tried to volunteer but wasn't able to. Later we kind of surmised by talking to another volunteer that, if you DID volunteer, it was for the entire weekend. That seemed a little odd. Jeff frequently volunteers part of his time at science fiction conventions up here; it allows you to meet other people and feel like you're doing some good, helping keep the convention organized.
Freebies included a copy of the latest Mixx Zine, which had a section in the back that was the actual con booklet in condensed form. Ultimately you needed this, as well as a small flyer, a paper schedule, and a map, which all came separately, to know everything that was going on. This con was not especially good at communication to the attendees, as far as I could tell, although their information center was easily located and they got their newszine out twice a day to keep you up to date on changes.
We immediately bought t-shirts, only $15 and nicely done. T-shirts from past cons were available for as little as $5. Then we waited until the dealer's room opened up.
Next: Dealer's Room. Sky and Tom spend LOTS of $$$$ ^_^
Anime Expo Report Part Three
Sky and Tom Buy Stuff
One thing that happened Thursday night was that we saw fireworks. Our room looked out over Disneyland, and they shoot off fireworks every night of the summer, so we had a ringside seat. We turned out all of the lights and really enjoyed the show.
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday Sky was gone part of the day with his friend Avie. He's contracted to build a web page in Flash for Avie's company, and part of the deal is that Avie bought Sky the most recent versions of Flash and Dreamweaver. Sky thinks they can do really cool animated interactive web sites in flash, and all you need is a simple downloadable plug-in to see it all. I'll be interested to see what he comes up with.
Another thing we noticed about this con right away was that the balance between male and female fans was a lot closer to equal than I've ever seen at a science fiction convention. A lot of anime and manga is created by women for women in Japan, and all of that is gaining an audience over here too. For example, Yu Watase was a goh at the con; she creates the manga known as Fushugi Yugi (Strange Game, Wonderful Dance, I've heard several different translations), an alternate-universe fantasy story that involves shoujo (girl's) and shonen (boy's) comic elements. In general, shoujo comics rely more on plot and shonen comics rely more on action; shoujo is more soap-operaish while shonen is more sitcom-like or episodic. Shoujo involves lots of interpersonal relationships, shonen involves lots of fights. Those are generalizations, of course. (Someone once told me that it was shonen if you saw a girl's panties and shoujo if you saw two guys kissing... but that doesn't cover everything, thank goodness!) Anyway, as I was saying, Fushugi Yugi has shonen elements but is considered a shoujo comic, but not only was the creator one of the guests at the con, but the manga is being brought out by VIZ in English while the anime is being brought out by Pioneer Entertainment. Ten years ago comic companies were still dreaming of the day when girls as well as boys would buy comics... but these days, with anime and manga especially, that's becoming a reality. (Mind you, I'm not saying women have never read comics, just that the ratio of men to women readers is finally changing, and fairly quickly at that.)
Okay. We hit the dealers room... several times over the next couple of days, if you want to know the truth. It was an anime fan's paradise, with just about anything you could imagine available for the right price. I was lucky to even be at the con, and wouldn't have made it without my friends helping me out, so I was careful about spending my money, but I slapped down about $40 for the latest Ranma 1/2 tape and Key The Metal Idol #7. Later I bought a lot of cards and some pencil-pads, an Oh! My Goddess tee-shirt, and that was about it for me.
Pioneer was giving away animayhem card packs for signing up to their mailing list. They also gave away two different promo cards, and a few other things. There were several companies giving freebies away. One of the best ideas was a company called Himeya Soft Inc, which was passing out fans. It was hot and crowded, so everyone had one of their fans! Mind you, this is a hentai game company "Translated Versions Of Japanese Hentai Anime Games", so I'm sure a lot of people were using their fans whether they were interested in the products or not... (no, I'm not going to give you their web site!).
Sky bought several laser discs, including three of El Hazard tv series vol 2 "The Alternate World", and also the first disc of the Pretty Sammy tv series, and three discs of something else, Escaflowne I think it was. Also a tape of Mononoke Hime (Miyazaki's latest) for Anthony Waters. Some CDs and other stuff as well, Sky spent some money.
My roommate Tom, however, really went to town. He spent over $800 on his first trip through, and he went back for more. Along the way he got laser discs of Mononoke Hime (great film! We watched it the Monday following the con!), Laputa, and the boxed set of Wings Of Honeamise. Cool stuff. He also bought a lot of anime cells, probably 8 or 10, and several different tee-shirts. I'm going to have to scan some of those anime cells and put them up on my web page! ^_^
Jeff bought a Ryo-Ohki plush stuffed cabbit like the one I had with me (I bought mine at Bakacon). He also bought a Luna doll that meowed and played annoying music. After that Sky would arrange Ryo-Ohki and Luna in compromising positions every time nobody was looking. ^_^ Jeff also broke down and bought two anime tapes -- 2 and 3 of All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku. Jeff's the biggest furry fan in our crowd, everything he bought was furry-related and he wore his furry t-shirts every day (Albeedo!), so he kept running into the other anime furries at the convention.
Next: "Bob", Watching Anime, and Return Trip.
"Bob", Watching Anime, and the Trip Home
This was a con where you had to be outgoing to meet anyone. Jeff accompanied me to the fan fiction panel, but it was a big room full of people and even 'though I managed to be one of the three or four people to ask a question, I didn't really get to meet anyone. They were hosting karaoke in the room right after us, so we got chased out and there was no real time to mingle or talk to people. Of course, I later found out that the FFML (Fan Fiction Mailing List, which I joined recently) had a dinner get-together... you were supposed to meet at the appointed time and place, but I guess my secret message was intercepted by the enemy, or something.
Tom and Jeff are more outgoing than Sky and I, so they met more people. Tom met a guy named "Bob" (real name withheld so I don't get into trouble for quoting him without permission!) who worked for... well, one of the major US anime distribution companies... and Tom invited him and his girlfriend and her daughter up to our room to watch fireworks Friday night. They showed up without "Bob", which was a little bit strange and awkward at first. "Bob" finally showed up 'though. We sat in the dark again and watched the fireworks, and talked. Afterwards "Bob" stayed behind and talked with us until midnight. e dominated the conversation, but was entertaining and had interesting things to say on a variety of subjects, so he didn't annoy anyone. (He also apologized for it the next day -- he seemed like a nice guy). Some of what he said you had to take with a grain of salt, but other things he said he really was an expert on. Among the things he told us was that, in the opinion of him and his boss, "RW", DVD is a doomed technology. The format does not allow for a picture quality that is even as good as standard VHS video, and there are many other problems inherent in the format... from little things like no DVD player will play side two without you flipping the disk (something that any modern laser disk player can accomplish easily) to different companies having slightly different formats, to several other problems. What he said made some sense. Another thing he talked about was the state of anime in America; he blamed another anime company for raising the bar on the cost of getting the rights to distribute translated anime. His company's story is that, before, anime companies would negotiate a good price to distribute an English version of an anime show, but this other company has been tossing around money without negotiating, just saying, "here, I'll give you $X", a price well above what the rights are worth. He thought that they couldn't be covering their costs and would eventually go under, causing big problems, and that they were also almost certainly cutting costs everywhere else (hiring translators and actors, quality of the tape they use, productions costs, etc.) to make up for their outrageous licensing fees.
Now, some of this must be true, but the big example of his that stuck in our minds was that he claimed this company had spent a certain amount of money for the rights to translate and distribute a particular anime show. He seemed to think this was an outrageous amount of money, that they could not be making enough to recoup the cost of licensing it. None of us are in the anime translation business, but we didn't think it sounded like all that much money, considering the popularity of the show.
Anyway, that's how it went Friday night.
Saturday was more of the same, buying tee-shirts and stuff, watching anime, wandering around. We had breakfast for two straight days at the Hansa House, which had the advantage of a cheap all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. That, and it wasn't far to walk to. We made it back to Carl's Jr. on Sunday, but on Saturday Jeff and I had a really nice dinner at Ashoka the Great!, an Indian restaurant.
Movies that I saw at the con: El Hazard OAV series 2, parts 1 and 2 (which I'd seen untranslated before -- Sky has 'em -- but to see them subtitled, on a big screen, with hundreds of other fans was a lot of fun). Slayers the Movie (dubbed -- which got the crowd to groan at the beginning, but was a lot of fun. Had some funny in-jokes, including a really bad Dragon Half in-joke. Was as plotless as any Slayers show, and as fun. Lina blew up everyone and everything as per usual.).
Let's see... we saw an episode of Irresponsible Captain Taylor, and an episode of Mobile Police Patlabor. And another of Captain Taylor. Caught the ending of a film called "The Dogs Of Flanders" which had a very Miyazakiesque feel to it. Very neat. That was followed by a piece of garbage called "Legend Of Crystallia" which was the biggest mishmash of bad D&D fantasy clichés that you ever saw, including an opening in which live-action kids play D&D and then vanish (into the world of Crystalia, presumably, although it's never made clear). A prince watches his parents die in a rebellion, and he and his loyal companions flee. They wind up in the land of Crystalia, and are embroiled in numerous pointless battles that eventually lead to a big battle and then the end. The Prince says "I wonder if peace will ever come to the Land of Crystallia", and that's it. Does he remember that he's a Prince of another kingdom, and that he's sworn revenge on those who murdered his parents? No, the film's a completely disjointed mess. The worst part of it all is it's excellently animated... somebody spent a lot of money making a really bad movie.
Costumes! We didn't make it to the masquerade (you had to wait in line to get a ticket that allowed you to get in... we were too stupid and disorganized to realize this), but we saw some cool (and not so cool) hall costumes. For one, a woman working the ADV table was dressed up as Naga from Slayers, and she was perfect for it. (For those who don't know, Naga dresses in very little and is tall and top-heavy... a definite counter to Lina). Also, on Sunday there was a tall guy walking around dressed as Ikari Gendo from Neon Genesis Evangelion, and he was so close to the anime character it was scary. He had the outfit, the shoes, the glasses, the beard, the face, the walk, the disinterested stare... at one point he stood at the railing for the second floor and looked down on the lobby, much like the anime character glares down on from on high in Evangelion. Scary. We also saw our favorite three goddesses (very well done!) and a really good Bubblegum Crisis hardsuit. All that, and the requisite Sailor Senshi who were either too fat or missing that crucial second X chromosome... ^_^
Saturday night Sky was out with Avie again, and Tom and Jeff went to check out a party hosted by the Project A-Kon people. It turns out that the party got shut down before it even started, in part because the A-Kon people were borrowing the room (they were staying in a different hotel) and they had the bad luck of using a room where there'd been a very loud party the night before, which had been shut down after complaints. As I said, this was a large hotel, not everyone in it was part of the convention, and there was an Iraqi Medical convention going on at the same time. There was apparently no designated party wing, which I consider another strike against the con...
In the meantime, I stayed in our room, and then Sky showed up. We talked, and then the 4th of July fireworks started, and we turned out the lights again and sat by the window, talking. Disney put on quite a show this time, although probably still not as big as I'm used to. Considering they do fireworks every night, they probably didn't spend as much money on their 4th of July show as Ivar's (in Seattle) does, but that might just be my impression. It was still a good show.
Sunday we cleaned out the room. Tom and Sky spent a lot of time trying to get everything they'd bought into the two bags allotted them by Alaska Airlines. We checked out baggage with the Bell Captain and wandered the dealer's room one last time, and watched more anime, and got lunch. Then we were boarding a bus headed for LAX.
The bus ride was interesting. One of the guys who'd been on the fan fiction panel was there, (I'm not going to say who... anyway, I don't even remember his name) and another fan asked him about his stories. He proceeded to talk non-stop all the way to the airport about his convoluted fan fiction. Sky, Jeff, Tom and I were near the back of the bus, and he was near the front, but you could follow the conversation loud and clear. We joked about it... "I know one hour isn't going to be enough time for him to get to the end," Sky said. "I guess I don't ever need to read his stories," I said, "I've already heard them." ^_^
We played "Before I Kill You Mr. Bond" while waiting for our flight at LAX. This is a fun card game by Cheapass Games in which everyone is a villain trying to construct a villain's lair, and you try to capture and kill spies for points. Some spies blow up your lair and you have to start over, and there are "doubler" cards that represent stupid things a villain might want to do, such as "Before I kill you, I insist on engaging you in a blindfolded karate match". ^_^ Every one of these cards that you play doubles the point value of killing that spy, but each time you play a doubler you risk a chance that the spy will escape and blow up your lair. As I said, a fun game.
Since I had a bunch of new anime cards that I'd bought at the convention, I insisted each one of us select one to represent our villain. I chose Washu, since she is the greatest genius in the galaxy... but Tom took Lina Inverse, which was a good choice because he burned us two out of four games.
A woman nearby asked about the game, and wrote down the address of Cheapass Games so she could order it.
On the plane we were surrounded by members of the University of Washington Husky Band, who'd been on a trip to Australia, Tahiti, and New Zeeland. They'd been flying for 20 hours or more already. When the pilot told us that the weather in Seattle wasn't as nice... "overcast, and about seventy degrees", a whole bunch of us cheered really loudly!!! Who needs all that hot weather? ^_^ Besides, the water tastes funny down there... (For weeks Tom had been making fun of a published story that Seattle was considering bottling and selling it's tap water... well, we could have used some in Anaheim!)
Jeff spent the entire flight back talking to an oriental woman who turned out to be a Jehovah's Witness. She was a former atheist, so perhaps because she wasn't raised in her faith, she and Jeff actually had a pleasant discussion on all sorts of subjects without really arguing. Meanwhile, Sky and Tom listened to CDs and I listened to my tapes and read Philip Jose Farmer's "A Barnstormer In Oz". Sky was reading the Magic Knights Rayearth graphic novel, but I'd polished off my copy while still at the con.
And that was about it, except that we'd all originally planned on coming back Monday, so everyone had Monday off. We got together at Sky's place and watched "Pretty Sammy", "Mononoke Hime", and "Key The Metal Idol". ^_^ Nice wind-down!
After experiencing Anime Expo and talking to "Bob" and the A-Kon people, we've decided to go to Texas next June. Project A-Kon is a bigger and better con, according to "Bob", and the A-Kon people convinced us that it's much more fan friendly. In the meantime, there's Conifur to look forward to, then Norwescon and Bakacon... It was definitely an advantage to travel with three other friends! ^_^
Miko!
"When you really need them the most," he said, "million-to-once chances always crop up. Well-known fact." -- Seargent Colon, "Guards, Guards!"
Terry Pratchett
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Anime rpg at http://come.to/akane/
Fan Fiction at http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/pratchett