PinkuBentoBox

So, over the weekend I attended Anime Weekend Atlanta, a major anime convention in the Southeastern United States that luckily happens to take place just 90 minutes from where I live. It’s always been something of a big event for me, being the only convention I ever really make an effort to attend due to being too broke to travel elsewhere to Otakon or the like (nevermind my quarter-based class schedule further compounding that sort of thing; AWA sits just perfectly in the middle of my autumn break every year). Having just gotten home from the con late Sunday, I figured I’d take the time to update you on the highlights of the event as I experienced them. You might wanna get settled in. This is gonna be pretty lengthy.

Friday

I arrived at the event just a wee early on Friday. Got there around 9:45 in the morning and spent much of the next two hours just wandering around and getting a feel for the venue (AWA’s been at the same convention center for the past three years, but the way they name the rooms is utter ass…Waverly, Habersham, Valaquenta, Furiounarniel, what, too classy for numbers?). Also visited friends at the art dealers’ tables and stopped by the admissions booths to pick up a program of events, seeing as how they hadn’t been printed up when I went to register the evening before. Marked off what I planned to attend, got mildly pissed that about 50% of it was crammed into one four-hour stretch on Saturday, including most of the screenings I had wanted to see (Basilisk, Speed Grapher, Gantz, Trinity Blood…), and then headed off around noon to attend one of the few screenings I was actually able to get around to, which was…

Area 88 TV, episodes 1-2, 12:00 noon
A fairly interesting show about a journalist, Makoto, covering the actions of a mercenary group in what I’m guessing is some Middle-Eastern conflict. For some reason he has this hangup about one of the pilots by the name of Shin being Japanese (oddly enough, Shin’s the only one with blonde hair…), and spends most of these two episodes bugging the guy about it. Meanwhile, Shin goes around like a regular Heero Yuy, being the best of the best, the only Japanese pilot in the lot, and angsting about it in private. Something about getting $1.5 million and some pink-haired girl back home. I’m assuming it’s explained in later episodes. Other characters included the hardassed commander with sunglasses, flowing black hair, and an odd X-shaped mark right in the center of his forehead (these look like updated Tezuka designs, seriously, save for a couple like Makoto), an old mechanic type who earns a fortune peddling contraband, a lively American pilot named Mickey who pals around with Shin, and the effiminate looking Arab boy in a turban. Seems like a pretty lively cast. The show also seems to have a few treats for the military otaku out there, as the fighter planes in this show are very well-detailed and seem to be tailored to all the major characters’ nationalities. Animation was reasonably upscale for a modern TV series, though the music didn’t stand out much. Voice talents included Shinichiro Miki as Makoto, Takehito Koyasu as Shin, and Tomokazu Seki as Mickey, so the cast seems top rate. All in all, this is one I’ll be looking out for in the future.

After Area 88, I basically wandered around for a few hours. There was nothing in the program that really caught my attention until 6:00. Just some Gothic Lolita & J-Music panels here & there, and screenings of some overall unremarkable titles (Konomini, Chobits, Tokyo Babylon), and some stuff I’ve already seen/bought (Evangelion, X TV, Onegai Twins, Fumoffu). By then the Dealers’ Room was opened, though, so I wandered on in there to browse around. I had $240 total saved up for the event, but I didn’t want to blow it all right away, so I basically just shopped around for an hour or so before making any purchasing decisions. First trip basically ended with me picking up a Cosmic Region Freedom Gundam figure (for those who don’t know, Cosmic Region is the SEED equivalent of the celebrated FIX Figuration line), an HG1/144 CGUE DEEP Arms model kit (Shiho! ^________^), a trio of Fate/stay night trading figures (the Rider & Rin from the set Negs has, plus a Rider from another set featuring her in casual clothing reading a book), and a Fullmetal Alchemist poster sporting Roy & Hawkeye (if it only had Hughes, it’d have my three favourite FMA characters all in one image, but alas). Pretty much dropped an even $100 right there, and figured I’d call it a day for the shopping.

Wandered around for a while after that. Hung out with other friends attending the convention, took photos of the various cosplayers (I’ll get to that later), and decided to see if anything else was going on. Turns out not much. Got hungry, so I stopped by a Chinese food stand in the Dealers’ Room and picked up a sesame chicken & rice package. As I was eating at some tables in the far end of the room, I spied one of the video booths I had passed earlier in the day. What caught my eye were three massive Scrapped Princess posters they had up on display. I got curious as to whether or not they were selling those (hey, the looked pretty cool), so after I ate my fill I walked over and checked on it. Turns out, the posters were free, which was surprising given how absolutely fucking massive they were. They also had some Scrapped Princess t-shirts on display, which were free with DVD purchase. Hey, free stuff’s free stuff, and it’s sporting one of my favourite shows, so I had a look at what they were selling. About that time, I remembered that I had visited that booth earlier in the day and noticed that they were selling the Gundam 08th MS Team & Gundam 0083 box sets at like half off MSRP, and that I had passed it up in case there was a better offer elsewhere. So what the hell, I go to buy them, and realise that the 08th MS boxes are gone, with only two 0083s remaining. I ask, and they said that they sold out of 08th, so in a brief panic I bought the 0083 box right there on the spot. They said they might restock tomorrow, seeing as they were proving more popular than they planned, and to check back then for 08th. Including lunch, that ended up being another $40 that I didn’t entirely plan on spending there.

So, after that I wandered around some more, mostly with friends. Stopped by the Gaming rooms real quick to see what was up (like I was going to play anything; these guys’d eat me alive in anything that wasn’t Halo), mostly because most of the friends I knew there were bigger gamers than animu fans. Had to leave quickly because of the stifling lack of oxygen and severe overcrowding (partially due to some joker setting up a TV and watching Advent Children right at the motherfucking door…yeah, thanks jackass). By then, it was pretty close to 6:00, so I finally got on to attending something I was interested in.

Unlicensed Anime, 6:00pm
Basically, the panel was about really obscure anime that people wanted to see licensed. For the most part, it mainly consisted of extremely old movies that the two panelists had a liking for. The majority of it was stuff that seems to be right up Discotek’s alley assuming they manage to take off as a distributor. Hell, one of the titles previewed was Animal Treasure Island, which Discotek actually does have. The one that really caught my eye was a one-shot OVA from the 80s called Prefectual Self-Defense Force, or something like that. It was basically a pre-cursor to Excel Saga, about some teenage trio stopping some villain who sought to conquer the world by starting small with a cozy little backwater Japanese city (sound familiar, Excel fans?). Funny stuff, with much more wit & plot than Excel. I have to agree with the panelists that it’s a shame it hasn’t been picked up (though personally I see it as more of a shame the thing’s only one episode long). Apparently the Japanese rights holders have changed hands between so many now-nonexisting companies that nobody really knows who has it anymore. They opened it up to other audience members to comment on stuff they wanted to see. The Harlock TV series from 1978 came up, which prompted a general rabble by everyone about why it hasn’t been picked up. Galaxy Express 999 movies came up, and apparently they actually are licensed by somebody. Viz was mentioned, so FUCK YOU VIZ for not releasing it (what, it’s a personal milestone, the anime that got me watching anime, and I really fucking want a DVD of it). I commented on Rozen Maiden & the new Glass Mask, and basically got the comment that “everything new gets licensed.” Monster was brought up by someone else and got the same response. But, um, Glass Mask & Monster aren’t exactly medium-length guaranteed hits, guys. A 52 episode drama on acting and a 76 episode suspense thriller aren’t all that enticing to domestic distributors these days.

Geneon Panel, 7:00pm
Luckily, the Geneon panel took place in the same room as the Unlicensed Anime panel, and I had a front-row seat already. In all my years of going to AWA, this was the first time I actually managed to attend one of Geneon’s panels. Mostly because they’re usually really badly scheduled or take place during something else more enticing. The only announcement that actually stood out was a new series of thinpack box sets with sexy new boxes; the Last EXILE thinpack has Range Murata artwork, the Haibane Renmei thinpack (that I am SO BUYING) has Yoshitoshi ABe art that they previewed for us by handing out free pencil boards of the art in question, and the two metal Trigun boxes have Yasuhiro Nightow art and a free bullet necklace with the first box. There were also Kyou Kara Maoh! & dual Card Captor Sakura thinpacks that used the same book type packaging as the Read or Die TV series. The discs in the boxes also have full extras & everything that came with the original releases…unlike a certain ADV FILMS you hear about sometimes. There was also mention of Geneon going after stores like Best Buy that jacked up prices well above MSRP without their approval, which is definitely a good thing. A bunch of trailers were then shown, mostly of series currently being released like Kyou Kara Maoh!, Tenjou Tenge, etc. The rep running the panel thought it was only an hour long, and planned on concluding it with a special showing of the Hellsing Ultimate trailer, but thankfully a couple of us managed to remind him it was actually two hours, so he decided to play the whole disc of “upcoming project” trailers instead. The highlights:

Shakugan no Shana - Debuting this October in Japan, it looks to be a slick little supernatural action series helmed by Takashi Watanabe of Boogiepop Phantom fame, with music by Kou Otani and a cast that includes Ayako Kawasumi & Tomo Sakurai (<3 Misao). Something about a red-haired girl with a fiery katana protecting some kid from supernatural villains that bend reality. Looks intriguing. Very intriguing. And the main character Shana looks extremely cute.

Ergo Proxy - Produced by Manglobe, the guys behind Samurai Champloo, it looks to be some sort of science fiction thriller about an escaped human test subject or something. Another absolutely intriguing series that sports some utterly top-rate visuals. Directed by Shukou Murase, the guy behind Witch Hunter Robin, and scripted by Dai Sato, the guy behind Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Wolf’s Rain, and a massive chunk of Eureka 7 & Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex. No Japanese release date, unfortunately, so no fucking clue when it comes out. Also of note, the apparent female lead looks dead sexy.

Hellsing Ultimate - The last trailer shown, but the second most anticipated for me…probably due to having already seen an alternate version a few days prior with all the same footage. This one had better music though, specifically the series’ proper opening theme by Schaft. Most of you already know about this one already, being a complete remake of the Hellsing story made more faithful by the manga, being closely supervised by Kouta Hirano & directed by Tomokazu Tokoro, the same man who headed up the surprisingly calm-by-comparison Haibane Renmei & Niea_7 (also played assistant director for Macross Zero). The animation looks top-rate, the overall tone seems to retain the manga’s same lighthearted dementia, and it has Rip van Winkle. Works for me.

Fate/stay night - The first trailer that was shown, and the one I most desperately wanted to see. To be blunt? AWE-INSPIRING! I was absolutely floored by everything. The music & visuals were both absolutely top class. Hell, the animation was nothing short of OVA quality. A hella expensive OVA, at that. The footage I can remember includes pretty lengthy shots of Rin pondering something to herself, Shirou talking to some older guy, Archer fighting Berserker, Saber fighting Lancer, and Rider fighting Caster. No idea when this thing comes out, but it simply cannot come soon enough. And for what it’s worth, I SO need to download this trailer from somewhere.

Basically, to I say I came about twelve times for every second the Fate trailer ran is fairly accurate. It was just that good.

After the trailers came the Q&A. Lots of questions about the box sets, Hellsing Ultimate, & Hajime no Ippo mostly. A surprising amount of concern over Hajime no Ippo, at that. The Q&A also heralded the second big surprise of the panel next to the Fate trailer. I asked first whether or not Maria-sama ga Miteru had been licensed yet, to which I got a fairly standard “I cannot comment on that at this time.” However, I then asked if Geneon Entertainment had any idea what their Japanese counterparts were working on, and if a third season of MariMite might be in the works. This question got a fairly shaky “well, we really can’t say, but please be sure to support it when it comes over…—er, whoever gets it, rather,” or something to that effect. Basically, it sounded like the guy said a word too much and was covering his tracks. Are we to assume this means MariMite has indeed finally been licensed and/or is being continued in Japan? Very interesting stuff, indeed.

After the Geneon panel, I basically had an hour to kill, so, of course, I wandered around some more. I had planned on attending a screening of Miyuki-chan in Wonderland in one of the viewing rooms, but it was re-labeled as “CLAMP Short Films.” I only learned about twenty minutes too late that said “short films” actually included Miyuki-chan after all (yeah, sorry, but I don’t really consider two half-hour episodes to be “short film”). Eventually, 10:00 rolled around, which meant the Friday event I was most anticipating was about to start…supposedly.

The Place Promised in Our Early Days, 10:00pm
Given how much Negs has gushed about this thing, and given how much I typically respect his opinion, you have no idea how badly I was wanting to see this. Not to mention, it’s Makoto Shinkai. C’mon, that alone should be enough. So, 10:00 rolls around, I’m seated third row from the front with an excellent view of the screen…and Place Promised is not playing. Instead, the movie from the previous hour, some Korean film called My Beautiful Girl Mari, was still playing. Bu~ut, figuring it only had about five minutes at the most left to run, I sat and waited. FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER this fucking Korean film is still going and showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. And having no fucking clue what’s going on in the movie, I’m bored out of my irritated little skull. I came for Shinkai’s mindblowing genius, not some prepubescent boy and some fur-covered little girl. And it was about that time that I began hearing this loud-ass screaming coming from the restaurant & lobby on the floor below. Figuring I won’t be missing Place Promised just for checking out the commotion, I leave to go have a look.

4chan Meet, around 10:20pm
Turns out that screaming was a whole mob of people standing next to the smoking lounge, throwing their heads back and screaming “WRYYYYYYYYY!” Well now, this sounds familiar. I head down the stairs to have a closer look, and suddenly I’m handed this 4chan lapel button and I hear actual updates on the condition of the site. From staff members. Turns out it’s a 4chan meet. Fun. So, I step in, announcing myself with the time-tested “hay guys, wuts goin on in this thread? 8),” and pretty soon we’re all throwing 4chan & SA catchphrases back & forth. Several extended sessions of “NO U!,” a few “WRYYYYYY!s,” “moot graduated middle school,” “is this loli?” etc. Eventually moot showed up, and we all more or less mugged him for information, photos, etc. I shook his hand, but that was basically it. The whole thing eventually turned into a bizarre photo shoot, capped off by a guy cosplaying as Raptor Jesus pretending to give one of the site staff head. About that time someone also ran off to fetch a Bridget cosplayer, prompting a rousing chant of “GAY FOR BRIDGET!” as he came down the stairs. The meet seemed to start dissolving soon after that, so I made my way back upstairs to see if that stupid Mari thing had ended yet.

Come to find out Place Promised was already several minutes in, and the only available seats had other peoples’ fat fucking heads in the way of the subtitles. SHIT. Thanks, assholes. Next time try airing things on-schedule for those of us actually interested in seeing them.

Japanese Animation Hell, started at 9:00pm, I joined in approx. 10:40pm
Well, since they fucked over the Placed Promised screening, I decided to join some friends of mine for Anime Hell. Basically, Anime Hell is one of those novelty events AWA is known for throwing in the later evening hours when people are burned out on shopping, wandering around, and attending more serious panels. Specifically, Anime Hell is a collection of the most bizarre shit to come out of the Japanese entertainment industry in general, animated and otherwise. The feature here was some old Japanese science fiction movie called Prince of Space, or something like that. Think Plan 9 production values, monotone dubbing, and villains imitating Batman’s Penguin villain with their long, hooked noses and “HWAAAAANGK, HWAAAAANGK, HWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGK” sort of laugh. Mixed in throughout was other bizarre shit like some Japanese high school student’s film parody of Amuro’s battle against the Black Trinary from Mobile Suit Gundam (live action, stop-motion, using other kids as mobile suits…seeing the one kid sliding along the ground as Guntank was priceless), as well as the fight between the American & Japanese Godzillas from Godzilla: Final Wars, which easily got the loudest audience response of the night. Very, very funny stuff. There was, of course, plenty of anime thrown in, but damned if I remember very much of it.

Midnight Madness, 12:00 midnight
Midnight Madness is something of a continuation on Anime Hell. Both are held in the main ballroom, and both focus on bizarre aspects of Japanese entertainment & animu fandom. Only Midnight Madness is more geared towards fan-made parody dubs of various anime titles. One of the funnier ones that gets shown every year, for example, is a fan dub of Cowboy Bebop that turns the series into a kinda-sorta version of Mallrats focused on a group of otaku at an anime convention. For the most part, it was all pretty hilarious, though one of the films shown (S.T.E.A.M., or something like that) began to wear real, real thin about halfway through. Ran a touch too long, methinks. I stayed for most of the event, but started to get a bit tired near the end and began walking around the convention area to wake myself up. About 3:00am, I joined up with some friends of mine and left for the day.

Saturday

On Saturday, I had planned on getting back to the convention area around 10:00am to catch a screening of the first couple episodes of Rose of Versailles (a show I’ve been wanting to see for a long time, now). Unfortunately, some hangups in getting from my friend’s house where I was staying for the con to the convention itself had me running woefully late, and I ended up missing it. Ah well. Spent the rest of the morning bumming around the convention and hanging out with people, which included a brief visit to the Con Suite on the twelfth floor (as well as a brief visit with my fear of heights, who I happened to meet on the glass elevator & hallway to the room). Basically, the Con Suite was something of a secluded relaxation hangout with free food. Pretty keen place. After stopping there for some drinks, I then went back to the DVD booth from yesterday in the Dealers’ Room to see if they had 08th MS back in stock. It wasn’t on their display rack, so I asked if they got any new stock in. One guy went to check, and said he didn’t see anything. But just to make sure, I took a peek over the display rack and spied, mixed up between three other copies of 0083, one last copy of 08th MS Team. I pointed it out to the guy, and walked away with the very last box set they had of the series. Pretty lucky, I’d say. What was even luckier, though, was what happened after. I stopped by at this one Japanese manga booth to browse the artbooks, and happened to spy Range Murata’s Re:Futurhythm. Well, being a big fan of Murata’s work and hearing good things about this book in particular, I asked the booth’s operator the price (seeing as the price tag was…yeah, all in yen). The price? $57. The amount of money I had left? $57 exactly (well…I also had some spare change, but $57 in paper, rather). An extremely close shave, but I landed the book regardless. And with that, my shopping came to an end. And it just so happened, the Cartoon Network panel was starting right then & there.

Cartoon Network Panel, 11:00 am
Okay, at last year’s AWA, the Cartoon Network panel was advertised as a discussion on upcoming Toonami-related events, right? As such, I had planned on asking about some of their editing & scheduling practices in regards to Gundam SEED. However, as it turned out, that panel was actually an all-Adult Swim panel and we all had a jolly fun time. So this year, I go in anticipating a primarily Adult Swim panel, and…yeah, turns out it was a Toonami panel this year. Specifically, it was a Toonami panel focused on whoring out the upcoming IGPX series as hard as they possibly could. I walked out right as they said they were pretty much going to spend the rest of the panel screening the first two episodes. Nothing against the series, but I don’t go to panels for screenings, and I was too much looking forward to it being an Adult Swim panel. Specifically, I was curious to learn more about something I had heard at the Geneon panel yesterday, where they claimed Adult Swim had a lapse of good taste (okay, that’s more my wording regarding the situation) and turned down an offer of Gankutsuou for the block. Hung out with friends for the rest of the hour.

ADV Panel, 12:00 noon
So, I walk into the ADV panel, and I immediately notice something odd. Apparently, on Saturday I was cosplaying as ADV representative David Williams. Seriously, we both had the exact same outfit on: a club shirt with odd yellow-on-red design, black jeans, and glasses. Weird. Anyway, pretty standard ADV panel, albeit compressed, seeing as it was two hours last year down to one this year. Like last year, they opened up to Q&A and handed out free gifts to anyone with a question. I had three:

N: Will your Godannar release include both season one and season two?
DW: Yes.
N: Will your Elfen Lied release include the OVA episode?
DW: No, sorry.
N: Darn. ‘Kay…so, I can already guess the answer to this one, but what about Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid?
DW (with audience backup): I can neither confirm nor deny that one.
N: Thought so.
DW: However, I can say that we here at ADV REALLY, REALLY LIKE Full Metal Panic! (he’s practically winking at this point), so take that for what you will.

Yeah, I intentionally threw them a softball Godannar question hoping to score the first volume of that series. I saw the OPs for both seasons via some PV-Vision torrent a while back, and have had an interest in it ever since. Instead, though, I managed to score a thinpack release of the second season of Orphen. Unfortunately I’ve never seen the first season, but it’s not like I’m going to turn away a free copy of an entire series, so I was still content. The rest of the Q&A was basically a bunch of stuff on ADV’s massive wealth of average titles (Maburaho, etc.), and a few about more noteworthy stuff like Yugo the Negotiator & Macross. Nothing that you can’t already glean from a two-minute glance at ANN, though.

Lupin III: Crisis in Tokyo, 1:00pm
Though I managed to miss about 3/4 of the screenings I had planned on seeing, this was one of those I made a specific point to catch. And unlike Place Promised, this one actually started on time. One of the yearly Lupin III TV specials (or, made-for-TV movies if you’d prefer, they’re all feature length) that began airing anually in 1989, this one was 1998’s entry. It involves Lupin pursuing a pair of glass plates that sport etchings supposedly leading to the lost treasure of the Tokugawa Shogunate. However, a rich entrepreneuer by the name of Micheal Suzuki is also after the plates for his own nefarious plans, using a museum under his ownership (if I remember right) and his funding of a water-oriented theme park to mask his goals. To make matters worse for Lupin, Jigen is rendered unable to shoot due to the recoil of his pistol upsetting a rather serious toothache, and Goemon has had his Zantetsuken stolen by Suzuki’s agents as “a historical artifact.” And further complicating the situation is the fact that Zenigata is getting help this time around from a reporter girl named Maria, who is capable of seeing brief glimpses of future events. Of course, Maria’s gift goes from Lupin’s problem to Lupin’s blessing, as before too long he and the suspended Zenigata form a temporary alliance to take down the greater threat of Suzuki. All in all, it’s more of the same from Lupin: elaborate schemes, lecherous comedy, surprisingly top-rate action, and the continued individual antics of Lupin, Jigen, Goemon, Fujiko, & Zenigata. And, as is almost always the case, that “more of the same” can do no wrong. Excellent stuff, with the proper voice work, visuals, & music to back it up. This is also my first time seeing how FUNimation is handling Lupin. Though I can’t say anything for the dubbing (we watched it subtitled, of course), everything else measures up. A shelf-worthy DVD for a shelf-worthy movie.

After the movie, I met up with some high school friends of mine and wandered around with them for a bit. Went to have lunch in the Dealers’s Room, considering the Chinese stand there was the only food place in the entire convention center that didn’t have an hour’s wait in line for it, and browsed around the booths after eating to see what they had (it was the only day many of them would be there, so they hadn’t been shopping yet, obviously). After an hour, we gave up there and headed to what I had thought was the Bandai panel.

Bandai Panel—er—Production I.G. panel, 4:00pm
This was originally going to be Bandai Entertainment’s panel. In fact, it still listed them in the program. However, at the very last possible minute, they were forced to cancel, and Production I.G. (who I’m guessing had a rep there mostly to pimp IGXP at Cartoon Network’s panel) was quick to fill the spot. Damn shame, too, because I wanted to ask the Bandai rep if the company’s promise to “import every major Gundam anime” included the currently-running CGI OVA, MS IGLOO (wow, that’s a lot of caps), and whether or not they still stuck by that promise and’d still be giving us Gundam X & Turn-A Gundam at some point. Ah well.

I.G.’s panel was mostly about advertising what titles they had coming up on this side of the world. IGXP & Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex 2ng GIG got the most coverage, though there was also brief mention of Blood+, XXXHolic, Tsubasa Chronicle, & Prince of Tennis. There was also extensive mention of many of I.G.’s sister company Xebec’s projects, specifically Erementar Gerad & Soukyuu no Fafner. This part of the panel prompted the airing of trailers, wjhich interestingly enough led to the airing of a new opening video created for 2nd GIG’s Japanese DVD release. It used a different song from the TV opening’s “Rise” by Origa—I don’t even think this one was by Origa—and featured new video of the first-person view of some guy walking along a Japanese street as the world went by around him at high speed (with a few slow-motion cameos of GitS characters blended in among the crowds). Nifty video, but both it and the song were much too slow for being an opener. They’d make a superb ending, though. At the Q&A, I asked about the rumoured third season of Stand-Alone Complex, which got a “there are some things we just can’t say yet” type of response. Like ADV, people that asked questions landed free stuff, and I picked up a cute little plushie of Mamoru Oshii’s bassett hound.

Totally Lame Anime, 5:00pm
Much like the Unlicensed Anime & Geneon panels yesterday, the I.G. & Totally Lame Anime panels took place in the same room, and I and my friends already had good seats (hell, all four were in the same room, now that I think about it). Now, Totally Lame Anime is one of AWA’s most well-loved events. Essentially, it’s a two-hour panel dedicated to some of the very worst and most unintentionally hilarious bullshit to come out of Japanese animation throughout its history, from bad shows, to bad dubbing, to bad editing. Along with Anime Hell and the late-Saturday Panel of DOOM, it’s always one of the funniest events at AWA, bar none. Some of the things shown included the dubbing of one OVA which sported a dog dubbed to make a bunch of “BLARG!” type noise as opposed to barking, an animated version of Call of the Wild that’s essentially beating a dog for several episodes until it goes insane and uses ninja skills (okay, piss-poor choreography and a shoestring animation budget) to kill everyone in sight at the end, and a Korean giant robot series that ripped off every single science fiction anime of the age (a green White Base populated by the villains from Yamato wearing Zeon uniforms commanding dozens of Yamato & Arcadia clones while fighting what looked like a red, white, & blue Mazinger…yeah), among other things. One item that especially stuck out in my mind was Bandai & Sunrise’s original pitch for Gundam in America, an animated cartoon using SD Gundam mobile suits called Doozybots, in which a group of teenage stereotypes (a football player, a blonde cheerleader, a skater bum, a nerd, and a token black kid in a wheelchair that looks like Kwami from Captain Planet) use a mad scientist’s machine to transform into “Doozybots” to “protect the world from the enemies of fun.” The football player was Gundam, the nerd was Guncannon, and the cheerleader & skater became pink & yellow GMs. Ironically, the crippled black kid turned into Guntank. Their enemies included Char’s Z’Gok commanding a group of really clumsy Doms and a Jagd Doga whose funnels became missiles and NO I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! You had to be there. It was painfully hilarious. Thankfully, it never got past the promo Sunrise and whatever American studio it collaborated with tried to shop around to American broadcasters. And like the past several years, the finale was the utterly atrocious Italian-Japanese animated Titanic musical, which featured a rapping dog and the most retarded recycling of footage & dialogue EVER.

The next two hours after Totally Lame Anime were pretty uneventful. More wandering around and poking my head into other events to see what was going on. The Gaming rooms by now had only become even more stifling & crowded, and now had a pretty thick smell of BO to them, too. And that fuckwit playing Advent Children in the middle of the entrance to one of the rooms was still there, if I recall. Really though, I seem to recall spending most of this time hanging out around one of the balconies overlooking the restaurant area with a couple friends of mine, just wasting time until the next event began.

Panel of DOOM!!!, 9:00pm
One of AWA’s little guilty pleasures, the Panel of DOOM is essentially a condensed version of Friday’s Anime Hell & Midnight Madness. Only this time, literally anything goes, and nothing is sacred. It’s usually extremely funny stuff, and last year’s was especially brilliant, featuring such things as failed sentai monsters (including a ramen monster, of all things), a cruel mockery of ADV’s little “What is anime? Anime is!” DVD spot, an expanded (and much dirtier) take on Conan O’Brien’s “humiliating Walker: Texas Ranger clips” bit, and a back-to-back airing of Stewie Griffin’s & William Shatner’s renditions of “Rocket Man.” This year’s Panel of DOOM, however, wasn’t quite up to the level of quality of last year’s. It was still funny, yes, but not nearly as “on-the-floor-laughing-to-tears” as 2004’s. Highlights from this year included the actual music video to “Dragostea Din Tei” (Maea hi~i, maea hu~u, you know what I’m talking about), embarassing Schwarzenegger clips (not as funny as Walker…hell, I’d say these were the low point of PoD), clips from some movie about a giant fucking stone head that vomits guns and commands people to castrate themselves, Dencha Otoko clips, and some weird Japanese spot where some woman tries to speak English to passerbys. Yeah, it has next to nothing to do with anime, but it’s stil a funny little diversion after spending the past dozen or so hours completely immersed in Japanese cartoons. Sadly, we ended up blazing through all the clips so fast the panel ended an hour early, but as it turns out, it conveniently came to an end right as the next big event was starting.

Also, I came away from Panel of DOOM with a new and genius analogy for Gundam SEED Destiny. Remember that episode of Itchy & Scratchy where they introduced the dog Poochie, who was so hated he was immediately downplayed and later killed off? Shinn is Poochie, while Kira & Athrun are Itchy & Scratchy. It fits only too eerily well.

AWA Dance Party…Rave…Thing, 12:00 midnight
A rave at an anime convention. Um…okay? Yeah, AWA’s held these rave things on Saturday night for as long as I can recall, though this is the first year I actually went to one. What it has to do with anime, I have no clue, but it was still pretty fun. The music selection wasn’t what I expected, seeing as how I tend to associate “rave” with trance & hardcore, not Nine Inch Nails remixes & techno’d 80s throwbacks, but I got over that quick enough. The place was surprisingly packed, and everyone seemed to have a pretty good time. Unfortunately, I managed to fucking injure myself; I pulled a muscle in my lower right leg, but kept dancing on it thinking it was nothing serious. Then later in the night I ended up stumbling, re-pulling that muscle, and twisting my knee & ankle on that same leg for good measure. Put an end to me dancing, so I spent the rest of the night until the rave shut down just hobbling around. As with Friday, everything shut down around 3:00am, and I left for the day.

That muscle still doesn’t feel to good even now, for what it’s worth, and I didn’t ralise until the next morning that I had also done something to the part where my upper left leg connects to my hip. Fun times, fun times.

Sunday

Sunday is pretty much AWA’s downturn day. The first half of the day consists of wrapping up the various con events, while the second half is a few events here & there while everybody begins cleaning up and closing down for next year. I arrived there around 11:00 or noon or so, and as usual, wandered around for a bit (hobbling, now) while waiting for the next event to take place. Took a brief stop up at the Con Suite again, grabbed some juice & a Krispy Kreme doughnut, then some Coke for the road before heading back downstairs.

Dubs That Time Forgot, 1:00pm
Dubs That Time Forgot is basically a lighter version of Totally Lame Anime that focuses strictly on English dubbing. Specifically, it focuses on dubs that—you guessed it—are obscure, old, and mostly forgotten. Lotta Streamline stuff, lotta old Discotek territory, and a Harlock dub that’d make your ears implode. One part that caught my attention in particular was a clip from a Lupin III movie that was dubbed four separate times by four separate companies. Any surprise that the most recent effort was the best one? There was also some Cagliostro dub that had Jigen talking like he was possessed by the Devil & reciting verses in Tongues. Yeah, these weren’t meant to all be bad dubs per se, but they mostly went that way, and the second half of the panel basically became mocking them for comedy’s sake. Pretty funny stuff, though not quite on Totally Lame Anime’s level.

Cromartie High, episodes 1-4, 3:00pm
I had read the first volume of the Cromartie High manga a few weeks prior. I was laughing myself breathless after the first five pages, so naturally, when I saw that AWA had the TV series scheduled for a screening on Sunday, you know I was all over that. The manga is still better, going into more depth with some of the jokes (Kamiyama being bad, Freddie’s blood type, etc.), but the way it’s presented is still absolutely hilarious. The way I like to describe this series, is to picture Azumanga Daioh with thuggish delinquents in place of cute, innocent girls, a Norio Wakamoto-voiced robot in place of a Norio Wakamoto-voiced yellow cat-thing, and Freddie Mercury. Easily one of the funniest shows to come along in the past two or three years, and one I’ll definitely be looking into in the future (and demanding that you do the same).

I had hoped that, since Cromartie was the last thing scheduled for that viewing room, they’d humor us by showing a few extra episodes until the Closing Ceremonies. No such luck. They packed up before the fourth episode’s ending credits even finished. So that was me wandering around again for an hour. It was around this time that everybody began packing up. Figured I’d browse the Dealers’ Room for free stuff (posters, postcards, stuff I could throw up on my wall that looked pretty, mainly), but had no such luck. It was surprising just how quickly the dealers had all closed up shop. Ran into a friend of mine and we ended up talking until her family came to pick her up. By then the Closing Ceremonies were already halfway over. I poked my head in briefly right as the guests of honor were giving their closing statements. Lotta compliments on AWA “staying grounded” and “not getting too big” and “still not above being for the fans unlike other conventions.” David Williams called it his favourite convention on the continental US, though I’m wondering if he doesn’t just say that everywhere. As I was leaving, I actually bumped into Vic Mignogna (not literally), the voice actor playing Edward Elric in the Fullmetal Alchemist dub. Taking the opportunity, I got his autograph on the first thing I could grab and complimented him on the quality of FMA’s dubbing, which really is one of the best English adaptations of an anime I’ve heard in a good, long, long while. After that, I basically met up with my friends one more time and left the convention center around 6:00. Dropped them off at the Marta station by my college, and headed home, thus bringing my attendance at AWA11 to a fairly satisfying end. All in all, I’d say this really was one of the better AWAs I’ve been to. As fun & relaxed as previous years, with my only major complaint being the scheduling issues for the viewing rooms (”CLAMP Short Films” my ass, and when Place Promised is scheduled for 10:00, that does not fucking mean 10:30). Also, it’d be nice if next year had all the good stuff evenly spaced out, instead of being crammed entirely into Saturday afternoon & early evening, but then that’s more an issue with personal taste. Anyway, it was fun, and I already can’t wait until next year.

The Cosplay

I figured I’d set aside a separate section for cosplay, seeing as it’s really something that carries over across all three days and not just one specific point in time. All in all, the cosplay really wasn’t that bad for the most part. Not the best I’ve ever seen, but most of the costumes were done up rather well. There was entirely too fucking much Naruto, though, and almost as much Final Fantasy & Fullmetal Alchemist (though all the State Alchemist folks get mad props for the effort put into their costumes). Inu-Yasha was also plentiful, but short of a couple groups, also got the worst-quality costumes. Lot of gaming cosplay, too, with plenty of Resident Evil 4 & Metal Gear Solid (I even signed one Solid Snake’s cardboard box), and a friend of mine even cosplayed as Dalsim from Street Fighter. There were also plenty of Hellsing cosplayers, including one person I only saw leaving at the very end of Sunday in the most perfect Rip van Winkle cosplay I have ever seen. And of course, AWA had its usual overstock of Chiis and moderately attractive Robins.

And me?

Yes, I actually cosplayed. My first time doing it, too. My character of choice was none other than Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex’s Laughing Man. Fairly simple costume; I just made the icon out of a hard mounting board used to display artwork (traced & painted the logo onto it) and grabbed an old, blue, hooded jacket I had lying around. I was honestly surprised how much attention it got, given how cheaply I made it. LOTS of photos, and even more random calls of “Laughing Man!” and “Section 9!” in my general direction. In fact, and while I hate to admit it, it was getting used to all the calls that probably led to me missing a chance with a rather attractive young woman in a State Alchemist’s costume. She’d call out “Laughing Man!” whenever I’d walk by, and as with the dozen or more other people doing that, I figured it was just her getting a kick out of the novelty of the costume. Bu~ut, as I was arriving at the convention on Sunday, I saw her leaving with her group and noticed what looked like a flirty sort of “come hither” glance my way. Hm. Damn. Ah well, I’ve always known I was clueless, but never that much.

Anyway, I was the only Laughing Man there I noticed, so if you saw that familiar blue smiley on someone’s face at AWA, congrats, odds are better than good that was me. And I’ll be doing it again next year. Gonna redesign the costume, though; I plan on getting a more accurate coat to the character’s, and redesigning the mask to be a bit more accurate in terms of colour (the blue I used was too bright), and hopefully developing some method of seeing out of it this time. Not gonna throw away the old mask, though. Still looks good, not to mention it now has Vic Mignogna’s autogtaph on it. If the film develops, I’ll probably post some photos of me in costume. ‘Til then, though, I think I’ll call it a day here. Hope you enjoyed that long-winded, meandering account a little more than I did writing it all down (and now proofreading it).

–Nagi the Laughing Man