Anime Expo

Three hours in line. Three hours in line! THREE MOTHERFUCKING HOURS IN LINE!!!!

That was for registration for one day. Obviously, this would have been marginally less sucky if I'd pre-registered or if I was staying for the whole thing, but I was only there for one day, so I don't feel that I got my money's worth. Except for meeting lilrivkah, who had been expecting someone taller. Rovkah, please email me to coordinate us gettign together on Tuesday. I left a message on Rob's phone but I don't know if you got it.

I was going to meet tweedkitten, but she was sick. Poor tweedkitten.

I went to a talk with Tomokazu Seki, the great voice actor who did Kyo in Fruits Basket and Van in Escaflowne and Chichiri in Fushigi Yugi and many many many other roles, every single one of which seemed to be somebody's favorite because the audience would go nuts every time he mentioned a particular character. He was charming, albeit jet-lagged.

During the Q & A, a Korean-American woman announced her ethnicity, then asked the poor guy to state his opinion on the dispute between Japan and Korea regarding the ownership of a island: "Which country do you think righfully owns it?" Which was like asking him "Have you stopped beating your wife, yes or no?" If he says Japan, he's insulted the questioner. If he says Korea, he's insulted his home country. If he says he has no opinion or doesn't want to answer, he looks like a tool. But before the question could be translated (the translator had paused in horror, obviously thinking the same thing I was), the moderator, American voice actor Crispin Freeman, said, "This is an anime convention, not a political convention, and I'd appreciate it if the questions stuck to the topic at hand, which is voice acting and anime. Next!" It was the most appropriate exercise of censorship ever.

I saw the first three episodes of Melody of Oblivion, an extremely weird and surreal anime with a fascinating background, backstory, and neat imagery, about a secret war against "monsters" many years after the monsters won the official one. Unfortunately, the characters didn't grab me, and I was annoyed by the sexual teasing and the way even the little girls all had monstrous inflated breasts like Lirin.

I also watched one episode from somewhere in the middle of Shamanic Princess, in which two magical girls from another world are hanging out in boarding school while they try to rescue their friend from a magic painting. They both seem to have evil doppelgangers, and one of them has gravity-defying pigtails and a talking ferret. There's a handsome guy who stole the portrait because he's trying to rescue the friend, who's his sister. This seemed like fairly standard shoujo fantasy, but I liked it. Comfort food.

That was all I had time to do because of the THREE HOURS IN LINE. I am never going to go back there unless I'm a guest artist and I don't have to wait THREE HOURS IN LINE.

Anime Expo

Three hours in line. Three hours in line! THREE MOTHERFUCKING HOURS IN LINE!!!!

That was for registration for one day. Obviously, this would have been marginally less sucky if I'd pre-registered or if I was staying for the whole thing, but I was only there for one day, so I don't feel that I got my money's worth. Except for meeting lilrivkah, who had been expecting someone taller. Rovkah, please email me to coordinate us gettign together on Tuesday. I left a message on Rob's phone but I don't know if you got it.

I was going to meet tweedkitten, but she was sick. Poor tweedkitten.

I went to a talk with Tomokazu Seki, the great voice actor who did Kyo in Fruits Basket and Van in Escaflowne and Chichiri in Fushigi Yugi and many many many other roles, every single one of which seemed to be somebody's favorite because the audience would go nuts every time he mentioned a particular character. He was charming, albeit jet-lagged.

During the Q & A, a Korean-American woman announced her ethnicity, then asked the poor guy to state his opinion on the dispute between Japan and Korea regarding the ownership of a island: "Which country do you think righfully owns it?" Which was like asking him "Have you stopped beating your wife, yes or no?" If he says Japan, he's insulted the questioner. If he says Korea, he's insulted his home country. If he says he has no opinion or doesn't want to answer, he looks like a tool. But before the question could be translated (the translator had paused in horror, obviously thinking the same thing I was), the moderator, American voice actor Crispin Freeman, said, "This is an anime convention, not a political convention, and I'd appreciate it if the questions stuck to the topic at hand, which is voice acting and anime. Next!" It was the most appropriate exercise of censorship ever.

I saw the first three episodes of Melody of Oblivion, an extremely weird and surreal anime with a fascinating background, backstory, and neat imagery, about a secret war against "monsters" many years after the monsters won the official one. Unfortunately, the characters didn't grab me, and I was annoyed by the sexual teasing and the way even the little girls all had monstrous inflated breasts like Lirin.

I also watched one episode from somewhere in the middle of Shamanic Princess, in which two magical girls from another world are hanging out in boarding school while they try to rescue their friend from a magic painting. They both seem to have evil doppelgangers, and one of them has gravity-defying pigtails and a talking ferret. There's a handsome guy who stole the portrait because he's trying to rescue the friend, who's his sister. This seemed like fairly standard shoujo fantasy, but I liked it. Comfort food.

That was all I had time to do because of the THREE HOURS IN LINE. I am never going to go back there unless I'm a guest artist and I don't have to wait THREE HOURS IN LINE.