Anime North 2012 Report? Dave Watson, others?

[Dave Baranyi]

Are any of the folks who attended Anime North 2012 going to post about
their experiences? (You were there, weren't you Dave W?)

Dave Baranyi

[Rob Kelk]

On 30 May 2012 09:33:35 GMT, Dave Baranyi <anthony...@bell.net>
wrote:

>Are any of the folks who attended Anime North 2012 going to post about
>their experiences? (You were there, weren't you Dave W?)

I know DaveW went - he found an out-of-print translated manga for me. I
also know he's been busy since he got back - he still has the book...

--
Rob Kelk <http://robkelk.ottawa-anime.org/> e-mail: s/deadspam/gmail/
"I'm *not* a kid! Nyyyeaaah!" - Skuld (in "Oh My Goddess!" OAV #3)
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear
of childishness and the desire to be very grown-up." - C.S. Lewis

[Dave Watson]

On Wed, 30 May 2012 22:00:08 GMT, Rob Kelk wrote:

> On 30 May 2012 09:33:35 GMT, Dave Baranyi <anthony...@bell.net>
> wrote:
>
>>Are any of the folks who attended Anime North 2012 going to post about
>>their experiences? (You were there, weren't you Dave W?)
>
> I know DaveW went - he found an out-of-print translated manga for me. I
> also know he's been busy since he got back - he still has the book...

Finally got the book to him on Sunday. Enjoy.

This won't be as slick as the last one I published (two years ago), with
the odd spelling error and occasional flip between past and present tense,
but then again, it accurately fits my mood at AN this year--rushed and kind
of desperate.

AN2012. I came. I saw. I pissed away all my money again.

A friend of mine assigned me a sizable suitcase full of DVDs to try to sell
off for him at the Nominoichi/flea market on Friday evening. Bought a few
myself. The suitcase stank of cat spray. Gee, thanks. Thankfully, the
scented oil device overrode the pong nicely, and, now that it's returned,
the room odour is back to normal (at least as I define it). I slept on the
Japanese Underground Music panel and was working on it up until the night
before. Mad scramble, which becomes the theme of this weekend.

Thursday:

--My friend picks me up at home, I complicate things with having to cram in
said suitcase, and after a not-as-long-as-usual wait for our dear leader at
the meeting point, we're off again. Since I didn't get as much sleep as I
would have liked the night before, I nod off a few times; so does one of my
fellow passengers. The soundtrack alternates between the mostly dance
music on my friend's device and my freshly amended USB key. Devo's _Q:
Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!_ goes over well. Right, that one's
staying for next year. He didn't dig NoMeansNo so much this year, though;
wonder why.

--Settle in at the hotel. Test photographic equipment. I feel like a
piker with my idiot point-and-click digital, but hey, it works. One of the
roomies asks about my flea market haulage; I open the cases, he picks out
some stuff, and chooses the rare/expensive item in my friend's haul, to be
held for him if it doesn't move at the market. Right. Thanks for the
advance sale.

--On to the Doubletree. The guy running the panels/panelist badge line
screwed the pooch so badly that everybody else in my group, who went
through the long-ass pre-reg line, got taken care of before I did and
gathered in front of the office to wait for me while I was still in line.
I tore some wet bleeding strips off him. After that finally got sorted,
the group went to Ajisen Ramen for a great dinner, followed by buying some
provisio at Asian grocery big box store T&T Superstore. A bag of
one-day-old specialized buns for $4? Sure. Eat the one with ham and
weiners in it that night.

Friday

--Set the alarm early. Tchit-tchave-tchower-dress. Eat a couple of buns.
Grab a transit day pass. Hit downtown's record stores, and a couple of
used book stores that include CDs and DVDs. Drop more money than usual,
which gets me the JUDY AND MARY live 3CD set _44982 VS 1650_, _FMA: The
Sacred Star of Milos_ Blu-Ray/DVD combo, a Zoobombs album and Snog CD
singles, among other things. Okonomiyaki for a late lunch. Subway then
bus back to hotel. I wonder what's with the duststorm in front of the
Doubletree and it turns out to be a car with a fire under the hood. Wow.
Grab the suitcase and the small bag of my own sellage, and into the carnage
at the TCC.

--My customary first thing--whip around the dealers' room. Yes, I'll have
Season 2 of the remastered Magic Knight Rayearth DVDs for $10 brand new,
thank you. Find Rob's remaining volume of the Sakura Taisen manga and
score it for him. Scramble to the Nominoichi/flea market room to set up.

--After getting double-charged for the table I was sharing and getting my
money back, I settled in, paid half to my friend/co-seller, bought Mezzo
Forte (uncut) and six volumes of Battle Athletes/Victory (five more to go;
oh, joy) from her, set up, waited impatiently for friend/co-seller to make
her rounds, whip through the whole room like a maniac once she returns and
I can get away (among the scores: Rozen Maiden/Traumend and Tsukikage Ran
collections for $10 each), and then back to get into Sell Shit mode when
the room opens proper. I sold tons of my friend's DVDs (and not very many
of my own; then again, most of them were stray duplicate single volumes).
I spieled like a maniac and apologized to the women at the table beside us
for repeating the same shit over and over, who was pretty cool about it.
At least it wasn't anywhere near as loud as the "YOWEE!!" guy, who was
blessedly absent again this year (but his shop was still there and did
well; cool with me), and I think that and my "Life is Short. Watch Anime."
T-shirt helped. She did notice me running out of steam and volume near the
end. Yeesh. How does the "YOWEE!" guy keep that up? I wasn't even
bellowing. Had to inform people that, no, oddly enough, none of the adult
items are my own. Once it ends, pack up, do another round for any last
things (including a complete set of the Alien 9 manga), get everything back
to the hotel room (another use of the transit day pass), organize the
money, stick away my friend's share, and go back for something resembling
fun.

--Find my tablemate (who had to split for the last hour or so of the Nomi)
and give her back her unsold stuff and a few dollars for the one thing I
sold after she had to split. There's an enormous lineup at karaoke this
year; fugeddaboutit, it'll take forever to even start because of this. Hit
the Baby Blue Anime Room. Drop some heckles to help sharpen me for the
panel I'm co-hosting with said tablemate tomorrow night.

--I spent most of the money in my war chest by Friday (but it got me some
excellent stuff). Try not to do that next year. Walk back to hotel room
and die until morning.

Saturday

--Roadie's Breakfast at the Mariott's breakfast buffet. That consists of
stuffing yourself nearly sick with a wide variety of food in the morning
and then running on that all day, like most bands' gruntworkers do. And I
did. Did snack out that night, though.

--After the con started I ran myself friggin' ragged all weekend getting
from point A to point B. I meant to see the AMV Contest and Masquerade,
but those fell by the wayside (and I didn't get to judge the AMVs this
year). Also got to see the band marlee play; electronic backing plus
crunchy guitar and a female lead singer who brought the damage, including a
great cover of MELL's "Red Fraction" (the first Black Lagoon OP). Quite
good, but I find that I can't swing one of their expensive CDs, despite a
short merch table lineup; ironic, since I could afford the album by "piano
rocker" HiTT last year, but they sold out of them by the time I got to the
head of the long line, and much pissedoffedness ensued. I went to the band
panel the next day and told HiTT about this (through his interpreter).
"I stood in that damn line forever to buy one of your albums, and they had
sold out."
"I'm glad."
"I'm pissed!" (Someone in the audience gets a yuk out of my timing.) "I
wanted to buy one of them and I couldn't!"
(Interpreter translating.)
"...sorry."
Further venting at the head of JNorth got me HiTT's European record
company, who said they'd talk with him and do what they could--and then
dropped the ball. And some record company people wonder why illegal music
downloading is so popular (still haven't done that with any of HiTT's
music, though). I wish I'd remembered my foam earplugs this year or bought
another set when I had the opportunity on Thursday night; the wet TP I
stuck in my lugs didn't do very much (the roommate who drove bough a pair
to mute us snoring at night; it turns out that all four of us do that).
Live and learn. Thanks to the odd layout of the hall, band members had to
cut through the washrooms to get to a certain area. The two male members
of marlee passed through just as I had finished drying my hands, and I was
able to make the following deep conversation:
"Excellent show."
"Thank you."
"Thank you."
Well, at least we didn't need the interpreter.

--Some of that was spent shopping some more. One table had a few piles of
Japanese CDs. Sift through all of them and pull out a fair chunk,
including the Ah! My Goddess Singles collection, angela covering "YOU GET
TO BURNING" from Nadesico, and the Azumanga Daioh themes single. Get a
free poster (extracted from Megami magazine) from the seller. One side had
two characters from Queen's Blade; good omen. Funimation is there, like
the last two years. Of course, I can't let them go without getting in
their grill about shit they do that pisses me off. This year, it's about
how they handled the first season of Sekirei. The first and last episodes
have horizontal scrolling ED credits in Japanese; some asshole at the
company thought it'd be a great idea to put a black bar over them to cover
them up (and the animation behind them). Sekirei S1 was recently
re-released as a DVD/Blu-Ray combo pack after a DVD-only release.
Marketing Manager/video live-cast co-host Adam Sheehan hadn't watched this
version to find out if that had been fixed for this, and only just got back
to me in E-mail earlier today to inform me that it's still fucked--Blu-Ray
and all. I also serve it to him about Cat Planet Cuties, the shitty
English name they gave Asobi ni Iku yo!. He tells me that most people are
happy with it; I tell him that the people who aren't despise it totally,
and next time, bloody ask us wot have the money you want before you do that
again. Maybe do like ADV did with the Rurouni Kenshin OVAs/movie and give
us reversible covers with a choice of titles, hmm?

--I only took about 100 photos all weekend, with some of those being second
shots of the same person/group. I especially dug the slim-but-stacked
young woman who dressed as Bleach's Rangiku Matsumoto, in the school
uniform for a change, with strategic neck chain and all. Of course I
would, wouldn't I? Next year, try and take more time to stop and smell the
cosplay, and take more pictures.

--That night, Hentai 201: Show and Tell started out shambolically by the
main host, I and the panel person having to card everybody in the room,
since they forgot to supply us with someone to handle that for us. Had to
kick out a black guy who tried to present me with ID with a white guy's
picture on it. Don't assume everybody's as dumb as you, motherfucker. A
lot of the people here were rowdy as hell, and we were warned to get them
to shut up or or we would get shut down. This year, we had a mic and PA,
so we were able to corral them and make it through sometime. A ride back
to the hotel with my roomies, ask to borrow a laptop so I can try to
program my music panel (and work in time to take requests), struggle with
his Mac (I'm a PC creature), crash the hell out.

Sunday

--Down to very little cash. Eat the last of that bag of buns in our room
for breakfast, and just have coffee at the hotel breakky area. Nearly talk
the ears off my tripmates. Get on the computer in the lobby to find...that
it moves like a slug on valium. It takes forever just to securely log off
of the thing so I can return my key. Eventually, pack the cars, park at
the TCC and back to the events.

--Shop some more, for some masochistic reason. Went back to that same
dealer and found he had R2 anime DVDs out, for $5 each. The remaining CDs
were being given away as a lucky dip with a $20 purchase. A dig through
those DVDs, and I decide on--Onegai Twins 7th Shot (the OVA/ep. 13) LE,
with soundtrack CD #2 (only the first got released here) and CD wallet He
remembered me from yesterday (one of the only people to thoroughly plow
through the CD piles), gave me some more Megami posters and another CD.
After being presented with two that other buyers were declining, I asked
him to make one more dip, and he came up with the Magical Witch Punie-chan
promo CD (promo "radio" show, TV-size themes). Right, I'll have that.
Thank you. Another table had a section with four items for $10. Hmm.
Najical Blitz Tactics manga Vol. 1 (I wish the anime version had been
designed like the manga version; whatta body), Nonomura Hospital H DVD,
Idol Project collection...what do I get for #4? For pure shits and
giggles, the DVD of Battle Can Can--arguably the worst hentai anime ever
made. I remember renting the VHS tape back in the day, watching it and
wanting my money back. I'll probably never even take the shrinkwrap off.
Right. Get out now. For one thing, I have shit to do.

--Get back to the Halton room at Doubletree for my Japanese Underground
Music panel. Not as many people in to start, in part because of a mistake
in the schedule booklet which put "Saturday" as a header above the first
page of Sunday events--including my panel. Settle in at the table, have
one of my tripmates adjust the laptop display resolution to show up
properly on the HDTV (it had probs at H201), and then find out...the sound
mixer that was here for H201 last night is gone. Aw, fuck, who do I have
to kill? Ask one of the regulars at my music panel to watch my stuff,
scramble for the A/V room to air my grievance, scramble back. and in about
five minutes, a tech turns up with a case, sets me up, give him a hand,
folks, and (15 minutes late) I'm off and running. The presentation isn't
quite as slick as in the past, even with the preparation, because the
muckleism at the beginning threw me off balance, but I manage to make it
through (including three guys who came in, wouldn't stop fucking blabbing
while I was playing music, and thankfully left), and even kept up the
joking quite well. I also find out that I overprogrammed for two hours,
which blew away the request plans. Still, a few of the people who were
there came up to me while I was playing audio and video saying they had to
leave, but they wanted to stay because they loved it, and a couple more who
stuck out the whole slot picked my brain for musical advice afterward,
which gave my ego a well-needed boost. Hopefully next time I'll be more
prepared. Maybe I'll even get real gone and prepare a Powerpoint
presentation instead of the ghetto setup of MP3s, video clips and JPEG
slides for next year. After that, turn in my panelist sheet for funky
stuff and find...they didn't make any special T-shirts this year, but would
you like a size L from 2007? Fine. Next year, I'll put it towards a
weekend pass for the year after that.

--I was hoping to catch one of Helen McCarthy's industry panels, but the
only one I was aware of her doing was about Japanese fashion, which I don't
care about. However, it was very nice to run into her in the hallway and
chat with her for a couple of minutes. I don't know if she actually
remembered me from last year (I escorted her from a booth at the dealers'
room in the TCC back to the Doubletree for one of her panels on Sunday
after she told me she didn't remember how to get there, and we chatted
along the way about the recently deceased singer/songwriter Gil
Scott-Heron), but she still got into the convo. With that done, onwards.

--One of the Japanese guests of honour was voice actress Yuu Asakawa
(http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=336). After
looking up her roles, I packed DVDs from Azumanga Daioh (Sakaki-san) and
Gravion (Mizuki Tachibana) for her to autograph, but schedules did not
permit me to go to any of her signings this weekend, so, off to her Q&A
panel right after my music panel. Two of my tripmates are there; cool.
She is able to speak English quite well, but still occasionally has to
revert to Japanese and get the interpreter happening. She is asked what
she thinks of different parts of Japan; I pitch in asking what she thinks
of Osaka (my Third Home), and reveals that she comes off so much like a
local that she got lots of foreigners asking her for directions, which she
couldn't help with. I follow that up with "I might have been one of those
foreigners. Sorry," which gets a good laugh out of the crowd. She's very
down to earth; she talks about how she's looking forward to dinner and
beers after the con, and replies to an audient's mention of her ex-husband
with "You shut your mouth!" Later I ask if she could sign a couple of DVDs
for me after the panel (which makes a few people in the crowd audibly
uncomfortable; their problem, not mine). She says yes, so I choose two of
the three I brought, take out the cover inserts and wrap them around the
case, boogie up to the front once it's announced that the panel has
finished and get the covers signed. One of my tripmates takes a couple of
photos of this. He asks me after I thank her and totter away through the
building crowd around her why I had her sign the plastic on the DVD cases;
I put the second one back in to show him that that wasn't the case. Now,
Closing Ceremonies. Later, a closer look at her list of work in anime
revealed she had major roles in the 18+ anime titles Angel Blade and VIPER
GTS (the latter is overdue to be added to BU). I wonder how she would have
reacted if I'd busted one of those out for her to sign.

--A bunch of our group make it to the main ballroom in time to catch the
last part of the improv group the 404s' performance. Nippy, but some of
the microphoines are so crap that we can't make some of it out. At this
time, we run into a long-time local friend of ours, who is wearing a sash
with his passes from each and every Anime North, from Year One to present,
pinned on it. Right, get a photo of him. After this ends, some of the
audience leaves and one of our group hustles us to an empty set of seats
close to the stage. The modern-equipped people find out where on site the
rest of our group is; we'll meet up soon. A local Taiko drum group blow
our minds, several guests come up to tell us about the great weekend they
had (and one of them gets us to spiel en masse for his podcast), we get the
sad departure AMV and right, get outta here. After overcoming a brief bit
of drama I won't get into (no, it didn't involve me), we take a few more
photos (including one cosplaying young woman who makes me bite my tongue so
I don't ask her to please move the pass from in front of her impressive
cleavage), and, once all of us are gathered, time to go. We run across
some other friends of ours in the parking lot, and get into a long
conversation, depite the rain we're now starting to get. This delays our
departure, but then again, we're not so bogged by traffic when we finally
do set out.

--Stop at Lick's Homeburgers & Ice Cream in Scarborough for dinner,
alternate between listening to music and flopping asleep and awake again,
stop at the Flying J truck stop in Napanee (its second most famous entity,
after Avril Lavigne) for provisio, which includes energy drinks, finally
arrive back in Ottawa in the wee hours, and there's nothing left but
sticking extra media away and overcoming the post-con depression. And
finishing writing this. Good night.

Watson
Oh, and thanking Belldandy that he didn't get heat rash this year, despite
the wicked temperatures. Maybe baby powder gets better with age.

[Bobbie Sellers]

On 06/06/2012 10:31 PM, Dave Watson wrote:
> On Wed, 30 May 2012 22:00:08 GMT, Rob Kelk wrote:
>
>> On 30 May 2012 09:33:35 GMT, Dave Baranyi<anthony...@bell.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Are any of the folks who attended Anime North 2012 going to post about
>>> their experiences? (You were there, weren't you Dave W?)
>>
>> I know DaveW went - he found an out-of-print translated manga for me. I
>> also know he's been busy since he got back - he still has the book...
>
> Finally got the book to him on Sunday. Enjoy.
>
> This won't be as slick as the last one I published (two years ago), with
> the odd spelling error and occasional flip between past and present tense,
> but then again, it accurately fits my mood at AN this year--rushed and kind
> of desperate.
>
> AN2012. I came. I saw. I pissed away all my money again.

Thanks for the excellent report.
I am too ill to go to any anime cons myself
but you help make up for that.

bliss

[Dave Baranyi]

Dave Watson <dwbeing...@fuspamma.gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 30 May 2012 22:00:08 GMT, Rob Kelk wrote:
>
>> On 30 May 2012 09:33:35 GMT, Dave Baranyi <anthony...@bell.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>Are any of the folks who attended Anime North 2012 going to post about
>>>their experiences? (You were there, weren't you Dave W?)
>>
>> I know DaveW went - he found an out-of-print translated manga for me. I
>> also know he's been busy since he got back - he still has the book...
>
> Finally got the book to him on Sunday. Enjoy.
>
> This won't be as slick as the last one I published (two years ago), with
> the odd spelling error and occasional flip between past and present tense,
> but then again, it accurately fits my mood at AN this year--rushed and kind
> of desperate.
>
> AN2012. I came. I saw. I pissed away all my money again.
>

(clipping Dave W's very entertaining report...)

> Watson
> Oh, and thanking Belldandy that he didn't get heat rash this year, despite
> the wicked temperatures. Maybe baby powder gets better with age.
>

Dave W - Are you going to post some of your photos some place where we can see
them?

Thanks again -

Dave Baranyi

[Tank]

Always a very entertaining report. Thanks Dave.

--Edwin E.