Velvetpaws

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07/08/2003 Entry: "AX2003 report"

 

Okay, I'm back from AX2003. Want the scoop? Check behind the cut tag.

The plane ride out was innocuous enough. There were at least two other people also going to AX--I overhead a pair of fanboys discussing the finer details of Robotech/Macross with another passenger who also happened to watch anime, and there was a woman traveling alone who set off my fandar, but I was too shy to strike up a conversation and find out for sure. Alas. I *did* wonder if the other discussion I overheard in the waiting area was going to set the tone for the trip. A woman was telling her family, in tones of mingled awe and outrage, that British scientists had announced that within two years they'd be able to effect a womb transplant. She was talking about gay men having babies. M-preg! I managed not to laugh.

Arrived in Orange County airport on time and was met by K-chan and Sionna. Squee! We went back to K-chan's house, where I was shown various bit of very cool costumes-in-progress. K-chan made a quick trip out to pick up Jane, and then headed off to work, while the three of us settled in to finish up some of the details of Sionna's costume. Much hilarity was had with feathers, Fray-chek, and Mr. Pliers. I managed not to stab Sionna or myself with the needle. K-chan's mother picked us up later and took us to her house for dinner. By the time K-chan and her father arrived and food was in the offing, jet-lag had smacked me down bigtime. I somehow kept from falling head-first into the spaghetti, mumbled something hopefully polite to K-chan's mother, and collapsed into bed as soon as we returned to K-chan's place.

Morning dawned bright and early, and after much packing and cleaning up of the post-costuming chaos of the living room, including picking up stray bits of feathers, we departed for the con. The trip over was less than smooth--we started off having "fun" with ATM-finding and crazed parking lot drivers, and ended up in a small accident. As we were turning onto a freeway on-ramp, a woman on a bicycle came off the sidewalk and rode right into the side of K-chan's car. Some scary bad moments ensued while we tried to get through to 911 and to figure out how badly she was hurt. The police came, the Highway Patrol came, the fire department came, and they closed down the whole ramp while they sorted us out. The woman went off with the paramedics, her puppy (who had been in the bike basket but didn't seem hurt at all) went off with the police, and after giving our contact info and descriptions of the accident we were let go and continued on to the con, somewhat shaken. Fortunately, this incident wasn't a portent of things to come--the rest of the weekend was blessedly free of traffic accidents, train wrecks, and other disasters.

We got to the con, checked into the Marriott, and then went and stood in line for a long time to get our badges. Next year I'm going to go paid preregistered--I prereged but wasn't organized enough to prepay this year. After lunch, we did a first sweep of the dealers' room--the insane line of people waiting for it to open had gone away by then--and after that we rested, had dinner, and then worked some more on costume stuff. I think that was most of Thursday.

There actually wasn't very much in the way of panels that I was interested in, but Friday morning Jane and I went to the Yuuki Noboteru/Akane Kazuki panel, which was pretty neat. Akane (the director of Escaflowne, among other things) was asked what Escaflowne character he's most like; he answered Dilandau (!). Jane wanted to ask Yuuki about whether the Clover music video would ever be released and would he ever reprint his X and Clover doujinshi but couldn't work up the nerve. I would have asked it for her, but I asked a rather pointless Clover music video question last year and still felt leftover stupid from that. There were giveaways at the end of the panel and one of the people who won (in a giant contenst of rock-paper-scissors) was a cosplayer in well-done Nuriko robes. The crowd died when the winner spoke up to select a prize and turned out to be male. No one had realized! (I think Akane kind of eye-popped.) After that, we used our hotel vouchers to get masquerade tickets, then grabbed pizza for lunch and went off to wait in line for AMV tickets. We got those too, did another run through the dealers' room, then checked out the art show. There really wasn't much in the art show this year that I thought was fabulous, though Jane became totally obsessed with a Yuna picture and spent most of the weekend stalking its bid sheet.

At around five-ish we went to the Kajiura Yuki concert. That *was* absolutely fabulous, and probably one of my favorite parts of the weekend. I wanted so badly to get up and dance at a couple of points but was too shy to do so by myself. I did get a pair of nice music video daydreams out of it, though--Schuldig and the rest of Schwarz from the elemental Weiss fic's sequel to "Key of the Twilight" and Subaru/Seishirou from late "Sakura" to "Vanity." Mmm. Jane picked up a copy of her album "Fiction" after the concert; I didn't because I didn't have enough money on me for both the CD and dinner, and afterward I regretted it because the Pioneer booth was sold out of it by the next morning. Grr. I've ripped Jane's copy for the moment because *I* *must* *have,* and I'll pick up my own as soon as I can.

After the concert, Jane and I bounced back to the hotel room and were totally floored to see Sionna in her Yui wig. Wow, did she look different! And cool! Our fifth roomie--Cyndie--had shown up, and the four of us went to dinner in the hotel restaurant. Jane and I had to sprint out early, though, because we had to get on line for the AMVs. Ah, the AX Music Video contest. How we love thee--but *not* thy lines. Grr. Yes, despite having tickets and getting there around 8:00, we had to stand in line for ages. Then, once we got up to the door, it turned out that our tickets were for nonexistent seats, so we had to join a rapidly growing disgruntled mob of people with bogus tickets. Time passed. The fanboys got rowdy. The fangirls got bitchy. Security hid behind the door curtain and occasionally peeked out at us, dread writ plain on their faces. They tried to placate us by saying that they were just waiting for a bullhorn to arrive so they could tell us what to do. We were not appeased. They also kept trying to make us cram back away from the doors, but I for one wasn't moving. Sorry, I was at the front of the AMV mob *last* year, when the people behind wouldn't stop pressing forward and people were getting mashed into the barricades. They were trying to get us to press back against a glass and steel railing with a very long three-story drop behind it. Thank you, no, and good night.

At any rate, the staff finally gave up their plan to swap our fake tickets for real ones--they got everybody else seated and then just told us to go in and sit wherever there were empty chairs. Jane and I got pretty good seats, toward the center and just back of the middle of the room. There was a bit of annoying glare on one of the screens, but it was certainly watchable--some people behind us sounded like they were trying to make it the AMV's "chair" by yelling "screen!" before every song, but I think they were overreacting just a bit.

The AMVs themselves? For Drama, I thought it was between the Metropolis video to "Center of the Sun" and the Final Fantasy X one. ("Center of the Sun" won the category.) In Action, there was a nice Macross video to Bon Jovi's "Every Day," but it was really between the lovely Escaflowne movie one, a Hellsing video, and a mix of Blood the Last Vampire, Hellsing, and Vampire Hunter D to "Mitternacht." "Mitternacht" took the prize. Comedy almost killed me with "The Leaves of Happaness," the "Yatta!" song done with a variety of anime. It had a sizable X TV chunk, as well as some Weiss, which made me scream like the fangirl that I am. I can't argue with the category winner, though, which was "The Chibi Things that Kill." Cute mascots wreak havoc and beat up various anime heroes! Jigglypuff bitch-slaps Kenshin! Sumomo chi-blasts Vegeta! "Chibi" won best in show, unsurprisingly.

The last category was AmTV, or "stuff that doesn't fit in the other categories." There was apparently a very pretty Utena movie video, but I had to close my eyes for that as I'm trying very hard not to be spoilered. There was a nice-ish Ah My Goddess video that I liked somewhat. The one that actually won the category--"Can't Stop the Rock" to a mix of anime--hadn't thrilled me on first watching, but it grew on me the more I saw it. Sumomo seems to have been a favorite this year, because she was in this video too. Another video that won a couple of awards (Staff Favorite and AMV Creator's Choice) was a RaXephon video to "Euphoria." I think I'm going to have to see this series. Finally the "Cojones" award went to "Without GTO," a GTO video set to Eminem's "Without Me." I'm not a big fan of Eminem, and at first the video really made me not want to watch GTO at all, but it also grew on me. We all voted for the videos on little cards using crayons, and then it was very late, so we went back to the room and fell into bed. (Well, Jane and I did. I don't know about the rest of the con-goers.)

Saturday was largely spent helping K-chan and Sionna get into their costumes and get to various places. Playing entourage was amusing. The two of them were doing a particularly obscure but very lovely set of Suzaku no Miko/Seiryuu no Miko outfits; Jane and I carried the bags so that they could stop and have pictures taken of them without encumbrance. Once they got settled in at masquerade rehearsal, it was time for another dealers' room sweep, and then a visit to artists' alley, where I think I disturbed one of the artists. Well, she had some Weiss pics with cat ears and tails, and I asked her if she had an Omi because, well, my catboy-Omi fic eats my brain. And she did, but he wasn't colored in yet. So I was like, "Can I have him once he's colored? Will you hold him for me? Should I pay you in advance?" all with the scary stalker fangirl *ping-ping-bounce* vibe going on. She was like, "...just come back tomorrow." Okay! =^_^= Next came dinner, then back to the convention center for the masquerade itself.

The line-standing for the masquerade was not at all ridiculous, and the show started virtually on time. All went smoothly, though the MC was kind of annoying. There were very few cringe-inducing presentations, though the guy dressed as Ranma who did the Fight Club rant left me kind of going "huh?" He and the singing Team Rocket guy went on a little long for what they were doing. Dude, just because you've got two minutes doesn't mean you have to use it. Highlights included the Stitchin' Babes doing four angels from Wish, complete with huge feathered wings (!), an 8th MS Team Gundam mech which was really rather impressive, a Kingdom Hearts group with an awesome Sephiroth, and a Macross group dancing to the Village People's "In the Navy." But the indisputable winner was the Spirited Away group with giant-foam-head Yubaba, No-Face, frog-guy, Haku and Chihiro (Haku's hair was somewhat lacking, alas), and dragon-Haku on a stick. Trust me, it was really cool. And K-chan and Sionna won an Honorable Mention for craftsmanship! Woo hoo! (Here are pics: K-chan as Miaka, Shi-chan as Yui, and the two of them together.

Sunday was a winding-down kind of day. We cleared and checked out of the room, then did our last purchases. I stalked artists' alley until my prey showed up, then pounced and made off with the Omi-kitty. It turned out, upon closer inspection, that he's probably an Omi-puppy--the "woof!" is an indication--but hey. Furry Omi. It's all good.^_^ I'm thinking about asking the artist if I can make myself a T-shirt from this picture, but considering the way he's bounding forward, giant paw-hands first, it might be kind of alarming to see him springing off my chest. We'll see.

After a yummy brunch at K-chan's place of work, we joined the CalTech mafia for the art auction and the charity auction. Jane made off with her precious Yuna after a fierce but incremental bidding war with the woman sitting behind her; she finally jump-bid up to $100 and won the day. The auctioneer was the same guy who'd MCed the masquerade; luckily he was much better as an auctioneer than as an MC. The CalTech crew made a satisfactory haul from the charity auction, and then it was time for closing ceremonies. Well, first it was time for the rearranging of stage furniture and the playing of music videos from past years. There were people pissing and moaning behind me, wanting them to play "good" videos, because the ones that were being played were all low-key, lulling instrumentals, and I'm like, dude, they can't play the kick-ass videos because they don't *want* the crowd stirred up and yelling. This is the equivalent of hold music. Deal with it. I think these might have been the same people who were being moronic during the actual closing ceremonies--after everyone else had stopped applauding, one person would continue clapping very, very slowly into the silence, and then they would giggle and chortle. Dude, not even remotely funny. Grow. A. Brain. Thank you.

At some point during this, we also had a reading of the masquerade winners. The MC went through the Best in Shows, the Judges Awards, and then she was like, "Oh, here are some Honorable Mentions. I guess I'll read them too." Well, *yeah.* We felt much wrath on Sionna and K-chan's behalf. To make up for the slight, Jane and I shrieked at maximum decibelage, blowing out the eardrums of at least two of the CalTech guys. Oops, sorry about that....

The closing ceremonies themselves were fun. I actually hadn't seen most of the GoHs; after Kazuki Yao got up on stage in his orange shorts and silver Rod Stewart haircut to announce a new Bastard!! series, I was really regretting missing his panel. He at least looked like he'd had a really good time. The director of Kenshin was a bit more dour; he was one of the GoHs who said that he'd originally had doubts about attending the con, and though he also said that he'd had a good time despite himself, he didn't seem nearly so definite about it. (I wonder if it had anything to do with the showing of "The Chibi Things that Kill" right before the closing ceremonies?) After much cheering and the official ending of the con, we went out to dinner, then back to K-chan's. Sionna made a valiant attempt to fangirl us on Rockman.exe and Kamen Rider Agito, but I was to the point of not being able to keep both eyes open at once, so I had to go to bed. The trip home the next day was uneventful--I slept most of the way on the plane. And there you are. Or here I am. Whatever.

In general, the con for me was fun, low-key, and basically a really great time of hanging out with friends. Jane tried to slore me on many things, including Fruits Basket, HikaGo, Double Julia and the other cross-dressing series whose name I can't remember. I took almost no pictures, sadly; I just never remembered to have my camera on me, and the one day I did, my battery was low. There were a lot of good cosplayers, but not as many Weiss as last year. We saw three Ayas, two Youjis, one Schuldig, two boy-Kens (one rather nice!), and one boy-Omi. I was kind of surprised, because last year there were Omis up the--um. Let me rephrase that. There were a lot of Omis. I suppose the fanbase is moving on to something else. There was one extremely genki guy dressed up as Duo whose name badge read Duo's Uke. (!) Many yaoi jokes were made at the charity auction, when one bidder who was clearly straining his wallet yelled that for what he was paying he wanted at least a handshake from City of Hope representative John Taylor (not *that* John Taylor, you Durannies), and then he and the MC ran with the joke for the rest of the bid. (The guy didn't win the piece, but John Taylor gave him a hug anyway.) There wasn't a yaoi panel, as far as I could tell, and if there was some locus of fangirl activity I wasn't able to find it. I mean, there were fangirls running about all over, but there didn't seem to be any real gathering place. Maybe Yaoicon has taken over that aspect from AX. There was one girl walking around in a "Yaoi Is Stupid" T-shirt, which was mildly annoying. Yeah, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but I don't walk around wearing a shirt that insults your fandom, do I? The fanfic panel was ridiculously late on Friday night, plus it conflicted with the AMVs, so I didn't go.

Swag-wise, I was extremely restrained this con. I'd banned myself from getting any English-language manga or US anime releases, because I can pick those up at home, and the other fangirls seemed to have beaten me to the doujinshi, because there was *nothing* for Weiss or X, the two main series that I pursue. There aren't any new series that I'm really, really into, so I wasn't really tempted by any artbooks. What I ended up getting, aside from my furry Omi (hanyaaan!), was: volumes 1 and 3 of the new Earthian release (couldn't find 2, argh), volume 3 of the Ja Weiss! doujinshi anthologies, 3 Weiss Kreuz Gluhen pencilboards (I wasn't going to get them due to not liking the character designs that much, but oh well, in the end I couldn't resist), one Gestalt pencilboard, two Wolf's Rain pencilboards (Kiba and Tsume), a print of a nice pencil-drawn Kamui from another artist in artists' alley (he had a color version too, but the pencil version was much nicer and more detailed), the Wolf's Rain and .hack//sign OSTs, and two different Kamui T-shirts (one TV-style, one manga-style). My luggage wasn't even strained. ^^

So a good time was had by all. Well, by me, anyway. ^^ I'm now looking forward to Shoujocon in August, and possibly Otakon, also in August. On the down side, I got absolutely nothing done on this trip. No writing, no C&Cs, no correspondence. BLAH. Oh, well, I did about 3/4 of a page of the start of the GW/Esca crossover finale, but that was really it. Hopefully now that I'm home I'll find that I've been inspired by all the fangirling and I can finally kick something into motion. *crosses fingers* ^_^

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Replies: 2 comments

 

Stupid fangirl moment: Kajiura Yuki r0xx0rs! Dang, I didn't know she was gonna be the musical guest. What coolness. Pardon me while I hug my .hack//SIGN soundtracks. I assume you got the first one--didja get the 2nd one, too?

Posted by Kristin O. @ 07/08/2003 08:00 PM EST

I just got the first one, though I'll probably pick up the second at Shoujocon. I've really just been listening to her new solo album, though. Over and over and over. ^_^ "Key of the Twilight," "Fiction," and "Vanity" in particular own me. *meow*

Posted by N-chan @ 07/14/2003 09:40 AM EST

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