JOURNAL: TnAdct1 (Joseph Klemm)

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  • Hey, No Anime Convention Is Complete Without It.... 2002-02-17 12:30:08 Rounding out my coverage of Katsucon is my cosplay contest. It turned out to be fun time with some clever skits. Among some of the ones that I liked:

    The Donut Man: A youngster as Vash does a very accurate portrayal of the blonde outlaw and his fetish for donuts.

    X-Rated: In a clever skit, two characters from X protest that the only character that’s still alive at the end was the bishonen hero, only to have some confrontation by CCS’s Meilin and a guy called Badly-Animated Man.

    The Sailor Moon Episode You’re Not Supposed to See: A Sailor Moon skit where Sailor Moon, upon seeing Tuxedo Mask and one of the Starlights fighting over her, knocks them both unconscious and worries that she ended up killing them. Cleverest part: the rose bit, which included another Starlight and James from Pokemon, who steals from the two KO’ed guys at the end of the skit.

    Final Fantasy VII in Four Minutes: A brief summary of the events of FF VII set to the Chocobo music from the game. Yes, the summary includes Cloud in a dress.

    Party Night!: Yep, this is a skit inspired by the Party Night episode of DiGi Charat, with the DiGi Charat trio performing the tune Party Night. In the end, the trio is joined by some Akihabara citizens (aka multi-colored finger-like people) and the yellow bear-like creature that sits in the box.

    Psychic Anime Friends Network: In a spoof of the Psychic Friends Network, one of the villains from Metal Gear Solid answers the problems of various anime character callers. Meanwhile, in the background, Snake (in Box Mode) evades various soldiers.

    Yuna and Rikku: In a short, but funny skit, Yuna from Final Fantasy X tries to perform a summon for the audience, but gets interrupted by Rikku, who sees how big Yuna (specifically, her boobs) have grown.

    Don’t Sleep With Your Sister: The group behind Gilbert and Sullivan’s SDF Macross (from Neko-Con) return with another hilarious musical skit. This time around, a guy questions love love affairs (Angel Sanctuary’s Setsuna and his sister, Utena’s Nanami and her brother, Evangelion’s Shinji and Rei (the clone of his mom), and Saber Marionette J’s Otaru and the android Lime) and instead suggests sleeping with the Misu sisters from Sorcerer Hunters. The clever part is that the whole thing was done by seven people who change costumes during the skit (in the end, the cast is dressed as the “Don’t Sleep With Your Sister” guy, Touga, Shinji, Lime, Otaru, Tira, and Chocolate). The scary part (somewhat inspired by the skit) is that I myself, if I’d were to have a one-night stand with an anime character , would currently choose to sleep with fellow Saber Marionette Cherry (hey, I know better than to sleep with Dejiko and Puchiko).

    The Katsucon cosplay is hopefully a good start to a year of fun cosplay skits. 
  • A Major Reason for Attending Conventions 2002-02-17 12:28:54 The first thing I did at Katsucon was to see the videos of the AMV Contest. Here’s my comments of some of the videos:

    Entries 1-10: I wanted to see all of Kusoyaro’s video. However, the “lost wallet” situation caused me to miss the end of it. Thus, the first good video that I saw all the way was the Witchy Woman/Slayers OVA video, which has some clever lip-sync bits during the chorus and bridge. Finally, of the first ten entrants: the winner of the “WTF video idea award” goes to setting Linkin Park’s In the End to Marmalade Boy.

    Entries 11-20: One video that I waited for to appear at the convention was the “Sweet Transvestite” AMV that appeared during the Otakon AMV Overrun. It definitely proved to be a big hit at Katsucon thanks to various things (the cosplay stills; footage from Magic Users Club, Dual, and Gundam Wing; the Sailor Moon Says bit at the end). The other good video in this group was Aluminum Studios’s Obnoxious Neighbors video, which was a funny video set to Totoro (how many other Totoro videos have the older sister going Super Saiyan?).

    Entries 21-30: The two videos that Iserlohn Productions made were good. With the first one tying an early Gainax project (Daicon IV) with a more recent title (FLCL), while the second one is a great anime introduction to Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar. Also in this group was local AMV maker Senta Miller’s debut in drama. Personally, the anime choice (Berserk) was excellent considering that Berserk is not only a fresh anime to use when it comes to AMV, but it also was a “power anime” title when it was shown at C-SMAC (the anime club that Senta (and I) attends).

    Entries 31-40: One video stands out in this category: Dance Dance Evangelion, a video in which the EVA’s take part in a Para Para dance. The videos was very innovative and easily demonstrated some cool computer animation effects. As for other good videos in the category: I liked the Princess Mononoke/When Worlds Collide video and the Sailor Moon spoof of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

    Entries 41+: The best video in this group was Scott Melzer’s latest: Captain Tylor All-Star. The music definitely fit with the careless feel of Captain Tylor. Also good was the Ein the Wonder Hamster video. One last thing to say about the AMV contest: in the last video (Blowing in the Wind to Princess Mononoke), it’s hard not to laugh at Ashitaka and San lip-syncing at the end of the video. 
  • Well, I Changed My Mind Again About Katsucon 2002-02-17 12:27:12 After going back and forth about whether I should go or not (after all, I did say Monday that I changed my mind that I wasn’t going), I finally decided that I would go to Katsucon yesterday. It turned out to be a fun experience. Here’s a list of what was good and bad:

    GOOD:

    The AMV and Cosplay Contests: Both of them had some interesting bits, which I will cover in later entries.

    Dealers’ Room: One thing that worried me was that the Dealer’s Room security would be too strict due to the policy it had (luckily, I bought some of the other things early just in case I decided not to go to Katsucon). It turned out to be not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I was able to find the Love Hina Collector’s Box (the only thing I didn’t buy early, since it won’t actually hit stores until Tuesday) at the Dealers’ Room and bought it. I also picked up a few pins of Shinobu and Kaolla from Love Hina and Cherry from Saber Marionette J (my original buying plan was to get Shinobu, Cherry, and Puchiko (from DiGi Charat), but the Puchiko pin cost more, but I chose Kaolla instead). I was interested in getting volume 5 of Urusei Yatsura on DVD, but I didn’t have enough money (as in my personal money, not money for food). Finally, I saw something that I should look for next time I go to a dealers’ room or an anime store: Para Para Max Volume 5 (Definitely know that it has para para versions of the opening themes to Saber Marionette J, Sailor Moon Stars, and Blue Seed).

    Cosplay pictures: There was a lot of interesting cosplay costumes at the convention, and I definitely took a lot of pictures of the cosplayers (one and one-sixth rolls of film, to be specific).

    THE BAD:

    Forgetfulness: I forgot to put my wallet back in my pocket after registering, and I ended up missing the first three videos (actually parts of the first and third videos and all of the second video) in order to retrieve my wallet. Then, I accidentally left my Katsucon bag on the table while taking some cosplay pictures (luckily, nothing was stolen and nobody touched it). I definitely need to work on my memory when it comes to short-term things.

    Who Katsu Is It Anyway: I like the idea of convention versions of Whose Line is It Anyway, and I personally enjoyed the Neko-Con version. However, the Katsucon version definitely needed some work, as there was some microphone problems and some skits that bombed (Alphabet, for instance). Personally, I’d rather see the AMV winners (which was cut from last night due to time constraints) than the Katsucon version of Whose Line that took place last night.

    No Nearby Fast Food Restaurants in the Area (at least to my knowledge): Personally, I’m not into deli sandwiches or seafood, thus my diet during the convention consisted of Pocky, a few brownies, and some sodas.

    All in all, Katsucon was a fun time this year, though next year maybe I should spend the whole weekend instead of just Saturday. 
  • Bad News Involving Katsucon 2002-02-11 10:20:12 Last night, after much thinking, I decided that, even though I was looking forward to it, there's no way my plan of spending Saturday at Katsucon will work without major disappointment. Thus, I have decided to not attend the convention and instead worry about Animazement.

    Two main factors contributed to this decision. The first one was the fact that, with the people running it not planning to show the same videos on Saturday, I may miss either some or all of the main event that interest me: the AMV contest. The second and most important factor that affected my decision is the security at Katsucon. Sure, I don't mind the 7,000 capacity limit and the "no photos during cosplay" rule. However, it's the fact that there won't be any bag check that bugged me in a major way. There's no way I can go on my own to Katsucon for one day with these security rules and no bag checks since:

    1. The "no coat in the dealers room" rule will be bad either way, considering the February weather and no hotel room (either face the cold without a coat or not go into the dealers room at all).
    2. The way the "no bag check" rule will be going, I may only be going into the dealer's room once (and personally once trip isn't enough when it comes to anime cons unless you have your buying plans completely budgetted).

    It's a bummer that I had to cancel my Katsucon plans. However, with the exception of the AMV Contest, I can make up all the things that I will miss (i.e. going to www.fansview.com to see the photos, getting anime DVD's(Love Hina and Mini Goddesses) at my local Suncoast, hopefully finding DDR at an anime store). 
  • Six Days Until My Day At Katsucon.... 2002-02-10 21:40:21 ....and it's a bummer that I may miss some or all of the AMV contest, as the 10:00 AM showing of the videos will not be the same as Friday night's. Anyway, today was another day of anime club.

    As usual, we saw some Initial D (setting up for the next major race in the series), Angelic Layer (building up the love rectangle between Misaki, her friends, and Icchan's brother), and Love Hina (the idol singer episode was okay, but the "feminine" Motoko episode was downright funny). However, instead of Inu-Yasha (which I didn't care about), the club watched two episodes of Excel Saga, which continues to prove to be a hilarious program (the club has been viewing that show during last summer, yet the licensing of the show somewhat held back the viewing of later episodes).

    During first break, I showed Justin Emerson's "Soul of an Angel" and Otaku Outpost's "One Day More" to the club. While I'm unsure about Soul of an Angel, One Day More did have a positive reaction to the club. In fact, one person asked if it was the whole video, as he stated that the download at OtakuOutpost.com is incomplete (i.e. cuts off during the shots of Macross screens floating by a space battle scene).

    For the second break, people had a choice of watching either the first episode of Saber Marionette J in the main room or some AMV's from AWA in another room. Considering how I like AMV's (not to mention my Saber Marionette preference), I stuck to the AMV's. However, I occassionally went in the main room and comically chanted for episode 4, which some club members felt was shades of the club's founder (yep, his Saber Marionette preference is the same as me :) ).

    Again, it's a bummer that due to the amount on videos entered for it, I will miss some or all of the AMV contest. However, I'm hoping that Katsucon will be fun when I go there Saturday. 
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