asian-invasion

I had the story of everything noteworthy that happened during this day but the computer ate it. Lost. Gone. Two hours of writing disappeared. I’ll now attempt to tell the tale with photos.

Saturdays at our hotel meant breakfast with their mascot, Mr. Bite. Of course I wanted pictures.

I wonder if the guy in the costume was more enthused about getting pictures with the rest of us. I still need to show this to Jessica (right).

Everyone separated again and went about their plans. My wife and I didn’t have much of anything set up aside from the Masquerade rehearsal and performance later that evening. We did, however, manage to see the Q&A with Japanese seiyou (voice actor) Kappei Yamagichi and see a few amusing photo shoots.

I don’t know if this person camped out here all day for photo ops, but many were had.

Bow down to your Penguin Master…or else!

Here is the best shot I could get of Kappei Yamaguchi (Ranma 1/2, InuYasha, Death Note). He was a funny guy.

Metal Gear Sonic. By the way, if you’re not familiar with the game Metal Gear Solid, this is what you see on screen when the main character (Snake) communicates with his commander, Otacon. Otacon…Otakon…get it?

A group of Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumaiya cosplayers.

Where were these people for Friday’s Ouran High School Host Club photo shoot when I was Beelzenef?

This scene should be self-explanatory.

Bleach photo shoot. The older guy in the middle is the first ever Court Guard Squad 1 Captain I’ve ever seen played…bravo!

A couple of Narutards find themselves in the wrong photo shoot.

Best…shot…ever!

It was nearing 6:pm and time to line up for Masquerade. We decided we would be there to entertain rather than compete. Our sketch idea wasn’t the most original, not many people recognized our characters (Rozen Kreuz Orden members from the anime Trinity Blood) and our presentation was never actually rehearsed, but we weren’t the worst of the lot. The event was held at the First Mariner Arena, a major live venue in Baltimore, and thousands of people came to see what we and the other 35 or so groups had to offer.

My wife and Masquerade partner, “teh Kitteh.” She only puffed (as opposed to smoked) cloves for the character.

After we were finished there, it was 10:pm so we headed back to the BCC. By this time, we were both sick and she was tired of walking. I wanted to cap off the evening with “Voice Actors After Dark,” which is a Q&A panel where the participants are encouraged to have a few drinks before answering questions. It’s always fun times, although my wife decided she had to retreat to the bathroom and call a friend of hers. I waited outside for about a half-hour before I gave up and went into the panel. To my surprise, she didn’t seem upset at all when I came out that I attended without her.

We wandered back to the hotel room and found our 17 year-old comrade, Jenni, snuggled up with a guy we’d never seen or heard of. If you knew her, you’d understand our surprise. I ordered food for some of us in the room because we were craving. Jessica came in a while later and had apparently messed her injured ankle up further earlier during the day. Alex returned some time after that and had informed us about an accident on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (between Baltimore and Salisbury) which had closed down traffic to only one lane. Guess which side that ended up being on? Tune in next time and find out.

After I had packed most of our stuff for the journey home the next day, I had food and took in some Shin Chan on TV. Again, sleep wasn’t plentiful but it was enough to get me through. Wait until you hear about the wretched trip home…

It was the official beginning of Otakon. After a whole two hours of sleep the night before, I was prepared to drag myself everywhere for the next 16 or so hours. I usually find some kind of second and third wind to get me through.

The day began with everyone making last-minute preparations with their costumes before heading up to the Cloud Club for breakfast. Afterward, we all began our journey following whatever schedules we had planned for ourselves. I had forgotten to bring the list of photo shoots I wanted to attend so that part of the weekend would be given to improvisation.

I had also given up trying to make it to every panel or event I had planned for since I know how plans tend to go. There were so many outstanding costumes to photograph and I had only so much battery power and storage on my camera’s memory cards. Before the day was half done, I had burned through nearly 200 frames. I don’t like to downgrade the photo quality for the sake of increasing the number of frames I have available, but sometimes compromises must be made.

During the early afternoon, my wife walked with Elian through the dealer hall while I went back to the room to change into another costume. The one I was wearing at the time had already seen its respective photo shoot and I had another scheduled. When I returned to BCC, I ran into the pair as they came out of the Gaia Online panel. I managed to see about the last half-hour of it when the web site’s upcoming MMORPG (Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game), zOMG, was being unveiled.

The second shoot I was to take part in never happened because no one else showed up but me and two other characters from Ouran High School Host Club. No matter because my next task was to check myself and my wife in for Saturday’s Masquerade event. More on that next time.

We found our friends from Norfolk (Matt, Jen, and Joy) after I returned from First Mariner Arena and we relaxed for a bit. The next hour would be dedicated to figuring out what our plans for food would entail. Everyone had finally settled on Subway but no one was sure how to get there. We had two to choose from: the overcrowded food court at the end of the BCC skywalk or the shop just north of the Arena. By grace of someone’s iPhone and its navigational system, we found the latter Subway in less than a half-hour.

By the time we arrived, it was around 8:pm and, all the while, I was missing the JAM Project concert Otakon was presenting at the Arena. It would have been my first time seeing a Japanese musical act performing live and I wanted to go, but the urge wasn’t enough to rush my evening meal. I had to compromise my sandwich because this particular Subway had run out of lettuce and pickles. I got more than a 50-cent break on the price because they had also run out of change.

It was almost 9:pm and we all decided to head back to BCC. My video project, AMV Salad 2, was scheduled to be among the fan-produced parodies starting in another hour and I wanted to gauge reaction from the viewing audience. I separated from the pack and set off to find the event location.

After being misdirected several times, I had finally found the place where the funnies were being shown. The tech crew were having trouble with the VCR (I know…”wtf?”) so the whole thing was delayed by about a half-hour. Just before my cell phone died, I called Matt since he would have been (as far as I knew) nearest to my wife and told him to pass along the message that I’d be there a bit longer than expected. After Dr. Tran and some mediocre-to-very bad videos, it was finally time for mine to be shown. I am happy to announce that reactions were better than for last year’s project (AMV Salad: With More Crunchy Bits).

It had to be close to midnight by the time I got back to the hotel. Alex was downstairs and informed me that my wife wasn’t happy that I was gone for so long. I guess she didn’t get the message. Anyway, we went to the 7-11 around the corner and picked up a few things before retiring to the room for the night. I found out that Jessica, after being awed in some way by a dead rat in the street, had turned her ankle pretty badly when trying to cross the street. It didn’t help that her boots were heeled. We put her on the couch for the night with a bag of ice and drugs.

I got marginally more sleep than thee night before. The funny thing is that sleep becomes irrelevant when one is attending convention, especially when the next day is Saturday and there’s tons more to be done…

I’ll spare the details of the boring six-hour bus trip from Norfolk, VA to Baltimore. We arrived at around 2:30pm and found a cab to our hotel (Brookshire Suites) almost without delay. After a driver trying to stiff me for ten dollars two years before on a trip I know is worth seven at best, I always make sure the meter is running. Check.

As soon as my wife and I arrive to the hotel, Ashley (someone we found on the Otakon BBS) was waiting for us. I checked in and we all went upstairs to the two-room suite on the 7th floor. Not a bad view, but it was better upstairs in the Cloud Club…

Hmmm, that’s a long way down

…where we would be joined by our friends Jessica, Alex and his girlfriend’s brother, Elian, and Lily for snacks.

“Hi, I’m Alex.”

Jessica and Elian (looks and sounds 12, but almost 20)

After that, we all headed to the Baltimore Convention Center (more like Compound since a hotel is being built and connected to it) to pick up our badges. There were hundreds of people in front hanging out or waiting in line, some in costume already.

Near and Matt from Death Note

A girl in more traditional Asian attire

There was a steady stream of people adding themselves to the line as it worked its way inside BCC where there would be over a thousand more pre-registered attendees at any given time. The way Otakon staff moved over 7000 people in and out so fluidly and in less than five hours was commendable.

The scene outside the BCC at around 7:pm

One-half of the registration booths

Our group went back to the hotel after taking more pictures and wandering the Inner Harbor for a brief time. Jessica and my wife worked on their costumes a bit more while Elian, Ashley, and our final roomie Jenni played together on their Nintendo DS games.

Ashley and Elian playing games together

Lily passed out on the floor. Alex, his friend, and I went out to 7-11 around the corner and hung out for a spell before deciding to get back to the room.

I love convention Thursdays. No pressure of keeping a schedule, being with people I like whom I only see once or twice a year, and just being somewhere other than home creates an energy which keeps me from getting the kind of sleep I usually need. It won’t stop me from having fun on Friday, when the adventure begins…

I’m always ready to check out a new anime title when it’s released to the US in English-dubbed format. Subtitles are a distraction for me. I would rather gain the entire experience of a show rather than having to switch back and forth from watching to reading. But that’s nothing to do with this review.

Tengen Toppa (loosely translated to “Heaven Shattering”) Gurren Lagann, is a Japanese “shonen” mecha anime series originally produced by Gainax studio and co-produced by Aniplex and Konami. ADV Films in Houston, TX gained the license and left it to Bandai Entertainment who re-dubbed all 27 episodes into English.

This series is difficult for me to sink into for different reasons. First, I’m not a big fan of “giant robot” anime. This made it difficult for me to like Transformers or Voltron growing up. It’s not enough to make me biased, though. Second, there’s more than a fair share of cheesy dialogue. I often find myself grimacing when lead characters Kamina and young Simon exchange lines like “over the top” heroes, usually yelling either menacingly or victoriously. This is something that definitely doesn’t win much favor with me.

It’s hard to overlook the “fan service” characters Yoko (the main one) and Kyoh, not to mention the overtly flamboyant Leeron. There is a host of whatever anime character archetype you could wan; just magnify the personalities a few times and the story, which is largely unoriginal, isn’t enough to mask the cheesy qualities of Gurren Lagann. It’s likable to only a certain extent, meaning it’s not a obnoxious study of anime stereotypes in spite of the show being hard to swallow at times.

Gurren Lagann airs two episodes Monday nights at 11:pm on SciFi Channel. If you like giant fighting robots and don’t mind a fairly typical story with a cheesy script, give this a try…