Here you’ll find the highs and lows, the best and worst, the tits and a—err, forget that last one—of Anime Expo 2000 as experienced by our little party of FFMLers. I called it Miscellaneous because I didn’t know what else to call it. This was an entirely unscientific attempt to rate, rank and otherwise judge various things. All results are purely my opinion and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other attendees in any way, shape or form. So, without further ado....

  Last year, Dr. Evil impressions and the infamous “Oh my heck, they’re LESBIANS!!!” made the most popular quotations. This year, we had another: Daran’s use of the word “jacked.” Anything that was crazy, bizarre or otherwise out of the ordinary was described as jacked. It was no contest, really.

  This one was a little tougher call. Street Fighter Zero Three was another popular one, but after Pokey and his 8 Fei Longs of Death left, it was no contest. DDR all the way.

  This too was a bit of a tough call. It got some competition out of Goldenboy in this category. However, the 5 episodes of Goldenboy we saw, no matter how outrageous or hilarious, were no match for the 20-something eps of Sana running around and rapping at random. REI-KUN! REI-KUN! REI-KUN!

  By most valuable I mean the one who had the greatest impact on the group by being there. Sky was certainly important with his breakfast cereal, his extra sleeping bags and pillows and a vehicle of his own. But who was it that brought a VCR, a PSX, Dance Dance Revolution and a pad to play it on, and tons of anime? Who was it who invited an endless supply of friends over to our hotel room? Who was it who got the pimpmaster Squall pic? That’s right: Golbez.

  What can I say? Pyxie was genial, funny, cheerful, and just plain cute. Pokey was also fun and good-natured, and he was obviously quite charming, seeing as Daran wouldn’t stop hitting on him. I wanted to choose one or the other, but, if you had been with this couple for a few days, you’d agree there’s just no separating them, physically or mentally. :)

  Whether showing up at 11pm on the first day, giving people totally platonic unsolicited back rubs, or inviting Golbez to share the bed with him, Sky was the constant target of our ridicule, teasing, and outright abuse. Kinda the way he is on the list, really. ;D Hey, we love him, but when he’s trying to hook someone like me up with women you gotta question how smart he is. ;)

  The only thing difficult about this choice was the number of things to choose from. However, I think we all were wanting to see the Masquerade, so we all were disappointed. Okay, so the number of seats were limited. So there was a record number of attendees snatching up tickets in record time. So the Disneyland Hotel doesn’t have the public access channel that the Anaheim Hilton did at AX ’99. The fact remains that we saw it then and didn’t this time.

  Let’s face it, with the number of attendees and the wealth of screw-ups, it’s a wonder any of us got into anything. That Locke got into a showing of Escaflowne before the last day was impressive enough. But getting in on the first night—and being the last person admitted into that showing, too. Only a handful of attendees among the nearly ten thousand can say that. And by almost pure luck (and being in the right place at the right time), our buddy Locke is one of ’em.

  Now this was a tough call. There were many cosplayers present, many of them with great costumes. FF8 was well represented, as was San from Princess Mononoke. There was a Terra that everyone in the group wanted a picture of. And of course, there was Pyxie’s kimono. However, this being solely my call, (>:D) I have to give it to the white mage I saw several times on Saturday. Granted, maybe she was paying tribute to FFT and not FF1, but at any rate costumes that even indirectly pay tribute to that classic first game are rare. (I was thinking of getting together an FF1-style black mage costume but didn’t have the time or money) So being the only FF1-referencing costume I have ever seen, she gets my vote for best costume. Too bad I never got a picture of her. ;_; Luckily for me, Mabis did. :)

  When we didn’t even get to see the music videos, what did you expect? For me to just guess?

  With Kodocha, Escaflowne, and all the other stuff we saw and played, it was a tough call. However, all those dance tunes get stuck in your head really quickly. And with as many times as we played it, it’s impossible not to have memorized those tunes. It has since become the most sought after game among those of us who were there. And since half the game is its music, that says something. I never thought I’d like dance music, but DDR has changed my mind.

  On Friday, we and presumably everyone else in Disneyland’s hotels received a notification of sorts from the Disneyland resort management. I won’t say what the memo said, because those who got it know what I’m talking about, and I want to let it speak for itself to those who didn’t. All I’ll say is that it was a rather strange way to welcome AX and its attendees. Here it is in its entirety.

  Sorry, I don’t really have a title for it. Anyway, it has everyone except Sky. Where his ass was when this was taken I don’t know. ;) (Maybe he was taking pictures for everyone else? Naah....) At any rate, I think it sums up the feeling of cameraderie quite nicely. The lighting and composition aren’t the best, but it was an automatic camera, and someone else was taking the picture, so go figure. (I learned a lot in my photo classes last year.) The photo scanned in too dark, so I tried to correct it with Photoshop. Hopefully it’s not too bright now.

  Ah, what the hell. Let those conservative bastards sue. Here’s a rather interesting pic. Posed, obviously. A little too obviously, really. I mean, if you can’t tell that this is totally staged, there is really something wrong with you. Anyway, it’s the most blatantly homosexual photo I have. But then, I didn’t get as many photos as some people did.... :D (Again, it’s a bad scan which I attempted to correct in Photoshop)

  One of the better photos I took. This one brings together four of the most ultra-kawaii FFMLers in our group. Mabis, as vehement in her hatred of Pikachu as she is, can’t hide her cuteness. Pyxie? She seems to embrace hers. And look at Daran and Pokey hugging. Awwwww. It’s like, whoa, the cuteness, it’s freakin’ me out, man! With the smiles and the hugging and the cuteness, man, the cuteness. It’s totally weirding me out, man, whoa. Just whoa. Man. Gaah. Sorry. Single. Words. Stop. Me. Now. Okay. (Bad. Scan. Photoshopped. Nuff. Said.)

Back to:

• THE INTRO!
• DAY 0!
• DAY 1!
• DAY 2!
• DAY 3!
• DAY 4 (& 5)!

Disclaimer: This account contains a lot that could offend people. Sex. Porn. Drug use. Profanity. Violence. Anime. Disney-bashing aplenty. Crudely drawn pictures. A lot of non-white people. People celebrating a culture other than America’s. Sentence fragments. At any rate, if something offends you, stop reading. If your kid reads something that offends you, tell them to go to another web site. If you’re really ticked off by it, then e-mail “cosmic_chicken” at “excite” dot “com” and I’ll listen. Certain characters, events, etc. referred to and depicted in this account come from Japanese animated films and television series and are copyrighted by their respective companies. Whatever the SPJA and Anime Expo have copyrighted belongs to them.

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