The AX Report 2001

by Xoth, Master of Black Magic

Day 3: ......

    Saturday was going to be a busy day for me, so I decided I would have to get an early start.  So, as usual, I woke up before everybody else, but this time I actually got out of my sleeping bag and went to change.  There was something I needed to do before the afternoon: go back to the dealers’ room and spend more.  But no indiscriminate spending this time...I had something in mind.

    As the situation turned out, I got up a little too early; when I got down to the entrance to the convention center, the doors were still locked—at least to the common otaku.  So I tried to blend in with the brilliantly costumed crowd, who were much more vocal about their impatience than I.  But finally the doors were open, and the early bird crowd poured in, flashing badges to security and digging into their wallets so money would be on hand as soon as they arrived at the booths.  However, instead of heading directly to these purveyors of Japanese crack, first I had to check out the art exhibition and artists’ alley.  And of course, I was blown away by the art.  Among the items on display were animation cels from the new Vampire Hunter D movie, and work by Japanese artists Kia Asamiya and Nobuyuki Onishi.  Then, of course, there was also the fan art.  After that, I wandered down artists’ alley, watching the (pseudo-)professionals at work.

    After about an hour or so of immersing myself in this environment of high low culture (whatever “high” and “low” culture entail), I remembered I needed to be out of the dealers’ room by noon.  So I hurried my skinny ass back to the dealers’ booths and began my search for things to buy.  Not that it was easy.  Despite an exhibit hall that seemed roomier than the one at Disneyland, it was every bit as packed as last year.  Not that anyone could help it, since it seems kinda rude to ask your fellow fan, “Could you please leave the dealers’ room?”  With my great intellect, I should have been able to come up with creative ways to get people to vacate (e.g. pulling the fire alarm, yelling “Look—a pokémon!”, etc.), but that wouldn’t be honest.  So I endured the lack of personal space and hygenic issues and continued my quest for merchandise.

    That day, I was specifically looking for any figure—plush, keychain, whatever—vaguely resembling a Final Fantasy Black Mage (my rubber chicken was getting kinda lonely—no, not that rubber chicken, you sick bastards).  Unfortunately, after digging through piles of ----mon plushies (insert Digi- or Poké- at your leisure, I’m sure both were there), Gundam keychains, and so forth, I concluded there were none.  Not now, on the next to last day of the con, anyway.  Cursing my luck, I briefly considered getting a Totoro or Catbus plushie but for some reason decided not to.  At any rate, I settled for import soundtracks and a $3 Totoro lapel pin.

    Soon enough, it was noon, so I had to leave.  For I had an appointment to keep with a very important person—my sister.  Since she lives in San Jose, you can imagine that an Illinoisian like me doesn’t get many opportunities to visit.  So she and her boyfriend agreed to drive down to meet me.  But since this has nothing to do with AX or FFML, I shall skip the noon-to-6pm portion of my Saturday reportage.  Here with a brief essay expounding on the already touched-upon subject of the dealers’ room is Mabis.

    The Dealers’ Room.  No event, ongoing or singular, has quite the effect on me.  Where else can you go to find acres and acres of anime goods, just waiting to be bought?  Where else can you see so many cosplayers just walking around, elbowing you around for said anime goods?  And where else can you see laws of physics being broken, having two people truly in the same exact spot?

    Nowhere but the dealers’ room, that’s where.

    This year’s AX had a pretty good dealers’ room.  It was bigger than last year’s AX, and I thought they had a better selection.  Needless to say, I spent the good majority of my time there, blowing my hard-earned money in an orgy of spending.  Take Saturday, for example.  That day alone I spent over $100 on Digimon CDs.

    Yes, the dealers’ room is the main reason I go to AX.  (Something about meeting friends is also somewhere up there.)  I love it.  The crowds, the shopping, the photo opportunities of all the cosplayers, it’s all part of the intoxicating aura of the dealers room.  No other place in the anime world is quite like it.  (Although, the crowd hovered around the Para Para Paradise is a close second.)  Yes, there’s anime to see there, and the Masquerade and music video contests are definitely things to go to, but they just don’t give the same satisfaction as blowing $300 on that long desired finished resin model of Asuka Langly from Evangelion.

    It’s an anime shopper’s paradise, and aren’t we all shoppers, looking for that one book or cel or model that will make our lives complete?  So, go to the dealers’ room and spend your life savings!  It’ll be one of the best experiences you’ll ever have at AX.

    So when I returned (with the shiny new digital camera my sister had gotten me as a graduation gift), it was time once again to see if Arty could get into open karaoke.  Unfortunately, we had only a little while before the start of the Masquerade, so we had to hope that there wasn’t a huge number of sign-ups.  Unfortunately, there were.  More unfortunately, many of them were about the same quality as most of the sign-ups from the day before.  Most unfortunately, we sat through a number of those “performances,” waiting in vain for Arty’s turn.  After an hour or so, with the Masquerade starting time fast approaching, we quite happily left the karaoke room.

    But in yet another unfortunate turn of events, we had only two actual tickets for the Masquerade.  Meanwhile, Arty, Mabis, Daran and I were headed there; I leave the math to you, dear reader.  Anyhow, Arty came up with his unused music video contest ticket (which, except for the event title, was identical to the Masquerade tickets), and he and Mabis ditched Daran and I to get in the ticket holders line.  Since we only had 1 ticket between the two of us (and, for all intents and purposes, a fake one, at that), we waited in the other line.  We were lucky enough to get there relatively early, so we were near the start of the line—well, we were once the line got much bigger.  Soon enough, though, we lucked out; someone gave us an unwanted ticket.  We put our heads together and came up with a foolproof strategy.  One of us (me) would take the music video ticket and try to get in first.  If that person got in, then the other (Daran) would proceed normally, with the actual ticket.  And if the ruse was discovered, both of us would make a break for it and hope security didn’t give chase. (come to think of it, it wasn’t a very good plan...)  But our luck held, and I successfully scammed my way in.

    With that obstacle out of the way, we were now free to attend one of the most anticipated events at Anime Expo.  Strangely, it wasn’t nearly as packed as I had expected.  I remember noticing plenty of empty seats as we found ours, most of which never got filled—despite a long line of non-ticket holders who, I would hope, were eventually allowed in.  This could mean many things, including: tickets were not as scarce as people expected, not enough people who actually bought tickets felt like showing up for the event, and so on.  Whatever the actual reasons, I soon decided that one of the main factors was that the Masquerade is, in my opinion, overhyped.  That’s not to say the show wasn’t entertaining; a few skits and costumes were very memorable, especially one where a martial arts club cosplay group staged a fight scene from Fushigi Yuugi.  And then there was this famous Japanese cosplay group (which I think won the Masquerade at AX’00) whose metallic costumes (one of the later transformations of Sailor Moon, I think) wowed everybody.  Still, this year’s Masquerade did not stand out in my mind, compared to other events like the karaoke or music video competition or to the other Masquerade I’d seen, the AX ’99 one.  Having such high expectations for this, the hot-ticket event of Anime Expo, I guess I was a little let down.

.. I’ll give you yer freakin’  chair if you don’t SHUT  THE HELL UP!!!

Otherwise, the Masquerade got just plain annoying; well, not the actual show so much as the audience.  The audience wasn’t particularly rude or hostile towards the cosplayers (though they held nothing back for the digital co-host, whom no one seemed to like), but they wouldn’t stop rooting for one “act” in particular: a chair.  I am not kidding you; an ordinary chair.  Arty later told us the “story” behind the chair, but I have since forgotten it (which could be either my bad memory or just because it was that inane).  Anyhow, the chair “made” a couple appearances during the show, in between the real acts.  Now, I'm not aware of what’s going on in the mind of the average anime fan, nor was I aware of what the cosplayers backstage were thinking.  However, I would imagine that I would be at least a bit disheartened if I were preparing to put on a performance and heard the audience chanting for a fucking inanimate object.  If that’s not the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever witnessed firsthand, then it’s a wonder I still have hope for the human race (I really do).  Then again, devoted anime fans aren’t exactly known for their “normal” behavior; I should know, I am one. Note: I did not make this part up.  Please reread the “fucking inanimate object” statement for further clarification.

    After that rather underwhelming experience, we headed back to the room.  Since we had once again missed dinner due to the show, we needed food.  We decided that, since Golbez’s party had mooched off our pizza last night, it was time to return the favor. ^_^  So we went to their room, shared their pizzas, and...uh, yeah.  With the Masquerade done, the con was pretty much winding down, so there’s not much to say.  Other than Golbez’s friends hadn’t figured out how to hotwire the box on their TV, either, so we all were stuck watching regular, non-animated, American stuff.  Ew.  Well, it was Rush Hour, so at least it wasn’t completely American.  (Hooray for Jackie Chan)

Back to:

[ Intro ]        [ Day 1 ]        [ Day 2 ]

Now onward to:

[ Day 4+ ]        [ Miscellaneous ]

Disclaimer: This account contains a lot that could offend people.  Sexual content.  Drug use.  Profanity.  Violence.  Celebrations of Japanese culture.  Non-white people.  Crudely drawn pictures.  Sentence fragments.  If anything in this account offends you, find another web page. If your kid reads something that offends you, tell them to find another web page.  If you’re really ticked off by it, then e-mail “cosmic_chicken” at “excite” dot “com” so I can ignore you.  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.

The pages were designed in Netscape Composer at 832 x 624 resolution.