The AX Report 2003
by Xoth, Master of Black Magic
Day 2: Decisions, Decisions
The AX Report 2003
by Xoth, Master of Black Magic
Day 2: Decisions, Decisions
On morning of July 4th, our breakfast consisted of
that classic American staple, leftover pizza. Oh, did I mention we
had Papa John’s the night before? Yeah, normally I would have remembered
to report such a momentous event, but I guess the other events of the day
overshadowed that one. Anyway, as I discovered the miraculous restorative
powers of cold pizza, the others gathered around Bahamut’s laptop for a
round or two of Video Game Name That Tune. To explain to those of
you not familiar with this game, it consists of playing music from various
video games and trying to correctly guess the game it’s from and the level
/ boss / circumstance it represents. If this strikes you as sad even
by geek standards, I should note that they were killing time until the
hotel maintenance guy they had called for showed up to help hook up the
Gamecube to the room TV (no AX ’01-style black
box wrangling for us, nosiree). Eventually the maintenance guy
did show up, and true to his word, he got our hardware hooked up.
With that, the others were gaming to their hearts’ content. As for
me, I’m not that big on video games (which is odd, considering the group
is derived from a list dedicated to video games), so I just watched them
kick virtual ass on Mega Man, Phantasy Star Online, and Super Smash Brothers
for a while. Then as noon rolled around, I left to have lunch with
(who else?) my sister (and, yes, her boyfriend).
| After our lunch at a nice Mexican restaurant,
I didn’t immediately return to the room; there was something I had neglected
yesterday, what with the Nazis and all. I headed over to the convention
center, got in line, and at long last set foot in the AX ’04 dealers’ room.
And what a dealers’ room it was. This year, the most noteworthy feature
of the exhibit hall was the abundance of S
P A C E. It
wasn’t the arena that held the dealers’ room back in 1999, but rather one
of convention center’s colossal exhibit halls. The aisles between
booths were so spacious, I bet I could’ve hopped in the massive Dragon
Ball Z-decorated Hummer on display at one of the booths and taken it
for a spin. They were. That. Friggin’. Wide.
Obviously this meant plenty of room for us fans to do our things: walk
around and browse, photograph cosplayers, etc. It didn’t prevent
people from clustering around booths to take a closer look at merchandise,
but that was to be expected. At any rate, I can honestly say it rarely
ever felt crowded in this year’s dealers’ room, and that in my estimation
it was easily the best one I’ve ever seen.
So after relieving my wallet of its burden of traveler’s checks, I exited the convention center and ran headfirst into a wall of skimpily dressed women. No, they weren’t hookers looking to profit from a convention attended by a large number of socially-impaired males; the attention these ladies were getting was measured not in dollars but in camera clicks. That’s right, I had walked into a gathering of Final Fantasy X-2 cosplayers. And good God, were there a lot of them. Of course they weren’t the only costumers there, they were just the most plentiful. Faced with this throng of cosplayers, how could I not stop for a few photos? They were right there; I didn’t even need to go up to them and ask, I just joined the horde of fans eagerly snapping away as their subjects held pose, slowly baking in the warm California sun. With two goals (blow a lot of money and photograph scantily-clad cosplayers) thus partially fulfilled, I headed back to the Marriott considerably happier. |
 ....
From year to year, the sights and sounds of the dealer room may change, but this smell is a constant. |
Anyways, having nothing better to do, I headed back
to the room again. However, I did not have one of the room keys.
So I knocked on the door; no one answered. Assuming the worst, I
wandered back to the elevators and sat on a bench, hoping that someone
would eventually return to the room. My lack of perseverance sort
of paid off: a little while later, Deeblite showed up, only he didn’t have a
room key either. I informed him of the situation, and so he joined
me in waiting for the next person to show up. That person was Siren,
who thankfully did have a room key. But no sooner did we open the
door than we discovered something rather disconcerting, at least to me:
Lorinan had been in the room the whole time. Seems I’m as good at knocking
on doors as I am at opening Ramune bottles. At any rate, pretty soon
the whole group had shown up, and some normalcy returned, at least for
a while. Shortly thereafter someone discovered the faucets in our
bathroom weren’t working; our water supply had mysteriously dried up.
Obviously, this was distressing news to our group; eight people sharing
one toilet that couldn’t be flushed was a prospect no one wished to entertain
for long. However, we hit upon a solution. According to an
arcane ritual found in one of my spellbooks, we could restore the water
flow using an uncommon but extremely potent spell component: monkeys in
translucent plastic spheres. Piro just happened to have some of
these (for spellcasting purposes, I’m sure), and by harnessing the power
of monkey balls we once again had running water.
 .........
Waiting for seating at the music video contest to begin. (Or was it for the Masquerade?) |
Note: Okay, the real story. Our water had been shut off, as one of us found out after attempting to grab a shower. IIRC, a maintenance guy showed up at our door to inform us of some plumbing problem affecting our floor, and to assure us that they would fix things as quickly as possible. And they most certainly did. As for the monkey ball bit, please refer to the video game Super Monkey Ball. The others started playing this during the plumbing crisis and quickly became addicted.Before long, though, it was time to head out again to catch two events, the anime music video contest and the karaoke contest finals. Actually, Lor and Siren went to the latter to compete, while the rest of us attended the former; but we were with them in spirit! Sorta. Uhh, before I incriminate us any further, let me go on to my account of the AMV contest. First, though, for my account of waiting for the AMV contest. I don’t remember how early we went to line up, but suffice it to say that there was already a crowd by the time we got there. At first we were lined up (more or less) on the second floor of the convention center, which was not promising considering that the main events hall was, you’ll recall, on the THIRD floor. Eventually the line started moving, but not because they were beginning to seat people; rather, they were moving us up to the third floor and out onto the roof. After that, it was the usual waiting game, although the sights of Disneyland rides and Fourth of July fireworks in the distance did provide a slight distraction from terminal boredom. Then, ever so slowly, the line crept forward, inch by inch, then foot by foot, until we were once again indoors and subsequently in Main Events for the 2003 Anime Music Video Contest. |
|
As we made our way to our seats, I noted that as a pre-show warm-up they were showing the videos from AX ’01, which brought back delightful memories of that year’s contest. However, there were several differences between the AX ’03 and ’01 editions. For one thing, the convention center ballroom that served as the main events hall was obviously nothing like the Long Beach Convention Center’s auditorium. Since the ballroom did not (and could not) have stadium-style seating, a single movie theater-style screen would not have been ideal. Fortunately, the AX people realized this and instead had four screens, one for each quarter of the hall. Another difference was in the voting system. As we were seated, we received cards with the video titles listed on them; at the start of the contest, the emcee told us that we would use them to vote for our favorites, and the winners would be shown at the Masquerade. Although this required us to attend the Masquerade (no offense, just easier said than done), it was, I suppose, a more accurate voting system than the applause-o-meter used in 2001. Last but not least, the ’03 contest, as can be expected, offered a brand new crop of videos. The AMVs at the ’01 contest were for the most part fantastic; the AMVs in ’03 were even better. Well, in my opinion. ^_^ This group of videos truly had something for everyone: poignant drama, outrageous comedy, thrilling action, and spectacular visual effects. And of course, great anime set to great music. For me, the quality of the videos at the 2001 AMV Contest set an exceptionally high standard, but the vids at the 2003 contest lived up to, if not surpassed it. |
Is it just me, or does this album cover make Frank Sinatra look really creepy? |
I could have watched anime music videos all night, but I didn’t; the technical difficulties weren’t THAT bad. Some videos got mixed up and so on, but at least there were no major delays. At any rate, when the videos were done we turned in our voting cards and shuffled back to the hotel. Not much to report after we got back, but we did learn from Lor that we had missed Siren being named runner-up at the karaoke finals. So, rather than attending a “contest” whose results were to be announced at an entirely different event, we could have spent our night cheering on our roommate as she actually achieved something? Well, shit. We were so dejected by this that we couldn’t even bring ourselves to fire up the Gamecube but instead went directly to bed.
Onward to:
[ Day 3 ] [ Day 4+ ] [ Miscellaneous ]
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