FFML/AX ’03

The AX Report 2003

by Xoth, Master of Black Magic

Day 3: Mischief, Mayhem, and Monkey Balls

If there’s one thing I took away from AX ’03 (other than a crapload of anime stuff), it’s that monkey balls are fun to play with. Not that I played with them myself, but the others sure did; first thing Saturday morning, that’s what they were doing. Far be it from me to begrudge others their pursuits, but soon I got just a little bored with watching the balls fly about. Therefore, I got up and headed to the only place worth going that early in the day—you guessed it, the dealer room. However, there were two problems with this plan. First I went so early that it wasn’t yet open for the day, and second, it seemed a lot of other fans had the same idea as me. The line stretched through the lobby area of the convention center and back into one of the humongous exhibit halls, the only space large enough to accommodate us all. But although the line was huge (and growing by the moment), it was also surprisingly fast moving, that is, once the dealer room doors were opened.

Note: A little exaggeration there, the line was really long but not big enough to fill up an entire exhibit hall; to reiterate, those things were HUGE. Maybe that was the idea; put us in the only place that would make our line seem puny by comparison. ^_^ Oh, and again, before you jump to conclusions about the monkey balls thing, please see the video game entitled Super Monkey Ball (you sick, sick puppies).

By the time I was finished browsing, it was almost noon. I note this because I was planning on having lunch with the group; yes, I can go out for a meal with someone other than my sister (who incidentally was heading home that morning). It’s an FFML-AX tradition to have at least one group meal, usually with the cuisine of some Asian nation, so as 12 o’clock rolled around I began to hurry to get my shopping done. For my final selection, I picked up an expensive artbook, but then as I headed for the cash register I made a discouraging discovery. I opened my wallet and, wouldn’t you know it, had less money than I needed to make my final purchase. I could have left it there and gone to lunch, but I wasn’t positive it would still be there when we got back. My other option was to run back to the room to see if I still had some traveler’s checks stashed in my luggage, but then I ran the risk of forcing the others to wait for me. Still, I figured I could make it if I hustled, so I rushed back to the room—and found the others still playing their monkey ball games. Well, at least I wasn’t holding them up. I rifled my suitcase but sadly came up empty. Then an idea came to me; I turned to Austin and said, “Hey, I need to buy something in the dealers’ room, can I borrow $40?” He continued to stare at the monkey balls, which I interpreted as, “Sure, it’s in my wallet; help yourself.” Cautiously (so as not to break his concentration) I fished the wallet out of his pocket, grabbed the dough, then ran to the dealers’ room and came back a happy customer.

Note: I swear on my honor as a black mage that I did not steal any amount of money from any of the others. For one thing, the others weren’t so dense that I could have pulled off such a thing, and for another, I’m no Locke Cole. I might have gotten the money they each owed me for the room a lot quicker, but I decided it just wasn’t worth the risk. ;D And besides, I actually did have enough checks to buy that artbook, so I didn’t have to try my hand at larceny.

As it turned out, I needn’t have worried about holding up our lunch plans. They were still gaming when I returned, and since I was tired from running around, I gladly sat down to watch. Then after a while, they decided to take a break and stretch their legs—by heading down to the dealer room. Well, since it looked like lunch was on hold indefinitely, and since I had absolutely nothing else to do, I accompanied them back to the exhibit hall. The noon hour came and went, and after managing to round up everybody, we finally broached the subject of dining. Unfortunately, we could not reach a consensus regarding where to eat, so instead we moved to consult with former FFML/AXer Tenshi, who this year was with a cosplay group competing in the Masquerade. Of course, she wasn’t there in the dealers’ room but in said group’s hotel room, which meant that we had to go all the way up there. When we arrived, Tenshi and company were still getting their elaborate Sailor Moon costumes together for the Masquerade, so regrettably she wasn’t able to help us out. We would have offered to help them, of course, but our group had precious little cosplay experience (our lone cosplayer being SadSiren as construction worker Excel). So we bade them the shattering of limbs and wandered back down to the lobby, as hungry and clueless as ever. We briefly considered going to the hotel’s restaurant, only to be dissuaded by the menu prices. At last we said, fuck it, we’ll order something in, and so, after getting info from the front desk on nearby restaurants that delivered, we adjourned to our room. Since we had no other unresolved business (that is, aside from decide what we wanted and actually call places up), the others soon resumed gaming. Finally, after 4 o’clock, we got our lunch, which consisted of several orders of Chinese and a bucket of KFC. And to think, all it took was four hours of indecision, consultation, and gaming. Well, the others were apparently too busy Mario-Partying to notice, so I suppose my annoyance counts for very little. At any rate, we ate, gamed, and watched some Cartoon Network in the hour or so before we headed out to the evening’s main event, the Masquerade.

Once we did head to the convention center, we found that, once again, the fans were out in force. And after yesterday’s line hijinks, many were not in the mood to be herded once again. Yet there we were, packed into the second floor hallway, growing more restless and impatient by the minute. At that point in the con, our sense of brotherhood with our fellow fan was wearing thin, and the air of camaraderie was slowly but surely being fouled by the funk of unwashed otaku. I witnessed a group of mecha lovers disparage some shoujo fans, who were angrily brandishing their mallets in response. Behind me, I could hear an argument between Yu-Gi-Oh converts and Pokémon diehards rising steadily in volume and venom. A Sailor Moon cosplayer was posing and vowing to punish a Dragon Ball Z fan, who was himself posing in an ill-advised attempt to “power up.” Then it happened: an overwrought Oshii fanatic shoved a Miyazaki supporter into a group of ABe enthusiasts, who shoved the poor unfortunate back. Suddenly, everyone was pushing, shoving, kicking, and yelling, as the line for the Masquerade erupted into a free-for-all. Though some fans were actively going after each other, most were simply panicking, trying to get upstairs, fight their way to the exits, or simply survive the chaos. I tried to stay near the others, but the mobs were threatening to sweep us up and scatter our broken remains over the convention center. But just when we thought we couldn’t hang on any longer, AX staffers in full riot gear muscled in and began to forcibly restore order, shoving people into line and cracking the heads of more unruly or uncooperative otaku. With these troublemakers subdued, the fight quickly went out of the crowd; calm, however uneasy, and sanity, however tenuous, were soon reinstated. Before long, a voice called out, “We will now begin seating for the Masquerade,” and so what remained of the crowd sheepishly began to file into the Main Events hall.

That evening, the AX Staff
came prepared.

Note: We fans may not seem quite right sometimes, but geez, we’re not that bad. There was plenty of grumbling and even a little heckling of the con staff, but there was no riot. And you know, I really shouldn’t have had to tell you that. Every time I make one of these reports, it seems my exaggerations get more outlandish, my fabrications more elaborate, in an effort to top my previous efforts. I should trust that you people can easily tell what parts I made up; but, then again, this IS the Internet.

Thankfully, all the unpleasantness seemed to have been forgotten by the time we found our seats. Then again, our group was among the lucky few who got seats near the front (although we were actually split up when half our group ended one row and the other half began another); when you were as close to the stage as we were, it was hard not to find yourself in a good mood. Nevertheless, I think it’s safe to say that soon the feelings of antagonism and mistrust were replaced by eager anticipation for the evening’s, and perhaps the convention’s, main event. Sad to say, though, the negativity had not been banished completely, and throughout the night the hostility resurfaced at various times. Mainly whenever the master of ceremonies, a white guy with a...unique sense of humor, was up. I suppose it stands to reason that if the cute mascot girl co-host of the AX ’01 Masquerade could draw jeers, then this guy never had a chance. Still, as one who would have preferred to, oh I don’t know, actually ENJOY the evening, I had really hoped the audience wouldn’t pull a repeat of their “performance” of two years ago.

But happily, try as they might, the hecklers couldn’t distract me from the great performances at the Masquerade. It began with two “warm-up acts.” The first was a high school band percussion group (in costume, of course) performing a piece from the game Xenosaga, while the second was a brief video featuring a Japanese store mascot girl/sentai warrior, who then appeared live onstage; then, once she had finished her little speech / sales pitch / whatever and made her exit, the Masquerade began in earnest. The event was exactly what it promised to be: a non-stop parade of individuals and groups in incredibly accurate anime and game character costumes posing, dancing, acting, and doing whatever they could to generate applause. Once again this year, there was a martial arts group that staged a fight in costume. There were also the obligatory cute kiddie costumers and the obligatory elaborate mecha cosplayers. There were solo acts like an Asuka from Evangelion with a near perfect plug suit, small groups like the Amano-style Locke and opera-gown Celes duo, and large ensembles such as the incredible Spirited Away group featuring a Yubaba with a giant foam head and a dragon-Haku puppet handled by the human Haku and two non-costumed puppeteers. And of course, there were many comedy skits, including a couple parodies of the movie Chicago’s “Cell Block Tango” with anime femmes fatales, a Kingdom Hearts Sora unveiling his new Sporkblade, and a hilarious disco-dancing Macross crew. With so many acts and so many animes represented, I admit I did not recognize the costumes of more than a few cosplayers due to my ignorance of newer anime series. But I did recognize at least one cosplayer personally; that was Tenshi, whose Sailor Moon group opted for a dance routine. In short, it was a long but entertaining evening of cosplay. Though I still prefer the anime music video contest, the 2003 Masquerade turned out to be a superb event.

.... This was pretty bad, but it
was nothing in comparison
to the wait to photograph
Locke and Celes.* Yet our night wasn’t over once the final cosplayers had pranced offstage; still to come was the judging and announcement of winners. As promised, the AMV Contest winners were announced during the judging intermission, and I learned that I had voted for only one winner among the five voting categories (you can see the results at the bottom of this page, in case you missed it). With that taken care of, all that was left was to await the Masquerade judges’ verdicts. So once again, we waited; and after a considerable interval, finally they came back with the results. Sadly, Tenshi’s group won nothing, but the awards did go to some other worthy entrants. You might think that that would have been the end of the festivities, but you would be wrong. Afterwards, both the crowds and the cosplayers spilled out of the hall, and once the former spotted the latter, things turned into a photo session. A long and, above all, crowded photo session. Now in retrospect I could understand why people wanted up-close and personal photos of the performers; after all, I was close to the front and my photos during the show still turned out utterly shit-tastic. But like I said, it was a long evening, so I was tired and wanted to head back to the hotel. It was not to be, though, for the mob had spoken, and as we had learned only hours earlier, you can’t beat the mob unless you’re armed with beating implements. So we waited for the crowds to die down and finally dragged ourselves back to our room to get some semblance of rest for that all-important (heh) final day of the convention.

Back to:

[ Intro ] [ Day 0 ] [ Day 1 ] [ Day 2 ]

Onward to:

[ Day 4+ ] [ Miscellaneous ]

* - FYI, this is actually a photo that I myself took, showing the crowds blocking access to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. So unlike the majority of other pictures illustrating this report, I actually own this one. No, you can’t jack it and use it for profit without my permission. Oh, who am I kidding? Most people aren’t even gonna see this page, much less the picture; plus, it’s not that good a picture anyways. Forget I said anything.

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