Here is my summary of the trip to AX’03, told in the form of random observations.

• I got up at 4:30am on July 2, because I was driving to O’Hare for my morning flight to Los Angeles, rather than adding on the ungodly price of roundtrip tickets between Peoria and Chicago. The early hour may explain why I forgot my brother’s cell phone (which I had planned to use on the trip) at home.
• It’s hard to mix a trip to an anime convention and a visit with family. My sister lives in California, so I don’t get to see her very often. Hence, when I mentioned this trip she suggested we try to meet. She and her boyfriend would drive down to the LA area, stay for a few days and leave on/before the 4th of July. I ended up spending a lot more time with them than I had expected in the two and half days they were there. It’s not that it wasn’t good to see and hang out with them again; they did pay for practically all my meals those first few days. ;) Still, it kinda messed up my planned schedule. Oh well.
• Once again, FFMLers are on the whole a pleasant bunch IRL. I was a bit anxious about meeting five people for the first time this year (two of whom were not list members but joined the FFML-AX group less than a couple months before the con), but we all got along quite well and had fun together.
• Huge dealers’ rooms with wide aisles between booths = God.
• I took seven cosplay pictures in one and a half days at ACen ’03. For AX, I took a 36-frame roll of film, plus a 24-frame roll already loaded in the camera, figuring there was little chance I’d get more than 9 photos a day (for five days); I ended up using all my film by Sunday night. Granted, the first roll was up to frame 4 or 5, and I didn’t photograph just cosplayers on the trip. Still, we’re talking almost fifty photos. Guess I’m getting better at asking cosplayers for photo ops. ^_^
• Speaking of cosplay, I think FFX-2 was the most popular source of costumes at AX’03. I saw maybe two Lulus all con, while there had to have been at least a half-dozen gun-toting Yunas and bikini-clad Rikkus (there were plenty of Rikkus in the original costume as well). There were also several Kingdom Hearts Soras, perhaps in defiance of Disney’s attempts to regulate KH cosplay. (They wanted those cosplayers to wear special ribbons with their costumes. I am not bullshitting you; it’s in the AX program guide. Yes, after three years, Disney still sucks.)
• AX reminded me once again how little anime I’ve actually seen. From cosplayers I couldn’t identify, to guests of honor who worked on shows I’ve never heard of, to discussions about Naruto, One Piece, and Battle Royale, my ignorance was constantly at work. Of course, I haven’t even seen most of the animes that are familiar to me due to their overwhelming popularity, e.g. Cowboy Bebop and Trigun. And I’m only up to DVD volume 5 of Evangelion, which I picked up in the dealers’ room. Volume 5- Christ.
• New in live programming this year was AX Idol, an “American Idol”-style talent show for aspiring singers and voice actors. The FFML group had two contestants, Lorinan and SadSiren, so of course we had to go. The talent level of the performers varied, of course, but thankfully none were as bad as the performers at AX’01’s open karaoke. However, a couple of them were clearly up there just for the hell of it, based on the material they chose for the initial performances. Also, it was tough to say how the voice acting pieces related to anime; I know it was more about voice acting in general than voice acting for anime specifically, but still a name like “AX Idol” carries certain connotations. Plus, I think the fan judge selected from the audience sometimes tried too hard to make comments intended to rile up the audience.
• It’s official: I prefer anime music videos to all other forms of fan appreciation. Maybe the Masquerade was a little subpar this year, but the fact remains that I would not hesitate to choose the music video contest if asked what the best event of AX ’03 was. The audience was given ballots this year, and I really had trouble choosing my favorites, even within the individual categories. Here's some of the titles, in case you want to search for them:
  • a Noir/Queen video called “Bite the Dust”
  • the comedy vid “The Chibi Things (That Kill)”
  • “A Thousand Years” featuring FFX (hey, I'm actually sorta on-topic! :D)
  • “The Two Shall Meet” with the Utena movie
  • The vampire-themed “Mitternacht,” with Hellsing, VHD: Bloodlust, and Blood: The Last Vampire; and “Eternal Damnation,” with just Hellsing plus music by E. S. Posthumus
  • an Escaflowne movie AMV, “Souls of Rage and Sorrow”
  • “Center of the Sun,” a dramatic Metropolis video
  • and the effects-heavy vids “Euphoria” and “Stop the Rock.”
• Well, they didn’t chant “chair” this year, yet the audience at the Masquerade still managed to piss me off. Maybe next time I should bring a sign that reads “Shut Those Diarrhea-Spewing Anuses You Call Mouths, You Goddamn Fuckheads.”
• This year’s Masquerade was prefaced by a couple performances. The first was a neat (and yes, costumed) group of high school musicians who performed an all-percussion piece from Xenosaga. The second was a short video piece and appearance by a mascot girl for one of the retailers in the dealers’ room. The video had her transforming into a masked warrior and fighting a monster. Interesting and effective way to promote your store, huh?
• Notable Masquerade skits - a Spirited Away group with a Yubaba wearing a giant foam head and a dragon Haku manipulated by the Haku cosplayer and two additional puppeteers; a Soul Calibur group with some real martial arts action; an awesome Amano Locke and Celes in her opera costume; Tenshi’s La Soldiers Sailor Moon group; a funny group of disco-dancing Macross crew members; and a couple of skits based on the “Cell Block Tango” sequence of Chicago, only with anime femme fatales.
• eBay bid wars can get pretty bad, but at least those auctions have time limits; you should’ve seen this year’s SPJA charity auction. There were a few good battles over art pieces, props, and other items donated by the guests of honor. All in all it raised over $74,000 for the City of Hope charity. Guess not all otaku are poor college students.
• If there’s one thing we learned this year, it’s that monkey balls are incredibly fun to play with.
  (Please see the video game Super Monkey Ball for clarification of that statement.)
  (You sick, sick people, you.)
• One of the only complaints I have about the trip: I miss watching anime with others.
• I thought that getting up at 6am on Monday morning would ensure I’d get to my gate with plenty of time to catch my 10:30 flight to Chicago. I was both right and wrong. Wrong because I didn’t know where to leave my checked bags (I went through the self-service ticket counter, which requires you to check your own luggage), and because of the huge fucking line to get to the security checkpoint; still, I did get in somewhat less than an hour before my flight time. Then there’s the thing that made me right. First, they announced the flight would be delayed due to maintenance. Shortly thereafter, they said bad weather in Chicago had shut down air traffic into and out of O’Hare, so the flight would leave around 11:45. That wasn’t the last of the delays; after leaving the gate, we were held up on the runway until 12:10, I think due to another flight taking off first. So, you see, I did get to my gate in plenty of time, just not at all for the reasons I thought I would.

Me, getting up at 4:30am, July 2

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