Arrival | NTAO/AMV Contest | Dance/Sunday
The big highlight Friday night was bringing Name That Anime Opening to the con. After its humble start at a No Brand room party, getting the chance to play some of the larger cons is a real treat. There was no way I was doing this one solo the way I did at Daisho, however, so Sarah happily stepped in to play honorary Scoreboard Monkey. She even went so far as to dress for the occasion.
Hell, this is an upgrade over Tyler. Although her walking through the windy streets in that kimono through a horde of Minnesota Wild fans was a daunting little journey.
Friday/Saturday
Divided Highway
We were scheduled in Programming 2, a nice room because it was not only the second largest, but anybody going to Main Programming had to pass through it. Once we got the audio hooked up, I played some songs from the bottom of the playlist (that we wouldn't get to) to get people in the mood and gain the ears of anyone walking by. This turned out to be a lot of people. You see, the real estate was nice, but the neighborhood was rough. In Main Programming- Kyle Hebert. In Programming 3 next door- Greg Ayres. So the competition was a little fierce. Sarah, who kinda wanted to see both of their panels, wondered if anybody would show up.
Thankfully, one nice thing about Detour is that their tech staff is remarkably efficient. When it comes to setting up audio and video, things get done. There was an hour of buffer between opening ceremonies and NTAO. They took half an hour to draw the walls so I wouldn't be blasting music into their space, and five minutes later my laptop was hooked up to the sound system. This gave us time to say hi to our VO buddies, which was doubly important this time around given Greg's recent health scare. I had to give him a hug, wish him the best, and tell him his panel's going down. I also had to tell his brother Chris that I followed through on his request to "include more stuff Chris Ayres worked on." He seemed honestly stoked that I got Nerima Daikon Brothers into the hopper.
Kyle was there too.
After a soundcheck (just an excuse to blast the Beck opening as loud as I could to get Greg's attention), the game began formally with Team Fail taking on Team One Piece. I designated Harley the official photographer and waited for his reaction when his favorite series, Outlaw Star, was the first song played. Given how badly his team did at Daisho, I should be happy he didn't throw my camera to the ground then and there.
He ended up filling up most of my camera with pictures... which in hindsight wasn't so great to as I had to sift through 80 or so pictures to find the three or four I'd use for the recap. At least it was well-documented!
Anyway, Team Fail lived up to their title as they only earned 2 points as the audience took game one. The next two teams fared much better, battling back and forth to a 4-4 draw. Then the audience crept back and earned a point... and another... and suddenly it's 4-4-4.
Oh, it's on now. Or at least it would be if the next song wasn't Dennou Coil. Yeah, that would be one for the audience. They take round 2 in one of the more surprising audience victories to date.
For round 3, Dennou Coil girl and her cadre got up on stage as Team Inko-chan and things began to turn. The next song was something like Cowboy Bebop. The previous losing teams were glaring at my laptop the rest of the night.
Dennou Coil girl did her part, but the girl in the foreground reaching for the duct tape owned everybody else for the rest of the show. She was getting everything., single-handedly mowing through this con's incarnation of the SOS Brigade. She even got Iketeru Futari, a terrible little ecchi series I threw in solely because I love the opening theme.
Three rounds later, this shot was a foregone conclusion.
(Best Group Name: Team That's What She Said)
The room needed to clear after that for the subsequent yaoi panel, giving us a chance to catch the last part of Greg's panel. You all know my opinion of autographs, but Sarah had a Kaoru plushie that was just begging for Greg's pen and made sure to jump into the impromptu autograph line. There was a little bit of drama as the line was very long and con staff insisted that Greg get a proper dinner before his wild DJ set that night, made worse by the fact that Greg likes to actually talk to people as he signs stuff.
Sarah ended up being the last one to get an autograph before Greg was pulled away for recharging.
We needed recharging too, or at least dumping the laptop, scoreboard and kimono before the dance. Harley and Brian joined us and we headed to the bus stop.
Inconvenient as it was, it was nice to have a reason to actually walk around the downtown area surrounding the convention. We were smack in the middle of downtown Columbus for Ohayocon and never left the building. Here, we're getting outside. Granted, while we had to deal with Wild fans arriving to their game on the way over, now we had to deal with them leaving the arena after a big win over Calgary. But it's worth it to get a little sniff of the location.
The plan was to return to the hotel to unload, wait for Nick to finally show up, and head back to the dance, but due to circumstances including work, travel, loud dogs and novel planning, none of us had gotten more than four hours of sleep the night before. So we weren't in the mood for a return trip so we could dance until 2:00 am. We were more in favor of a quiet evening at home. Okay, not quiet per se- I fired up my room party playlist while Brian, Harley and Ashley all tapped into the hotel wi-fi for assorted insidious purposes. Sleep didn't actually happen until 1:00 am anyway, but we all felt like this was the way to go. We even got a visit from hotel security, so per the rules set forth in ACen '07, it qualifies as an official room party. Go us!
Sarah and I split up to begin Saturday, with her checking out the cosplay scavenger hunt while I checked out Roku and Drazz. The highlight of their panel was Roku's solution for people mistaking her for a voice actress in autograph lines. They, Chris Ayres and other artists have simply invented a series called Full Metal Spatula and assigned themselves directing, art and voice duties. So now Roku has an acting role. Best of all, this is the opening theme to FMS, which I may just put on the NTAO playlist at No Brand because I can.
Granted, I always thought any series about curling should be called Bonspiel 21.
Afterwards, I caught up to Sarah and her panel, which was running long.
The concept of the cosplay scavenger hunt is to photograph listed characters, props or situations according to the list. Great idea, only one problem: the list was frickin' huge. Thirteen pages full of assorted characters with everything from Naruto to Shugo Chara.
Pictured: the only cosplayer not on the list.
Worse yet was the point deductions for infractions such as L or schoolgirl uniforms... making it very difficult to check Sailor Moon from the list.
After a couple of Code Geass cosplayers and a yaoi paddle, we realized that it would be easier to take pictures of every cosplayer we see and delete whatever wasn't on the list like Mr. Whoop up there. Keeping that in mind, we fired our laser and shot the list in the trash. We were off to the Dealers Room.
I'll stick to pictures of cool cosplay, thank you.
In the Dealers Room, I finally got some serious shopping on, securing box 2 of Gurren Lagann for me and a Code Geass box as a birthday present for Sarah.
Sarah also noticed something very peculiar about this Full Metal pin set. You got Tessa, you got Ed... but where's the Skip from Full Metal Spatula?
Anyway, back to the Win...
Next panel up for grabs is called A Funny Thing Happened On My Way to the Convention. In other words, story swapping. Oh, I enjoyed this one. Sarah mentioned her adventure driving to Winnipeg for a con, I counter with Richard's semi encounters on the way to Ohayocon. Someone mentions Pedo Bear, I mention Star at ACen '07. Naturally, just to bring the place down- the sex offender story from Otakon '04. Like I said, back to the Win.
We hit lunch right after that. As congoers were lined up outside the doors waiting to get into the Subway next door, we explored further and found a quiet little coffee shop that had some good sandwiches. After that was another split- she would join her Risembool Rangers regimen in another battle against the Miniskirt Army, which this time did not involve dodgeballs made of notebook paper. I was bound to check out the AMV contest to see if either of our submissions played.
Before the contest starts- a musical interlude:
Yep, some people kill time reading manga. Others play anime themes on their flute. She got Haruhi, Gurren Lagann and Sephiroth's theme in.
Thankfully, she didn't have to play long. The tech staff was generally phenomenal and actually started things on time, had cords where they were supposed to be, and even arranged for big stuff like the AMV contest and masquerade to show on the hotel's closed circuit TV. They deserve applause.
To be honest, I was skeptical about our chances. According to my math, Iowa needed a three hour slot to get their videos in and Detour only had an hour block. Detour is larger and has a reputation for being a *good* contest, so you would figure that even getting your video up on the screen is a challenge. I had thought my fears were confirmed when the first few videos were tremendous, including another Haruhi drama video that had the same feel as last year's Villainous Imagination.
But just like that, there was Sarah's video at the tail end of the dramas. In her absence, I took video of the applause for her to revel in.
As for mine? You bet... number three in the comedy videos. Yes, that's right, I went back to comedy this year with a sociopathic magic girl and a twisted take on a Carole King classic. And if you have an AMV.org account, you too can get your copy of "You've Got A Friend!"
It was fun hearing everybody's brains break.
So yes, the contest was excellent. Of course, rather than dwell on how good Detour's AMV contest is, I couldn't help but think of how Anime Iowa's looks that much worse by comparison. And Iowa's was pretty damn awful to begin with. Detour had a full field of great videos, and showed a good spread of each category in their hour-ish time slot. Well done. Make a note here:
HUGE SUCCESS.