anime.au 2004 convention report
Apr. 8th, 2004 08:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meteordustMy adventures at anime.au. Warning: long.
Day 1 - Friday
I met up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zero_sum at nine in the morning outside Central station, where we boarded the coach for Canberra. It wasn't the most comfortable journey in the world, since the backrests of the seats were fixed in a vertical position. I tried to grab what sleep I could anyway - it seems that every time I go away on holiday, I always stay up too late the night before.
We arrived in Canberra a little after noon. After checking into the hotel, we went for a leisurely wander around the city. My previous visits to Canberra have been of the school excursion variety - get on bus, go to Parliament House, get off bus; get on bus, go to War Memorial, get off bus, etc. Taking in the city on foot was a very different experience.
My impression was of wide streets and low buildings, with not enough people or traffic to fill them. It was like a city that was just waking up on a Sunday morning - except that it was like that all the time. No skyscrapers or towering office blocks, just broad stretches of blue sky overhead. Beyond the city were the mountains and the white needle of Telstra Tower, silhouetted against the horizon.
Kaoru and I had intended to check out some of Canberra's tourist attractions, but in the end the only one we got to visit was the Canberra Museum and Gallery. It was quite small, but it did feature a powerful exhibition on the fires that devastated the city in the summer of 2003.
It was at the museum that we met up withpelrun and rei_ayanami_iv, who had driven down in Pelrun's car. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city and browsing in shops. I fell prey to the temptations of a lovely hardcover edition of The Iliad, which I had been intending to read before the movie Troy came out. Man, the con hadn't even started yet, and already I was being suckered into impulse purchases.
We had dinner with one of Kaoru's friends from college, who took us to a very decent Italian place. Rei also succeeded in making contact with the friend she was going to be staying with, and who was serving as events coordinator for the con. I was pretty worn out by that stage, so I was more than glad for the rest of us to retire to the hotel. I tried to do a bit of work on my RO special project, but my attention kept getting distracted by the very disturbing documentary screening on SBS. I finally went to sleep at the ridiculously early hour of ten thirty.
Day 2 - Saturday
Woke at seven thirty, feeling much refreshed. After having breakfast at a nearby cafe, Kaoru, Pelrun, and I went straight to ANU, where the con was being held. We got there at about nine, just in time for Kaoru to claim the Moshi Moshi table on behalf ofpirochan, who arrived a little later. I saw that the execs from AnimeUNSW and SUAnime were already there, setting up their own tables.
As the morning progressed, more familiar faces showed up, including one surprise visitor - Cryophoenix. He had driven up from Melbourne that morning and met withsentxd and ricvirzar. They didn't plan to hang around the con for long though, lured away by the brilliant weather and the attraction of boating.
At around noon,leenabeans and mitsuoka went off to have lunch with the two Canberra RO players from our guild. I didn't go, but Leena told me all about it afterwards and showed me the photos. They seemed like a pretty nice young couple. Apparently they'll be visiting Sydney during Easter.
Most of the events I was interested in took place in the afternoon. The cosplay was one of these - usually a highlight of any convention. While the turnout was fairly small - similar to that of the first Manifest I attended - the costumes themselves were pretty decent in terms of quality and range. The most eyecatching was a gorgeously detailed Ultimecia, which deservedly took first place.
After grabbing a quick lunch at the barbecue, I checked out the Madman panel. The two Madman reps ran through a list of their upcoming releases, asked for suggestions about extras to include in their box sets, and then invited questions from the audience. A couple of interesting tidbits came up. One was that Madman will be distributing the Tokyopop manga titles. Another was that Madman is building a sound studio, which opens up the possibility of them doing their own dubs. The reps emphasised that there are no plans for this in the immediate future - they would first need to secure approval, and then find suitable voice talent. But maybe one day we will hear Lina Inverse or Allen Schezar speaking with Aussie accents. I dream of that day.
The Madman panel concluded with announcements of recently acquired anime licences - Saiyuki, Comic Party, Captain Harlock, Kite, and Mezzo Forte. There was also the tantalising promise of some big announcements to be made at Supanova.
After the panel ended, I dashed over to the main anime theatre, where Millenium Actress was due to begin screening. It was a movie I'd been meaning to see for a while, but until now I hadn't managed to catch it. It had already started by the time I sat down, but I figured five minutes wouldn't make much difference. And that's where my story gets ugly and sad.
Because the movie *was* fascinating, and the animation *was* beautiful, and even though I'd evidently missed something, the narrative still drew me in and I trusted that everything would become clear as it went on. What *did* become clear, instead, was that a lot more seemed to have happened before I started watching than could reasonably fit into five minutes.
The movie ended fifty minutes after I sat down.
By then, I knew what must have happened, but it was too late for repair. Burning quietly, I accosted the first orange-shirted con volunteer I saw. He confirmed my guess - that they had been running the programmed anime back to back, and since the length of a tv episode is somewhat shorter than half an hour, they had run ahead of schedule. A lot ahead of schedule.
I left the theatre and went through orange-shirts until I found the screenings coordinator. Civilly, I explained the situation to him and expressed my disappointment. He understood what I was talking about at once. He told me he had originally prepared various anime shorts to be screened in between the scheduled episodes, but he had been busy with things all day and hadn't been able to check that it was set up as planned. He offered his personal apologies and said he would go make sure the programming was put back on schedule.
It was good to see him prepared to take responsibility for the situation, but there was nothing he or I could do to change what had happened. You can only watch a movie for the first time once.
I went for a walk to clear my head. It was a long walk. But by the time I returned, I was ready to talk to people again. And look, just in time for the AMV competition.
I love songvids of all kinds. There were seven of them entered into this competition. First place went to 'Temptation Tango', a highly melodramatic Yami no Matsuei vid which was also technically impressive. Second place went to 'Shades of Noir', a Noir vid done to the wistful strains of 'Superman (It's Not Easy)' by Five For Fighting. Third place went to 'Genki Plus', an Ultramaniac vid - although I don't think Leena would be pleased to hear the judge describing Ultramaniac as 'an obscure shoujo anime'.
Other vids I liked were the Evangelion one done to the Beatles song 'Help!' (very chilling and effective) and the Full Metal Panic one done to the MacGyver theme (oh, the memories that came flooding back when I heard that tune). The Azumanga Daioh vid I'd seen before, but it was as cute as ever, and this time I knew who the characters were.
I stayed to hear the winners of the artwork competition announced. Kaoru's Elevation entry took third place in the original art division, which was pretty cool. I thought her Quistis should have placed in the fan art division too, but maybe that's just me.
The con started to wind down after that, with people packing up and getting ready to leave. I'd only done a modest amount of shopping this time, mainly zines and prints.
I went for dinner with the gang after. This meant we skipped out on the reset://0 gig - yet again - as I had suspected we would. It's kind of sad, but food usually turns out to be more compelling than other things. It was a good dinner though, and with Sent and Cryo both present, my end of the table saw lots of reminiscing about the early days of the club.
Afterwards, it was time to head back to Sydney. Kaoru and I caught a lift with Pelrun, who kindly offered to drive us home. The trip was fairly uneventful, and I ended up dozing for a while. I made it home around midnight, glad to be back.
Day 1 - Friday
I met up with
zero_sum at nine in the morning outside Central station, where we boarded the coach for Canberra. It wasn't the most comfortable journey in the world, since the backrests of the seats were fixed in a vertical position. I tried to grab what sleep I could anyway - it seems that every time I go away on holiday, I always stay up too late the night before.We arrived in Canberra a little after noon. After checking into the hotel, we went for a leisurely wander around the city. My previous visits to Canberra have been of the school excursion variety - get on bus, go to Parliament House, get off bus; get on bus, go to War Memorial, get off bus, etc. Taking in the city on foot was a very different experience.
My impression was of wide streets and low buildings, with not enough people or traffic to fill them. It was like a city that was just waking up on a Sunday morning - except that it was like that all the time. No skyscrapers or towering office blocks, just broad stretches of blue sky overhead. Beyond the city were the mountains and the white needle of Telstra Tower, silhouetted against the horizon.
Kaoru and I had intended to check out some of Canberra's tourist attractions, but in the end the only one we got to visit was the Canberra Museum and Gallery. It was quite small, but it did feature a powerful exhibition on the fires that devastated the city in the summer of 2003.
It was at the museum that we met up with
pelrun and rei_ayanami_iv, who had driven down in Pelrun's car. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city and browsing in shops. I fell prey to the temptations of a lovely hardcover edition of The Iliad, which I had been intending to read before the movie Troy came out. Man, the con hadn't even started yet, and already I was being suckered into impulse purchases.We had dinner with one of Kaoru's friends from college, who took us to a very decent Italian place. Rei also succeeded in making contact with the friend she was going to be staying with, and who was serving as events coordinator for the con. I was pretty worn out by that stage, so I was more than glad for the rest of us to retire to the hotel. I tried to do a bit of work on my RO special project, but my attention kept getting distracted by the very disturbing documentary screening on SBS. I finally went to sleep at the ridiculously early hour of ten thirty.
Day 2 - Saturday
Woke at seven thirty, feeling much refreshed. After having breakfast at a nearby cafe, Kaoru, Pelrun, and I went straight to ANU, where the con was being held. We got there at about nine, just in time for Kaoru to claim the Moshi Moshi table on behalf of
pirochan, who arrived a little later. I saw that the execs from AnimeUNSW and SUAnime were already there, setting up their own tables.As the morning progressed, more familiar faces showed up, including one surprise visitor - Cryophoenix. He had driven up from Melbourne that morning and met with
sentxd and ricvirzar. They didn't plan to hang around the con for long though, lured away by the brilliant weather and the attraction of boating.At around noon,
leenabeans and mitsuoka went off to have lunch with the two Canberra RO players from our guild. I didn't go, but Leena told me all about it afterwards and showed me the photos. They seemed like a pretty nice young couple. Apparently they'll be visiting Sydney during Easter.Most of the events I was interested in took place in the afternoon. The cosplay was one of these - usually a highlight of any convention. While the turnout was fairly small - similar to that of the first Manifest I attended - the costumes themselves were pretty decent in terms of quality and range. The most eyecatching was a gorgeously detailed Ultimecia, which deservedly took first place.
After grabbing a quick lunch at the barbecue, I checked out the Madman panel. The two Madman reps ran through a list of their upcoming releases, asked for suggestions about extras to include in their box sets, and then invited questions from the audience. A couple of interesting tidbits came up. One was that Madman will be distributing the Tokyopop manga titles. Another was that Madman is building a sound studio, which opens up the possibility of them doing their own dubs. The reps emphasised that there are no plans for this in the immediate future - they would first need to secure approval, and then find suitable voice talent. But maybe one day we will hear Lina Inverse or Allen Schezar speaking with Aussie accents. I dream of that day.
The Madman panel concluded with announcements of recently acquired anime licences - Saiyuki, Comic Party, Captain Harlock, Kite, and Mezzo Forte. There was also the tantalising promise of some big announcements to be made at Supanova.
After the panel ended, I dashed over to the main anime theatre, where Millenium Actress was due to begin screening. It was a movie I'd been meaning to see for a while, but until now I hadn't managed to catch it. It had already started by the time I sat down, but I figured five minutes wouldn't make much difference. And that's where my story gets ugly and sad.
Because the movie *was* fascinating, and the animation *was* beautiful, and even though I'd evidently missed something, the narrative still drew me in and I trusted that everything would become clear as it went on. What *did* become clear, instead, was that a lot more seemed to have happened before I started watching than could reasonably fit into five minutes.
The movie ended fifty minutes after I sat down.
By then, I knew what must have happened, but it was too late for repair. Burning quietly, I accosted the first orange-shirted con volunteer I saw. He confirmed my guess - that they had been running the programmed anime back to back, and since the length of a tv episode is somewhat shorter than half an hour, they had run ahead of schedule. A lot ahead of schedule.
I left the theatre and went through orange-shirts until I found the screenings coordinator. Civilly, I explained the situation to him and expressed my disappointment. He understood what I was talking about at once. He told me he had originally prepared various anime shorts to be screened in between the scheduled episodes, but he had been busy with things all day and hadn't been able to check that it was set up as planned. He offered his personal apologies and said he would go make sure the programming was put back on schedule.
It was good to see him prepared to take responsibility for the situation, but there was nothing he or I could do to change what had happened. You can only watch a movie for the first time once.
I went for a walk to clear my head. It was a long walk. But by the time I returned, I was ready to talk to people again. And look, just in time for the AMV competition.
I love songvids of all kinds. There were seven of them entered into this competition. First place went to 'Temptation Tango', a highly melodramatic Yami no Matsuei vid which was also technically impressive. Second place went to 'Shades of Noir', a Noir vid done to the wistful strains of 'Superman (It's Not Easy)' by Five For Fighting. Third place went to 'Genki Plus', an Ultramaniac vid - although I don't think Leena would be pleased to hear the judge describing Ultramaniac as 'an obscure shoujo anime'.
Other vids I liked were the Evangelion one done to the Beatles song 'Help!' (very chilling and effective) and the Full Metal Panic one done to the MacGyver theme (oh, the memories that came flooding back when I heard that tune). The Azumanga Daioh vid I'd seen before, but it was as cute as ever, and this time I knew who the characters were.
I stayed to hear the winners of the artwork competition announced. Kaoru's Elevation entry took third place in the original art division, which was pretty cool. I thought her Quistis should have placed in the fan art division too, but maybe that's just me.
The con started to wind down after that, with people packing up and getting ready to leave. I'd only done a modest amount of shopping this time, mainly zines and prints.
I went for dinner with the gang after. This meant we skipped out on the reset://0 gig - yet again - as I had suspected we would. It's kind of sad, but food usually turns out to be more compelling than other things. It was a good dinner though, and with Sent and Cryo both present, my end of the table saw lots of reminiscing about the early days of the club.
Afterwards, it was time to head back to Sydney. Kaoru and I caught a lift with Pelrun, who kindly offered to drive us home. The trip was fairly uneventful, and I ended up dozing for a while. I made it home around midnight, glad to be back.
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Date: 2004-04-09 09:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-10 10:37 am (UTC)