Anime Overdose 2005!
Mar. 8th, 2005 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pacificpikachuThis is most likely going to be a huuuge entry, so I'm going to LJ-cut it so it doesn't take up too much space.
On Friday, the Gatsby party happened. Throughout the entire day, I kept flipflopping between whether I wanted to go or not. On one hand, I felt a little awkward about not dressing 20's style, I didn't know what I would do with myself at the actual party, and I just didn't see a reason to go. On the other hand, I didn't want to miss any memories that would leave a lasting impression on me.
In the end, I decided I might as well go for a few hours and check it out.
I got there at about 6:50 PM, though the actual party started at 7 PM. When I got there, there were only a few people there, so I greeted friends of mine and wandered about aimlessly, wondering what to do.
The decorations at the party were lovely and very elaborate and classy (and included a 12-foot, student-made fountain constructed from about 100 champaigne glasses), and the Hollywood theme shone, but this didn't change the fact I was bored and felt out of place. Everyone else pretty much was dressed up, and there I was in my usual shorts and a t-shirt and a few mardi gras beads around my neck. ^^;; I am NOT the type of person who dresses classy, regardless of the situation. Casual all the way!
Luckily, Zoe showed up pretty quickly. I was glad to see her, as I then had someone to hang around with. In tow was her newly-arrived exchange student, Kaoko. Kaoko was very quiet and I don't think she spoke much English at all, so Zoe and I spent a lot of the time at the party trying to figure out how to say phrases that were actually helpful. (Unfortunately, Kage Bunshin no Jutsu is not classified as helpful when speaking to an exchange student.) Zoe was thankful because I know quite a bit more Japanese than she does, but even working together, we couldn't say as much as we wanted to.
Kaoko followed us around as we did...absolutely nothing. We ate some keishes and deviled eggs (mmmm...really good), wandered, found a corner to sit in for a while, wandered to another corner, and this cycle repeated itself for a long, long time. Zoe felt just as awkward as I did, poor Kaoko was just confused, and the three of us left at around 8:50 PM feeling very unaccomplished.
Well, I'm glad I got it over with. -_- Everyone else was having a lot of fun, and so that was cool, but I really felt out of place at a party where all you could do is talk, dance, and eat, and where not all the people are close friends of mine. o_o I'll take an anime convention or hanging out with a bunch of my friends over that any day.
Once Mom picked me up, we went to pick up Makayla at her house, which isn't far from Miner's Foundry anyway. She gathered all of her stuff, was genki, and we took off for my house. My Mom mistook her little brother for a girl, so we laughed about this for a while in the car while listened to anime music of some sort.
We got home at probably... 9:20 or so, and Cody-kun was supposed to drive over to my house after his Latin club thing and spend the night, too.
While we waited, we watched a few episodes of Naruto with Ryan, and jumped up to look out the window expectantly every time the dogs started barking or we heard a car come near the house.
Then we watched AMVs in my room, still waiting for Cody.
By 11 PM, we concluded two things:
- Cody wasn't coming that night (We theorized he probably went home after Latin, decided to lie down for a second, and fell flat asleep.)
- It was time to go to bed.
So...um...we did. I had some trouble sleeping because the dogs barked almost all night, I was excited, and Makayla went through bouts of loud snoring, but eventually I fell asleep.
I woke up when it was still dark out, but forced myself to sleep until 6:20 AM, when I decided I couldn't lie in bed waiting any longer. Everyone else was still asleep, so I got on Mapquest to get directions to the con and played Solitaire on the computer until everybody finally woke up around 7:10 AM-ish. I called Cody at 7:30 AM, hoping he wasn't still asleep, and discovered he was already awake and that our earlier theory about him falling asleep at home had been correct. The plan then became that we would pick him up on the way out of town after we left.
So...the usual pre-convention stress and chaos took its toll. We packed, and Mom yelled at us to do chores and pack and feed the animals and such, and we ended up leaving at 9 AM instead of the previously decided-on 8 AM.
We drove to Cody's house and picked him up. This was a quick process, so there isn't much to say about it.
The car drive was totally pleasant. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and all the rolling hillsides on the way were covered in verdant grass. Makayla and I kept making funny associations out of the hills-- we wanted to sldie down them, ride Yakkul (from Mononoke Hime, for those who don't know) over them, fly vanships (Last Exile) over the tops of them, etc. All three of us were in a excellent mood. We listened to plenty of anime music, too, singing along much of the time. One of the many, many, many high points of the weekend.
Makayla got Cody hooked on MegaTokyo while we were in the car, so we laughed about it and sympathized with it too much and all that. ^^;; We also had a big discussion about 1337, and attempted to explain what it was to my Mom (and failed).
The car ride went by extremely fast, too.
Anime Overdose 2005!
We had no problem at all locating the hotel, and our first cosplayer sighting (always an exciting event--spotting your first cosplayer at every convention) was Sakura from Naruto! ^_^ We got really excited at that point. XD
Before we could do any con-stuff, we had to check into the hotel and unload the car, though, so we waited in the lobby while Mom checked in. There were cosplayers EVERYWHERE. Hundreds of them. I almost exploded from excitement at that point, and kept babbling about how we had to hurry so I didn't continue to feel naked without my costume for much longer. I wanted to change really badly. While Mom was in line, Cody and Makayla disappeared, thus confusing me. They showed up about fifteen minutes later with their badges.
Cody was eager to get into a costume, too, so he went into the bathroom in the lobby to change. First he changed into his Shuichi costume. He walked out of the bathroom, and literally about twenty seconds later, a group of about five girls went "SHUICHI!" and glomped him. It turned out it was some of the girls who rented him at Japan Town Anime Faire! It was great seeing them again, because they were really nice. ^_^
Cody was being fickle about his costumes, so he then changed into his Ryuichi costume, and then back into the Shuichi one, and then I think he changed into the Ryuichi one again. I can't remember anymore...he changed a bunch of times throughout the day. XD
We grabbed our stuff out of the car once Mom got the hotel keys and brought all of it up to the room. I promptly dumped everything on one of the beds, scattered it, and changed into my Pikachu costume.
Once I was in costume, the mingling and con activities commenced.
The first picture I took when I went down into the lower lobby of the hotel (mainly where the convention was taking place) was of an excellent female Gaara cosplayer. ^_^ She was very nice, too.
I attempted to go into the Dealer's Room after taking the picture of Gaara, but I soon discovered I had forgotten to pick up my badge. XD Baka! So I did that, and then went into the Dealer's Room.
I'm going to stop talking about going in and out of the Dealer's Room at this point, because it was where I spent approximately 30% of the convention. XD To the point that the people posted at the entrance asked me if I was walking in circles. What can I say? There's always so much to look at in the Dealer's Rooms of conventions, and it's a good place to find cosplayers, too.
Overall, here's what I bought. It's not much (I only had $60 to spend, and I continuously bought big, expensive things):
- Official Naruto headband (Blue, Konoha logo)
- A Naruto plushie (So cyute!) (I spent a lot of the convention trying to talk Makayla into buying a Kakashi one, but she wouldn't spent the $20 for it.)
- Makayla bought me a little, tiny chibi Sasuke keychain. You have NO idea how cute this thing is. I have it around my neck right now. ^^
- Cody bought me an adorable Sasuke fanart bookmark in the Artist's Alley. Another unbelievably cute thing to add to the list. XD
- Cody also bought a Nittle Grasper postcard that we're (meaning Cody, Nicole, Makayla, and I) sharing. It's nifty and shiny and rare. Not to mention sexy. *_*
- A little Naruto poster that has Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, Kakashi, and Iruka on it.
- An absolutely gorgeous, extremely rare Wolf's Rain poster I didn't even know existed. (More on that later.)
I also came away from this convention with some HILARIOUS photographs and stories, particularly ones concerning Naruto characters. I'll tell those in a second.
When we went into the Artist's Alley, the first thing I hear is a familiar voice call, "Pikachu! HEY!" so I turn around, and there's a friend of mine from Anime Destiny! She was like, "Remember me?" to which I enthusiastically exclaimed, "Of course!" We talked for hours at Anime Destiny about all sorts of things. She asked me, "Where's Faye (Nicole)?", and I told her I wasn't sure because Nicole went down with Emmy's mom and her exchange student and wasn't there yet. I promised to come back by when I found Nicole.
The Artist's Alley was a great place to find Naruto cosplayers, as they made it their unofficial hangout place.
One thing I must say about this convention was that it was Naruto-filled. So when I keep bringing up Naruto again and again and again, it's not so much because I'm obsessed (though I definitely am), but because everyone else is, too. ^^;; Just wanted to let you know that. It's not like Naruto's the ONLY anime in my life, though I adore it bunches. XD
We found the Third Hokage in the Dealer's Room. Next to him, at the table he was sitting at, he put a sign that said "Will Take Any Requests For Free! (But I Am Hungry)", and it had a cute drawing of Temari, Gaara, and Sasuke...I think. He was busy at work drawing for people (and getting food from it) for a lot of the convention.
At one point, I walked in and looked at his sketchpad to find... Kabuto in a dress?! O_O; WTF? It was hilarious. I took a picture of Hokage-sama working on his drawing of Kabuto in a dress, and chuckled at what an incredible, reliable leader he obviously was...especially with Orochimaru sitting right next to him with a big smile on his face. XDDD
There're two other great Naruto-cosplayer stories.
I was wandering the Dealer's Room like always, camera in tow, when I look over and see a Sasuke cosplayer (and a darn good one at that). So, I was about to go over and request a picture when I look over and see what Sasuke's doing. It was a double-take moment, because...
Sasuke was doing nothing other than browsing the Hentai Yaoi doujinshi! XD There was a big ol' sign that clearly said "YAOI HENTAI" right above Sasuke, so, without him noticing (actually a she, but...y'know), I took a picture. XD That picture is very entertaining to me. Later on, I asked for an actual picture where Sasuke knew I was taking a picture of her, but I never did tell her about the yaoi picture that I intend to use as evidence for a ship I don't even support. XD
Right before we left the next day, I was in the Dealer's Room again, and who did I find under the exact same sign except Genma (I'm pretty sure that's his name... You know, the guy who judged the Third Chuunin Exam matches (i.e., Naruto vs. Neji, Shikamaru vs. Temari, and Sasuke vs. Gaara))! I decided to tell him (again, actually a her) I was taking her picture (I had taken a picture of her earlier doing non-naughty things), so I walked up and said, "Hey! Just continue what you were doing--I'm catching Naruto characters doing naughty things." XD She was more than happy to participate, and not only did she continue browsing, she grabbed a KakashixIruka doujin and proceeded to stare at it dreamily for the picture. Oh-so-amusing.
Another entertaining naughty-anime-characters moment was, again, in the Artist's Alley.
On an FMA note, Ed (female) and Roy were posing together for pictures, when they decided to jokingly fight. They started out just poking each other and such, but eventually they ended up wrestling on the floor. This attracted a huge crowd of fangirls and random con-goers, who just laughed and "Oooo"ed and "Awwww"ed and oogled. Eventually,Roy outmuscled Ed and decided to sit on her. ...Except it looked very...seme-ish. VERY seme-ish. Especially when Ed decided to play total uke with Roy sitting on her. I took many pictures. XD;; I hope the digital camera starts working again soon so I can show you all these great pictures. They're SOOOO funny.
I got my picture taken lots, as usual, and lots of hug requests (which I more than happily fulfilled). I also met up with more familiar faces than you could shake a stick at. I kept running into people who were like, "Pikachu! Remember me?" and then they would ask me where Nicole was. Most of them I did remember, but a few of the photographers I had forgotten. At least three or four photographers remembered taking pictures of me at more than one convention (of course, I've been to fourteen of them at this point, about five or six of which I was in costume).
At around noon on Saturday, we found Nicole-tachi in the Dealer's Room, and I met her and Emmy's exchange students. They were nice guys (they like Eva!) and seemed to be doing quite well despite the weirdness. XD They actually spoke a fair share of English, too. At least enough that we could semi-effectively communicate. Nicole's activities at the convention were slightly limited because of the exchange students, so we didn't see her as much as I would have liked to, but that's okay. She came and went.
I can't remember the order of a lot of these events, so I'll randomly name them off.
We ended up in the video room watching DNAngel for quite a while. This was lots of fun, and though we're familiar with the series, this was the first time we watched more than one episode of it. I, however, wanted to leave for much of it, not because I wasn't enjoying it (I really was), but because my legs were in paaain. I can't sit in my Pikachu costume because of the tail (it's a hassle to take on and off, so I usually just leave it on and don't sit down), so I was standing for most of it, then I'd try squatting, then I'd sit down partially, etc. Cody was very absorbed in it, though. ^^;; Funny how he likes all the cutesy bishounen-filled shows in addition to all the serious action stuff that we all love. He even seems to enjoy Gravitation/DNAngel-type things as much as we do, if not more. o_o It's awesome having a male friend like that. XD
Makayla bought Nicole the first volume of the DNAngel DVDs for her birthday, so I'll be seeing more of that soon.
We went into an ADV panel because there were rumors of free stuff, but left after a couple of trailers because the free stuff was only for people who asked questions and we couldn't think of any questions. While we were in there, I found Zabuza and Haku. I really, really wanted to take pictures of them, but they stayed in the panel and I never saw them again. ;_; I spent a LOT of the convention trying to find Haku and Zabuza for pictures again.
Ramen and Rice (a pair of girls who play anime songs extremely well on violin and cello--we're always happy to see them at conventions) set up in the hallway, and I happened to walk in while they were playing Haruka Kanata. *_* Later I walked in while they were playing Ready Steady Go, too. They got a huge audience both times. They're so awesome.
My Mom is now officially an Anime Convention Mom. She and Ryan volunteered to staff for most of the convention, so they were busy setting up for concerts, controlling lines, and running into the volunteer room for meetings. XD Now all she's gotta do is cosplay, and she'll be a complete Anime Convention Mom. XD
At about 5 PM, Makayla, Cody, and I went back up to the hotel room to take a quick break for food (read: three pretzels was all I ate the entire day. That was my food break, and my only food break. I forgot food existed.) Cody read Ranma mangas he bought while Makayla and I fiddled with our newly purchased Naruto headbands. She wore hers, but I didn't because I was still in my Pikachu costume and that would be a little weird.
At 6 PM, we checked our schedules and decided to go to the Der Cosplay. We got into the Ballroom it was in and found my Mom the super staff, who informed us there were no seats, and we should wait in the back of the room 'til she found us some seats. While we waited Cody continued to read Ranma manga and I waved at familiar cosplayers. We got seats fairly close to the front (maybe ten rows back) after waiting for a while.
The host was corny and trying to keep it all together despite a few setbacks, but he made the occasional funny jokes. He kept offending all us Naruto fans (just for a reaction), which was kind of funny. ^^;;
The skits were fun and entertaining, but there were more walk-ons then I thought there would be. There were some great skits, though. My favorites were:
- One that involved the use of Fanfiction Clichés (something I could easily sympathize with).
- A group cosplaying as Psycho le Cému (the band actually at the convention) who sang BADLY about eggs for several minutes. Endlessly entertaining in a stupid way. Sounded really perverted. XD Makayla and I kept stealing weird looks at each other while this was going on becayse we were disturbed and amused at the same time.
- Sakura vs. Ino. They started out singing Harumonia together, and ended up racing for the last Sasuke plushie in the Dealer's Room using their abilities. XD
- A group of Final Fantasy girls dancing to a variety of songs. Hilarious. (The Macarena, anyone?)
- A pair of cosplayers, no older than five years old, dressed as Inuyasha and Dejiko, just had to walk on the stage and stand there for the entire audience to go "AWWWW~~!" They were ADORABLE.
There were lots of excellent Naruto walk-ons, including Gaara from earlier (she won best costume and deserved it ^_^) and a cosplayer who creatively did the 16-year-old version of Naruto from the manga. I chased him down to compliment him on his costume and got a picture when the skits were all over.
There was an intermission after the skits so the judges could make their decisions, and during this time Ramen and Rice played their Super Smash Bros. Suite. It was really great--when it came to the Pokémon battle theme, I stood up in my Pikachu costume, went "PIKA!" as loud as I could, and raised my fist in the air. I got TONS of applause. ^_^ It was a great moment. They also played something from FMA (I forget what ._.) and something from Chrono Trigger (which I know nothing about other than the fact it's a popular video game). Musume USA performed, too, which was fun to watch.
The judges gave out a bunch of awards (one of which was "Best Use of a Legless Duck", and one of which went to the host), and that was that. Like I said earlier, I chased down older Naruto and took his picture, then we went to the AMV contest.
There was some time in between the skits and the AMVs, so we went into the Artist's Alley to see what was going on. It was a Naruto game tournament. XD How much fun is that? We watched several matches (Itachi vs...lots of people, who all lost, Sasuke vs. Jiraiya, and Chouji vs. Sakura), got jazzed up about it, and cheered for our favorite characters. ^_^ I want that game! It looks like so much fun.
At the AMV competition, we snagged the seats in front and waited to watch AMVs.
Unfortunately, we were subjected to at least a half-hour of trailers for random Asian horror flicks before we actually got to watch AMVs. >.< At least the Asian movies looked better than your average American movie, but we were there for anime, not random, weird live-action movies.
When the contest started, we were treated to, well, a treat. One of our favorite videos, Hale's Mom, played first. XD We couldn't help but chuckle and sing along, as we've seen it probably fifty times, if not more. It never loses it's funniness, though.
There were a number of mishaps with the AMV contest. First off, there were only seven videos competing. XD On one of those, the audio wasn't working, so scratch that. The videos that were there were pretty good, though. Three of the best ones were by the same [present] guy, though. The first one was a good FLCL vid, the second Samurai Champloo, and the third made up for all the hell we went through for this AMV contest (you'll see).
At some point, there was a video (yes, on TAPE) that was supposedly Dutch and also supposedly contained an AMV on it. However, when they turned the video on, it was...a really, really awful fandub parody. It was quite funny, but it was incredibly stupid, bad quality, and definitely not an AMV. We watched about fifteen minutes of this before the people running it stopped the tape and decided to use the directions in the note that came with the tape. We tried this, and ended up with yet another bad fandub that went on for fifteen minutes or more. At that point they determined that the tape wasn't, indeed, the "Dutch tape". They never did find the real Dutch tape.
After all this, they put on one more AMV that had everyone cheering and "Awww"ing and happy. It was a really sweet video dedicated to Lee and his love for Sakura, and it was very moving and great. It won the contest easily. ^_^ Can anyone say "Awwww"?
Overall, a very odd AMV contest, though.
After all that, Makayla and Cody were pretty tired and decided to go swimming in the swimming pool before they went to bed. There was a J-Rock concert that night, but we were all pretty tired, and we went up to the swimming pool. I didn't swim because I didn't have my bathing suit, but Cody, Makayla, and Ryan had ninja-fights in the pool and had a blast.
Mom and my curiosity overwhelmed us, though, and we decided to go check out the J-rock concert.
We got in there and it was dark and very crowded, with no chairs except in the front. When I first got in there, I was, first off, surprised at the band's costumes, and second off, confused immensely because they were doing some sort of an odd skit. O_o After a few minutes of watching in odd skit in confusion, I looked around and realized that Nicole, Emmy, Eric, and the exchange students were about ten feet from me the whole time. Nicole-tachi were as baffled as I was.
This changed soon enough, however. After maybe fifteen minutes of this odd drama, the band actually started to play.
Nicole and I got into it fast. It was actually great music (very energetic and fun J-rock), and we were dancing and hopping up and down and having a GREAT time. One of those, "Wow...this is so fun it's almost surreal" moments. There were some interesting light shows, all the people were totally into the music, and cheering and yelling, and there were glowsticks everywhere. Nicole, Emmy, and I danced together for the whole concert. The exchange students left to sleep after a while, but we stayed for the whole performance. ^_^ It was a great J-rock concert. Maybe not as grand as the one at Fanime, but absolutely thrilling nonetheless.
The audience was so into the music, when the concert was over, the band left for about ten minutes in which the whole audience chanted, "Psy-cho! Psy-cho! Psy-cho!" until they finally came for an encore, to massive cheering. They played a few more songs, left again, but again the chanting crowd brought them back again. All in all, they ended up doing four encores. ^_^ Psycho le Cému seemed to be having just as much fun as the audience.
Might I add, my Mom stayed for the entire concert. ^_^
It was about midnight by the time a representative for the band came on stage and said that the band was tired and they needed to stop the show once and for all.
So, I went back to the room completely sweaty and exhausted and with full intentions of going straight to sleep. I can't believe Cody and Makayla missed out on that! On the elevator on the way back to the hotel room, I talked to this really nice/really good San cosplayer and complimented her on her costume.
Anyway, I walked into the hotel room and was surprised to find Cody and Makayla still awake. I soon discovered why--FMA just happened to be on TV! YAY! I settled down and watched it (it was an excellent episode, by the way), and then we watched most of GitS: SAC before finally getting in bed and starting to doze off. I was half asleep by the time Lithium Flower came on, but I sang along anyway.
I woke up at about 6 AM, but I forced myself to sleep in until 8 AM, at which point I took a shower. I needed it after the concert. ^^;; I dried off, got dressed, and sat on Cody's rollaway bed with him while he read MegaTokyo. I had to use the ice machine like I do at all hotels we stay at, so we ate toffee peanuts and iceand sat on the rollaway bed and read MegaTokyo. The entire time I was sitting there, next to the window, I couldn't stop thinking about Gaara wearing a flowery hat (don't even ask me why--I don't know ^^;;). I'm weird. I also started thinking about Godzilla emerging from the mist. My mental state worries me sometimes.
I got in my costume and went downstairs to the convention with Makayla and Cody at 9 AM, but we forgot that the convention didn't start until 10 AM, so we were left with very little to do with ourselves while we waited. We wandered around, Cody wandered off somewhere unknown, we went into the gift shop of the hotel randomly, rode the elevators up and down, and eventually the convention sprung back to life.
Much of Sunday I just wandered around the Dealer's Room, took pictures of cosplayers, and the such.
While I was in the Dealer's Room Sunday trying to determine what I wanted to spend my money on, I was flipping through some posters (because the first poster on this group of posters was Naruto and Sasuke), when I discovered a huge, beautiful Wolf's Rain poster I had never seen before. I was like "*GASP*" and freaked out. It was $18.00, so I tried to barter for less, at which point the dealer told me that it was an extremely rare promotional poster. He said that there were probably only 500 made for when the DVDs originally came out in Japan (you can tell he wasn't lying, too--it has promotional dates and such on the bottom), and that by now there were probably way fewer than that. I spent all my remaining money on the poster (including exclusively-for-food money Mom had given me), and now I'm so excited to get the poster framed. It's so pretty. *_*
Nicole-tachi left around 11 AM so they could show the exchange students around San Francisco for a little while.
Cody and I somehow ended up in some anime aimed at small, small children, and being fascinated by the fact that we could understand all the Japanese even if it didn't have subtitles. It was a weird anime--it was about animal potatos or something. The characters we saw were named Hedgetato, and other [animal-name]-tatos. O_o;
We went to a panel on the anime industry in general, which was actually quite entertaining, especially when they started talking about how, to convert a non-anime fan into an anime fan, you should always show them the type of show you think they would hate, because they'll almost always love it. XD They used examples, too.
My friend from Anime Destiny found me again in the Dealer's Room, and she was cosplaying as Chii this time. We were working together to try to barter into getting stuff cheap (this was before I became broke from the Wolf's Rain poster), because I really wanted this adorable Naruto and Sasuke wallscroll, but all of our efforts were futile in the end. ^^;; That's actually better, though, because if I had bought the wallscroll, I couldn't have bought the WR poster, which is much, much more important to me.
I found Yaoi soap. I am amused.
It was funny--I've become quite obsessed with Shikamaru for some unknown reason (not in a romantic or sexual way, either--just in a "I'm obsessed with him!" way), so every time I would bring up Shikamaru Makayla would either roll her eyes or bap me on the head. ^^;; "Shikamaru!" *bap* "SHIKAMARU!" *BAP* "Ouch!"
"...Shikamaru..." ;_;
We also held LOTS of conversations on how the Fourth Hokage is absolutely, without a doubt, Naruto's Dad. I swear he is. We kept finding merchandise with the two of them on it, and there are just SO many hints for it.
The last thing we did officially before leaving the convention was going to Raj Ramayya's band, The Beautiful Losers, concert. I'm one of Raj and Brett's friends, so it was nice seeing them again. We always see them at every convention they go to, and we always say hello and talk to them about Yoko Kanno. Raj and Brett even know my Mom and brother by now. XD Cody and Makayla met them for the first time, and really liked their music, too, so they bought their CD immediately after the concert. ^_^ Raj promised to talk to Yoko Kanno for me (about releasing Wolf's Rain OST 3), and this excites me immensely. We'll see them at Anime Expo, too. I might get to talk to Maaya Sakamoto even more there now, because Raj knows her, too. ^_^
After seeing some funny signs on the volunteer room ("All your base are belong to us!!11one1one" and "Lemmings for Sale--Inquire Within" in 1337), where Mom checked out of her staffing duties, we left the convention. ;_; I didn't get a chance to change out of my costume, so I was still in it minus the tail and ears in the car.
On the car ride back, we listened to the Beautiful Losers CD and both WR OSTs. We stopped at Taco Bell for some food, and I went in in my Pikachu costume. No weird stares that I noticed, unfortunately. ._.; I got another spork for my collection, though.
My delusions continued past the convention. At one point, we were in some traffic, when I all the sudden started wondering if the people were just going to stop their cars, get out of them, get on top of the cars, and start a mass musical and dance. I don't know where I got that idea from. @_@
Cody and Makayla fell asleep about halfway through the drive, as usual. Cody fell asleep with his head on my shoulder, so I kept trying to make sure it didn't fall off when the road was bumpy. ^^;; Snuggling with Cody is fun. <3
Sooo...we got back, dropped Makayla and Cody off at their respective homes, and that was the trip.
SO much fun. @_@
Hitchi-chan, sorry I didn't buy you a Kamui plushie even though I saw them. ;_; I didn't have much money and I wasn't sure if you wanted me to or not because you didn't call. Next time, if you still need one by then, okay?
My arm hurts majorly from typing. Nine pages in ten font of convention description. Imagine what'll happen with the four-day conventions. @_@ Twice that long. If you'll excuse me, I have Naruto to watch and shower to take. ^_^
On Friday, the Gatsby party happened. Throughout the entire day, I kept flipflopping between whether I wanted to go or not. On one hand, I felt a little awkward about not dressing 20's style, I didn't know what I would do with myself at the actual party, and I just didn't see a reason to go. On the other hand, I didn't want to miss any memories that would leave a lasting impression on me.
In the end, I decided I might as well go for a few hours and check it out.
I got there at about 6:50 PM, though the actual party started at 7 PM. When I got there, there were only a few people there, so I greeted friends of mine and wandered about aimlessly, wondering what to do.
The decorations at the party were lovely and very elaborate and classy (and included a 12-foot, student-made fountain constructed from about 100 champaigne glasses), and the Hollywood theme shone, but this didn't change the fact I was bored and felt out of place. Everyone else pretty much was dressed up, and there I was in my usual shorts and a t-shirt and a few mardi gras beads around my neck. ^^;; I am NOT the type of person who dresses classy, regardless of the situation. Casual all the way!
Luckily, Zoe showed up pretty quickly. I was glad to see her, as I then had someone to hang around with. In tow was her newly-arrived exchange student, Kaoko. Kaoko was very quiet and I don't think she spoke much English at all, so Zoe and I spent a lot of the time at the party trying to figure out how to say phrases that were actually helpful. (Unfortunately, Kage Bunshin no Jutsu is not classified as helpful when speaking to an exchange student.) Zoe was thankful because I know quite a bit more Japanese than she does, but even working together, we couldn't say as much as we wanted to.
Kaoko followed us around as we did...absolutely nothing. We ate some keishes and deviled eggs (mmmm...really good), wandered, found a corner to sit in for a while, wandered to another corner, and this cycle repeated itself for a long, long time. Zoe felt just as awkward as I did, poor Kaoko was just confused, and the three of us left at around 8:50 PM feeling very unaccomplished.
Well, I'm glad I got it over with. -_- Everyone else was having a lot of fun, and so that was cool, but I really felt out of place at a party where all you could do is talk, dance, and eat, and where not all the people are close friends of mine. o_o I'll take an anime convention or hanging out with a bunch of my friends over that any day.
Once Mom picked me up, we went to pick up Makayla at her house, which isn't far from Miner's Foundry anyway. She gathered all of her stuff, was genki, and we took off for my house. My Mom mistook her little brother for a girl, so we laughed about this for a while in the car while listened to anime music of some sort.
We got home at probably... 9:20 or so, and Cody-kun was supposed to drive over to my house after his Latin club thing and spend the night, too.
While we waited, we watched a few episodes of Naruto with Ryan, and jumped up to look out the window expectantly every time the dogs started barking or we heard a car come near the house.
Then we watched AMVs in my room, still waiting for Cody.
By 11 PM, we concluded two things:
- Cody wasn't coming that night (We theorized he probably went home after Latin, decided to lie down for a second, and fell flat asleep.)
- It was time to go to bed.
So...um...we did. I had some trouble sleeping because the dogs barked almost all night, I was excited, and Makayla went through bouts of loud snoring, but eventually I fell asleep.
I woke up when it was still dark out, but forced myself to sleep until 6:20 AM, when I decided I couldn't lie in bed waiting any longer. Everyone else was still asleep, so I got on Mapquest to get directions to the con and played Solitaire on the computer until everybody finally woke up around 7:10 AM-ish. I called Cody at 7:30 AM, hoping he wasn't still asleep, and discovered he was already awake and that our earlier theory about him falling asleep at home had been correct. The plan then became that we would pick him up on the way out of town after we left.
So...the usual pre-convention stress and chaos took its toll. We packed, and Mom yelled at us to do chores and pack and feed the animals and such, and we ended up leaving at 9 AM instead of the previously decided-on 8 AM.
We drove to Cody's house and picked him up. This was a quick process, so there isn't much to say about it.
The car drive was totally pleasant. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and all the rolling hillsides on the way were covered in verdant grass. Makayla and I kept making funny associations out of the hills-- we wanted to sldie down them, ride Yakkul (from Mononoke Hime, for those who don't know) over them, fly vanships (Last Exile) over the tops of them, etc. All three of us were in a excellent mood. We listened to plenty of anime music, too, singing along much of the time. One of the many, many, many high points of the weekend.
Makayla got Cody hooked on MegaTokyo while we were in the car, so we laughed about it and sympathized with it too much and all that. ^^;; We also had a big discussion about 1337, and attempted to explain what it was to my Mom (and failed).
The car ride went by extremely fast, too.
Anime Overdose 2005!
We had no problem at all locating the hotel, and our first cosplayer sighting (always an exciting event--spotting your first cosplayer at every convention) was Sakura from Naruto! ^_^ We got really excited at that point. XD
Before we could do any con-stuff, we had to check into the hotel and unload the car, though, so we waited in the lobby while Mom checked in. There were cosplayers EVERYWHERE. Hundreds of them. I almost exploded from excitement at that point, and kept babbling about how we had to hurry so I didn't continue to feel naked without my costume for much longer. I wanted to change really badly. While Mom was in line, Cody and Makayla disappeared, thus confusing me. They showed up about fifteen minutes later with their badges.
Cody was eager to get into a costume, too, so he went into the bathroom in the lobby to change. First he changed into his Shuichi costume. He walked out of the bathroom, and literally about twenty seconds later, a group of about five girls went "SHUICHI!" and glomped him. It turned out it was some of the girls who rented him at Japan Town Anime Faire! It was great seeing them again, because they were really nice. ^_^
Cody was being fickle about his costumes, so he then changed into his Ryuichi costume, and then back into the Shuichi one, and then I think he changed into the Ryuichi one again. I can't remember anymore...he changed a bunch of times throughout the day. XD
We grabbed our stuff out of the car once Mom got the hotel keys and brought all of it up to the room. I promptly dumped everything on one of the beds, scattered it, and changed into my Pikachu costume.
Once I was in costume, the mingling and con activities commenced.
The first picture I took when I went down into the lower lobby of the hotel (mainly where the convention was taking place) was of an excellent female Gaara cosplayer. ^_^ She was very nice, too.
I attempted to go into the Dealer's Room after taking the picture of Gaara, but I soon discovered I had forgotten to pick up my badge. XD Baka! So I did that, and then went into the Dealer's Room.
I'm going to stop talking about going in and out of the Dealer's Room at this point, because it was where I spent approximately 30% of the convention. XD To the point that the people posted at the entrance asked me if I was walking in circles. What can I say? There's always so much to look at in the Dealer's Rooms of conventions, and it's a good place to find cosplayers, too.
Overall, here's what I bought. It's not much (I only had $60 to spend, and I continuously bought big, expensive things):
- Official Naruto headband (Blue, Konoha logo)
- A Naruto plushie (So cyute!) (I spent a lot of the convention trying to talk Makayla into buying a Kakashi one, but she wouldn't spent the $20 for it.)
- Makayla bought me a little, tiny chibi Sasuke keychain. You have NO idea how cute this thing is. I have it around my neck right now. ^^
- Cody bought me an adorable Sasuke fanart bookmark in the Artist's Alley. Another unbelievably cute thing to add to the list. XD
- Cody also bought a Nittle Grasper postcard that we're (meaning Cody, Nicole, Makayla, and I) sharing. It's nifty and shiny and rare. Not to mention sexy. *_*
- A little Naruto poster that has Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, Kakashi, and Iruka on it.
- An absolutely gorgeous, extremely rare Wolf's Rain poster I didn't even know existed. (More on that later.)
I also came away from this convention with some HILARIOUS photographs and stories, particularly ones concerning Naruto characters. I'll tell those in a second.
When we went into the Artist's Alley, the first thing I hear is a familiar voice call, "Pikachu! HEY!" so I turn around, and there's a friend of mine from Anime Destiny! She was like, "Remember me?" to which I enthusiastically exclaimed, "Of course!" We talked for hours at Anime Destiny about all sorts of things. She asked me, "Where's Faye (Nicole)?", and I told her I wasn't sure because Nicole went down with Emmy's mom and her exchange student and wasn't there yet. I promised to come back by when I found Nicole.
The Artist's Alley was a great place to find Naruto cosplayers, as they made it their unofficial hangout place.
One thing I must say about this convention was that it was Naruto-filled. So when I keep bringing up Naruto again and again and again, it's not so much because I'm obsessed (though I definitely am), but because everyone else is, too. ^^;; Just wanted to let you know that. It's not like Naruto's the ONLY anime in my life, though I adore it bunches. XD
We found the Third Hokage in the Dealer's Room. Next to him, at the table he was sitting at, he put a sign that said "Will Take Any Requests For Free! (But I Am Hungry)", and it had a cute drawing of Temari, Gaara, and Sasuke...I think. He was busy at work drawing for people (and getting food from it) for a lot of the convention.
At one point, I walked in and looked at his sketchpad to find... Kabuto in a dress?! O_O; WTF? It was hilarious. I took a picture of Hokage-sama working on his drawing of Kabuto in a dress, and chuckled at what an incredible, reliable leader he obviously was...especially with Orochimaru sitting right next to him with a big smile on his face. XDDD
There're two other great Naruto-cosplayer stories.
I was wandering the Dealer's Room like always, camera in tow, when I look over and see a Sasuke cosplayer (and a darn good one at that). So, I was about to go over and request a picture when I look over and see what Sasuke's doing. It was a double-take moment, because...
Sasuke was doing nothing other than browsing the Hentai Yaoi doujinshi! XD There was a big ol' sign that clearly said "YAOI HENTAI" right above Sasuke, so, without him noticing (actually a she, but...y'know), I took a picture. XD That picture is very entertaining to me. Later on, I asked for an actual picture where Sasuke knew I was taking a picture of her, but I never did tell her about the yaoi picture that I intend to use as evidence for a ship I don't even support. XD
Right before we left the next day, I was in the Dealer's Room again, and who did I find under the exact same sign except Genma (I'm pretty sure that's his name... You know, the guy who judged the Third Chuunin Exam matches (i.e., Naruto vs. Neji, Shikamaru vs. Temari, and Sasuke vs. Gaara))! I decided to tell him (again, actually a her) I was taking her picture (I had taken a picture of her earlier doing non-naughty things), so I walked up and said, "Hey! Just continue what you were doing--I'm catching Naruto characters doing naughty things." XD She was more than happy to participate, and not only did she continue browsing, she grabbed a KakashixIruka doujin and proceeded to stare at it dreamily for the picture. Oh-so-amusing.
Another entertaining naughty-anime-characters moment was, again, in the Artist's Alley.
On an FMA note, Ed (female) and Roy were posing together for pictures, when they decided to jokingly fight. They started out just poking each other and such, but eventually they ended up wrestling on the floor. This attracted a huge crowd of fangirls and random con-goers, who just laughed and "Oooo"ed and "Awwww"ed and oogled. Eventually,Roy outmuscled Ed and decided to sit on her. ...Except it looked very...seme-ish. VERY seme-ish. Especially when Ed decided to play total uke with Roy sitting on her. I took many pictures. XD;; I hope the digital camera starts working again soon so I can show you all these great pictures. They're SOOOO funny.
I got my picture taken lots, as usual, and lots of hug requests (which I more than happily fulfilled). I also met up with more familiar faces than you could shake a stick at. I kept running into people who were like, "Pikachu! Remember me?" and then they would ask me where Nicole was. Most of them I did remember, but a few of the photographers I had forgotten. At least three or four photographers remembered taking pictures of me at more than one convention (of course, I've been to fourteen of them at this point, about five or six of which I was in costume).
At around noon on Saturday, we found Nicole-tachi in the Dealer's Room, and I met her and Emmy's exchange students. They were nice guys (they like Eva!) and seemed to be doing quite well despite the weirdness. XD They actually spoke a fair share of English, too. At least enough that we could semi-effectively communicate. Nicole's activities at the convention were slightly limited because of the exchange students, so we didn't see her as much as I would have liked to, but that's okay. She came and went.
I can't remember the order of a lot of these events, so I'll randomly name them off.
We ended up in the video room watching DNAngel for quite a while. This was lots of fun, and though we're familiar with the series, this was the first time we watched more than one episode of it. I, however, wanted to leave for much of it, not because I wasn't enjoying it (I really was), but because my legs were in paaain. I can't sit in my Pikachu costume because of the tail (it's a hassle to take on and off, so I usually just leave it on and don't sit down), so I was standing for most of it, then I'd try squatting, then I'd sit down partially, etc. Cody was very absorbed in it, though. ^^;; Funny how he likes all the cutesy bishounen-filled shows in addition to all the serious action stuff that we all love. He even seems to enjoy Gravitation/DNAngel-type things as much as we do, if not more. o_o It's awesome having a male friend like that. XD
Makayla bought Nicole the first volume of the DNAngel DVDs for her birthday, so I'll be seeing more of that soon.
We went into an ADV panel because there were rumors of free stuff, but left after a couple of trailers because the free stuff was only for people who asked questions and we couldn't think of any questions. While we were in there, I found Zabuza and Haku. I really, really wanted to take pictures of them, but they stayed in the panel and I never saw them again. ;_; I spent a LOT of the convention trying to find Haku and Zabuza for pictures again.
Ramen and Rice (a pair of girls who play anime songs extremely well on violin and cello--we're always happy to see them at conventions) set up in the hallway, and I happened to walk in while they were playing Haruka Kanata. *_* Later I walked in while they were playing Ready Steady Go, too. They got a huge audience both times. They're so awesome.
My Mom is now officially an Anime Convention Mom. She and Ryan volunteered to staff for most of the convention, so they were busy setting up for concerts, controlling lines, and running into the volunteer room for meetings. XD Now all she's gotta do is cosplay, and she'll be a complete Anime Convention Mom. XD
At about 5 PM, Makayla, Cody, and I went back up to the hotel room to take a quick break for food (read: three pretzels was all I ate the entire day. That was my food break, and my only food break. I forgot food existed.) Cody read Ranma mangas he bought while Makayla and I fiddled with our newly purchased Naruto headbands. She wore hers, but I didn't because I was still in my Pikachu costume and that would be a little weird.
At 6 PM, we checked our schedules and decided to go to the Der Cosplay. We got into the Ballroom it was in and found my Mom the super staff, who informed us there were no seats, and we should wait in the back of the room 'til she found us some seats. While we waited Cody continued to read Ranma manga and I waved at familiar cosplayers. We got seats fairly close to the front (maybe ten rows back) after waiting for a while.
The host was corny and trying to keep it all together despite a few setbacks, but he made the occasional funny jokes. He kept offending all us Naruto fans (just for a reaction), which was kind of funny. ^^;;
The skits were fun and entertaining, but there were more walk-ons then I thought there would be. There were some great skits, though. My favorites were:
- One that involved the use of Fanfiction Clichés (something I could easily sympathize with).
- A group cosplaying as Psycho le Cému (the band actually at the convention) who sang BADLY about eggs for several minutes. Endlessly entertaining in a stupid way. Sounded really perverted. XD Makayla and I kept stealing weird looks at each other while this was going on becayse we were disturbed and amused at the same time.
- Sakura vs. Ino. They started out singing Harumonia together, and ended up racing for the last Sasuke plushie in the Dealer's Room using their abilities. XD
- A group of Final Fantasy girls dancing to a variety of songs. Hilarious. (The Macarena, anyone?)
- A pair of cosplayers, no older than five years old, dressed as Inuyasha and Dejiko, just had to walk on the stage and stand there for the entire audience to go "AWWWW~~!" They were ADORABLE.
There were lots of excellent Naruto walk-ons, including Gaara from earlier (she won best costume and deserved it ^_^) and a cosplayer who creatively did the 16-year-old version of Naruto from the manga. I chased him down to compliment him on his costume and got a picture when the skits were all over.
There was an intermission after the skits so the judges could make their decisions, and during this time Ramen and Rice played their Super Smash Bros. Suite. It was really great--when it came to the Pokémon battle theme, I stood up in my Pikachu costume, went "PIKA!" as loud as I could, and raised my fist in the air. I got TONS of applause. ^_^ It was a great moment. They also played something from FMA (I forget what ._.) and something from Chrono Trigger (which I know nothing about other than the fact it's a popular video game). Musume USA performed, too, which was fun to watch.
The judges gave out a bunch of awards (one of which was "Best Use of a Legless Duck", and one of which went to the host), and that was that. Like I said earlier, I chased down older Naruto and took his picture, then we went to the AMV contest.
There was some time in between the skits and the AMVs, so we went into the Artist's Alley to see what was going on. It was a Naruto game tournament. XD How much fun is that? We watched several matches (Itachi vs...lots of people, who all lost, Sasuke vs. Jiraiya, and Chouji vs. Sakura), got jazzed up about it, and cheered for our favorite characters. ^_^ I want that game! It looks like so much fun.
At the AMV competition, we snagged the seats in front and waited to watch AMVs.
Unfortunately, we were subjected to at least a half-hour of trailers for random Asian horror flicks before we actually got to watch AMVs. >.< At least the Asian movies looked better than your average American movie, but we were there for anime, not random, weird live-action movies.
When the contest started, we were treated to, well, a treat. One of our favorite videos, Hale's Mom, played first. XD We couldn't help but chuckle and sing along, as we've seen it probably fifty times, if not more. It never loses it's funniness, though.
There were a number of mishaps with the AMV contest. First off, there were only seven videos competing. XD On one of those, the audio wasn't working, so scratch that. The videos that were there were pretty good, though. Three of the best ones were by the same [present] guy, though. The first one was a good FLCL vid, the second Samurai Champloo, and the third made up for all the hell we went through for this AMV contest (you'll see).
At some point, there was a video (yes, on TAPE) that was supposedly Dutch and also supposedly contained an AMV on it. However, when they turned the video on, it was...a really, really awful fandub parody. It was quite funny, but it was incredibly stupid, bad quality, and definitely not an AMV. We watched about fifteen minutes of this before the people running it stopped the tape and decided to use the directions in the note that came with the tape. We tried this, and ended up with yet another bad fandub that went on for fifteen minutes or more. At that point they determined that the tape wasn't, indeed, the "Dutch tape". They never did find the real Dutch tape.
After all this, they put on one more AMV that had everyone cheering and "Awww"ing and happy. It was a really sweet video dedicated to Lee and his love for Sakura, and it was very moving and great. It won the contest easily. ^_^ Can anyone say "Awwww"?
Overall, a very odd AMV contest, though.
After all that, Makayla and Cody were pretty tired and decided to go swimming in the swimming pool before they went to bed. There was a J-Rock concert that night, but we were all pretty tired, and we went up to the swimming pool. I didn't swim because I didn't have my bathing suit, but Cody, Makayla, and Ryan had ninja-fights in the pool and had a blast.
Mom and my curiosity overwhelmed us, though, and we decided to go check out the J-rock concert.
We got in there and it was dark and very crowded, with no chairs except in the front. When I first got in there, I was, first off, surprised at the band's costumes, and second off, confused immensely because they were doing some sort of an odd skit. O_o After a few minutes of watching in odd skit in confusion, I looked around and realized that Nicole, Emmy, Eric, and the exchange students were about ten feet from me the whole time. Nicole-tachi were as baffled as I was.
This changed soon enough, however. After maybe fifteen minutes of this odd drama, the band actually started to play.
Nicole and I got into it fast. It was actually great music (very energetic and fun J-rock), and we were dancing and hopping up and down and having a GREAT time. One of those, "Wow...this is so fun it's almost surreal" moments. There were some interesting light shows, all the people were totally into the music, and cheering and yelling, and there were glowsticks everywhere. Nicole, Emmy, and I danced together for the whole concert. The exchange students left to sleep after a while, but we stayed for the whole performance. ^_^ It was a great J-rock concert. Maybe not as grand as the one at Fanime, but absolutely thrilling nonetheless.
The audience was so into the music, when the concert was over, the band left for about ten minutes in which the whole audience chanted, "Psy-cho! Psy-cho! Psy-cho!" until they finally came for an encore, to massive cheering. They played a few more songs, left again, but again the chanting crowd brought them back again. All in all, they ended up doing four encores. ^_^ Psycho le Cému seemed to be having just as much fun as the audience.
Might I add, my Mom stayed for the entire concert. ^_^
It was about midnight by the time a representative for the band came on stage and said that the band was tired and they needed to stop the show once and for all.
So, I went back to the room completely sweaty and exhausted and with full intentions of going straight to sleep. I can't believe Cody and Makayla missed out on that! On the elevator on the way back to the hotel room, I talked to this really nice/really good San cosplayer and complimented her on her costume.
Anyway, I walked into the hotel room and was surprised to find Cody and Makayla still awake. I soon discovered why--FMA just happened to be on TV! YAY! I settled down and watched it (it was an excellent episode, by the way), and then we watched most of GitS: SAC before finally getting in bed and starting to doze off. I was half asleep by the time Lithium Flower came on, but I sang along anyway.
I woke up at about 6 AM, but I forced myself to sleep in until 8 AM, at which point I took a shower. I needed it after the concert. ^^;; I dried off, got dressed, and sat on Cody's rollaway bed with him while he read MegaTokyo. I had to use the ice machine like I do at all hotels we stay at, so we ate toffee peanuts and iceand sat on the rollaway bed and read MegaTokyo. The entire time I was sitting there, next to the window, I couldn't stop thinking about Gaara wearing a flowery hat (don't even ask me why--I don't know ^^;;). I'm weird. I also started thinking about Godzilla emerging from the mist. My mental state worries me sometimes.
I got in my costume and went downstairs to the convention with Makayla and Cody at 9 AM, but we forgot that the convention didn't start until 10 AM, so we were left with very little to do with ourselves while we waited. We wandered around, Cody wandered off somewhere unknown, we went into the gift shop of the hotel randomly, rode the elevators up and down, and eventually the convention sprung back to life.
Much of Sunday I just wandered around the Dealer's Room, took pictures of cosplayers, and the such.
While I was in the Dealer's Room Sunday trying to determine what I wanted to spend my money on, I was flipping through some posters (because the first poster on this group of posters was Naruto and Sasuke), when I discovered a huge, beautiful Wolf's Rain poster I had never seen before. I was like "*GASP*" and freaked out. It was $18.00, so I tried to barter for less, at which point the dealer told me that it was an extremely rare promotional poster. He said that there were probably only 500 made for when the DVDs originally came out in Japan (you can tell he wasn't lying, too--it has promotional dates and such on the bottom), and that by now there were probably way fewer than that. I spent all my remaining money on the poster (including exclusively-for-food money Mom had given me), and now I'm so excited to get the poster framed. It's so pretty. *_*
Nicole-tachi left around 11 AM so they could show the exchange students around San Francisco for a little while.
Cody and I somehow ended up in some anime aimed at small, small children, and being fascinated by the fact that we could understand all the Japanese even if it didn't have subtitles. It was a weird anime--it was about animal potatos or something. The characters we saw were named Hedgetato, and other [animal-name]-tatos. O_o;
We went to a panel on the anime industry in general, which was actually quite entertaining, especially when they started talking about how, to convert a non-anime fan into an anime fan, you should always show them the type of show you think they would hate, because they'll almost always love it. XD They used examples, too.
My friend from Anime Destiny found me again in the Dealer's Room, and she was cosplaying as Chii this time. We were working together to try to barter into getting stuff cheap (this was before I became broke from the Wolf's Rain poster), because I really wanted this adorable Naruto and Sasuke wallscroll, but all of our efforts were futile in the end. ^^;; That's actually better, though, because if I had bought the wallscroll, I couldn't have bought the WR poster, which is much, much more important to me.
I found Yaoi soap. I am amused.
It was funny--I've become quite obsessed with Shikamaru for some unknown reason (not in a romantic or sexual way, either--just in a "I'm obsessed with him!" way), so every time I would bring up Shikamaru Makayla would either roll her eyes or bap me on the head. ^^;; "Shikamaru!" *bap* "SHIKAMARU!" *BAP* "Ouch!"
"...Shikamaru..." ;_;
We also held LOTS of conversations on how the Fourth Hokage is absolutely, without a doubt, Naruto's Dad. I swear he is. We kept finding merchandise with the two of them on it, and there are just SO many hints for it.
The last thing we did officially before leaving the convention was going to Raj Ramayya's band, The Beautiful Losers, concert. I'm one of Raj and Brett's friends, so it was nice seeing them again. We always see them at every convention they go to, and we always say hello and talk to them about Yoko Kanno. Raj and Brett even know my Mom and brother by now. XD Cody and Makayla met them for the first time, and really liked their music, too, so they bought their CD immediately after the concert. ^_^ Raj promised to talk to Yoko Kanno for me (about releasing Wolf's Rain OST 3), and this excites me immensely. We'll see them at Anime Expo, too. I might get to talk to Maaya Sakamoto even more there now, because Raj knows her, too. ^_^
After seeing some funny signs on the volunteer room ("All your base are belong to us!!11one1one" and "Lemmings for Sale--Inquire Within" in 1337), where Mom checked out of her staffing duties, we left the convention. ;_; I didn't get a chance to change out of my costume, so I was still in it minus the tail and ears in the car.
On the car ride back, we listened to the Beautiful Losers CD and both WR OSTs. We stopped at Taco Bell for some food, and I went in in my Pikachu costume. No weird stares that I noticed, unfortunately. ._.; I got another spork for my collection, though.
My delusions continued past the convention. At one point, we were in some traffic, when I all the sudden started wondering if the people were just going to stop their cars, get out of them, get on top of the cars, and start a mass musical and dance. I don't know where I got that idea from. @_@
Cody and Makayla fell asleep about halfway through the drive, as usual. Cody fell asleep with his head on my shoulder, so I kept trying to make sure it didn't fall off when the road was bumpy. ^^;; Snuggling with Cody is fun. <3
Sooo...we got back, dropped Makayla and Cody off at their respective homes, and that was the trip.
SO much fun. @_@
Hitchi-chan, sorry I didn't buy you a Kamui plushie even though I saw them. ;_; I didn't have much money and I wasn't sure if you wanted me to or not because you didn't call. Next time, if you still need one by then, okay?
My arm hurts majorly from typing. Nine pages in ten font of convention description. Imagine what'll happen with the four-day conventions. @_@ Twice that long. If you'll excuse me, I have Naruto to watch and shower to take. ^_^
