Summer in Review

There's been a lot happening over the last few months. To start off, I graduated from high school, and have the little diploma-card to prove it. For some reason, they wouldn't let me (or my friends) blow bubbles at the commencement. They even threatened to hold my diploma if I blew bubbles again! Guess I should've figured that, with my high school's flagpole-up-the-ass administrators. A message to the AHS administration: Lighten up, and remember whose graduation it is.

This was immediately followed by a week-long stay at my grandmother's. It's the closest thing that we get to a vacation in our family. On the way there, my mom's car -- a beater that my uncle Bill sold us after my mom's old car broke down -- experienced a transmission failure, thus necessitating my walking up the exit to call my uncle from a pay phone. When he arrived, he proceeded to tell us that "beaters are for driving around town," despite the fact that he sold the car to us and my mom's old car worked for nine years throughout road trips a-plenty.

That wasn't half as bad as what I faced when we got my grandmother's. We didn't go much of anywhere on our vacation, save for a historic fort and a wildlife zoo. Did I mention my grandmother doesn't like me very much? I mean, many others resent me too, but they aren't family. Anyway, that week sucked.

Then came my job search. You'd think a person of my intelligence could easily find a job anywhere. Think again; 13 applications and I'm just now finding a job, which I'll abandon in a couple of weeks to go to college. I had a couple of interviews, but they didn't want me after that. I rack my brains asking myself why not. Ah well...

I also went to Virginia Tech for orientation. It was a good weekend. My sister was complaining the whole way about walking everywhere, which we did. The one thing that put me off was that they are "cracking down" on Napster/Gnutella-type file sharing, and making a big deal out of it. I thought it was a technologically-enlightened school, since it's mainly an engineering university (and I'm entering their Computer Science program, which is also said to be pretty good). Ah well. Guess that means I'll have to avoid getting caught...

I have more, but it deserves its own entry.

Otakon with Emiko

p>The biggest and best thing I did this summer was going to Otakon with my good friend Emiko. If you went there, you would've recognized me; I was the only one who looked normal. But that was OK, since I was, relatively speaking, an anime neophyte. Before Otakon, I watched some anime (Dominion Tank Police, Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer, 8-Man After, Speed Racer, Akira), but was usually restricted by what they showed on the Sci-Fi Channel, since my mother considers anime Japanese Looney Tunes, which, of course, they're truly not.

To start with, transportation was a problem, since Em's parents weren't going to let her drive to Baltimore -- where the con was being held -- and the friend who was going to drive us over there bailed on her. She managed to convince her parents into letting her drive, but in doing so, she left some hours later than expected. She was angry about that, since we were going to meet the rest of our party at the hotel. We had dinner, and went up to Baltimore. We had some time to discuss various things. I read from a George Carlin book, she told me her Star Wars story -- she's the niece of Admiral Piett, the guy who runs Vader's command ship after the strangulation of Admiral Ozzel in The Empire Strikes Back. The journey proceeded without incident -- although we did miss a turnoff here and there, and had to backtrack a bit to get where we were supposed to be.

Then came the hotel. The rooms were registered in Emiko's friend's name (Kern) and he hadn't checked in yet, so we left for the con, got our badges, looked for him in Artists' Alley (where we thought he was), then went back to the hotel, where we waited for him in the car - for two hours. Meanwhile, our parents had gone beserk since we hadn't checked in in four hours and called the police, who found us still outside the hotel rooms waiting for Kern to arrive. Needless to say, they were not happy campers (our parents, that is). Our mutual friends eventually came back to the hotel (around 2 AM or so), and we got our stuff stowed away and such.

The next day, all of us set out on our adventure. We went to the convention center and set off. Emiko had to go to Kinko's to get supplies for her booth in Artist's Alley, so I was left to guard her stuff until she returned. It was an hour-plus wait, so I looked around the area (it was quite large, BTW). Artists were all around, some of them very very very good. The art show/silent auction was no exception; one of the works sold for over a thousand dollars. By this time, autographs from Yoko Ishida were being given out, so I got in line and got one, plus one from her backup singers. (Yoko Ishida is one of the big J-Pop names; her name is connected mainly with the Para-Para, a dance that's all the rage in Japan.) When I got done, I was relieved by Ann and Chris (two of our party), so I took off. I headed for the Game Room first. Lots of game consoles, and Dance Dance Revolution all around. I played Twisted Metal Black for a while. Then I went to the Dealers Room, where I bought some cheap anime, a T-shirt, and snagged some freebies, including a Bandai promotional DVD with an episode of Arjuna on it (although I suspect it's been shortened).

Then I headed over to the film rooms -- first to watch an anime called Battle of the Planets, which looked like something I would've seen on Saturday morning cartoons...30 years ago. After five minutes enduring that drivel, I went to watch a screening of JSA, a South Korean film about the investigation of an incident at the North-South Korea border. Quite good, actually. If you can find it, watch it.

After that, my second trip to the Dealer Room proved fruitful, as I got a DVD of the first six episodes of Robotech (yes, go ahead and laugh now) for $10. My new friend Sonjay would say later that I got ripped off, but not by much. I also attended an autograph session where I got the John Hancock of Masao Maruyama, a man who's made half of the good anime known to man. After that, I went to Burger King to get some dinner. I made it back in time for the showing of Tenshi no Konamaiki, a high-school comedy anime about Megu-chan, a boy turned into a girl with some sort of power, and the exploits of a slick guy to win her heart. And the syndicate of Megu-chan fanboys set out to protect her from said slick guy. It's funny...

Which brings us to the evening, where I went to see Akira in the 35-millimeter film room. For those of you even more new at this than me, Akira is one of the first full-length anime to be introduced in mainstream America. It was the movie -- specifically, the second half of it I watched on the Sci-Fi Channel -- that got me hooked on anime. It's cyberpunk, or about as cyberpunk as you can get for 1987. It was excellent. Afterward, I went back to the game room for a little bit, then back to Artists' Alley for a bit, bidding on something at the silent auction. Then we left.

Soon after, the party went on an adventure, trying to find somewhere to eat in a suburb of Maryland after 1 AM. We tried the Applebee's only to find out it was closed, so we trekked back across the major highway and walked up parallel to it. Eventually we came across a gas station, but the door was locked. While we waited for the guy to come back, Ann was complaining about a bug that bit her. I thought I would be doing a service by killing it. Emiko was miffed at me for doing this, and it unnerved me for a bit. A short time after Emiko made peace with what was left of the bug, the gas guy came back. He would only let one of us in at a time, apparently lacking in the confidence that he could overpower six otaku (anime enthusiasts) all by himself if we chose to hold him up. Anyway, we got the food, and we headed back to the hotel, where I (foolishly, as it turned out) obsessed over it until Emiko, after hearing my second apology for the incident, told me to get back to sleep and not to worry about it.

Then came Sunday. We headed to the convention center around 11:30. Emiko went to Artists' Alley (after going to Kinko's), I went to see Azumanga Daioh (another funny high school comedy), and then went to a digital fansubbing panel, which discussed how different fansub groups translated, subtitled, and distributed anime not released yet in the States. The panel ended with a parody fansub that was hilarious! ("Mmm, slippery Ryo-chan...") You had to be there...

I found Emiko on my way to Artist's Alley. she was conversing with Steve, a friend of hers. She saw me shortly after she refused some Pocky (Japanese candy) from him. "Where the hell were you?" she asked. They had been waiting for 45 minutes, since Artist's Alley closed at 2 PM. I apologized, and our party went their separate ways. After a wait while Emiko went to the Dealers Room to do something, we headed home.

Heading home, Emiko asked me about what I did, and when I told her, she was startled by the fact that I didn't see any modern anime. We spent the hours getting back discussing what anime was good and bad. After that, I listened to her ongoing online tale, The Daerinnid Chronicles. Aside from that, the trip home was uneventful. We got to my house, we said our goodbyes, we hugged, and she left.

I had a good time at the anime convention, though Emiko thinks it would've been better had I seen some good anime (although, in all fairness, all the good ones were on Friday, and we didn't get to Baltimore until 11:30 PM on Friday). She asked me, why I didn't ask her about the anime I was seeing? In all honesty, it didn't occur to me. But she says she will be on hand to guide me the next time. I'm looking forward to it, Emiko.

NOTE: There is a bit more to this story, but I cannot post it here. If you are truly interested, email me at andrew_mike[at]hotmail[dot]com and I will send you the details. Sorry for the inconvenience.