I hope nobody minds if I do a little con reporting!  ^_^



        Today was the first day of Bakacon 2, the Northwest's
only anime convention.  Unfortunately, I didn't take the day
off, so I was at work until well after 5:00 pm, and didn't arrive
at the convention until after 6:00 pm.  After registering and
checking the schedule, I was extremely disappointed to learn
that the con's fan fiction panel had already taken place, at 4:00
pm.  That was one of my main reasons for coming!
        The dealer's room and art show were also closed for the
evening -- two more of my reasons for coming, but at least I
can catch them tomorrow.
        I bought a con tee shirt.  They're much better than last
year's, and have two characters from Nadesico (sp?) on the
back.
        The guests this year are two American voice actors (an
actor and an actress actually), Tristan MacAvery and Tiffany
Grant.  Their other guest is American comic book writer/artist
Stan Sakai, creator of Usagi Yojimbo.  I like UY a lot, so I'm
glad he's one of the guests; I'll have to make it to at least one
panel of his.
        I don't know any of the people running this convention
(although one of my friends helped organize the first one), but
my friends and I did get to speak with some of them at their
room party at Norwescon.  I was a little surprised that one of
the guys who is apparently a big fan fiction writer didn't seem
to have any idea what the FFML was.  Another thing that Sky
picked up on was that they were having trouble attracting
Japanese pros to the convention, because of the name --
apparently when they named their con, they had no real idea of
how offensive the term "baka" could be to the Japanese.
        But they seem like nice people.  Their con is small and a
bit disorganized, but often a small con can be more fun than a
big trade show (like Anime Expo).
        On the other hand, my first day was mostly a bust.
Having missed most of the day's events already, I proceeded to
link up with my friends Sky and Phil, and sit in the lobby,
doing nothing but talking.  Phil is a local artist who used to do
art for the fanzine I'm a part of, Tales Of The Tai-Pan, but I
didn't know that he was an anime fan.  He seems to be one of
those fans who likes a few select shows a whole lot, and
doesn't even know much about the rest of anime -- he was only
passingly familiar with Ranma 1/2, and completely unfamiliar
with El Hazard and Tenchi Muyou, but knew all about Battle
Angel Alita.
        They had the opening ceremonies, and there was a taiko
drum group performing.  Now >that< is a pretty darn cool idea!
        Around 8:00 pm Sky, Phil and I tried to join an El Hazard
role-playing game, but the people running it didn't show up.
Instead, Sky and I walked across the parking lot to South
Center Mall and ate in their food court.  I tried the Japanese
restaurant there (not much more than a teriyaki joint, actually).
They literally had nine people running one little food court
restaurant!  The food itself -- teriyaki chicken, with fried rice
and vegetables -- was merely okay.  I don't think I'll eat there
again.
        I really wanted to watch some anime  or do SOMEthing
after that, but Sky wasn't feeling too well and I was his ride
home.  In any case, the video room had a very helpful schedule
on the doorway that told you when various role playing games
were scheduled.  As for what movies were playing, you
apparently were supposed to guess.
        We walked through the con once more, and got to hear a
group of otaku reminiscing about their favorite anime scenes
and singing opening theme songs out-of-key.  I don't know
about you, but every time I run into this sort of thing, I'm
reminded that anime fandom is a media fandom and is
therefore, in some respects, less creative than other types of
fandom.  Which annoys me even more that I missed the fan
fiction panel, because that's one of the few creative areas of
anime fandom.
        Costuming is another, and I saw several nice hall
costumes.  I saw a Rei that I was fairly certain was male, but it
was a good enough job that I kept wondering.  I saw a few
Sailor Scouts, and a guy with an Ura armored cat hall costume!
My friends and I have been wanting to build Ura armored cat
costumes for Project A-Kon, and somebody (probably a lot of
somebodies) beat us to the punch!  Sky and I had to look his
outfit over, so we'd have a better idea of what to do when we
went at it.
        I haven't seen the art show yet, but I got an interesting
story from my friend Sky.  He discovered this week that he
hasn't matted any artwork in four years, and doesn't own any
matte board.  He works at a service beareau, however, so he
took his artwork in to work and had it matted there.  He was
lamenting the fact that it was not a great matte job, and was
worried that his work would look bad in comparison to other
artists, but he'd apparently forgotten what anime art shows (and
this one in particular) can be like.
        On the panel next to him, someone had hung art that was
essentially drawn on typewriter paper and then stuffed into
clear plastic protector sheets, the kind that you can stick in a
three-ring binder.  Sky was amazed.  Then someone
complimented his artwork, and mentioned that they had art in
the show as well.  "Are you here to hang it?" Sky asked.  "No,"
they said, "it's already up."  And they pointed to the drawings in
the plastic sheet protectors.
        Sky then made the mistake of asking the artist who one of
the pictures was supposed to be.  "Ifurita," the artist replied.  El
Hazard, of course, is Sky's favorite anime.  Sky tried to cover
up for not being able to recognize one of his favorite anime
characters by saying, "Oh, I'm not very familiar with that
show."  Then he realized he was in the process of hanging a
picture of Shayla-Shayla....  Open mouth, insert foot...  ^_^

        Tomorrow:  Miko actually does something at the con!!!
^_^




Miko!

On the field, Kasumi and Akane were sitting up. Their father hovered
over them, tears rolling down his cheeks and dripping from his chin.
"Kasumi!" He exclaimed. "My poor Kasumi! Tell them you'll forfeit!
Please!"
"Dad?" Akane asked. She glanced over at Kasumi, and froze.
The person next to her wasn't Kasumi. It was a young girl with short,
dark hair in a page cut. She wore a light yellow dress, and she was
looking very confused.
Akane glanced down at herself. She was wearing a red silk Chinese-style
top, and black pants. Her chest was flat and muscular. She reached
behind her head, and found the pigtail that she knew was there.
She glanced back at the girl next to her... at herself... at Kasumi, in
her body.
With Akane's voice, Kasumi said, "Oh, my!"
(Ranma 1/2:  Monkey Head Butting)

Nausicaa@sprynet.com  Belldandy@angelic.com
Anime RPG at http://come.to/akane/
Fan Fiction at http://listen.to/bell/