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This was the first sight in the parking lot of the Ramada Plaza O'Hare,
anime Central's site for 1999. The House of Anime store painted a motor
home as a rolling billboard and pointed it at the front of the lot, where
passing traffic on the city street and the nearby tollway could see it.
These huge pictures of Hyper Police, Saber Marionette and Slayers characters
were spotted by thousands of Chicagoland motorists during the convention
weekend. |
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Five-thirty on Friday morning and the first convention fans are fast
asleep, waiting for the registration lines to open... |
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...while in the dealer room, convention chair Maria Rider waits for
the show to begin. |
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When racing driver Jacques Villeneuve dyed his hair blond, it started
a trend. Who would have ever thought that Carl Horn of Viz Communications,
the first industry person spotted at the convention on Friday morning,
would go for the bleached-blond look? There was speculation that Horn had
succumbed to years of over-exposure to Japanese art and had, in one last
desperate rush for self-justification, decided to try to get a head of
"anime hair." |
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Horn was shown in the hall that was used for fan registration at Anime
Central. Boxes full of badges for reregistered fans were placed on tables
on Friday morning as the first lines started to form. Registration started
three minutes before the announced 9 a.m. (although that didn't break the
unofficial Neko-Con record of opening registration nearly two hours early).
After the opening registration rush, there were no long lines spotted on
Friday. If you wanted long lines, you had to go to the Ramada's lobby,
where dozens of people had to wait to check into their rooms at the sold-out
hotel. |
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Just in time for Anime Central, Chicago presented its visitors with
a raw and cold weekend. Thursday rain left puddles like this that still
remained on Friday. The famed chicago wind, howling off Lake Michigan,
slipped past windows and made for a chilly opening day. That didn't slow
fans at all. |
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