Project: A-Kon 10 - Author's Notes - June 6, 1999 |
Other than a few Sunday afternoon panel discussions that didn't happen, very little went wrong at Project: A-Kon 10. Unfortunately, there was sadness away from the convention, but more on that later. The Hyatt hotel at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport turned out to be a great place for a convention. There was plenty of room for every function and far more space than the hotel had for the 1998 A-Kon. More people attended A-Kon 10 than A-Kon 9, at least 3,000, according to chairman Meri Hazlewood. To the author, the 1999 event seemed less crowded because of the additional space. (The hotel could use more than six elevators, however.) Mari Iijima was very impressive. She may be one of the most charming people ever in this walk of life. She was pleasantly accommodating to the fans, and in turn, the fans were enthusiastic and polite toward her. It's amazing to think that Iijima had lived in the U.S. for years and went until 1999 before attending anime conventions, but A-Kon showed that it was worth the wait. The author has other personal favorites at anime conventions - Ippongi Bang, Lea Hernandez and Tiffany Grant among them - and it was a treat to have all of these people in one place at the same time. Seeing Bang in her new, ultracute Pikachu costume, buying a copy of Hernandez' Clockwork Angels book and seeing Grant in her Asuka plug suit (which debuted at A-Kon last year) was worth the price of admission. The only substantial criticism from this author: the sound system in the main convention hall wasn't assembled properly, producing distorted sound and suffering from what sounded like a ground loop that produced a constant hum. Also, when the cosplay awards were handed out, the MC's rushed through the announcements so fast that most of the winners didn't have a chance to go on stage to accept their prizes. The moment of accepting an award and being able to bask in the applause of the fans is a goal that cosplayers bring to a convention, and it was too bad that some of the winners didn't get a chance to accept the cheers of the crowd - and it was a big crowd, three times the size of the 1998 cosplay audience. The fans' enthusiastic reaction to Tim Thomerson and Bruce Campbell probably won't eliminate the inevitable complaints from anime purists, who will say those two shouldn't have been at an anime convention because they have nothing to do with anime. That criticism wasn't heard at the convention, where hundreds of people gathered to meet the horror and genre stars. However, in the wider range of things, anime is becoming part of American popular culture, with the growing number of anime-themed U.S. comics and anime-inspired TV shows. The author wouldn't be surprised if some young Pokemon fans don't know that the show originated as Pocket Monsters in Japan, and don't care because it's fun, regardless of the culture. As wonderful as anime conventions can be, the real world remains a factor - and that real world can bring sadness. The first note came a couple of days before the convention when the American Airlines jet crashed at Little Rock. The MD-80 that crashed was the same model of airliner and the same airline that the author used to travel to and from Texas. Then came news that Pat Duke and Elin Winkler of Radio Comix had survived a hard highway crash en route to A-Kon, demolishing their car but not their spirits (a hurting Winkler still dressed in her Team Rocket outfit on Saturday night). On Sunday, Duke passed along word that a friend of his had been killed in another traffic accident on A-Kon weekend. And so we all pack up and head back into the real world of mundanes
and Mondays, dreaming of the next convention and the next celebration...
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