The
first anime convention in North America remains the hottest. Hot as in three
digits on the fahrenheit scale. Hot as in a 26-degree increase from getting
on the plane up north to getting off the plane down south. Hot as in realizing
the legend is true: if Willis Haviland Carrier doesn't invent air conditioning,
everyone moves from Texas to Minnesota after April and the oldest anime convention
is in Minneapolis - wait, there's talk of a Minnesota convention next year,
anyway. The air conditioning at the airport Hyatt where Project: A-Kon was held did a finejob of holding back the heat.
And
it was hot as in crowded, nearly as crowded as Anime Boston. On the convention's
Saturday afternoon, they nearly ran out of room as the dealer's room crowd
started to empty into the hallways where fans were queuing for the costume
contest. It was a crowd that would have challenged Michael Vick's broken-field running ability to get from place to place.
This author didn't get to as much of the convention as he wanted to
experience. Most humiliating was late Friday afternoon; the author, who had
been up since 3 a.m. and was working on two hours' sleep, retreated to his
room to snap some batteries in their charger and thought he'd take a
short nap. So the author slept through the opening ceremonies, including
the Meri and Dean wedding reenactment. The first of the rock concerts had
started when the author arrived, but the ballroom was so packed that the author decided not to try
and squeeze inside.
One paramedic was spotted walking into that room, looking for a fan who had
gotten too much excitement, but no other problems were spotted during the
two days the author was on hand. A-Kon had more uniformed police walking about
than any other convention in 2003, probably because the Hyatt holding the
event is at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. With a couple of airport cops
watching from the sidelines, cosplaying fans spoofed the airport's security
checks in a costume contest skit, but there was no overt security pressure
seen by this writer. Prop guns and weapons made their annual Texas-style
appearance and no one seemed to care.
Also missed was the ADV Films panel, which would have generated some interesting
talk about the plans for the live-action Neon Genesis Evangelion movie announced
a couple of weeks earlier at Cannes.
Sadly, actor Kyle Hebert's usual group of minions were not able to attend
the convention, but he had a fresh group of supporters/worshipers recruited
from his web site's bulletin board. Scott McNeil was on hand for one of his
manic performances, but the weekend's wildest appearances were the hairdos
of actors Chris Patton and Greg Ayres; Patton's blond and blue-tinged hair
earned him the nickname of "Q-Tip," but there was no description of Ayres'
bright blue hair that outshone Duel Jewel's spiky teases.
While the author got a chance to learn more about the Read or Die dub from
Amanda Winn Lee, he missed an opportunity to find why Jason Lee was renamed
"Jaxon Lee" in the dub credits. The best guess is that someone wanted to
make sure that the artist formerly known as Jason wasn't mistaken for the
former skateboarder who has used the same name in a couple of movies.
The author still can't believe the misuse of the green balloons in the Iron
Cosplay contest. By the way, there were no "It's not anime" complaints about
the Star Wars and Matric costumers, and no Klingons were spotted by this
writer.
A-Kon outgrew the airport Hyatt in 2002, and they filled at least three hotels
in 2003, so their planned move to a larger downtown Dallas hotel in 2004
will be welcome. They've already announced that they'll stay on the weekend
after Memorial Day; early announcements are going to be useful because the
late spring of 2004 could be crowded with conventions.
A-Kon was one of the last events at the airport Hyatt before the hotel is
renovated. Just across the main airport road is the framework of a 300-room
Grand Hyatt, encircled by an elevated people mover track. The D/FW airport
must not be big enough for Texas standards, since it's being largely rebuilt.
Too bad that work is coming when fewer people seem to be using the huge airport,
which was remarkably quiet on the A-Kon weekend.
If
you're wondering why the picture coverage of the Texas convention looked
different; the author ran out of cameras.
At the end of the Animazement costume contest, the author switched his Canon
D30 from available-light no-flash settings to flash settings for the award
presentation. He took a test shot with flash, and the camera's LCD display
showed a black frame. "Oh s--t, not again," was the nicest of the author's
thoughts. When a D30 shutter wears out, the first symptom is a dark frame
when the flash is discharged. The same thing had happened the previous July.
The D30 worked well without flash, which let the author get through the Indianapolis
500. But there's no way to get cosplay shots in variable hotel lighting without
flash. So on the day after the Memorial Day holiday, the D30 went back to
the dealer for its second warranty repair. Hopefully, the camera will be
fixed in time for summer convention trips.
The backup Olympus C-2100 quit working in March and the author figured it
wasn't worth the money to get it fixed. With no cameras available it was beg-borrow-or-steal
time, and the best of a bad situation was to borrow two - an old Minolta
E201 and an older Nikon Coolpix 900s. The other option was to buy a camera,
but that would have cost as much as a plane ticket or hotel stay at an upcoming
convention. So the author had to live with what was available. The old Nikon
did a decent job, but the Minolta was little better than the first digital
camera purchased by the author in 1997.
In the week before Project: A-Kon, some of the 2003 reports were taken off
the site. The hosting service has a file transfer limit, and the limit's been
exceeded in recent months. The previous reports were removed to ease the
file transfer load. The author really has to find a cheaper...uh, less expensive hosting service. Too bad the current service is so damned reliable.
A-Kon started on the day after the San Antonio Spurs closed out the Dallas
Mavericks to win the NBA western conference championship and advance to the
league finals. That doesn't seem to matter to anime fans...until you consider
that the Spurs' opponents in the NBA finals will be the New Jersey Nets,
who were the New York Nets in the defunct American Basketball Association.
The Spurs also came from the old ABA, and the finals will be the first all
ABA-championship series in the NBA...so what does this have to do with anime?
The Nets' star in the ABA days was Julius Erving, who was known for his acrobatic
dunks - and his huge afro. (Only Darnell Hillman of the Indiana Pacers had
a larger 'fro.) Might it have been that someone in Japan saw Dr. J, never
forgot his big hair, and used that as the inspiration for his personal hairdo,
then put that hair on an Excel Saga character named Nabeshin?
short nap. So the author slept through the opening ceremonies, including
the Meri and Dean wedding reenactment. The first of the rock concerts had
started when the author arrived, but the ballroom was so packed that the author decided not to try
and squeeze inside.
