At seven o'clock
on Sunday evening, a guy walked up to a group of fans in the Hyatt Regency
O'Hare and said, "I finally got through the registration line! Where's the
con?" He was kidding - maybe.
Long waits in the at-convention registration line were the main drawback
of Anime Central's seventh year. Add the big increase in the number of attendees
- maybe a couple of thousand more in 2003 than 2002 - and the usual difficulty
of getting volunteer help, and the long lines were a result. There was talk
that some people waited three hours to get a convention badge.
At their shortest, the lines extended to the hotel's front door. At their
longest, those lines stretched outside past Bryn Mawr Avenue. The impatient
author couldn't have taken that, but fans accepted it in stride. But where
the fans did complain was about the two-block walk from the hotel to the
Rosemont convention center across the street where the dealers' room was
located.
That change was badly needed by Anime Central, because there was no way the
hotel could have held the dealers' room, its volume of fans and the rest
of the the convention's functions and features. Add the dealers' room to
everything else and things would have been dangerously crowded at the Hyatt.
To make the registration line and dealers' room arrangements work, Anime
Central needed good weather. They were very fortunate with the climate, getting
clear and mild weather for the weekend. It was the first time in years that
no rain fell on the convention weekend - but things could have been worse.
On the first weekend of April, the author was headed home from Sakura
Con on an airliner approaching O'Hare Intentional Airport, which
is a mile west of the convention hotel. He looked down through the clouds
and thought, "Isn't that snow?" It was snow, a couple of inches' worth, falling
two weeks after the first day of spring. The author was treated to the sight
of the nation's best airport plowing crew as they raced across O'Hare runways
to keep flights from being delayed.
It's probably a silly "what if" question, but the first Anime Central in
1998 was held on the first weekend of April. If the convention had stuck
to that date for 2003, they would have been caught in the middle of the snowstorm
- and fans would have needed to battle that weather on their dealers' room
and registration line trips. Maybe someone guessed right about the weather
for once.
With the likelihood that attendance will continue to increase in 2004, the
guys in charge of Anime Central may have to consider putting the entire event
in the convention center, where there would be plenty of room for everything.
Of course, the expense of that move and the availability of the convention
center might argue against that change - but the optometrists' group that
had a gathering on the same weekend seemed to like the convention center.
The previous convention trip for this site was to Anime Boston, at an old
hotel overcrowded with Gundam Wing fans. That "boy band" version of Gundam
was released in January of 1997, four months after Sega released the first
Sakura Taisen game for the Saturn. Anime Central didn't exist yet. In 2003,
the convention and the Sakura Wars universe came together when several of
the people who created the animated version of the game traveled to Anime
Central.
Sakura Wars fans aren't as hyper as Gundam Wing fans. The real enthusiasm
came from the members of the game and anime creative team, who had a great
time in Illinois. The Sakura Taisen panel was more like a wrap party for
the members of the staff, who had an uninhibited time that entertained the
fans of that series.
The really hyper fans, as always, were for Duel Jewel. The quintet attracted
a crowd of squealing, screaming female J-rock and bishonen fans who loved
the band's new look for 2003. It's almost as much fun to watch the fans'
reactions - and hear the questions they have for the band - as it is to hear
their performances.
The other band at the convention, Swek, had some hard times. The group's
lead guitarist had an ankle injury that confined him to a wheelchair; he
still played on Friday, but there was no running through the audience for
him this time.
Instead, the dancing was reserved for Para Para Paradise star Yoko Ishida,
who finally got to a U.S. convention after her Sakura Con appearance was
called on account of war. Pioneer Entertainment is banking on Ishida as the
performer who will lead their 2003 anime music CD releases, and she makes
a great ambassador for those discs.
One person with a long history in the anime industry, who saw the enthusiasm
that Ishida and Maya Okamoto showed toward the fans - and the respect that
the fans showed toward those performers - said American fans should realize
that they're getting a rare treat when they get a chance to get close to
these people. In Japan the singers and actors are separated from the fans,
who get to see them only at controlled promotional events, he said.
The biggest organizational gaffe came at the same event that produced the
biggest problems at Anime Boston, the costume contest. This time, the stage
crew somehow couldn't set up the sound system's microphones so dialogue on
stage could be heard without feedback from the loudspeakers. At one point,
the members of the stage crew, with the entire crowd on hand, ordered the
audience to be quiet or the crew wouldn't be able to set the audio levels
because the microphones were picking up the sound from the chatting audience.
Those who prefer Anime North and wonder why the author did not travel there
or try another two-events-in-one-weekend trip: fear of damaging the author's
bank account, not fear of SARS, sent the author to Illinois. Months before
Anime Central, United Airlines had a US$88 round-trip air fare to O'Hare
Airport, right next door to the Rosemont hotel. It costs US$35 in gasoline
for the author to drive to and from the Hyatt Regency O'Hare, so the author
booked the discount flight as fast as possible.
