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AnimeFEST Author's Notes 2005 This time, the anime convention was the least significant event in the area. Typically, a convention takes over the hotel where it's held, but not AnimeFEST. The really significant events inside the Hyatt Regency Reunion were the meetings of fire rescue teams and emergency management officials, trying to determine where on the Gulf Coast the task forces would be sent in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It wasn't until Saturday of the convention weekend that the rescuers got the word that they would mostly be sent to Mississippi to replace an Indiana rescue task force, the first searchers sent to that area after the storm hit. On Friday of the convention weekend, rescue crews from Los Angeles and Anaheim were on hand. They were joined during the day by firefighters from Las Vegas, and a Seattle task force arrived on Saturday. The men in their 20's, 30's and 40's, wearing dark T-shirts printed with their departments' logos, made a noticeable contrast to the anime fans, their T-shirts bearing characters and odd slogans, and the many costumers. But the most popular part of the rescue crews' stay was the dogs. All crews have one or two search dogs - Belgian malvois, German shepherds, retrievers and Labradors of every shade. The highly trained dogs need to move around during the day ,and they were taken by their dedicated handlers through the hotel. Police dogs are fearsome weapons that generate instant respect and fear, but rescue dogs are treated as pets - working pets, of course - by their handlers, and anime fans enjoyed having them around. The dogs often were more popular than the weekend's costumers - but that might be expected among people who enjoy InuYasha, whose lead character is supposed to be half dog. It was good to see that some anime fans responded to the relief effort. Actor Jamie McGonnigal was selling autographed cards for $10 to raise Red Cross money. Fellow actors Carrie Savage and Jennifer Sekiguchi found boxes, printed up signs in American Red Cross colors and set them around the convention to raise money. Several dealers and artists, Robert DeJesus among them, promised to donate a portion of their weekend sales to hurricane relief charities. The storm area was a few hundred miles from Dallas, but it wasn't hard to find people affected by the disaster. Actor Kyle Hebert was born and raised in Louisiana; he had heard that his old home area around Lake Charles had been spared much of the storm's wrath, while others said there had been major trouble in the area. We found at least one costumer, dressed as the pink bunny from Gravitation, who said she came from the flooded areas of Louisiana; she seemed to be coping well and needed the escape of the convention. Walk outside an anime convention and you're always due to experience a rapid change as the fantasy life of the convention disappears and the real world appears. But never has the contrast been so extreme as at AnimeFEST, where a one-block walk led you to the Reunion Arena, used as a shelter for thousands of hurricane victims. A sign board directing people to the main entrance, steel barricades directing victims into the center and keeping the general public out, a heavy police presence in response to the reports of looting, fights and rape among victims at the Louisiana Superdome, a Salvation Army truck and a medical center temporary awning outside - this was the scene at the arena, something easily viewed from the south side of the convention hotel. This was a direct, undiluted link to a great tragedy. And there wasn't the comfortable insulation of a television screen or a computer keyboard. These were real hurricane victims with very real needs, and they were a short walk from AnimeFEST. One of the events not attended by this site was the inaugural Mecha Con in Lafayette, Louisiana. That location was a couple of hundred miles from the center of Katrina, which made landfall on the day after the convention ended. Fortunately, the full fury of the storm missed the convention town, which was being used as a staging area for storm relief efforts on the Labor Day weekend. But even that city was said to be crowded with people who escaped from New Orleans. Of course, New Orleans and its suburbs has been the home for three Numa Rei No Con events. The most recent of those conventions was held in February of 2005; talk was that a flooded New Orleans would not be completely reoccupied by February of 2006. It's not the first time there's been a hurricane in close proximity to an anime convention. Thirteen months earlier, a big storm blasted through Florida one week after Anime Festival Orlando. And another Atlantic storm passed through the Virginia area where Nekocon is held; we recall riding to the Holiday Inn Executive Center and counting the blue tarpaulins that were covering damaged roofs. So why did this site go to AnimeFEST for a second year in a row, instead of the other event on the same weekend? Instead of traveling to the west end of Dallas, we could have gone to the annual Dragon*Con in Atlanta. But we just decided to go to Dallas instead. We didn't think about an Atlanta trip until it was too late. We'll have to get to Dragon*Con one day. This could have been a multiple-convention weekend, but this writer didn't have enough frequent flier miles to assemble a multiple-city trip. So it turned into a one-town, one event trip to AnimeFEST on the west end of downtown Dallas. And even though we didn't get to Dragon*Con, the second Pacific Media Expo or Kumoricon, the Dallas trip probably was the best choice - because it brought this site into close contact with the history-making aftermath of the hurricane. Life goes on, regardless of storms or tragedy. At a voice acting panel, the first fan who spoke from the audience was a man who asked his girlfriend to marry him. The young woman rushed across the ballroom to accept the proposal to applause. Is that the third proposal this site has witnessed this year? Since it was a two-day, Friday Saturday trip to Dallas, we missed the Maaya Sakamoto concert on Sunday. We did manage to get enough material from her Saturday appearance with other actors to write a story for this site. Having the concert on Sunday moved the costume contest back to Saturday. Too bad the contest was so poorly run. People kept asking this writer if he was planning to head to the following weekend's AnimeIowa; not likely, because we have to work at a big stock car race on the same weekend. However, we have a plane reservation for Nan Desu Kan in Colorado and we expect to go to Anime Weekend Atlanta in Georgia; we'll have a picture sales booth at each event. AnimeFEST Main Page