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Ikkicon - Author's Notes - 2007 We didn't get around to crafting and posting these notes until mid-day on Monday, long after we got back home from Austin. The delay came because of how we spent Sunday night; bar-hopping in downtown Indianapolis, watching the spectacle of Colts fans who were watching the Super Bowl against the Bears. For hard-core people watchers, it was one of the most fascinating experiences you can have. In the last decade, a new generation of sports bars and restaurants has blossomed in Indianapolis (as fans of the Gen Con gaming convention have learned). Nearly all of those places were packed on game night; some people showed up five hours before kickoff so they'd have a place to sit at the most popular restaurants. Those fans, nearly all wearing Colts souvenir jerseys, acted as if they were at a real game instead of in front of a TV screen. When Devin Hester of the Bears returned the openng kickoff for a touchdown, the sports bar fans fell silent. When the Colts scored, the fans got crazy. When the Colts picked off two Rex Grossman passes in the fourth quarter, they got crazier (never mind that Grossman played his high school ball a hour's drive from Indianapolis). And when the game was over came one of the damndest things we've seen, something that made no sense unless you were a twentysomething football fan. The heart of Indianapolis is the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, a 280-foot stone spire that's so old that it was built to honor veterans of the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. In good weather, it's a popular lunch spot, and it was used for concerts during the NCAA final four in 2006. On Super Bowl night, temperatures were around 6 degrees farenheit, so cold that the only people on Monument Circle during the game were the homeless and those who minister to them with coffee, al watching the game on a monitor in a radio station studio. Then the game ended and the madness ensued. The final whistle was blown at 9:59 p.m. Five mnutes later, four young fans two of them female, tore off their shirts, ran up the monument's steps and started dancing. The women were wearing bras so they weren't that crazy, but they weren't alone. Ten minutes later, there were hundreds of fans on the monument's steps. A half hour later, there were thousands of fans on the monument, waving flags and chanting "Let's go Colts!" Some of them were wild enough to climb up to the monument's second level and celebrate with the statuary of 19th-century soldiers. The traffic circle around the monument, empty when the game ended, was choked with cars and SUV's, their drivers honking horns in celebration and their passengers hanging out the windows. It wasn't a planned celebration and no one was in charge; it was a perfectly spontaneous outburst of glee over the Colts' victory. Just as fascinating was the laid-back way that Indianapolis police handled the celebration. Two of the first celebrants were busted, apparently for knocking over some trash cans in their rush to the monument. Those guys were hauled away, and for the next half-hour there was one police car to watch the crowd. Then another group of patrol cars arrived and six officers got out. They sized up the situation, saw that it was enthusiastic but peaceful, and stood back and let the crowd have its dancing, chanting, harmless way. Those officers were pros, and they knew the weather was on their side. Those fans were having a great time, but they weren't dressed for six-degree cold. Eventually, the crowd diminished as they left for someplace warm, the police made one sweep of the top of the monument steps to get the fans out of their precarious positions with the statues, and the show was over. Only the presence of a TV station crew kept a couple of hundred fans around to wave at the camera during their last live report. That laid-back approach to the football celebration reminded us of what we had seen 24 hours earlier at Ikkicon. The new Austin convention was as crowded an event as we've attended in a couple of years, but it also was more laid-back than any other convention we've seen in months. The old joke "so crowded you had to go outside to change your mind" applied to Ikkicon. We understand that the Ushicon replacement had total attendance of around 1,700 for the first two days, and there wasn't enough room to fit those people confortably in the hotel's 12-foot concourses. Yet, no one got upset, there were no desperately shouted demands, and everyone just coped with the situation as best they could. The biggest crowd control measure we spotted was to move the Saturday registration line from the hotel's main hallway and take it outside to the driveway, where it reached the edge of the (also overfilled) parking lot. It's our fault that you don't see the costume contest winners on this site. The room holding the contest got so warm that we escaped for cooler territory, and then we headed off to see some of the Nerima Daikon Brothers panel. By the time we got our head back together, it was too late to watch the contest award presentation. And we were too worn out on Saturday night to do much more than head to our cheap motel down the road, eat some chicken and tilapia at the restaurant next do, then get a few hours' sleep before rushing to the airport for the flights home. When checking into that motel, which was next door from the official Ikkicon overflow hotel, another man came in and asked if there were any vacant rooms. No, the clerk replied, noting later that "that convention" was responsible. Sounds as if Ikkicon's people have a lot of fans ready for their event; all they need is a larger location for their next edition. For all of those whose prayers helped get us through our health problems in 2006; your prayers are now needed for the family of Amanda Winn Lee and Jason Lee. While their son, Nicholas, has recovered from leukemia, Amanada's father, a physician, is battling several serious and chronic illnesses. This family, which has done so much to spread the best of Japanese animation among English-speaking fans, deserves your prayers and support. Ikkicon Main Page