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Memorial Day Weekend 2008 - Author's Notes Back in the air again for a two-convention weekend, the first time in three years that we've made the east-to-west cross-country excursion on the Memorial Day weekend. Six flights on three airlines over three days. (This writer likes the new Embraer 190 and the exit row seats on the Airbus A320, from which these notes were completed). At first we'd planned to spend two days at Animazement and head to Indianapolis for the 500-Mile Race, but Piq, the magazine for which we're a contributor, needed someone to head west to interview Gainax' Gurren Lagann creative team. Since we'd missed trips to Boston and New York for the magazine, we chose to head to Fanime Con to handle that job, passing up the race with regrets. We'd also missed Animazement in 2007 while we were filled with catheters and IV's, so we wanted to get back to the North Carolina event. Since its founding in 1998, Animazement's organizers have had an exceptional record of attracting top-level Japanese creative people and performers. Since the days when they had manga artist Yuu Watase as a guest, they've kept up the flow of major names from Japan while older and larger conventions have all but stopped bringing guests from Japan. On Animazement's opening day, there was a panel featuring two actors from the Sailor Moon series, one of whom just happened to also be a lead performer in Evangelion and Noir. There also was an event featuring lead actors in Sgt. Frog, the same performers who had been in Hellsing and InuYasha. And there was a Friday event with actors from Bleach, Naruto and Fullmetal Alchemist. What was most impressive was that all of these panels happened at the same time on Friday, an embarrassment of riches that few other conventions could match. No wonder that Animazement has grown from a small and sleepy convention to an event that overstuffed its Durham, N.C. home. So the convention moves back to Raleigh in 2009, in a downtown convention center that promises to have more than enough room for years to come. Space was so tight at Animazement that the registration line had to go outside in a tent: fortunately, the only rain was light precipitation on Friday night. That line wasn't plagued with the delays and breakdowns that made getting into Anime Boston and Anime Central so miserable. The idea of making attendees register for an event doesn't work when you have more than a few thousand on hand, which is why other events like ball games, races and concerts just sell tickets rather than making fans fill out forms and wear badges. In the 21st century, you can use a web browser and a credit card to buy a ticket at home, and a growing number of events let people print their tickets at home - including organizations such as major league baseball teams, which don't like losing money. Even Gen Con, the gaming convention which is far larger than anime conventions, lets fans order badges by mail. One week earlier at Anime Central, our ego was fed by the number of costumers who found the way to our photo booth in the convention hotel. We'd made a huge mistake and gotten the wrong ink for our Canon inkjet printer, forcing a mid-afternoon rush to an office supply store to get the correct supply. That took us away from the convention at the busiest part of the weekend and made us worry that no one would come back, but the costumers returned as soon as we correct the error. The Animazement ego moment came at the opening ceremonies, where we were standing halfway back in the hall with our telephoto lens to get images of the event. When he was introduced, Yasuo Yamaguchi, the veteran producer and industry representative, mentioned that animator and director Koichi Tsunoda wasn't able to attend this year's even because he had spent some time in the hospital. Then Yamaguchi said that he was glad that another Animazement regular was able to get back to the convention, and called this writer out. You can't buy things like that, nor can you manufacture moments such as the one which turned out to be a high compliment. One very pretty costumer, who also was very shy, asked us not to take her picture and out it on the web site because the site "was too well known in Japan" and someone might recognize her. Of course, costuming in Japan isn't held in the same sort of general respect and sometimes grudging acceptance that it gets in the English-speaking world. However, we'll consider it a complement for someone to say that this site has that sort of reach in Japan. Yet another ego trip came when the Tech Republic web site, part of the CNet group of sites, asked to use some of the Friday images from Anime Central as part of their "geekland" weekend feature. We went along, because it's a good way to promote this site to people who otherwise might have paid no attention to these efforts. Early rising is needed to meet our unusual air travel plans, and we needed to get up on Saturday in North Carolina at the equivalent of 1 a.m. west coast time in order to be able to arrive in California at 11 a.m. We found FanimeCon to be a busier event in 2008 than what we last saw in 2005, and we were told that the convention was working on a couple of goals: to provide fans something entertaining to do all the time, and to train more people to do things such as host shows and events. The only way to learn that is to get on stage, and FanimeCon had a new stage in a convention center concourse to hold those shows. With only around six hours to get costuming pictures, we hoped to have a busy time in San Jose, and FanimeCon costumers delivered by wearing so many costumes and forming so may groups that we barely had any time to pause. We had stopped in the Hilton's bar to glance at the 55th-lap of the Indianapolis 500 on TV (no surprise that we found Ryan Gavigan already was there), and  hoped to sneak back to watch the end of the race, but costumers kept us occupied. We "watched" the end of the 500 by tracking the IRL's scoring on their web site (not enough throughput for streaming video to work well). We'll judge that FanimeCon had better and more costumers this year than at Animazement. The enthusiasm was the same from event to event, but the workmanship of the outfits we found in California was better than in North Carolina. Example: if you follow the Hellsing manga, there are brief appearances of Vlad Tepes in medieval battle garb. A FanimeCon costumer made that version of the Alucard costume. The most popular "character" in costume may have been the guy who made himself into a Nintendo Wii controller. Even the fire department got into the act: a fire engine that rolled up to the convention center on an ambulance run had black dorsal fins, so the fire truck was cosplaying as a shark. May 2008 Main Page