The AX Report 2001

by Xoth, Master of Black Magic

Day 2: Back in the Groove

    It was a slow morning for us.  We gradually dragged ourselves out of bed or sleeping bag and waited our turn for the bathroom.  While waiting, we decided to watch anime the only way we could: on Arty’s computer.  Unfortunately, he did not have Kodocha (at least, not that we watched), which, I can attest, is one of the best wake-up animes ever.  But he did show us the first few episodes of the anime Gate Keepers.  From the little I’ve seen, it looks like a standard sci-fi/action anime.  The year is 1969, and Japan is under attack from evil alien forces.  Who will protect humankind from these hostile invaders and save the world?  Japanese schoolchildren with supernatural powers, of course!  Yeah, it doesn’t sound too compelling from this very vague description, but, hey, I found it entertaining, a good blend of badguy ass-kicking and slapstick comedy.  Anyways, there’s a few highly informative Gate Keepers websites out there, so search for them if you want more a detailed synopsis.

    Of course, no one can start the day off right without a couple rounds of DDR.  So once again we fired up Arty’s portable and once again began stomping the pads into paste.  However, while fooling around a bit, we made a few strange discoveries.  First, we got frustrated with the limitations of the LCD screen and once again began trying to find a way—ANY way—to hook things up to the television.  Ultimately, I (Master of Black Magic that I am) whipped up a spell to fix the problem: the powerful and awe-inspiring FitRoundPegInSquareHole.  In no time, we got the use of the television back.  But that wasn’t all that happened.  Next, we discovered a rather unusual bug.  There Pokey was, in the middle of “Boom Boom Dollar,” when suddenly the screen blanked out.  The game kept going, but no visual.  We fooled with the pad and the console, and suddenly the picture came back—except the dance floor had suddenly become a giant map of the US with weather symbols.  Apparently, Dance Dance Revolution has a hidden “Weather Channel” mode.  Curious, we fooled around a bit and discovered the entire process for accessing it.  And because you have been such patient readers, we will now share that code with you.
 
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Announcer: “What an awesome cold front!”
 The Dance Dance Revolution 3rd ReMix “Weather Channel” code:
  1. Get to the song selection screen.
  2. Cycle completely through the song list three times, going counterclockwise (left) the first time through, clockwise (right) the second, and back to counterclockwise the third.
  3. Select “Boom Boom Dollar.”
  4. After the arrows appear on the screen, hit the buttons in the following order: up, down, up, down, left and right simultaneously, left and right simultaneously, X, circle, Select, and Start.
  5. When the screen goes blank, hold Reset on the console and hit the Power button.
  6. Immediately hit Power again.

If you did this correctly, you should now be able to play any song on a giant weather map.  Check out this photo of us playing it if you don’t believe it.

Tim: If you believed anything I’ve said since the end of the first paragraph, I’ve got a killer FF7 Aeris-resurrection code to sell you.
......No, I was kidding, you numbskull.  Yes, there is no resurrection code.  And there is no “Weather Channel” code, either.  The photo?  Well, it was taken at an angle that hides the portable for a reason. :D
    Eventually, we remembered there was a convention going on, so a few people took off to do various things like get tickets for the music video contest and hit the video game room (one can only take so much DDR before one needs a break to play Para Para Paradise ^_^).  Soon, the room was mostly empty, except for me, Mabis, Locke, and Arty.  And that’s when Piro showed up.  Oh, the timing.  Anyhow, we decided that the room was boring, so we went to catch up with some of the others.  Daran, Bahamut, and Tenshi were in the game room, so we headed there first.  We didn’t worry about finding Pyxie and Pokey, because we had plans to meet back at the room to go to a sushi place for lunch.  After arriving at the room, we quickly found Daran, who was wowing the crowd huddled around the Para Para Paradise machine.  Ultimately, we managed to tear him away from it and then rounded up Bahamut and Tenshi.  And from there, it was off to the dealers’ room—and not a moment too soon for me.

    The day before, hunger had prevented me from contributing to the giant capitalistic orgy that is the dealers’ room.  But now, hunger was a distant memory.  Twenty dollar bills and traveler’s checks were making my wallet groan in agony.  Just the sight of otaku lugging around huge, full bags emblazoned with logos, and the sounds from the dealers’ room echoing through the entrance hall were making me drool uncontrollably (hey, there just aren’t that many places to buy anime and manga and the related merchandise in Peoria).  And once I set foot in the exhibit hall—sweet, merciful God.  Bombarded by the sights of mecha exploding and brilliantly costumed fans, inundated with the sounds of explosions and cheery voices singing in Japanese...I’m afraid I went a little spend happy.  I’m not entirely sure what happened in the next hour or so, but the things I bought tell some of the tale.  To recount some of my less explicable purchases, I somehow ended up with a couple of mecha model kits, three different Pokémon plushies, a Sailor Moon figurine keychain, and a Japanese manga that I don’t recognize and, of course, cannot read anyway.

Tim: Oh, I wasn’t THAT desperate or profligate.  I did spend more than I ever have before in one day in the dealers’ room though.  That day I bought Magic Knight Rayearth manga and an interesting Totoro soundtrack that I’ve dubbed the Weather Channel version in honor of Mabis’ love for that particular cable network.  Well, that and the fact that the music is kinda jazzy and heavy on synthesized instrumentals, reminding me of the music played over the Weather Channel’s local forecast segments.  It’s actually entitled My Neighbor Totoro Hi-Tech Series and is only available in Japan or, in my case, by import.
    With my hunger for anime merchandise thus satiated, it was now almost time to head out to satiate my hunger for Japanese food.  So I located the others (who had pretty much decided to stay as far away from me as possible during my shopping rampage), and we headed back toward the room.  Of course, first we had to actually get into one of the Hyatt’s elevators.  Now, you may have heard the stories about Japanese businesspeople packing themselves into subway cars like an anime heroine stuffing herself into her tight, revealing outfit.  Well, let me tell you, packing yourself into a small elevator with at least a dozen other otaku (far too many of whom have yet to grasp the concept of personal hygiene) is no picnic either.  Then there’s the waiting.  Waiting for an elevator that isn’t already packed, waiting for the people in line in front of you to get on (lines for the elevators—good Lord), waiting for people to squeeze their way out when they got to their floor, and so on.  All that hassle was enough to make someone want to just take the stairs.
Tim: The elevators were packed for most of the convention.  Of course, there were only four of them.  And I don’t expect the Hyatt to install a bunch more anytime soon.  Even so, the waiting and the crowding wasn’t unbearable.  For the most part, people dealt with the situation with good humor and common courtesy.  If this was the sacrifice we had to make for leaving the Expensive Kingdom (AKA Disneyland), it was a price I and many others were willing to pay.
    But anyhow, we got back to the room, picked up Pyxie and Pokey, and then set off for Wasabi, a nearby Japanese restaurant, for lunch.  Because Locke was leaving on Saturday, we had to have a sushi lunch this year instead of a sushi dinner.  But hey, sushi’s sushi—even if I was one of only two people who actually ordered sushi. ^_^  Anyway, getting there was the biggest problem, as Arty and his passengers (including me) drove for blocks amidst Long Beach traffic to find a parking space.  Finally we called Locke on his cell phone, and he suggested an open space off the street close to the restaurant.  But when we got there, Arty found the space a bit small for his liking.  Luckily, Locke—who had been helping Mabis “reserve” the space until we arrived—revealed yet another one of his 1337 skillz—p4r41131 p4rking.  In less than a minute, he had Arty’s car firmly wedged between two cars, without a single bump or scrape.  After conquering that potentially messy predicament, we all did the Final Fantasy victory dance™ and headed to Wasabi.  The meal and service were decent enough, but the atmosphere of the place wasn’t quite the same.  I mean, it’s nice to see that not all Japanese restaurants resemble each other, but it’s not quite as nice when the Japanese restaurant resembles your average American bar and grill place instead.  Oh well, the food was good, anyway.

    At any rate, we were a bit late on getting lunch, so we had to hurry back to the hotel to catch a much anticipated premiere.  We arrived about twenty minutes before the start time and found a crowd of people, all eagerly awaiting this exclusive.  The energy in the air was such that it could have served as an alternative energy source for the state of California.  The tension was so thick, you would’ve had to cut it with a diamond-tooth power saw.  Before long, the video room doors were flung open; the crowd of otaku that had been attempting to exit the room was swept back in as a much larger and more frenzied wave of fans crushed their way through the tiny doorway.  Yet despite the already fully-charged atmosphere, somehow the crowd’s energy continued to build, as empty seats disappeared faster than free booze at an AA meeting.  Then, out came someone to start the show, and he was immediately inundated with deafening cheers and shouts of “Get on with it!”  After a brief introduction, he retreated to the safety of outside the room, and the already painful decibel level grew even louder as the flood of fan enthusiasm completely overwhelmed the dikes of calm and sanity.  Now only one thing could prevent the crowd from inciting a catastrophic shift in the earth’s crust—the lights went down, and a sudden, unearthly hush settled over the massed otaku, as if they had been muted by an enormous remote control.
 
    A single beam of light flickered to life, illuminating the enormous screen.  A few overwrought fans actually screamed in ecstatic release when the logo of the animation studio appeared.  And then...the first images flicked across the screen.  Where once had echoed the frenzied chants of the fans now boomed glorious Dolby surround sound emanating from two jacked-up stereo speakers.  The audience quieted at the moments of calm, roared at the moments of action, and drank in the awe-inspiring spectacle of animated film like a man in the desert greedily quenching his thirst at a cool oasis.  And then it was over—five minutes of sheer anime ecstasy.  And the crowd rose to its feet and gave the Vampire Hunter D trailer a standing ovation that lasted longer than the entire showing had.  Five minutes of film—five spectacular minutes of extraordinary animated film.
Tim: Speaking of things that lasted longer than the trailer, it took me a good hour or so to write those last two paragraphs. XD XD XD  So what do you think?  Have I got what it takes to be a novelist? ^_^
How was it really?  Umm, as good as a five-minute trailer gets.  To its credit, it showed a lot of action without giving away the story.  And the animation was simply awesome.  So, if this means anything, I knew little of the story of Vampire Hunter D before seeing this trailer, and yet I’m definitely looking forward to this revamped version.  What?  Pun?  Oh dear, not again... >;D
 ..
Standing ovation for five minutes of film!
    After recovering from our excitement, we returned to the room and fooled around for awhile.  Arty announced he was planning to go to open karaoke, and I decided to go with him—to cheer him on, of course.  At any rate, we headed back to the convention center and up to the karaoke room.  And that’s when we discovered “open” karaoke was, in fact, closed.  I wasn’t too clear on what was up with that—possibly it had something to do with the “singers” causing a disturbance of the peace, which might have explained the cop cars out front.  At any rate, those who had already signed up were allowed to perform, and I guess everyone else was supposed to piss off.  Well, it worked, because Arty was plenty pissed off.  Fortunately, his mood improved significantly after we left and got out of earshot of the latest—performance.

Tim: Before anyone kills me, I’d like to say that some of the performers were really not that bad.  However, the rest were really THAT BAD.  I may not have the guts to perform in front of a crowd, but at least I know what the right notes are and that I probably couldn’t hit them without a lot of practice.  But, as always, I exaggerate when I suggest that tone deafness constitutes a misdemeanor in the city of Long Beach.
That said, there was probably a good reason for cutting off karaoke entries.  I’ll bet that the karaoke competition semifinals and finals, coming up in a few hours, had something to do with it.
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FOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!
     Luckily we got back to the room just in time to get ready to go back to the karaoke room—for Otaku Generation’s semifinal performance. XD  Well, at least there was no chance of us getting lost or misdirected this time, I reasoned.  So, we left the room and headed down in the elevator and were on our way to karaoke, when suddenly we heard someone yell out, “They’ve got free food!”  This immediately got the attention of our group, as well as that of every half-starved otaku who had blown his or her meal money on Evangelion wall scrolls or a Trigun boxed set.  Soon, a flood of fans (us included) was headed down to the Hyatt’s Rainbow Lagoon to partake of this feast.  Well, not exactly a feast, but free food is nothing to pass up.  And they had cakes—cakes bigger than a 22-inch TV.  Yep, for this 10th anniversary party, they went all out, for sure.

    Of course, then we remembered the karaoke competition, so we gobbled up what remained on our plates and hurried off.  Because none of us fancied the idea of going all the way back to the hotel lobby and then to the karaoke room, we decided there had to be a shortcut in back of the convention center.  However, the shortcut that we took put us in the bowels of the convention center, a twisting maze of gray concrete and maintenance equipment.  A land where no otaku had set foot.  What to do, as strangers (emphasis on strange) in this strange land?  What most people do when lost—keep going until you get unlost.  So that’s what we did, and amazingly enough, it worked.  Soon the concrete floor gave way to carpeting, and we were back in the familiar confines of the convention center proper.  Fortunately for us poor misdirected latecomers, Otaku Generation was scheduled to go last in the group competition semis, so we got there in time to catch it.  And what a semifinal performance they put on.  In a nosebleed-inducing show, they stripped down to their sexy lingerie and worked the crowd like only a cabaret dancer knows how.  The singing?  Uhhh—I honestly don’t remember much about the singing. ^_^  Believe me, if you were there, the quality of singing was not what was on your mind, which may seem odd, given that it was a karaoke contest.  Still, raw sex appeal obviously won over the judges, pushing the guys over the top and into the finals later that evening.

Tim: Yes, they actually wore women’s clothing under their coats, so stop looking at me like that.  Here’s a picture.  And that’s not all; if Arty’s photos are any indication, their finals performance was even more skin-baring.  (BTW, yes, they are wearing coconut shells in that one :D)
    However, there was simply too much to do.  At the same time, the anime music video competition was being held in the theater which we had so miserably failed to find the night before.  However, we still had tickets for the entire group.  So what were we to do—skip out on karaoke finals to catch the rest of the music video competition or just forget music videos altogether?  Ultimately, we decided: go to music videos.  So, leaving Arty to chronicle Otaku Generation’s triumphant finals performance, we left and headed to the theater, this time the right way.  And luckily for us, the competition was just getting started.  And so a long, long, looooooooooong night of anime music videos ensued.  Not to say that it was tedious or not entertaining; on the contrary, it was probably the best experience I’ve ever had at AX.  So many high-quality music videos, with music ranging from orchestral works to techno/electronica.  And the videos we saw had interesting concepts behind them as well, from the straight-up parody of “Right Now” to the bouncy fun-ness of “Odorikuruu,” from the digitally edited crossover magic of “Tainted Donuts” to the just-plain-bizarre hilarity of “Hubba Hubba Zoot Zoot.”  (And all those videos were just in the comedy category!)  Anyhow, I’ll go into further detail about certain videos in the Miscellaneous section.  At any rate, the music video competition left me with indelible images, some exciting, some funny, some...truly ineffable.  (Sorry, I’m thinking of one video in particular, and that’s the only way I can think to describe it: beyond words.)
Tim: No corrections, just a neat sidebar.  When we got back to the hotel after the contest ended, we met the guy who made the winning video, “Tainted Donuts,” waiting for the elevator.  He was rather conspicuous because he was carrying a still-boxed DVD player, which was first prize in the music video contest.  Anyhow, Bahamut X got to talk with him and even got his e-mail and the opportunity to get a copy of the video.  How about that?
    So, after a long night of song, dance, and digital video, we were hungry once again.  After returning to the room, we called and ordered pizzas from Domino’s.  Then we started DDRing—again.  Pretty soon, Golbez and his buddies came by to give us the good news: Otaku Generation won the karaoke competition.  Well, we exchanged stories about music videos and flesh-colored coconuts, and some of the guys made good use of Arty's computer and his copy of Diablo 3.  Then the pizza guy arrived—but not with what we expected.  Apparently, someone at the store messed up with the price figures, and Bahamut owed more than he had on him.  So they took one of the pizzas back to compensate, proving once and for all that the customer is not always right.  The only other thing I’ll say is one pizza is kind of hard to split among a dozen people.  But anyhow, not much happened after that, aside from finishing the pizza, Golbez et al heading back to their room, and so on.  The point being: onward to Saturday!

Back to:

[ Intro ]        [ Day 1 ]

Now onward to:

[ Day 3 ]        [ Day 4+ ]        [ Miscellaneous ]


[ Main ]        [ Reports ]        [ Photos ]        [ Memories ]

Disclaimer: This account contains a lot that could offend people.  Sexual content.  Drug use.  Profanity.  Violence.  Celebrations of Japanese culture.  Non-white people.  Crudely drawn pictures.  Sentence fragments.  If anything in this account offends you, find another web page. If your kid reads something that offends you, tell them to find another web page.  If you’re really ticked off by it, then e-mail me (cosmic_chicken@excite.com) so I can ignore you.  Certain characters, events, etc. referred to and depicted in this account come from Japanese animated films and television series and are copyrighted by their respective companies.  Whatever the SPJA and Anime Expo have copyrighted belongs to them.  Text, original images, and image manipulations © Tim Kaneshiro.

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