SCOTAKU ON OTAKON'96 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- My own thoughts are forthcoming, but a few others have already made posts in the r.a.a.fandom group for your pleasure. Before I send mine, allow me to thank: Mark, Mike, Michael, Jeff, Russian, Noel, Larry, Andrea, Maile, Rick, Andy, Jeff, Tim, Robert, Dave, Dave, John, John, John, John, Matt, Bernhard, Mike, Ivy, Kate, Neil, Kuni, Kanzaki-san, Steve, Alex, Eric, Bonnie, Marc, Rusty, Jeanne, Janet, Mei Lin, Clarence, Adele, Jay, Mike, Ken, Jamyn, Craig, Brian, Steve, Steve, Steve, Adam, Robert, Robert, Dennis, Paul, Peter, Rich, Sang, Ben, Alan, John, Lorraine, Tom, Sue, Todd, Jeff, Will, and each of the ~1200 others I didn't get a chance to hang with. Oh, and JJ too... ;) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- OTAKON 96 Memories... My thanks go out to my good friend Timon Marmex for FedEx'ing me a package late last week. No kudos to FedEx for trying to deliver it to my home at 1 in the afternoon (jeez, who's home for a delivery at 1pm?) but I got it just in time I'd say since what was inside inspired me to write this. Timon sent me a copy of the AnimExpo 96 program which I've been reading with a pleasant smile for the past hour. Inside I've read staff and crew memories of past Expos and I feel a real camaraderie with those individuals whose names I am familiar with yet have never met. I hope to rectify that situation in the future. The feelings I read in their words are the same fresh feelings I have as the second winds of energy escape >from my being having just concluded my first staff assignment at Otakon96. For those who don't want the Carl "Wings of Honneamise" Horn version of the story (I love you Carl, you are one of the most intelligent and real fans I have had the pleasure of meeting) I will sum my Otakon 96 staffing experience up right here: I would not have missed any of it for the world! Well, maybe I'd have missed some of it if Mamoru Oshii had come to my side of the New World instead of his all too brief trip to LA. ;) I awoke Friday morning not having done *any* of the things I wanted to do the day before. I scrambled about my apartment completing the things on my little checklist then hurried into the parking lot that was the inner loop of the Baltimore Beltway only to arrive half an hour later than I wanted to get to the Hunt Valley Inn. I had been up there merely three weeks before and knew the lay of the land so I proceeded directly to ConOps to meet my partner in Gopher Domination, John Nadzam. Gopher signup went pretty smoothly... that is if a school of piranhas can be described doing anything smoothly. I was encouraged at the turnout for volunteering. We limited the number of gophers so that each would have a fair shot at his/her refund and/or the (way cool Army of the Twelve Otaku-) t-shirt and that John and I would be able to keep the schedule manned. Each day was filled before registration opened... it was a great feeling though it was a little sad turning away new volunteers later that day as our slots had been covered. John and I traded off throughout the weekend until our first ambitious gopher earned his refund. John Metzner is one gopher who deserves a staff badge... our friends at Katsukon need to note his name for near-future reference! Mike, Tim, Chuck, Joyce, and Andrea are another group of devoted volunteers whose names will not be forgotten soon. You guys really made it happen and I want to extend heartfelt thanks to all of the Otakon 96 gophers who generously offered their time this past weekend. The time came to check in to my room so I went to my car to grab my clothes, goodies, and my laptop PC. On my way back inside, I stopped short as I saw our Japanese goh, Kanzaki Masaomi, was already signing. I had dug up my copy of Xenon #1 that morning hoping to have it signed and thought this would be a great opportunity since Kanzaki-san was not too deeply lined up. I politely asked for his autograph and presented him with the old Viz/Eclipse comic I had brought. He was fascinated! He had not yet seen the English version of the manga he had done so long ago! He flipped through the book and signed the back cover then motioned to the bag and comic board I had been carrying it in. Kuni (his translator) relayed to me Kanzaki-san's question of whether I would like a sketch or not... I was stunned. I had not dared ask for a sketch... I watched with amazement as he drew his new Xenon character for me on the backing board... I was unaware Xenon had been revitalized. I thanked Kanzaki-san profusely and produced some melon Pocky as a token of my thanks before leaving with a big grin on my face... the con had barely started. Dinner was cold ravioli up in the gopher hole with somewhat better grub coming in the form of fruit and veggies from the con suite as I headed back down to ConOps. VideoOps was running smoothly (don't tell me otherwise guys, let me live in my fantasy!) and I got a chance to see the wicked-cool DOOM level promotional patch... I was impressed! I begged off the desk for enough time to catch SVII's subs of Vision of Escaflowne... do not miss this one. I wish luck to the forces out there I have heard are trying to purchase rights to Escaflowne. If you sub it, they will come... ;) After Escaflowne (which simply ruled in case I didn't make that clear) I stayed up and witnessed Bad American Dubbing III. What I want to know is when BADIV is coming out... since there are so many worthy candidates for the coveted awards. I'll have to badger the Corn Pone Flicks guys in Atlanta in another few weeks. I actually got some sleep later that night. In the morning I cautiously crept about my room getting showered and dressed to tackle the longest day. I fully intended to nap sometime that day and not miss the East Coast premiere of Tenchi Muyo In Love... which I ended up skipping because Pioneer sent us the dub. I would have stayed but my favorite Tenchi character, Kiyone, had been dubbed horribly... I decided to wait for the movie to be shown on SciFi Channel later this month and wait for the Japanese LD with the *stereo* Japanese dialogue track. Jeez Pioneer... (comments made by Otakon staffers in no way reflect the opinions of Otakon so just ignore that last rambling remark... um yeah) I made some trips into Towson for copies and art supplies later Saturday morning as registration and the workshops starting humming at a comfortable speed. I made a quick turn through the art showing room and was blown away by some of the mecha kits... particularly the VF-19 resin that eventually won best plastic kit... hmmm. I swapped out again to attend the Fan Subtitling workshop and ended up running for video equipment, cables, and giving impromptu advice and instruction during the workshop. My friends Michael Ko, Kevin Miller, and Mark Pope were chairing the session along with Craig Worthington and Andy (D'oh! I forgot his last name!) with an eager crowd of about thirty would-be fansubbers, some with more experience than others. I followed the Buzz Lightyear and the Valkyrie fighter costumes backstage and rounded up some spotter gophers to help get the two of them on stage during the cosplay. I was floored at the number of entrants! I recall the excellent Patlabor uniforms, two Sailor Jupiters (hi Sue!), the rip-roaring karaoke sounds of Yellow Belmont, Kei... ... ... oh, and a truly funny skit by the iconic crew of Dragonball Z character players... you guys are getting along pretty well without Reich and Kathleen... speaking of whom: we missed you guys! All three of you! I was impressed, almost shocked, that only one guy dressed as a girl: Thomas Cardwell as Shampoo. During intermission Matt Pyson and I saved the day getting the side video projector hooked up to screen the news report of Otakon 95... yes, *that* news report, the one by the Japanese news crew who visited the Scanticon last year during Otakon 95. Kuni provided some translation and summarization of the reporters comments as they advised the American otakus here to drink less soda a nd more mineral water to avoid looking like Kubo in Otaku no Video... (hmm...) The gameshow immediately after was mildly attended (parties were starting) though the competition was fierce. I actually scored 400 audience points on a Name That Tunage bop that the contestants each went clueless on. Come on, who *doesn't* know Sharon Apple's _Information High_ by this point in time? I think I got the points for begging and pleading on the floor in front of the stage until I was asked to give the correct answer... ahem... A secret lot of fans rooted for Lily as she battled it out over trivia and in my opinion she won the best prize: a Sailormoon bedset. Fitting as she was still in costume as Sailorjupiter. ConOps closed down and the partying commenced. I found the rest of my friends getting toasted on Kirin and Killians upstairs and had the opportunity to lay hands on a Nintendo64. Mario64 is pretty weak... flames to /dev/null please. The machine definitely has potential. If I believed Mario64 was the end-all be-all of games (shut up NextGen) then I'd not even consider the machine. The beer was cold, the food was gone, the company was kickin', nuff said. I slept... in my hotel room even. Sunday morning: the home stretch. I actually made it into the dealers room! Deals weren't exactly abounding as the dealers must have thought they were closing at 3pm while the fans thought they were closing at 2pm. Ah well... I scored two Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa tankouban for the whopping sum of $5 (I'd like #1 and #5 if someone has them). I also bought two used Gundam books, the first being a character, mecha, and episode guide for V Gundam and the second being the anime film comic companion to Gundam F91. I fought with myself over buying the eternally cool keychain which was a replica of the entry plug for EVA-01 of Shin Seiki Evangelion. The doujinshi coffee mugs with the NERV logo was a no doubt must buy. Matt Pyson was selling off a bunch of his Shonen Sundays and Weeklies for a quarter a pop... hehehe! I traded some tapes for a way cool retractable windowshade featuring the inner senshi of Sailormoon on a beach trip. Free posters rounded out my take... I was pleased. You know you watch too much anime when you're considering buying a purple Dodge Neon just to match the cool Evangelion keychain you bought at Otakon! I met Don Yee for the first time and he gave me a monster sketch of Minmei. I ran into Steve Bennett again and lorded that five bucks he owes me over him... to which he now promises me doujinshi from his next trip to Japan. Uh-huh... ;) As things wound down, John Nadzam and I cashed out our gophers and thanked them for all their help. We went through our alotment of t-shirts and things slowly began to close down. 3 o'clock hit and the staffers all started helping take the con apart. We were tired but still had a lot of pent up energy having worked so hard to make Otakon 96 a success. That's when the fun began... We gathered the staff together (after moving all the equipment from one safe room to another, jeez) and tried to decide on a place to eat. That was about the time I looked at the carpet that was throughout the hotel and noticed something rather odd... within the pattern a distinct animal face could be made out. It became immediately apparent Otakon had found it's new home... the face was that of Ryo-Ohki! Eyes, nose, ears and all! I started pointing it out to everyone all of whom thought it was a riot! Truly, you've watched too much anime when you can see Ryo-Ohki in the carpet of your hotel! When you go to the carpet store and ask for the Ryo-Ohki carpet, you need serious help!After we returned from dinner, Neil Nadleman was sharing his newly bought cels with Lorraine Savage and myself. When I pointed out the Ryo-Ohki, Lorraine had to have a picture. We headed out for ChiChi's along with our guest of honor, Masaomi Kanzaki. Between 30 voices singing Starblazers or the horrid English Superspacefortress Macross song, I had a pleasant conversation with Kanzaki-san who was having a great time despite his lack of English and our lack of Japanese. Dinner was great and our waitress deserves a medal... one girl, with the assistance of two fellow co-workers managed to tame and feed about 30 of us... and that's not counting the 20 JASFA and Katsukon friendlies who had also mysetriously picked ChiChi's as their restaraunt of choice. The fun did not stop there... Back at the hotel, Matt Pyson, Cousin Sue, Mike Mahoney, Dave Asher and I traded weekend stories that floated from video games to Desert Storm to rumors of another baseball strike. We were having a grand ol time. We retired to another hotel room where another screening of the Otakon 95 news clip was shown along with Terminator3, Crayon Shin-chan off Hawaiian tv, various music videos, someone's home video of the cosplay, and Kuni translating for Kanzaki-san some insider news from Japan that only those in the room will know. We were all getting punchy and tired... luckily I live only half an hour away from Hunt Valley. My weekend concluded with some warm goodbyes all around and a quiet drive home along the empty highways accompanied by the haunting yet comforting soundtrack of Patlabor 2. It was almost 3am on Monday when I arrived home and I already missed my friends from Otakon. We had discussed some of the complaints and ideas for next year's event... As I fell asleep that night, the memories of the weekend still fresh in my mind, I dreamt of what next year's Otakon will be like. I almost can't wait. John "Scotaku" Scofield cho1@alumni.umbc.edu Yes, yes, I'll get my own private account soon enough! Shout out to Clarence Ho for letting me read news off his access.