shirenomad (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shirenomad) wrote2007-07-14 05:35 pm
shirenomad) wrote2007-07-14 05:35 pm
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So, AnimeExpo...
Yes, it ended two weeks ago. I've been gathering my thoughts. Or something like that. Anyway!
Saturday was mostly just seeing the sights and hanging out with Allen and Christina. I ducked into a Geneon premiere for some short films that were mildly interesting, and I did a preliminary check of the sales floor, but much of the day was spent getting photos of cosplayers (I'll put them up tomorrow. Probably.) before we left relatively early. I did, however, get a couple compliments on my obligatory geek cred shirt.
Sunday was planned mostly as just the shopping day. I got several Trigun manga from the same booth that sold me the Akira last year (extremely discounted for the same reasons: 4 for $10), the GitS: Stand Alone Complex soundtrack from the official booth (discounted to $12), and for the wallet-breaker, about $160 worth of DVDs for about $130 (20% off across the board for Haibane Renmei, Spirited Away, and Howl's Moving Castle). Also took a long, hard look at the Haruhi DVDs but ultimately passed.
I hadn't even arrived until past 4pm Sunday (missed the Mushishi premiere, grr...) so I'd figured my chances of getting a ticket for the masquerade at 7pm were completely shot, given the effort Allen and I had to make to get in the year before. But as I'm walking around near the line around 6, I see staffers going around saying "remember, you can't get in without a ticket! get your tickets!" Wait, you're still handing out tickets? Turns out they had gotten use of a small arena this year, the largest room in AX history, and yes, they still had seats by the boatload. Sign from God; I was practically on my way out at this point, but I took the ticket, got in line, and was seated in less than 15 minutes. Not great seats -- I was in the balcony area -- but I still had a clear view of both the stage and the screens.
Unfortunately, Masquerade wasn't nearly as good as the previous year. I blame this at least partially on the techies: the camera crew didn't do a great job of tracking the cosplayers and would sometimes show stuff offstage, and the sound crew had trouble finding the right track sometimes and managed to garble a couple performances to near-incomprehensibility. (An Utena sketch suffered the most for this: what I could make out sounded hilarious, but that didn't apply to the majority.) There was also a period where something went seriously wrong and the increasingly rowdy audience sat through 5+ minutes of a darkened stage; we mostly entertained ourselves by pulling out our cellphones and waving them like lighters. Ah, technology.
Anyway, YouTube has all the sketches available, so for your viewing pleasure, here are those I consider the best:
- Excel Saga humor sketch. Non-spoiler, but familiarity with the characters is recommended. Post-script ending was weak and could have been dropped, but the majority got lots of laughs.
- Kingdom Hearts humor sketch. Non-spoiler, I think... Hey, it's a Sora/Xemnas insult match! I don't think I need to say more. I haven't even played the games, and I was still amused. (If you're curious about the MC's comment at the beginning, they were having some sound issues and had to restart.)
- Sailor Moon walk-on. I'm not a fan of the series. Nonetheless, when a cosplay group gets well-done costuming jobs for all ten Sailor Scouts on the stage at once, one must applaud.
- Bleach humor sketch. Seeing through the Soul Society arc is highly recommended before watching this one. A little incoherent in places, but I got a kick out of the ending.
- The Cat Returns dramatic sketch. Non-spoiler, no knowledge of the movie needed.. Decent cosplay, good dancing. Make sure to watch to the end for some additional entertainment.
- The ill-fated Utena humor sketch. If you can't understand them clearly, the sketch is that they're still debating what to do for their sketch.
- Romeo X Juliet dramatic sketch. I've only seen through Episode 2 myself, and I think I may have been spoiled by viewing it. -_- However, if you are caught up on the series, by all means enjoy some good swordplay... and try to ignore that one of the flagbearers is blocking the cameraman's view of some of the action. (If you haven't seen the series at all, some of it will go over your head... like Gankutsuou, this anime takes some liberties with the original storyline.)
- And my favorite: Death Note humor sketch. Non-spoiler: you need only know the concept of the series to appreciate all aspects, and not even that much to enjoy the silliness that brought down the house. Or the nice work on the Ryuk costume.
The kung fu group from last year was there for intermission again, but they did a little too much sketch and not enough kung fu this time, imho (we had plenty of sketches in the first act!) And there was this big rush at the end to get the winners announced, on stage, and back off... don't know why. Some sort of deadline that MUST! NOT! BE VIOLATED! *shrug* They felt free to take their sweet time last year.
Saturday was mostly just seeing the sights and hanging out with Allen and Christina. I ducked into a Geneon premiere for some short films that were mildly interesting, and I did a preliminary check of the sales floor, but much of the day was spent getting photos of cosplayers (I'll put them up tomorrow. Probably.) before we left relatively early. I did, however, get a couple compliments on my obligatory geek cred shirt.
Sunday was planned mostly as just the shopping day. I got several Trigun manga from the same booth that sold me the Akira last year (extremely discounted for the same reasons: 4 for $10), the GitS: Stand Alone Complex soundtrack from the official booth (discounted to $12), and for the wallet-breaker, about $160 worth of DVDs for about $130 (20% off across the board for Haibane Renmei, Spirited Away, and Howl's Moving Castle). Also took a long, hard look at the Haruhi DVDs but ultimately passed.
I hadn't even arrived until past 4pm Sunday (missed the Mushishi premiere, grr...) so I'd figured my chances of getting a ticket for the masquerade at 7pm were completely shot, given the effort Allen and I had to make to get in the year before. But as I'm walking around near the line around 6, I see staffers going around saying "remember, you can't get in without a ticket! get your tickets!" Wait, you're still handing out tickets? Turns out they had gotten use of a small arena this year, the largest room in AX history, and yes, they still had seats by the boatload. Sign from God; I was practically on my way out at this point, but I took the ticket, got in line, and was seated in less than 15 minutes. Not great seats -- I was in the balcony area -- but I still had a clear view of both the stage and the screens.
Unfortunately, Masquerade wasn't nearly as good as the previous year. I blame this at least partially on the techies: the camera crew didn't do a great job of tracking the cosplayers and would sometimes show stuff offstage, and the sound crew had trouble finding the right track sometimes and managed to garble a couple performances to near-incomprehensibility. (An Utena sketch suffered the most for this: what I could make out sounded hilarious, but that didn't apply to the majority.) There was also a period where something went seriously wrong and the increasingly rowdy audience sat through 5+ minutes of a darkened stage; we mostly entertained ourselves by pulling out our cellphones and waving them like lighters. Ah, technology.
Anyway, YouTube has all the sketches available, so for your viewing pleasure, here are those I consider the best:
- Excel Saga humor sketch. Non-spoiler, but familiarity with the characters is recommended. Post-script ending was weak and could have been dropped, but the majority got lots of laughs.
- Kingdom Hearts humor sketch. Non-spoiler, I think... Hey, it's a Sora/Xemnas insult match! I don't think I need to say more. I haven't even played the games, and I was still amused. (If you're curious about the MC's comment at the beginning, they were having some sound issues and had to restart.)
- Sailor Moon walk-on. I'm not a fan of the series. Nonetheless, when a cosplay group gets well-done costuming jobs for all ten Sailor Scouts on the stage at once, one must applaud.
- Bleach humor sketch. Seeing through the Soul Society arc is highly recommended before watching this one. A little incoherent in places, but I got a kick out of the ending.
- The Cat Returns dramatic sketch. Non-spoiler, no knowledge of the movie needed.. Decent cosplay, good dancing. Make sure to watch to the end for some additional entertainment.
- The ill-fated Utena humor sketch. If you can't understand them clearly, the sketch is that they're still debating what to do for their sketch.
- Romeo X Juliet dramatic sketch. I've only seen through Episode 2 myself, and I think I may have been spoiled by viewing it. -_- However, if you are caught up on the series, by all means enjoy some good swordplay... and try to ignore that one of the flagbearers is blocking the cameraman's view of some of the action. (If you haven't seen the series at all, some of it will go over your head... like Gankutsuou, this anime takes some liberties with the original storyline.)
- And my favorite: Death Note humor sketch. Non-spoiler: you need only know the concept of the series to appreciate all aspects, and not even that much to enjoy the silliness that brought down the house. Or the nice work on the Ryuk costume.
The kung fu group from last year was there for intermission again, but they did a little too much sketch and not enough kung fu this time, imho (we had plenty of sketches in the first act!) And there was this big rush at the end to get the winners announced, on stage, and back off... don't know why. Some sort of deadline that MUST! NOT! BE VIOLATED! *shrug* They felt free to take their sweet time last year.