Vague musings on My First Anime Convention...

Ryo-ohki overindulges at the beer tasteing. Some more stupid pictures of things here.

Ok...So, I went to the 3 day Shin-nen-kai anime con on the 2nd - 4th Jan 1998doh!. T'was most entertaining, here's some gibbering on about it, and a few far from helpful pictures..

I've left this too long and I've forgotten what I was going to say. Wot i did: I watched Lots of anime, (obviously!), bought not enough stuff, took not enough entertaining photographs, met nice people (including UY fan Stewart- Visit his page!), walked around as a human Urusei Yatsura reference, had fun!

Somehow I don't think Manky Video will be back next year!

Some highlights in the watching stuff stakes:

• Evangelion! Great series, and now I've seen more!! Really goood! (And by the way, anyone who slags off the recap episode is wrong, coz they are forgetting the marvellous and spine chillingly sinister bit with Rei going strange and dreamy!)
• Some cool thing I can't remember the name of with school magic club versus manga club. Especially noted for the apperence of famous estate agent turned shock-artist Jeff Koon. Only joking, it's a cute teddy bear called Jeff Kun. It does have Kandinski-inspired titles though...
• X The Movie: a good couple of hours of psychic people blowing stuff up. Dead grim, pretty cool.
• Slayers!!! Yeah!
• Urusei Yatsura Movie 2: Beautiful Dreamer!!!! Wow!!!! Weird Philip K Dick style Mamoru Oshi surreal stuff AND Urusei Yatsura! What more could one ask for?!...
• Perfect Blue, BEFORE ITS RELEASE IN JAPAN!! Ha!!!...Oh, you don't care...well fair enough. Anyway, it's dead scary and cool!!
• From Beijing with Love, a hilarious and more than slightly tasteless Hong Kong James Bond spoof! Hope someone releases this over here some time soon, it's great!!!
• Angel's Egg!!! WOOOWWW!!!!!! The last showing of the con, a geninely surreal masterpiece. Mamoru Oshi is greeat! The fact that I was so tired that I wasn't sure which bits I saw and which I dreamed actually added to the experience. I'm working on getting a copy; I do have 'In The Aftermath', but that's more 'Scrambled Egg', with bits of the anime redubbed and intercut with dodgy post nuclear live action...kind of cool, but really messed up.

Things to remember at future Cons:

• Watch more anime!!!
• Buy more stuff! Especially soft toys (Totoro!) and Rumico Takahashi graphic novels! HINT: Buy stuff you really want NOW (or that will probably sell out fast) IMMEDIATELY, and then go back for stuff there is lots of, or not much demand for, right at the end when they are REDUCED!!!
• Meet more great people!! (+ avoid more dodgy people!)
• Eat! (the Raddison Edwardian hotel in Heathrow is not a good place to find cheap food, especially if you boycott McDonalds. Which you should.)
• Take more pictures!
• Enter the Masquerade!
• Demand they show some Miyazaki stuff!
• Attempt to actually get some kind of fanzine or something ready in time....
• etc.

<------ BAK(A)