Lisa and I got to the music video contest a little late but they were delayed anyways and we got some pretty good seats as the place was mostly empty. I think the majority of folks opted for the Masquerade line. The videos didn’t disappoint this year either. They added a fourth category along with the normal three. There were the usual action, drama, and comedy categories with a fun category added. I was a little confused as to the criteria for this new category was. There were only four entries and I thought they were only OK. The drama category had a video featuring Card Captor Sakura set to “Silent Lucidity” by Queensryche. From the reaction in the crowd there was very strong support for Sakura. In the action category a video titled “Chemicals” took first place but unfortunately, I cannot recall what it featured or which song was used. In the comedy category was “A Complete Waste of 6 min and 53 sec.” I have to say, this video was hilarious. It had this psychedelic song and was set to Serial Experiments Lain. The premise of the video was that the creator was running this project by a friend for an opinion. And the creator was having a lot of fun at his reviewer’s expense. The main drawback is that video was funny only once however. After that, it gets old really fast. Still, it’s not one to miss.
Other videos I thought were noteworthy was a Cowboy Bebop one focusing on Spike and set to a remake of “Kung-Fu Fighting”. Another video was one crossing Dragonball Z and Cowboy Bebop. This one borrowed heavily from “Tainted Donuts” of last year in which the worlds of Bebop and Trigun are crossed with the Bebop crew going after the bounty on Vash the Stampede’s head. This video “Dragon Bebop Z” had the same premise. However, it had magnificent editing. I thought it was very entertaining but I have to agree that to borrow that heavily from a previous video makes it look bad despite the seamless editing. My personal favorite was a variety of anime scenes spliced together and set to “The Pitch” from the soundtrack of the movie “Moulin Rouge”. I am a fan of “Moulin Rouge” (Before any of you ask, no I am not gay. I am just in the 0.0000000000000001% of straight males who likes the movie.) The editing and timing were outstanding. Scene selection was also right on target. Alas, it lost to “A Complete Waste of 6 min and 53 sec”.
One more thing I wanted to comment on in the contest was our hostess. She was a cute gal in an outfit that sort of looked like a schoolgirl’s uniform. If she was dressed as a character I didn’t recognize her. She also spoke in that cutesy anime girl voice. That made for a lot of fanboys in the audience. There were a lot of calls for her to dance or twirl on stage since that skirt swished so well around her legs. However, she did draw the line at jumping up and down, which was requested repeatedly. Guys, c’mon, grow-up. The tech director came out to present the awards and guys were still calling for the hostess to dance. The tech director effectively shielded her by taking the request on himself and twirling in her place. That managed to draw a lot of laughter and cheers from the audience. Well played, sir.
After the contest we headed to the dealers’ room once more for a final raid. The line was somewhat longer but what really got me riled up was that while Lisa and I posed for a photo, the line moved up a bit and this group of people just cut right into line ahead of us. It was a whole family too! What an example to set for the kids. I considered confronting them on the issue but why spill blood over something like this? I knew they wouldn’t budge on the issue and they were the type to force a physical confrontation. I was able to pick up few more figures for my collection and even tried out the Robotech game that was being previewed on XBox and PlayStation 2. Smoother controls than Macross VF-X but there were so many people shooting at you. When I met up with Lisa to head to the Shoji Kawamori/Macross panel, disaster struck. Lisa’s wallet had been stolen. We combed the entire floor and I nearly angered the staff and security enough to get thrown out. We never did find it and whoever took is damn lucky I did not find them. I’m just sorry that this incident had to mar Lisa’s first trip to an anime convention and California. I was expecting more courtesy but I have to remind myself that otakus come from all walks of life.
While in the dealers’ room I ran into an old friend from UCLA, Robyn Mukai. She was dressed as Rinoa (Again) and visiting some friends I believe. This time I recognized her costume so I didn’t get decked (Kidding! But you have to admit, you were sort of hostile at the first AX encounter. But is it my fault I don’t have a PlayStation?) This time she didn’t recognized who I was dressed so back at ya Robyn! But I have to cut her some slack because it is not easy to recognize my Keitaro costume. We didn’t have much time to talk with the situation though. Unfortunately, she caught me at a bad time when I had just finished talking to the staff again and when she greeted me I had no idea it was a friend and snapped out a rather angry reply (Sorry Robyn!).
Freddy and Jesse were very supportive through this ordeal and I cannot thank them enough for their understanding. As Lisa and I were leaving the next morning, we ended AX 2002 with a late dinner.
