Sunday, June 3, 2007

I got no sleep last night but i don't care!
Here's the scoop, there was a 24-hour anime film festival out of town and i refused to go to sleep! Here's a not-so-quick recap.

It started noon yesterday, and started with a few shows voiced by the guest of honor Nancy Novotny. This meant an episode of Azumanga Diaoh, Madlax and Kaleido Star to kick of the festival. Now, i'd never heard of any of those three before, but i was there laughing my ass off for at least the first 24 minutes and paying close attention the next 48. Then we got to the interview where i found out:

- She began in musical comedy roles.
- The voice she first provided for her character Madlax was much higher-pitched and less natural-sounding.
- Her Kaleido Star character Mia was supposed to be from Holland, but they gave most of the characters in the English dub of that show normal American voices.
- ADV holds auditions in the Houston area, and Ms. Novonty was swept off the strets at one of those auditions.

FIRST BREAK. 1:45 PM. Cosplay contest. I didn't have a costume (and the best i could've done was copying Jayden's hair, if i was lucky,) but there was a record high of11 people who participated. The winner was someone dressed as the pink-haired girl in Fooly Cooly.

Before they started the second block, two more games. Give you a 10x10 grid with a space marked "You are here" and start knocking off spaces until only one player's left, they'll win a prize. It only lasted three blocks.

Also, they asked trivia questions and whoever got it right got a DVD of their choice. They could keep going as long as they were still called on, not once and you're done. Hell, a couple people got 3, made me realize i'm not that hardcore an otaku. XD

BLOCK TWO. 2:00 PM. The first two Prince of Tennis episodes in Japanese-with-subtitles, which made me find out when they announce the scores they use the English names for the numbers (examples "fifutîn-labu" or "sâtî-aru" for "15-love" and "30-all.") Then there was a 90-minute FUNimation movie, Origin: Spirits of the Past. The main character Agito was calling the name of this girl Tûra so many times we began to joke it was his battle cry.

BLOCK THREE. 4:30 PM. More Japanese-with-subtitles. It started with the fifth episode and the last two episodes of Cowboy Bebop, then switched to the first two episodes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. At that point i was itching to get up and dance to Hare Hare Yukai, i had the song stuck in my head thanks to Schae— but nope, they didn't play the full dance, and i only remembered the steps when they were in front of me on YouTube or at the last convemtion i went to.

BLOCK FOUR. 7:00 PM. They played the first episode of the anime Great Teacher Onizuka, followed by Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. BEST MIYAZAKI MOVIE EVER!! Side note: Did you know Nausicaä was the name of a character in the Odyssey? Yep. Also, they kept the trivie going at each block. Good news, i finally guessed one right. Bad news, i didn't guess out loud! The answer was Studio Ghibli, but i wasn't sure if the question asked for a studio or a person who worked for the studio (it was a sorta longer question, no one guessed and they gave the answer before i could ask them to repeat the question. Oh well.)

BLOCK FIVE. 10:00 PM. This one completely baffled everyone, not just me. They showed a 105-minute movie called Mindgame, and it was completely random, maybe even more random than Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo! i remember people whining about how little sense it made, and actually i think i was one of them. So, next was a half-hour intermission, and then we continued with the second half of the film festival.

MIDNIGHT OTAKULYPSE NOW BLOCK. 12:30 AM. Here goes the graveyard shift, the home stretch. Are you kidding? i wasn't even close to tired yet! So the AM half begins with some comedy called This is Otakudom. Haven't heard of it? They took anime characters and re-portrayed them as otaku. This resulted in a emo vampire-like character, a Sailor Moon cosplayer and her (supposedly) anime-hating older brother, a guy dressed up in a pink kimono and makeup who still claims to not be a fag, along with other characters. i was laughing my ass off, and then a live-action half hour of some girl cosplaying Haruhi Suzumiya giving some guy "private lessons" about what an otaku is and another comedy called Otaku no Video followed. A guy named Kubo was fine not having to do with cartooning and living a popular life, but then he got drawn in and saw what being an otaku was all about. A bazillion live-action interviews with the same person saying the negatives about being an otaku made it pretty funny. Note, only This is Otakudom was an English dub (it was first made specificly for Otakon 2001 in Baltimore,) the others were Japanese-with-subtitles.

Finally i won a DVD for getting a question right during the 3:50 AM break! They asked for two characters in Dragon Ball named after underwear, and i said Bulma and Bra, getting me a copy of Gantz Volume 1.

BLOCK SEVEN. 4:00 AM. The double episode block. First, the first two Japanese-with-subtitles episodes about this funny pennyless band, the (oddly named due to there being a girl) Nerima Daikon Brothers. Then, in Japanese-with-subtitles, the first two episodes of Gantz. (i opened the case hoping to see three episodes on the list, but no, just the first two. Of course. -_-') Then the first two episodes of Elfen Lied, but these were in English since Nancy Novotny had a role as the girl Yuka.

BLOCK EIGHT. 7:00 AM. This was all Japanese-with-subtitles. They had the first two episodes of Eureka Seven, then the live-action Great Teacher Onizuka movie. It went pretty much by-the-anime, which i'm not sure was so intresting since they played the first episode of the anime a few hours before that.

Then one more prize giveaway. About $300 worth of prizes including something signed by Nancy Novotny. i didn't win it, but the winner wasn't there. Good thing for the girl that when they collected the tickets for the drawing at the top of the show they had them write in their email address.

There was only one block left, thre hours of Tenchi Muyo, but my eyes were bloodshot at that point (had something in them, still are bloodshot as i'm typing this) and i though i'd end up napping in the theater and throwing off my sleep schedule. So i left at 9:00 AM, just three hours short of the whole festival.

But here's some good out of it, i woke up at 8:10 yesterday morning and i'm not going to sleep til past 10 tonight, meaning i shattered my "longest awake time" record by a long shot. It's the first time i've stayed up a day straight. Anyway, my eyes are bloodshot and producing some gak stuff (maybe telling me they need along rest,) but other than that, i'm fine. Except that Hare Hare Yukai is ringing in my head. C'mon, i need a singing partner!

Nazonazo mitai ni chikyûgi o tokiakashitara
Minna de doko made mo ikeru ne
Jikan no hate made
Bûn wâpu de rûpu na kono omoi wa
Nani mo kamo o makikonda souzou de asobou
Aru hareta hi no koto
Mahou ijou no yukai ga
Kagirinaku furisosogu Fukanou ja nai wa
Ashita mata au toki Warainagara hamingu
Ureshisa o atsumeyou
Kantan nanda yo Konnano
Oikakete ne Tsukamaete mite
Ôki na yume yume Suki deshô?

Just be glad you don't know what my voice sounds like. (Laughs) Anyway, i gotta go for now, but i might be back on again later on today. Just need to do some studying for the exams Tuesday to Friday this week. Later!

Countdown: 7 days left of school!
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