Frogs' Post-Æ Megapost: Part II of II THE RETURN OF THE F.P.M.
Frogs at Æ 2005
So... yea, Æ 2005. Anime Evolution, the rich Vancouverian tradition hosted at the bee-aye-you-tiful Simon Fraser University campus in scenic Burnaby, BC.
Sitting atop a mountain peak just east of Vancouver, the SFU campus itself is a sprawling array of bare concrete, post-modern structures. The archetecture itself is strangely retro-futuristic. And the place is HUGE. I have never seen such a campus, but granted most of the colleges I've seen are in the middle of big cities where land area is limited.
Having driven up from LA (21 hours total) over 2 days, I was a little sleepy Friday morning for registration. Despite having gotten up at the ungodly hour of 8am, I was still very excited. What would the next 3 days have in store? The first thing I noticed was the Æ crowd was a lot younger that at AX. Almost everyone in the line with me had braces or were struggling with various pitfalls of puberty. Oh well, so much for meeting chicks...
After getting my badge ($35 canadian, a steal of a deal!) I wandered around for an hour getting familiar with the layout of the convention. You know, finding panel rooms/food/bathrooms etc... until it was time for the (((TA-DA!!!))) opening ceremonies. These were hosted by none other than The 404's comedy group (featuring Will, or The_Zodiac). I didn't know which one he was yet. But, at the 404's Anime Improv performance (almost imediately after the con opening) I figured out his identity right away. I would recognize his Vegeta anywhere.
During his performance I met a girl *ahem* woman. At least she was legal, possibly the only cute and of legal age women at the whole con (sorry Gwen, you're not legal in Canada yet). While following her around, I had the chance to grab Will before he ran off for the afternoon. He ended up skipping our panel the first day, something about being too cool for us.
So then it was time for our Amatuer Voice Acting panel. Kagome spotted me right away and jumped into my arms before I knew what was going on. Like actually ran at me and jumped so I had to catch her. She's cute in real life despite never showing her face in photos, so I didn't mind so much. There had been a lot of talk in the days leading up to the con about changing out panel time, and getting a longer block. As it was, the schedules didn't have any of the changes posted, so no con-goers would know to show up at the earlier time. So for 2 hours we showed fan dubs and hung out talking with maybe 5-6 other people who wandered in. *I did a reading of Kagome's prepared monologue from Inuyasha at one point, I won't describe it but needless to say I ended up on the floor crying like a girl*
Then, at the time listed on the schedule, people started showing up. So at this point Kagome, Nicole Jones and I did our best to turn our little discussion into a more structured panel. I hadn't known Nikki before, online or otherwise, but she knew what she was talking about. Kags mos def got the crowd going with her little Excel rant, even with nothing to rant about on the spot. We showed another fan dub, and had some audience participation. The later was a little bit of a mess since we didn't have lines for them, but some of them actually did really well anyways. After the panel, MC Huggies finally revealed himself, admitting he had been watching the panel the whole time... without helping. Will had missed it, and Lila hadn't made it either due to an audition she had. On the whole it was good though, and we had lots of people asking more questions after and getting emails and VAC info and VVA info.
Later, while hanging outside I was able to finally snap a shot of Gwen's face (she'll kill me if I post it, it's not developed yet anyways). There was a small crowd hanging out, when my girl from earlier suddenly reappeared. We all decided to check out the kareoke room. They were having issues getting set up, and there were people singing accapella. A dude had a guitar so I asked to borrow it for a minute to do my rendition of More Than Words (see VAC Idol album). It was really not as funny as I wanted (Will back me up, it was a tough room) so I stopped... only to be started up again when 2 girls ran up singing the words. So we finished the song, and they finally got the Kareoke going. It was, well - - - kareoke. After an hour maybe, our entourage left for the gaming room, leaving me alone to talk to my girl. We ended up heading to the main theater room to meetup with her other friends. We made sure to get there much earlier than they did...
So ends day one for Frogs. I was staying in the most ghetto hotel in the worst neighborhood of Vancouver. There are literally "proffesional" women walking around my building all night long. The water ran clean, and my car was safe in the lot I guess (no break ins) so all in all I couldn't complain. IE: the price was right. Anyone attending Æ be sure to sign up early and get a town house. Don't wait til it's too late like me.
Day 2 was slower, I went to a bunch of panels, saw some new Anime's, met industry peeps. We all met back up for the cosplay comp. Kagome as Kagome performing her monologue (better than I did) was cool to see. As well as all the other performers/cosplayers. I felt a little left out. I'm not a cosplaying guy, but I did come up with a really killer idea for next year, one thats sure to get a prize. But it'll have to remain secret. Our girl didn't win, the judges went with all crowd pleasers, not anything dramatic like what she did. What can ya do?
But afterwards we all hung out. Gwen and Angela (another friend who I hadn't known online or otherwise before) went to the guest meet'n'greet. Will had a ticket to the event back at his townhouse. So 3 of us (Will MCH and I) grabbed some food on the way, and headed to his place. He was able to get himself in free, and I let the Hugster take the ticket since I was meeting up with my Hentai Girl soon (did I forget to mention she was dressed as a hentai character before?). Well, of course when I found her she introduced me to her BOYFRIEND!!!1!!WTF!?!?!!?!1?!1??!@#$%
SO, that was awkward.
***I'm out of space, continued below***