Sunday, August 28, 2005
CNANIME 2005

This past weekend I attended my second anime convention of the year. CNanime was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Front Street between Union Station and the CNTower. It was a three day event that was combined with a bunch of other conventions: Horror, Sci-Fi, Gaming, and Comics, so the venue was quite large and there were a lot of people. This being my second convention I already had some idea of what to expect. The anime part of the convention was very similar to Anime North though I found that there were significantly less things to do at this convention than the previous. In general there were very few events/panels/workshops compared to Anime North. There was also less anime showings. Of course there were the other parts of the convention to consider and the amount of rooms available so obviously there would be less. In any case I had a very enjoyable weekend and always had something to do.

Friday

I arrived Friday night at around 5:30pm and waited in a line-up to pay my $45.00 entrance fee for the weekend. The line actually wasn't all that bad since I showed up a little late. After that I headed up stairs to the very large dealers room/artists alley/gaming area/signature area/industry preview area... haa I think I got them all in there.



I spent a couple of hours wandering around, checking out prices and thinking about the stuff I wanted to buy. I did happen to see the new Fruits Basket plushies and I was quite disappointed. The quality is quite poor compared the the Banpresto ones so I didn't end up buy any. In fact I didn't buy any plushies since none or very few were actual UFO catchers from Japan.



After I short while I heard an announcement saying that angela (a j-pop group) were now signing autographs at the Geneon booth so I went over and got myself an autograph and a handshake with atsuko and katsu. The both of them were super nice and very friendly.



After getting my autograph I headed downstairs to watch The count of Monte Cristo. I had heard some bad things about this show but after watching the first two episodes I didn't think it was all that bad and actually wanted to stay and watch more however, I had to get over to the line up for anime name that tune which was being held in the smallest room and just about everyone wanted to see it. I guess I got in line early enough cuz I got in but the huge line of people behind me weren't that lucky. The game was pretty good and I actually knew a lot more of the songs at this anime name that tune then I had at the anime north version. After the game I headed home for the night since there really wasn't much else to do.

Saturday

Saturday morning I arrived a bit late... actually I'd probably call it Saturday afternoon/late morning. The first thing I did was attend an hour and a half voice acting working which was actually a lot of fun. We did warm up exercises and learned a bit of stuff. Then of course there were volunteers who went up on stage and did little performances. After the workshop, I once again I spent some time in the dealers room and bought some stuff. Then it was time for a quick lunch before lining up for the angela concert. The concert started at 4:00pm and was my favourite part of the convention. They sang around 7 songs I think. The first two I hadn't heard before then they did the ED for Stellvia, the OP for Eva, the ED for Fafner, the OP for Fafner and did the Stellvia OP for an encore. It was great fun! They had everyone dancing along with them, clapping and whistling. During a mini intermission they taught the audience the word MOE, which atsuko explained meant very very very cute... like me! (that's what she said hehehe). They had the whole audience saying it, it was quite funny.



After the concert I headed over to theatre 4 to check out the only anime playing at that time that I hadn't ever seen (or even heard of). I'm so glad I went to watch it cuz I thought it was just hilarious. GENSHIKEN is basically about these nerdy otaku guys who had this little club. I guess it's just a slice of life anime but it had me in stiches so I most definitely will be watching the rest of it. That was the end of day two for me.

Sunday

This morning I was up bright an early so I could be downtown for 11:00am. Today was probably the busiest for me since there was a lot of things I wanted to see. At 11:00am I went to anime win lose or draw which was a lot of fun adn was bascially just pictionary but with anime titles. After that I went to the angela question and answer session. It was actually very interesting and while I didn't ask any questions there were plenty of people that had them. We learned that the name angela came from a Motley Crew song title (apparently they really like that band). The two of them met in highschool and used to be in rival bands. When they did get together a record label didn’t pick them up for a very long time (I think it was like 10 years or something) and they actually used to play on the street. Ther wer aton of other questions but I really can't remember them all. After that session I went over the Geneon panel. It was all right. There was a Q & A session then they played some preview for upcoming anime that they are releasing. The best part of the panel was the free stuff. I won myself a t-shirt playing rock paper scissors! Once the panel ended I got myself some street meat for lunch (a.k.a a hot dog) and then headed back inside to watch Kodosha. It appears to be a very cute and funny series so I'll probably see if I can get my hands on some more episodes. By the time it was finished it was 5:00pm so I headed up stairs for one last look at the dealers room. I was hoping there would be some last minute sales but alas there were none so I headed home.

Impression

While I did enjoy the convention there were some things that just could have been done better. First and most importantly, the viewing rooms were way too small and there wern't enough. Many times there would be a big event crammed into the smallest room so hardly no one would be able to get in. If you really wanted to see something you would have to line up hours before the show. Then of course because there weren't a lot of things going on, everyone wanted to get into the same event. I don't think this part of the convention was very well thought out at all. Other than that I don't have a lot of complaints though the isle size was very small in the dealers room so this made it difficult just to walk down them during peak hours. Sooo, I guess what I'm saying is... they needed a better venue...

My stuff

I spent way too much this weekend. It doesn't look like a got a whole lot but that Fruits Basket box set cost me $90.00 (Canadian). Since this is the cheapest I have ever seen it I decided to pick it up... It is my favourite series after all. The manga was all $11.00 a piece, which is signficantly less than the Canadian cover price so I decided to pick some up. I got myself Imadoki v.2, Fullmetal Alchemist v.2, Tsubasa v.4, Fullmoon v.1, and Ultra Manic v.1. I most definitely will not be spending more money in the near future.



Thursday, August 18, 2005
HELLO DOLLY

This past Tuesday I was invited to go watch Hello Dolly in Stratford with Christina, her mom, aunt, cousin Laura, grandmother, Lisa and Tania. It was an absolutely wonderful day, I had such a good time. It started off around eight in the morning when we all made the journey out to Stratford. We arrived around 10:30am and walked around in city until lunch at 12. Of course we all went and bought some chocolate to share and spent a little time in the very cool little toy store they have there. We ate lunch at an inn which gave us a great idea for a mastercard commercial involving tea shots... that's right shots of tea. The play started at 2:00pm and was around two and a half hours. It was just amazing. It was a musical and revolved around the matching skills of a lady named Dolly. I guess it was sort of a romance comedy. The Dolly character was definitely the best in the show and the lady who played her did a really great job. After the play we headed home and took an accidental twenty minute detour but it was all great fun. The next stratford trip will be in the middle of September and we'll be seeing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Hopefully it will be another great day.

Sooo, speaking of dollies, here is a picture of my new fruits basket UFO catchers Kyou and Tohru. Kyou just arrived yesterday and I just love him. I think they're both just so cute and now I want the whole collection. I don't think I'll be able to afford it so I'll probably just end up getting the cheap knock-offs that GE animation is releasing this year. Yuki and Shigure have already been released so I'll probably see some at CNanime next weekend. I might even buy them... if they aren't too horrible.



Yesterday my free ipod shuffle came in the mail. I was playing around with it all day today and it's really great. It's a tiny little thing but it'll hold 100 or so songs so it's really all you need (well all that I need anyway). We got it free because it was a promotional offer for switching to TD bank. It worked out great since my mom had just about had it with bank of montreal so she switched and I got an ipod... I love free stuff!

The kitchen guys are supposed to show up tomorrow to install part of our kitchen... I have my doubts but I'm crossing my fingers. It's really getting ridiculous now, I mean how long can you live in a basement?


Friday, August 12, 2005
AUGUST RIBON

I guess this will be a really short post since I don't have anything new to talk about. So here we go, the August edition of Ribon. This months furoku included two small containers of blue (Starblacks) and pink (Ageha 100%) nail polish, a Shinshi Doumei Cross nail file, stickers to go on your nails, an extra story book, and a Chocomimi dress up sticker card. It was a pretty good furoku lot (especially the nail polish) but it's next month that I'm really exited for. A whole new story plus a tin pencil case!! I can't wait for it to come out!



Thursday, August 11, 2005
WAAAY TOO LAZY

Haaa so it's been like what, a month or more since I last wrote in here. Honestly I have no excuse for this either. I've had things I've wanted to write about and have basically been doing nothing all dya long so I really should have just done it. But no, not me, I'd rather do absolutely nothing. Well anyway, hopefully I'll be writing a little more these next couple of days since I have the August Ribon to put up, my new plush Tohru that came in the mail today, and hopefully a plush Kyou which shoul be on its way right now!

Since I've totally forgoten everything I wanted to write about I'll just give a run down of the major events this past month (which arn't many). Anyhoo, a few weeks ago Stacey and I (plus Darek, Asheley and her boyfriend) all went to the Shiners circus in Brampton. This was my second year in a row and it was quite fun. The best part, I'd have to say, was a boxing kangaroo which was just too cute (I totally want a kangaroo now). After the circus we all went out for dinner at a place called Raxx (uh that might be how you spell it). The place is this giant pool hall that also serves food. I got some chicken fingers (which I actually hadn't had in months) that were pretty good. After that, Stacey, Darek and I all went back to his place to watch a movie. It was a fun day!

Fast forward a week... this past weekend I have a pool party at my house which turned out to be very enjoyable (well at least I thought so... hopefully everyone had a good time). The weather turned out to be really nice so I was pleased. We ended up spending a lot of time in the pool. I made up a mini survivor game that seem to go over well though poor Christie got slightly injured in the first game. In the end the blue team won.... poo on that, the purple was much better hehehe. We actually ended up playing this frisbee toss game for over an hour after dinner. It was basically just throwing around 3 frisbees, 1 ball and a couple water balloons but for some reason it was really fun. Overall it was a really great day and hopefully we'll be able to do it again. It was so nice getting to see everyone.