Personal Note: Providence Anime Conference, Day One

[nebroadwe]

So, I spent this past weekend at the first ever Providence Anime Conference, which chose to distinguish itself from the vast array of other conventions out there by instituting an age floor: participants were required to be at least 21. Overall, I found it to be a tiny but friendly affair, with plenty of interesting programming despite its size and very few technical hitches or last-minute schedule rearrangements. I'm not sure I would want to travel as far as Providence for such a small event in future, but I certainly got my money's worth on this trip.

So on Friday two friends and I drove to Providence. The day was fine: sunny, cool and quite windy; occasionally cloud-scattered, but mostly just windy. No fall foliage yet to speak of, although many trees were beginning to fade and crinkle around the edges. We had no trouble finding the hotel: two turns off the highway, and voila! The Hilton! Having made good time, we arrived well before the stated check-in hour, but when we inquired at the front desk, they gave us our room anyway. Points to them for that -- we were all short on sleep for various reasons (what a week it's been!) and while we'd been planning to get lunch and relax a bit before con registration and check-in, it was very pleasant to be able to haul all our stuff inside, relax first, and then go in search of lunch and the convention site.

We found the latter immediately, a block from the Hilton, in contradiction of my Yahoo-produced mini-map. I'm not sure how I missed the boat on that one, but at least it wasn't a problem. Registration hadn't opened, so we wandered off into Providence to look for food. The downtown area is showing mixed signs of depression and revitalization -- the convention center is surrounded by swanky hotels, including an historic Hotel Biltmore, and there's a gigantic indoor mall behind the convention center with a great deal of upscale shopping. The "town green" was well-kept and advertising a farmer's market (which, sadly, we missed), but beyond that there were a number of dingy small shops and empty tall buildings undergoing renovation, in no clear pattern. We toddled past a Dress Barn and a day spa and a CVS and at least three different Dunkin' Donuts (who also seem to have purchased naming rights to part of the convention center) before we found a crunchy little coffee shop, the Caffe Blender (spelled thus), with fantastic organic food. My friends had good-to-the-last-drop minestrone, while I ordered grilled cheese (garnished with couscous, mmm), and we shared a tasty pot of black tea. We conjectured that it might have been a family operation and planned to return for lunch the next day, if possible.

Then it was back through the wind and the six different street crossings around the irregularly-shaped green to registration. The PAC is the smallest con I've ever attended; the Doctor Who and Star Trek conventions of my youth were middle-sized corporation-run affairs, while Otakon is so large you could get lost in it and never return to the land of the living. This event took place all on one floor of the convention center, sharing the building with an RV show, a hot tub and fireplace expo and a golfing seminar (none of which appeared to be drawing outsize crowds, either). It was nice to be able to hold the entire layout in my head: there were only two video rooms and five panel sites; the manga library occupied a room at one end of the floor and the art expo its near-twin at the other; and registration sat on one wing of the mezzanine with the Artist's Alley on the opposite side. The Dealer's Room occupied one of the larger rooms in the middle of the floor. The crowd was sparse but enthusiastic; while I was waiting to see The Rose of Versailles, I could hear the laughter and catcalling from the "Dating Tips for Otaku" panel down the hall and it sounded as if they were having a very good time. A few cosplayers were wandering about, but I didn't see very many elaborate costumes on Friday (except for the one blue-skinned, bikini-clad, beehive-haired young woman being escorted from the Hilton to the convention center by two gentlemen later in the evening. I hope the body paint was insulated, because it was moderately chilly at that point).

Once we picked up our schedules, we still had some time before programming really got underway, so we toodled back to the hotel to relax some more and figure out what we wanted to see. Video programming was divided between full showings of longer works and excerpts from everything from Astro Boy to Emma; the panels covered the usual range of guest interviews, industry news, analysis, and silliness. The analysis side was a bit thin, once you got past introductions to Japanese culture, history and media; there were so many sessions of "a psychological view of [show]" that I began to wonder whether the PAC had been underwritten by the APA. Still, there was enough to see and do that I had to pick and choose, and I did sigh a bit over missed opportunities. It's at times like these that the ability to bilocate would be a real plus.

Anyway, our first stop was the Artist's Alley, with about fifteen vendors of varying quality. My one friend was quite taken with Stephanie Yue's very professional prints of mice doing tai chi and other martial arts. Though we didn't buy anything right then, I felt pretty sure we'd be carrying back one or two of those when we left. I was struck by the amount of Avatar: The Last Airbender fanart on display there and in the Expo. Looks like Nickleodeon has a niche hit on their hands, as well as a mainstream one. Then down to the Manga Library -- which had beanbag chairs! We were sold. I picked up volume one of Sugar Sugar Rune, which I've been attempting to read in the original language as an exercise. I have a long way to go in Japanese yet, so it was good to pick up the translation and get all the exposition clear. Then it was over to the video room at the other end of the hall to see an episode of The Rose of Versailles -- one thing I'd really looked forward to at PAC was the opportunity to see The Old Stuff, and I've always been intrigued by The Rose of Versailles because of the place it holds in this history of shoujo. When I arrived at the room, the previous showing of Captain Harlock (willowy space goddesses ahoy!) was running long, so I settled in to wait. Unfortunately, the reason it was running long was that the projector was faulty, inclined to hiccup and freeze. It refused to play anything of The Rose of Versailles except a still title card; the irked tech, after fiddling with it for some few minutes, announced that the showing was cancelled due to technical difficulties. Dagnabit. I rather hoped they'd find a place for it elsewhere on the video schedule, but since that was quite full, it never happened.

Happily, the next event on our agenda, "Dubs That Time Forgot," suffered only minor technical glitches. Presenter Mike Toole had a fantastic grab bag of dubbed anime from Tobor, the 8th Man to Takahata's Heidi to Urusei Yatsura. The emphasis was on the goofy, whether in the original script (the fifteen-minutes-and-still-counting philosophical discussion of law, justice, kingship, friendship, and the necessity of throwing one's sister a proper wedding in Run For Life, a version of the Damon and Pythias story -- we were shown excerpts) or the dub choices (a voice actor going back and forth between a Clint Eastwood impersonation in his dialogue and a high-pitched yawp as he called out his giant robot's signature moves) or inappropriate fit to assumed audience, usually children. "Children like nothing better than courtroom drama!" (The fifteen-minutes-and-still-counting philosophical discussion actually took place in the context of a murder trial.) "Children like nothing better than existential despair!" (Partial interior monologue of a man fallen into the mud, because children love lengthy interior monologues, too:

My legs won't take me anymore. I can only lie here and die. I'll just lie here until I die! But Adamantus -- he shouldn't have to die, too. I can't let him die. He shouldn't have stood up for me ... Maybe the king was right: I'm not a good friend. I have broken my oath! I'm no better than the dirt under my feet! I used to be a runner -- I won all the races! It's not that much further ... I can do it ...)

And, of course, "Children like nothing better than deformed sheep!" (Though that last might actually be true in some cases, the sheep in question was pretty scary: "It looks like its jaw has become unhinged."). The clips of Carl Macek's version of Megazone 23 Part 2 had Japanese subtitles; the presenter explained, after we had watched a couple of sequences of young people attacking the police and hanging out drinking and flirting before being attacked by the police (it's one of those government-conspiracy stories), that this particular dub had been remarketed back to Japan as a tool to aid in learning English. Finally, we saw two dubs of the same scene from Urusei Yatsura where Lum first arrives to challenge Ataru: the old AnimEigo "Those Obnoxious Aliens" one and a later BBC3 version that seemed to have retained only the plot outline and dispensed with any translation of the actual script. You have to imagine the following lines being delivered in various English regional accents:

Let me to introduce Mr. Invader -- mighty ogre, intergalactic warrior and the voice of Bert Fry in The Archers.

Ground control to pilot: "Base to Red Leader. Come in, Red Leader. What's happening up there, over?"
Pilot, wearing bizarre purple goggles: "Hard to tell, base. There's an enormous jelly bean over my eyes."

Old Man: "Now, don't mess me about, Maboroshi. The world is going to be taken over by huge, great, junk-food-guzzling ogres and you are its only hope. Now, I might be old, but if you don't meet this challenge, I'll ram your teeth so far down your throat you'll be able to chew with your arse!"
Ataru: "Oy! Could you watch your language, please? There are ladies present!"

It was a wonderfully entertaining panel; I heartily recommend it when it comes to a con near you. In the meantime, AnimeNewsNetwork.com has video of the version that played at this year's Otakon in two parts, here and here. Share and enjoy.

By then it was dinnertime, so we walked over to the ginormous mall behind the convention center in search of dinner. We were hungry enough to take the first opportunity to eat that fell to us and had pizza at a reasonably uncrowded Pizzeria Uno. (At my first Otakon, my friends and I also had supper at a Pizzeria Uno at Baltimore's Inner Harbor ... eventually; the wait was interminable, because not only was all of Otakon out foraging, but a Yankees-Orioles game had just taken place, too. It was interesting watching the baseball fans encounter the cosplayers. I don't doubt a number of children came away with a more colorful first impression of Baltimore as a result.) We explored the mall a bit, looking for an ATM and checking out the rest of the dining options for future reference. We also stopped in a comics store to pick up card boxes -- Pokémon cards are helpfully the same size as the kanji flashcards my one friend and I are using. We checked out at the same register, I behind my friend. "Another one, huh?" the cashier asked.

"We're together," I explained. "Equally dull."

"Or equally exciting," he countered.

"I don't know," I said. "Clear plastic boxes don't really say 'exciting' to me."

Another cashier broke in, "It depends on what you're putting inside them."

"Kanji flashcards," I explained.

The cashiers exchanged looks. "Okay, boring," they agreed -- cheerfully. It was all in good fun. We grinned and left.

Funimation had a rep at the convention and had also provided a premiere screener which included an episode each of Ouran High School Host Club, Black Lagoon, Devil May Cry, and Hellsing. Another friend of mine, not present on this trip, is quite the Ouran fan, so I was interested to discover what the draw was. Mind you, I find the entire host club concept creepy and sad (this documentary has a lot to do with that reaction), and I was really wondering whether it was possible to use it as the basis for a screwball high school comedy. On the evidence of the single episode we saw, I'm prepared to say that yes, it is possible. The show is cleverly animated (I was reminded, stylistically, of some of Gainax's work on Kare Kano) and very tongue-in-cheek; down-to-earth Haruhi makes a great narrator, being at once weirded out by the Host Club's goings-on but not wholly intimidated by them. The dub seems excellent, featuring the usual Funimation suspects (Caitlin Glass and Vic Mignogna in the leads, ably supported by Travis Willingham and Greg Ayres, among others). I'm inclined to check the rest of this one out. (I learned at the Funimation panel the next day that they were intending to sell some copies in advance of the official street date at AnimeUSA, IIRC, if anyone in that neck of the woods is interested ... )

By then we were bushed, and not having much of an interest in Black Lagoon et seq. (sorry, fmanalyst!), we returned to our hotel and hit the sack. I was disappointed to miss the late night "Back in MY Day ..." panel, because attending one of those at Otakon was what convinced me to give PAC a try, but my friends weren't really up for it and I was tired enough from the drive in to want to call it a night. (I heard the next day that it was a lot of fun, but when you're my age, you have to pace yourself [impersonates a doddering granny tottering toward the grave]). Our hotel room was a pleasantly quiet retreat: not much noise from the highway opposite or from the rooms on either side (I could hear one set of neighbors, but only from the bathroom). The amenities were a bit thin, however; I've complained before, and will again, about the nickel-and-diming that went on at the Hilton, above and beyond our rather expensive base room rate: parking at twenty bucks a night; no complimentary food beyond tea- and coffee-bags in the rooms and no mini-fridge for our own, though we were welcome to order from room service at restaurant prices; WiFi available -- at $9.95 a day ... Argh. Give me a Day's Inn any time. That said, the staff were very polite and competent; the room was clean; the beds were comfy (with very fluffy pillows -- I piled up three to lean against to read and promptly sank in up to my ears; my one friend said it looked as if I were being slowly devoured by a friendly marshmallow); and we did get a complimentary copy of the local paper each morning. The bathroom was perhaps underprovided with towel racks, but I think that's America in general, not the Hilton. (When I get my bathroom remodeled, I'm putting in some extra towel racks. One guest and I'm overwhelmed for places to hang damp towels. Mutter, grumble, zzzzzzz ... )

To be continued ...

Comments

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yeah that was me yesterday after 6 hours walking the renn fest

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Hope it was fun! I'm sloowly working my way through all the posts on my flist ...

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

way fun. i'll be posting pictures tonight

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Excellent. Your picspam is always worthy.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

thanks