First off, since Shawn wrote his report before I finished mine, you should read his first because I'm going to skip over or just briefly mention a few things that he covers.

Anime North is one of the biggest anime events in Canada. It's been running for 6 years now, and this being the first year that I could go without having to worry about school or work or anything else, I was determined to make an appearance. I was so determined, in fact, that the worst cold I ever had could not keep me from being there.

ARRIVAL: GREAT NINJA BATTLE ON PUBLIC TRANSIT

First, however, the challenge was how to get there. That involved one of my more creative uses of public transit. A bus ride to a subway station, a subway ride to a bus station, and another bus ride to the hotel. So it was somewhat complicated, and some people were astounded that I traveled like that. While it was a rather painless trip, I wasn't quite sure when the bus was going to stop at the hotel. Which leads me to my first interesting point about anime conventions. You can talk to anyone. It doesn't matter who, when, or where, as long as it's an anime convention, people you can strike up a conversation out of nothing with people you would otherwise never talk to. Case in point, I quickly realized that 3 other passengers were also on their way to Anime North. They had come all the way from Montreal and have been a part of the anime scene since the early days of fansubbing. So talking with them made the trip much easier and much more fun.

When I arrived, there were still a few hours to go before there was anything to do, but the convention gatherings with people in costume had already begun. I started to wander around and it didn't take long for me to find Shawn. I signed up, paid my money, and got my convention badge. After that we just wasted time for awhile and Shawn took some pictures of people in costume.

NINJATRON KNOWS SCOTT MCNEIL

As usual, I have no idea exactly what I'm going to be doing, so I find a seat, bury my head in what they called the "Survival Guide", look at the schedule, and pick which events and screenings interest me the most. Suddenly Shawn says to me "Hey, isn't that Scott McNeil?" Scott McNeil, of course, is a voice actor from Vancouver, BC, and was a guest at the convention this year. If you didn't know, he's been in such shows as Reboot (playing Hack, among others), Beast Wars (Waspinator, Dinobot, Rattrap, Silverbolt), Gundam Wing (Duo Maxwell), and many more. He and I had met twice before and hung out for awhile, as I reported in this article, and I was looking forward to seeing him again. So I walk over to say hi, and he says "Oh hey! I thought that was you over there!" Wow. I'm so cool! We shook hands and joked around for a bit. He really loves being in Toronto and had just been to the Royal Ontario Museum. The really funny part was when he had to tell someone at the sign up table that he was actually a guest and didn't need to register.

PEOPLE LIKE NINJATRON'S CUTE GIRL DRAWING

I sit back down and pull out my sketch book to start to draw. It's not long before a fairly decent picture of Cyan starts to come out. As I continued to work on it, though, I get a tap on my shoulder. It was then that I met a nice guy, who I assume was from Japan, that liked what I was drawn. I went through the rest of my book with him and he seemed impressed. He said I should consider getting a table at a convention some time. I saw him later that day sitting at a table with some other artists that he worked with. I thought that was pretty cool. Maybe I will get a table some day.

So here's the drawing and a picture of me working on it. I'm rather embarrassed about that photo. You can really tell that I've got a cold. At least Cyan is looking pretty good for the short time I was drawing.

LETS PAY MONEY IN ORDER TO BUY MORE GOODS! GO!

Eventually Shawn and I went to line up to get into the dealers room as convention opening time drew nearer. It was one of many long, busy line ups that dominated the weekend. However, there were some nice costumes (including a few lovely young ladies) so it wasn't too boring. Once again, the "you can talk to anyone" phenomenon appears as some random guy begins talking to us about the old days of anime. Interesting quote of the evening: "You're a mecha geek, right?". Ok. The dealer room ended up being fairly standard and a bit overpriced for my tastes.

SHAWN MUST DANCE. SCOTT MUST SIGN.

Despite his claims that he wasn't good enough, I convinced Shawn to go and play in the Dance Dance Revolution tournament. Scott McNeil and David Kaye were set to have an autograph session. Scott showed up and hung around a bit with his official fan club, of which I am a member, and started signing. He was spending a lot of time with each person, adding quotes and personalizing things. David Kaye, who is an amazing voice actor best known as Megatron from Beast Wars, was no where to be found, and Scott didn't know where we was. Turns out he was lost somewhere in Toronto.

Rin, the founder of the Official Scott McNeil Fanclub, had given me a blank badge so I could proudly proclaim my allegiance. When it was my turn to get an autograph, I had to borrow Scott's marker so I could write my name on the badge. He said that it'd be his honour.

He was taking the time to write a personalized quote with every autograph. I got him to sign my convention program with my favourite Dinobot line. It's signed "Your base was betrayed by the stench of your perversions!" How true. Of course, he also remarked on my unmistakable hair style. Check out that cool little Duo made by Rin.

CAN SHAWN WIN THE GREAT DANCE? NO.

Apparently, Shawn had actually advanced in the tournament, so I went to the video game room with him to watch him make a fool out of himself in the next room. We were to be joined by Haley and Michelle who are former students of mine. Together we all watched Shawn lose, but I am sure that he is a better man for it.

FAN GIRLS IN DEALER ROOM. NO ESCAPE!

We met up with Michelle's brother Ryan and had to line up all over again to go to the dealer room. I bought the incredible Transformers Generations book, featuring photos of every Transformer produced worldwide from 1984 to 1995. Highly recommended if you can find it. However, I discover the annoyance of going to conventions with other people, as Haley and Michele have no idea of where they are going and changed their minds every few minutes. Michele was very easily distracted and would wander away without telling anyone when something caught her eye. It took a long time to get her to leave the room. But they are a fun bunch any ways.

THE LAST FIGHT OF FRIDAY

It was then time to watch Escaflowne: The Movie. It was a very nicely animated film, much different from the television series, but like many other anime movies based on comics, it was a bit hollow. I would have enjoyed it more if the volume was turned up a bit.

After sitting down and relaxing for awhile, it was soon time to go. It was then that I realized the next point regarding conventions.

-The body has a built in "convention mode". I was sick, tired, and had not eaten anything since the morning, but that had not stopped me all day. I was in convention mode, and nothing bring me down. I was invincible. I was sure that my invincibility would be challenged the next day, because it was going to be a long one.

Shawn's parents were nice enough to drive me home, so we both went outside and waited for them. Suddenly, Scott McNeil appears, seemingly out of nowhere, walks up to us and says, in a redneck voice, "Sure is cold up here in Canada!" He then turns away, then turns back and says "Wait a minute, I should be used to this!" and walks away again. Man, this guy is always acting!

Saturday is when I'm glad that my body has adjusted to convention mode. Shawn and I had to be at work to teach our drawing classes, and that usually leaves me dead tired on its own. We were at the convention at around 2 P.M. after unfortunately missing a screening of Godzilla VS Destroyah.

The first thing we wanted to do was watch Scott McNeil and David Kaye's Q and A session. However the previous session, a showing of the Evangelion movies with Jason and Amanda Win Lee went way over time. Since there was nothing else to do, we went in, but as I have yet to see every episode of Eva, I didn't pay attention. The only things I really got out of it was:

- Eva is pretty damn confusing.

- They worked really hard on dubbing and subbing these movies.

- Amanda Win Lee, English voice of Rei Ayanami, said that the roll was very challenging. She had to go to a dark place in her mind when acting as her.

- Amanda Win Lee just finished work on Burn Up Excess, sequel to Burn Up W. Yeah!

- Amanda Win Lee is a cutie!

Scott and David's panel was a lot of fun. It was quite insightful, though it also went through a number of things that I had already heard before. While it seemed like there were a lot of Gundam Wing fans there (Scott was Duo, David was Trieze) a lot of the talk was focused on Beast Wars. I didn't mind that at all, of course, as that's my favourite show of all time. It was much different than when I saw Scott last year, because he had David to joke around with. Some of the highlights included:

- The usual batch of playful jabs at Gary Chalk, who played Optimus Primal. They said he looks like a monkey.

- The collective jaws of the voice actors all dropped the first time they were shown the completed animation from Beast Wars. They really loved working on that show for the 5 seasons it was on, and wish it'd come back.

- David Kaye's first role was General Hawk for GI Joe, and consisted mainly of lines like "Lets go, towards the danger!" Heh. But he earned the respect of his colleagues with his vocal performance.

- The whole crew in Vancouver have had many fun and wild times working together. Apparently things got a bit out of hand once, and there is still a pencil stuck to the ceiling at Ocean Studios.

The talent that these guys have are just amazing. The range that these two have is unbelievable to hear in person. I hope to meet more of the Vancouver voice actors in the future because I think that they are the best in the world, and these two are especially awesome. I wish their panel was longer.

I got David Kaye's autograph, and I asked him to sign it with "Evil Triumphs!" which he thought was pretty funny. It's funny because it's true. Bwah!