Conventions. A time, when anime fans all over come together to meet and greet, buy merchandise, and generally share in the joy that is anime with others who feel the same. Anime North 2002 was held over 3 days, May 24th to 26th. I would be a fun and memorable time for everyone involved, as you shall see.

I ARRIVE: WANDERING AIMLESSLY 1

I arrived at the Regal Constellation Hotel at about 2:15 PM. I was expecting a very long line up, as registration had opened at noon. I wandered into the large lobby of the hotel, and there was a big banner welcoming Anime North 2002 guests. I knew I was not in the wrong hotel. First, I stood in a line, which I thought was for registration to the con, until a man told me this was the line for booking a hotel room! Woops.

So I wander further into the hotel until I found the registration table. Amazingly, there was no line up! There were only a handful of people around. Again, being oblivious to the obvious, I asked the women at the pre-registration table where the line was for regular registration, and she indicated the table I was standing next too!

So I registered, and got a nice little name tag, as well as a bag that had some free stuff in it, notably, an End of Evangelion poster. Nice! There was still about 3 hours to go before much of anything started, so I wandered around the hotel, finding out were everything was located. As I walked back towards the lobby I walked in Dylan, who'd just arrived.

After Dylan registered, we again walked around the hotel, so Dylan knew where everything was too. With really nothing to do, we sat in some chairs a few feet away from the registration table. During this time, more people started arriving, so I took some pictures of people in costumes. I did this for the next few hours, as well as walking around the hotel seeing how everything was going.

INTERLUDE: SCOTT MCNEIL

At one point, Dylan and I were just sitting there, and whom did I suddenly notice but Scott McNeil, the famous voice actor from Beast Wars, Gundam Wing, and countless other shows, who I'd met previously at CNAnime 2001 last year! He was just wandering aimlessly about, so I alerted Dylan to this fact and we went and said hello. He shook hands with us, and he and Dylan chatted briefly before he had to be on his way.

As it happened, we were standing in front of the registration table, so the following odd event occurred.

[This is a paraphrased version of events, as I can't remember the exact wording.]

MAN AT REG. TABLE (to Scott): Excuse me, would you like to register?

SCOTT (in a very matter-of-fact voice): No! I'm a guest at this convention!

MAN AT REG. TABLE (confused): Umm... okay? Well then, I guess you get in for free!

If only I'd pretend to be a guest, I could have gotten in for free too, as obviously the people at the registration table had no idea what any of the guests looked like!

Scott then went on his way, not before being mauled by a few fan girls who recognized him.

WANDERING AIMLESSLY 2 & THE SCARY PERVERT MAN

Still sitting around waiting for stuff to start, I found myself suddenly in a conversation with some strange man, who I later learned was named Andy. For no apparent reason he just began telling me about how he enjoys photographing and filming female cosplayers in skimpy costumes. Um... okay? He then went on to say how it took him somewhere between 14 different screen caps to composite a full head to toe shot of some female cosplayer from a previous convention, as those were his favourite type of pics. He kept going on and on in a rather disturbing manner about female cosplayers until he almost had a heart attack trying to get his video camera out of his bag, so he could get photos of a very attractive girl cosplaying a some character wearing barely anything. Of course, I took a photo of this girl too (for purely documentary reasons), and as a bonus (?) got this guy's business card, which had his website on it. (I later saw him giving one to the poor girl cosplaying and asking if he could use her on his site.)

Hey, you too can visit Andy's Snappy Anime Pics! (If you dare!)
http://community-2.webtv.net/filebox6/AndysSnappyAnimePics

THE DEALERS ROOM 1: TALKING TO DAVE

A bit later we lined up for the dealer's room, which was set to open at 5 PM. Dylan and I then had a much saner conversation (saner, that is, in terms of people you meet at anime cons,) with the man in front of us in line, whose name, I believe, was Dave. We talked about old anime and fansubs, as well as how Dave very much wanted to buy some DVD's to fill holes in his, assumingly vast, collection. He also told us about last year's con, and how badly the dealer's room was organized. We also made fun of strange people we saw, and how long it was taking us to get in. Indeed, we did wait a rather long time. We didn't get in until sometime after 5:30!

When we got in, I merely browsed to see what was available. I planned to return later to make proper purchases.

DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION 1 & THE CREW ASSEMBLES

Dylan then went off to wait in line for Scott McNeil's autograph, while I wandered down to the boardrooms to participate in the Dance Dance Revolution competition in the video game room. As it turns out, the video game room was fairly small, and the people running it were very disorganized. They were using a Playstation and home version dance pads for the event, and were trying to secure them to the floor with duct tape. Chaos ensued for a while, and then a handful of people and myself signed up for the first prelim. (e.g., Writing our names on duct tape, which was taped to the floor, for some reason.) I got to go first against some youth, and amazingly, I ended up beating him! I asked them when I had to come back and play again, and they said in 10 minutes. So I went to find Dylan, and also see if our other associates in crime, Haley, Michelle and Ryan had arrived yet.

I found Dylan still in the autograph line, speaking to Scott McNeil. After he was done there, we went back to the video game room. After waiting far more than 10 minutes, he went off to find Michelle, Ryan and Haley, and shortly there after returned with Michelle and Haley. Ryan was off some place.

It was then my turn to play, again. Sadly, this time I lost, as I played against a guy who was really good. I still had a good time, so it was okay. There were far too many good players there, so I knew my defeat was destined to be.

THE DEALER'S ROOM 2: I BECOME POOR

After that, we found Ryan, and the lot of us wandered aimlessly, browsing at stuff. We went back to the dealer's room, were I then purchased the 6th and final volume of the Akira manga, thus completing my collection. As well, I bought a nice Cowboy Bebop wall scroll, and finally, the Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door movie OST (Original Soundtrack). At first, I planned to buy the Cowboy Bebop TV OST's 1 and 2, but here's a little story on how I ended up with only one CD.

ME (to woman running booth): How much are CD's?
WOMAN (in very quiet voice): Fifteen five. [That's what I thought I heard.]
ME (this time to a man, also running booth): I'll take these three CD's, please.
MAN: That'll be $160.
ME: WHAT?!!?!? [It turned out the woman was really saying $55 to me, but I couldn't hear her very well.]
ME: Okay, I'll take these two then.
MAN: $110.
ME: I'll take this ONE, then.

So those were my purchases for day one. We then tried to leave the dealer's room, which took longer than expected, as Michelle kept getting drawn to everything that caught her eye, and apparently, there was a lot of stuff that seemed to do that.

EXCEL SAGA & ESCAFLOWNE

After wandering for a bit longer, and visiting the Artist's Alley, we decided to make our way to one of the video rooms, which was going to be showing Escaflowne: The Movie. We went in early, and ended up catching episode 2 of Excel Saga! After that, Escaflowne came on, but it was the English dub! This really wouldn't have made that big a deal to me, except for the fact that the machine they were using to play the movie had horrible volume on it, so I barely heard the movie, even though I was in the second row! If it had been the Japanese dub, at least I could have read the subtitled to follow along. The only thing I could read was the stupid "For screening purposes only" written across the top of the screen for the entire movie! I don't even know if I liked the movie or not, as I had no idea what was even going on, not being able to hear it!

THE NON-DINNER & END OF DAY ONE

We then went to the hotel lobby, and Michelle and Ryan met their mother, so they all ate some dinner. Dylan and I just sat at their table and ate nothing! After that I went home, and that concludes day one!

EVANGELION (SPOILER-FREE) & SCOTT AND DAVID TALK

Dylan and I didn't get to the con until a bit after 2 PM, as we had to work until 1 o'clock. When we got there, we quickly wandered about to see what was going on. We wanted to see the Scott McNeil and David Kaye Q&A at 3 o'clock. It was getting close to 3, so we went into the room to see what was going on. As it happened, the previous event, the screening of Evangelion: Death and Rebirth, was running longer than expected, and they were now apparently also showing End of Evangelion, too! So we stayed and watch the last 30 minutes or so of it. At least I did. Dylan looked away, as he hadn't seen all of Eva yet, and didn't want to spoil it. After that was over, we ran up and go seats in the second row. But it was still not over, as there was now a Q&A with Amanda Winn Lee, the writer, director, English voice of Rei Ayanami, and co-producer of the English dub; as well as Jason Lee, her husband, other producer and voice actor. Their Q&A was actually really interesting, as they were very enthusiastic about their work on the film, and you could tell they really cared about it, and did a good job translating, dubbing and subbing it.

Finally after that, Scott McNeil and David Kaye came and did their panel/Q&A and it was good fun, with Scott and David doing various voices form shows they've been on, and telling funny anecdotes. As well, all the fan girls in the audience screamed insanely every time either of them mentioned any character or item, in any way, relating to an anime or TV show featuring an attractive male character.