Anime North 2005 took place on May 27th to the 29th. As with last year, the main base of operations for this huge event was at the Toronto Congress Center. However, unlike last year, the secondary location and main convention hotel wasn't a 10 minute walk away, but directly across the street at the Doubletree International Plaza Hotel. This made the convention a much easier and more enjoyable experience than last year's debacle. But what truly made Anime North shine this year was some of the funny panels and events that took place throughout the weekend. I don't think I had ever laughed so much at a convention before.

Friday: The Sushi Bar Song.

It wasn't all good, though. The weekend kicked off on a sour note for me when just about everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong, starting with the bus ride there, where a bottle of Gatorade started leaking all over a portfolio book with printouts of my artwork. It was a long trip and I had to stand for much of it, so I was exhausted before I even got there. When I arrived and paid for my membership, I was supposed to meet up with Shawn and his friends so we could get our hotel room, but they were not there. Some of my other minions arrived and told me that Shawn was going to be very late. By this point I've been roasting in the sun and I'm dying to get into a hotel room and drop off my luggage.

Once the convention officially opened I found myself in the dealers' room and, with nothing better to do, I made a few purchases. Finally, Shawn and his friends appear and give me the hotel room key. Only they can't remember what the room number is. Arg! They give me a few potential numbers to work with and I walk to the hotel. By this point I am a walking zombie and I hope that no one I know sees me in this sorry state before I can get to the room. But I'm spotted in the lobby by Rin and Neko-chan who quickly notice how dead I look. Aww geeze! I'm somehow able to get through saying my hellos and make my way to the floor this room is supposed to be on. I end up walking back and forth several times, trying various possible combinations of the room numbers I was given, but none of the doors would open for me. Then I see Shawn in the hall. It turns out that our actual room number isn't even close to the numbers I was given. Sheesh! By this point I'm just glad to be able to sit down.

Oh, but the madness didn't end there. After watching some weird Japanese commercials Shawn had brought. we decided to go out to dinner at a sushi bar. There were 2 or 3 places to chose from in the area, so we simply chose one arbitrarily that didn't seem too busy. It was called "Sunny Dragon". There were 9 of us together and we were seated at a large round table, right in the middle of the restaurant.

For some reason, Logan was "cosplaying" as this vile creation he made out of various garments. I have no idea what he was up to, but I knew that I wanted no part of it.

We passed the time by making stupid drawings on napkins until our food arrived.

This is what I ordered. It's called a "Godzilla", though it was spelled "Gozilla" on the menu. I had already eaten a piece by the time I took this picture. It has crab, asparagus, tempura bits, fish eggs, and this spicy orange sauce of unknown origin. I didn't just get it because it was called "Godzilla", but it seemed pretty good from the description and the price was right. It was awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

So we all finish our meals and it's getting to the time where we should be receiving our bills. And yet no one from the restaurant approached us at all. We kept waiting.

We fed portions of wasabi to Manning, amusing ourselves with the various shades of red his face became. But still, we waited. We asked 3 or 4 different waiters for our bills, but still, we waited. We contemplated just leaving without paying, but we waited. We even went up to the front desk and asked for our bills, but we still waited. All told, we waited 45 minutes from when we were ready to leave before someone from the restaurant even bothered to figure out how much money we owed them. It was absolutely ridiculous, and I'll never be going to this restaurant again.

So that sushi bar excursion pretty much wasted away the entire first day of the convention. We went to the room were there was Karaoke, because some of the guys wanted to butcher a song and make fools of themselves, but they were booked up for the night. So we went back up to the room and watched a movie. Late at night, the others left and went around the convention causing all sorts of mayhem, but after the events of the day, I was completely tapped out so I did not join them.

So there you have the first day of Anime North. A mostly miserable day where barely anything good happened due to factors completely unrelated to the convention itself.

Don't worry. It got better.

Saturday: The Ninja Dissed Scott McNeil and thus goes to HELL.

The first event on Saturday I wanted to attend was a panel with Carl Macek, the man behind Robotech. When it was first announced that he would be a guest at this convention and presented with an award for helping to be such a big influence on bringing anime to North America, there was some degree of uproar from some annoying elitist fans, since he took 3 separate, unrelated anime series and rewrote them to fit together into one story. I personally believe that these people, while entitled to their opinion, need to get a life. It's been 20 years! He was just doing his job, and he did a damn good job under the circumstances. Without Robotech, we probably would not have an anime fandom at all like we have now.

I wasn't able to catch all of his panel, but what I did see was very interesting. He talked a lot about various projects he was involved in, and how external forces and other people who didn't know what they were doing would often make some boneheaded decision that would screw everything up. So he was a bit disgruntled, but has been able to take everything with stride. It was a rare opportunity to see an influential figure speaking in person like this. I'm glad I went.

After that, I saw some friends, took some cosplay pictures, and just decided to chill out and talk for awhile. At this point I start feeling a very sore throat coming on. Several people I knew, including some former students of mine and people I knew from other conventions, came over to talk to me. At one point I was walking around and it seemed like I couldn't go 3 feet without finding someone I know and starting a brief conversation.

The next major event was a very cool voice actors panel called "Boo, Hiss, Villains", with the focus on all the evil characters they've played. On the panel were Trevor Devall (Alpha Q), Scott McNeil (Piccolo), Brian Drummond (Jetstorm, Shockblast), Brian Dobson (Skeletor), Mike Dobson (Starscream), and Paul Dobson (Naraku). Before things started though, as the panelists were getting settled, Scott McNeil enters the room, makes his way to front, spots me, points at me with both hands, and says "YOU!"

Scott and I have hung out a lot, so I'm wondering what this is all about. "Me?" is my only innocent reply.

Still pointing, and right in front of everyone, Scott says "You DISSED me yesterday!"

GASP! I am shocked! What ever did I do, I wonder...

"You walked right by me without saying hello!"

Ahhh! Oh no! What a terrible faux pas on my part! That's never happened before. How embarrassing. It won't happen again, Scotty. Promise.

The panel itself was a lot of fun. It was one of the more unique voice acting panels I've seen, since the focus was on villainy. There was a lot of discussion about what makes the villains so cool and what the voice actors bring to the table to make them so cool, what kinds of villains they prefer to play, the acting that goes behind a great villain character, and how hard some villain voices can be. There was also an evil laugh contest. I think the winner was a high pitched "Ha ha!". Trevor Devall was especially entertaining. He said Alpha Q was his favorite character.

After the panel, I caught up with Scott and asked him if I really did diss him the day before. He said that I honestly walked right by him without saying anything. So I said that we had better make up and be friends again, and we shook hands and he gave me a big hug. What a guy. So I guess everything is square between us again, though I'll probably never live that down. Heh.

Next up was, for me, the highlight of the convention. Usually I'd go to the Masquerade at a convention like this, but not this time. There was a huge system put in place where you had to get a ticket earlier in the day to be let into the masquerade audience, and I didn't feel like putting up with that. So screw the Masquerade! Besides, there was something else happening at the same time that seemed very promising. Something called...

A collection of clips, commercials, movie trailers, amateur video, and assorted weirdness from around the world, Anime Hell was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. There was some copyright-defying early animation from the group that would later go on to be known as GAINAX, a gangland-style shooting fest cartoon staring Charlie Brown, a trailer for a live action Dig Dug movie, GI Joe public service announcements and their infamous parodies, the Speed Racer episode of Dexter's Laboratory, a cartoon commissioned by the National Rifle Association starring Jason Priestly, a creepy German singer named Heino, and the greatest cartoon crossover ever, Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard for so long. My sore throat got even worse, but I didn't care. This was one of the best things I'd ever taken part in at any convention.

The fun didn't stop there though. Immediately following Anime Hell was an event known as "Worst Toon Ever". The identity of this cartoon, proclaimed to be the worst ever made, was kept a secret until it was shown, and so the room was packed with people who were curious to know what this was exactly and how bad it could possibly be. We were not disappointed. It was...

That's right, and animated version of Titanic. But this was no run-of-the-mill retelling of the tragic story, nor was this a rip-off of the film by Jim Cameron. This version of Titanic, produced in Italy, was one of the most twisted and surreal things I've ever seen. The film started innocently enough with people escaping from the sinking ship on their life boats, but quite suddenly took a dip into the realm of the bizarre when we are shown that among the passengers of the lifeboats are 2 suspiciously familiar looking dalmatians. Soon we are taken backwards in time to when everyone is boarding the Titanic, including a menagerie of various talking animals obviously ripped off from other animated films. An American Tale, Lady and the Tramp, The Rescuers, and more were all shamelessly stolen from. Rounding out the cast was a Cruella Deville look alike, a Sherlock Holmes type character, and a chef who looks like he came straight from the set of an 1980's Cinnamon Toast Crunch commercial.

This movie had dreadful animation that constantly reused frames, a hackneyed Cinderella-esque plot, and several sub plots that only served to waste time until the iceberg shows up. Speaking of which, this gigantic iceberg seems to suddenly materialize out of thin air, much to the confusion of the people watching this film. Each subsequent appearance of the iceberg was met with wild cheering and enthusiasm by the audience, as if it were the hero of this story. One of the weirdest highlights of the movie happened towards the end, when a bunch of sharks appear and everyone thinks they are in danger, but they actually turn out to be dolphins. This happens for no reason at all and adds nothing to the story. But the absolute craziest thing this movie had to offer was when, shortly after the Titanic set sail, all of the talking animal characters get together and, for some reason, a dog starts rapping.

....

...This movie, about the TITANIC.... had a RAPPING DOG!

I could not believe what I was seeing. I just... couldn't believe it! And it's not like this dog character was the type you'd ever expect to start busting a rhyme. He was some kind of police dog! And yet he stood up on his hind legs and started to rap, complete with a backwards hat and basketball jersey that somehow appeared out of nowhere and disappeared when the rap was over. Oh, and did I mention that this rap sequence took place in front of a concrete wall decorated with graffiti? In the TITANIC!

At the end of the film, all the annoying main characters survive, and nothing is ever said about all the people who died. Everyone lived happily ever after. This truly was the worst toon ever, and I'm so glad that I saw it, because it was so freaking funny. The rest of the night was spent talking about this movie, analyzing the archetypes and dissecting every last detail for hours. At one point we realized that we had been talking about it for longer than anyone had slept the night before. How could we not talk about a movie that took one of the biggest tragedies in the history of mankind and made it into a musical animated movie for children that included a rapping dog?

Sunday: Perpetual Panels.

There were a bunch of panels with the convention guests taking place one after another in the same location, so I started Sunday by heading there. First on the list was a "Women of Anime" panel featuring Hilary Haag (tons of voices for ADV), Cathy Weseluck (Shampoo, Cybersix), and Susan Aceron (Sailor Pluto). I missed much of this panel, but what I saw was pretty good. It was especially cool to have 3 voice actresses from 3 different major centers of the industry (Texas, Vancouver, and Toronto) speaking together at the same time. Too bad this venue sucked for photography.

Next up was the "Gundam Guys" panel, with various Vancouver actors who've had major roles in the English versions of Gundam Wing and Gundam Seed. Sam Vincent (Athrun Zala) opened things wide open when he asked the audience if anyone had major hate for Gundam Seed, because he would sometimes encounter that and wanted to know why. He and Matt Hill (Kira Yammato) also poked fun at their characters' apparent relationship, like how Athrun and Kira keep talking about eachother despite the presence of pretty girls.

After that was the "Dobsons Gone Wild" panel, featuring the 3 Dobson brothers. I got to ask the first question, if they would be in the new Transformers show. They all confirmed that they had roles. Michael would be returning as Starscream, and Brian would also be returning as Red Alert, but unlike the Gung-Ho voice from Armada, he would now have a British accent. This was a really fun panel, and they seemed to have a lot of fun playing around with the audience and taking little jabs at each other.

If you've read my previous Anime North reports, you may remember that I made a big deal out of hosting my own panels, and thus you may notice that I have yet mention anything of the sort during this year's report. Well, I did attempt to get some panels going for this year, but all of my ideas were rejected. Or so I thought. When I got my schedule on Friday I noticed that one of the panels I had proposed, and was told that was most likely not going to happen, was in fact happening on Sunday, and my name was on the list of panelists. It was a panel devoted to Japanese live action, meaning Ultraman, Power Rangers, and the like. This struck me as a surprise, as I did not make any preparations ahead of time, and didn't even get a panelist badge, but that would not deter me. I did the panel with another panelist and it went off pretty well. Somehow it changed into this East vs. West debate about violence, but it was interesting and a lot of fun. Hopefully I'll get to do a proper one next year.

After that I watched a little of the "Totally Lame Anime" panel, featuring Diapason; a robot with a football gimmick, and Johnny Destiny Space Ranger; a Korean cartoon starring a miscoloured Char from Gundam fighting lower-tier villains from Marvel Comics. Yep.

The final major event of the show for me was a panel with Stan Sakai called "The Life & Times of Usagi Yojimbo". I had seen Stan at a previous Anime North, so much of what he had to say here I had heard before, but was no less interesting. What was really great about this panel was a video presentation that had the history of Usagi Yojimbo's animated appearances. It started with some clips from a Commodore 64 computer game that I used to play when I was a kid! This game was originally made for the European market so he was surprised to hear that someone had actually bought a copy over here. Brought back a lot of memories. There were also clips of Usagi's appearances on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and a terrible presentation by an animation company for a CG Usagi series that he rejected. Most interesting to me, though, was a test pilot for a proposed animated series based on "Space Usagi". The series never happened, but I had always heard about this little bit of animation that was done, thinking I'd never see it. Now I have seen it, and that's pretty cool!

The last few moments of the show were spent hanging out and relaxing with friends. And that was pretty much it.

Stuff I bought.

I got myself the first 2 sets from Robotech: Remastered, the 2 translated volumes of Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack manga, a Godzilla graphic novel from Dark Horse. Oh, and Stan Sakai gave everyone a bunch of free Usagi comics.

Conclusion.

I still had a sore throat when I got back from the convention that lingered for a few days. I figured it wasn't a big deal since I was talking and laughing so much during the whole weekend, and it's probably wear off. Then it turned into a terrible cold with lots of coughing and a running nose. I was as sick as I ever was and it's lasted for weeks. Was it worth it?

Yeah, totally.

Anime North 2005 was a great show that improved on the previous year's failings and added plenty of worthwhile content that made the weekend a blast. I'd call it a success. See you there next year!

Sayonara.