11.30
Well guys, we are back from Anime USA. What does this mean for us? Well, I for one cracked my cell phone and lost my hands free set, spent $200 dollars most of which was just to get down there, and caught con plague. Yeah, it was an awesome time.
Let me tell you a little story about Anime USA. Anime USA is not the biggest convention in the world. It is a medium sized hotel convention out in the suburbs of DC (otherwise known as Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia). It is easy for us to say that a big convention like Otakon or the New York Anime Festival is our favorite con, but that would be a lie. AUSA has been, and probably always will be our favorite convention to go to.
This is not to say it is our favorite convention to perform at. No, no, no, far from it. This year, all AUSA’s tech was accidentally shipped to L.A. … L.A.!!! This meant that every panelist that needed tech of some sort was mostly shit out of luck. We also got room shuffled out of Events B, which was the only size room that could reliably hold us, and I was even double scheduled for both opening ceremonies and my first panel! Anime PYL had to go off with a small CRT monitor, and while last minute finagling via ally and member Adam Hennessy got us a projector and screen for Spoiler (btw, mad thanks Adam, you continue to be the secret king of fandom. Also mad thanks to the guys at GPX Gaming who donated the projector and screen, you guys are the bomb!) the amount of issues we had up until that point, such as false descriptions in the guidebook, poorly shortened panel names on signs, and falsely advertised event start and end times, were numerous.
So without beating a dead horse, Anime USA is not the most organized convention out there. So why do we keep going? Because, Anime USA is the convention that has its finger on the pulse of fandom. What do I mean by this? Well, lets see. There’s the gaming room, which though small this year featured Brawl+, Tatsunoko VS Capcom, and tons of other imports, domestic releases, and retro gaming goodness that kept you busy for hours. There is the tabletop gaming room which brings with it its own library of RPGs, Board Games, and Card Games for your enjoyment. There is the LARP and the roleplaying area, where people run one shots and campaigns of all sorts. There was both a maid cafe and a host club, both of which were decently professionally run. There were concerts and dances every night featuring a variety of music. There were tons of fan run events including life sized board games, a night of werewolf, an RPG battle, the Masquerade, hallway raves, and much much more. There was a boffer and sparring circle. There was a great dealers room and artists alley. There were people projecting retro gaming onto the side of the hotel with a high powered projector. There was a live band doing all your favorite retro gaming hits at all time. There were martial artists performing demonstrations. There were celebrities to meet and drink with. Hell, there was even more stuff than this … stuff I can’t even remember!
Anime USA has always tried to make their convention feel like an escape to geekland just for one weekend. Though it is anime themed, there was plenty of American based shows being screened, there was a room for Japanese live action shows, hell there was just everything you could think of! That is why we continue to go, because no matter how “corporate” the Anime world gets, Anime USA always thinks of what the fans want first.
So now that I have given Anime USA a written blowjob (a deserving blowjob at that) lets go over our panels.
First, there was the Disorganization RPG Panel Now With Chairs. This was shortened to Disorganization XIII RPG, which made some people think it was a LARP and some thing it was a Kingdom Hearts panel. It was neither. We have stopped doing our Kingdom Hearts panel, since bringing up Axel and Roxas in the context of Yaoi apparently makes us homophobes. Also, with few new KH games released, there isn’t a whole lot of news stuff to go over. Our goal was to have an intelligent discussion about RPGs …. aaaaand we sort of failed in this goal. While we had 4 people on the panel at NYAF, this time around we had 7 people on the panel, and HOLY HELL were there interruptions. Con staff was setting up stuff in the background which was distracting in the first place, and half the panelists couldn’t agree with each other and in fought DURING THE PANEL! I was ready to die up there in front of the crowd. It was SOOOOO embarrassing. Most likely, we won’t be doing this panel again.
Strange story, we met Uncle Yo, our long time rival, before this panel. For the record he is a very nice guy and I couldn’t be prouder to be his rival. Unfortunately, however, he came to see the RPG panel, and not Spoiler, which is our panel that competes with him. He said he was gonna come to Spoiler, but he didn’t show up. He did manage to make a wisecrack about furries earlier in the day though. It’s too bad that most of DO XIII are furries. Open mouth, insert foot Yo! THE RIVALRY CONTINUES! Show up to the net showing of Spoiler to receive the antidote Yo! MUAHAHHAHAHAHA!
… no seriously Yo, if you don’t come to Spoiler I am going to shit in your hat.
Anyway …
On a more serious note, our next panel was Anime Press Your Luck. Some of you may have noticed that Brian Sapinski has been taken off our list of members. This is … unfortunate… because he had to leave the Disorganization due to creative differences … i.e. dumb shit. Thankfully though, his replacement, Scott Kasliner, the square root of negative one, and secret shadowlord of the Disorganization, really came through for us. He really got the crowd excited. They were all chanting as the contestants screamed “big money big money no whammy no whammy STOP!” It was great, and despite the false description it got in the guidebook (they described it as a steampunk panel) and the need to use a CRT television instead of a projector it went off wonderfully.
On a related note, Brian Sapinski, along with quitting the Disorganization, has taken his ball and gone home … so to speak. Basically, he took his copy of the PYL software with him, and pretty much forbade us from using it. He also plans on continuing Anime PYL independent of DO XIII, regardless of the fact that we gave him his start and introduced him to the convention scene in the first place. Well, DO XIII’s official response to that is “fuck that shit”. We will find some other (possibly shittier but what are ya gonna do) PYL software, and continue doing Anime PYL for years to come. Accept no substitutes! Also, on a related note, DO XIII would like to apologize for any bridges that may have been burned on behalf of Brian Sapinski. His views and opinions were not necessarily the views and opinions of the Disorganization. We especially would like to extend our apologies to Greg Wicker, the man who did Anime PYL before us. There was a misunderstanding between us and him, involving a convention (Tekoshocon) that we haven’t even been to, nor really plan to go to in the near future. His performances were amazing and you should check them out on Youtube. For the record, Disorganization XIII stands for panelist solidarity and we would never try to snipe a well done panel away from its owner. If you are reading this Greg, we would like to extend our hand in friendship to you and would love it if you would be willing to become an ally of the Disorganization.
So yeah, Brian is out, Scott is in, our PYL is better, check it out!
The rest of Friday was mostly spent drinking and playing Brawl+ in the gaming room … and of course, going to Anime Parliament. Let me just say that Anime Parliament just keeps getting better and better! We managed to retry all of Phoenix Wright’s cases, formed a committee to make sure vampires don’t suck, changed the opening theme of Pokemon to the opening theme of Death Note … or something, and much much more! Anime Parliament After Dark was even more hilarious! In fact, I argued a whole case without pants on! We managed to get child support for a giant flying penis demon’s spawn, we managed to get nin nin fair sexual treatment, and we charged Lawrence from Spice and Wolf with theobestiality based on the fact that having sex with a lovecraftian deity would count as reverse statutory. Anime Parliament continue to be one of the best panels of any convention EVER and if you ever see it on a panel schedule, you owe it to yourself to go and argue a case. Just be careful that Adam, our glorious magistrate, doesn’t use his Code Geass brand Drop the Floor button on you.
Well, that was Friday. Tune in next time when I get off my lazy ass and type up Saturday!
I’ll be doing Anime Press Your Luck at Ohayocon using the latest version of the software I designed. If any of you are going to be in attendance there you are more than welcome to stop by and introduce yourselves.
I maintain that Brian was trying to get into anime conventions because it was the easiest way for him to do something he always wanted to do: host Press Your Luck in front of an audience. That was always a motivation I questioned. He’s not an anime fan and therein lied one of two basic problems I had with the job he did hosting the show. The other problem: there was very little ANIME in Anime Press Your Luck. Hopefully this will be something you guys will be able to correct in future attempts at the format.
-Greg Wicker
Executive Producer
For Randy Entertainment
Where is Ohayocon (if its in Ohio, I’m going to eat my own face).
We are pretty damn poor so IDK if we can get over there, but if we can we will totally say hi! Good Luck with your performance and I hope that the conventions over here on the east coast start flying/training/driving your ass in ^_^ as it is also our goal to eventually be flown out to your neck of the woods.
You can be sure that there will be a LOT of Anime in our production of Anime PYL, that is something we will rectify right away. If there is anything we can boast its spending far too much time in our lives watching Anime ^_^.
Our biggest hurdle is going to be technology. None of us have any sort of programming skill, so we are basically hoping we fan find some sort of MC version of a PYL program on the intertubes that will serve our needs. Things look a little bleak now, but hey, trudge on ya know ^_^.
If you are ever in our neck of the woods, stop by at Spoiler or any of our other panels. We would love to meet ya too ^_^.
Yes, NGLO – Ohayocon is in Ohio. I’ve totally told you that befor– GET THAT OREGANO AND BUTTER OFF YOUR FACE RIGHT NOW YOU ARE NOT EATING YOUR OWN FACE MISTER
Ok I’m ready to comment again after the comupter ate the last one i wrote.
Well I’m glad to hear you overgame the technical problems and sorry to hear about getting sick.
I’d like to thank you for the passage about Anime Plarliment. Disorganization XIII has always come up with interesting cases when you attend. I’m very glad to hear about the movement to protect the viampire rep in the wake of Twilight. I remember that recent case had had something to do with Alucard Vs Edward Cullen when they were recaping rulings at NYAF. I wish I could have been there for the pantsless thing.
I had no idea so many people were showing up to be on the RPG panel. I would have just sat in the audience if I knew.
Also, we’re totally just Uncle Yo’s midboss as we are now. Maybe the kind he has to beat like 5 times before we join him in the last chapter. But at least we have intro music.
Trust me Kirk, I ALSO had no idea so many people were showing up to be on the RPG panel ^_^… and I was organizing the panel.
[...] Anime USA — A Comedy of Errors Part 1 | Disorganization XIIINov 30, 2009 … Thankfully though, his replacement, Scott Kasliner, the square root of negative one, and secret shadowlord of the Disorganization, really came … [...]