Saturday, May 08, 2004
A day of anime...
So, today was an anime movie festival in support of the renovation of Bing Theater (now Bing Arts Center). I missed out on yo-yo club, and I decided not to go to multi-day juggling festival at RIT (would be a lot to deal with right now), but I'm glad I went to this. It was a lot of fun. It was at a church down the street, with projected DVDs. A friend from work (Marty) was in charge of controlling the equipment and he hadn't seen any of the movies, so that was going to be good for him.
It didn't quite work out the way it was planned, though! It ends up that family issues came up and he had to come and go several times. It was just as well that I was there, as I ended up switching movies and music cds and controlling volume several points during the show, which was pretty fun. The volume was a bit scary, though. The slider was all the way near the bottom and moving it a millimeter or two would double the volume. Maxing it out probably would have collapsed the roof or something! The projector was really good. Very bright even with some light coming in past the blinds. I realized during the last movie that the left/right was reversed on the two speakers, but it wasn't too too noticible.. ;)
The movies were Castle in the Sky (Laputa), Spirited Away, Metropolis, and Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door. The first three were dubbed and the last subtitled. The owner of Bing did license the titles for showing, which was nice. They had special snap cases, but unfortunately still had those fbi warnings on the video itself..heh. The first three had good dubs, so that worked out well. I'd seen them all before, but it was cool to see them again. There was also a deaf woman there during Metropolis, so it ended up being english audio and subtitles at the same time. Unfortunately, the subtitles were pretty different from the audio! It took me a while to get adjusted to ignoring the subtitles, the opposite of what I'm used to.. ;)
I had watched the Bebop movie a week or so prior on TV in dubbed form, so it was interesting to see it both subtitled and on a big screen. I'm not used to seeing Bebop in Japanese due to having seen the series so many times on TV, but it worked very well in Japanese.
There wasn't as big of an attendance as they'd hoped for, but it was still a decent turnout. Not too many cosplayers, but there were a couple. A sailor moon and tuxedo mask, and later on Lupin and Jigen. Actually, they were there the whole time but not in costume. It was bugging me for a bit that one of them looked familiar, but I suddenly realized I'd seen him before at the Northampton after-party as Lupin. Was pretty neat that I managed to recognize him before he changed.. There was also two guys that were at the library manga meeting.
They had a real popcorn machine, which was really cool (one of the old ones with a pan), as well as real imported Japanese candy. There was pocky of course, but also some other treats I hadn't had before. Little cookie things with either cream or chocolate in them and also some hard soy balls which were surprisingly good.
There was an hour and a half in between Metropolis and Bebop. I almost walked home, but I decided I may as well stick around. I yo-yoed for a little bit on an out of the way landing (I'm shy..heh), which was right below a gated off area with some beautiful stained glass. I guess it must be an area for the priests up there. I ended up going across the street to eat at Friendly's, which is way too expensive, but oh well. I could have went without eating, but probably good to have something. They were selling t-shirts that looked pretty nice (black woo!), but were $15, and I'd already spent $10 at Friendly's. Maybe I'll grab one at a later date...
There was actually an anime club at the CT Media Play that started up last night, but I decided to miss it. I was feeling a bit tired, and the two anime being shown (Ai Yori Aoishi sequel seires and Gungrave) I was so-so interested in. But I'll probably attend one of these days. It seems like we have a sudden upsurge of fandom in the area overall...
So, all in all a fun time. I also realized I'd been drifting a bit away from anime into manga lately. Not that that is bad in and of itself, but I should make the effort to look at some of my DVDs that I haven't watched yet. I think I'm going to buy the Bebop movie DVD. I really like that movie and the world. I like having a futuristic world that is more a direct descendant of our own with technology that generally makes sense. All I can say is I wish we had Halloween celebrations here like they do in that movie. Very cool stuff.
Rightstuf.com is having some specials and an ADV sale. I was thinking of getting the third Utena DVD for only $10 and/or some Azumanga Daioh manga. Then again Deepdiscountdvd has the two Utena box sets for $60 each. Maybe I should just wait and get one of those some time. Also, I can get all seven of the Super Yo-yo manga in english from Singapore for $60 (inc. shipping), so that is something to think about. I need more $$$...
Still, I have plenty of stuff to watch and read already. I still haven't watched Grave of the Fireflies, Night on the Galactic Railroad, most of Armored Trooper Votoms (I got the whole series amazingly cheap one time), haven't watched all of Outlaw Star, Kenshin OVAs, etc. I should probably watch some of that tomorrow instead of spending hours on the computer. :)
Anyway, to bed soon. I've been pretty wired, but I think it's starting to wear off. A nice way to end the day was walking home in the dark. I used to walk that same path from school when I was little, but haven't for so long. And I love that twilight time, going by all the houses lit up with people inside...
It didn't quite work out the way it was planned, though! It ends up that family issues came up and he had to come and go several times. It was just as well that I was there, as I ended up switching movies and music cds and controlling volume several points during the show, which was pretty fun. The volume was a bit scary, though. The slider was all the way near the bottom and moving it a millimeter or two would double the volume. Maxing it out probably would have collapsed the roof or something! The projector was really good. Very bright even with some light coming in past the blinds. I realized during the last movie that the left/right was reversed on the two speakers, but it wasn't too too noticible.. ;)
The movies were Castle in the Sky (Laputa), Spirited Away, Metropolis, and Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door. The first three were dubbed and the last subtitled. The owner of Bing did license the titles for showing, which was nice. They had special snap cases, but unfortunately still had those fbi warnings on the video itself..heh. The first three had good dubs, so that worked out well. I'd seen them all before, but it was cool to see them again. There was also a deaf woman there during Metropolis, so it ended up being english audio and subtitles at the same time. Unfortunately, the subtitles were pretty different from the audio! It took me a while to get adjusted to ignoring the subtitles, the opposite of what I'm used to.. ;)
I had watched the Bebop movie a week or so prior on TV in dubbed form, so it was interesting to see it both subtitled and on a big screen. I'm not used to seeing Bebop in Japanese due to having seen the series so many times on TV, but it worked very well in Japanese.
There wasn't as big of an attendance as they'd hoped for, but it was still a decent turnout. Not too many cosplayers, but there were a couple. A sailor moon and tuxedo mask, and later on Lupin and Jigen. Actually, they were there the whole time but not in costume. It was bugging me for a bit that one of them looked familiar, but I suddenly realized I'd seen him before at the Northampton after-party as Lupin. Was pretty neat that I managed to recognize him before he changed.. There was also two guys that were at the library manga meeting.
They had a real popcorn machine, which was really cool (one of the old ones with a pan), as well as real imported Japanese candy. There was pocky of course, but also some other treats I hadn't had before. Little cookie things with either cream or chocolate in them and also some hard soy balls which were surprisingly good.
There was an hour and a half in between Metropolis and Bebop. I almost walked home, but I decided I may as well stick around. I yo-yoed for a little bit on an out of the way landing (I'm shy..heh), which was right below a gated off area with some beautiful stained glass. I guess it must be an area for the priests up there. I ended up going across the street to eat at Friendly's, which is way too expensive, but oh well. I could have went without eating, but probably good to have something. They were selling t-shirts that looked pretty nice (black woo!), but were $15, and I'd already spent $10 at Friendly's. Maybe I'll grab one at a later date...
There was actually an anime club at the CT Media Play that started up last night, but I decided to miss it. I was feeling a bit tired, and the two anime being shown (Ai Yori Aoishi sequel seires and Gungrave) I was so-so interested in. But I'll probably attend one of these days. It seems like we have a sudden upsurge of fandom in the area overall...
So, all in all a fun time. I also realized I'd been drifting a bit away from anime into manga lately. Not that that is bad in and of itself, but I should make the effort to look at some of my DVDs that I haven't watched yet. I think I'm going to buy the Bebop movie DVD. I really like that movie and the world. I like having a futuristic world that is more a direct descendant of our own with technology that generally makes sense. All I can say is I wish we had Halloween celebrations here like they do in that movie. Very cool stuff.
Rightstuf.com is having some specials and an ADV sale. I was thinking of getting the third Utena DVD for only $10 and/or some Azumanga Daioh manga. Then again Deepdiscountdvd has the two Utena box sets for $60 each. Maybe I should just wait and get one of those some time. Also, I can get all seven of the Super Yo-yo manga in english from Singapore for $60 (inc. shipping), so that is something to think about. I need more $$$...
Still, I have plenty of stuff to watch and read already. I still haven't watched Grave of the Fireflies, Night on the Galactic Railroad, most of Armored Trooper Votoms (I got the whole series amazingly cheap one time), haven't watched all of Outlaw Star, Kenshin OVAs, etc. I should probably watch some of that tomorrow instead of spending hours on the computer. :)
Anyway, to bed soon. I've been pretty wired, but I think it's starting to wear off. A nice way to end the day was walking home in the dark. I used to walk that same path from school when I was little, but haven't for so long. And I love that twilight time, going by all the houses lit up with people inside...
