The Final Day of the Revolution.
*Warning. Some information may be slightly or greatly erroneous or exaggerated due to memory, shock, and other such reasons. Grammar and spelling may also eb na issue.*
To start off I rushed to downtown to return a DVD. Then I rushed to the convention for Jouji Nakata's autograph signing session. I was so nervous about it, especially since I had no awesome print or official stuff for him to sign. In the end he signed my convention pass on the front. It was still great, and he seemed really nice. I had a quick photo taken with him too so that was quite awesome. I gave him a nervous "Arigato" in the end though. Big failure on my part for not being polite enough, but I blame it on my nervousness. Great man with a great voice and laugh.
Next up is looking for last day deals at the Dealers Hall. The place selling tons of manga had a 5 for $25 deal, so I picked up some Scrapped Princess novels since I completely forgot they existed, along with only two volumes of R.O.D. Read or Die and one volume of Read or Dream. Too bad though, since I just saw an unopened Volume 4 of Read or Die plus Volume 3, but someone grabbed it before me. Volume 1 of both seem very rare compared to the later ones. Manga was all I bought, since everything else seemed too expensive for me.
After that, and after visiting some friends, I went straight to the Sugar panel line-up. Quite a bit of people lining up for her. The panel itself was tons of fun, as Sugar just oozed with personality. Of course this was also a semi-promo for the new movie that she's going to be starring in. R-rated stuff that will "corrupt" our memories of Sugar on YTV's The Zone. She gave out some "free swag" that are also promotional items for the new movie. We heard about what she's been up to, various memories, and how she got into voice acting and such. Hearing about her dream of acting, and having to give up her days in The Zone to find opportunities in Los Angeles, was quite moving. In general this panel was nostalgia on overdrive, so it was bittersweet at times, but still tasted like Sugar. Afterwards, I had the great opportunity to get my picture taken with her. So happy.
Following that panel, I did a beeline to the next Jouji Nakata panel, "The Dark Side of Jouji Nakata." There were a lot of people in this panel too. There were various questions asked, some good questions about his experiences with old anime like Escaflowne and even one about X, though he couldn't remember much about X. The Escaflowne one was a big memory for him, considering he got to be in such a great anime that he himself would probably consider to be in his top 10 greatest anime. A funny moment was when he and either Tomokazu Seki or Minami Takayama were graced with the middle-school aged Maaya Sakamoto. They were like "kawaii nee~ kawaii nee~" about her back then. Memories of who he was with was blurred together with other questions he was asked. Such as his relationship with one of the actors where he was the one being "bullied", but that got flipped in a later role. Some voices and lines he got to do included Alucard's laugh, "THIS IS! SPARTA!" in Japanese, some Giroro stuff, plently of Otoo-san suffering from Yamada-san, some Fate/Zero lines, and him as the Pope Innocentius from Horizon telling Masazumi to act more like a girl since she is a girl. When someone asked what he did in Vancouver over the past few days, he talked about how he went up to Whistler by car. He would've loved to reach the top, but alas it was already quite late when he was close. All in all in was great and kind of funny how this "Dark Side" ended up with lots of lighthearted moments.
After that I just hung around with some friends, just resting from the festivities and waiting for the Closing Ceremonies to come. Restings and then getting back out to the main hall. I didn't have the will to take too many photos, but I did at least take one of the Kirito and Asuna from Sword Art Online. After that was just a mini-photo shoot with a few people.
Then I went back to the Dealers to get a quick peek at the last minute sales. Right before the entrance, they were giving out free Yen Press posters with various manga like Black God (Kurokami) or Zombie Loan (by Peach-Pit). That quick peek ended up lasting more than 30 minutes, but I got 3 more manga for $10. Pretty nice since it included Twin Spica, one of the series I wanted to collect since it is amazing and it was going out of print due to lack of sales.
Finally or not, I joined the very long line-ups for the closing ceremony. The line-up room had probably 6 different line-ups all going to the same event. That was quite a lot of people. Probably waited for 45 minutes or so until we got in as they attempted and succeeded at combining two ballrooms into one mega room for all to sit and watch.
Then closing ceremonies were almost here, but first it was the Anime Revolution Idol Finale. It started with twins
singing and performing the original Pretty Cure song. Absolutely great performance with tons of energy, as I can imagine them being idols or something very easily. The next one was a Lightning cosplayed who sang a nice balladish song. Nice voice as well, though of course the energy is completely different. Finally was another singer that I seem to recognize from Anime Evolution two years ago who sang some really long song with a some operatic bits. Her voice seemed airy (is that the word?) and that was quite a unique performance. I'll definitely be looking forward to future performances of the twins Ally & Sally.
From that there was an intermission performance by the Jeremy guy who does some silly performances. This one was with an Ayumi Hamasaki song. Quite unique. Then the winners for the Idol were announced: Twins first, confused about the order for the next two.
After that was the top 3 AMV contest winners. They may as well be called Spoiler Music Videos, since that's what I felt when I watched them. Though the 3rd place Eden of the East one was more subtle and less about the overarching plot and more about the relationship. Lots of repeated effects was kind of jarring, but the editing seemed solid. Number 2 was a Clannad music video with lots and lots of tears everywhere. Also spoilers everywhere, but that's fine for me since I watched that show a few years back. Almost made it looked like the main plot had Okazaki going out with tons of girls only to be with Nagisa in the end. At least that's what it made me feel other than the whole following the sad lyrics stuff. Lastly, the 1st prize winner was a Madoka video. Yet another spoiler filled video, but I guess that's OK since those who haven't watched it can't quite connect the dots without words. Pure instruments and no singing made it unique in that fashion, though I didn't exactly see it as something super amazing. It would only be amazing because the source was.
And after that and there was a random Brony song that I don't know much about but it had a pink one singing about smiles. Somewhere between one of these was a weird raffle things that had to do with the bingo sheets. Only one guy filled it all in apparently.
Finally, there was a little thank you video by Jouji Nakata completely in English! This was followed by a so-called summary video of the last 3 days of Anime Revolution. Basically, all that happened was a dance party. Specifically the "1000 Revolutions" rave that happened last night. Of course this is not exactly true, but the video did have many clips of that, plus small snippets of the other aspects. Closing remarks by the president and such happened and the convention was over.
Bus back home to eat some actual dinner for once.
Then sleep. Or writing this blog post. Or rewriting this blog post so it's not so long and personal. Stupid amounts of details for one thing and a lack of details in many others.
