Why yes, this is the post it took me a week to do: New York and Anime North picspam & reviews
So. First off: New York. I was there for a trade show, and while it was lovely to see all my customers and I ate really well (god...food so good), it doesn't make for terribly interesting story-telling. So I'll skip to Thursday which was my free day in the city, and spam you with a few pictures of the "old friends" I visited: Shakespeare Garden and Turtle Pond in Central Park, and the Temple of Dendur at the Met.
Shakespeare Garden in Central Park is one of my favourite places on earth. Particularly first thing in the morning. *happy sigh* Turtle Pond comes a very close second.
The Temple of Dendur never gets old. (haha)
And this amused me: the bushes were so thick in the sculpture garden on the roof of the Met that from this angle, this woman looks like she's up to her neck in it!
I spent a glorious afternoon (perfect weather) visiting Roosevelt Island, an obscure residential area in the midde of the East River where I used to live when I was five. I remember it vividly, and it's beyond cool to see what has changed and what has stayed the same. New condos have sprung up around the old planned community I remember, and the latter is now looking a little aged and worse for wear. I'm planning a separate post sometime with then-and-now pics (I love that shit) with shots of me as an adorable kid to make it more interesting for y'all.
Evening was spent with a human friend. :) I hooked up with HobokenKnitter (who I knew from my Entirely Awesome Summer In New York years ago) at Cubbyhole, and she got me quite amusingly tipsy on a Metropolitan before a fabulous pasta dinner. I have every intention of heading back to NY for a longer trip sometime this summer and actually seeing more friends, dammit. I miss them!
Friday I increased my geek cred exponentially by heading back from the possibility of a WEEKEND IN NEW YORK CITY to spend the WEEKEND IN A DARK TORONTO CONVENTION CENTRE WITH FELLOW ANIME OTAKU. And no, I don't regret it for a second!
As many of you know, I am joined in this yearly pilgrimage by the inimitable Mr. Mongolia, where we cling to each other as thirtysomethings among the sea of teenagers. This year we were also accompanied on Saturday by jaefru, and we popped by to visit bassringer in the dealers area where she was selling her incredible creations (which you can buy online, see? Pimp! Pimp! ;D).
Rather than subjecting you a blow-by-blow of the entire weekend's happenings, I have lumped things of interest.
My swag. I was extremely good this year, for the first time in...well, pretty much ever, actually, and bought very little. Among the few things I did get were these buttons from randomfandom.com which I just HAD to share:
YAOI IS GAY FTW! And the oni*! And Lee! And Ed and Ein! *GLEE*
*Japanese for "demon", roughly.
Cosplay and pictures. There were, as always, a million really cool costumes. I left the photography to Mr. Mongolia for the most part this year, except for this picture which was so adorable, I just couldn't resist. A poor, worn out otaku asleep on a massive Totoro. *pets*
For other pictures, I refer you to Flicker's Anime North group.
Show reviews. One of the main reasons Mr. Mongolia and I go to Anime North is to check out shows we wouldn't otherwise see. This year we caught:
The tail end of Azumago Daioh, which continues to creep us out with that teacher who likes to oogle his young female students. I know it's considered harmless in Japan and is played for laughs, but I'm sorry: I'm sure there are other things to recommend the show, but I can't really look past that.
Then there was Utawarewhatchamacallitmono (Utawarerumono). I was quite looking forward to this after the review of it in Protoculture Addicts, but it turned out to be so ridiculously formulaic I was torn between scorn and amusement. Mysterious handsome man who awakes with no memories? Check. Cared for by a pretty girl with knowledge of healing? Check. Who has to fend off unwanted advances from an Evil Guy (and of course, we're going to establish that he's an Evil Guy in the first episode by having him Steal From The Poor Honest Villagers and Accost Our Feisty Heroine Who Attempts To Defend Her People)? Check. Does our mysterious handsome man then step in to defend her and show how gentlemanly he is? Check. *sigh*
Honestly, I don't mind formulas, as long as they're done well. Give me an interesting twist, or characters to really care about - anything, people! Throw me a bone here! But this was so heavy-handed, it was almost painful.
The only thing I did like about this show was that they actually had the characters with large, furry ears use them - flattening, twitching, perking - when expressing emotion or listening intently.
Elfen Lied I found intriguing but deeply disturbing. We missed the first episode, so as far as I can tell there is this young woman who is found by a couple of teenagers. She is quite timid, says only "mew" and appears to have no real knowledge of the world - but when something in her switches over she becomes a sadistic, cold-blooded killer with psychic powers. Which is handy since she's beeing chased by equally sadistic...soldiers? police? special ops? I wasn't quite sure who they were. But they beat her up and then she "switches" and horrifically mutilates them. And then she changes back to this innocent, distressed character who clearly has no idea what's going on. Like I said: intriguing but pretty disturbing. Anyone else seen it? I'd be willing to tackle it if I knew it were a helluva show and worth the darkness for particularly amazing plot/character/themes, but otherwise I'll be giving it a pass.
Le Chevalier D'Eon, on the other hand, was excellent. I'm sorry, but any show that combines zombies and 18th century Versailles has a fabulous premise to begin with, and throw in gorgeous backgrounds, lots of fast-paced action, political intrigue, secret societies, mystical powers and a sympathetic hero with a couple of unlikely companions, and we have a winner! And did I mention the ZOMBIES? At VERSAILLES? Best. idea. ever. \o/
Romeo x Juliet was also good fun. Not as mentally engaging, perhaps, but check this out from the first episode: a cross-dressing Juliet in disguise as the swashbuckling Zorro-esque "Red Whirlwhind" rescues the oppressed in a beautifully-realized Neo Verona. I love it already. Then enter Romeo of the ruling Montagues, complete with a flying horse who rescues her - not that she needed rescuing, as she is quick to point out. Great action, thoroughly satisfying characters...see, Utawarerumono? You can absolutely take well-worn tales and work them anew!
After I noted that our two favourite shows we saw were both based in Europe, Mr. Mongolia made an interesting observation: since WWII, Japan has had a love affair with America. Recently Japan started turning to Europe, and perhaps these lovingly-rendered series reflect that.
Panels - with stories and pictures!
There were also a number of panels I attended. Many were actually with Yaoi North, a sort of mini-convention held in conjunction with Anime North devoted to yaoi.*
*Short definition: Japanese manga (comic books) and anime devoted to male homosexual relationships, usually explicit.
Sadly, it is now a week later and most of the details of the more academic ones have slipped out of my mind. This is really unfortunate, since the panels were very interesting and included:
- Fanthropology (Yes, the cultural study of fans. SO FASCINATING!!! *hates brain for lack of memory*)
- Shoujo-ai Canada
- A review of Japanese shinto and buddhist symbolism as it applies to the anime Bleach
- Yaoi and slash (Two great tastes that taste great together! Sorry, couldn't resist. ;P)
- Yaoi and feminism
Crossplay 101 was both informative and entertaining. Most of the stuff I'd heard before, but they did have some great makeup tips and one of the best stories I've heard in a while: they were talking about packing (for the unaware, "packing" refers to wearing a dildo or padding to give the appearance of male genitals) and the importance of securing the packer, when one of the presenters told a story of a friend who climbed buildings with friends in his spare time.
One day they were climbing and the friend felt, to his horror, his packer slip out of position to tumble down and out his pant leg. There wasn't anything he could do: he was climbing and needed his hands, so he just let it fall away down the building. CAN YOU IMAGINE?!?!
What he didn't realize is that his boyfriend, who was climbing right beneath him, saw the packer coming at him and had the presence of mind to grab it and stuff it in his pocket.
When they reached the top, the friend whispered to his boyfriend that he'd lost his packer, and the boyfriend reassured him that he caught it and had it in his pocket. The moral of the story, according to this friend, is that the only thing more disturbing than losing your penis is to find out someone else has it in their pocket.
From 11PM to 2AM was Yaoi North's panel Gay Sex 101 - which might have been more accurately called Gay Sex Q&A, since it was not, in fact, a how-to-write-gay-sex-accurately-dammit affair as I had assumed but rather a no-holds-barred, no-questions-are-taboo Q&A between the audience and a generous panel of gay men. Muuuch of interest was learned there, my friends. Honestly, I wrote out a list of tidbits to share, but since I didn't ask permission of them to do so, I'm not really comfortable posting them. Sorry. :(
But! Halfway through the Gay Sex panel was the Impossible Positions contest! The graphic details of which I feel free to regale you with since I participated looked on and took detailed notes, being of course FAR too pure to sully myself with such things directly.
And so I present the results of my shenanigans careful note-taking. With diagrams, no less! My drawing is stick-figure calibre at best, but I've somewhat timidly tackled dimensional stick figures because otherwise it's just too damn hard to tell which limbs are where or belong to whom. You'll have to mentally add hands and feet and faces because my attempts to render them were reeeeally bad, but this was just too hard to describe in words and clearly this is stuff you just HAD to know. ;)
As an aside, I know there are photos out there..somewhere...*eyes internet nervously* judging from the paparazzi-like flashes going off constantly. If any ever surface, you'll let me know, right?
The idea here was to demonstrate just how impractical many of the positions that show up in yaoi stories actually are. Basically, coupled contestants had to emulate positions chosen from an explicit yaoi manga (comic book) and hold those positions for a certain number of seconds. Failure to hold a pose for the allotted time, or not holding the pose properly, resulted in elimination until only one couple was left. The panelists were the judges, and we contestants chose ourselves from the audience. (Oh, and I should mention that contestants were fully clothed - not that you're wondering, I'm sure. ;))
I ended up asking the girl next to me if she'd like to partner up with me, and she agreed readily enough. The first position was pretty easy, since I'm light and my partner was strong.
The second one was definitely tougher since it involved wall-sitting (have you tried it? It's quite a strain on the muscles) - only with someone on your lap. We passed that one with flying colours as well.
We ran into trouble later on when I over-arched on one pose (I thought we were supposed to arch! It was in the freakin' picture, for heaven's sake! Turns out no-one else did. :P) and shifted my center of gravity. So she started to lose her grip and I grabbed her arms. Unfortunately, I wasn't supposed to do that and we were disqualified. :( Here's the pose:
This was not necessarily a bad thing, however. While we were disappointed at a couple of easy positions that came up after we were eliminated (the wheelbarrow? come on, people!)...
...one pose in particular had both of us rather glad we had been disqualified earlier. The position wasn't inherently difficult, but it was rather...personal, and made more so by the fact that the contestants weren't supposed to simply hold the pose as we had previously, but actively move to emulate crotch-grinding action.
As the other contestants went through their paces, my ex-partner and I exchanged a mutual look that said, "Yeah, sorry, I don't know you nearly well enough to be doing that."
There were a number of other poses which I don't really recall except for one in particular that really stood out in my mind. Check this out:
Wall-crawling. Yeah.That looks...comfortable. Sure. O_o
After an hour there were still a good seven couples left, so they had a final last-man-standing sort of challenge where everyone had to hold the same pose for as long as they could and the last couple able to sustain it would win. The pose was a hands-free variation of the wheelbarrow that I mentally nicknamed "the Superman."
The winning couple were not last year's winners (a couple of adorable gay boys) or the crowd favourites (a lesbian couple two women who hardly knew each other but who had great chemistry and enthusiastically added movement to pretty much every pose, to much audience cheering), but a straight couple with one of the biggest height/weight differences that helped them hold positions the most readily. The prize? Yaoi manga, of course!
This contest just begs for a crack Supernatural version, and I'm working on a little comic to that effect but...well, you've seen the quality of my illustration skills. :\ It will take me a few days (at least) to come up with something. But first I will tell you about THIS weekend. Stay tuned!