CNAnime 2001

by Daniel Kurland

I got in the car and embarked on an hour and a half ride to the convention. I kept myself well entertained throughout the car ride by listening to such CDs as the Trigun OST, Cowboy Bebop OST, and the DB/DBZ 5 CD Set. With all that Japanese music blaring out of the car I did get a few slack-jawed yokels give me some funny looks. I pulled into the fantastic hotel I would be staying in and I was rather pleased. I unpacked everything and got in line to buy tickets for the con. I was sitting with a Trowa cosplayer and a Vash cosplayer and we talked quite a bit. I was one of the first 1000 people there so I got some original pictures(#11/1000) drawn by Mika Akitaka (Gundam mechanical designer).

I really had nothing to do at this time so I decided to take advantage of the con and watch the first 2 Big O episodes. I had never seen Big O before, but I generally liked it. The anime was shown in huge theaters, the con itself was huge as well. Any anime being shown would be shown in Japanese with subtitles unless there was only a dub version available. After watching Big O I basically went around looking at merchandise and seeing if anything pleased me. I was looking for the Trigun and Cowboy Bebop Art Books, but unfortunately they were not there. I ran into Scott McNeil (VA of Duo, numerous Beast Wars parts and the old Piccolo) and as a matter of fact Chris Sabat (Vegeta, Piccolo and more VA) and Eric Johnson (Trunks VA) were talking to him. This was quite a site to see but I then realized Scott was having a Q and A session. We reunited there and then the insanity began.

I had brought a Video recorder with me and fortunately I was able to record most of the Question and Answer period but the battery did run out 5 or 10 minutes before the end. First off Scott is a hilarious guy. He was constantly answering questions in different characters voices which just made the experience more enjoyable. Scott basically talked about his start into VAing, experiences with the rest of Ocean Group and oh yeah, he mentioned something about a new Gundam series being released as well as new seasons to Reboot and X-Men Evolution, but I am sure that doesn’t interest anyone. Someone asked if any sexual things were going on between Duo and Heero. Scott had lots of fun with this question. Everyone was laughing after his comment. I am sorry I didn’t go too far into detail on this particular session, but there it really too much to say. Scott is a great guy who truly loves his fans and his anime. He can be a real bad ass as well (he got hit by a pickup truck in his motorcycle before ;-;). I quickly checked my schedule and noticed it was time for Scott’s autograph session followed by Chris and Eric’s. I dragged along my bag of junk to sign and ran full speed to beat the lines.

Surprisingly the lines were not very large but this was probably because it was Friday. I suddenly realized I had absolutely nothing for Scott to sign so being the good man that he is, he gave me his program for the anime con, which he signed for me. I also got him on my video recorder briefly doing a bunch of voices. He even dubbed a scene from Gundam Wing which was playing. I then walked over to the FUNimation booth, and many fans were yelling snide remarks at the VAs which I will not post here. But this got me quite upset. This was my first time actually talking to Chris and Eric (although I am friends with a group of people from FUNi). I got Chris to sign some cards and Eric to sign some tapes and I talked to Chris about the South Park movie (or should I say "aboot" the movie). They are really good and nice people and I hope all the biased and utterly stupid things said about them will end. I took a short rest after this as I had been doing stuff all day and I decided to check out the anime karaoke.

This was generally what I expected. I did not sing any songs myself though. At one point there was a drunk girl doing some comical things so I decided to watch that instead of 40 year old men singing "Fly Me to the Moon" incredibly off key. The girl had absolutely no idea what she was talking about and when I asked her her favorite anime she replied, "Magical Snookie Party Down". She at this point picked up someone’s chair, walked out of the hotel and put it in the middle of the street and started yelling "Taxi". I saw across from where she was seated was a restaurant so I got a bite to eat and then went to bed.