[ registration ]

it'll be a recurring theme that it was at its best and fastest ever. i certainly thought so, thanks to the press registration system at which i saw the press room at undreamed of heights of efficiency. this vastly eclipsed any of their inactivity later in the convention. ^_^

[ an omnipresence in the wired ]

in the dealer's room, 10:30

i saw the lain artbook today. it was about three-quarters of an inch thick, in a plastic slipcase. i had never seen one before. i remembered the comment from the site where i'd read of it first, that he would gladly kill any man for it. i turned it about, held in my hands and felt the weight of it. i took it out of the case and read it, cover to cover, careful not to let my fingers stain the pages.

it was funny. easy to love lain. . .

the best part was a short manga in color, titled the pain of fabrication. a small dog with scissors poised over it. i want to crack open the skull and take the pain out. . .

[ la la la ]

met a person dressed as lala. she said she was fansubbing studio pierrot's mahou no stage no fancy lala, taking over from group hooseki who'd been doing it previously.

singing la la la. . . (ed. note —unfortunately for her (and perhaps me,) bandai later announced acquisition of that series. so i'll never see her version, i think, and even worse, that means animeigo won't get it. . . )

[ girl in gaea ]

that would be the escaflowne movie. eye candy. i liked it rather a lot. no competition for the tv series in my opinion, but very nice to watch. i thought the panel was really neat. __, the director, said some interesting things. his comment that sticks most in my mind was in answer to the question, 'why don't van and hitomi ever kiss?' his answer was that van and hitomi loved each other to a degree and in a way that couldn't be expressed physically, which i thought shed a good deal of light on the series.

[ hotel checkin ]

( you mean apart from the bit where i did my best raoul duke imitation, holding up two grimy pieces of paper and shouting, 'but we must have a suite!, then ducking to escape the moray eel?)

ah. okay. anyway, it was at this time that i realised just how much time being press was going to take. . . when i set up the computer to write this article.

[ video frenzy ]

i didn't see all that much today. . . kind of depressing. i don't know, but i don't really visit conventions to watch commercial tapes. watched some gatekeepers, talked with the projector-people for a bit, watched some silly series based on a card game that i really didn't want to understand. . .

oddly enough, the convention seemed to offer mostly a choice between commercial or straight-up unsubbed.

so, after a while i popped into the projection booth, to talk to some staff and test the press badge. . . this was when i first heard about the disney/ax/hentai difficulties. . . i could actually look into the dealers' room from the video 3 projection booth and see security looking around. . . the nice guy in the booth who will remain anonymous started complaining about disney pulling a lot of stuff from the video rooms. this was the first rumor i heard, and is at the beginning of the rumors page. disturbed me rather a lot.

watched gatekeepers and some ungodly thing based on a card game whose name escapes me. (the ungodly thing was pretty cute and silly. . . but still. . . a card game?)

[ didn't sleep, but this wraps at midnight. ^_^ ]