== Sunday ==
With the bonus of Saturday night being “less exciting” and a dash of meds to help me sleep, Sunday began at a somewhat reasonable hour. Only somewhat because John decided that if I was to get breakfast, I had to be up before 9 AM (Editor’s Note — Jon asked to be woken up for breakfast). Anything before 10 is a sin against Kami-sama, but for food… I’ll make an exception. It became clear to me fairly early in the day that we were both “off our game”. In my case I dismissed it as a sleep med induced hangover, but as it turns out, that wasn’t the case.
Our first Con event of the day for myself and John was watching
Eureka Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers. I, honestly, totally and completely missed the fact that there was a Eureka Seven movie and a re-imagined one at that. I was a little startled by the fact that I made such a mistake while John was worried if he should watch it or not — as he’s not watched Eureka 7. I thought the movie was interesting and good, but not great. I liked seeing how they re-did the characters in new positions. Some of the people had wildly different personalities (like Anemone not being a crazy bitch and Hap being ultra-paranoid), while most were fairly… similar. The story was interesting and I think a little easier to understand for the newbie as compared to the standard Eureka 7 series, but having the girls as “robot spies” was a bit… out of universe. In the end, the main issue was the fact that the movie had distinct “stops”, like it was couple episodes tied together rather than a movie. I will watch it again when I get home, but I don’t think John is much turned onto Eureka 7 thanks to the movie.
After your standard wandering, exploring, and being pictured (well John was, no one cared about my picture) I wandered off to my first panel. Well, I almost got to my first panel and then found my pass missing. It was attached to my trench coat and I have no idea how it came off. It survived the previous two days without issue, guess my luck ran out. I, after instructed by staff, ran over to con-ops to see if they had it. As it lucked out, they did. From the scratches on it, I’d guess I lost it outside in the front crowd and it got stepped on a few times. Thank goodness it got turned in rather than someone claiming it as their own, it would have been really annoying to deal with the fallout of that (I presume I’d have to buy a new pass… though I have no idea).
So with a few minutes to spare, I got to my first panel. In my 3 years of going to Fanime I had never actually attended a real panel. Either they were forgotten or too full to bother. Once, last year, I did stop in for about 10 minutes on a K-Pop music video panel, but that was just watching videos and hardly counts. The panel I attended was “Pop Japan Travel” hosted, as it turned out, by a group/company of that same name. I didn’t know anything about this panel in advance, but it sounded interesting (by title) as I’m planning to go to Japan. They discussed some of their past trips and some of their future ones. As is their name, they are about pop culture. They’ve got a (essentially) Yaoi (or fan girl) tour, a tour for those interested in music & video games, even a tour specifically for the budding manga artist (in which you get to see your manga, which they translate, at a Japanese con). The tours were roughly $2000 USD and 10 days in length (including air). The price wasn’t bad, not cheap, but once you take out airfare that’s less than $150 a day. They do include everything except for the cost of food, which can add a bit… but that is basically up to the tourist. Will I take a tour from these people? I don’t know. I think that once I go on my own, I’ll likely not want to get stuck in a tour, but who knows — they have some nifty pop tours.
We spent most of the rest of the day just burning time and cruising about. There were only a few panels that mildly interested us, and they were not till much later. We were basically the walking dead by dinner time, sad to say. The “off our game” bit really showed itself as the day wore on. Two full days of tearing about in a pocky fueled, caffeine boosted frenzy really wore us out. It wasn’t the lack of sleep, mostly the excess of walking and the lack of things to do. Most of the rest of the anime playing on Sunday that I knew anything about, was not the beginning of a series. I didn’t want to watch Code Geass R2, when I never finished season 1. In the same vein I didn’t want to subject John to the 19 hour marathon of One Piece (which I had to explain wasn’t anywhere near the entire series, or all the movies).
I discussed it with John briefly before bed on Saturday night, and after Sunday he agrees with me, Friday to Sunday is a little too long. I would have been just fine with checking out of the hotel Sunday. We wouldn’t have to leave first thing in the morning, we could still catch some events, but be gone by mid to late day. Friday is certainly a fun day and Saturday is where it is at, everything after that just can’t match up. Maybe if there were more activities we wanted to go, or had more friends around (Jonas and his crew left early this morning, so it was just John and I)… it would be worth staying. All things being as they are now, little too long.
Sunday Signout — 00:10 (Monday) — Happy Memorial Day!