If any one term best described this day, it was Hurry Up and Wait, as that happened all the time.

When we got there for the Anime Scavenger Hunt, I checked the Update board to see that one show was cancelled and replaced with something else. That is the problem with being a caliber of Luddite. I don’t have a smartphone or a tablet or a working laptop (I have a laptop, but it might as well be bear skins and stone tools for all the good it does).

It was at the Scavenger Hunt this all came home. It was just a lark; what you did was be given a list of 25 items to find in and around the convention area. However, we got into the room late and they spent a lot of time trying to put together teams of four, so by the time we headed out, we had a mere 29 minutes to find the stuff. PS, no one found ALL the items,

This brought me to my first thought of conventions: you need a party of four, as you will have to take turns sitting in line for people and need instant communication with your team. This has been the most heavily attended AX convention and it shows. People sitiin line for hours to make certain they can get into shows, and you may not get guaranteed. None of that Disney trick of hiring someone handicapped to hold your place until you show up. What this means is that you have to miss other things in order to try and get what you want.

They were having a release for the Dubbed Version of “Sword Art Online” and it overbooked in an hour.
They were having a premiere release for the “Blue Exorcist” film and THAT overbooked in 45 minutes.
I went to a late-night panel and that overbooked as well, but I didn’t know until I was stopped short at the door.

This brings me to my second thought about the convention: instead of having 200 different panels and showings and events, have 80 of them and repeat, so we can all get a chance at them. I do know there was a lot of anger and frustration in regards to the Blue Exorcist, and they may not have even used the biggest hall to show it.

Also, the time lag is getting worse, so you may get into the venue at 9:00 am, but they do not really start until 9:15 or so, but they are going to go for the full time, so we start the fallout and it just snowballs as the day goes on.

Still, I did get to see some things.

After the hunt, I wandered the vendor’s hall. It’s just that nothing currently appeals to me and the DVDs for sale are just so badly overpriced. Also, because of the huge crush of people, even vendors underestimated stocks and things ran out of certain items (like t-shirts) during Day Two. Well, good for the vendors, but bad for us.

I caught “Children Who Chase Voices” (although the full title is “Children Who Chase Voices from Far Below“). I will give a review of it later on, but it is a take on the Orpheus legend, from a Japanese viewpoint.

I took in the Rightstuf panel. I knew full well it was just a way for them to promote what they have to offer, but the hope for some swag pulled me in. They are incredibly proud of being able to bring to us, fully restored and complete, the “Princess Knight” series from the 70s. It too old school art for me (from the same folks who gave us “Kimba” and “Astro Boy”), but some people were losing their minds on this.

I asked my question, which was why Rigftstuf didn’t sell box sleeves to hold your DVDs. I have sets of shows, but they are loose and I think make things messy, so I would like to store them in a protective sleeve. Shawn Kleckner was the moderator (he does things on the site, like ‘Shawn’s Deal of the Day’) and his reaction to my question was one of interest and not a sop to some drooling fan boy. The only problem in giving out gifts is that he did it left to right is strict order, so I got a hat. If I was the next person, I would have gotten a DVD of Dirty Pair.

The panel I was interested in was “Anime Reviews and the Web“. Although I think I am a decent reviewer, I feel that I can do better, but what is that missing element that elevates one beyond the Jay Sherman School of Reviewing? (For those who do not know, he was the main character in the cartoon series “The Critic”, where he was a movie reviewer, and his tag line was ‘It stinks!’) I feel it is not enough to tell you that this show was good or bad, but why it was good or bad. The panel were folks that had started doing reviews in the mid-80s, so they saw a lot of the changes. One felt that you should give a history related to the show.

I have a problem with that. I mean, would it help your understanding of the review that the director not only did “Cute Girl Fighting Robots”, but also did “Ecchi Ecchi Ftang Pop”? Look, even Steven Speilberg has been known to direct a turkey or two. Certainly there is a lot more information out there to help with reviews, but a lot depends on how one approaches both anime and writing. I came away with the feeling that I was pointed in a good direction, but I need to do better at what I do. What does that mean? I am going to be experimenting with that one. Oh, I also came away with a penguin keychain.

I just feel I am missing so much around here and unable to make up for it. I am dangeroulsy close to leaving behind the anime itself, but when will you get a real chance to see “Rose of Versailles” or “Princess Knight” or even “Garden of Words”? (That is another hot ticket item and may also be a lost opportunity). And I haven’t been able to get to the Bang Zoom voice-over tryouts, as they get over 1000 people signing up in an hour.

Hurry up. Hurry up and wait.