The last day always has a palpable sadness to it. I mean, we have been having a marvelous time for the last 72 hours (and some folks have been UP all 72 hours, living on Red Bull or Monsters or Ultra Grandes from Starbucks), but it has to come to an end. I always feel sorry for those folks on the last day. For many, it is a getaway day, so they are busy packing bags and trying to get to the airport, so attendance is down. Way down. You can get into the shows, but the shows may not be all that fabulous. It’s like your panel got into AX, so don’t complain that you got Sunday at 9 am.

I squeezed in a viewing of Revolutionary Girl Utena, but even I had to head back to the hotel to pack, as I did score on a lot of swag. Now, there is nothing wrong with the show, but since it was also linked in with a massive showing of “Princess Knight” and “Rose of Versailles”, I only saw that one, as I had seen the other two the day before and was not that impressed. It’s not a bad show, but since I had been inundated with the girls trying to make it in a man’s world idea, it kind of washed over me. Too much all at once.

The bad part was getting out of the hotel. I mean, in order to make the elevator going down stop at your floor, you have to push the up button? What kind of Big Brother, black-is-white kind of idea is this? And since the family is a slow packer, I lost out on things I wanted to see.

I spent a lot of time in the vendor’s hall, as they were offering bargains. I mean, you can’t beat $3 manga…..provided there is something you like. That was a funny Tom Nook t-shirt…..too bad it’s only in XS (who can wear that? Chihuahuas?). The major display booths from the companies seems down at their heels. The Sentai booth was frantically trying to hand out all their door hangers, Crunchyroll wanted people to sign up for them. even Bang Zoom had a marginal display and presence.

The last show I caught was the FUNimation panel, and this was the ‘look what we are releasing for the next year’ promotion. They did have a question period, but I heard two of the most incoherent, disjointed questions ever.

One person wanted to know why FUNimation did not set the English Vocal cast first, before the Japanese vocal cast was set. One panel member tried to explain that since FUNimation was a licensing company, they had to wait for the property to come available, decide to pursue it and then set the cast. Since the answer wasn’t good enough, the person repeated the question word for word, hoping to get a different answer, as if they did not understand what he was asking. Well, he got that part right.

Then came true incoherency. Aside from the fact this guy was like Mumbles from Dick Tracy, it was like he had a bag filled with strips of paper, each strip having one word on it. He reached in, grabbed the strips and ‘made’ a sentence from it.

“Why is it that anime is as it was and has been the kind of thing that makes it anime by you?”

OK, that is an approximation as to what was said as I couldn’t hear him. I was three guys behind him in line and the mic was right at his mouth, but this is what I heard.Maybe. I turned to the guy behind me and asked “Did you hear what he said?”

He responded, “I think I heard the word ‘anime’, but that’s a guess.”

When Mumbles did not get an answer he liked, he called them a schmuck. Or maybe it was good luck. I couldn’t be certain.

With that, the show ended. Sure, there were the closing ceremonies, but I never go to those. People were still hanging around hoping for something, but all things have to end.

I have to give this convention a B-, owing to the lack of control and inability to handle what was going on in a better manner, especially with the gigantic lines. It isn’t like this normally, but it came off as a tad amateurish. Would I go back? In a minute, but I do not attend this expo every year. I need a breather so I can enjoy it fully. Again, if you have never been to a convention, you must attend one in your lifetime. You are sharing your passion with others, people who feel and think and believe as you do….unless you are really incoherent.

Good night and schmuck…..I mean good luck.