Basically me, two friends, and a couple of friends’-friends.

I have a few complaints about the website. Firstly, the design hasn’t changed at all since last year. And then I can’t find any useful information about the timetable. I’m somewhat disappointed, but otherwise it’s OK.

What kind of annoyed me last year was the utter lack of a (proper) garderobe. Even if there was one it was ineffective for me, since I couldn’t find it. Sounds like I’ll just come without a jacket then, otherwise it’s just too much hassle, and I’m not willing to carry it around with me. Awful stuff.

When I came there last year I saw AnimeOnly.TV, which since then sure went somewhere, but I’m still pissed at them since guess what – it’s in Danish. My Japanese is pretty rusty, more like, really bad. They should have named it AnimeInDanishOnly.tv instead. Awful stuff. At least it doesn’t have any DRM (which I know of)..

I hope they’re going to have an interview like last year. I really enjoyed the Junko Mizuno open interview session.

And hopefully it’ll be in English again.

If you see me around there this Saturday, get my attention somehow. I’ll be wearing my new Dushkin.org T-shirt.

There’s no point of you reading this if you haven’t watched/read Chobits, but be assured that it contains no spoilers.

The problem is simple. I haven’t actually watched the last couple of episodes. At first sight it might seem that protagonist being Motosuwa has a conflict – Yumi vs. Chii. There’s an obvious focus problem, since Chii is the character the reader is meant to focus on and empathize with. However Motosuwa gets that title instead.

Chii is pretty, carnal (due to limited knowledge about the social structure), ignorant, and absolutely subservient, not to mention that a relationship with her would be socially unacceptable within the scope of Chobits. On the other hand, Yumi, the real girl, thinks for herself (and demonstrates she can do just that), knows how to behave within the social structure and recognizes the fact that people tend to “go the wrong way” with Persocoms.

The audience simply empathizes with Yumi and Motosuwa, since they’re both going through something – Motosuwa’s frequent soliloquies, which every now and then are simply a cover up for something else that he means to say, but instead says in a different way and Yumi’s sudden sadness when someone talks about a persocom. Chii hardly reveals any feelings besides an occasional suggestion towards Motosuwa and maybe Asimov’s robot law. Chii is just a part of the background, I can’t relate nor empathize with her.

Nice drawings can’t cover up for a bad storyline.

Anyway. Kawaii seems to be taking over. I’ve been to Israel last month and they have an Anime channel in there, and of course Pokémon (but that’s pretty standard). My idea was to replace different authority figures with nice smiley Kawaii figures. Koizumi is a good start, of course. Taking a look at his website, there’s a link on the right to an “E-mail magazine”. What’s going on here? Is Koizumi trying to make himself something like a pop figure? Hello Kitty style. Hello Koizumi. And there we have it. Kawaii politics.

I would personally feel much more guilty, from a dictator point of view, to bomb something if their leaders are so kawaii.

First of all, I was quite surprised by the number of people in there. I expected a way smaller event, although this could have also been since I chose the most expensive day with the most activities. I really don’t know, but the number of people was really nice.

Not to mention – the demographics were interesting too. So many _women_ (yeah, those creatures do exist after all, funny). I don’t think I even saw that many back in iCon (Star Trek and Role-Playing convention) or any Magic the Gathering contest I ever went to. I got to talk to some actually. So many girls jumping around. Let me talk about them later.

You know the type of people those conventions tend to bring – about 40% of the attendents wore a costume of some sort. It really contributed to the environment in my opinion.

All the big ones were there. _Fantask_, _Faraos_ and this Danish manga translator – Mangasim? Something like that. They actually had a pretty good offer – four mangas for 100 DKK. I would have bought eight of them if I only understood Danish a little better, but that’s still one hell of an offer. RitchyT took four although he doesn’t understand Danish that much. RitchyT seems to be a collector person.

RitchyT, you better get me that domo-kun T-Shirt while you’re in Tokyo!!

The reception part was pretty funny. I pre-signed originally for myself as R.G., and for K.M. . RitchyT happened to lose his reservation number (reservation is free anyway) so he ended up gatting K.M.’s tag, so he walked around wearing K.M. . I’m not sure how K.M. himself would respond if he knew about it, but it was absolutely hilarious to call him K.M. the whole day long.

They even approached me. I put it in a nice little story form just to make it look good. But read it and understand my situation.

I was there, picking manga, when I happened to spot a group of girls wearing costumes, one of which was staring directly at me. I returned a puzzled expression back at her before realizing she must have said something to me in Danish and I naturally ignored it assuming it wasn’t aimed at me.

“What?” I said

She asked some kind of question. One of her friends, wearing a costume as well came by now. I couldn’t catch it, but she seemed to be pointing at Chobits 3.

“Chobits, great manga, I read 1 and 2, but I haven’t read 3 yet, it’s really nice.” I said, “you may also want to get this one, it’s Ken Akamatsu, you can never get it wrong you know.”

“I actually asked what the prices were.”

“I don’t know. I don’t work here. It should be 100 per unless it says something else on the book.”

“Right.”

“So what are you going to get?”

She’s ignoring me now, alright. Only later I realised I should have pushed it harder.

And now let’s just say I’m bashing my head against the wall. Damn. I’m an artist, I’m supposed to be über-desireable. If you’re out there reading this post and you do remember a long-haired weirdo going around about what manga he likes and about Ken Akamatsu, contact me – alright?

I’m just not good at making split second descisions. Give me time and I’ll make a choice, but otherwise I’m just going to sit and not do anything.

Eventually I did get Chobits 3 myself. I’ll start reading it as soon as possible.

Next year I’ll also get a costume. Just not sure who to dress up as. I was thinking about akado from Hellsing (Alucard, Arkado, Arkad, Arucad, whatever) since I have long hair, which is not blond.. Either that or Ninnin from La Blue Girl. Don’t say Naru Narusegawa!

Around 15:00 (3 pm) I went upstairs and saw _Junko Mizuno_, in an open interview session with the audience along with a translator. She looked childish, she had one foot on top of the others, legs straight down, sitting on the edge of the seat, reading glasses on the table. She looked childishly interesting. It was a great interview, I found it very interesting to hear her talk about not just manga, but artistic freedom, and it seems like we share similar ideas as to the kinds of jobs we take.

I don’t see why everybody’s so obsessed with Naruto. It’s not that great, it’s just Dragon Ball Z with advanced animations and a stupid (and quite attractive) girl jumping around screaming _”SASUKEKUN!!”_, but in the end I just decided to surrender, no use in staying against it, eh? It’s more powerful than me, and besides, it could get pretty interesting. Assuming it’s not a battle episode, damnit.

I’m definetly going next year. With a costume.