Garth

Last night I dreamed that I was the guy in Love Hina, except there was something about the house fronting some sort of shantytown/mining colony, and the people who lived there had been mutated by sludge found there (which may have been the stuff they were mining). I was trying to help the mutants with a rebellion, and at some point it turned out I'd been mutated too, as were the girls, just not outwardly (I could spit some sort of prehensile/amœboid brownish goo that I could use as tethers). The "mine" was sort of like a huge, broken-down warehouse, with lots of support beams. The floor was covered in water, and you had to clamber around on rocks, broken beams, and such to get around. There was a small, hidden open-air courtyard with a small tree in it. That's all I remember. It was actually kinda cool.

I woke up wondering where it'd come from. Then it hit me (partly) around noon: I'd read parts of the script to Total Recall yesterday, looking for the name of the mutant psychic siamese twin (to make a joking reference somewhere about GWB's mysterious hump). So the mutant freedom-fighters thing probably came from that. I still don't know how the Love Hina stuff got involved, as I haven't seen much of that series, and none very recently.

Still, Love Hina meets Total Recall. Yep.

Went to the JapanTown Anime Fair yesterday. Crazie had to cancel at the last minute, but I took BART and bus and got there around 2pm. Had an excellent time. For most of the day I just wandered around the mall hoping to bump into Aeire, browsing mostly at Kinokuniya and Miyako Music. Bought a couple of CDs (one J-gothrock, one J-rap). Almost bought an Ultraman lighter, but decided against it as I don't actually smoke. Ate at Osaka-ya (very good tanin-don). Eventually I stumbled upon the dealer room, where Aeire had a table (d'oh!). We talked for a bit, then some squealing fangirls showed up and I wandered off.

After some more browsing, I returned for the Something Positive panel (a little late). Randy Milholland is funny in person. If you have a chance to go to one of his panels, take it, because he's really entertaining. I went in with no real questions (as I'd read the recent Comixpedia article), but I ended up asking a couple: "When you say that the real Aubrey has vetoed a couple of strips because she wouldn't really do what you'd written...does that mean that she would do the things she's done in the comic?" and "Is Mike based on a real person, or more like an amalgamation of people you've met?". Both had interesting answers: "Aubrey is a...special girl" (then talking about the real Aubrey's behavior), and "He's actually based on two people, who aren't aware he's based on them" (then talking about how one had reformed, while the other has remained a prick, and how he's at a crossroads with the character). Choo-Choo Bear's origins were also discussed, among many other things.

I missed the Queen of Wands panel (it was in the morning, before I'd arrived) and the general webcomics forum (it was on Saturday). Too bad. Michael Poe was there for the latter, reportedly.

After the SP panel, I went up to the dealer room again but they were closing it. I hung around the hotel lobby for a bit, then went back downstairs to the fansub screening room. I caught the tail end of "Boboboubo Boboubo", which was...completely insane. In a way that makes FLCL and Excel Saga look like Full House. A big burly guy in shades with a huge afro (apparently the title character—yep, that's his name) and a little guy who looks kinda like Sonic the Hedgehog's head with arms and legs (and colored orange) run in to a room and fight a guy with Medusa-powered eyes. The Sonic-head-guy is turned to stone, but Bobobo is turned to a carrot with arms, legs and shades. Medusa-guy is pissed that Bobobo didn't change to stone, so tries again, but instead turns him into a cabbage-guy. Medusa-guy rips at Bobobo/Cabbage, opening a hole in the cabbage, revealing a tiny Bobobo who squeals that the Medusa-guy is peeking as "she" changes, then flirts with him. Medusa-guy is enraged, but Bobobo/Cabbage announces that it's "amateur enka night" and produces a karaoke machine. This breaks the spell on the Sonic-head-guy, who grabs the mic to sing about how he's going to kick Medusa-guy's ass. Medusa-guy then gets a call on his cel phone from his girlfriend, reminding him that he promised to bring 3 guys for a group date with her & her friends. Medusa-guy panics, but Bobobo (now human again) and Sonic-head-guy announce that they're coming along. Medusa-head-guy tells them off, but also says that they're only two and he needs three, so they produce a pig. They then arrive at the restaurant where the girls are, but break in and score a "try" (as in rugby). Then Bobobo notices the steaming pot of yose-nabe, says that the bath is ready, drops in a rubber duck, and starts splashing himself with broth. The girls storm out, and Medusa-guy is devastated. Bobobo's head then busts open, and is filled with high school students telling Medusa-guy that if it wasn't for him, they wouldn't have graduated. Bobobo then attacks with his mighty nose-hairs, loudly proclaiming that a creep like him shouldn't be allowed to teach children. With Medusa-guy defeated, he and Sonic-head-guy go off to find the main villain, a bishonen who is trying to steal "Beauty" (the heroine)'s hair to use as a wig.

Phew.

Then they showed the first 4 episodes of Narutaru, which was pretty interesting.It's about a bunch of kids who are "linked" to dragons through things called "dragonets". The main character is a girl who finds a little cutesy blank-faced flying starfish-guy on vacation at her grandparents' place on an island. She names him Hoshimaru. The opening sequence is very cartoony and childlike, with crayon-like animation, but the series is actually darker than you'd expect (another one of the good characters is a painfully shy girl who keeps trying to slit her wrists but can't go through with it; one of the bad guys gets stabbed though the torso by a squid-sword thing that comes out of Hoshimaru's arm). I'd like to see more of it.

After that, the Con closed up. Home and to bed.

The CDs I bought, incidentally, were Nocturnal Opera by Moi dix Nois, which is pretty bad but in a fun way, and was worth getting for the ultra-pretentious cover with asian goths in greasepaint and ENORMOUS hair standing in a room with tapestries and chandeliers; and No Independent Thought by SBK, actually a remix album that's pretty cool.