My Guest Review on Rage Quitter! Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies

I had the opportunity to submit a review of the newest entry into one of my favorite video game franchises of all time to the blog Rage Quitter earlier this month. The Ace Attorney series, a collection of lawyer simulator games set in a wacky world of whip-wielding prosecutors and mystical artifacts, has been in stasis here in the States since 2010. Then, last October, Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies, the 5th game in the main series and the 7th game overall, came to the Nintendo 3DS as a digital download.

Check out the whole thing RIGHT HERE!

Ohayocon 2013 - teenagers still rule the world

Last month I made my nearly-annual trek to the Columbus, Ohio anime convention Ohayocon 13 (I think I missed one or two since 2006).

I adore anime conventions. Though I've attended sci fi, fantasy, comic, writing, steam punk and a myriad of everything-sub-and-pop-culture cons, all of which have their own geeky pleasures and attractions, anime cons always seem to convey an overwhelming sense of cuteness and affection (although, humorously, I recently re-read the 2007 manga series Dramacon and chortled a bit at the multiple references to "glomping" the practice of which now a days, I'm sure due to numerous lawsuits, seems to be almost completely dead.) This may be a product of their relatively young demographic,which can also bring an undertone of adolescent immaturity, angst, drama, and "@!#$%OMG! too-many-feelingz!?>!## :-P !!"

Which, in a way, I welcome. Since I am not a pre-teen (or do you prefer tween?) or teenager any longer, I really have difficulty remembering the heart-wrenching, soul rending, all-encompassing love, hate, disdain, and rapturous glory of friendship that I know I felt at that time in my life (and have the amazingly bad poetry to prove). Chalk it up to hormones leveling out or whatever, but still, I don't think it is good to distance oneself too far from what is a huge portion of the population, as well as a great and powerful force in the world.

Honestly. Young people, especially those who go to conventions, have money and they have time--two things a lot of the rest of the population doesn't have. And they spend both very emotionally--influencing what the rest of us see, hear, and read as well as what we are sold. Along with a need to belong (to a group of people outside of their family that represents their individuality), this age group (say, 12-29), is rife with creativity, as is evidenced by the costumes, artwork, and, well, simply hilarious crazy ass shit on parade at Ohayocon.

And even if you don't watch anime, or even know what it is, there is still some great times to be had  at Ohayocon.

  

  Penguin Drum

  

Rainbow Dash

Persona 3

 Trucy Wright

Jean Armstrong

 Dark Souls

(Where else can you see a mermaid wheeled through the food court on an office chair?)

I admit, most of the images above relate to costuming, since that is one of the brightest, boldest, most colorful (and therefore most visual) examples of what I love about Ohayocon. But there was more than that.

The vendor room, or dealer's room, was ripe with licensed material, video games, manga, DVDs, imported goodies and more. I ended up getting a Chi shirt whereas my sister bought the most Ah-Dor-Ah-Bul notebook from TastyPeachStudios.com. If anyone wants to get me their Fat Pegasus Tee, I will wear it.  This place had cats made of mochi. Meowchi.

But wait, there's more! Ohayocon also had an Artist Alley, which was fairly thriving. I will admit to being a person who does not purchase a lot of art for arts sake. But if you have any peripherals, i.e. jewelry, bookmarks, comics etc. I may be tempted. I am also a self-declared button whore.  I was lucky enough to find two pretty amazing... God I don't know what to call them, franchises?

One is Prince of Cats, a webcomic that uploads multiple watercolor pages per week. WATERCOLORS! Some webcomics struggle to upload a single penciled page every 7 days! (Not that I'm dissing them; I haven't posted a blog about this convention and I went to it over a month ago.) Prince of Cats is mostly a relationship tale between two queer boys in their final days of high school. The twist is that Lee (above) saved the Princess of Cats and therefore was granted one wish. He has yet to make said wish and so, until he does, he has gained the ability to understand the language of cats. The artist's kickass postcard marketing collateral lead me to her site, where I've been following the story (which only started posting in 2012, but has an active fan base and a number of collections for sale.)

Another was Tokyo Demons, a  multifaceted creation which includes a written story, serialized audio show and YouTube channel, book and ebook, as well as posters, pins, a card game, a video game and, um, more. Pretty incredible. My husband bought the fully voiced audio book (!) which we listened to driving back to Wisconsin. The story follows Ayase, a girl with a very strange secret, and Jo Oda, a self-centered pickpocket who is drawn into a convoluted and complex plot he didn't ask for and doesn't really want to deal with.So far my favorite character is Miki Morikawa, a young, incredibly bright nerd who swears like a sailor, leads an inept street gang, and is voiced by a woman.  Daniel Ozimek is pretty cool tool.  

Lianne Sentar and Rebecca Scoble, both involved with Tokyo Demons and former employees of TokyoPop have recently launched Chromatic Press which has some pretty cool stuff going on so you should check it out.   

Panels play a big part of Ohayocon. I find the quality to be hit or miss, and this year was no exception. I attended a Persona panel, which was mostly trivia (I missed the first part. There might have been more discussion, research etc. that I missed). And I did get to meet MegaTokyo artist and co-creator Fred Gallagher, but his panel was so low key I could hardly hear him. I give him a pass, and I won't post the awesome pic of me standing next to him while he was wearing a full body kitty cat costume because he tweeted he was embarrassed by it (then why wear it, Fred?).

The best panel I attended was one about the Ren'Py game engine, a program that helps developers create a video game, namely, a visual novel. A visual novel is a style of game that can be as simple as a story book you click through. The panel was put on by the writer and artist of OTChi Kocchi, a recently released visual novel game set in a pharmacy school. The presenters really laid out the process and it looks pretty simple. The fact that they had never made a video game before also gave me hope of maybe someday making my own. They also handed out free cds of the game (Act I), which is also available for free download on their site.

Finally of course, was the comradery. Because it doesn't matter if you're 17 or 70, hanging out with people-- friends, family, and strangers, who laugh at the same things you do, introduce you to new and innovative experiences, and create an environment where you can feel free to be whoever you want to be, is something pretty magical. Overall I had a blast, and returned home inspired, with my muse raging to create.

... although I still don't get Homestuck.

(pic from http://rebloggy.com/post/homestuck-update-homestuck-update-upd8/34933222090 )

Note-my full Flickr set is here.

"They Might Be Giants Cosplay?"

My husband is a big fan of They Might Be Giants, as am I (as evidenced by my vanity plate.)

We both enjoyed their album Join Us and the videos posted on You Tube in answer to a contest to create a music video to the first song: Can't Keep Johnny Down. The winner is pretty funny.

HOWEVER, the one that caught our eye was one by an artist named AKAcronny (on YouTube.) This is the video we always picture as we listen to the song.

Now I've been trying to get my husband to go to an anime convention called Ohayocon since I started going myself about 6 years ago. This year, I finally convinced him, with the caveat that I would dress as the Skullivan.

This is how much I love my husband. 

He made all the costumes himself. And so I now have a pair of bunny slippers and some neat skeleton tights. Score.He looked up a how-to on papier-mâché (mostly guys making Deadmau5 heads). We found that the fewer the layers, the more flexible and therefore less likely to crack the head was. 

       

  

Here is another video just for fun:

Geek.Kon Wrap Up

On 02/02/2010 Geek.Kon - Madison, Wisconsin’s 4-year-old festival celebrating Japanese Animation, Sci Fi, Fantasy, Gaming and more - launched a refreshed website: http://geekkon.net/. It official announced that the 2010 Geek.Kon Convention will be held September 3-5, 2010 at the Marriot Madison West (says their Facebook page: “over twice the space of last year’s hotel, and easy walking distance to food!”).

…Which means it’s about time I wrote up my review on Geek.Kon 2009 :-O

Over 1,000 people (1,036 to be exact, according to the website) attended the third annual con that was held at the Sheraton Madison Hotel. This was down from the year before, but a good number for the first year they decided to charge admission. I was only able to attend the Saturday night events, but was able to talk with a number of guests, staff and volunteers, as well as check out a few panels and some of the other activities. Registration went very smoothly for me, and after a few introductions I headed to the main ballroom.

The Masquerade was in full swing, filling the Sheraton’s ballroom with 19^th century leather and goggles from the steam punk crowd, and an array of candy-colored wigs and impressive costumes and props from the anime bunch. The masquerade is a costume contest where individuals (or groups) can display their handywork to a mass audience for judging on predetermined criteria. Some choose to perform skits in character, while others simply “do their little turn on the catwalk.”

Here are a few of my favorite costumes:

As the Masquerade broke for judging, I headed to the gaming rooms. It was there I met Chief, the volunteer in charge of the room. I asked him if there was any specific trends he had noticed during this year’s crowd. Because of the social atmosphere of the convention, multiplayer games were big. These included, in an unscientifically determined order of popularity, Halo 3 and Left for Dead for the Xbox360, Mario Cart Wii and Super Smash Brothers Brawl for the Wii and Soulcalibur 4 for the PS3. Chief said he had also noticed a number of younger attendees (16-22) watching older (late 20s-30s) playing older games, and realizing that they could be fun too.

Red, who was running the LAN room, admitted that he had hoped to run some newer games, but due to a number of factors, ended up breaking out the original Halo and Unreal Tournament. “People ended up playing those and loving it. A lot of people this year say they’ll bring their computers next year.”

I asked Red what he thought of the stereotype of the gamer portrayed many times in mainstream media, as a hygiene -deficient, socially inept misfit. “There is a lot more socialization going on in these games than people may think,” he said, also noting that gaming isn’t his live, it’s a hobby he enjoys. “I think more and more people are accepting of gaming as a hobby.”

Another hotspot of activity was the interactive room, which included Rock Band, Guitar Hero and an import game where people hit wack-a-mole type buttons with their hands as bubbles pass on the screen.Tabletop gaming was also popular.

After gaming, I headed to a panel room to check out what was being discussed. The room I stumbled into had “Time Travel Paradoxes” as the topic. The panelists ranged from a physicist and law student to a librarian to fans just interested in the topic. They sat at a table at the front of the room, and the moderator Richard Russell took questions and directed the conversation. Things got quite deep, such as when one person asked if time travel is contradictory to relativity. The panel also delved into some complex areas, such as, when traveling through time in some sort of craft, where in physical space is that craft? After the panel, I met with Richard and asked him to talk a little about Geek.Kon.

“It’s wonderful,” he said, clearly happy with the weekend, “where else would you consider this stuff?” Richard is a sci fi fan from pre-Star Wars days and I asked him what has changed in the underground fandoms represented by the convention. “Sci fi is much closer to mainstream now. Out of the top 100 films, 76 of them are fantasy or sci fi. I think the best thing that ever happened to science fiction was the Trekkies. Old line sci fi fans might not like it, but Star Trek was a gateway drug to lots of people.” He pointed out how creative and mindbending science fiction is, and how enthusiastic and tolerant fans of the genre seem to be.

There were 40 or so panels at Geek.Kon, ranging in topics from War of the Worlds to the anime and manga series Fruits Basket to costuming. Another one I happened upon was Live Action Roll Playing (LARPing) run by special guest and author Aaron Pavao. LARP can be confusing, as it is sort of an improvisational game of pretend (think Ren Fair but with a plot), but can best be understood by “newbies” by looking at the “How to Host a Murder” games in which invited guests take on personas and the game leader passes out hints or puzzles following an outline or script. “For the love of god,” said Pavao, “start with a scripted LARP.” Other advice he gave included making sure to have some sort of conflict for your players (“otherwise it’s like playing a documentary, and no one likes that.”) and don’t make the physical space of the game too large (he gave the example of one game played at GenCon that was set in a bank vault.) Steam Century, the Madison Steampunk group, held a Murder Mystery event at Geek.Kon.

I had been excited to see the music guests Spoony Bards, but the H1N1 had cut their ranks down to 2 so the concert was more like a chamber ensemble. I missed Fermata which I really wanted to see.

This was the first time the convention had 24 hour programming. Movies and Anime played throughout the night, including Night of the Living Dead, L: Change the World, The Legend of Neil (the creator was a guest-you can watch online! Warning: adult content), Lucky Star, and more.

Two things I really regret missing were the local premiere of Nerdcore Rising, sponsored by Dane101 and the panel “What’s new with Ravensoft?”

(Read my preview article for Dane101 here)

SEE YOU AT GEEK.KON 2010!