Thu 31 May 2007
the only 24-hour anime festival in the US. Please check your sanity and normal sleeping patterns at the door. If you are fortunate enough to live in the Boston area (and maybe even if you don’t) and love anime, I hope you’ve blocked out noon, Saturday, June 2nd through noon, Sunday, June 3rd for the Second Annual Brattle Anime Festival, entitled Brattle Royale Battle Royale held at the Brattle Street Theater in Cambridge.
Yet again, festival organizers Jen and Tom have scheduled another fantastic array of TV series, movies, AMVs, cosplay and trivia contests where you can win DVDs and manga. New for this year are Japanese promotional videos featuring animation, as well as guest of honor voice actress Nancy Novotny who is the English voice of Yomi from Azumanga Daioh!, Madlax, and Yuka from Elfen Lied.
If you are an anime newbie, this a perfect opportunity to see a few episodes of many different titles, some classic, some new, on the large screen to kickstart your anime viewing. It goes without saying, this is in addition to listening to the recommendations of the Anime Pulse crew.
So, how do you prepare for this anime lovers dream fest? Some would saying getting a good night’s sleep ahead of time is key. Pft! I’ll sleep when I’m dead. But, before we go over a survival list I’ve compiled after attending the two previous Brattle Anime Fests (think about that for sec), let’s take a short break with the opening animations for the Japanese sci-fi con DAICON, held in Osaka in 1981 and 1983. These shorts were made by the founders of Gainax before they were Gainax. Keep your eyes peeled for cameos by beloved American, British, and Japanese pop culture characters and icons and what is probably the first occurrence of a female anime character sky surfing. Now you know where FLCL got the idea. They’ve shown this twice at the Brattle Anime Fest and it alway brings a smile to my face and gets screaming audience applause. I hope they show it again this year. This version is longer than the festival version, and has great behind-the-scenes info. Just take a look at all the stocking colors they auditioned!
Oh, and here’s a pic of the winning cosplayer, John, who did an awesome Cloud. I looked for him at Anime Boston 2007, but I didn’t see him. V.V
Okay, back to the survival guide.
- Your ticket. You bought it at Anime Boston 2007 for a cool $20, right? If not, you can buy it ahead of time at the link I posted above and save $5. At the door, students get in for $25, everyone else $35.
- Proper clothing. True, it’s June, but movie theaters are notoriously cold. So, layer, bring a sweatshirt or sweater, a blanket, and perhaps consider bringing your down jacket. It may look like I’m cosplaying as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, but that’s just me encased in down.
- Food. Unless you are HT or Leviathan or KT-chan (and even then…), you can’t survive eating only pocky for 24 hours. Yes, the theater has lovely popcorn, soda, candy, coffee, etcetera, but you might want to consider bringing a sandwich and some snacks to tide you over for those long, long hours ahead…must keep up strength…You can always step out and grab some food at a local restaurant, but you never know what you might miss.
- Seating. Think about it. Have you ever sat in one place for 24 hours? Or almost 24 hours? It is a long, long time and that part of your anatomy is going to get very tired very quickly unless you leave your seat a lot. Consider bringing one of those stadium seats you take to football games or some alternate padding of some sort. Hmm, maybe beach chair would work…You could sit on the aisle, so you could easily get up and walk around a lot without bothering your neighbors.
- Cell Phones. Try to keep your ringer on vibrate, or very low out of respect for your fellow anime viewers. However, if your ringtone is that one from FFAC, you’ll probably be cut some slack and get a laugh.
- A ride home or lots of cash for parking. This is Cambridge, so expect to shell out at least $40 to park your car overnight. Remember the T stops running at 12:15am, so if you want to leave after that, and you used public transportation to get to the theater, you’ll need to call someone for a ride. Or, find my car. And, my keys. And, no, my license plate is not “ANIME.” That’s someone else’s car.
- A sitter for your nearly 98-year-old grandmother. Oh, wait, that’s just me.
- Keep an eye out for the guy at Anime Boston 2007 who said he would bite you. Oh, wait. That’s just me again. I think…
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Jen and Tom always show great AMVs, so here are a few from last year. Ichigo helped me identify two of them. I swear, if they had a game show called “Name that AMV”, where I would give him a vague description of the AMV over the phone (which is what we did), he could do it in two seconds. “Ichigo, it’s an AMV with Osaka and it looks like an RPG…” Why, that’s the Wizard of Osaka, Rangi.” Seriously, he knew what it was immediately. Perhaps, if I had been awake at the beginning of the video…
The Wizard of Osaka – no explanation necessary
Memories Dance – a favorite of Miyazaki lovers and one of Batou’s favorite AMVs
Elvis vs Anime – see how many characters you can identify
Appetite for Lightin’ Dynamite – for all you Bebop fans
These videos are available for download over at our friends at www.animemusicvideos.org, so make sure to vote for your favorites.
Hope to see some Anime Pulse listeners on Saturday and Sunday. I’m talking to you, Doug, Togusa, and Scott.
[...] If it’s between Noon, June 2 and Noon, June 3 and you’re not at the Brattle, don’t you think you should remedy the situation? [...]