There were four members in our party that embarked upon the pilgrimage up north, while we met the final member of our tribe Friday evening. Aside from yours truly, our party consisted of the following members-

It never seems to fail. If there is ever an instance that involves me, a vehicle, and an anime convention, there will be unpleasantness of some sort. It began with AWA this past year- Neil goes to get his oil changed before we hit the hotel, and we find out that his entire front-left tire is coming apart. Apparently, that little incident was the beginning of a trend, one that I'm afraid is going to haunt me as long as I go to anime cons. A few hours outside of Virginia, we decide to hit a rest stop in order to switch drivers, check on the engine, and to prevent our collective backsides from falling into coma-like sleep; the usual, long-distance driving stuff. Both me and Ian decide to take a look at the engine (rather, he did while I just hovered around and looked knowledgeable) while Leo and Kim stayed inside to avoid the bitter cold (Pansies, I tell ya! PANSIES!!). They emerge a moment later, shutting the door behind them as any normal human being would. Ian then casually wondered where the keys were- after seeing the look on Leo's face in response, I believe we all screamed our fair share of obscenities. That added another hour to our time table, spent in the frigid northland climate, but the good news is that we now know how to pick the lock on a mini-van. All we need to do now is improve our speed, and we'll be jacking Aerostars left and right- Soccer Moms, beware!

But wait, there's more.

On our way back from the K2K experience, a number of us noticed that the van was peaking at a speed of about 55 MPH. While none of us were mathematicians nor mechanics, it was fairly easy to figure out what this equated to:

It was then decided, and whole-heartedly agreed upon, that we should stop and check the engine out. The good news was that Ian had a pretty good idea of what the problem might have been, and rightly assumed that it had stemmed from a recently replaced spark plug. The two of us break out the tool kit and check under the hood, while Kim and Leo once again opted to stay inside the vehicle (PANSIES! Catch frost-bite like the rest of us!). Not that I fault them, because I believe that was the moment I resolved to never, ever move up north. If I complained about the weather in Georgia, then surely I would die up there. After checking each of the plugs out, we found the culprit- the very last one (of course), while not burned out, was still quite filthy compared to the others. Ian then proceeded to perform an extensive cleaning operation upon the guilty gear, which consisted entirely of him blowing the unit off and replacing it. And as we got back on the road, we soon discovered that once again, we were able to dance on that line known as the Speed Limit.

Kind of makes you wonder about what exactly a mechanic does to your car before slapping you with a $300 bill, doesn't it?

Our four heroes (No, not them. Us) find themselves in a semi-lost state, searching for the house of one Derek, AKA 'Goku'. Anyone that has ever attended a convention in the continental United States should know exactly whom we are speaking of. THE Goku. THAT Goku. Yes, the guy with the Super Saiyin Level 3 hair, made completely of foam. There are two things conventioneers are used to seeing, regardless of where the convention is held. One is Steve Bennett of Studio Ironcat, whom is widely believed to attend every convention in this hemisphere. The other, of course, is Goku. It seems that he, Ian, and Leo are pretty good friends, and our Saiyin associate was gracious enough to let us stay at his place the night before the con. The only problem, however, was finding it.

Our lack of knowing exactly where we were headed combined with horror stories of Derek's abilities to give directions had us a bit concerned, but I believe that it was Leo that observed the first sign that we were on the right track- a Taco Bell, which Derek practically lives at, from what I've been told. A tad bit more confident, we continued our trek into the boondocks of Virginia. After a few calls for directions (and an inquiry as to if there was food at his abode), we finally arrive.

Ian wasn't kidding when he said that Derek lived in what amounted to a cave. The man's room seemed to subtly scream "Not only am I a diehard video game and Dragon Ball Z fan, but I am also quite adept at the martial arts, and am indeed capable of hurting a normal man in many horrible, brutal ways". Well, maybe not quite that bad, but you get the idea. He has the sort of room that I want- computer in one corner, Playstation in another, anime propaganda here and there, and most importantly, large, bladed objects spread liberally; a katana here, a huge %#$&ing knife there, etc. Actually, the most important thing there at that point was pizza, with crash space clocking in at a close second. We did the typical laugh and shoot the bull thing for a bit, but it was Kim that pointed out that this was probably the night in which we would get the most sleep for the next few days, so we all crashed before it got too late.

Kim's advice goes unheeded. We're all in our respective sleeping areas, but we're still laughing and joking. At least me, Ian, Leo, and Derek are, for it seems that Kim has decided to sleep.

In a definite blow to the argument of men being the smarter sex, we are still cracking jokes like jackass idiot fools. Once again sleep is suggested, then shortly thereafter, attempted.

Lesson learned- Leo's snoring can wake the dead. No, seriously. The man snores louder than my uncle, a fact that only we of the Clan Zayas can fully appreciate (or fear, depending on point of view). My first thought after hearing him was honestly 'Oh my God, Leo is dying'. Yours truly fights the urge to deliver an elbow drop from the recliner, while Ian kicks the air mattress, and Derek rolls out of bed to wake him up- Kim is still sound asleep. Leo quickly apologizes (but not before being the butt of several jokes), and we all try the sleep thing once again.

Sweet merciful crap, it's happening again.

As I scanned the room for something large and metallic to fling, Ian one-ups me by tossing a pillow, while Derek merely blasphemes before waking him up again. Kim is STILL sound asleep. Derek, Ian, and I are all ready to take up arms and tap Ye Olde Keg O' Whoop-Ass, and the woman has not even budged. That in itself is pretty freakish, but the amazing fact of the matter is that she's sleeping RIGHT NEXT TO HIM!!! If there ever was a perfect woman for Leo, it's Kim. Any mortal that can sleep through that brand of noise is a mortal to be feared. I now believe that Kim could easily sleep through the apocalypse.

The journey was a long one, but we knew that we would soon be arriving at our destination. We had survived locking ourselves out of the van, we survived the knife fights over music choice. We survived the drive to Derek's house, and God help us, we survived Leo's snoring. We had traversed the state, we were in the right city- now, all that was needed was for us to find the hotel. We knew that it was located near the airport, and after seeing a plane take off from the same general direction we were headed, we realized that we were getting closer. And once we saw a group of young men and women crossing the street, bearing numerous bags and all chalk-pale, I believe everyone in our party smiled knowingly.

We had finally arrived.

Granted, we didn't get into our room until about four hours later, but at least the hotel was generous to kick us up to a nicer one because of the delay. But before that moment of truth, we were forced to crash in the lobby and wait until the room became available. Since Ian and Leo were both working with Planet Anime, they were fortunate enough to actually have something to do, while Kim and myself sat around and tried to keep our backsides from falling asleep (a task that I failed miserably, by the way). We got a chance to see a number of people come by and got a sneak peak at a lot of the costumes- Kim seemed to know a lot of the costumers by name, while I recognized a few by description (like the girl dressed as Red XIII, whose web site I recalled visiting a few days prior to the con). I even witnessed the entrance of Steve Bennett, to which one of Kim's friends (who would later be seen as Dan of SFAlpha fame) announced "OK, NOW it's officially a con!" Steve was cool as always, pausing for a moment to talk to us before disappearing into the chaos of the con.

One thing that has always entertained me about the few anime conventions I've been to is seeing the looks on the faces of the normal people that happen to be in the area at the time, and K2K was no exception to this time honored tradition. Hotel staff looked mighty confused (moreso), numerous guests bore the same 'Sweet Lord, why did we choose this particular hotel on this particular weekend?' expression I had seen in the past, and I won't even get into the local McDonalds, which more or less became the Unofficial Eating-Place of Katsucon 2K. Among my favorite incidents was seeing a large group of terribly cute Japanese flight attendants in the lobby Saturday morning, (keep in mind that we were, in fact, right across the street from the airport), who all seemed very amused and entertained by the costumers. It almost made me wish that I was in costume at the time, because I would have killed to have one of them say something to me...

Forgive me... I had no idea that I was such a filthy and disrespectable creature. As penance to these young ladies, I demand that I not only be beaten, but also scrubbed thoroughly by each of them...

It's a disease, I tell you! You can't deny who I am! Screw you for judging meeee!!

Ahem...

Friday was pretty sedate by con standards in my not-so-humble opinion. Granted I was tired as all Hades and skipped the Opening Ceremonies, so perhaps that had something to do with it. Most of the day was spent raiding the Dealers room, where we made a pretty horrifying discovery-

Holy crap, this stuff was expensive.

I was pretty psyched on coming to Katsucon for many reasons, but one of the main ones was because I wanted to go CD hunting. A nice wall scroll or two would have been nice also, but I would have survived without them. Well, the good news was that I was finally able to track down the soundtrack to Ridge Racer Type 4. The bad news was that the mamma-jamma was about $28 bucks.

Wow.

Most of the CD's I've come across in the past have been between $15-$20, which is fine by me. But seeing my much-covetted R4 soundtrack pushing $30 made me stop and ask, "O.K. Damani, just how bad do you really want this CD?" Call me cheap or whatnot, but I opted to let it go. I'm sure it'll turn up again somewhere down the line. Unfortunately I didn't even catch a glimpse of the Robot Carnival soundtrack I've been searching for since about '94 (I attribute both Carnival and Vampire Hunter D for pulling me back into anime that year). I will admit without a shred of shame that I'm buying it for just one particular song (the very nice piano piece that was playing during 'Presence'), and I still regret not getting it back at AWA 4 when I saw it there. FOR 10 BUCKS, NO LESS!! I AM AN IDIOT!! AN IDIOT!!!

Ahem...

Friday Highlights:

1) Leo and my excursion to McDonald's to pick up grub for the Planet Anime crew. Besides the fact that McDonald's didn't have about half of the stuff they asked for, we were asked to fill by far the strangest order I've heard since my conception. Jemma, the woman in charge of Planet Anime (and whom I recall eyeballing a bit at AWA 5) requested, and I quote, "A Big Mac with cheese. No meat."

I would not make something like this up.

The return trip from the restaurant was an experience too, seeing as the two of us were laden like pack mules with fatty goodness, and had to cross several busy streets to get back to the hotel. Leo ended up lugging several trays of drinks, while I ended up with several large bags pressed against my body, which made the trip back CONSIDERABLY warmer. As expected, we turned several heads when we returned to the hotel (and got a pretty funny 'What the hell?' stare from Derek), and were unopposed as we made our way back into the Dealers' Room- the guy at the entrance seemed like a cool sort and didn't ask to see my badge, seeing as it was buried under about ten pounds of food.

2) The Bozak Power. What is the Bozak Power, you ask? Read on, young one, and be enlightened.

Late Thursday evening, I recalled Derek mentioning something about the premier of Bozak: The Motion Picture, an event that he seemed pretty excited about. Being the resident Katsucon-virgin, I had to consult with Ian as to what exactly was going on, and why Derek would constantly make comments about the power of his own Bozak from time to time (a classic example of 'Too much info', if there ever was one). It was explained to me as follows- at Katsucon's past, a group of conventioneers would put on skits after the Cosplay, to keep the crowd at bay while the judges were coming to their decisions. This year was to be different- this year, instead of a live performance by the Bozak crew, there was to be a screening of a movie done by the group. I didn't quite know what to expect, but now that I've seen it I will say one thing- as soon as these guys get their web site up and running again, I want a copy of that movie.

Basically, Bozak: Origins plays upon just about every martial arts movie cliché known to man, and makes more phallic references than a locker room full of 9th graders. What's not to like about Master Hung Well, and a villain that goes by the name of Sho Balls? With a humorous-yet-appropriate assortment of music (shades of The Matrix, Mortal Kombat, and even Goldberg's entrance theme), fights galore, more bad puns than a late night in #nurpg, and the trademarked burning-of-the-home-village scene, Bozak stands to become a classic in the vein of just about anything shown late-night on HBO. It's one of those things that just has to be seen to be fully appreciated. They finally have their web page up and running again- I think you'd benefit by spending some time at the Shaolin Temple of the Bozak. Ooooooh yeeeeeeaah!!

Virginians, let me tell you why your state sucks. It's nothing personal against the wonderful people of your state, or with the state itself, for that matter. It's more with a certain law that we found out about Friday evening. Virginians, I have but one simple question- Why in the <Your String of Colorful Expletives Here> did someone think it was a good idea to stop selling booze after a certain hour?

Here's our tale.

Late Friday evening, Leo informs me that he has just spoken with one of the guys that works at the hotel in regards to where one might procure certain inhibition-reducing beverages, and directions were given to a place within walking distance of the hotel (the guy also volunteered information about a local, ahem, gentlemen's club, an unnecessary gesture, but welcomed nonetheless). Leo drafts me to come along for the epic quest- I think it's a law somewhere that one must at least be partially intoxicated to get the most out of a convention. Or maybe that's just an AWA thing, but hey, I didn't have anything else better to do at that time, so I decide to tag along.

What followed was the two of us bumbling our way through the cold streets of Arlington, with Leo occasionally and quite brazenly asking the occasional citizen for direction. The man doesn't beat around the bush, I can assure you...

Leo: "... do you know where we can buy some liquor?"
Average Citizen: "..."

While we were pointed to a beer selling establishment or two, we soon discovered that the places that sold the 'good stuff' all closed obscenely early on the weekends, much to our dismay. Saturday's early search also yielded no results, as the only place we found was closed that day. I half-expected Leo to tear his shirt as he fell to his knees, cursing the foul luck that had fallen upon us, but he took it a lot better than I thought. We decide to have lunch at a local McDonald's, in lieu of booze.

Ian scores a signature on his recently purchased artbook from Yoshitaka Amano. It would seem that his afternoon was much more productive than Leo and myself's. Lesson learned: Alcohol is Bad. That, or Virginia Lawmakers Suck Monkey Teet. You decide.

Well, it wasn't a total loss. We picked up some orange juice along the way, so if nothing else, we had our Vitamin C for the rest of the weekend. But alas, we never (conclusively) found that gentlemen's club...

Curse you, Virginia state.

Sometime during the course of Friday evening/Saturday morning, I was finally introduced to Bust-A-Move on the Playstation. Sure, I knew exactly what it was (what anime/video game freak doesn't?), but I had never actually played the game before. Yes, shameful, I admit. Of course when Ian heard this, he vowed to educate me in the ways of the dance sim.

I shall not comment on the irony of being taught the arts of dancing by my lanky caucasian associate.

While all of this time I had just considered the game to be somewhat overrated by the masses, I can now say that I've been quite mistaken. It really was as cool as people have always told me it was. And dammit, I'm addicted to it. Which really sucks since I don't have a chipped PSX. Sure, I could try to find the American release of it, but part of the charm of it is the Japanese music, I think. In fact, I'm now listening to Aozora no Knife (AKA Kitty N's theme), which might as well be considered the theme song of just about every anime convention I've ever been to (while the theme from Evangelion seems to be a close second). Though I suck quite mightily with the man, I've taken a liking to Strike- anyone that can incorporate a pair of pistols into his dancing deserves a Bad M.F. wallet, in my humble opinion. Kitty N's pretty high on my list too, but a single thought continues to assault me whenever I see her dance.

"Good heavens, this woman must be a stripper."

Of course, both ended up being bumped off that upper echelon by the likes of Frida late Saturday night, but I'll get into that in a bit...

I've discovered that the quickest way to become self-conscious about your own art style is to go and see what other artists have done. K2K hit me with a double-doozy of that, once at the art show, and once again in Artists' Alley. I've always been amazed by the quality of art coming from those that just happen to enjoy drawing for the sake of it- most of it looked very professional, and I could see that much time and effort was put into each and every piece. I really can't say that I had a favorite one, though I will admit that I was quite fond of a pic I saw of Selphie in the infamous Britney Spears-on-the-cover-of-Rolling Stone position (what can I say, I've been on a Selphie kick for quite some time now).

 Artists' Alley was even cooler, because it gave artists a chance to show off their portfolios and such, all of which kicked massive amounts of booty. Most of the artists down there were very cool (including the infamous 'MONKEY! MONKEY!' dude from the Cosplay), and some were even taking commissions. About midway through Saturday I decided to ask one of the guys to draw a pic of one of my characters, but I wasn't quite sure who I wanted him to draw. Mani would have been cool, as would have been Natalie or Lily, but I decided to go with one of my favorite NPCs from Realmwalkers, that being Mei-Lynn (whom I admit seemed to get a lot of exposure that weekend). Well, since I waited so long into the con to do it, Derrick (the cool and laid-back artist) asked if he could mail it to me afterwards, and sure enough a few weeks later, I received a package labeled 'Do Not Fold', which seems to translate to 'Bend Liberally and Repeatedly' at the post office. Even so, the drawing came out quite nice, as you can see over to the right there. Impressive, is it not?

The bad thing about art shows is that it always seems to make me feel so self conscious about my own style, but the good thing is that they always seem to inspire me to improve it all the more. It's kinda like in Fatal Fury 2, after Terry kicks the crap out of Kim in their sparring match- instead of whining and complaining about it, our Tae Kwon Do practicing friend sets out to train even harder. Granted he still took a savage beating in Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture, but that's besides the point.

It was midway through Saturday when I donned the garb of everyone's favorite telekinetic freak, Psycho Mantis. I had been itching to get into costume for a while, and so when I was on my own, I decided to make a quick trip up to the room and made the change. A few minutes, gas mask, and trench coat later, FOXHOUND's resident psychic made his Katsucon debut.

It seems that just the very presence of Psycho Mantis brings about strangeness in the masses. Take for example the following incidents-

1). I was asked quite politely not to kill anyone in the hotel by a nice couple down in the lobby. Grudgingly, I agreed.

2). Running into a large group of people in the elevator, a couple of guys compliment me on the gas mask, while one states "You know, that thing would make one hell of a bong..." The scary thing is, I know people that have done that years ago, and they're a lot closer to me than you probably think.

All freakiness aside, I did manage to have a sane conversation or two while clad as Mr. Most Likely to Kill Innocents For Fun. I ran into a number of the Soul Calibur cosplay group on the elevator, and had a nice conversation with the infamous dress-lifting Sophitia. She mentioned that she ran into another Psycho Mantis at Otakon last year, and was relieved that I wasn't nearly as psychotic as my apparent twin. I'd heard tales of this other Psycho from Ian in the past, and now I feel that it is our destiny to meet and do battle for the title of... well, something. Oh, and the guy who would later be Nightmare got mad props from me, because he was also dressed as Shadow from FFVI. Shadow is, quite simply, my favorite character from my favorite Final Fantasy.

I didn't stay clad as Psycho Mantis for all that long of a time, mainly because I was wandering around solo at that point, and well, it's not quite the same when you're alone. I did run into Kim at one point, and the two of us spent a nice bit of the day discussing how we could improve upon the Psycho Mantis garb in the future, and other costumes we would like to try out some day. Eventually though I decided to return to the room and drop off the gas mask- you wouldn't believe how hard it gets to breathe in that thing.

Two hours.

Very few things are worth waiting in line that long for. Kim and I were hoping that this year's Cosplay would be. Keep in mind that I've been sort of the Cosplay skeptic of late- I was at AWA 5, after all. That particular incident is heralded by most conventioneers to be the most disastrous Cosplay ever witnessed by mortal eyes, I'll have you know. I was fortunate enough not to have been in that disaster of a line (if you're interested in knowing how I spent that time, by the way, you can check out my review of AWA 5 here). Ian and Leo were fortunate enough to be involved with the festivities, which left Kim and I having to brave the crowds to get a halfway decent seat. Two hours, several sketches, an Evangelion art book, and an accidental stomping on my trench coat by a couple of MiB's from Laine later, we managed to secure some pretty good spots. Not a bad start to the late night, in my humble opinion.

I don't care if you're talking about a Cosplay or a funeral, but any event whatsoever that opens with the playing of March of the Imperial Troops as Darth Vader makes his way to the stage is destined to kick severe amounts of booty. And don't give me any of that 'But Star Wars isn't anime' crap, because there was a Star Wars manga! Granted I heard that it sucked gratuitous amounts of monkey and llama anatomy, but it's still enough to justify Mr. Vader's presence in my eyes.

Anywho, ol' Darth comes out and begins speaking about how he intends to build the new-and-improved Empire. The most important of those means, he felt, was through merchandising. This of course prompted the jackdonkey next to me to scream "SPACEBALLS, THE FLAME-THROWER!!" to the top of his lungs- had I been drinking earlier that evening, I believe that I would have put a savage, angry wrestler-esque beating on the guy with a steel chair. Back to the matter at hand, Darth Vader continues his tirade until we hear someone shout "Hold it right there!" off stage. The crowd suddenly erupts into cheers as none other than Squall of FFVIII fame comes on-stage to a chorus of 'Bad to the Bone', and lugging an impressive looking Gunblade. He challenges Darth Vader, who in turn laughs and mentions that he has a trump card up his sleeve. It is at that very moment where we see a silhouette against the video screen of a man with an even larger Gunblade resting on his shoulders.

Holy crap, it was Seifer.

AWA would never try anything like this.

Long story short is that Seifer ended up hosting the Cosplay (not before directing several "My Gunblade's bigger than your Gunblade" comments toward Squall), which I think says a lot for the mindset of the Katsucon lot. At AWA it seems that video games are merely tolerated as a side effect to anime, and here at K2K we have a video game character hosting probably the largest event of the entire convention. I've read several posts from members of the AWA crew who felt that most video game references would go over the head of all but a select few members of the audience, yet at Katsucon I noticed that most of the video game related skits received a healthy share of the applause. Don't get me wrong, I still love AWA with a passion, but I don't think they realize just how popular video games really are.

Highlights of the Cosplay-

1) The Misty/Jesse Pokemon Puberty Rap

2) The 'Alternate' opening to Soul Calibur, complete with Sophitia-with-censored-sign showing her goodies to the crowd, a misthrown sword from Hwang, and poor Maxi destroying his chances of ever fathering a child.

3) Anime Family Feud-

Host: What's the first thing you do in the morning?
Rei Ayanami: I take a shower!
* Panel slides to reveal 'Fan Service' *

4) Ian-as-Mr. Satan exposing himself to Leo-as-Frieza/Gohan and Cell, and the resulting comment of "Oh my God, there's three of them! And they're ROTATING!!"

5) Puzzle Fighter- it would have been funny enough as-is, but for some odd reason, I think adding the giant sweat-drop really pushed this one.

6) An absolute KICKBUTT semi-full scale Mech that actually walked out on stage. I have never heard so many people gasp and shout swears of wonder in all of my life.

7) The infamous "MONKEY! MONKEY! MONKEY!" skit. Also worthy of noting is the severely cute Cham-Cham that was in the group, whom I recall was in the elevator with me on the way down to the Cosplay. I wanted to try and find her after the Cosplay to *gasp* actually say something to her, because she was, in my humble opinion, quite cute.

As per anime con custom, the dance was to begin following the Cosplay. I was ready to head on over (I've been an addict since Club AWA late last year), but Ian informed me that there was to be another showing of Bozak, but this time with better sound (the earlier showing had been marred by technicalities) at the exact same time. I figured that I wasn't going to miss too much at the dance if I checked it out, so I decided to watch it again (while laughing even harder this time). Of course the moment Bozak was finished, I immediately hightailed it out of the video room and up to our own abode, where I quickly dropped off the trench coat and pulled a quick change in shoes (Lugz be not made for dancing) before I was back in the elevator and heading down to the dance in record time- it was so fast, in fact, that I actually ran into Leo, Kim, Ian, and Adam coming back from the Bozak showing that I had left moments prior. I am that bad of a man. =)

The first thing that I noticed as I entered the massive lower level suite (aside from the busty Goth-elf chick in leather that I ran into in the elevator) was that the infamous Bust-A-Move competition was going on- I had read about it on the K2K web page, but some strange reason it had slipped my mind until this point. Well anywho, what I walked into was a large group of people dressed as BAM 1 and 2 characters, surrounded by an even larger group of cheering spectators.

Between this group of individuals possessing more balls than myself, I got to witness one fine-and-flexible Kelly win the whole competition, two absolutely BADASSED Heat's dancing off against each other, and a female Hiro (who happened to be a friend of Kim's), who hung out in our room some Sunday night (and whom not only to run a site called IndieAnime, but also wears form-fitting white bell-bottoms better than just about anyone I've seen in these scant 22 years of life). Even all of that cannot compare with the highlight of the competition, in my eyes. What is that highlight, you might ask? I can sum it up in one word, and one word only.

Or more specifically, the absolutely beautiful specimen of femininity that was dressed as her. First and foremost, she most definitely looked the part- my exposure to BAM is admittedly somewhat limited, but holy crap, this woman looked good in her camo pants and orange top. I could tell that she was either a dancer of some sort or an athlete, because she was in some mad-killer shape- I could easily see myself giving up a beloved relative for the opportunity to lay my head on her stomach. And that woman could move... sweet mother of mercy, that girl knew how to move. Her pants were hanging down just far enough to give me a teasing glimpse of her hips, her beautifully sensuous, gyrating...

On another note, I think I caught a glimpse of the same girl that Sunday in the Dealer's Room, but this time dressed as Aerith, and looking quite cute I might add (curse my stinking camera for dying midway through Saturday! I'm never buying a CVS brand again!!). Of course now that I've mentioned this girl, I'm expecting someone to read this and drop me an email that goes something like this-

To: DZayas1@aol.com
From: anime_fiend69@neo-tokyo.com
Subject: K2K

Dude! I know the girl you're talking about! But get this- she's only 12!!! That makes you one dirty SOB, you dirty SOB! =)

       --  A |\|  ][  /\/\  E  -  F  ][  E  |\|  | )  --

  ~@~@~@~@~@   6   9   @~@~@~@~@~

Once the Bust-A-Move competition was said and done, the actual dance began. The room itself was probably larger than most clubs out there, but that also worked against us- people were pretty spread apart. I also had another factor working against me, that being the lack of alcohol in my system (curse you, Virginia state). Despite that, I did manage to get out there and shake my feeble money maker a little. I was also pleased to note that my prior hernia surgery was not hindering me- I was just as uncoordinated as I'd always been. My first order of business, of course, was the scoping of the local population of the fairer sex. Satisfied with the general populous, I set about enjoying myself. Of course I was keeping an eye on Ms. Frida, who unfortunately looked to be surrounded by a massive horde of her friends. Being the patient sort (read: Big ol' Wussy), I decided to abide my time and hope to catch her alone at some point before the night was done.

Laugh all you want. It happened. Well, sort of...

At one point I happened to turn around and observe that she was pretty close by. Opting to not laugh maniacly like your more traditional supervillian, I slowly began to dance my way over towards her. All the while I was giving myself a bit of a pep talk, something along the lines of "OK Mani, if you wuss out now, you're just a rooty-poo fruit-booty yellow-bellied nancy-boy wussy-wuss-wuss." No one wants to be called a wussy-wuss-wuss, so I was fully prepared to do something to avoid gaining such a title.

It was at that very moment when the DJ (a guy that alternated between Lupin/Maxi/Hiro outfits during the course of the weekend) turns down the music and informed us that, thanks to the hotel staff, the dance was being cut short, and that this song coming up would be the last one of the evening. After groaning with the rest of the crowd, I decided it was now or never- I probably was not going to get a second chance. Taking a deep breath, I slowly turned to where I had seen her moments before...

...only to discover that she was no longer there.

OK, stop laughing.

No really, stop it.

Oh, forget it.

When thinking about the experience, one must take into account the events of the weekend on a whole. Mayhaps I could harp upon the bad things, or I could just be content in saying that I enjoyed the convention as a whole. I think I'll go with the latter.

With this being my first out of state con, and second anime con besides AWA, a few comparisons are probably in order. I really can't say that I prefer one con over the other, because they're both different in some respects, and each possess unique aspects that make them who they are. While Katsucon seemed slightly more organized and video game friendly, I've come to enjoy the randomness and relaxed attitude of AWA. Both are four star cons, in my humble opinion. They both kick their fair share of the booty.

So, will I return for Katsucon 2001? God (and finances) willing, yes. And will I pack an extra set of nads, so that next time, I won't let a lovely young lady pass me by without at least saying something to her? Don't hold your breath, but I'm willing to give it a try =)

-- Damani Zayas