At 11:30 am on Saturday, July 14, 2001, partner in crime, Mike, showed up at my house, so we could car pool to the Shoujocon in nearby East Brunswick, NJ. The fact that the con had been moved to a location so close to my home (changed from being in Newark, NJ), made the 15 minute drive more sweet than usual (yeah, because....driving down Route 1 is always loads of fun...O_o;;). With my dorky ToT tank top in tow, we were off!

When we got to the hotel (yes, this con is in a hotel. This ain't no Otakon, baby), I was glad to see that the joint was bigger, and nicer looking than the location the previous year. We immediately went to the registration table. The girl handling us looked at me and my shirt and said, "Oh, I've been to your site before!". Wow, I saw a fan very quickly! We exchanged words, and Mike and I continued registering. Sadly, this is the only ToT fan I saw all day. I guess guests of Shoujocon aren't really into DBZ, huh? :p Anyway, after registering for a one-day membership, Mike and I strolled around, checking the hotel out, and trying to figure out where everything was. Immediate, I could definitely tell this was a shoujo (by the way, shoujo is girls' anime) anime convention, as there was an insane number of fans dressed in Utena garb strutting their stuff. Hey, no complaints. Utena is kick-arse. :)

After seeing the ridiculously long line for the super-tiny dealers room (note to anyone from the Shoujocon staff who may be reading this- get a bigger dealers room!), we decided to scope out the video rooms. We watched an episode or two of a "magical girl" series called "Miracle Girls." Picture "Marmalade Boy," only aimed at younger girls, and with super powers. There was only so much of that series that we could stomach, so we went and got some snacks.

We decided to give the video rooms another go, and chose to watch an anime we have never heard before called "Kiko-chan's Ribbon." Oh. My. God. This show is "Kodomo no Omocha" on crack, and instead of it staring someone hyper like 11-year-old Sana, "Kiko-chan's Ribbon" revolves around the life of the seemingly mute and creepy, but wise beyond her years 4-year-old Kiko. Ahh, this show was quite the treat. it made me wanna buy fan subs of it! So yeah, that's my current anime recommendation. :)

Soon after, Mike and I ran into our buddies from our local fan dub/Princeton/music video circle of friends, Scott Melzer (amv GOD! Just WAIT till you see his DBZ music video at Otakon), Jonathan, and another Mike. I think we chilled with them for a bit before Mike and I finally got into the dealers room. What a terrible disappointment. Maybe it's just that all the cool things sold out, or maybe it was a lack of variety in goods. Either way, I left the con empty handed...for now. :P Oh, and I finally saw my friend Kim, and her neato Card Captor Sakura costume!

At some point, Mike, Scott, John, and I went to see a guest panel all about "breaking into biz." The panel featured Matt Davidson of ADV Films, voice actress Mandy Bonhomme (she played Juri in "Revolutionary Girl Utena"), and American comic book writer/artist Colleen Doran. The panel would have been very interesting....had Colleen Doran not babbled about herself and chewed other panelists out the whole time. As much as I didn't want to admit it, I found the woman to be something of a bitch, and I wanted to throw something at her. At least all of the other panelists were super cool. :)

OK, I hate to say it, but I should have written this report sooner, because from this point on, things are a blur, and I'm probably listing events out of order. Therefore, I'll just talk about other random things I did.

By some crazy miracle, Mike, Scott, John, Janet, another guy whose name escapes me, and I all went to the local Pizza Hut. We attracted many stares from people, what with Scott and Janet in costume, and the six of us discussing the Final Fantasy movie. Yes, we are dorks. Oh well...dinner was fun!

When we got back to the hotel, we watched the Costume Contest and Cosplay. There were lots of pretty outfits...and a lot of the same things over and over again (Sailor Moon, Utena, Sakura...). Highlights included a skit of "fan service" which consisted of two females making out, and a Trigun skit with a male Vash and a female Wolfwood making out. Ah yes, kissing gets the big points.

Mike and I then attended a panel on subtitling and music videos. Me and Mike wanted to run up and throw in our two cents on music videos, but alas, we did not.

Damn, I forget what else we did....everything was kind of a blur, since I was worried about the music video contest. Oh well, speaking of that, I may as well talk about that now.

I went into the music video contest with a bunch of friends who supported me. In our group, all of us had submitted videos to Otakon, however, for Shoujocon, I was the only one with a submission. The competition- a few acquaintances of Scott, the well-known ErmaC (Justin Emerson), my friend from high school Rita, and a bunch of names I have never seen before. Well...the equipment in the music video room was shit. Videos using fansubs as their source was near impossible to watch, and my video, in which I used DVDs as a source, looked like the footage was taken from fansubs. As for the videos themselves, well, some were ones I would hope to never see again in my life, while others were highly enjoyable. My video was #7, right smack dab in the middle of the competition. My video was to be shown right after my high school friend, Rita (who, apparently, was in Mike's Japanese class last semester. Small world!) who made a "Hana Yori Dango" video. I was so nervous and my video was set to air. This was my first real video at a con, so the pressure. Even though I was turning green and was all sweaty with fright, I think Mike was more nervous than I was. We were both squeezing each others' hands like it was the friggin' Oscars. Yes, it sounds lame, but keep in mind that I had been working on my "Again" video since December, and Mike was a big part in the production of the video. It was just as much his work as it was my own. So, my video played, and while I saw it on the big screen, it was like a trippy dream. I was so used to watching the video on my computer and TV that seeing it at the con, and with an audience, was too odd. Finally, my video ended, and I could finally breath. I think I almost teared up, mostly out of relief that I could calm down, and I was happy that the vid went over so well with the crowd. After that, the rest of the videos were shown, and a great time was had by all. :)

Now, on to the freaky and cool part of the con. For the last several months, Mike and I have been involved in Scott's huge fan dub parody called "This is Otakudom." Our intention was to have it first air at Otakon, but, we were able to convince the head of video ops to show our rough draft, but almost completed version, of the dub on Sunday. Surprisingly, he agreed. What does this mean? It meant that Mike and I had to now come on Sunday. We had only intended to come on Saturday, but what the hell....it could be fun.

That night, I got home at a mere 1:15 am. My family was still awake, so I told them all about the con. I went off to bed, since I had to wake up at a staggering 7:30 am in the morning.

In the morning, Mike and I drove off to Shoujocon again. We went right to the second airing of the music video contest. I was happy to see fan response for a second time. Ah, what an ego feeder. :P

As soon as the contest was over, we debuted "This is Otakudom." The response was friggin' incredible! Something that we had seen in production for so long was finally being viewed up the public....and they ate it up. I know I didn't really have a major role in the dub, but even so, I was still hella proud to see how the audience reacted to the production. I only hope that someday, more people can see it, and that the fan dub will go over well at Otakon.

To kill time, Mike and I went out to lunch and went to a panel called "Is it Shoujo?" The panel went way off topic, but we did get to talk about "Jem and the Holograms," my fave American cartoon from the 80s. Again, Colleen Doran was a total skankeroo, but we had fun bashing her when it was over.

Time passed by. We hunted down the head of video ops again, and convinced him to show our fan dub again, at 4:20 pm. He agreed, and we immediately began to hand out (edited) fliers announcing the video.

After an hour of delays, it was time for the closing ceremony, in which the winners would be announced for the music video contest. While sitting with Scott, John, Janet and Mike, Mike and I were again found being all nervous again. When the con staffers got to announcing the winners, they made the situation more nervous by babbling about stupid stuff, and delaying the nervousness! The third place winner for the music video contest was a fun, magical girl video called "Warriors." Then it was time for second place. As soon as they said "Entry #7," I knew it was me, and it was weird! Gah, I've never won anything before, and it was neat to hear my name! So, I was very pleased that my video placed in the contest. Oh, happy happy! I went up to the stage to claim my prize...a Gundam Wing tarot card set. Hmm. Interesting. Well, I won my first video at a con, and I couldn't be more ecstatic. The first place winner was some large Asian guy with a video to the obscure 80s anime "Heroic Legend of Arislan," or something like that. I forget the title. His video was great and all, but I was surprised it won, since it seemed like he used an anime no one watches. Aw well, it was all good!

As soon as they announced the winners, we went off to see the second airing of our fandub. When we got to the video room, the place was packed, and soon after, people were flooding into the hallways. The audience repines was just as good as the first airing, so we were all happy.

When the fan dub was done airing 40 minutes later, Mike and I said our goodbyes to our hommies, and drove back home.

The Shoujocon was a definite improvement over last year's. However, I still found it to be rather small (hotels are baaaad), and un-organized (not having TV for a panel all about music videos, subtitling, and video games? Yeah, real smart). Even so, mad props to all those who made the con possible. It's a nice little con for the poor Midwest of this nation, which doesn't get much convention love. Can't wait to see how the con improves in later years!

So, that was my experience! It was fun, and I did more activities this year than I did last year. I was glad I walked away with second in the amv contest, and I was super happy my friends and I were able to show our fan dub. All in all, a fun weekend. :) I just couldn't wait to sleep after it was over.:P