Here are some thoughts swimming in my head.
Dandelion fetish
Lately I’ve been paying attention to the local greens on my way home from work, because it’s finally not dark when I do–a testament of summer in North America if there was one–and wondered just what it would take to make the dandelion tick as a pop cultural commodity worth a child’s fancy. I think the home improvement culture in the US pretty much put them out as one of the top public enemies come Spring time. Romantic stories about vagrants that bloom and gets blown around in the wind probably won’t get a lot of love as an analogy to this common weed. Rather than picking one up and blowing it, I think most parents would rather hand their kids one of these. Sorry Popotan.
Punch Line or  Terror in Resonance
Which of these two are bigger disappointments? Are they even equally bad? I think they actually are equally bad. Or good, depending on how you look at it. As animation I enjoyed Punch Line a lot more, where as Terror had the better soundtrack and hipster magnetism. Why would I compare the two? Because both are the same kind of story actually. I thought the way Punch Line worked was, at the very least, creative. Would Steins;Gate anime be just as bad if it was only half as long?
Also, while the above is kind of a spoiler to Punch Line, I struggled the longest to figure out what show it could be compared to. It’s probably best to watch Punch Line without much of a preconception anyway.
Dedication
I’m basically skipping AX for 10th and mental sanity. AX->10th->Otakon in back to back weekends in a sense is the perfect arrangement for 10th because I can still hit all three, but I’m going to die trying. So there is no try, just do not. Somehow this year the amount of work it takes to coordinate the event stuff is also monstrous so I’ll be busy this and next weekend anyway. It felt like I am pretty much orientating my 2015 eventing around it. But am I really that dedicated to IM@S 10th? It’s one of the weird cases where I may say yes.
It’s probably worth noting that Otakon this year is kind of “subpar” to AX. As much as I hate it, AX is still having some top guests. I want to go rep Hanabe and Moyochi. Go hear Takahashi Yoko. See the UBW event. Rock to MomoClo (and KISS?). Aren’t these still the most important things that a con can offer? The pain points of AX are just consequences of these things. At some point you have to wonder even if a con is run very well, what’s the point when it has no real headliner? Maybe those who still go to such a con are really dedicated. Maybe they’re just going for going’s sake. Yes, Paku Romi is a great get and Otakon will remain special for doing that, along with the usual JP guys who rep a solid event that I like. I’m just complaining that it’s a little anti-climatic.
Leave a Reply