You Can't Spell "Fanime" Without 
Making an Anagram of "Famine"
The FuKu FanimeCon 2004 Recap
by Chiriko

Hello, kids, and a happy June to you all. It’s time to introduce a new type of article akin to a 'how we spent our summer vacation' theme: the Con Reports! The first installment of this nightmare of the human psyche brings us to FanimeCon 2004 for a cornucopia of failed dreams and human misery.

Fanime is a fairly miserable experience no matter what the occasion, but the simultaneous advent of Pacific Media Expo and Animazement combined with a new convention center made this year’s con a particularly barren and lonely experience (although, for the record, the con’s attendance was still considerably larger than years prior and PMX apparently tanked – I blame bad marketing) that was stuffed full of some pretty foul otaku. Now, of course, as in any con, the staff of Fanime did a commendable job in adverse situations while dealing with obnoxious, immature, and disgusting otaku, and I make it a point not to shit-talk about people who are giving up their weekend so some asshole can sit in a video room and watch Love Hina. As in any other convention, we had some regulars who became popular characters in the soap opera that is the convention circuit; we had some fun events and memorable quotes... so, let’s begin:

The drive up was plenty eventful as we prepared Kenneth for the horrors he would soon encounter; to pass the time, Janelle suggested we play Dungeons and Dragons, which none of us had ever played before or knew how to play. This resulted in a great game, naturally:

"I’ll be the Dungeon Master," began Janelle. "The two of you are in the forest when you encounter a gnome, who says 'Give me your money!' What do you do?"
"I run away," said Kenneth.
"I cast fire," I said.
"What the hell? Okay, Kenneth, you fell in a hole because you were running like a pussy, and the fire scared the poor gnome off – he was poor! He was just begging for money!"
"I don’t care," I said. "I cast fire anyway."
"Okay, now you two are walking along and you encounter the gnome village, where the peaceful but impoverished gnomes live. They—"
"—I cast fire!" I said.
"Me too, we cast double fire!" said Kenneth.
"Oh my god! Those are gnome women and children! How horrible! Well, the gnomes are all fleeing the city and it’s burning, so the gnomes hate you and are—"
"—we burn the city to the ground," I clarified. At which point Janelle said "What, are you going to—" and then we both said in perfect unison, "—salt the earth so nothing can ever grow there!" By the end of the drive Janelle had joined us as a holy mage and we’d killed a dragon, hatched her eggs and gained baby dragons (we named them Hollister and Gilroy after highway signs), killed the king of the Mushroom People so that I could be their King, and rescued the Penguin Princess (a BDSM Queen) from King Mortimer. And fucked her vigorously. Most interesting game of Dungeons and Dragons ever played, if I do say so myself. Although, I hear that apparently the game is supposed to involve dice, stats, and things like HP and MP. WTF? That sounds pretty lame, if you ask me.

The convention began Friday, but we didn’t arrive until around 7 pm (actually, 7:20, the exact time she had guessed we would arrive initially; Janelle’s mutant power is guessing perfectly exactly long how trips will take). We were not particularly upset about arriving so late. I am bound by professional honor not to say anything about the karaoke contest (as always), but it was actually far better than prior fanime contests have been – or perhaps after so many years of judging, no amount of bad singing can faze me. Whatever the case, the winners of the contest did a really good job and I was pleasantly surprised. (Our own resident fukuteer KinFreon sang some IniD songs. Imagine that! We have FuKu Otaku now! O.O) Surprisingly, we closed up not long after beginning our open-mic shift because nobody was in the queue, and so we got to sleep earlier than planned. It could only go downhill from there, of course.

Val and I went to get hotel security to lock the karaoke room as it was closing up, and went on a search for the black courtesy phone; upon encountering the payphone inset we saw that it was occupied by a couple making out, to which I remarked "Oh, no courtesy phone here, just some otaku making out," while nonchalantly walking by. We finally found the courtesy phone at the front desk that made the phone at the front desk ring and went back to wait for security to come lock the door. At this point Mikey and his drunken posse came by, drunker than ever before. One of his weirdo friends put his arms around me and told me how great he and I were because we were white guys, then pretended to buttfuck Mikey. Such idiotic drunkenness was the perfect opportunity; I sic’ed them on the otaku couple in the phone booth and listened with delight from down the hall.

Friday night was the first night we saw Gotaku, also known as Whorf. Gotaku resembled a Klingon in a Goku costume and had not gotten a room at a hotel; he instead set his computer up on a table near the 24-hour arcade in the concourse and remained there the entire weekend (barring a nasty incident later that resulted in the temporary closing of the concourse, at which point he moved to a lobby chair in an adjacent hotel), computer and all. Suffice it to say, he obviously didn’t have a shower he could use, and he didn’t change out of the costume at all. I don’t believe he went to any panels or video rooms; hell, I’m not even sure he bought a badge. His entire strategy seemed to be to play anime music videos on his computer and pray to whatever Dark Lord inspires each FanimeCon that someone would come his way, look over his shoulder, and be his friend. Even sadder, a couple of times it seems this trick worked, although he didn’t get any girls to talk to him that way. We saw Gotaku every time we walked between the Hilton (where we stayed) and the Mariott (where most of the con was held) through the convention center, all weekend long, without fail. The most disturbing thing is that he seems to have had both a desktop system and an IMac (check the pictures)... what the fuck?

Having arrived late Friday night, I was more than ready to leave the con by early Saturday morning; after breakfast we met up with Lucinda and left for the mall. Once we returned (after lunch and a hot topic trip) we decided that Saturday was the day to at least attempt to explore the con; Val and I decided to check out the (miserable) dealer’s room and found out something that delighted us: at 4 pm there was a "How to pick up women" panel. Well, we’d struck comedy gold, and it was time to cash in! Unfortunately, when we got there we were greeted with horrifying news; the panel was completely full. Completely jammed full of people. The rover in charge of turning people away (and I swear at least fifty people were turned away) opened the door for a brief moment and a wave of sick-smelling heat flew out of the room—it resembled the scent of sweet cream rotting in the hot sun mixed with every foul otaku odor analogy one can find. Even then, the audience was half-female; I think (and hope to whatever Dark God inspires each Fanime) that most were there for humor value, but given the parade of suffering I’d already experienced I was willing to accept the fact that someone probably went there to land herself some desperate congoing ass. After a snack in the concourse with friends (while sitting across from Gotaku), I decided that it was time for a nice long nap, in spite (because) of the offering of con events and activities like the masquerade. (I do not ever attend masquerade. I have no interest in waiting in line 8 hours to see people in costumes performing stupid skits and I can't understand what the appeal would be to anyone who isn’t actually cosplaying IN THE MASQUERADE.)

KT was, however, at the Masquerade; she had learned there would be no judging on construction (how the costume is made, what materials are used, etc.) and decided to make a Gundam costume out of cardboard and duct tape as a joke. It won second place, just like every costume KT has ever made that she didn’t care about at all. After winning, she handed the costume off to me and I donned it for a little while. KT has a lot of skill, and it was a really good costume; people were actually taking my picture. When someone would say "That’s a great looking Gundam!" I would reply, "What? How dare you! I’m the Macross!" I also sang the Macross theme (through the cardboard helmet) as part of my little costume tour. Before my shift I headed back to my hotel, past Gotaku, and changed out of the costume; when I tried to give it back to KT, she grabbed the helmet and left the entire thing at the mercy of the hotel cleaning staff when the con ended. Speaking of cosplay, Janelle and Kenneth did an excellent Kozue and Hideaki (Maru’s skinny and bitchy younger sister and her eternally-defeated stereotypical Japanese boyfriend) from Fat Girls’ Club.

Val and I worked our Saturday night shift (from 2 AM to whenever people stopped coming) in the way all of the Karaoke Kaizokudan staff does; courteously, professionally, and with cynical disdain for those who cross us. We are the pirates of karaoke signups; if you make us happy, you will make us very happy; if you piss us off, we will destroy you. There are always assholes who make our lives a living hell and we’re still pretty nice to them, but as soon as they’re gone, they become the real personalities of the convention, and the stories you read on this website. The most requested things that weren't in our database? The English version of "Sobakasu" from Rurouni Kenshin and anything by Gackt. One such request involving an angry asshole otaku went a little something like this:

Angry Asshole Otaku: Do you have ギャックトウ? [This was so over-pronounced it was unintelligible.]
Val: ...What?
AAO: ギャックットウ?
Val: What are you saying? Tommy, do we have that?
Me: What is it you're looking for?
AAO: ギャックットウ.
Me: Uh... what? Sorry, it's loud in here. Say that again?
AAO: ギャックト.
Me: Uh, sorry... gyakkkuttto... oh! Gakuto!
Val: Oh my god! Are you saying Gackt?!
AAO: [Insufferably annoyed.] YES! ギャックト!
Me: Aahhh, yes, Gackt.
AAO: So do you have him?
Me: No.
AAO: [Extremely furious.] WHAT? WHY?
Me: Because he sucks.
AAO: WHAT?! He does not!!! He’s awesome!!! Blah blah blah blah.
AAO’s Japanese girlfriend[?]: [In Japanese] Ooh, look, I want to sing this song.
AAO: [Furiously shouts her down in incomprehensible and angry Japanese before storming off.]

I hope he dies. He totally thought we couldn’t understand him talking about how stupid we were to her, too. Sadly, he was not the most memorable personality of the con... that honor goes to someone much more insane.

And now, we're proud to present... Teh Jane's Tattoo Gallery!

Fanime 2004's Con FuKu Personality was without a doubt The Jane, who I purposely signed up as "Teh Jane" repeatedly. She meandered in, sang some songs absolutely awfully, and then came over to sign up for more. She joined some others in praising my addition of Shiina Ringo songs to the database and signed up for a song at my suggestion (and she wasn’t the only one,  thank god). While she moaned through the songs in a totally tone-deaf manner, I delighted in the fact that Shiina Ringo's voice was piercing enough to render her rendition fairly null. But unfortunately, suggesting a song to her would work against us all, as she was drunk and feeling talkative. Through her asocial and drunken ramblings we caught a glimpse of a truly disturbed and fragile psyche – and we got a glimpse of her scary Fushigi Yuugi tattoos, as well (I’m so glad nothing I had on me said 'Chiriko' on it). For the record, she had a Chibi-Usagi tattoo somewhere I don’t want to remember, some weird character I don’t remember on her ankle, SD Tamahome and Miaka at either side of her navel, and gigantic full-back Tamahome and Miaka tattoos that were, she told us, the beginnings of something larger. Just a sample of the insane dialogue from that night:

Teh Jane: See, I’m going to get each of the seishi in with a flower and then have a pagoda and my whole back will be this awesome Japanese garden blah blah blah [rambles on and on]
Val: Well, you’ll never be able to bathe in Japan.
Teh Jane: I wanted to go to Japan and meet Yu Watase but I hear she’s really skittish, like she can’t even get on a plane or anything...
Me: Yeah, that’s why they call her "Pukey Yu."
Teh Jane: ...so if she saw me with my Fushigi Yuugi tattoos she might get a little freaked out, you know, if she’s really skittish!
Me: Yes, she would.
Teh Jane: Yeah, cuz I know if I created some awesome characters and saw them tattooed on someone I might get a little weirded out.
Me: Well, I don’t think she likes her characters very much.
Teh Jane: Of course she does!!! She created them, it’s such a wonderful world!!! She has to love them all!
Val: Well, her favorite character is Nakago.
Me: Yeah, and he kills everyone.
Teh Jane: Oh my God! Really?!
Val: It’s in, like, every interview with her... You didn’t even know that, and you have her characters tattooed all over you?

At this point, our friend Ed (a doctor) saw them and remarked "...Wow. That must be hard to disinfect."

Since on Sunday I had no intention of hanging out at the convention whatsoever before my shift, I instead spent the day with Janelle & Co. in San Francisco, where I bought some awesome and really comfortable tight shirts in the Castro, and had an unpleasant experience with the worst bloody business-minded Chinese woman ever; she was balding and refused to haggle for a piece of shit bit of merchandise. (WTF?! What kind of Chinatown shop-keep refuses to haggle?! We bitched about how she had the worst business sense ever, because nobody would ever buy her crap.) So, flash forward beyond the Dim Sum and Pepper Lunch (for dinner!) to the resumption of my con activities, and the second insane appearance of Teh Jane.

This time, Teh Jane had been to a smashing industry party (with her illegitimate industry badge) and brought back con Guest Shannon Weaver (also drunk) to the karaoke room. Now, many people may not know who the fuck Shannon Weaver is. We are among them; he’s some voice actor for ADVision who’s really arrogant. He demanded the English version of "Sobakasu" that we didn’t have, so he decided he’d sing it anyway from his drunken memory after The Jane talked him into it. They came to our table.

"I'd like to sign up for that song, Freckles," he said.
"Name?" went Val.
"SHANNON WEAVER!" replied both he and The Jane indignantly, visibly appalled that we couldn't recognize (and hadn't heard of) the great Shannon Weaver. (For the record, he does the voice of dubbed Kenshin.) So we signed him up, and it was time for The Jane to annoy us again. But, instead, for some reason, she decided it was time to go not ten minutes later:
"So, yeah, I’m sorry, but I’m going to need to cancel my song," she said.
"That’s okay, I’d already cancelled your song anyway," I replied. And that was the last we saw of her.

The night was not over yet. A polite Japanese (REALLY Japanese) guy came over to the desk and was browsing songs when a fangirl bobbled up to us.
"Do you have any Gackt?" she asked.
"No," I replied.
"Why not!!!!???" she said, about the eighty-thousandth time that had been asked that weekend.
"Because he sucks," said I. The Japanese guy let out a snort of laughter that he quickly and politely contained, the girl bitched about how Gackt did not suck, and wandered off into obscurity. But it was a nice moment of people of different tastes and different cultures united in hatred for Gackt. And then it was time for Shannon Weaver to sing.

Now, I’d assumed Shannon had departed with The Jane to go and fuck her, but apparently he wasn’t that drunk (and he was pretty damned drunk), so he stuck around even after she left to sing his song. Luke was emceeing/teching and called out his name: "Shannon Weaver?"

Another scene that does not involve Fanime in any way. Also, apparently homosexuals need to pay more for gas than anyone else.

Shannon came walking up, and Luke said "Who are you?" The gaggle of fangirls in the audience all screamed in unison "It’s SHANNON WEAVER!!!" as if Luke was so stupid for not knowing who some shitty and obscure North American voice actor was. Shannon Weaver acted like an ass on stage (and karaoke-girl Mara sang with him – in Japanese – after he asked people who actually knew the song to come help him), but whatever. He was having fun and was pretty drunk, so it doesn’t matter. At least he didn’t bone The Jane. Her purity is intact, just like Miaka's. (HAHAHAHAHA.)

And then it was Monday, and we left as quickly as we could. After all, with Gotaku gone, the con was clearly coming to a close; what could we do but flee in horror, and have a nice scenic drive down the 101 at the same time? On the car ride home, Janelle shared with me one of the most horrible quotes she’d ever heard; she was sitting around with Kenneth when she overheard an asian otaku attendee say "I’m really sad because I was positive I would have a girlfriend by the end of this con." She thought he was joking and laughed, but he was dead serious: "There are so many girls here,  and we’ve got the same interests, so I thought for sure I’d hook up with someone!" Oh. My. God. Time to go!

And so, as we pulled into downtown Los Angeles at 9:17 PM (the exact time Janelle had guessed we would arrive), the curtain closed on yet another Fanime successfully brought to us all by the Dark Lord Tchernobog. And now, it’s simply time to put this whole harrowing experience far, far behind us. May the City of San Jose heal its collective psychological and sociopolitical wounds, as well.