Third Time's the Charm

It's hard to believe that the summer is already over - vacation-wise, at any rate.  (I won't lie to you and say that I went to all the awesome summer festivals that were taking place this weekend because it was still Too Darn Hot.)  I'm sitting in my classroom wrapping this up during lunch of the second day of our teacher orientation, but I'm definitely not ready to deal with children who don't share my bloodline yet.  I meant to do some blogging while I was home but then I started binge watching Supernatural and it was all over.

Before that happened, I made my annual road trip to observe the ebb and flow of American otaku-ism...AnimeIowa.  Now you may be thinking to yourself, Didn't this bitch spend the last year living in Japan?  Did I really need to drive two and a half hours to see what America does to the fandom of my choice, particularly given the fact that I've already gone to AnimeIowa twice?  That's a question I struggled with myself.  I considered running a panel, but ultimately never submitted a proposal, and I was too busy working on my master's and my art to do much sewing this year, so it was May before I finally decided to book a hotel room for myself and my mom (who always goes with me).

In the end, it mostly boiled down to the fact that I love competing in the Mini-Festival with my plushies.  The Mini-Festival was a competition that started two years ago at my first AI.  I'd just started making plushies that spring, and I submitted my entry with trepidation as I sat in the Beijing airport waiting for my layover to end.  Although I didn't win, I found myself fired up by the experience, and brought my best game the following year to win the plushie category.  I spent the last year working intermittently on three dolls.  The day before I left Iowa last summer I finally started working on my Yato.  Shortly after getting to Japan I decided to start Kuriyama Mirai.  And finally, before my first UFO win I'd started working on Hozuki.  At the time I booked our hotel, I hadn't finished any of them.  At the time I left Japan I hadn't finished any of them...but I had decided which one to enter, and that was Mirai-chan.  I figured something different would be good.

This year's competition was different.  I believe there were fewer doll entries and more Gunpla ones.  I was really impressed with one plush doll, and figured she would win the plushie category.  Her entry was larger than mine, and the body was based on the classic Cabbage Patch doll, so much more complex; she'd even sewed wires into the limbs to make them pose-able.  The doll entries were pretty fierce, too - one lady had this absolutely gorgeous jellyfish doll, and I had resigned myself to going home without a prize this year when the judges came back in from their deliberation.  They went through the Gunpla awards, gave the plushie prize to the doll I'd pegged for the win, and seemed to have finished up when they said they had one last prize to award - the best in show.

I was hopeful, but tried not to hold my breath as they mentioned that it had been an easy, unanimous choice, then announced me as the winner.  Elizabeth-san, who I kind of think of as the Mini-Festival den mother, complimented me on just how good I was getting as they handed me several awesome prizes, including a medal for myself and my doll (which is actually my favorite prize - I love that I have two plushies in my bedroom now proudly wearing little medals).  That moment kind of made me feel vindicated for these past few months when I wondered if I could really call myself an artist.  As I walked back to the hotel that evening, I sure felt like one.

As I mentioned, my decision to go was largely influenced by the desire to show off my mad sewing skills, but I think I also just kind of wanted to feel like a part of this fandom.  I may be living that rock and roll lifestyle in Japan,  but I still don't have the language skills, so I still don't feel as connected to it as I would like.  I'm still planning on going to Comiket when I get back next month, and to AnimeJapan in the spring, but I realize it'll be more as an observer than a participant, because someone let herself get intimidated by all the different readings for each kanji.  So yeah.  Part of me just wanted to nerd out in English.

Being an hour from Akiba means that the vendor hall didn't hold quite the appeal it once did, but I was still on a mission.  There were at least two things I wanted that I figured would be cheaper and/or easier to buy here than in Japan.  I haven't gotten too crazy about figures, since the industry really caters more to men than women, and while I enjoyed Free! and Yuri on Ice!! I'm not really into that scene.  I do love me some nendoroids, though, and Goodsmile only released their Naruto nendos in the States (as the Kawaii Kingpin pointed out sometime in the last year when I complained about the price of the one I'd found).  I found Naruto, Sakura, and Itachi, all reasonably priced compared to what I'd seen them going for at Mandarake, but since I was hoping for Kakashi-sensei, I passed.  On the other hand, given the many, maaaaanyyyyy vendors selling Funko Pops, I was able to find myself an Erza.  Goodsmile hasn't made any Fairy Tail nendoroids, so I actually ordered her last November, but apparently I'm currently under an ordering curse, because my package went astray and they had sold out by the time I realized it.  I wasn't planning on buying anything else, but then I came across the TeeTurtle stall.  I got in on the Kickstarter of their game, Unstable Unicorns last year, and instantly recognized their sarcastic/kawaii designs.  Given my current income bracket, I wasn't planning to buy much clothing this trip, but when I saw their kitsune t-shirt that proudly proclaimed, "I Give Zero Fox," my fate was sealed.

Other than the dolls and the vendors, there was one more thing I was really excited about - debuting as an otaku flutist.  Each year, AI hosts what they call Karaoke Reverse - a competition to see who can put on the best performance.  The past two years I dithered, unsure how well a flute performance would go.  This year the description definitely mentioned instruments, so I figured, what the hell, why not...but continued to dither until I saw the song list.  They choose five different anime openings you can perform, and then it's up to you to win the audience over, not just with your talent, but with your performance.

As I read down the list, I was a little disappointed, because "History Maker" was the only song I knew, and I figured everyone would choose it (I wasn't wrong - between the fact that it has English lyrics and Yuri on Ice!! is God's gift to fujoshi, I was the only contestant who didn't perform it).  Then I got to the final choice - "Here," from Mahoutsukai no Yome, and knew that's what I would perform.  I'm not going to lie to you - it was a bitch to figure out.  My brother suffered through several rehearsals as I figured out the key changes while my parents were away playing with the grandkids.  Seriously - who writes in F# major?!  By the time my mom and I hit the road to Des Moines, though, I pretty much had it figured out.
It was an interesting mix of performances (song choice aside, anyways).  There were two solo performances of "History Maker."  Another was a group of three women, one who sang as her friends twirled a rainbow flag and a rainbow ribbon.  I thought this was a tiny bit ironic.  Admittedly, Yuri on Ice!! is more than a little gay, but it's boy's love, and the opening from Citrus, a girl's love anime, was one of the other choices.  It seemed like a better fit for them to me.  The last performance was by two guys, one of whom sang "History Maker" while the other one snuck up behind him and pretended to try and hit him...possibly so he would stop singing the same song as everyone else.  That was it.  Most of us got up and sang again, just for funsies, but apparently in years past there were more contestants.

I was pretty happy to be tapped for Judges' Choice, and then again as the first runner-up...although I found the prizes a little mystifying.  I'm not sure who was in charge of buying them, but it seems like if you're going to give away prizes at an anime convention, a Ghibli film or something by Makoto Shinkai seems like a more logical movie than Robocop and Spaceballs.  The two guys won the grand prize, and I was happy for them...until I saw that part of their prize was the Super NES Mini.  The fact that one of them came up to me afterwards to say he'd been a trumpet player in high school and hearing me play me flute was chou natsukashii didn't entirely erase my need to wear my new "Salty Bitch" t-shirt...but it was a nice gesture all the same.