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Anime Weekend Atlanta 2004

My trip to Anime weekend Atlanta was in a word, incredible. I saw so much and at long last saw and met Mari Iijima! That was the best part and the #1 focus of my going down there. Despite the craziness it was all worth it.

I left at 5 am on Friday, the 24^th. Keep in mind that I live about 10 miles outside of Washington, DC so I had to basically drive down from the top of VA to get to the NC border, then drive diagonally on Route 85 across NC (about 400 miles) just to get to SC and then GA. Needless to say it was a very long and exhausting trip. If you don¹t encounter much traffic or difficulty it takes about 9.5 hours. It took me over 13 hours to get there because of reduced speed zones in North and South Carolina due to construction and then I hit rush hour traffic when I crossed the Georgia border. I was very frazzled by the time I reached the hotel at 5:45 pm.

I did see a lot of fun things on the way though such as a water tower designed to look like a giant peach! On my way back on Sunday I took some snapshots from the side of the road. It was just too fab to be passed up.

Also when I was sitting in traffic 30 miles from the hotel, a trailer full of horses started jamming to the Mio compilation CD I was playing! I kid you not. I had the windows down and the volume turned up and thy started whinnying and stamping their hooves (apparently they really liked the song Oblivion). Every time my car moved away from them, they settled down, but whenever my car was back in alignment with them, they got all excited and started whinnying again at me and stamping their feet to the rock   roll rhythms. I made sweet cooing noises at them. They were so cute!!

Once I got to the hotel it was rush, rush, rush! I was like #6 in line and I as really sweating the time because Mari's concert was at 7pm and I still had to register for the convention. I know I should have pre-registered. Next time definitely! Fortunately the line to the right of me opened up completely (because 3 of the 4 people who were in it were with another woman who was in my line!) so I dived into it (literally). People were looking at me like I was a crazed maniac (which I was at that point). I answered the desk clerk's frightened look with, "I'm sorry but I've been in a car for 13 hours. My patience is gone!" She was such a sweetie and processed me at the speed of light. As soon as I had my keycard I dashed off to the elevators and to my room.

The room was fabulous! A luxury business suite with two TVs, a king-sized bed, mini fridge, deluxe bathroom, and had a whole bunch of little extras including an ironing board, iron, PC ports and keyboards, and a hair dryer. It was the kind of tricked up hotel room you know Ken ended up in after Barbie kicked his ass out of the mansion.

I threw my 20 pounds of luggage on the floor, stripped off my clothes and did a whirlwind cleanup. I had exactly one hour before Mari's concert started and I hadn't even registered!

I got to the hotel and wandered about in a frenzy looking for the registration desk. I finally found it and after a 10 minute wait in line as all set. I was starving and my head was spinning from the adrenaline rush. It was 20 minutes to show time and a line was already forming so I had no other choice but to get in line and wait.

I noticed that the majority of the people in line were young. In fact most of the concert attendees were very young, most barely 21. Where were the people my age and older, I wondered. Mari is a legend and a large portion of her supporters are 30 and over. It made me question how many of these children even knew who she was. This question was answered almost as instantly as I pondered it because a gentleman in his 40's asked me it out loud. I said that I wasn't and how could you be an Anime fan and NOT know who Mari Iijima was.

And because life is like that, this "I want to be Avril Lavigne" (I swear she had the bad hair and mascara and everything!) child in front of me she was practically a fetus!) turns around in a clueless Britney Spears-esque way says, "Oh, I don't know who she is. I'm just here 'cause it's J-Pop."

If I hadn't been using the last of my resources to keep myself from collapsing from exhaustion I would have bludgeoned her to death right there and then and stuffed the body some place nobody would find it. I was shocked to hear this, and apparently she wasn't the only clueless one in the crowd. The majority of these "new" Otaku only knew Anime through the bad dubs shown on Cartoon and Anime Network. Anything not on those channels is too far for their limited minds to look for. But I digress...

At a little past 7pm the doors opened and we all filled into the Grand Ballroom where they had a stage set up. The program said it was a two hour concert and as I looked around the room I was filled with a sense of awe and wonder. I tried to imagine the room stuffed with people all clamoring to see Mari perform. I got a chair ten seats back from the stage, which was super close. I marveled at the sight of her keyboard in the stage light.

As I slowly turned 360 degrees and observed the room, it became harder and harder to envision the room crowded with people, because there were only 50-75 in the entire place!!! My jaw dropped. The ballroom was three-fourths empty!!!! How could this be. This is Mari Iijima we're talking about here! The woman who WAS Lynn Minmay! The voice that sold a million gold singles and inspired 100 different variant fansubs of the film Do You Remember Love?!

It was in that moment that I was overwhelmed by a profound sadness. The old days were really gone. 6 years ago I would have been lucky to have gotten a seat so close given my late arrival. Every chair in the house would have been filled with dozens of people standing in the back and to the sides and many sitting in the isles. Where were the fans that remembered!? Where were the fans that cared? Gone. They were all almost completely gone. Swallowed by the sea of greasy adolescences following the latest American Pop Culture fad without any independent thought or appreciation. As I looked around I saw a few faces from the faithful old guard. People who remember the golden age of Anime, when the genre was more obscure and the quality was very high.

I took a deep breath and composed myself. I was here to see Mari. This was her moment as much as it was mine. At long last one of my greatest dreams was coming true. I was at last seeing Mari Iijima perform live and at the end of the evening would be meeting her face to face.

We all took our seats and the con staff closed the ballroom doors. An excited murmur went through the crowd as we spotted her wandering amongst us handing out brochures for her new album, Wonderful People. I felt like such a rabid fan boy when she stood within two feet of me and handed the gentleman sitting next to me a few brochures to hand down.

After a few minutes Mari took the stage and began her first song, I Miss You. It was incredible. Her voice was so pure and resonate. Just Mari and her keyboard. Her fingers dancing across the keys, pouring her heart and soul into every note that she sang. I couldn't stop smiling. The feeling was magical.

She continued with the songs Unspoken Love and Complete from her new album Wonderful People. Both are beautiful songs but when I heard the melody and lyrics of Complete I started crying. So beautiful, and so moving. It touched upon a secret truth I have held deep within myself for sometime now. It was as if my own private thoughts and emotions had been given a form in the shape of this song.

After her last two songs, Mari amused us with some Macross anecdotes then performed her signature song from the series, Do You Remember Love? It was beautiful but sad in a way. Her vocal range has decreased slightly simply from twenty years of concert performing, which happens to all artists. Don't get me wrong, she is still spectacular! No, what was really sad was the lack of, well, orchestration. Everyone at the concert who knew that song know it by the studio version used in the film and on the soundtrack. While the keyboard was pretty, it felt so stripped. We all enjoyed it nontheless, but for those of us who remember the past, it was very bitter-sweat.

Her next two songs were LAX and Survivor from her 2003 release, Silent Love. For these she put on a CD that contained the full orchestrations minus the keyboard and vocal cords. She admitted that she was switching to the CD because it was a little more exciting. I felt a little bad for her since the audience wasn't being more responsive. But I must say she is a trooper. She didn't let it get her down. Even when a number of people left during the middle of the show she didn't let it phase her. She even joked and said to them as they left, "It's OK. I don't mind, really. Don't feel bad about it." She is an angel. One day I want to be a person of that kind of accepting strength and purity.

The CD did help and added just enough to enhance an already wonderful performance. She then told us about her next song, Unspeakable, and how she came to write it. I had heard a clip from the song on her website a while back but not the whole thing. It was beautiful and true to Mari's tradition, very poignant.

Only an hour had passed but she announced that the next song was her last one. This was so we would all have time to meet her and get her autograph. The name of the song was I Can't Hide, and it is also from her new album. I was enraptured when it started. The melody was so beautiful and smooth, the lyrics engaging. But by the time she finished the first stanza I was no longer enraptured but transfixed. The lyrics and what she was saying with the melody and meaning of the song, was exactly what I had gone through with my ex. The unanswered phone calls, the awkward messages. The feeling of loving someone so much it hurts yet being separated by distance and missed opportunities. Every lyric gave words to feelings and thoughts that I never before had been able to express. I sat there unmoving, tears streaming down my face, and yet smiling and feeling so content. The experience was breath taking. My pain felt vindicated in a way, and I was comforted by the feeling that I was not the only one who had experienced that kind of lonely desperation. I clapped so hard when she finished my hands stung.

The 13 hour drive, the mad rush, even the sad observations, were all part of this incredible moment. Everything had been building to this perfect synthesis. There simply aren't enough words to describe just how phenomenal it was.

After the concert I stood in line and met Mari. She was awesome and even recognized me by my name from my posts on her website. She was so awesome. I took a picture of her and got a shot with her. I told her I'd e-mail them to her as soon as I downloaded them from my camera. After the show I had dinner in the hotel restaurant. I would later come to find out had I stuck around Mari would have invited me to tea or coffee!!!! She wrote me a lovely e-mail when she got back to L.A. hoping I had a safe trip home and that she enjoyed meeting me.

The rest of the weekend was less eventful but just as fun. I had no desire to partake of the other convention activities. Hell, there really wasn't anything to partake of really. All of the viewing rooms were showing shows from Carton and Anime network. I did go to the dealer's room and came away with two beautiful posters. The first was a Macross movie poster and the other was a Macross movie poster and the other was a Cat's Eye poster. I was very happy with these finds and they were very affordable.

No, instead of wasting my time at the convention, I hung out with Ryan who lives in the area. It was good seeing him and we spent hours just chatting and doing much of nothing. It was so wonderful and relaxing. On Saturday night we watched Kill Bill Vol. 1, which I had never seen before. What an awesome film! I didn't think it would be any good. But WOW was it violent. I screamed during one scene and Ryan was like, "Dude! You can't do that or you'll get arrested!" I couldn't help it, the scene took me by surprise.

All in all I had a fabulous weekend. It was just what I need, but very tiring. I'm hoping to have a quiet week this week.