Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - Otaku no Video Room
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ConanSan
Posts: 1818 |
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Auchinawa 2010, Professor Layton Movie Showing; a tie between everyone going nuts figuring out the Layton's side burns and ear look like a puzzle piece and everyone going nuts about Inspector Clamp Grosky (best character).
Though a personal favourite of mine is asking at the opening ceremony if the prerequisite YuGiOh Tournament would take place on Motorcycles. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2569 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I've been to a few video rooms at cons. Those rooms were the first times I saw titles like Crows Zero & Kamen Rider V3, but I think my favorite was at AnimeNext last year, which had a full-on live roasting of Dragonball Evolution by Kyle Hebert... It was beautiful.
Normally, I like the idea of the video room & special showings, but it usually requires something that really catches my interest to have me go to one. |
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williamflipper
 Posts: 32 Location: London UK, Trieste Italy |
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Mr Mike tool , I love your writing. When are you going to write some damn crazy book about what is in your mind?
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ittoujuu
Posts: 164 Location: SoCal |
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After so many years away from cons, going back to the scene with AX 2012 was a fun experience. I wondered if the video rooms would be mere vestiges of their former selves now that we can download or stream almost anything we might want to see. To my surprise, I found the video rooms I looked in on to be in pretty good health, from the solidly-attended premiere of Space Bros. I sat in on to the at-capacity room screening Toradora. I wondered, "Are these people discovering the series for the first time, or are they just fans who want to watch it again on a big screen with some people around?" I'd like to think that video rooms are still places where someone can take a chance on something they've maybe only heard of and discover something they think is totally great.
My best time in the video rooms, though, was the Saturday night Laser Disc marathon, with sweet stuff like the Battle Angel OAV, some Bubblegum Crisis, Mermaid's Forest, and a screening of Ghibli's "On Your Mark" music video animation. Really a treat, and one I'll totally attend again next time I'm at a con that has a similar showing. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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My top 2 memories from anime con video rooms:
1) Video Room was showing the first few episodes of Sailor Stars at a time when Sailor Moon was about at it's peak (late 90s) and Stars was pretty much assumed to never be getting a US release. The room was packed and midway through a group of Sailor Moon cosplayers enters. They promptly receive a raucous ovation from all the viewers as they take seats to watch the show. 2) At an early A-Kon, the video staff was showing Tenchi Muyo they showed several episodes and then the suddenly the whole room ground to a halt. The lights came on and the staff informed all the audience "ok, we have the next 2 (OVAs) but the (closed caption) subs aren't working with the video system. We can show it RAW or we can show it dubbed. What do you want?" Being a room full of good little hardcore fans, we all scream "RAW!" We then proceed to watch 30 minutes of nigh incomprehensible Tenchi nonsense. After that episode finishes, the video staff polled the room again, we meekly accepted the dub. 
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davemerrill
Posts: 20 |
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I had repressed the memory of that AWA 5 Utena screening that turned into a dance. Thanks, I think. I believe the next year we had a Miyazaki film scheduled again late in the main room, and certain individuals decided that pre-empting it with a dance was just the ticket. Didn't work that time, as I recall.
My earliest video-room anime memory is sitting in a video room at a convention in 1982 (?) watching the dub of Phoenix 2772 on somebody's wood-panelled TV, thinking THIS IS SO COOL. |
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Sleverin
 Posts: 153 |
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Awww, now that's the sort of stuff that's always nice to read about. People awkwardly bonding at conventions that turns out good in the end. Maybe that'll be the next article: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Find Love at a Convention. Boom, next column picked out, you can thank me later. |
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KakulonSSJ4
Posts: 15 |
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My first anime con was Otakon 2003 and I remember vividly walking into my first ever screening room and it was a showing of some bizarre hentai with a room fully filled. I was a little shocked to see so many people gathered, but it was fun nonetheless as there was constant mockery of what was before us.
My greatest memory of a screening room would probably be a tie between two events. One was at New York Anime Festival 2010, when I got to see the world premiere of the Mardock Scramble movie, with the author, Tow Ubukata, sitting there with us and later answering questions and even signing posters for us. The other great memory actually happened at that very first Otakon in 2003, when for the first time, I watched Mobile Suit Gundam Char's Counterattack on 35mm film (could be wrong?). That was an amazing experience too. And of course my worst memory of a screening room had to be when I had the displeasure of waiting in line for nearly two hours to sit in a very large, very crowded room, watching the Gundam 00 movie with subtitles that were extremely small and low on the screen and the constant craning of the head to see over the person in front of you. This was at NYAF 2010 as well. Honestly, I really enjoy the anime screening rooms and make it a point that if I'm ever at an anime convention, I go check out their schedule to see what might be programmed because you may find jewels like the Mardock Scramble viewing, which got about 10 people showing up for it, but was great nonetheless. |
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Hellfish
Posts: 391 Location: Mexico |
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huh? That tv picture looks kinda new, at least 90s to me... then again Mexico on the 90s and 80s tend to be full with technology that was way outdated by the standards of most people from the USA (We had betamax as the standard format well into the nineties O.o)
My first con ever was basically one Aisle of one college building, and with some projections on some classrooms. They had Mermaid Saga there which I really liked and considering I was 12 at the time it certainly left me impresed... pity the con didn't seem to repeat and Mazatlan hasn't have an anime con since then (A multitude of cosplay contests with a few vendors do not count) |
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moroboshi-kun
Posts: 59 |
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I have to say that picture of the projector brought back a bombardment of sensory memories - the heat it gave off, the smell of overheated electronic components, stale air...seriously takes me back...
I'm an old-schooler and my first experiences with anime rooms was in the 80's, and I have to say I do miss the feeling of coming in blind about what a show was and just getting gobsmacked my something new and awesome. Then again, I'm one of those people who tries to recuse themselves from movie trailers once I know I want to see the movie. But let's talk Capricon 1989. I pretty much camped out in the video room there and saw much awesomeness throughout the day. Again, this is before you could just pluck shows off the shelf or out of the ether, so there were a lot of shows I knew existed but didn't have a way to see. I remember them show Gundam: Char's Counterattack, the first SD Gundam video, and (I think) the first Bubblegum Crisis. But the real treat came towards early evening when Akira got popped in. This was less than a year after it had been released in theaters, so it was kind of a big deal. Full room. No subtitles. Just awesome to be there, and made better by a room full of people there to see it. But as great as that was, almost even more fun was the showing of Project A-Ko after that. Most of the people stayed, and I think everyone needed to come down a bit from the intensity of Akira, and, well, the almost non-stop laughter just enhanced everything. I love Project-Ako, but every time I watch it I almost feel like I'm "chasing the dragon", wanting to recapture what it felt like to watch that the first time in that room with that crowd. I went home shortly after that (long day) but came back the next morning to see Wings of Honneamise to a mostly empty room, but everyone there clapped then the rocket finally lifted off. Another awesome moment. I think the final Urusei Yatsura movie was in there too, which to this day is one of my favorite movies. Writing this takes me back to the early days of anime fandom, when, at least to some extent, being into anime practically meant you had a second job, but that made it better in a way, and I did meet a lot of cool people along the way. But then again, I'm old. You kids enjoy your anime your way and stay off my lawn! |
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rojse
 Posts: 234 |
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I went to a convention specifically to watch Evangelion 2.22, before it had hit DVD and Blu-Ray. The showing was held in an auditorium, with a large projector screen, and enough seats for approximately five hundred people. The room was packed to capacity.
I suspect most of the audience were fans of NGE, or at least really enjoyed the movie - the audience laughed, cheered or became excited at the right moments. In fact, it was quite easy to get caught up in the emotions of the crowd when they all share the same interest as you do, and it's certainly something that you can't experience when watching anime at home. |
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Joe Vecchio
Posts: 3 |
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I'm old enough to remember the days of scifi conventions before there were video rooms, back in the seventies when you either had film or slide shows. There was a Star Trek convention in NY that had an amateur film festival of silent 8mm films, and one particularly hilarious one using the old Star Trek MECO "action figures" that also featured a Klingon outpost that was literally a shoe box with the word "Klingon" written on it.
One time when I was heading up JACO, the local lit convention OASFIS (Orlando Area Science Fiction Society) invited us to show anime videos at the convention, but insisted we each pay memberships. We just rented a room in the hotel and showed videos there... I also remember the hentai room at AWA 3 where, as I was wandering around the hotel later in the evening, I poked my head in the door and proclaimed in a very bad Southern accent, "Why, that's nothing but PORNO-GRAPHY!" Ah good times... |
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StudioToledo
 Posts: 847 Location: Toledo, U.S.A. |
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A lesson my mom never learned, since by 1983 we had two VCR's and about 50 black tapes recorded in EP mode of the latest movies from the stores. I had it best. |
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kevinx59
 Posts: 959 Location: In sunny California |
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I only recently started going to cons, but in AX2011 me and my friends had found out on Saturday that they were showing the K-On! dub, so we all went to check it out(it inspired my friend to buy Bandai's blu ray vol. 1, which i bought last year off of him for $5)
This last year I went to the video room much more often, usually when something I liked was playing or in between panels/exhibit hall trips. Its were I first watched Okami-san and the dub of Panty and Stocking(which, surprising enough, all of my friends, even the ones that didn't like anime, enjoyed). Seeing Evangelion on the big screen was pretty cool as well. I have yet to attend a hentai panel though; me and my friends always plan to, but we never end up going. And as a side note, back when I was in elementary and even middle school(in 2003) we had tvs just like the ones in the picture. |
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