Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - Otaku no Video Room
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Lunacon 1983 was in 1993? Video rooms at cons for me have always been nice cooldown spots after walking and standing for hours. A nice break area to rest and dig through your purchases. They're dark, the audio isn't usually blasting, it's not crowded. They're still serve that purpose, at least. That AV stand reminds me of school... except that's definitely a later 90s early 00s TV just on the serve of a flat screen, and clearly a combo player. We just had basic black boxed cheap TVs and cheap VCRs. How do public schools have setups today, HDTVs mounted to walls? I don't think they can strap them onto carts like they did with CRTs. |
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Zendervai
 Posts: 197 |
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The more advanced schools have projectors everywhere, but a lot of schools still have the old CRT stand thing.
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Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
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My school has projectors in every room and the teachers just connect their laptops (all the teachers are provided with complementary laptops) to them if they want to show something.
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Otaku_X
 Posts: 298 |
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I've made it a tradition to go to a hentai screening every con, mainly because the first con I went to (Anime Central 2005) I was 18 but the friend I went with was only 17, to I just did it then to mock him, and now it's a weird tradition. Funniest thing though was that they did 'hand checks' every so often (I'm hoping it was as a joke...) where they'd yell "HAND CHECK!" and you had to raise your hands in the air. I was at a showing of Stainless Night (Labled on the schedule as a yuri movie, though it's not entirely yuri. I won't go into more detail here, of course), when they did a hand check and the girl sitting next to me yelled "CAN YOU WAIT A MINUTE?"
The next part, from the same screening, I'm going to put in spoilers for being a bit more 'adult' spoiler[There's a scene when the younger of the tree women on this vacation is mad that neither girl is sleeping with her. She has a dog, and everyone in the audience starts chanting "DO THE DOG!" She looks at the dog, he cocks his head and runs away. She looks at a tree, so we start chanting "DO THE TREE!" Then she did.] |
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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You know I think the only two times I've been in a video screen room was when I caught part of the new FMA movie and then part of the Eureka 7 movie, if we're not counting that time at Ichiban 2 or 3 where they just had a tv on a stand in the corner of the lobby with a few couches around it (they were playing everything dubbed and it was too loud to hear anything sadly). I did try to organize a video room for my college club's nerdy con this past year though, it was supposed to have a wide variety of stuff but then towards the end of planning our club president got a bit, possessive, took offense that I didn't want to show pokemon, said she'd make the DVDs to show herself (for stuff like webshows I'd gotten permission to screen) and then her boyfriend was making them the day of and all the files for one show were corrupted. After that I never want to try and run a big con, I don't think I can deal with even more drama than that.
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GWOtaku
 Posts: 678 |
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There was a time when video rooms at cons were a fabulous way for me to discover or rediscover things. Most memorable highlights for me include a complete marathon of the Record of Lodoss War OVA at what I think was Otakon 2006. I'm fortunate to be close to that, as most recently it's been a way to see some fresh things from Japan sooner rather than later: Children Who Chase Lost Voices, Welcome to the Space Show, Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos. Good times.
My most fond experience was seeing the 1982 film Arcadia of My Youth at a Katsucon one year. I'm about convinced it is the greatest Captain Harlock story ever made. It's so often a melancholy and bleak film, I once wrote that it was a movie about fighting losing battles. But through it all Harlock and his allies to be persevere and just keep on battling for what they believe in. It counts as an origin story but the important thing is that it explicitly demonstrates what makes Captain Harlock a great character. On a good year I can make Otakon, Katsucon, Anime USA + New York Comic Con. Perhaps part of this is because I've seen too much over what's now been a decade and a half of watching anime, but I feel as though the video room has declined a lot. The larger a convention is the less of an issue this can be, but that said: so much of what I see on a video room schedule in recent years is very new anime, episodes of stuff that are easily findable on Crunchyroll or someplace else. I count this as redundant and a waste, a practice that offers attendees too much of what they're likely to be most familiar with. If the ultimate point of a video room is to celebrate anime, spread awareness and all that good stuff, well, a schedule that at least makes some effort to recall that there's a good 5+ decades of anime history would make some sense. It's harder to do that than it is to draw on the latest simulcasts, but hell. What's ever been easy about organizing an anime convention? Last edited by GWOtaku on Sun Jan 27, 2013 7:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Sleverin
 Posts: 153 |
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Yeah that's pretty much how hentai rooms go. The first con I ever went to, one of the guests was the voice of one of the main villains from the first Power Rangers...and he totally spent 30 minutes at the hentai room. I missed it and man was I pissed. The next year I made sure to go to both nights despite the fact that I barely had any sleep because I was working on the con as staff. Gotta love the "hand checks", the UV lights, and the ever so great prizes for great yelled out lines ("BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL"). Let's also not forget HOOOOOOOORSE! Best part of the con was that room, and its ridiculous 16 total hour runtime...8 hours a day. Man, I need to hit up another con, I missed my usual one this year because of a series of circumstances, and I could honestly go for another hentai room. |
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EnigmaticSky
 Posts: 750 |
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Just for the hell of it, I should drag my girlfriend to a hentai screening at a con. Just to prove that she loves me.
 I honestly have never been to a con before. Just haven't. My friend and I considered going to last year's AX, but it just never came together.
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Sailor S
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I'll still pop in to a video room, but it's gotta be a specific set of circumstances. There has to be nothing else that's sounding really interesting, it can't be during mealtime since it's already hard enough to find time for that, and it can't be dubbed. I just have no interest in listening to a dub. So, I don't see very many shows, and some conventions I don't go in the video room at all, but it still happens from time to time. The hentai video panels are fun and all, I was kinda worried when I went to my first one that it would be a bunch of people sitting in there in silence, breathing heavily, but all in all it's a good enough time. I usually don't go to those since there are often late night panels that I'm more interested in when they're showing though.
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zawa113
 Posts: 7357 |
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The title reminded me of how I first saw Otaku no Video at Otakon a few years back. They show it twice a con, in the first and last timeslots of the con. With nothing else to do, a friend and I checked out the last showing on Sunday, and it was a lot of fun! I put it on a TRSI order ages ago to get my own copy (and it's cheap, you should too!)
Another Otakon (or maybe the same one, I forget), I went to see a live action movie with a bunch of college friends. I don't remember what it was called, but the Otakon info described it like "Little Rascals" and while it kinda wasn't, there was that awesome scene where the boy jumps through the air, grabs a tube light out of the ceiling, and smashes it on the bad guy's head. All in slo-mo, quite glorious, wish I remember what it was called. But yeah, I feel like there's too much going on to justify watching anime at Otakon. I feel like that's what the rest of the year is for, this is time to nerd it up, meet up with college friends I haven't seen in a while, and buy lots of awesome stuff for cheap. The night before though, I might watch something fun with my friends (staying at my place), something awful like Garzey's wing (I hope to have Mad Bull 34 by Otakon this year!) and if I do go, I think comedy is what I'd usually go for, because that has a unique viewing experience in groups compared to other genres I think. |
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Kyjin
 Posts: 126 Location: Los Angeles |
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Two video room memories strike me: first, at the first convention in high school. (2002 or 2003 I think?) It was this little tiny con, maybe 75 people total, just a few classrooms at a university. They played a ton of campy anime, and that's how me and ten other people saw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles OVA, Mutant Turtles: Choujin Densetsu-hen. So much mocking, it was hilarious.
The other one is all my fault. The summer after I graduated from college, several friends and I put together a mini-con since none of us could afford to get to Otakon that year. I came up with the brilliant idea of having a "Bad Anime" screening one afternoon that weekend. We watched Mars of Destruction, some random yaoi I had lying around, Magical Witch Punie-chan, and Garzey's Wing. (Surprisingly, everyone loved Garzey's Wing, and we ended up marathoning the whole thing.) The fun thing with both these memories is the group I was hanging with. I can watch anime at home and be perfectly happy, but the commentary of a group makes it so much more fun. |
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staab99
 Posts: 123 |
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I agree with the viewing of shows, it's much more fun to watch it with people. I remember going to a con and watching all of MD Geist, Kekko Kamen, and Garzey's Wing, this was a better experience to watch with the right people. It was hilarious and fun times.
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yotsubafanfan
 Posts: 653 |
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I usually stop by when I'm bored (only because the video game rooms at the cons I go to usually have really crappy video game rooms where there are no air conditioning or electric fans and they're packed with tons of people a lot in which are wearing Cosplay (if you didn't know, after a while wearing Cosplay your gonna start burning up) so yeah, now you can see why I tend to spend my time either in the dealers room, the artists alley or the video room in between panels and voice actor meet and greets.
As for the 18 and up video screenings, I have never been to one. Only because I'm a minor (2 more years and I'll be able to) and I'm not interested in things of that sort, but I will go just to give a commentary with my sister and friends, or just to see what the others are thinking. All in all I know thats going to be a very "Interesting" experience since I blush easily and I tend to laugh out loud if I'm embarassed. 
Last edited by yotsubafanfan on Mon Jan 28, 2013 4:18 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Paul Soth
 Posts: 140 Location: Columbus, Oh |
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God, I sometimes miss working the convention scene.
Few years ago I was tasked with running an anime room at Origins, which is a major table-top gaming convention. Just me and two or three others. One guy nearly killed himself attempting to produce a pre-arranged DVD for the AMV hour the day before the con. With such a small staff, I ended up manning the room for most of the convention... and Origins is a four day con. I asked the Anime Hell guys to send some stuff for the parody hour, but they got the address wrong. So I grabbed what parodies I did have on hand and also put on a bunch of random videos. It resulted in some long, dull stretches in a small dark room, but I'm glad I did it. |
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Kakugo
Posts: 163 |
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Much as the very concept had me on the fence for a while, the "Hentai Dubbing Workshop" I went to several years ago at Otakon might be the single funniest damned thing I've ever seen in my entire life. Enthusiastic dry humping, horribly uncomfortable bro's struggling to get in touch with their inner lesbians, Darkwing Duck getting molested by Sabertooth... this was all on the stage, mind you, not the screen.
Did I mention that Sean Schemmel was the guest coach? A lot of the details have gotten fuzzy since, but this exchange will stay with me until I die: SS: "You guys want to hear me do one as Goku?" Crowd: *Explodes* SS: "...I wish I could. If I did I'd be fired so hard they'd post the news YESTERDAY." But hey, a 50 foot screen showing a cavalcade of fluids-soaked Anime 18 clips was the reason we got there. I think after that, a lot of the magic that might be had from seeing animated vaginas in a crowded room while future hangovers shout at the screen just fades away. I'm also incredibly happy I got to see JIN-ROH on 35mm. That film is devastating enough on DVD, but getting lost into the visual splendor of an actual film print is something I'll probably never get to do again. |
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