I WANT TO EAT A NUT OF LAERMA!

FANTASIA DIARY: BUYING TICKETS. PLUS ANOTHER BORING INSTALLMENT OF MONTREAL YOKOHAMA KAIDASHI KIKOU

Yesterday, I went downtown to purchase tickets at Concordia University for the Fantasia festival.

On the 221 "Metrobus" going downtown, on Highway 20 between the Morgan and Woodland interchanges, I spotted a Via Rail train with one of the two Spider-Man 2 locomotives, so I can enter Via Rail's "Spot the Spider-Man Train" contest, though they say you can enter even if you haven't seen it.

After I had arrived downtown, I went over to Concordia, I got one of the pamphlets with the schedule instead of buying the $3 Fantasia Guide magazine because I'm cheap. I got in line to get my tickets, but then I noticed that they didn't have Interac this year, so I couldn't use my bank card. Funny, I didn't remember it being "cash-only" last year. So I had to go over to the Royal Bank on Guy to take out some cash, and, while I was there, I cashed in my quarter-annual GST/PST sales tax rebate cheque.

A few minutes later, I got back to the Mezzanine in Concordia's Hall building where the tickets are being sold. The line-up wasn't too long; there were maybe 10 people ahead of me, so I would be in-and-out, right?

Wrong... while there weren't all that many people waiting in line, they all seemed to be buying ridiculous numbers of tickets. DrSkrud in this Anime News Network forum thread, says that he bought thirty tickets (for himself and a friend to go to 15 shows), and he says that some "geeky anime fans" buy fifty to a hundred tickets at a time, and it takes a while to print each individual ticket. So I had plenty of time to go over the schedule and decide which tickets I was going to buy initially, and then I continued reading volume 2 of Makoto Yukimura's Planetes manga. ABout half-an-hour later, it was my turn to get tickets, and I bought all of... two.

Last week, I listed a bunch of stuff I was vaguely interested in seeing in my Fantasia preview, however, the fact is, the tickets are $7.50 each and I couldn't afford to see absolutely everything I listed. I bought tickets to the films I wanted to see the most out of the entire festival: one ticket to Gate to Heaven, the German movie about two immigrant labourers falling in love at Frankfurt airport, and one ticket to Cutie Honey, director Hideaki Anno's live-action version of the classic Go Nagai manga and anime about a magical girl android. Does this mean that I'm only planning on seeing two films at the festival this year? No, just that I think I'll make the other decisions based on what is and isn't sold out. Also, I don't think I'll get to see either Wonderful Days or the first couple of episodes of Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex; Wonderful Days since the first screening was tonight to open the festival and it has had tepid reviews and I'm just not in the mood for gorgeous visuals with no substance, and the only other screening is this weekend, as is also the case with all of the screenings of GitS:SAC, and I have some business downtown on Monday, so I don't feel like going downtown over the weekend. Plus, I'm seeing Will Ferrell in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

After I had got the tickets, since I had received the quarter-annual cheque from the Magic GST/PST Rebate Cheque Fairy, I decided to go browsing through stores. I was hoping to pick up the French translation of either volume 3 of Planetes or volume 5 of Mihona Fujii's GALS! manga at Renaud-Bray, but it had just gone 6 p.m. and the store, which used to be open until midnight every night, was shut. I couldn't find either of those in French in Chapters, so I went downstairs to look at the English manga, which they conviniently moved from the last time I was in the store; now they (and all the other comics) are on the wall of the inner stairwell column, facing the children's books. They didn't have the English version of Planetes yet, but they did have the two new CLAMP manga from Del Rey, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles and XXXHolic (no, it's not a porno). However, I just wasn't in the mood to start a new CLAMP series, and I leafed through them and the artwork wasn't up to normal CLAMP standards (I think Satsuki Igarashii is the lead artist in both rather than Mokona Apappa or Mick Nekoi). Maybe I'll pick them up eventually, but not right now.

Then I went to HMV, hoping to pick up either the new "Collector's Edition" version of Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer or one of the three volumes of Super GALS! which I don't have (volumes 2, 3, and 6). Couldn't find either. No luck there. Then I tried Metro Video, which is where I usually buy Super GALS!, but, nope, they didn't have any of the DVDs I was looking for, though they did have the first couple of volumes of Tenchi Muyo! GXP, since FUNimation now appears to have a better distributor in Canada. I came withing a hair's breadth of buying GXP, but I decided that I wanted to see what was behind "door number three", figuratively speaking, and I went over to DVD Passion in Centre Eaton but they didn't have anything new in the way of anime. I decided to just wait until next week and see if what I want is in stores then; if not, I'll give Tenchi Muyo! GXP a spin.

After that, I went to the McDonald's in Central Station, had another Big Mac combo to get another free song from the McDonald's/Sony Connect.com music offer, and took the bus back to Sainte Anne de Bellevue.

By the way, speaking of Super GALS!, I had actually heard a reason why ADV isn't releasing it domestically beyond volume 6 anytime soon but it sounded kind of like a rumour, but John Oppliger confirms that only the first 26 episodes are available on DVD in Japan, with the other 26 episodes mysteriously yet-to-be-released over two years after the original DVD release stopped, even though the series was popular enough to last two "seasons" and spawn three video games. Damn, what I would give to see Pierre Bernard, of "Pierre Bernard's Recliner of Rage" fame, point to the camera and say "Bottom line, America: Bandai/Emotion needs to put the other 26 episodes of Super GALS! onto DVD in Japan so ADV can finish the series in North America."

posted by Steve Brandon @ 11:53 PM