I've been to a number of cons in my too short otaku life, but none have been as completely satisfying as Neko-Con R. Sure, my Ranma & Akane music video placed 4th in Serious/Other at Otakon '98, and I found the Eva artbook ADAM at Otakon '99, and, most of all, I met my best friend and life companion, Will-kun, at Katsucon 5. So, beyond that shining moment, this year's Neko-con really takes the cake. I know you're curious now. Read on...

OK, the weekend didn't start out well at all. Will-kun and I had been fighting, we didn't get much sleep and were running late, and everything was plain nutsy. We rushed around early Friday morning doing laundry, trying to eat, pack, and get my hair done. I still didn't have the dress for my costume, and Will-kun needed his paycheck. So, what happened? The other car left well before us, and we were...delayed. Oh, boy, were we delayed. Will-kun's paycheck wasn't coming until three now, and we had time to kill. We stopped at Matt's and watched the Chinpokomon episode of South Park (Will-kun for the 7th time in two days), then picked up my dress (that Mrs. Will's Mom was so nice to kill herself making for me in about a week and a half), and FINALLY grabbed the wayward paycheck and headed off. To make a long story a bit shorter, we got delayed an hour into the trip by bank problems and such, and didn't get to the hotel until about 8:30pm.

I held panic at bay, checked into the hotel, and ran next door to registration. I was dressed as Selphie from Final Fantasy VIII - the dress, the giant nunchucks, and even the hair. It must've worked well, because, to my delight, people took random pictures of me all weekend. Oh, it was heavenly! I saw other FFVIII characters, too. I had my picture taken with Zell, then on Saturday with Quistis and Rinoa, and Saturday night with Irvine. Unfortunately, most of these pics were taken by other people, so I don't have any copies! Wai! So, if you're web-surfing and come across any Neko-con pics including a girl dressed as Selphie, please send a copy to me at akane_saotome@oocities.com! Thank you!

Anyway, we were too late for most things, but the music videos were showing at midnight, so we chilled until then. If you don't know by now (and you should, damn it!), Amateur Anime Music Videos are one of my passions. I love watching them repeatedly, own multiple tapes of past contests, and (as stated above) submitted my own video to Otakon '98. This year, I had a new entry. A wacky entry. A very, very odd entry. After playing through FFVIII, Will-kun and I decided we absolutely had to make a music video to it. We had exactly a week until the Neko-con video deadline, but we had to try! Since I'm unapoligetically obsessed with Seifer, he easily became the focus of the video. But what song would fit him? Will-kun, goofy as he can be, sad "Bad to the Bone" by George Thoroughgood. Looking at the lyrics, I stupidly said, "That'll never work." But we made them work. A lot of late night brainstorming and a weekend of replaying many hours of the game got us enough footage to possible pull this off. Now, you all know I'm a huge shounen ai freak, and my love does seep into the realm of video games. I admit it, I'm an FFVIII slasher. I want to see Seifer and Squall together, if only for a few hot nights of their youth. Will-kun thinks it's funny - funny enough to go in our video. Imagine that - you're sitting, politely chuckling at silly Seifer video (with a Zell breakdown! Woo hoo!), when suddenly... it all goes horribly wrong. The slick editing of text boxes and the beautiful Devour "Censored" screen created the most blatantly homosexual music video I've ever seen. But (I believe) it was done with a tone that made it off-the-wall enough to not offend. I mean, we were kidding. Just because I get gushy over the idea of the guys together doesn't mean that the clips weren't tongue in cheek. I think people knew that.

Midnight came in no time, and my large group of looney friends assembled themselves in the front row of the screening room. The videos were hit and miss this year. There was a creative Lunar video (go Nash!) and a beautiful Shinji video to "Father of Mine" by Everclear (I so had that idea last year, but this guy did it much better than I ever could have). There was a nice sweet Kenshin one, another rather cool FFVIII video, funny Kodomo no Omocha and Pokémon videos, and a fabulous Eva Shinji & Asuka video to Guns 'N Roses's "Six Feet Under" ("I used to love her, but I had to kill her..."). Sadly, there were some not so great ones, too. I'm very tired of nonsensical videos set to feedback, hammers on metal, and drums. The quality on some of the videos was terrible, too. I think part of that problem was Neko-con itself (I'll explain in a moment), but still... I was frustrated about half of the time. Then, there was our video. The first 1/4 or 1/3 of our master tape is lower quality than the rest because of a massive problem with one of my school's editors. This little flaw was made 10 times worse when it was copied to the Neko-con tape. There were glitches, too much white, and even a weird pause where there was none before. I was going to cry.

Luckily, about 1/4 of the way into the video, the quality cleared up, just in time for the wackiness to begin. I was afraid people wouldn't get it, or that they would be severely grossed out. I underestimate others. Laughter accompanied a few shouts and a random, "This is so funny, but so wrong!" Will-kun and I were pleased, to say the least. We watched the rest of the videos, turned in our voting ballots, and went to bed.

Ah, Saturday morning! How many mishaps can happen in two hours? We all overslept the alarm, we missed the awesome hotel breakfast, my hair wouldn't curl right, and Will-kun stormed off because we were an hour late for the dealer's room. I usually hit the merchandise Friday night, so I forgot that if I didn't get there early Sat. morning, I'd get screwed over. By the time I got over to the other hotel, Will-kun was waiting for me.

"A group of Shinji-lovin' yaoi girls got here and cleaned the place out."

My face fell. It was hopeless now...

"But I did manage to get you this," he smiled, handing me one of the most wonderful wallscrolls I've ever seen. My beloved Shinji-kun was wearing a hoodie sweatshirt and a backward baseball cap, smiling and cutting Rei's hair. Heck, even PenPen's in it! I was thrilled. I could've gotten only that and been happy. But fortune was smiling upon me again. Will-kun and I thoroughly attacked every FFVIII thing we could find - wallscrolls, mini-posters, and postcards. Especially Squall and Seifer stuff. Plus, I found great pencilboards of Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, Goddess Operator Academy, D.N.Angel, and KareKano. There was the gorgeous, huge Seifer doll there, but it was $55-$60, and I just didn't have that readily available. Damn college.

What next...I saw a guy dressed as Nash from Lunar and assaulted him for his picture. Some more people took my picture, I ate lunch, and Will-kun and I split up. He went to watch the Kenshin OAVs while I hung out with The Knob Squad and waited for the music videos again. I met two really sweet guys while I was waiting. I'll refer to them by their costumes - Miki from Utena and Folken from Escaflowne. Folken and a friend had made the cool Kodomo no Omocha music video, and Miki made both the other FFVIII video and the wacky Pokémon video. Neither had seen Will-kun and my video yet, and I couldn't wait to see their reaction.

Video time again! Our group piled into the back of the room and watched for our favorites. One of the buttons on my dress flew off when I went to grab my wayward nunchucks, and I spent a lot of time pouting about that. Will-kun slipped in right before our video, to gauge this day's reaction. Boy, did our hard work pay off! Laughter, cheering, Meiran screaming, "I know you're not that way, Irivine!" and a massive reaction to Squall standing up and suggestively backing into Seifer. I nearly died from joy from the applause. My friends then pointed out the 30 or so people who left immediately after our video finished. Ah, life was good.

My group soon slipped out for more shopping, eating, and socializing. I flirted with the registration guys and got myself a pin to hold my button on (thank god!). We ended up eating pizza in the Knobs' room until CosPlay started. I always want to go to CosPlay, but I never seem to enjoy it. I'm always in the back where I can't see or hear a damn thing. Grr. After only a few skits, my friends slipped off to watch the Rayearth OAVs. Will-kun asked me to come with them. I, of course, relented. I didn't really want to see them, but CosPlay was pissing me off. So, the girls sat on one side of the room, Will-kun and I sat on the other, and we watched. To be honest, I didn't like them. I tried to give them a chance, I swear. But they didn't float my boat. I guess I'm a sappy shoujo girl at heart. Anyway, towards the end of the second OAV, my friend Meiran grabbed my arm and said, "Come with me. They announced the video winners." Confused, I ran after her, leaving poor Will-kun behind. She dragged me to the CosPlay room where we met Adrienne, one of the Knobs. They dragged me toward the stage quietly squealing that Will-kun and my video had won! So, I waited as they announced the CosPlay winners. I didn't know what I would do - run up and ask if we'd really won, then go back and get Will-kun? I think that was my plan. I'll summarize the rest - Will-kun thought I was trying to screw him over and take all the credit, my friends watched the show instead of leaving to see me get my prize (I suppose I can understand that...*sighs*), and when we finally were like, "Hey! Did we win?" most people had left the room. But we did get to go on stage, both get credit, and get a trophy. Some guy even got a pic of it on his website! So, it was sad that we were screwed out of our glory (the paper said winners would be announced at closing ceremonies!!!), but, hell, WE WON FIRST PLACE!

After that, I called my mom and squealed at her about it, then went to the dance and grooved some with my darling Will-kun, and went to bed. Actually, before we fell asleep, the group of us nutcases went off on a random tangent of "What if the Ronin Warriors were Pokémon?" Our finally decisions were: RyoChu, CyeDuck, Kentini, FlareRowen, BulbaSage, Miaowth, and Anubone. *giggles* We're weird, huh? Anyway...

Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY! Yes, time to say farewell to our humble (and cramped) hotel room and head home. But before we left - LAST MINUTE SHOPPING! Our group split in two - half headed home, and Will-kun, Meiran, Karen, and me. Before hit the dealers, we saw the one and only Robert DeJesus. If you don't know who he is, you should! He's an amazing artist, mainly drawing cute nippin' chicks, but fully capable of drawing cute bish. Will-kun and I got up our nerve and asked him to draw us a picture celebrating our music video victory. We whipped out some posters, postcards, and our beautiful trophy. To my amazement, he went ahead and drew the most wonderful sketch of my Seifer holding our trophy - and didn't even charge us! So we bought his cool artbook, which he also signed. I'm still amazed at how cool that was.

Nothing much left, last minute shopping, talking to a sweet guy dressed as Squall, got lost in Virginia Beach going in circles for a few hours, and finally got home. Yay! So, that was our most excellent weekend. I was really happy, especially my time with my friends and with Will-kun. *smiles*