This isn't actually a report about Anime North itself, but it's more a report of my trip to Canada from 6/16 to 6/22. (Anime North took place from 6/18 to 6/20.) Trip report version 0.8 by Hitoshi Doi, 1999.06.25

I left Japan on Wednesday June 16. At the airport, I found the new issue of Koro Koro Comics, and bought one. This one had a Pokemon game card of Mariru, and a 80 page manga of Star Wars episode 1, in addition to the usual Pokemon stuff.

I arrived in Chicago on-time. I saw the Star Trek movie on the plane. Good movie. The flight from Chicago to Toronto was delayed about 30 minutes, but we arrived in Toronto as scheduled.

At the airport in Toronto, a couple of the Anime North staff met us (Kenji, Hyi, and I) and took us to the hotel. That evening we went to Hooters for dinner. The food was good (and cheap), but I didn't like the waitress outfits that much. I prefer Anna Millers or Bronze Parrot. (^_^;)

On June 17, we went to a shopping mall to look around a little bit, and see the Star Wars movie. The movie was great. But since it was in the middle of the day, there were only a few people in the crowd. That evening, we went downtown and ate at a Greek place. I also bought a Toronto Blue Jays practice jersey. I wanted to buy more, but I didn't have much time to look around and they didn't have the one I wanted. (;_;)

On the evening of June 18, Anime North began.

But during the day, Kevin and Ulu came over, and we went out for lunch. After returning to the hotel, we met up with Richard. I think we just hung around the lobby area until it was time for the opening ceremonies. Many people from the net came up to me to say hi. I should have taken pictures of everyone so I remember what they look like. That evening, we ate the barbeque dinner.

On June 19, I set up the table in the dealers room. The room itself was very small, and there weren't that many dealers. But the room was pretty packed. There were lots and lots of illegal stuff. My Kero-chan doll was the first thing that sold (it sold while I was still laying my stuff out). I basically sold UFO catcher goods and Pokemon cards. I didn't have enough room in my suitcase to bring cels.

I also ran a seiyuu panel with Wai Lee Lau. My name wasn't listed, but I got dragged up to the table. (^_^;) We talked about the seiyuu boom, and fielded a lot of questions from the audience. It was a pretty knowledgeable audience and there was good participation.

After the dealers room closed (18:00), we (Kevin, Ulu, Richard, Titus, and I) went out to eat steak. Richard really pigged out. Then after returning to the hotel, we decided to go watch Star Wars. Star Wars was even better the second time around. Queen Ami-chan is cute. I met Drew Hamilton this evening too.

On June 20, I woke up barely in time to make it to the dealers room before it opened. I had forgotten to bring the CC Sakura cards the previous day, and that sold very well. But overall there weren't that many people this day.

I was on a panel about cultural influences in anime, where we talked about "obvious" things in anime that weren't so obvious to the non-Japanese. After this panel, I had an interview with Protoculture Addicts, at my dealers table.

Then the closing ceremonies ended Anime North. After that, Kevin, Ulu, Titus, and I went out for Chinese food and coffee. Kevin and Ulu also played a shooting game at a game center.

When we got back to the hotel, I tried out Titus' visor headset thing, and played SG on the Sega Saturn. I finally got to watch the seiyuu movies on Second Window!

On June 21, Titus came over, and we went to pick up Ulu and Kevin. Then we drove through the University of Toronoto and went to the Sky Dome and CN Tower. We went up the tower, and ate at the expensive, revolving (one cycle every 72 minutes) restaurant. Then we stepped into the Sky Dome Hard Rock Cafe. It was great. You can actually see the baseball game from the restaurant. Window seats were $30, and that includes $23 of food. Next time I'm in Toronto, I want to go watch a game there..

After driving Kevin to the airport, we went over to Titus' house and listened to his awesome stereo setup. Lots of SG and CC Sakura songs. Then we watched the Meltylancer OAV DVD. Quality of this DVD is very good. Then we went out for dinner and coffee, before returning.

Since I still had about half of the stuff (that I brought over to sell), and I had received a lot of big (sizewise) presents, I had a hard time packing everything.

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