Well, after around 16 hours on the road, 60 hours of anime related goodness, and a couple hundred dollars later, the Anime Central Convention for 2000 is now history.

This year's con was a different experience for me personally. Last year I was a wide-eyed newbie who had never been to a con before, and I spent a good part of that time just figuring out what it was all about and squinting at name tags. This year I was able to relax a bit more, recognize some faces and chat a little bit more with people, and also make more informed purchases in the dealer's room.

Speaking of the dealer's room, I think I did extremely well this year! Last year I loaded up on a few essentials, but this year I found a few items that were harder to get. I was primarily looking for artbooks to help with the webpage and for my own personal interest in the artwork of Kenichi Sonoda (character designer for BG Crisis 2032-33) and Masamune Shirow (creator of Ghost in the Shell). The first thing I picked up was the Intron Depot 2 artbook subtitled "Blades".

This is an amazing artbook with incredibly detailed images drawn by Masamune Shirow. In many of the images he has employed 3D computer graphic backgrounds or 3D generated armor/wardrobe for the characters and the results are simply stunning. The content is primarily sword and sorcery but there are other images as well. If you're a fan of Shirow, then I highly recommend this book.

The next thing I picked up was the BGC 2040 Perfect Manual. Nope, it's not Sonoda's work, and it has little to do with BG Crisis 2032-33. But I have come to like the new series for it's own merits and this book has a lot of great technical images, some of which I wanted to share in the soon to be open Raven's Garage website. There are lots of big color images of the hardsuits, and some great B&W drawings of weapons and such, so watch for some of them to appear at RG soon.

At this point I didn't see anything else of real interest, except for a copy of the famed BGC B-Club Special magazine that a few of my esteemed BGC colleagues have in their collections. Inside it are rumored to be hundreds of B&W drawings, many of which show the more technical side of Bubblegum Crisis, such as the weapons, vehicles and hard suits etc. The kind of thing someone like me would looooooove to aquire, ne? ;) But the copy at the dealer's room was selling for $500 U.S.!!! I looked at it from a distance, I saw the price, I sighed, I moved on.

So what's a budding BGC collector and admirer of anime technology to do? Let his friends surprise him, that's what! After that first sweep through the dealer's room I headed back to my hotel room, happy with my purchases but somewhat dejected that this book was so expensive. But my friend Jeanne Hedge (who many of you should know for her wonderful BGC fanfics and for her encyclopedic contributions to alt.fan.bgcrisis) came by the room to greet us. Well, I had promised her some long overdue C&C for one of her upcoming fanfics, so I handed over my notes to her, to which I received back a plastic bag with something heavy in it. Something heavy like a book.

Inside was copy of the B-Club Special... (insert author's face fault here). I was stunned. Jeanne just smiled and said she had no use for a second copy so she was giving it to me as a gift. This was too much. I was overwhelmed and in shock. After saying as many thank-yous as I could muster in my dazed state, I thumbed through the pages very carefully, feeling as if I was looking through a religious tome.

Though the book is almost entirely in Japanese, the artwork transcends any language barrier. I was overwhelmed by the rich color in the scene images, and the details in the B&W drawings. This is a very special book, not because it demands a high price on the collector's market, but because there is so much talent and beauty in one place. I love anime artwork for what it does standing still just as much as I love it for what it can do when it moves. The graceful lines and curves that seem to slip off a talented artist's fingers without effort. The attention to detail. The passion for perfection. This collection of artwork is something that has to be seen to be truly appreciated.

And because someone was so generous to me, I hope in turn, to pay some of that generosity back to those of you out there who haven't seen this book by exhibiting some of the more technical images at the Raven's Garage website. Watch for them to show up very soon. And thank-you again Jeanne for such an amazing gift :)

After regaining my senses sometime the next day, a second trip to the dealer's room provided another unexpected find. Another fantastic artbook, titled "Analysis of Ghost In The Shell", appeared on a shelf, and I snapped it up! For those of you who haven't seen it, Ghost in The Shell is a feature-length anime movie based on Masamune Shirow's manga Ghost In The Shell. The character's were modified a bit from the original manga character designs but the movie still managed to stir the movie industry with its complex and futuristic storyline, and the computer graphics that helped give the movie its distinctive look.

Though my interest in this book is mostly personal, as I looked through the pages it occured to me that a website devoted to the technical side of Ghost In The Shell might be a useful thing. So, watch for the "Section 9 Lab" website sometime in the very near future. It won't be as detailed as Raven's Garage will be because there is so little technical information about GiTS, but it should still be a fun pit-stop for the Ghost In The Shell fan who is a techie at heart.

So are we done yet? Not yet! The last day of the con I did one more sweep through the dealer's room. I didn't think I'd see anything new that I hadn't already seen, but was I ever wrong. Right next to the B-Club Special that had taunted me the first day was a smaller book called "Bubblegum Crisis: The B-Club Film Comic". I had never seen or heard of this book before. My friend Jeanne was also looking for last minute goodies and she saw what I was looking at. Despite my reservations and severely strained budget, Jeanne asked the vendor if we could take a look at the book.

The Film Comic is pretty much what it says it is, a comic digest/synopsis of the series using actual scenes from the Bubblegum Crisis OVAs. But as Jeanne flipped the pages very slowly I suddenly saw images that I had never seen before of weapons and boomers, as well as some more B&W drawings showing technical details (Insert another face-fault by the author here!). Jeanne knew I wanted the book, and I knew I wanted the book, but an inquiry revealed that the price was $50.

Urk.

After a little deliberation, Jeanne suggested we walk around the room a bit while I tried to decide. It didn't take long. One lap around the room and I was back. With a little more "reassurance" from Jeanne I bought the book and walked out of the dealer's room a very happy and grateful man. I still had enough money for the trip home and I know I would have regretted leaving that book behind. Heh, last year I said I wasn't a collector! Sheesh!

So now we're done right? Well, not quite.

It's sometimes difficult to put into words what we feel. Sometimes we can't say what we feel because we are worried we will be embarrassed or we'll embarrass the other person who hears it. But there's no feeling like giving to someone and watching their eyes light up with surprise. No other feeling except maybe hearing the person you are giving to tell you how much it meant to them. So Jeanne, thank-you again for your incredible generosity and kindness, and for being such an amazing friend. I don't know if I can ever thank-you enough, but I'll keep trying! Domo arigato :)

Next month I expect to be telling you about some long overdue additons to ravensgarage.com. Stay tuned!