Show #26 Porco Rosso & Otakon Packing List

Show #026 Direct Download:

Music: “Langsam Blut” from the Paradise Kiss soundtrack, Japanese version, CD 1, track 24. Geneon has a way of importing soundtracks, so I’m sure you’ll be able to buy this next yearish. CD2 has some great tracks by the fictional punk band in the show, “The Babys”.

Paradise Kiss just got liscensed in the U.S. recently, although I (Erin) saw the fansubs last year and really like it – so much so that I went out and bought all the manga. Even Noah thought ParaKiss was OK.

What is Otakon?

New segment (next time): THAT’S JAPAN!

What should you bring?

My List:

 My only personal tips are the following:



 1.  Take Friday off from work/school so you can leave Thursday night or

 Friday morning.  Sunday is not as good as Friday or Saturday, so don't 

 expect to suck a lot of fun out of Sunday.



 2.  Otakon is so fun that I would not even entertain my mother if she

was visiting NYC that weekend (I'd take her to Baltimore).  Don't plan on

 getting anything else done that weekend.  Don't let your friend(s) 

 schedule their wedding(s) that weekend, etc.



 3.  Bring more money than you think you need and save enough of it to

eat on the way home.  (Yes, eat the money, obviously.  It's got fiber.)



 4.  Bring a highlighter and highlight your schedule (you get a schedule 

in the registation line).  You can't expect to see everything you want to

see and do everything you want to do, but your highlighted schedule is 

basically your new friend for the weekend.  (A pen also works, but not 

as well.)



 5.  Bring food.  Food that keeps without refrigeration and needs no

 cooking.  Nutritious food.  You can't just eat pocky.  Waiting in line

at Burger King during the con can take more than an hour.  There are plenty 

 of places to eat in Baltimore but it's really hard to drag yourself away

 from the con long enough to eat at a sit-down resturaunt (and you might

be broke by then anyway).



 6.  If you've got a tight budget don't be an idiot in the dealer's room. 

 Go to the con with some idea of what you'd like to buy and how much it

 costs outside of the con.  That way if you spot a sale you can tell if

 it's really a good deal or not.  Also if you're short on cash and tell 

 yourself, "I'm going to buy one keychain" and you walk away with two

 keychains and a CD, you're really not so bad off because you planned

 ahead.

7.  (Derek's suggestion) A sweatshirt or long-sleeved shirt, because 

some of the video rooms can get very, very cold!

Finally, here’s some useful websites:

All Roads Lead to Otakon:
http://home.mchsi.com/%7Eblaidd/anime/mta.html

Otakon Chow:
http://www.otakuchow.net/

The Otakon FAQ:
http://www.otakon.com/faq.asp

On the show:

Ralph’s (from Metro Anime Society‘s) List:

Here are some tidbits of wisdom from a decade of convention-going

experience:

1.  Fear the huggles!  Though "glomping" seems mercifully to be dying out.


2. While cramming 12+ people in a hotel room registered for four, do not 

yell "EVERYBODY HIDE!!!" at the top of your lungs when maid service comes to

your door.


3. Yes to hygiene.  No to hogging shared bathroom space.



4. If someone else is driving you there, never give a massage to your driver 

unless the driver is extremely well rested.  No, not even then.



5.  Conversely, never scream "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!" when someone else

is driving, either.



6.  If people you know invite you to share their food with them in their 

hotel room, never invite anybody else to come along UNLESS you specifically

clear them with the hosts first.



7.  Never, ever bitch about the quality or nature of food you are not

actually paying for.



8.  Never mock someone for bringing multi-outlet electrical power strips.

Chances are you will want to plug something into it later.  (If you bring one yourself,

expect to be mocked anyway).



9.  Do not bunk with insane Russian shougi masters, even if it seems like a 

good idea at the time.



10. Its generally a good idea to have some food on hand in your hotel room

BEFORE midnight on the first night of the con.  And if you end up calling a

friend who wasn't planning to come until the next day in the dead of night 

with instructions to come right away and to bring enough food to feed more

than ten people, be very, very grateful to that person if he comes through

for you.



11.  Make sure all hotel roomates understand that the cost of long-distance 

calls from hotel room phones are added to the room bill and that each person

will damned well be obliged to pay for their own calls.



12. If you feel like chartering a bus but don't want to pay for it all by

yourself, shoot yourself in the head immediately.  If you are still alive

and having such thoughts afterwards, repeat.



13.  If you owe money to Peggy Tanusukma for anything, pay it promptly and

courteously, unless you really, really want to die. 



14.  If you must puke in someone else's hotel room, don't stomp on his foot

afterwards.  Its just tacky.



15.  Its generally a bad idea to share a hotel room with other people when

you watched your father die two weeks before and someone you've fallen in 

love with has recently told you that she can't stand you.  Its a

particularly bad idea if the unrequitedly loved one is, in fact, one of your roomates.

Our additional rules:

If you break up with your boyfriend two weeks before the con but already planned on sharing a hotel room with him you might still have to share a bed and it’s going to be really awkward. You know who I’m talking about…

Be specific about the pizza toppings you want. If you aren’t careful, this is the pizza you will end up with.

New York Times? NEW YORK TIMES?!

Yes, we’ve linked to it before and we link to it again, here it is the Daicon IV Animation, now on Youtube it’s just a click away. How times have changed.

Noah discusses “The Shonen Lie”:

Anime mentioned:

Noah compares the end result of the Shonen Myth to the way “peak experience” is defined in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Noah’s thesis here is, essentially, that contrary to what Shonen series seem to claim, there are other ways to attain peak experiences than by being the ‘best’.

Erin mentions mythologist Joseph Campbell‘s “Hero’s Journey” in the context of a series

protagonist acting as the viewer by proxy. We identify with the different aspects of the character, and often see in him what we wish we were ourselves.

Ultimately, though, we’re glad it’s the character suffers through hardships and not us.

I (Noah) couldn’t find a link to Kazuo Koike’s Golf Manga; I don’t even know the name. If anyone else does, please post it in the comments!

Mario Golf. I don’t really understand why putting Mario characters in a game makes it sell better. I mean, it’s still just golf.

Crying Freeman

Shonen series are teleological which is something else Noah highlights as a fallacy.

Every fighter approaches the the Platonic ideal of a fighter. This is ridiculous!

Planet Japan Podcast

Stuff that features an engraved pocketwatch:

You should all read Neuromancer and Snow Crash. Case closed.

“Chimpanzee that! Monkey News, you fffffffff…”

“Oooh! Cheeky! Freak of the Week!” Is another feature of the The Ricky Gervais Show

OMG Why Haven’t You Seen-

Porco Rosso?

Our top 5 Ghibli film lists:

Erin:

1. Totoro
2. Laputa: Castle in the Sky
3. Castle of Count Cagliostro
4. Nausicaa
5. Porco Rosso

Noah:

1. Totoro
2. Castle of Count Cagliostro
3. Nausicaa
4. Laputa: Castle in the Sky
5. Porco Rosso

Erin has not yet seen Pom Poko!

The air pirates in Tale Spin do not come close to the ones in Porco Rosso.

Noah now realizes that the interview he talked about is not from the New York Times, but rather the New Yorker magazine. In any case, the text isn’t on line.

Once again, Noah is totally wrong: Future Boy Conan is from 1978, not the 1960s. Whatever.

Yes, we all remember Ferngully. It sucked.

New York’s fire department is now moderately less corrupt than it was in Gangs of New York

Goro Miyazaki and Gedo Seki – Earthsea, which, incidentally, just opened in Japan.

Incidentally, every time someone mentions Goro Miyazaki, I can’t help thinking of this guy.

SEE YOU AT OTAKON!

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10 Responses to Show #26 Porco Rosso & Otakon Packing List

  1. I would also add to your list a long sleeved shirt, because those bigger video rooms get really cold. I’d also say long pants but that’s just not practical. Maybe if you could compress an entire wardrobe into a pouch like in the old school Superman comics (the ones where they explained that the method by which he super compresses his clothes mysteriously restricts the color palette to red, white and blue).

    Oh and thanks for naming the MP3 starting with the show number, because with your other shows I ended up renaming the file so I could know what was what on my iPod. I think this was also the best sounding show so far. It sounded like you fixed the problems with the S’s maxing out the levels. Yay!

  2. Anonymous says:

    not getting the download?

    i have been using juice to download all my podcasts. And i have not been able to get this episode yet. not sure if its not listed yet or my podcatcher just isn’t working right. Just was wondering if anyone else was having this problem. and yes i have the new RSS feed for the show. thanks for any help.

    • Re: not getting the download?

      Are you the same guy who emailed us last week? I’ll look into the Juice thing if you’re not the same guy… does Juice have support forums?

    • Re: not getting the download?

      Alright, so in Juice, right-click on our show’s name and open up the “Feed Properties” window. Under “General” the URL should read:

      http://feeds.feedburner.com/ninjaconsultant

      If it says anything else, it’s our old feed. If it does say that and you’re still not getting new episodes let me know. Because I was able to catch episode 27 on my Mac using Juice 2.2

      You could also try just subscribing to the new feed in Juice as if it was a new podcast.

  3. thecomicman says:

    in my defense, i come from Southern California, where it is also ridiculously hot all the time. i assumed it was the same level of hotness, and compensated as such during the first time in Singapore. i failed.

    the second time, i compensated even more, and still failed, but not as hard. i was out a whole day the first time. the second time, i just got a little dizzy and had to lie down for a few hours, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the first time.

    now, the third time, i will compensate even more, and i will probably fail again, but this time, i will only have to sit down for an hour or two.

    the daystar does, in fact, burn.

  4. thecomicman says:

    also, top 5 Ghibli films:

    1. Totoro
    2. Nausicaa
    3. Grave of the Fireflies
    4. TBD
    5. TBD

    i have also seen Kiki’s, Laputa, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle, but i assume that the other Ghibli movies i haven’t seen yet are better than those four.

    also, that Hong Kong set that you were talking about? Forty in Singapore. it has every movie up to Mononoke (sans Cagliostro), including the On Your Mark video. the subs are very good, with only a few spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. i think it helps that this bootlegged fansub was made in an English speaking country.

  5. Anonymous says:

    power strips ARE SUCH A great idea. I recommend those little Immersion coil heaters for hot water. But be careful!
    Golf could be made interesting by adding anything to it, it;s so dull to start with.
    so all sports movies could be shounen-like?
    do we get the philosophical lowdown on shows like full Metal Alchemist and 1 Piece?
    Great my life in Fandom.
    One of the Planet Japan hosts writes a funny column in the Japan Times. The American perspective of weird Japan stuff.
    have fun at Otakon!!

  6. Miyazaki

    tkx a ton for the miyazaki lists!! One of my friends is a huge fan of Miyazaki so he will love your rant on Miyazaki tkx!

  7. naruto

    Hey I know you guys hate the Naruto fillers but I know how much Erin likes Rock Lee (and I think Noah does too) so I thought you should know episode 195 and 196 are really good Rock Lee episodes (even if they are fillers they’re cool)

  8. I love you, tiny spider.

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