Beyond The Sea: "Waiting for me..."

The final day of Anime Overdose brought a break in the AOD tradition: I did not play Katamari Damacy in the morning. After a shower, a quick breakfast, and changing into our respective Fruits Basket costumes, Victoria and I rapidly charged over to the Muni station in front of SFSU. We hoped to board the quickest M-line towards the Holiday Inn. It turned out our speedy walk to the Muni platform was in vain because the desired train was not arriving for at least another hour. You have to love the speed and efficiency of public transportation during the weekend.

Victoria found us an alternate Muni ride and we zoomed over to the AOD hotel. Our first stop was ADJ's hotel room to retrieve the items we left the night before. Amid the packing and cleaning up, we had a man who knew too much and a psycho capable of inducing vertigo. All we needed were some birds and we'd have a Hitchcock marathon.

Finding this girl's murderer is a matter of washing the answer out of your hair.

Despite it being Sunday, AOD still had a few events up its sleeve. There was the open autograph session with most of the guests of honor, the Family Guy panel with Alex Borstein, the Q&A session with Psycho Le Cemu, Iron Cosplay, The Beautiful Losers concert, the Charity Auction, and Closing Ceremonies to officially end the convention. We hit the Dealer Room for last minute window shopping and said hello to the friends that we saw. People still cosplayed and were excited for today despite having to check out of the hotel.

At 10:00-ish, autographer seekers formed a serpentine line in the lower level of the hotel. Being able to meet various talent from anime, comic books, and video games is a great opportunity. Voice actors Tara Strong, Debi Derryberry, Rob Paulsen, Alex Borstein, and comic book writer Marv Wolfman were among the guests signing away. Fuchizaki autographed my Ri Koran figure and Mori added his John Hancock to my Gunsmith Cats DVD.

AOD continued having slight delays in its live programming. But by now, everyone seemed used to it. And on a relaxing Sunday, delays didn't seem to affect the crowd enjoying themselves and the conventon.

We hit the Family Guy panel with Alex afterwards. Alex explained how she evolved from Lois' voice to a writer of the popular animated series. When the writers had difficulty developing Lois, Alex took it upon herself to come up with the character and subsequent material for the show. Working with the other actors is a fun challenging task, especially when it comes to scheduling. The actors have their other successful shows/movies to work on in addtion to Family Guy. The creator Seth MacFarlane is perfectionist and winds up voicing most of the characters himself despite initially having other actors (some of them big stars) voice roles. Here's hoping the new season of Family Guy does well starting May 1st when competing against Desperate Housewives.

Psycho Le Cemu had its open Q&A session. They look much more normal without their costumes and makeup. seek even shaved his three blue hair triangles (most likely up for auction somewhere). Daishi proclaimed his group's music as "no genre" and that PLC had no rivals. He appeared very confident, very fitting for a band leader. Aya seemed shy and didn't say much. Yura-sama snapped a quick shot of the fans attending the session. Lida said one of his favorite US bands was Metallica. So what new costumes are planned for the next tour?

At 1:00PM Victoria and I roamed to the rendezvous point for the Fruits Basket gathering. Meeting at the hotel lobby was initially a good idea, but the floor traffic of all the PLC fans getting in line for the photo op/CD signing made the entire lobby very crowded. Luckily Fruits Basket cosplay is easy to distinguish among PLC cosplay. We found Matsuki and company and headed to the less crowded bar/restaurant area of the lobby for our Fruity gathering.

Victoria and I were feeling peckish after the gathering and considered lunch plans. Fortuantely, lunch was on the Fruits Basket group because they brought a load of sushi and onigiri to share. It was very generous of them and we thank them for the food. The Fruits Basket card deck was cute... almost too cute to actually play cards with. It's a bit hard to concentrate on a game when staring at the artwork. After the lunch and snacks, Traveling Valentine bid adieu and proceeded to look for events.

I was hoping to purchase a photo with Psycho Le Cemu, but I figured it was a bit too late to do so judging from the long line. I'm sure there will be future conventions to acquire one. Following the line down the stairs to the lower level of the hotel, Victoria and I heard the beginning of Iron Cosplay. Chairman Baka ran a fast-paced fun event displaying the skills of two cosplayers. More about the event can be seen by clicking the picture below.

I hopped back and forth between Iron Cosplay and The Beautiful Losers until their concert ended. Once the Chairman declared the Iron Cosplay winner (congrats!), Victoria and I migrated to catch the charity auction. Host Brad DeMoss used whatever he could to entice people to bid on the rare and autographed items donated by the guests of honor. Initial bids were fairly reasonable; some started at a mere $10. The money went to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, a very good cause. The item that got quite a few dollars was the Anime Overdose banner autographed by all the guests, including Psycho Le Cemu.

I really wanted that Pixar artwork, but all I had on me was a $20 bill. It was enough to get a figure autographed by Takeshi Mori for $10.

The end of the auction meant it was time for Closing Ceremonies. Branden Frederick gave the final statistics of the convention. Co-chair Rob Pereyda gave his final thoughts and thanks to the staff, volunteers, guests, and attendees for making Anime Overdose such a successful convention this year.

With the convention at an end, Traveling Valentine decided to head home. Heading home in a group (with at least one person who actually knows the way home) is a lot safer than wandering alone. Claudine and Christophe were going the same direction so we joined them. We eventually left after much delay and witnessing of convention randomness. It can be difficult saying goodbye to such a fun venue.

Here's to a great convention this year and many more years to come.