Introducing Insanely Happy Kitt (NYAF Convention Report)

She's been absent for a while. EvilCorp tried their evil best to kill her, but the support of understanding friends *hugs Tex-chan and Lucidscreamer* kept her on enough genki life support that she survived.

*drops out of silly third person pov*

I attended the New York Anime Festival this weekend. I love New York. It's an amazing place (to visit, I wouldn't be able to live there). I'd been there three times previously to attend Eric Stuart Band concerts, and just love the place, and the people. Syan and I shared a hotel room with a third person, and got to pal around the con. *waves at Syan*

The NYAF this year had Mr. Yoshitaka Amano and Mr. Hideyuki Kikuchi as the guests of honor. There was a truly once in a lifetime opportunity that arose to attend a special birthday dinner in honor of Mr. K's birthday along with Kevin Leahy and Mr. Amano and nine other fans. This weekend was unlike any other in terms of sheer *WOW* factor.

I attended Mr. Kikuchi's panel and get an idea of how utterly creative and hard-working he is. Writing consumes him. I was amused and relieved when he described his creative process -- figure out the characters and the situation, and just let it unfold. He doesn't have an idea of where the story is going until he writes it. (Sounds kinda familiar, huh, Tex?) The highlight came when a fan in the audience during the Q & A portion asked Mr. K if Mr. Amano's rendition of D matched his mental one. Mr. K hemmed and hawed a bit, ultimately answering that Mr. Amano's vision of D was spectacular, and more commercially viable than his. What made it so funny was that Mr. Amano had crept into the room after the session started and heard the answer! Mr. K then asked the audience to not ask anything else about Mr. Amano.

Mr. Amano's panel was awesome, too. He described a project near and dear to his heart: for years he's wanted to create a superhero. He wants to make TakoMan (I think that's the right spelling) -- that is Octopus Man. He's figured out his powers and weaknesses, and his arch enemies. It would be such fun to see something like this from Mr. Amano!

The VHD panel which featured both and kept the focus on the world of VHD was awesome. A new novel was released in Japan last week. Dark Horse seems to be very happy with how the VHD novels are selling in English, so I think they are about to commit to translating all of them.
I was able to attend both Mr. Kikuchi and Mr. Amano autograph sessions. In each one, Mr. Amano not only signed the item I brought (a kinda rare hardback edition of the first novel, and the wonderful signboard that Crystal painted for me) but drew D on it as well. The book has a nice profile of D. I was so amused with the signboard. Mr. Leahy signed it first, then Mr. Kikuchi. By the time Mr. Amano got it, the white area had only enough space for him to sign Y. Amano. He looked at it for a moment, and this indescribably adorable unsatisfied look crossed his face. He flipped the board over and drew a terribly cute Chibi D stalking in from the side on the back.

Mr. K was so entertaining at the dinner. He was so interested in us, asking questions and being cute. The restaurant had some pretty awful dinner theatre sort of enteraining going on, that repeated too often, and was too loud, but aside from that, it was awesome. I'd taken some glowstick bracelets, and Mr. K wanted to wear one. Unfortunately, most of the food contained cheese, and Mr. K doesn't like cheese. We know because he'd look down, say 'Cheese, cheese, cheese' while shaking his head 'no'. Of course we wanted pictures with him. One of the other fans came in a very impressive D costume. Mr. K gestured for the hat, so some people have pics with him wearing D's hat. The look on his face when they brought out his birthday cake with sparklers on top was priceless. Horrified that they were bringing something on fire to the table! After a while he got a bit bored, asked Kevin for a little