What's been going on with me? Well... basically, this:




Baltimore & Murakami-sensei--A.K.A. Lillian brushes up on her Japanese:

I was there for four days, and had a blast. I remembered that Otakon was super-fun, with a great fan vibe, but I didn't get out much the last time I was there, and didn't realize how nice the rest of the Inner Harbor area is. The only problem was that our hotel was a 15-minute cab ride away. D'oh! Thank god for the company expense budget.

Things went smoothly with the panel, the signings and whatnot, thanks to the hard-working con staff. I did general guide and translation stuff for Murakami, except on the panel, when I let a real pro take over, but I did handle an interview with Publishers Weekly, which was a real challenge. Kai Ming and I have spoken a couple of times before, so I was comfortable dealing with her, but after two hours of talking, I went into brain fry and stopped being able to communicate in either language. :-) And, I thought it would be a cool idea to get away from the con itself to get a little peace and quiet for the interview (so I could concentrate), and suggested the tea room at a hotel down the street. It was indeed lovely and quiet, but it turned out to be a little *too* quiet. We were one of two parties there, and after sitting and listening to us talk about gay sex from a couple of tables away, I think the other party got scared off, and then it was just the four of us (counting Murakami's editor, who got asked a few questions, too). And the overly attentive waitstaff. And the place was *so nice* that it kind of set us all on edge a bit. Oh well. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The brainfry would have theoretically been okay, except that later that evening I got to tag along to the Otakon guest dinner, and ended up sitting next to Seki Tomokazu, a voice actor who I'm a big fan of, at dinner. And I had *nothing* interesting to say! I kept trying to think of entertaining conversation, and failed every time. We chatted a bit, and the folks around me, including Murakami-sensei, who'd met Seki-san a couple of times before, kept the conversation going, and fortunately Seki-san ordered an enormous 3lb. steak, which he astonishingly managed to eat all of (prompting everyone to make jokes about how much Seki-san likes meat), so that kept him busy. But I still felt dumb.

While I was generally pleased with how much conversation and translation I can handle in Japanese (especially since most of the other official translators were either full Japanese, either first or second generation, or had a Japanese parent), it was a good reminder of how far I still am from real fluency. Especially when asking questions, like during the interview. I can ask things, and get the point across, but I know there's a better, more polite, neater way of doing so, and I don't quite have that knowledge. Time to level up!!

Anyway, the Gravi fans were adorable, and Murakami got a real kick out of meeting them. She was continually amused that more than 5 people showed up for the panel (we had a whopping +600 in the crowd! And they started lining up so early, and in such numbers that the con staff freaked out that they had the time wrong, and started making frantic calls to my cellphone while I was still off eating breakfast), and by how everyone kept saying that she was their god, and whatever, and how they loved her work. Her typical response: "Me, too!" (in English) American fans are way more outgoing than Japanese ones, and she was quite amused by both that, and the relative lack of both original manga/doujinshi, and erotic pinups in the Artists Alley. Go figure.

Fun things about Murakami-sensei:

~She's less wacky than you might initially think, reading her manga, but she's got an awesome, snarky sense of humor. There was a jpop band of like, 13 young 20-somethings there as guests as well, and she and Editor-san spent a ton of time making fun of their teenage slang. :-) "Maji yabai!!" LOL.

(I actually spent a bit of time talking about manga to one of the boys, who was almost painfully attractive. Go me! Should have gotten a picture...)

~Speaking of making fun of, especially at the Sunday signing, there were a lot of people who had gotten Seki-san's autograph the day before (since he does Shuichi's voice in the Gravi anime), and Murakami always had a snarky comment about that. Mostly in regards to the fact that Seki's signature is almost unrecognizable. :-) "Was this really worth it?"

~And more snark: We were having a drink on the patio in front of the Hard Rock Cafe, and talking about how great it was to see so many families out and about in the area ("Rare in Japan," they said. "Pretty unusual here, too, actually," I said), and Editor-san goes, "Yeah, young girls really are nice..." The two of us look at him blankly. "You really are a lolicon, aren't you?" Murakami says. He tries to defend himself, and we just laugh our asses off at him.

~She got her start as the assistant for the older sister of a friend of hers in high school who drew ero manga. So now with the Gravi Remix/Megamixes she uses a lot of the stuff ("motifs"?) you see in super hardcore straight ero manga. :-) But she's pretty much the only BL author who does that. Banzai Murakami-sensei! Nippon Ichi! (<--I actually said that at the restaurant where we were having dinner, including with the "banzai" wave)

~She's been to the US three times now, the previous two to New York for "research." And she and Editor-san went to Spain fairly recently for a signing.

~She likes weird cute things. On Sunday after the second signing we got to go to the Baltimore aquarium, where she gushed about how adorable the big stingrays were. They have little faces on the underside, and go flap-flap! Squee! And she's like me and likes to eat cute things, so we'd see something cool like an octopus and be like, "TASTY!" Rock on. Then we went to Legal Seafood for dinner.

~Murakami-san doesn't drink. Like, at all (and she was somewhat surprised to learn that they don't serve cold oolong tea in the US). But she likes to watch other people drink (like I like to watch other people smoke, I guess), and encouraged me and Editor-san to drink liberally. No argument here!

~I had forgotten how daunting menus in other languages are. We went out for tapas on Friday night, and the combination of both Spanish and English was just too much for Murakami and co. I translated some things, but basically made the eating decisions for all of us. Fortunately, they're both very game eaters, so that was fine. But food words are hard! It reminded me of my first trip to Japan, where I'd be like, "I can technically read that word, but lord only knows what it actually is."

~She's not an otaku! She got her start doing parody doujinshi of rock bands she liked, not of anime and manga stuff. Editor-san was a bit more of that bend, but even he didn't really become a manga editor because he loves manga all that much (contrary to what we learn from Genshiken). But he does love his job. Murakami joked at one point about how I can eat a lot and still stay slim (sort of), and I said it was from the stress of being an editor, but Editor-san claimed he wasn't really all that stressed from his job. Or rather, he got anxious at deadline time, but all the fun makes it worthwhile. I can agree with that.

Bear in mind that with Murakami, I think he's kind of just given up. :-) She does the MegaMixes and works on Gravi EX kind of in equal measure. Which may not be very much on any given day, really. There were some jokes about that, too.

~Not an otaku addendum: One of my favorite things about Murakami was her incredibly practical approach to her work. She needed the money in high school, so she took the assistant's job. She had the chance to work with her friend's editor after that, and it seemed like a natural progression, especially because she was clearly good at it. She started writing Gravi because it was the kind of story she wanted to read, but that didn't exist. But at the same time, she happily talks about what exhausting, lonely work it is, and how she always is tempted to quit. She is very conscious of wanting to do something that will make readers happy and that they'll enjoy, but interestingly, she doesn't express the kind of pure artistic drive that I think you get with a lot of younger artists here.

Anyway, as a little present, she brought me copies of the latest MegaMixes (Panda, Capybara and Kumagoro) which are so shockingly explicit that she forbade me from opening them until I got back to my hotel room. :-) But I had her sign Panda for me before the con was done (because I like boys in glasses, so that was my favorite of the bunch), and she drew a little sketch of me stalking Eiri Yuki as a bonus. Eee!!


San Diego, A.K.A. Lillian unexpectedly brushes up on her Japanese, round 2:

I hoped to do a little networking at the con, and I kind of did, but it was almost all with our Japanese licensors. I met an editor from Kodansha with Amy Ganter one evening, which was fascinating, and he was a big fan of our super-friendly American waitress, who would tell us how awesome we all were whenever we ordered something. ("I'll have the calamari." "BEAUTIFUL!!" Right... he actually got a refill of coffee, just to have her come over and say something perky to us again). I hung out with the cool ladies from Enterbrain who took me to karaoke and the cross-dressing cafe last summer. The editor for Loveless & Saiyuki was apparently at the con, just kind of hanging out, and he walked by while I was doing portfolio reviews at the back of the booth one day, and stopped to chat for a bit. :-) He's so fun.

And the head licensing person from Kodansha introduced herself to me using her first name, which totally baffled me. We'd actually met last year in Tokyo, but in the context of a crowded, noisy bar, I wasn't making the connection. When I finally got it, I was like, "You're not Tomoko! You're SUGA-SAN." :-) I don't think she really thought that was funny, though... Too bad, too, because I think she's really awesome, when I remember who she is. Anyway, I can at least pretend that part of it was that I remembered her being a lot taller (she has a fairly commanding presence, and you just gotta respect Kodansha...), so it confused me when this tiny Japanese woman walked up to me and started speaking to me in perfect English--complete with spiffy British accent! But she called me "Alexis" at first (the name of my partner in licensing crime), so at least it wasn't just me. :-) I guess Alexis and I are both fairly tall and thin and have brown hair. You'd think the girl/guy thing would help keep us straight, though.

Actually, remembering faces but not names or connections was a *huge* theme for me over the weekend. After three Comicons and other industry things, I have met a ton of the people from competing companies in one place or another (plus a lot of artists who work with/want to work with us), and it felt like half the time someone would walk up to me and be like, "Hey! How's it going?" And I'd be like, "Uh, great...you!" Sometimes the badges helped, sometimes even that wasn't enough. Alas... If you're someone who I should know, and who I spoke with while maintaining a slightly blank, puzzled, neutrally friendly expression, I apologize.

Anyway, our hotel was blissfully comfortable, and attached to the con center, so it couldn't have been more convenient. I didn't get to enjoy the gorgeous pool out back, except for having drinks beside it one evening, but I ate lots of tasty food on the company expense tab, including eggs Benedict for breakfast twice. This made for a massive break from previous cons, where I tended to have Mrs. Field's cookies and coffee for breakfast. No good! Never again.

In spite of our massive turnover in marketing and the massive number of guests we had, the con went remarkably smoothly, and since we ran out of books to give away on Wednesday night (before I even arrived!) I didn't have to spend my weekend restocking displays for once. Hallelujah!! I got to sit at the front desk and hand out Avatar promotional cards instead, which was fine by me. :-) Somewhat to my dismay, though, after a relatively quiet Saturday (the admission cap and the giant industry panels going on helped keep the crowds down, I guess), Sunday was NUTS. I was so ready to be done with the con and nerds as a whole, but the exhibit hall was packed to the gills right up until closing, which made me an unhappy camper. But then I had a great dinner with Svet, Jo and Eric before catching the train back up to LA, which set everything right in my life again.

I totally failed to go to any panels other than the one I was actually on, but I had fun wandering around and taking in the spectacle. And I had a *ton* of fun hanging out with all my awesome artists who were there! *hugs all of you* As a special bonus, because four out of the six are on, or done with their final volumes with TP, they got together and made me giant card with little sketches and personal messages which was just the best thing in the world. It will at some point have a place of honor in my apartment, when I figure out where that is, but until then, it's leaning up against my fish tank in plain view. *sniff*


And now cons are done until next year! Except for Yaoi-con. And then New York Anime Fest. And then New York Comicon... and then it's summer again. Yikes.

Recovery is going well, actually. Last week was surprisingly quiet, although this week may be making up for that already. Gotta get back into the yoga/ninja class swing, though. I went hiking this weekend, and then dancing at the goth club, and then to MoCA downtown, but it's been a while since I did the full yoga workout thing, and I can tell that I miss it.

And this coming weekend, I'm going to sing with a co-worker's rock band! They're doing a gig where the theme is "80s Prom," so I was invited to join them for "Material Girl," "Total Eclipse of the Heart," and "Walk Like an Egyptian." Good times.