I'm back! And well rested after a good night sleep. Two days of SMASH and driving to Sydney and back really takes it out of you.

SMASH this year was the biggest yet, at a new location (again) and spread over two days for the first time. This year it was held at Rosehill Gardens, a racecourse, but was big enough to accommodate the hundreds of stalls and the thousands of people. The show was spread across 3 different enormous buildings, which it needed to be as each room was filled with stalls and booths.



The first thing I caught was some AMV screenings on the main stage before the Kotono Mitsuishi panel. Unfortunately I had to leave her panel early to go participate in the Pokemon TCG competition, in which I successfully defended my 3rd place title from last year (once again there were only 4 people in the competition, though at least this year the fourth wasn't a little kid).

After that I headed to the Mitsuishi signing and got my Evangelion DVD cover signed (which was previously signed by Yuko Miyamura, Tiffany Grant and Matt Greenfield).



Then I went and checked out the second half of the Anime Funeral Panel, which was basically just a guy running through memorable deaths of characters, then yelling and sobbing about them, it was pretty entertaining. The cosplay competition was next, which I am never all that interested in because I don't like the skits, but a friend of mine wanted to see it.

The last thing I went to before finishing off the Saturday was the Mitsuishi mini panel, which was in a smaller room and was much more intimate and interesting. I got to ask her how different it was working on Evangelion the series compared to the films in terms of working with Anno, to which she replied that she never really worked directly with Anno during the series, that she got most of her direction from the sound designer, but now with the new movies she gets all her direction directly from Anno.

Some other things she said about Evangelion during her panels was that when she was cast in the role of Misato she had never done that sort of role before, she had mainly done girly cute roles, so when she started she felt that she over acted the maturity of the character. She also said that Misato was probably one of her most difficult roles. Furthermore, when someone asked about the differences in approaching the character then and now, she said that she wanted to come into the new films and start from scratch with Misato, because she was now a more mature woman and wanted to bring her experiences into the character, and so she didn't go back and watch her previous performance. However when she was working with Anno he told her that she didn't sound like she used to, that she used to sound younger and more lively back when she was working on the original series.

So, once that was over me and my friends went to Hooters (because they parked their car there) and that was a really weird experience. Then I stayed at my friend's place for the night and watched JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Yakitate Japan while having a few beers.

The second day was a much more relaxed affair, and I spent most of the day taking photos and filming. I think there might have been less people, but I'm not sure because there was still A LOT of people.

First up was another Mitsuishi panel in which she did a bunch of live dubbing, which was really awesome. She did Misato in 1.11 when Shinji first activates the Eva, Boa Hancock from One Piece, Murrue Ramius from Gundam SEED, and of course Usagi from Sailor Moon. She also did a line from Excel Saga and (the highlight) sang part of the Sailor Moon theme song as Usagi.

The rest of the day was pretty chilled, I checked out the Madman panel and saw what they were planning on releasing in the future, I had a big bowl of curry rice with takoyaki, I bought a bunch of (too many) Evangelion fan art, and finished the day with the GAMMA.CON trivia, AMV finals (which was really good) and the closing ceremony.

I had a really great time, and I can't wait till next year.

Here's a bunch of photos of cosplay and other stuff:

Fazmotron your hair is getting long what happened man

Thank-you for writing up that post for us all; and for going to all the things and stuff and doing good Evangelion stuff.

More comments later maybehs.

Yay, you posted that picture.

Pretty cool that SMASH has a big guestbook wall. Props for representing EGF! That's pretty interesting about Mitsuishi trying to change her voice up for NTE Misato but going back to the original (I think she did the same for Usagi in Crystal, though she sounds more like Usagi in the final season, 5, than season 1, IMO).

Glad to hear you had such a fun time! Earlier today, I realized somebody should have asked her about Lilia From Ys and how some of the songs are in NGE and NTE (and she was also Lilia in the OVA! Never knew that).

Fazmotron wrote:

EvangelionFan wrote:Fazmotron your hair is getting long what happened man?

There's a proverb in SE Asia. It goes something like:

Long hair. Long life.
Long dick.

@Blue Monday
Sounds good to me.

EvangelionFan wrote:Fazmotron your hair is getting long what happened man

Really?

Yours is probably just a bit longer than mine was before I cut it start of this year. Here's a pic from Japan trip back in November. Shit is so hard to take care of properly, I gave up. I'll try growing it out again some other time, though. Maybe next year.

In This Thread: Long Hair Discussion
... and Ornette is victorious by default, so that tangent concludes sooner than it began.


Back onto SMASH!

So Faz, tell us about that four-person Pokemon TCG tournament. I take it you went to the Saturday one but not the Sunday one? Of course, if there were only four people on the Saturday, there cannot have been too many more for the Sunday tournament...

Also y u no buy Slowpoke Tail?

Stopped being a Pokemon fan about 2002-3ish, so I don't know jack about this TCG thing, but 4 people out of a con that draws thousands? And this is the second year that it happened?

Dunno, I like his hair...


Thank you for sharing this with us.

Now we know what Mitsuishi worries about. She was trying not to go overboard with the cute and happy-go-lucky? I never found anything lacking as far as balancing that goes.


Also, less screentime made Anno more perfectionist? aha. It's always interesting to compare the different experiences the cast had.

Long Hair Discussion:
Because it curls at the ends it looks a little shorter, it's probably past my shoulders if I was to straighten it.

Pokemon TCG Discussion:
I only went to the Saturday tournament yes, and I have no idea how many people were at the Sunday one, as I was more focussed on doing the Anime and photo/video stuff on the Sunday.
Pokemon TCG never seems to have much of a draw at these sorts of things I think mainly because at the events I've been to it's either very highly skilled players or people who have no idea what they're doing that play, which means at an event like SMASH! where Pokemon TCG isn't the focus there isn't going to be people constructing a deck specifically on the day unless they're already an established player.

Kendrix wrote:Thank you for sharing this with us.

No worries. I'll hopefully have some video footage online soon as soon as I sort out a few technical issues with the footage, so stay tuned for that.

Rocked up on Sunday clutching my copy of 2.0 but the missus had soccer in the morning so couldn't get there in time to get it signed by Mitsuishi. Which bummed me out horribly. Still had a good time though: got photo taken with the bloke in the giant Unit 2 costume and decided to get my first ever Gundam model kit (Sinanju). Shame about all the sexual harassment which was apparently going on, but.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:Mitsuishi Q & A from yesterday here: https://twitter.com/JPFSydney

How can I see that Q&A now?
Is it gone?

Just scroll down to Friday, August 8th on that Twitter page, no?

So... remember when I said I have some video footage from SMASH!, well I had a few beers and cut this together, I hope you enjoy it.
http://youtu.be/l-J-i6_NmQ4

You all should watch this first in order to understand why this video was made: http://youtu.be/AMTDYwfuAyc

P.S. The reason I didn't put this out sooner was because I was very unhappy with the footage I shot. Too much shaky cam, not enough good camera work.