| This was the second AFFE that my brother and I had attended and it was even more fun than the first. We started our trip by picking up our friend Jean from the airport and he rode with us from Ohio over to Pennsylvania. There we picked up Kevin and John and headed on into New Jersey. We've gotten to know enough people in this hobby, that upon reaching the hotel, we already had lots of guys to hang out with. Since the convention hadn't started we decided to do some local site seeing and shopping. I risked life and limb following Bob Eggleton through the scary New Jersey traffic as we made the rounds, visiting the area's Japanese stores and collectible shops, including Outer Limits. It was a fun time, even if I did almost get squeezed between two semis on the highway. The next big event was the dealer's room setup. We worked on that until the convention got started. This year's exclusive toy was the brand new M-1 unpainted Gorgo, complete with baby Gorgo figure. Check out the dealer's room page for pictures of these toys. There was a decent amount of stuff going on all at once during the convention. Model threads, videos, the dealer's room, art demos by Bob, and of course, the guest presentations. This year Shusuke Kaneko made an appearance to talk about his work on GMK. Check out the link to his section on this page. Also at the show were Teruyoshi Nakano, a long time kaiju special effects director and Yasumasa Kawauchi who works for Bandai Japan. Nakano's sessions focused on the details of how special effects were done back in the day, enlightening many fans about the hard work put into those films. Kawauchi had loads of great info on the current and upcoming products produced by Bandai. As many know, I'm a long time die-hard Titanosaurus fan. So, imagine my surprise and excitement when Kawauchi announced that Bandai would indeed be producing a new Titanosaurus figure. It was fun to watch his surprise at how excited the fans were by this news. He also provided a lot of other news on upcoming Godzilla and Ultraman toys, as well as answering questions about some of the rarer of Bandai's Godzilla toys. It was interesting to hear his point of view on what collecting these toys was about. He believes these toys should be appreciated for the enjoyment they bring to their owners and for their collectibility, and should be looked at less for the price they could be sold for. Below is a photo of one of his sessions. |
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| The show continued with a showing of Gamera 2. Now, I had the directions told to me and was assured this was a simple trip. Yeah right! I got to the exit that was supposed to lead to the theater and it split into three directions! The adventure really began at this point, as my brother, Jean, Kevin, and I got to see more of New Jersey than we had ever planned to, especially some of the seedier areas. About an hour and 15 minutes after our departure, with a good call by Jean, we finally found the theater. What was amusing, was that we had just pulled up to ask some locals (about the 15th time we'd done it by now) where the theater was at. They claimed not to know, but it was about this time we all looked up to see the theater sign right in front of our faces. We made it in just in time to see Gamera getting his rear end handed to him by adult Legion, and really didn't miss any of the good parts. The second day of the show was pretty much a repeat of the first, with Gamera 3 being shown that night. And yes, this time we made it to the theater on our first try. All in all, AFFE was great this year. I enjoyed the guests very much, and the fun times with my friends always makes these shows worth it. If compared with other conventions I've been to, AFFE is on a much smaller scale, but that isn't necessiarly a bad thing. It actually can make it a lot more fun as you get to know the group of people around you a lot better. Unfortunately, it was decided this would be the last of the AFFE's. It's too bad, cause it was definately a fun time. I have to give a big thanks to Jim C. for putting on such a great convention. |
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