User Profile: Haruhifan
User #1,208
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| DNA: | Male | | Country: |  | Canada |
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| Joined: | 1 year ago |
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| Last seen: | 2 days ago |
| Postage: | 10 topics, 119 posts, 13 blog entries. |
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Well I've been in and out of the TV anime and the card game but recently back in due to friends, a.k.a. peer pressure. I'm a 27 year old Asian Canuck who was fortunate to encounter the joy and life changing adventure that is Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series. I'd say I lost 20 pounds or made tons of money on it but that would be lying. (^O^/) Oh friends call me Haru for short online and I'm a guy in case you're wondering. Hence as you'll see below why my name is Haruhifan, it's from my love for anime.
My hobbies include anime/manga viewing (e.g. current favs include Negima and Zero No Tsukaima, past favs include from my name The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Ouran High School Host Club, & Love Hina), sports (baseball, hockey, mixed martial arts), pro wrestling, comedy improv, and board, collector card & video games (Settlers of Catan, Yu-gi-oh, Pokemon, RPGs like Disgaea and Chrono Cross/Trigger, fighting games like the Street Fighter series and the Tekken series). I always love a good laugh from parodies to comedy improv. Rock on!
Top website I recommend: Crunchyroll for free latest anime and more!
Current profile picture - Nakoruru anime style from Samurai Showdown and Capcom vs. SNK!  |
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| | Naru2U 2008 Anime Con Report! |
| (0 comments, posted 4 days ago by Haruhifan) |
Back again! First off if you wish to see our performances by the 404s, the improv comedy troupe I went up with as a host and actor for Naru2U in Ottawa, along with all the videos by fans or ourselves, I made a new playlist that can be located at 404s Eastside Improv Troupe Division Videos!
For more on the troupe by the way, you can find about us at The 404s Comedy troupe
Now onto the con report at hand!
NARU 2 U Anime Convention Report, November 14-16, 2008 from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, eh
FRIDAY
This was mainly a travel day but it had some highlights as well.
We once again ran behind schedule as we had a few drop-offs prior to getting on the road. We met up at Mr. Burger in Oshawa and I give a lovely line about wanting to just eating something small at a freaking burger place with huge proportions. Yes I got the joke about maybe I should order a leaf of lettuce then, but I got a small fries since I had dinner prior to my pickup.
We also almost had an accident when some old lady in all black clothing (a retired Goth gal?) who apparently doesn\'t know, as my one friend puts it, \"SELF PRESERVATION INSTINCTS!\" This would happen on the last day too of the con, as kids too have no clue that cars actually drive around in parking lots so randomly walking in a weaving motion is not the brightest idea in the world.
By the time we got on the road in 2 cars, it was 9PM in Oshawa. Our car is luckily very talkative and it included a goal of one of our troupe members finding one of the guests at the con, first time appearing \"Sugar\" Stephanie Beard who was the English Voice Actor (VA for short) Rini on Sailor Moon because he, a big guy, can do her squeaky voice; more on that later.
We had 1 stopover that turned into 3 as we tried a few small towns to gas up as we were running low just prior to reaching Ottawa. Our luck managed to find the towns where everything closed before 11PM so instead we had to backtrack a few times before reaching Kempville. We found a hotel with a buzzer but no one at the desk to ask for help to locate the gas station. Apparently the manager watching from some window of the building saw us and kindly gave us directions. Still, that\'s creepy! It was worth it though as we got to a Mac\'s and I kid not, the gas was at 77.8, when most were priced at 84 or more! Sweet! And 2 for 1 Frosters?! That\'s a double winning situation (I got grape, it was thirst quenching). The cashier was cool and asked about our act, so we were on a merry way onto Ottawa...
...and reached there at about 1:30AM. Well we checked in and the staff was there to greet us while the hotel staff at the Travelodge was awesome in our treatment then and all weekend long. We had shifts on beds so I got the floor which was fine for me, I\'ve slept on so many different places it doesn\'t bother me so long as I got a place to sleep. The rooms were fine so we rested up for the big Saturday, just like any convention on a weekend is for when they got their biggest drawing day.
SATURDAY
Woke up earlier than expected at 8AM so I cruised on down for getting some extra toiletries we couldn\'t get last night for the others and a drink from the gift shop for myself to have with some oatmeal cookies I had packed upstairs. It was nice to get some people noticing me as I was in our standard 404s shirts (they look a bit like bowling T-shirts but I think they give us a unique look). Got my first hug of the con from s gal cosplaying as Misa from Death Note, as I\'m always told wherever I am I\'m huggable. Well at least as far as with me the congoers I meet who want hugs got \"huganomic etiquette\" and asked before hugging. Be polite, I\'ll welcome the hugs.
We got to the opening ceremonies at 10AM in the main Greenery Room. From the sunroof you could see the downpour that started a little last night, as bad weather seems to follow all big events I find I go to. At least we were indoors so it wasn\'t too much a bother. We met Spike Spencer who I dub the new Scott McNeil of anime cons, since Scott used to do EVERY convention known to man (he\'s on a smaller schedule so I hope to see him make room once more to come to Anime North 2009, along with many others like the guests we met whom I plan to get their contacts from the staff to pass along to the guest liaison people I work with). He\'s pretty wacky funny too even if he\'s ALWAYS in that mode. After our spiel we had an hour so we hunted for food. You\'d think it would be easy by car but not so, as we had to drive a while WITHOUT SEEING ONE TIM HORTON\'S! OK let me put that into Canadian perspective: not finding a Tim Horton\'s within 10 feet is like not finding oxygen or the world missing the sun. We only managed to find one later on in the downtown. That\'s so unforgivable for our nation\'s capital not be Timmy deprived! We settled on McDonald\'s (or as the French say which is easier, \"Le McDo\") and I don\'t have this place on even my top 100 choices to eat at. I settled on a 2 for 1 apple pie special since I had to pickup something for a friend. At least the pies haven\'t gotten me sick or anything (yet). I do like my pie!
11:30AM brought on our first show, where I was the host as we look to find a second host beyond our Calgary founder who wasn\'t there for the show. I got good constructive criticism later about my performance and saw a bit of it from the videos online and the one we\'re taping (we had 2 cameras, one for only the shows and one for a special behind the scenes documentary and masquerade which 2 of our members hosted). I\'m great at memorizing the rules as I watch a lot of footage and I read the rules prior to coming to the show. I\'m also good at taking plain or too broad a suggestion for scenes from a hat and making it more elaborate for the actors to use, while asking the audience when I needed a scene topic or theme for other games, keeping topics varied. My big flaws are my flow (I still say \"Umm\" a lot and I\'ve practiced a long time trying to do public speech; it\'s a very tough thing to omit as we all got our little ways to stall when thinking) and most of all, crowd appeal. I was too reserved not wanting to take away from the actors when I should be the main attraction during my host pieces, so my crowd pop was minimal at times. I hope to improve with time if asked to host again or if chosen as the second host down the road.
As far as games during the all ages show I made a minor booboo asking for 3 Headed Expert (3 actors acting as one person and speaking one word at a time in order of their lineup) to describe \"Zebra mating rituals\". It was funny of course and we got a good reaction for a first show where we\'re warming up for later shows in some ways. I got in to play Change which of course we all hate (CHANGE), I mean we all love to death! I did Authors and Characters as a flunky in mecha series before battles while we told Little Red Riding Hood. Press Conference was a good one where we had the actor not knowing he was Barack Obama fielding questions after his announcement of having the superpower to find cheese. So if that happens at the inauguration, we called it!
We had a long wait before the Masquerade for 2 of our actors to host, so it was time to do touristy things! Just prior and during the weekend I got tons of pictures of the wonderful cosplayers of the con and they include in no particular order: Rukia in her school outfit from Bleach, a few playing Temari from Naruto, Shino from Naruto, Mikuru in her bunny outfit from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Flonne from Disgaea, Several Organization XIII members, Sora and Namine from Kingdom Hearts 2 (which I\'m playing at home), Vash from Trigun, Akamatsu members from Naruto: Shippuuden, The Director from Excel Saga (Afro included), Misa and L from Death Note (Death Note included-I signed it later as Bob Marley to be on the safe side, heh), the cast from Earthbound (also playable in Super Smash Bros. Brawl), T-Block from Tetris (SO COOL!), Paine from FF X-2, Fire Nation cosplaying Toph and Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender, A blue Yoshi dressed as Sailor Mercury (that was a very elaborate one!), The Shinigami head and Maki from Soul Eater (I\'m waiting for the next chapter online!), Marth and Mario from SSBB, Misty from Pokemon, Sasuke, Chouji and Ino from Naruto: Shippuuden, the cast from Vampire Knight (I love the white school outfits!), Bakura and Yugi from Yu-gi-Oh holding a LARP panel I peaked in on during my break, a GREAT Wolf outfit from Wolf\'s Rain, Ed Elric from Full Metal Alchemist, Roxas from KH2, the Princess from Disgaea 2 (I got to get that game sometime...love the first one!), Urahaha from Bleach, a few playing Ichigo from Bleach, the Sailor Scouts and Tuxedo Kamen from Sailor Moon whom the staff had me take a picture with, and a cute trio playing Sakura, Hinata and Naruto from Naruto: Shippuuden. There are plenty more and sometime I will work on getting the parts to do a transfer of the pictures to my computer to upload but for now I had fun looking them over!
We were given a tour guide who was friends with another group member to head to the Byward Market in downtown Ottawa. I got some pictures on the way in the rain of the old government buildings and we found parking...right across from an area with a strip club and bakery. Mmm...Erotic cakes? Well we walked around a bit and got to the market. I read from the pamphlet I got from there about how it\'s one of Canada\'s oldest public markets (the oldest I was told was in St. Catherines, Ontario which I\'ve past by when I was little), and I liked the variety of little restaurants there from Indian to Chinese to Japanese to Italian to French and more! I got myself a DELICIOUS croissant while practicing my French ordering it to eat on Sunday morning. We walked further to a mall in the Rideau Centre to get large stuffed pizza slices. I couldn\'t finish the crust as my combo also had pasta and garlic bread. I didn\'t have to have a dinner after that. People around town are nice with some cute gals too, as one suddenly got into a conversation about the Montreal Canadians of the NHL (I was wearing my team blazer), while we also met a women\'s basketball team from McMaster University who also asked about our troupe. On the way back we stopped at a store called Sugar Mountain and at $1.99 per 100 grams (that\'s a 10th of a thousand grams remember, as someone pointed out to a question of how much that is!) AND you can mix any candy in the bag, I sort of splurged for $10 worth. Yep, in my fridge I still got some Jelly Bellies (Root Beer, Cream Soda and Orange...hmmm one REPORT INTERMISSION AS I GET SOME...OK I return and HEY my chair has been seized by my one cat Aerio! Sigh, oh well, stool it is but I got my SWEET candy and chocolate which includes the most perfect combination my friend said I\'d get: my all time favorite treat, Reese\'s Pieces, and the store\'s specialty, Chocolate Covered Cookie Dough. I swear it\'s ambrosia! Can you tell now I got enough sugar to finish this report up?
I wasn\'t at the Masquerade as I wanted to catch some of the CFL playoff games to see who was making the Grey Cup (not my Ticats sadly...long gone from contention), so congrats to any Calgary Stampeders or Montreal Alouette sfans, the game should be good! I heard it went well even as a short show so we had another long wait until the late night show which is our Mature showing. It was time to enjoy the hotel and con! Somehow during my venture down I got stuck in the World\'s slowest elevator doors rushing in and it got filmed by my friend with the documentary camera...I am shamed but I know I got no land speed, OK? I cruised first to the Manga Library, Panel Rooms and peaked in for a bit. I enjoyed some time in the Games Room taking pictures and seeing how rusty I am at other games (I\'m currently only playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl on my Wii, Yugioh World Tour 2004 on my Nintendo SP, and largely RAW vs. Smackdown 2006 and Kingdom Hearts 2 on my trusty PS2, though I got plenty more games of course from the past). I learned I can still play DDR fine but got to watch reaggrevating my sore knees, I suck at Guitar Hero as I failed my one song on Easy, I never liked Soul Calibur past the second game on the Dreamcast so SC3 was not much for me even as I sucked at it (I\'m more a Street Fighter 2/SNK/Guilty Gear player), and I did OK against my friend and others at SSBB as Pikachu. I also did a bit of Dealer’s room looking but spent only a bit to get 2 posters for my room, a cast of Naruto and one of Bleach.
After the con events we STILL had lots of free time so next thing to do as a group was to checkout the big hotel attraction: the water park! IT WAS AWESOME! It\'s all salt water supplied so no chlorine blindings but the water sure tasted icky. There was a hot tub and wave pool which was cool to jump in and a nice water slide and kiddy pool we even had fun in! I did learn that after stopping abruptly on my first slide to sit flat...but then I became the human torpedo! Man I went fast but it was again awesome to do! Swims and a hot tub just before a performance really hit the spot. After some more hanging out in the hotel rooms (found out on highlights there\'s a new UFC Heavyweight champ in Brock Lesnar, though funny that WWE looks so silly on their website praising him, and I\'m a pro wrestling fan as well as a Mixed Martial Artist fan, but to say you got him to the championship THEN go trash the company he\'s in doesn\'t look too bright, but I digress, check Wrestling Observer if you wish to read up on it) and a food run to the 24 hour Shopper\'s Drug Mart across the street (saved on me picking up some groceries too), our Late Night show was upon us.
At 12:30AM we got the show going, this time with another host as I got to play this time. I\'m my worst critic so this time I\'ll say I did something good in progressing in improv acting: I really opened up my act to not just be a bit more mature but more loose and wild, and the crowd seemed to love it. As Spike Spencer and Sugar said in their panel (more on that later), comedy is the hardest genre to do. From timing (even when improving) to being very flexible and sometimes well out of your normal character, a variety of things go into being funny. Looking over the roster of games laid out (something I also like to do so I might help hosting in that manner, making sure we got enough games and that actors get enough playtime and rests) we had lots of great games. Arms Expert I got into my character of Prof. Ludvig Von Borga (a name paying homage to funny WWF gimmicks) as a taxidermist librarian. Remember to stuff those pornos down the boa firmly! Infomercial had our actors work out Plumber\'s crack and led to a lot of shooting PIkachu, which I took as my joke to re-use in other jokes (like Scenes from a Hat topic: things you don\'t want to hear your butcher say-\"You take the Pikachu and Shoot it!\"). At 1AM, halfway through the show, we did one of our staple acts, we got pantless! Don\'t worry we were in boxers, though the crowd was even into it now as some of THEM got pantless, and one guy went 1 step further also having a F*ck Pants shirt! Kudos for daring to be stupid! We did Dating Game and I took a bit of an idea from Wayne Brady when he did it for the US improv show, doing a stripper whose plastic surgery was falling apart. Finally of course I had to be involved in a yaoi moment, as we did moving people where we can talk but cannot move without the help of volunteers. Safe to say a trip to getting Beaver Tails (the Ottawa treat that\'s like funnel cake but made into a tail shape and topped with various sugary treats), into me fishing for my fellow improver (we\'re an all guy cast I would like to remind you) into his pants (well if he had them on) to find his wallet and somehow ending up feeling tush. Yaoi, a con eventuality but I do what I can for the fans! And who knew wallets can be kept there! It was 2AM as we overflowed the show a bit, so we called it a night right after. I had to walk back barefooted like I did from the pool, but not by choice this time, as I stepped in a puddle of spilled Rockstar drink. Thankfully didn\'t step in anything worse so it was just a shower and sleep...
SUNDAY
...where I got an early wakeup when the floor I was sleeping on BOUNCED on me! To further my shock, the rain had in fact changed into snow as I was hearing might happen. It was wet snow so luckily it didn\'t hurt our trip back too badly.
We checked out and got right to our last show of the con at 1PM. This one was special as halfway in we got a special guest, former YTV Zone host and current voice actress Sugar Stephanie Beard! She was a great sport and really funny. We did a few games with her. Our one actor was her and I was her best friend Emma who can apparently super jump into cars and screams from her house to talk to her. We did another Dating Game where Sugar was the questioning dater. This time I was Tuxedo Mask (my first ever cosplay ironically) who thought she really was Rini from Sailor Moon, so I tried to resist her looks (joke is in the series she becomes Black Lady, an adult villainess who coveted her dad, Tuxedo Mask) and I had to contend with my fellow dates Mr. T and a guy growing a conjoined twin out of his shoulder. She said she\'d date us all, but I pity her then, da fool. We tried a new game with her called Art Gallery where she and another improver would try to decipher random poses we made as pieces of artwork in a gallery, where the theme chosen was Africa. I went wild doing bends and riding a chair (which I did almost slide off of but kept barely on thanks to my fellow improver holding me) and somehow got called Africa\'s first strip club. I think that\'s a theme that\'s following me a lot...Finally a great game I loved but wasn\'t in was Sound Effects. Sugar and our Sugar Impersonator did the sound effects for 2 other actors acting out a search for Ice Cream Bars in the desert that ended up being a killing spree, as we never have birds come into play right off the bat to peck our actors before! I pity them for being pecked, shot, run over and blown up that scene. Sugar was a great sport for her first convention and I look forward to seeing her anytime! I was told we even got a clip of her saying we\'re her favorite troupe on our documentary, so yay us!
We ended the day attending the Voice Acting panel hosted by Sugar and Spike Spencer (Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion, Papillion from Busou Renkin, etc.). That was a blast hearing their favorite actors (Gary Oldman is a great choice as is the late Gilda Radner) to odd stories (Spike being a children\'s party entertainer in the past and even donning a Minnie Mouse outfit and freaking some bothersome kid out!) to some great encouragement and tips to us as comedians as well. Green apple for the throat and giving acting a serious thought are some of the things I took away from it and we did talk on the way back home about all sorts of things, from how to drive (I\'ve still yet to get my license...) to how to work and expand our horizons as the 404s comedy troupe. I\'ll end things there with a final note that stepping in puddles of stuff seems to follow me around too as I did so near the end of the ride. But even sticky feet couldn\'t spoil this wonderful trip to a new anime convention. Next con report will most likely be Anime North 2009 and that will be huge since I work on the staff as comedy improv liaison, head of pro wrestling showings (Anime Wrestling) and volunteer on the Charity Auction for Hospital for Sick Kids Toronto. So thanks for reading this report and keep on supporting us at our shows by coming out to watch! Eastside Represent because it\'s EASTSIDE 4 LIFE!
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