-"It wasn't until 9:00a.m. that we woke up on Saturday."

-"Neow. We were apparently pretty tired from all the moonshine the night before."

-"No, Catsy, that was a different night. So, we woke up at nine and caught Sailor Moon on some cheesy Raleigh TV station. It was the one where the freak Zoicite cross-dresses like Sailor Moon so that he/she/it can catch the senshi with their skirts down. The only reason we watched was 'cause we knew it was the one where Sailor V showed up and started kickin' booty."

-"I finally got Oni-chan to turn the channel and I watched Voltron while she rid herself of her ferocious ota-funk. Then at 10 we hurried down to the dealers' room and to the booth where we got my GR artbooks so that I could exchange the crappy one for something else.... hopefully-tcha.

"*Psssst* Pepe, help me stuff this cabbit in my backpack. I'll pet your P-chan if you do."

  They were great! They let me get an Escaflowne artbook instead! I was a happy kitty^_^  I didn't realize that some dealers were actually nice. Oni-chan and I always just thought that they were all like that comic book guy in The Simpsons. Who knew?"

-"We hung around for a bit and then we headed over to see just how in the hell they were going to do the 'Whose Anime Line Is It Anyway?' show at 11...... Well, at least they tried to do it (just not hard enough). Although I have to admit that they were funnier when they weren't playing the game and just goofing off by being themselves. They did do a great job on the 'Dubbing the Dalkstalkers' contest. It seems that Dimitri's butler owed quite a few parking tickets which he couldn't and wouldn't pay. But the generous Vampire offered to pay them off himself if the poor old man promised to serve him for another eternity. Bummer.

-"I want to f*** you over and over until you explode with my manly juices of love!"
-"Okay, but you only get two more wishes."
For the sake of everybody at home who couldn't witness the 'pick an anime character and act out a scene' skit, the two above got the 'Overfiend' and 'Belldandy'.

  Catsy and I were laughing our fannies off, but then it ended in only twenty minutes. We were miffed at that. Hopefully next year they'll just make it an impromtu dubbing contest or something. That would be cool (hint hint)."

-"We wandered into the Art Room again and placed some more bids on some more really cool Giant Robo cells from episode 7-tcha. By now we had our names on at least 5 of them! And it looked like we actually might get most of them. Kick ass!
  Then it was to the B-Club and Anime panel with Tashiko Tsuruoka. They mostly talked about the animation industry *yawn* and a lot about garage kits. Oni-chan fell into a boredom coma and I had to take her outside and slap her around a bit in order to bring her too."

-"I just fell asleep you Mega-Baka! If you ever-"

-"We went back inside (both of us not in any comas) and caught the end of episode 3, beginning of 4 Giant Robo. I love Giant Robo!!!! I had just seen 1-6 last week for the fiftieth time too!"

-"Yeah, well I saw them 51 times."

-"Well, I actually lied. I've seen them 953,182 times, I just didn't want you to feel bad."

-"wow. You're always thinking of me, aren't you Catsy. Anywho- what- when, we saw the GR episodes in a huge crowd (where they're always the most fun) until 12:30, when Imagawa's Robo Panel began. It was the only thing that could have gotten us away from that video room.
  As we waited to get into the panel room we noticed that people were snapping at Kenji as he kept trying to protect different innocent con-goers with his body. He's gotta realize that no otaku is really worth protecting with your life... even if you're an immortal! Sheesh! Some idiot even asked him if he was supposed to be Inspector Zenigata...... I had to kick him in the doo-dahs for that insult."

-"Neow. Yeah, that was cool! Then I bit him on the toosh (Lord knows there was enough of it to go around). After I spit out the flesh and flab (mostly flab [okay, it was all flab *yech!*]) we got some good seats and waited for Imagawa-sensei to enlighten us as to the glorious world of GR. But instead this con-guy came up and began telling us who Imagawa was and some of the work he's done. Like 'duh'. That's what we were there for!"

-"Then Imagawa came forward and began to tell us all about the long long road to actually starting and completing Giant Robo. It all began 15 years ago when the OAV market opened and was a huge success. A little too huge, though as it soon became totally over- saturated with average and bad stuff. Then the bummer- years began. Not much of anything except stuff that sucked (paraphrasing) was released for a while. But then, a diamond shone forth from the proverbial rough and Giant Robo was its name. Now, don't get Imagawa wrong, he wasn't full of himself, he just pointed out that the most memorable OVA series to be released in the years before GR were stuff like Macross II and other hideously planned and penned animations. Before GR it was a dark time indeed."

Imagawa-sensei is momentarily stunned as the otaku in the front row just re-enacted the famous Sharon Stone scene in Basic Instinct. Thank Kami-sama that we were behind him!

-"Neow. The master told us that he was originally on staff to do a sequel to Yamato, but then it stalled. He was then handed a 'busy project' to keep him occupied until the sequel was back on track. The 'busy' work only had a name attached to it and no story or characters: Giant Robo.
  He was told to do 'something with a big robot that would make people cry.' I think he pretty much accomplished that-tcha. At the time in which he was actually putting the story together, Imagawa said that there were waaaaay too many 'girly' shows out there, meaning lots of bouncy (read: busty or bosomy) women which he wanted to keep away from his serious work. So he assembled a whole lot of additional Characters from a bunch of other manga by Yokayama (the original creator of Giant Robo) and placed them in Robo's world. Most of those characters were middle- aged men which led him to be tagged as "the Homo-Director". Ouch!"

From left to right and top to bottom we have: Alberto the Impactor; the Kepputo; Taiso; Chief Chujo; the Black Ox; the Fabulous Fitzkarald; Gaiea; Ko-Enshaku; Koshin; Kenji the Immortal; Dr. Shizuma; and Babel II aka Big Fire (of course they were mostly known as something else before GR but I really have no idea what their origianl names were).

-"Most of the above characters were already really famous in Japan before Robo so it was kinda like an All- Star cast of Anime charas (especially Babel II, Taiso, and Inspector Murasame). Since the original GR manga was no longer available, Imagawa really didn't have any idea what kind of work it was so he and his crew simply started from scratch (with the only thing that remained for sure was the robot/boy bond which was what GR was truly known for).
  Yokayama gave his full blessing for whatever changes Imagawa wished to enact saying, 'As long as the show is interesting - Go for it!'"

-"The main thing that the producers wanted was a series about giant robots, but that's not really what they got-tcha. Imagawa 'splained that he wanted all the human characters to make up the story, not the robots, just like Yokayama originally did. He also wanted to keep all of the original chara designs too, as he hated it when people changed and altered the classics for no reason. Neow! So do I! I hate it when they so that and screw them up so bad that, that, that you just want to kick 'em in the nutz!!!!!
  Anyway, it was the 'retro' character designs that got a lot of the great talent to sign on to the project in the first place."

-"It took over five years for the company to actually get the whole GR thang rolling! By then, Imagawa recalled, the first story he thought up was old and he had to completely rewrite it. But, he was quick to point out that this was probably for the best. You see, this five year break was when he came up with the idea for the Shizuma drive. I don't think I can even think about GR without the drive! I mean, it was the backbone of the entire Night Stood Still story!
  Halfway throught the first phase of the project the old sponsor disappeared, but Bandai was quick to step in and keep it from drowning. Even then it took 2 years to make episode 1. Daaaaaaaaaaamn!"

-"That's longer than I've been alive! Although in cat- years I guess I'm something like 50 now."

-"In that time, Catsy, did you ever go to any sort of school? Even a special school?"

-"Bandai saw the first volume and said that it was 'too long.' They wanted a total of 7 volumes at thirty minutes each and they wanted it finished in three years. Well, most were between 40 minutes to an hour and it took 7 years. Imagawa had to even cut the story back and Bandai made sure to tell him that there had to be at least one giant robot fight in every episode. I think he kinda chinced on them in that department. It turns out that they needed little convincing of letting him go his own way because they loved episode one so much though^_^"

-"Now for some FUN FACTs:  The GR story was originally going to be a 3 parter;  Volume 1's ending was originally where volume 4's ending is now;  When he cut it all down it was still 2 hours long, so he cut it again giving it a great cliff- hanger ending and decided that he had to finish the story in the next 6 episodes;  Imagawa always wondered what would happen in the next volume too (along with the viewers);  And he's completely satisfied with the story.
  He went on to say that the GR story he just finished (Operation Night Stand Still) is only one GR story out of an on- going epic. He didn't know if it would ever be truly completed. He chose to animate the episode where Daisaku must grow to adulthood (where the world- view must change before, during and especially after). Did he already say this the day before?"

-"Neow. Do you really think I'd remember? Then Robo- boy told us one of the coolest secrets of the series! In Volume 5: 'The Truth About Bashtarlle; The Day Childhood Ends' in the scene where Daisaku remembers his Dad, there is another episode that plays out in its entirety in the background (which can actually be seen when Cervantes first enters the room where Murasame, Daisaku and Dr. Kusama were)! Sugoi! It even has a title: 'Faint Moon in Daylight.'  He said that he put a lot of these small tricks in it.
  Then he told us all about the seiyuu that made up the cast. Holy moly! He only settled for the creme de la creme it seemed. The seiyuu who dubbed Chief Chujo was known for doing Clark Gable's voice;  the man who did Professor VonVogler was the guy who did Peter Cushing's;  and he got a whole bunch from the seiyuu cast of Star Trek: TNG. Of this I think he was the proudest of. No, wait, I forgot who he said did Dr. Kusama's voice (for only one expensive line in episode 7 even)....... the man who dubs Cap'n Kirk. He was so happy when he told us that."

-"He said that 'Giant Robo is in actuality the Encyclopedia of Seiyuu.' And then he thanked us all for waiting so patiently for episode 7. Wow! He actually gave another hour and a half speech which only seemed like thirty minutes. How the hell does he manage to do that? He is one of the most lively guys I've ever met."

"How many of these #%$ing things do I have to sign?! How much longer do I have to look at that damn robot's face?!!? It's already been 15 long years! Kami-sama, please free me from GR's cursed hand of fate!!!!"

Wow! Even NERV personnel like giant robot stories other than their own.

-"After his fun panel I got in line again for him to sign my new GR ArtBook. When I got up to him in line I asked the translator to ask him a very important question for me: 'Was Murasame Kenji dead for good after his charbroil in episode 7, or would his immortality raise him up again?'...... Good news!!!! He Lives!!!!!!! Yes! He then asked me if I liked the final episode myself. I responded that i loved it except for Ginrei's fate. He chucked and reminded me that life is full of difficult things to accept and that that's what GR was about. What an emotionally brave (or incredibly sick) man. I hope it's the first one.
  We then quickly checked out the dealers' room again in the ever shrinking hope that there would be a stash of SMs that would miraculously appear out of the air for me to buy..... Apparently there is a God and he's keeping tabs on me 'cause there weren't any."

-"You think you're such a bad cat- girl, don't ya, Catsy? If God was truly was going to punish you, why do you think He gave you such a kick ass friend like me?"

-".................."

-"So, at 3:00 we went over to the "How to Dub" session that was going on in Track 3 (well, after we saw Giant Robo episode 7 again in the 2nd video room of course). This was funnier than hell!
  Almost the entire audiece got a chance to dub a line into Crusher Joe and the Ash.... or whatever it was called. Lot's of porno, dirty language and 'ass' references... I don't think that the real story could've been any more entertaining! Although I dislike dubs (read: HATE!), they do look like a barrel full of monkeys to make even though many *ahem* people (read: otaku) were so incredibly dense that they couldn't even follow simple instructions and they thought that their adlibs were just funnier than MadLibs filled in by a dyslexic three- year- old.... They weren't, but it was funny to laugh at them.

Here's TV's Frank, uh, I mean Anime's Steve dubbing in the voice of Crusher Joe's ship. Hmmmm, I guess it's a diesel (or that Hanna-Barbera Dune buggy).

Both Tuxedo Kamen and the Moonlight Knight were on hand for the Slaughter of the Dub. Little did we know of their hatred burning inside of each of them aimed at the other. It would soon become an evil and iniquitous display.

  Surprisingly it was Apollo herself that got the best line in as Alfie. A few lines about Clinton and Lewinsky lightened the event up, but I couldn't get out of my pointy little mind just how much the dubbers actually let the script get lost. We were told that as long as one or two words remained from the original script that the line was usable. What the hell was up with that?
  Well, I must've blacked out for a bit 'cause the next thing I knew I was on my bed and it was 4:25."

-"I had to carry your fat bottom all the way up to the room, you ungrateful devil- girl! Then I even watched the horrible Marmalade Boy on ATV with you while you got your senses together. Neow. Now before any 'old-school fanboys' out there try to slam my taste in shows, let me put this to you: What the hell can you possibly like about that gay show? Other than the opening song (the ending one even sucks) it cannot be saved. The characters aren't attractive in the least (especially not Miki!!!!! If I was a lesbo there'd be no chance in hell of her shackin' up with this cat- girl! *Blech!*) The story is so complex yet boundlessly doltish! Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgh! Why?!?! Why do you love it?!?! It Suuuuuuuuuuxxx!!!"

-"Down, girl, down. Anyway, then we hit the game room again and I made up for the Marmalade Boy Incident by letting her play Resident Evil 2, Gundam Battle, and the Darkstalkers Puzzle/Tetris game. We went to see what the big 'Japanese Premiere' was in track one, but Masakazu Katsura was still signing autographs. So we quickly jumped in line and got him to draw us a pic of Iria (one of my many idols!!)."

Ha ha ha ha! He signed it "Get help! They won't let me leave! They put a collar on me that will blow up if I try to go out the door. Go to the Japanese Embassy and have them tell my wife and children I love them." What a card!

I think that Sigorney should have played her in the live action movie, or is that type- casting?

-"Neow. Then we went to the 'Ten Anime Trailers' after we found out that the 'Japanese Premiere' was a live action magical school girl movie... The horror!.. the horror! It was more pain than I've ever felt before. Anyway, the Anime Trailer thing was a total lie. All we did was end up seeing was two episodes of the newest enormously big breasted women show to hit the horny Japanese market, Burn Up X/Excess. The first two Burn Ups sucked, why did they have to make a third?!?! Is there a quota of how much 'Giant T & Huge A' anime has to be produced a month? I really want to know.
  Oni-chan was looking pale again and demanded that we not move or else she'd spew some chips and Coke up (on me). So we watched the T&A fest."

-"Catsy doesn't like anything slightly ecchi 'cause she ain't got none of that to show."

-"Shut up! So, I was saying that I suffered an hour more on Oni-chan's behalf-"

-"How noble."

"SHUT UP!!! But, at least there was one hilarious scene making fun of Eva! That almost made it worth while. Almost."

-"Then we waited impatiently for an hour for the Cosplay to begin. But of course, that's a story for another night.........."

To Be Continued!

Part 1: 3/19/1998	The Night of the Demon Goddesses
Part 2: 3/20/1998	The Night the Earth Stood Still
Part 3: 3/21/1998	The Moonlight Night
Part 4: 3/21/1998 Part II	The Night of a Thousand CosPlays
Part 5: 3/22/1998	The Illusory Night

Go back to the previous Illusory Night.			Go forward into the Great Wide Open.

Or go back to the very beginning of the Nights.