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Adventures in Japan 2013 Part 13: #EVANGELION WORLD Cosplayers? Yup.
0When we left off last Saturday, Shannon and I were walking around Evangelion World at Fuji-Q Highlands theme park near Mt. Fuji in Japan.
Damn, my life IS kind of cool.
After touring all the other display rooms, we wandered into MAIN attraction: the 1:1 scale Evangelion Unit-01 head. It was built to look like the body was submerged and that you are, in fact, in the hanger where it is stored – just like the series/movies.
It’s BIG! About every eight minutes (or so) a video plays on either side featuring Misato talking to NERV staff. There were no subtitles, but I *assume* she is talking about activating the Eva unit. At one point, above the Eva’s head, a small window lights up and you can see Gendo looking down over the situation. I wasn’t able to get a photo of this due to lighting restrictions/timing/my lame skills.
Once the Eva unit “activates,” the lighting in the room changes and you can see the eyeballs move in that creepy kind of like a giant human anime way. The Eva roars, the room gets loud with alarms, and the experience becomes very immersive. It’s amazingly cool.
Here’s me in front of the GIANT HEAD. You can see the screens on either side.
While walking around, Shannon and I noticed three JAPANESE COSPLAYERS who had come to take photos in front of the Eva Unit.
Seriously. We were totally in Japan now.
Being as American as we could be, we approached them and asked to take a photo. They were thrilled at the prospect and I wound up taking the same photos with their cameras, too. So here you go: Shannon with Japanese cosplayers in a theme park with Neon Genesis Evangelion stuff.
ANIME NERD WIN.
They were all very nice, polite, and didn’t understand a single damn thing I said. We loved it!
Next post: the End of Evangelion (World) and back into the park.
So I’ve Decided to Put Band-Aids on my Nipples. Wait, what?
0Last month, I posted a blog post boasting that I have been ranting and raving via web logs (aka blogging) on “teh Interwebz” for over ten years now.
Ten… long… years.
The problem with an accomplishment like that is that it involves math. Once math gets involved, people starting asking question. Once people start asking questions, information becomes public and then, before you know it, we all find out that Rock Hudson was gay.
No, I’m not gay.
The math in my life is finally adding up to the point that I am on the verge of crossing the mid-life crisis milestone of turning forty years old in December. That’s right, I’m going to be forty years old and I still watch cartoons and play video games. I was recently told that I am the “Dick Clark of anime fandom” since I’m now an elder statesmen, yet I still manage to pull off seeming like the young guy.
I like that.
Thus: forty. I’ve started looking at things I should do for the alleged mid-life crisis. The first, and most obvious, is going out a buying a sports car. Well, I already got me one of those:
I have a house, younger wife, sports car, and (if you believe the Internet) a boat. So what do I do for my fortieth?
I know – I’ll try to get myself killed.
Shannon and a number of our friends have been dabbling into the whole marathon running thing. You know, this:
Well, it seems that she and some of our friends have signed up to run a Marathon (or Half – they are at the same time) on December 1, 2013 in Florida. So I figured, why not? So I have signed up.
In short: I’m going to run (and by “run” I mean “trot or walk at a brisk pace”) my first Marathon on my 40th Birthday.
Expect future blog posts that involve me bitching about soreness, joints, and chaffing as I begin preparations for doing this. You have been warned.
(Have a nice day.)
Adventures in Japan 2013 Part 12: More adventures at #EVANGELION WORLD
1As we walked down the hallways of NERV Headquarters inside Evangelion World at the Fuji-Q Highland theme park in Japan, we saw a series of doors with peepholes installed in them. We noticed other folks looking in, so we did the same. The peepholes were clever views into rooms where NERV staff (Misato, Kaji, etc.) were “working” on various things. One door, though, seemed somewhat odd for the fact that the peephole what LOWER than normal. I bent over, curious, and looked into it:
What I saw inside was EXACTLY what you expected in an Evangelion theme park attraction.
Yup. It was there so you could look up Misato’s skirt.
Welcome to Japan.
Keeping “in theme” with the exciting entertainment this attraction was providing, we came across a changing room where Rei was getting into her pilot suit. Shannon sat there and waited for her.
Did I mention we were in Japan?
After navigating through Evangelion World, we came to the FINALE of the attraction…
But more on that tomorrow…
Adventures in Japan 2013 Part 11: Walking Around NERV Headquarters (#EVANGELION WORLD)
0After escaping the wrath of the berserker Eva Unit-02, Shannon and I found ourselves walking through the hallways of NERV Headquaters (in Evangelion World inside the Fuji-Q Highland theme park in Japan.) It felt like we were wandering inside an actual anime. VERY surreal.
Things got awkward when Shannon wound up in an elevator with these two girls who were OBVIOUSLY not talking to each other.
Kind of like this:
Then I sat down to take a break and, I can’t be sure, but I think this guy was TOTALLY hitting on me.
Look familiar?
As we continued down the hallway, we came upon a series of doors with peepholes in them. Like this one:
We saw everyone else looking in them, so I decided to take a peek myself. Here’s what one of them looked like (through my camera lens.)
More geeky goodness tomorrow.
Cruising down a river in Belize (Royal Caribbean)
0Another part of our excursion in Belize (via Royal Caribbean.) This is footage we took going down the river heading towards the ocean. Along the way we saw crocodiles and giant iguanas. Beautiful weather for a November! You can see all the photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomcroom/sets/72157632016582697/
Adventures in Japan 2013 Part 10: More #EVANGELION WORLD
1So there I was, walking around EVANGELION WORLD in the Fuji-Q Highland theme park in Japan. As a bona fide anime nerd, I was obligated to take as many geeky photos as I could… like this one of me ripping open an A.T. Field.
You know. Kind of like this:
Shannon, meanwhile, decided to sit in on a NERV staff meeting.
I tried to get Asuka’s attention while she was checking out her Eva Unit. Sadly, wouldn’t come down to talk to me.
Of COURSE she’d come down, though, to talk to Misato.
Bitch.
So I opted to hang out with Kaworu instead.
Afterwards, we walked into a room that was both spectacular and CREEPY. It was a 1/1 scale (read: “actual size” – if there were such a thing) model of the head of Eva Unit-02 after Mari hijacks it. In the film, she removes Unit-02′s restraints (and removes all “humanity” from it) and launches an all-out attack.
You know, this feel good scene in the movie:
Well, the model is built based on the scene where she crashed it through a wall to discover Shinji being, well, Shinji.
The model is AMAZING… and huge… and AMAZING. To the right of the head a short film is projected on the wall (about every eight minutes) featuring the scene I described above. We stayed and watched it and, of course, we didn’t understand a damn thing that was being said. Luckily, I made Shannon watch both (new) Evangelion movies right before we left for Japan – so we both had recent memory of the scene.
Here’s an extra photo to give the model some scale:
As cool as this was, though, it was only a teaser for the awesomeness we would find in the next large room…
Driving in Belize (Royal Caribbean)
0So last November, Shannon and I took another cruise (this time with Royal Caribbean) for our annual anniversary trip. We paid for an “adventure” excursion with involved spelunking, a boat ride down the river, and driving off-road. This is the shaky video of me almost getting us killed with my AMAZING driving skills. It’s also the first time I had ever driven a right-side drive vehicle. You can see photos from the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomcroom/sets/72157632016582697/
