To explain...

My first #anime #convention was Anime East '95. Apparently the second convention on the east coast, and I guess if it had succeeded past that year I would have a very different con experience in total, since I staffed that con.

My friend who introduced me to anime (we'll wrap back around there eventually, but it's in my bio/origin story link) was staff at the con, and invited me and my friend to help. (Jackie Chan was rumored to be a possible guest, and we fantasized being "security" for him. 😝 )

One of the notable things about this particular con to me, when it happened, was the existence of the "Dealer's Room"

Specifically, in how shit it was.

See, back then I wouldn't have predicted a whole LOT of anime merch to exist in 1995, but I had a few years of manga collecting under my belt, and anime from before that... Surely there was some "other stuff" right?

I don't think there was much of a concept of "industry booth" at the time, at least at that con, and/or just not much interest in it yet. Hard to even recall what might have been there. But mainly, no matter what I was interested in looking for "cool stuff of" (Bubblegum Crisis, Kimagure Orange Road, Macross...) there was almost nothing. Like, what I remember 30 years out were a smattering of BGC t-shirts of questionable quality?

Some CD's existed, but were STUPENDOUSLY expensive.

Those were the major things I wanted. Shirts 'n music.

Well, at some point toward the end of the con, I ran across someone saying "hey you should check out Room 313" they have good stuff, and... that's odd, right? People would sell things out of a hotel room?

Well when I got there, it was indeed publicly open and some people were shuffling about. The hotel drawers were FULL of T-shirts, and among other items on top were longboxes of CDs.

I was not "replete with cash" in those days, but what I had went into merch from that room. Shirts with Ayukawa on them (Takada art) and some cooler BGC stuff. I was not precisely thinking about "legality" here, I just wanted good shirts!

And three KOR albums, the "Sound Color" ones. Official OSTs of the TV series. From a company called "SonMay." Surely a legit company. Thanks, SonMay!

Obviously this was all bootleg stuff. 😝 Hence not having a place on the main floor. (Anime con dealer's rooms... well-known for only having legit products. >_> )

But it made me happy to get exactly the kind of stuff I wanted. It would take me a bit longer to learn about SonMay than it would the concept of "blank T-shirts with copyright-violating iron-ons" but hey. The late 90's were kind of a wild west in anime terms.

I would obtain a travel CD player and a tape converter to enable road-play (wouldn't have a CD player built into my car until 2014 when I really didn't need one anymore 😝 ) and road play I did! Mostly other CDs I had, but Sound Color 1-3 had heavy rotation even in the early days.

Anime East would not have its '96, but a few friends wanted to head to other cons. Looked up others in the area, and we would start going to #Katsukon and #Otakon when it was still in Hunt Valley.

My years between 1997 and 2001 would have a lot of con-hopping (along with gaming cons with friends as well), a ton of gophering, some staffing... But that is another story, which we'll wrap around to later on. Today is just about "driving to cons" and my ritual.

See, I would start going into NYC Chinatown on the regular to feed the habits. Your Hollywood Videos selling anime 2 episodes for a $40 VHS was... not affordable for me. (And charging MORE for the subtitled versions just riled me up! 😝 )

$5 VHS dubbing, Import games, posters... Chinatown! But for me specifically, more CDs.

I would learn more about SonMay, but moreover I would learn "if you buy X number of CDs they become cheaper apiece!" and so every trip I usually was coming home with 8-10 more CDs. My road music started turning into a very anime/Jpop-specific direction. 😝

I never de-cased CDs to put them in a folder, so I multi-dozens hard case was my car carry, and I would swap out a lot.

But those first three CD's never left the case.

When driving to any con, I would play Sound Color 1-3 ritualistically. Sometimes a con was nearby and I barely had time for them, but mostly hitting cons like Katsu and Otakon and Animazement and others gave me plenty of time for plenty of music. But it always had to start with those three.

I "hiatused" between '01 and '07, but started up more than ever for a time