While Jeff was still around, I berated him for not being a pure super robot fan. And since I was again in the dealer's room, it was time to buy more stuff. I went back to the guy I got the SOC Getter Robo from and purchased the SOC Mazinger Z OVA version. I needed something to stand next to the three Getters and look cool. That, and Maz is undoubtedly one of the most classic super robot designs ever. I considered the Grendizer Black version as well, but I would have preferred the regular colors. And I learned later that Bandai was going to re-release Grendizer with all three specialized Spacers in addition to the regular Spacer instead of just one specialized Spacer and normal Spacer. (Quick Ron Knowledge #54: UFO Robo Grendizer launched in a UFO-looking unit called the 'Spacer.' He also had three other backpack-mounted Spacers all designed for specific environments, titled 'Double Spacer' [flight], 'Marine Spacer' [underwater] and 'Drill Spacer' [underground] that allowed for a wider range of versatility and added several more weapons to Grendizer's armament.) I found Brian and went to Asylum Anime's booth, and I remembered my father telling me to buy something that would be worth something, so I purchased two Gundam cels, one from Turn A Gundam of the Turn A Gundam (a scene where it's whipping around a hyper hammer) and a reproduction cel of Garma Zabi. The boss(?) was nice enough to sell me the cels minus tax, so that saved me a couple of bucks. It was now that time to wait in line for Mystery Anime Theater 3000.

The waiting in line wasn't completely useless; I learned to play Go from someone who had a small, travel-sized magnetic board and stones. I considered getting myself my own Go board and stones to play with when I got back home. Anyway, I thought MAT3K was better this year. The sitting down and waiting for the movie was more entertaining because the cameramen panned around the theatre, looking for otaku holding up signs and character dolls and other things, and then putting their images up on the big screen. Secondly, the movie actually started on time. Thirdly, I thought the movie itself was much better. I managed to stay awake this year through it. Plus, it was from some half-anime/half-live action series that I'd never even seen or heard of before. It looked to me like the show was entirely designed to do one thingc sell product in the form of toys and action figures. It might have been more popular if only it featured giant robots (Ron wisdom #17: EVERYTHING can be greatly improved by the inclusion of giant robots). The movie being over, the group headed back to the hotel room and played some Japanese Playstation 2 and Jeff showed us for the umpteenth time how cool Super Robot Wars is. He didn't need to convince me, I'm already a better player than he is at it. And as we've previously established, he's not the super robot fan in the capacity I am. Sleepy-time.

Read Otakon 2002: The Otaku Strike Back - Part IV coming soon.