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In recent years, I've been slowly cutting back on my convention attendance. I've both reduced how many I go to, as well as how much time I spend at them. I'm down to three of them each year, and for the past couple years, I was commuting to most of them. The exception would be Otakon, which I would get a room for. Which was odd, because of the remaining cons I attend, that one was the closest to home for the longest time. Last year they moved to DC, instead of the usual Baltimore. I noticed that their new location was right on top of a Metro station, so this year I decided to do something different: I'd commute instead of getting a room.
This freed me up from a few stresses, such as whether I would get a room in the block in one of the nearby hotels in the 1-minute span from when the room block opened to when everything was snatched up. Also worrying about whether I'd find a parking space in said hotel. This required showing up on Thursday instead of Friday. It also freed me from the annoyance of driving into DC, which is 10x worse than Baltimore. All I had to do now was park at a Metro station, load up the fare card, and ride the train for about 25 minutes. I brought some sturdy canvas bags for the things I bought, such as the doujinshi, which can get a bit heavy and having them in plastic bags is uncomfortable at best, but no problem in the canvas bag. All was going to plan.
Until I saw the laserdiscs.
I hadn't seen LDs show up at any convention in over a decade, but suddenly there they were. I have no idea how I noticed them either. The prices on them were low enough to be viable, even though at that point, I wasn't even sure if my LD player still worked. In speaking with the vendor, it turns out there are enough people to buy them that he can justify carrying them. He has a friend in Japan who searches for and buys them, then holds onto them until he goes to Japan to collect them.
So, since I was commuting, I went back home that Friday, pulled my LD player out, hooked it up to the TV, put a disc in, and it worked. Well I'll be damned. Saturday comes around, and I decide to get a bunch of more obscure discs.
Anyway, the reason why the LDs kinda derailed my commuting plan was because they're a bit on the heavy side. I did not have the option of taking them right back to my hotel room, because there was no hotel room. I did not have the option of taking them to my car, because aside from "going to my car" being a 1-hour round trip, LDs don't fare well in hot cars in the summer. They tend to warp and turn into big Pringles, flavored in sadness and despair. So I had to lug them around until I called it a night, making it a point to return on Sunday.
There was a slightly different plan for Sunday; instead of using the canvas bag for more LDs, I brought a plastic crate (typically used for open storage of hanging folder documents) and some handling gloves. This let me get some of the box sets that would have proven too heavy even for the canvas bag. Also since I wasn't walking nonstop, I could at least put the thing down. Also I was at Otakon for maybe 3 hours total.
On Sunday afternoon, as I'm on the train going back, I have my crate of LDs on the floor. To my right are a couple dudes looking at my crate. They're still wearing their Otakon badges. They're about half my age, so they've probably never seen a LaserDisc before in their lives, and the LDs I have are probably about the same age they are or older. We strike up a conversation about anime and conventions until we get to their stop.
I need to say this now: I don't get cranky when talking to people much younger than me who are still new to going to conventions. In fact, I like it. I like hearing about their perspective of conventions, seen through younger eyes. I like hearing about their sense of wonder and excitement when they went to their first convention that was likely in the last year or two, still fresh in their minds.
Why LaserDiscs? After all, the limitations and drawbacks of the format are well known. For me, it's kinda easy. I have the player for them, it still works, and even though a lot of the material can be found on either DVD, BD, or online, there's a certain flair to them. To this day, LDs have a sense of bling. The larger area of the covers meant they could pack in more material. Things like posters, more detailed inlay cards, that sort of thing. They had more value than their VHS contemporaries.
Probably an extreme example of this would be the End of Evangelion box set I got back in 2000. The whole set came in a giant box, loaded with merchandise such as a glow-in-the-dark figure, a kit, a plushy of an EVA-05, and a storyboard book. The discs themselves took up only a small fraction of the box. These days, some of the offerings from Pony Canyon and NISA come with some goodies, although on a much smaller scale.
Watching anime on LD also has a nostalgic feel to it. The video signal is still very much analog, and it shows on the TV. As my TV only has connections for composite, component, and HDMI, I had to connect via composite, although later I was able to patch it through the tuner card on the computer using S-video to get a slightly better picture, using the same TV. (The tuner card has proven to be an elaborate S-video to HDMI adapter.)
Ultimately, there's no comparison between LD and DVD or BD. There are good reasons why we've moved on. Comparing LD to BD is much like comparing a '60s classic car to a modern car. There's an appeal to it, it's fun to have, but the extra work means it's not for everyone. When it comes to getting the job done on a regular basis, the modern one is almost always going to be better at it.
So, the next con I have planned is AUSA. Which I'm also going to commute to.
This freed me up from a few stresses, such as whether I would get a room in the block in one of the nearby hotels in the 1-minute span from when the room block opened to when everything was snatched up. Also worrying about whether I'd find a parking space in said hotel. This required showing up on Thursday instead of Friday. It also freed me from the annoyance of driving into DC, which is 10x worse than Baltimore. All I had to do now was park at a Metro station, load up the fare card, and ride the train for about 25 minutes. I brought some sturdy canvas bags for the things I bought, such as the doujinshi, which can get a bit heavy and having them in plastic bags is uncomfortable at best, but no problem in the canvas bag. All was going to plan.
Until I saw the laserdiscs.
I hadn't seen LDs show up at any convention in over a decade, but suddenly there they were. I have no idea how I noticed them either. The prices on them were low enough to be viable, even though at that point, I wasn't even sure if my LD player still worked. In speaking with the vendor, it turns out there are enough people to buy them that he can justify carrying them. He has a friend in Japan who searches for and buys them, then holds onto them until he goes to Japan to collect them.
So, since I was commuting, I went back home that Friday, pulled my LD player out, hooked it up to the TV, put a disc in, and it worked. Well I'll be damned. Saturday comes around, and I decide to get a bunch of more obscure discs.
Anyway, the reason why the LDs kinda derailed my commuting plan was because they're a bit on the heavy side. I did not have the option of taking them right back to my hotel room, because there was no hotel room. I did not have the option of taking them to my car, because aside from "going to my car" being a 1-hour round trip, LDs don't fare well in hot cars in the summer. They tend to warp and turn into big Pringles, flavored in sadness and despair. So I had to lug them around until I called it a night, making it a point to return on Sunday.
There was a slightly different plan for Sunday; instead of using the canvas bag for more LDs, I brought a plastic crate (typically used for open storage of hanging folder documents) and some handling gloves. This let me get some of the box sets that would have proven too heavy even for the canvas bag. Also since I wasn't walking nonstop, I could at least put the thing down. Also I was at Otakon for maybe 3 hours total.
On Sunday afternoon, as I'm on the train going back, I have my crate of LDs on the floor. To my right are a couple dudes looking at my crate. They're still wearing their Otakon badges. They're about half my age, so they've probably never seen a LaserDisc before in their lives, and the LDs I have are probably about the same age they are or older. We strike up a conversation about anime and conventions until we get to their stop.
I need to say this now: I don't get cranky when talking to people much younger than me who are still new to going to conventions. In fact, I like it. I like hearing about their perspective of conventions, seen through younger eyes. I like hearing about their sense of wonder and excitement when they went to their first convention that was likely in the last year or two, still fresh in their minds.
Why LaserDiscs? After all, the limitations and drawbacks of the format are well known. For me, it's kinda easy. I have the player for them, it still works, and even though a lot of the material can be found on either DVD, BD, or online, there's a certain flair to them. To this day, LDs have a sense of bling. The larger area of the covers meant they could pack in more material. Things like posters, more detailed inlay cards, that sort of thing. They had more value than their VHS contemporaries.
Probably an extreme example of this would be the End of Evangelion box set I got back in 2000. The whole set came in a giant box, loaded with merchandise such as a glow-in-the-dark figure, a kit, a plushy of an EVA-05, and a storyboard book. The discs themselves took up only a small fraction of the box. These days, some of the offerings from Pony Canyon and NISA come with some goodies, although on a much smaller scale.
Watching anime on LD also has a nostalgic feel to it. The video signal is still very much analog, and it shows on the TV. As my TV only has connections for composite, component, and HDMI, I had to connect via composite, although later I was able to patch it through the tuner card on the computer using S-video to get a slightly better picture, using the same TV. (The tuner card has proven to be an elaborate S-video to HDMI adapter.)
Ultimately, there's no comparison between LD and DVD or BD. There are good reasons why we've moved on. Comparing LD to BD is much like comparing a '60s classic car to a modern car. There's an appeal to it, it's fun to have, but the extra work means it's not for everyone. When it comes to getting the job done on a regular basis, the modern one is almost always going to be better at it.
So, the next con I have planned is AUSA. Which I'm also going to commute to.
