It's time for the main event! It's time for the Fantasy Fight Tournament!!!
Also, warning: bittersweetness ahead . . .
Anyway, it was a Sunday afternoon, so in terms of con events it was kind of a death slot - people taking it easy, people not coming to the con at all, y'know. The main stage audience was maybe about half full by the end. Still, it was more than the first FFFT at AE '09, so hey. The MC Rifa actually told people to call friends to come to the event. It was funny.
Kiddo arrived with the other boys. We had our full team and we had our toys. We were set . . .
Aaaaand, y'know what? I'm gonna just let the videos speak for me a little . . .
Intro to the event.
Seriously, I can't describe how beautiful it was to have Statler and Waldorf there to heckle us. Soooo good . . .
First match has a Scott Pilgrim team go up against a team comprised of "the most overpowered characters ever": Luffy, Superboy, and Alucard. They had a pretty sweet intro. Anyway, nobody was surprised by the result of that battle, being they had a former FFFT champion, a former walkoff boy, and . . . takahata101 from Team Four Star?!
Holy shit, they were O.P.!
The event is going well, and people are getting into it. I'm glad. I've said it before that this event is the most fun I've had at a convention event, and I'm pretty sure I'll support it as long as I can. I'm also getting really excited to go up myself. In between fights (and in between laughing) we still do a little game planning, like which summon to use first, which attacks to use in the first round, what hit-point distribution we'll use . . .
Second match, "Team Bow Chika Wow Wow" (Inuyasha) vs "The Returners" (FFX). And yes, kiddo and I totally sang along to that intro.
Well, The Returners win . . . oh snap, it's our turn now . . . round three . . .
Team F.A.P. comes out and absolutely rocks their intro!
("Wait, did they really just name it that?")
("Wow, I never realized Flynn was an assassin.")
We were winning the crowd so far. That made me happy. Then our opponents were called out: "Team Gekkostate". Now, they definitely had a cheering section (which sadly happens to be all around the guy filming all this), but I won't lie; as they came out, I thought to myself, "Hm, Eureka Seven . . . okay, we can take this . . ." Now I mean, I had the same hubris when we went against Team Rocket in the very first FFFT and were severely trounced (and Team Rocket went on to win the whole thing that year), and yes, it's true I have actually never won a single battle of this event . . . but this time I had teammates I knew were awesome and we had a lot of time to really think about this event. By all accounts, we should be able to win this match.
Here, take a watch of our battle:
Observations about our battle:
- People freaking LOVE the assassin. He just had to be there, and people cheered!
- Kiddo's flowers were everywhere by the end of the battle, and people were picking them up and using them rest of the event.
- My vest lost a hook, and I didn't think to pick it up after. Oops.
- We totally did the courtesan walk for Jed' to hide behind.
- I didn't feel nervous in the slightest up there. I was kinda surprised.
- Assassins always pop out with that eagle screech . . . for us, we got "Cah-caw, cah-caw!" That's just a whole other level of funny. I also fist-bumped them all as they ran off the stage.
- Team BRS tells us that there was a girl dying in the aisle when kiddo did her "Hipster!Punzie" attack.
- Kiddo got her head torqued kinda badly by the other player when she got "kissed" to death. Not cool.
- Team BRS also tells us that a couple guys in the front row gave my "Fist of the North Star poetry" a standing ovation. That makes me happy.
- I have no idea how I wasn't killed off sooner.
So that was our fight. It was fun as hell and I'm glad kiddo was able to take part finally - I knew she'd be awesome.
Anyway . . . . . here's what the judges thought:
Also, assassino! But I digress . . .
Yeah. We lost. Swept, even. As I already mentioned, Jed' and I aren't strangers to losing in this event. Two years ago we lost to the eventual champions of that year. Last year we lost to guys who knew kung-fu, could do backflips, and who could jump up on each other's shoulders. I don't feel bad about losing those fights; they were the right calls for the game, and at the most we can only really say we had some bad luck in our draws.
This time around . . . heh, like I said, this was going to be gloriously off the record . . .
. . . this time stung. We lost to internet memes and getting shot by a pistol about five times. We lost to a team that, when given the chance to really show off for the audience with a summon or revive action, shouted "Ressurect!" and casually brought their downed member back into the game. To be swept so unflinchingly by the judges . . . like, you're standing up there, thinking about how your cosplays tore open as you did what you did on that stage, hoping that maybe finally you've figured this out enough that you've at least gotten your way into the semifinals . . . hoping that you'll finally get that chance to go batshit crazy against your friends in the next round, show off all the stuff you had been planning for months, ready to put on the best damn show Seattle will ever see . . . and apparently we weren't better than getting attacked by a double rainbow.
How the fuck does one get attacked by a double rainbow?
Like, I'm griping and I don't wanna be that guy. A decision is a decision, and you won't make it far in this life complaining about judges. That's fine. In fact, the judges are intentionally not part of the organization behind the event so as to keep things as impartial as they can (and I truly feel that judges are necessary over audience clamour, or else the raunchy fan service types would always win over what could be legitimately interesting, original teams).
But y'know what? You listen to that judging video . . . you can tell, we were definitely not the only ones thinking this. People actually booed the judges! Actual vocal boos. We were disappointed, but not because we lost; we were disappointed because of how we lost. And y'know, yes, it is just an anime convention and ultimately this will not affect real life. Still . . . when the grand prize for winning is actually a $300 prize purse, well . . .
Yeah. Something was up. But we'll come back to that in a second.
You can see in the video that after the battle was done, Team Gekkostate books it off the stage. Now I was kinda disappointed by that because of most the battles I've taken part in (and watched), players have always met in the middle to shake hands, hug it out and wish each other well. Well, we didn't get that chance. Curiously, though (and this is the only uniqe time I saw it all event), Kenshiro instead came over to shake all our hands and to say "good match" to us. So that was a nice gesture, I thought.
Even nicer, though, was when we stepped off the stage and all the assassins from the summon were there to receive us, clapping and such. They were all standing in a line, telling us that we did well, even doing little bows and stuff. From the bottom of my heart, I thanked them again for everything they did and reminded them of how fucking awesome that summon was. Like, it's cheesy, but we totally had our own little brotherhood that day. I know I'll cherish that little moment: when a bunch of people dressed up like video game characters said "sorry you guys lost your fake fight".
No, seriously, it was pretty sweet.
So we sat down, our friends received us warmly, told us how bunk the results were . . . mostly we were just catching our breaths and stuff - it's an exhausting game! But now it was B's team going up, and he was likely going to have a way tougher fight than ours was . . .
"Team Adorkables" vs "Team X-Force": An extremely good battle!
Well, our boys squeak one out, and we're proud of them. Like us, B. had actually never won of these battles before either, so I was extremely happy to see him progress on to the semifinals. Also, we were excited because they were going against Team Gekkostate, whom the audience now kinda disliked after the incident . . .
. . . and see, here's where the silver lining to this event comes into play . . .
So being the good sports we were publicly, we weren't going to be assholes and we weren't going to say anything stupid. We could, however, cheer really loud for who we deemed the better team and perhaps leave the less cool stuff to the other members of the audience.
We didn't have to wait long. When the MC called for Team Gekkostate to return to the stage . . . a low run of boos came out again.
During the battle, the vast majority of the audience wouldn't say a thing when Team Gekkostate attacked. They would, however, go nuts any time The Adorkables did anything. It was a mighty cold shoulder from a pretty solid-sized audience. Sure, their fans were pretty loud, but they were maybe 5% of the audience tops. Over on our side of the audience, it was a harsh cold shoulder all fight.
Won't lie, knowing at least a part of that was sort of in protest to how the judges passed them the first time around . . . kiddo, Jed' and I felt kinda loved.
Well, the battle was over, and people were already chanting for The Adorkables. I couldn't see another big upset again. Frankly, if there was, that audience would have stirred some serious shit up. If not rioting, there'd be a lot of shouts of BS, and the event (brand new to Sakura-Con) would probably face a lot of hurt and wouldn't be able to keep the momentum it had already built so far.
Your move, judges. And how did the judges move?
"Alright, so we honestly could not decide..."
Really, judges? Really? Well, they left it to the audience as you can see from the video . . . and yeah, the audience did not have trouble deciding on this one. Gekkostate's fans did their little shout and cheer . . . but Adorkables got STANDING OVATION, fists pumping, swords swinging across pretty much all of the audience I could see. No, that particular BS ended right then and there.
Again, Gekkostate tried to book it, but B. being B. called them back for a hug. That's how he rolls. But truthfully, no one saw anything of them the rest of the day. Not in the audience, not chilling outside in the convention center with the other teams . . . they were gone. And really, if I were getting booed too, I wouldn't blame them.
So we get to the final battle between Team O.P. and The Adorkables, and it's awesome, epic, and a fine way to finish off the Final Fantasy Fight Tournament's foray into Sakura-Con. The Adorkables win by a slim margin and pocket a giant belt and $300 USD (though the 2nd place Team O.P. also left with a cool $150). I'm super happy for B. because if someone had to win it, I was glad it was his team. They were great, and they just put such a good image out for what this event could be.
So the event's over, everyone's pouring outside to talk and to take pictures. Team BRS left midway through the fights and headed towards Canada. The rest of us chilled for just a bit more before heading back to Canada ourselves.
Again, tons of people were coming up to us, telling us we should have won, or that the judges were out of their minds. Even the organizers had some things to say (albeit in fewer words being that it'd likely be bad for people like them to say too much over things like this). The guy behind the scenes gives us an apologetic look and tells us "we were all rooting for you in the back". The MC comes over to us, gives us a huge group hug and tells us "you guys were soooooo good!". Kenshiro, well, he shakes our hands again and tells us, "it's always too bad when a good team has to get knocked out early, but it's the best format to keep the audience excited and these things happen... but I'm going to make a bet right now: next time, you guys are going to win it!"
I guess that means they're gonna rig it for us, eh? Haha . . . that'd be horrible!
We did pick up one particular tidbit that colours the judging in an interesting light, though . . . apparently Team Gekkostate had members from a rather famous Seattle-based cosplay group, and as such had that solid little cheering section. The judges, meanwhile, while not part of the organization of the event were, however, part of . . . take a guess . . . . . part of a rather famous Vancouver-based cosplay group.
Friends helping friends out? Hearing that bit, it certainly didn't seem out of the question. So as for the semifinals judging? Going by this theory, the suggestion could be that they knew they'd be murdered if Team Gekkostate went through at all, so the whole "we couldn't decide..." malarkey could just be their out so that they wouldn't have to directly vote against their friends.
Again, no proof to back that up. But I do like to imagine sometimes that the organizers and the judges later had a heated discussion about it all . . . with lots of guilt-tripping and accusations of poor form and such. That would be pretty sweet . . .
Anyway, we lost and it sucked, but it did feel nice to know that most people we talked to felt we got robbed.
As for the other teams, we spent some time mingling and praising each other's work. There was a lot of funny stuff out there, and everyone was vowing to come back stronger than ever next time.
B. and myself, we grabbed our swords and recreated "what could have been" had we gone against each other. I got a nice kill on him, he got a nice kill on me. . . and people watching (Kenshiro included) totally dug it. There was a lot of "what could have been" talk during that time - for example, kiddo and I planned it that I would get killed, tell her that she was my new dream, and then she'd sing to bring me back. The girl on The Adorkables had this wicked little gleam in her eye as we told her (she was a fan of the movie and wholeheartedly approved of our cosplays).
So we finally started packing up, kiddo had some sweet card tricks done for her by who she later dubbed "Magic Asian", and we told all the other Canadians (and B.) that we would not be joining them for dinner. Hugs, good-byes (especially for kiddo), and we were finally on our way out.
But first, kiddo went to the bathroom to change out of Rapunzel and into her brand new tiger kigurumi. She had decided that she was all out of shame at this point, and was going to go back to Canada dressed up like a big yellow tiger.
As such, we left the Washington State Trade and Convention Center, returned to the Sheraton Hotel, and packed up for the ride back home.
For us, though we still had a few more adventures to go (and I'll mention them tomorrow) . . . Sakura-Con 2011 was done.
