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Random Anime Heretics Quote
"Do you want to get on my shoulders, little man?"
Newsletter
May, 2001
Like the newsletter? Want to be in it? Submit an idea!
Project A-kon is in 1 month! Yes, due to the convention, the June newsletter will be delayed by a few days. People who go to the convention and want their con journals posted in the newsletter should get them e-mailed to me at throkda@swbell.net as soon as possible after the con.
This month will be our convention-themed newsletter, with a revised convention tips article and a repost of the Brad DeMoss interview transcript (I promise I'll get around to transcripting other interviews by next month, honest!). We've also got some new features! As usual this month will be the continuation of Scott Frazier's autobiography, and the word search (appropriately themed for Poject A-kon). We're also starting a serialized Evangelion fanfiction by Hotwire "Together We Stand" As with just about any fanfiction ever written, it does contain spoilers for the series, and as such, I'll put it last in the newsletter.
We also have our first crossword puzzle! I found some cool programs to automate the creation of both word search puzzles and crosswords, as well as a neat cryptogram generator, so from here on out, we'll have three puzzles a month instead of one! Last, but certainly not least, this month marks the first "Adventures of Chuck & Charles" comic! Hotwire is generously taking care of the artwork, while I'm handling the scripting. Next month, we'll have their bios, and in the coming months, I hope to do an anime review column with them as sort of a Siskel & Ebert team. If you have any ideas for the comic, please e-mail them to me! And as always, I'm always looking for any other submissions...let's continue to build this as a CLUB newsletter!
Don't forget to get your Anime Heretics t-shirts in time for the con! You can pick them up at http://www.balorn.net/ah/store/ Let's show some group unity this year!
If you haven't already signed on the Anime Heretics mailing list, send a message to majordomo@lists.io.com with a message stating:
subscribe ah-l
...and send it off! You'll get a confirmation e-mail to reply to, and you're all set.
Well, that's about all I have to say this month....enjoy the articles!
A Look Back at Fifteen Years of Madness and Adventure
"Two roads diverged in a wood, I took the one less traveled by, and that made all the difference." -- Frost
Last month, Scott moved to Japan, and discovered just how entertaining a language barrier can be. And now, the continuation....
Ken and I met up to watch anime, hang out and such. He showed me around Tokyo and helped me out immensely, showing me good places to eat and Akihabara and all sorts of other neat places and things. Unfortunately, he lived two hours away on the opposite side of town so we could only get together on the weekends or a couple times a month. Before I got a second VCR I would drag my machine across town to his apartment to get copies of stuff to watch.
A Taste of Employment
In May, the assistant manager of my apartment building, who had gone to school in Colorado, introduced me to a friend of his that worked as an as assistant director in an animation studio called Visual 80. They were working on Spiral Zone for a US company at the time and the American translator and I got to talking and she invited me to go back and work for them. I was so excited that I almost exploded.
My first real anime job!
The Japanese management of Visual 80 was never told that I was going to work for them so they figured that I was just some weird American hanging around the studio, which, in fact, was the case. I got Ken to come in with me and we experienced Japanese animation production, albeit for a US show.
It was really interesting. I spent time with the producers, learning about how they managed the production and with the directors and assistant directors seeing how they did their work.
Ken and I decided that we wanted to learn to animate and one of the chief animators—a really scary guy—began to teach us. He looked like an old man because of his gray hair but it turns out that he was only 28 and had some kind of accident and the medicine they gave him turned his hair gray. He had absolutely no sense of humor -- at least that I could detect -- and he would get mad when I fooled around a little bit. This is where I learned the great truth of being an animator -- most of the time you don’t get to draw anything you are interested in. Ken could take this. I could not.
I decided to learn to paint cels instead, which was much easier and fun. I helped out a little bit when subcontracted work would come in and the very first real work I did was some cels on an Orange Road TV episode.
The director of Spiral Zone was a French Canadian who had a very short temper. The translator hated him (usually because he made her work harder) and she stabbed him in the back every chance she got and made working in Japan totally miserable for him. He did give me some great advice on art and animating though, which I will be forever grateful for. Eventually, he gave up and moved back to Canada and they sent a new director, a Greek man, to take over the show.
I didn’t have a formal job and cel painting was getting old so I started helping them out with retake checking and such. Once the translator discovered that I would do this, she stopped and whenever the Greek director was out of town (about half the time) I had to do it alone. So here’s somebody who had never worked in an animation company before, never had any formal training, never had the approval of the directors (Japanese or US), and had no interest whatsoever in American animation checking shows for director’s retakes. Thankfully the Japanese staff pretty much figured out what was going on and helped me out, showing me how to call retakes in a reasonable and efficient way.
I spent my afternoons and evenings at Visual and some days I skipped Japanese school to go there when it was busy. (I didn’t even consider that this could have killed my visa.) I would stay there all Saturday night and hang out with the producers and animators. Sometimes we watched new anime shows and sometimes old live action movies like the Hidden Fortress and the Wizard of Oz. I would go home at 5 or 6 A.M. Sunday morning and sleep until midday.
My First Meeting With Megalomania
Bit by bit the translator decided she really wanted to move back to the States and started trying to find ways to get the US company Visual was working with to take her on. She figured that by making herself look superior to everyone else that they would fall to their knees and beg her to go. This was compounded by her totally wrong idea that she could be a great director/producer.
She was totally insane. She hated the Japanese and went on about terrible Japanese men are (even though she was married to a Japanese man) and about how she hated Japan. She believed in space aliens and thought that Men in Black followed her around sometimes. (This was many years before the X-Files and the MIB movie!) A few times she told me about how they had secret bases in the Antarctic and on the Moon. She had delusions about being a great artist and kept sketching herself. At least she had some talent -- she built a clay model of a lizardy thing that was pretty neat.
She thought she was very important and used to speak in common terms to the president of the company (a social no-no) and come up with crazy plans for new projects.
Once she wanted to make up a production proposal for an incredibly bad idea she had and I ended up rewriting the whole thing on a broken down typewriter in the office and she submitted the new version with her own name on it. My version had about 2% of her story in it. The remake was called the Tears of Illandra. (It wasn’t half bad and I still have the script around somewhere.) I did incredibly bad character designs for it. At least she helped by designing one of the (alien) characters.
The real problem was that she started dreaming up weird ideas that the Japanese were screwing the US company. When the chief producer from the US came over once the translator told her all sorts of crazy stories and made her think that the Japanese were doing all sorts of bad things behind their backs. It was pretty important for Visual to get another series from the US company and she was making it less likely that would happen with every nutso word that came out of her mouth.
Once, when she told me about some wacko tale she had just told the US producer, I couldn’t take it any more and I had to tell the Japanese. I wrote out a crude letter explaining what I had heard, knowing that I wasn’t good enough to explain what I wanted to yet and gave it to the chief director. He read it and immediately called the translator, who went crazy and yelled at me for hours.
After that I knew that if she was going to stay there was no way I wanted to be there because I could never communicate with the Japanese staff better than she could and she would undermine everything I would do. So I left.
I went back to the school and told them I wanted to start training in the animation school as soon as possible. That US company never worked with Visual again and the translator eventually moved back to the US to pursue her mad goal of becoming a great writer and artist.
Animation = Education?
They transferred me from the language school to the animation school in October after six months of Japanese study. (Sink or swim, buddy!) Initially, it was really hard to deal with but the guy who sat next to me was very helpful and they managed to catch me up to the rest of the class.
Ken came into the class and we tried to figure the rest out together. We studied basic animation theory, drawing our own animated scenes based on ideas the teachers gave us, then learned how to do a good clean-up of a key animator’s rough drawing. This is extremely important and cannot be overstressed. Lines define a great part of the look of the animation and line quality can mean the difference between mediocre and beautiful. When you are sitting in a classroom drawing lines for days on end it gets really boring though!
Until I went to Visual I thought that I wanted to be a character designer but I soon found out that my real strengths lie elsewhere. (Especially since I am a very slow designer and could never make a schedule.) After the experience at Visual I saw that I could probably do directing work pretty well so when I went into the animation school I wanted to get as broad an overview of the animation process as possible so that I could someday get a position as a director or assistant director. (Naturally, everyone under the sun thinks he can direct and that is is easy and there isn’t much study involved. Nothing could be further from the truth!)
The school’s main office, main animation and manga classrooms were near Hiroo station, near the middle of the city. It’s a very nice but very expensive area—lots of embassies around there. It was just over an hour’s train ride from my apartment and it was not fun during rush hour. After awhile I changed to the second year animation class room which was in the northern part of town, up past Ikebukuro station.
(to be continued....)
Interview with Brad DeMoss at A-kon 9
At Project A-kon 9, we had just gotten the camcorder, and decided to have some fun with mock-newscast interviews. Pretty much the only one that really went well was the interview with Brad DeMoss, whom we had just met, right after he won the Music Video Contest with "Steam". Unfortunately, we didn't have a microphone yet, so the background noise turned out to be a bit much, but thanks to Karsten's hard work, we have a transcript of most of the interview. This one was a lot of fun, especially since right afterward, we had to hurry and get in line for the CosPlay (which wasn't due to start for 2 1/2 more hours :), and we were right next to Brad and got to know him better.
Throkda Jones: This is Throkda Jones for the Anime Heretics of Arlington, and we're here at A-Kon, where Brad DeMoss has just won the Fan Music Video Contest. Incidentally, we voted pretty much unanimously for his video, "Steam". Brad, how does it feel to have won?
Brad DeMoss: Very dumbfounded. I'm just completely shocked, especially since I thought Lee Thompson's videos were much more popular, and he had a really good sense of editing. I thought he was going to win,I thought I really didn't have a chance, but I'm just flattered that everybody liked "Steam" so much. The whole thing started when I screened "Steam", out of competition, at [can't understand, too much BG noise], and then I realized that... this last year was my first A-Kon, and I hadn't realized that anime conventions had this music video contest... I thought, OK, I'll enter it. It only has fifteen percent clips from anime, but I entered it anyway for, you know, old time's sake. [can't understand] and it won! I just can't believe it was something [can't understand].
TJ: Now, we noticed you had a whole slew of different anime videos and regular videos and anything animated know to man. How did you get such a large collection?
BD: I've been collecting animation since I was about 8 years old, and so that... there's about 22 years of collecting. I'll buy practically anything animated. I have "TRON". But I won't get "Fist of the North Star", that is where I draw the line.
TJ: Thank you very much, Brad DeMoss. At A-Kon, Throkda Jones reporting.
Tips for the Average Con-Goer
- Bring your own food
- At previous conventions, our group always seemed to suffer from the chronic shortages of food in the con suite, and ended up spending quite a bit of our precious dealer room money on going out to eat. This year, we blew about $20 early for a Sam's Club and grocery store run, where we got a case of chips, a jug of orange juice, a case of danish, two 12 packs of soda, and some meat, cheese, and bread for sandwiches. Understand that this fed four people for three days, and there were leftovers Sunday afternoon, so it was definitely a wise investment.
- If bringing camcorders to archive the con, have the best cameraman cover the major events...
- ...like the Welcoming Ceremony, the Cos-Play, concerts, and the like. Other people (if you brought more than one camcorder) can cover other events going on at the same time, so you get maximum archiving, and everyone who didn't get to experience some things will get to see them after the con.
- Always drop your stuff off in your room as soon as you can
- It saves you from having to drag it around everywhere, and seriously reduces the risk of theft. Of course, some people also worry about the hotel staff either stealing or accidentally throwing away their goodies, so it might be a good idea if you put them in your bags, too.
- Be friendly
- Part of the point of conventions is to meet people you wouldn't otherwise, and being antisocial and just hanging out with the few people you arrived with, while fun, isn't quite as much fun as meeting new people. Also, talk to the celebrities...most of them are fans just like you, and might be feeling a little left out with people seeing them as unapproachable -- how do you think we got the interviews with the Star Blazers cast, the "You guys rock!" quote, our visit to the Guests/Staff Only Ultra Lounge, and almost got Ippongi Bang to go sing in Da Bar? (damn hotel security, shutting it down before she got there :)
- Please shower at least daily
- This may not apply to you personally if you normally do, anyway, but be aware that there are plenty of people who let their hygiene lapse for a couple days since they're gonna be up all night anyway. People, staying awake doesn't mean you're clean -- dirt doesn't just appear in bed.
- Plan what to do as a Group
- When you go with a group of people, splitting up to see different things is inevitable. I recommend that when you get there, sitting down early, looking over the programming schedule, and figuring out what to go to together -- fill up a whole row with your people! It makes the con much more interesting for major events, and helps build comraderie, not to mention people are more likely to recognize members of your group, which is kinda cool. Ask some of the Austin or Arlington Heretics what it was like at A-kons 10 & 11.
- Keep the flash charged on your camera
- Trust me -- I can't tell you how many irritated looks I humored with costumers shifting from foot to foot while my camera flash charged up. If you're using a digital camera, and turn it off like I do to conserve battery power, turn it on while you're still approaching the person you want to take a picture of. That way you're ready when they are, instead of waiting for power-up screens to go away
- Always carry an extra roll of film
- I actually ran out while trying to get a shot of two girls in costume...I ran up to my room to switch rolls, and never saw them again for the rest of the con. For digital cameras, this obviously applies to discs or memory cards
- Don't spend all your money if you're taking pictures
- That way, you'll have some left over to develop your film without having to wait a couple weeks for your next paycheck -- either that, or invest in a digital camera
- If you go as a group, show a little pride
- Have everyone wear the same t-shirt, or make a cardboard sign with your group's name on it...show a little spirit and get some name recognition while you're at it
- Get lots of rest before you go
- If you don't, you'll be going to sleep when you normally would, and much of the best stuff tends to happen after midnight. You need to be well-rested so you aren't completely exhausted Sunday or Monday.
- Get there early
- May not be any events yet, but the video rooms tend to start early, and you can mingle a bit before stuff happens, and you're too busy. Who knows? You might make a new friend to hang out with for the whole convention.
- Stay up late
- Again, most of the best stuff happens late in the evening...
- Participate!
- At my first convention, I spent most of it in the dealer room and video rooms, and while it was fun, I didn't meet many people, or do many of the cool activities they have, like cel painting workshops, contests, fan summits, panels, and such. This year, I was so busy, I only managed to see two or three things in the video room, but big deal! I can always get it later from fansub distributors
- Browse the dealer room thoroughly before you buy
- Not all the dealers there have the same prices for things...that's what free enterprise is all about. Check around for a particular item...you may just find it cheaper a couple tables over
- Please drink responsibly, or not at all
- I've seen people get sick, and I've heard about the few who even had to go to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. Drinking a little bit to loosen inhibitions a tad and socialize is one thing. Guzzling it for the sole purpose of seeing how much you can inhale is stupid. There will be lots of parties, some with booze, and some without. Believe it or not, you can have a great time on just the emotional high of the people attending, but if you choose to drink, ask someone you trust to keep an eye on you. With a large population like a convention, there is a larger chance that there may be someone in the room who would take advantage of those under the influence. And above all, DON'T DRIVE!! There have been people killed in accidents during A-kon from drinking & driving, and I'd hate to hear it was one of us...
- Finally, HAVE FUN!
- That's what you're there for, right?
Unconventional
It's time for this month's word search! I'm trying out something different this time, having found some software to automate it for me, saving me 2 days worth of work (create the word list, arrange them on graph paper, randomly determine letters for the blank spaces, type the whole thing up, print it and solve it to find typos, then correct the changes and convert it to HTML).
Anyway, this month, we focus on Project A-kon 12! I grabbed a bunch of names and events from the A-kon website to determine the word list this time, so let's see how well the program did it. Enjoy!
Word List
| AD Visions | Doom Room | Pat Duke |
| Aka-Anime | Elevators | Pictures |
| Amy Howard-Wilson | Elin Winkler | P.N. Elrod |
| Anime Cel Painting Workshop | Fan Clubs | Prizes |
| Anime Cel Trading | Hyperactive | Project A-kon |
| Anime Jeopardy | Japanimayhem | Radio Free Oz |
| Anime Match Game | Jason Carter | Richard Biggs |
| Anime 'Name That Tune' | J-Pop Video Marathon of Love | Role-Playing |
| Arik Renee Avila | June | Scavenger Hunt |
| Art Show | Karaoke | Soap |
| Autograph | Kobushi Taiko | Souveniers |
| Banquet | Lee Martindale | Star Blazers |
| Bathing | Lee W. Madison | Steve Bennett |
| Ben Dunn | Lisa Ortiz | Studio Ironcat |
| Biggs-Carter Experience | Masami Oobari | Sushi Demo |
| Bill Blair | Meredith Thompson | Tiffany Grant |
| Brad DeMoss | Meri Hazlewood | Tsukasa Kotobuki |
| Bring Your Own Monkey | Model Kontest | Water Warz |
| Cory Gagne | Nadia Premier | Weekend |
| Cosplay | Nov. Takahashi | Welcoming Ceremony |
| Crispen Freeman | Otaku | Writing Seminar |
Project A-kon Memories
This is my first time creating a crossword puzzle, and sticking with the theme this month, I'm using quotes from past Project A-kons. Some of these are obscure, and they run from A-kon 8 through A-kon 11. Generally, full names of either the person or character saying the quote are used. Some of them are on our quotes page on the website, while others are in convention video footage, and a couple are from Pre-Akon Bash parties. I don't expect many people to actually get all of these, but I will publish the name of the first person to e-mail me a solution to the puzzle in next month's newsletter, along with the answer key! (Sorry, Qeorita, since you live with me, you can't count :)
Created by Throkda Jones with EclipseCrossword by Green Eclipse Software — www.greeneclipsesoftware.com/eclipsecrossword
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Across
6. "My name is ________ __________, and I am not here for a comedy skit."
9. "I've...um...never seen it."
10. "I'm going to find good-looking women." (camera pauses) "I have found a woman, and she is good-looking."
11. "Whew! Mother of God, Puss-puss!"
13. "Get the hell outta here!"
15. "He can't be rich! He's an otaku!"
16. "I buy anything animated. I even have Tron."
21. "I am sorry I could not be there....I have got very important, er, affairs of state."
22. "Why are there so many damned intersections, and which leads to where I'm bound?"
23. "I am still looking for the girl with green eyes."
24. "....isn't here, so if you could all just BE Shinji?"
25. "I really love naked people...."
26. "Are you filming my ass?" "No." "And why not?"
Down
2. "Gotta catch a Maul!"
3. "To hell with all these duels! Who shall ever pull this sword from my bosom?"
4. "You broke my wand! My father gave me that wand!"
7. "Ya!"
8. "Hey kids! Eat my crotch!"
12. "I'm not that cool."
14. "I get my ideas in strange places, like one time when I was cleaning my toilets."
17. "You like chicks, and I like beer, so what do you say we go out for some hot chicks and cold beer?"
18. "You guys rock!"
19. "I remember Orbots! It was in the Conjunction Hour, right between Andbots and Butbots!"
20. "I could stay up here thirty minutes if you want...I've got nowhere else to go."
Together We Stand
(editor's note -- to simplify the conversion of such a large amount of text to HTML, I'm just going to define it as pre-formatted text. Last chance not to read it if you don't want spoilers! -- T.J.)
Neon Genesis Evangelion and all characters from therein are the
property of Gainax. They are used without permission and we beg the
kind and benevolent creators of the glorious show not to sue us. ^_^
Chain Lightning Studios Presents
Together We Stand
By T. L. Webb
Hey you, don’t tell me there’s no hope at all
Together we stand, divided we fall
Hey you
Pink Floyd, The Wall
[]=======================[]
Book 1 Prologue
[]=======================[]
Hikari Horaki walked into the classroom and sighed; Rei
Ayanami had beaten her to school again. If she didn’t have to
walk her younger sister to class she suspected that she might be
able to actually arrive before the strange pale girl for once. It
wasn’t really that big a deal-- it was more of a game she played
to amuse herself. The only reason that she didn’t worry about
Ayanami’s uncanny punctuality overlapping her own was the fact
that half of the time the girl didn’t even show up in the first
place. This was actually the first time in almost three weeks
that she had been in class at all. When she did bother to show up
however, it seemed she arrived the moment the gates were
unlocked.
As Hikari walked closer she let out a small gasp; Ayanami’s
arms and head were wrapped in bandages, in addition her right arm
hung limply in a sling. She wondered if the girl had been injured
in the Robot incident.
It had been the talk of the school-- actually it had been
the talk of the world. Less than a week before, a giant monster
had come out of nowhere and started wrecking the city. Hikari and
her sisters had missed seeing it, having been evacuated to the
shelters immediately after the first alert. There had, however,
been a few people who had either been too slow or had stayed out
to see what was going on. From their accounts- it had been
hundreds of feet tall and had taken everything the UN had been
able to throw at it without a scratch. As it had resumed its
attack on the city after the UN's last attack, a huge robot had
risen from the ground and the two had fought.
The monster had been destroyed and the next day the news
was reporting that Nerv had created the robot. She and her
sisters had badgered her dad for days after that for him to tell
them more. Unfortunately his office was only related to what he
called project E indirectly, and he knew little. Nerv employed
most of the city, and she was surprised that no one had ever
heard of the huge machine before then. Where in the world could
they hide something like that?
Hikari shook all that from her mind. The issue was Rei and
how she had gotten hurt, not the dumb mech. She was starting to
sound like Kensuke.
"Rei? Are you ok? What happened?" she asked with concern as
she stepped closer.
Ayanami turned and fixed Hikari with her uninjured eye, but
said nothing.
'I'll never get used to those red eyes' Hikari thought as
Ayanami's gaze froze her in place. They were almost hypnotic. Rei
rarely focused on anything other than the view from the window,
but when she did; the intensity she radiated was overwhelming.
Because of this few ever mustered up the courage to speak to her.
Shaking off her unease she repeated herself; hoping that Rei
would actually say something. "Are you alright?" She asked.
"I am not in pain," Rei replied in that calm, soft voice
that creeped out most of the student body, "There is no need for
concern Representative Horaki."
"We-well that’s good, I-I’m glad you’re alright." Hikari
said, trying to keep from flinching under Rei’s stare.
To her relief Rei turned back to the window and resumed
whatever meditations she had been involved in before. She wanted
to be nicer to Rei, but he girl was so... strange, and it wasn’t
just the albinism. Rei had an air about her that disturbed
Hikari, something that was just beyond her ability to describe
accurately. It was almost as if Rei had no drive in life, nothing
to work for. Ever since Hikari had known the girl, she seemed to
just go through the motions of living without taking part.
Making a mental note to try to speak with her more often,
Hikari went to her desk to check her messages. As class
representative it was her responsibility to keep herself updated
on all new information concerning school events.
Plugging in her laptop and entering her password, she
brought up the menu. Sure enough the faculty had sent her a set
of data concerning a new student. This was a bit surprising.
Since the Robot incident many of her fellow students had left
Tokyo Three, having been moved out by their parents. A person
actually moving _into_ such a dangerous city was a bit unusual.
Looking over the information she found the boy’s name and
picture.
Shinji Ikari, age 14.
He had apparently been living with his uncle for most of his
life and had been tutored privately for the last couple of years.
She hoped he was up to date on his studies, her schedule for
study aid was already chock full. Scanning quickly over the rest
she was struck by how empty the file was. No sports, no clubs, no
extracurricular activities at all from his older class records,
save that he apparently played the cello.
She took a moment to look at his picture again. He was
slender and apparently well groomed-- that would be a nice switch
from some of the slobs in class, but it was the boy’s eyes that
caught her attention. He seemed... sad.
Well it was just a school file photo; it wasn’t like a
person’s whole life was in there. Making a mental note to welcome
him, she finished up her paper work and waited for the rest of
the class to arrive.
[]====[]
[]====[]
"Welcome to our school Mr. Ikari. I am the class
representative Hikari Horaki," she said, greeting the young man
as he walked in.
He looked just as he had in his photograph, brown hair and
deep blue eyes, but as she had expected the photo hadn’t conveyed
anything about him. The sound of her voice had surprised him and
he had jumped slightly. Once he realized what she had said
however he reverted to the distant look he’d carried with him as
he had entered.
"T-thank you... which is my seat?" he asked in a quiet, shy
voice.
As she led him to his assigned place, she handed him the
bootup disk for his assigned laptop.
"This contains a quick tutorial on the operating system, a
list of the school rules, regulations for private messages, and a
few other important bits of information," She told him, "our
classroom is connected to the internet, but access is limited
during most of the day. Private messages are permitted, but
interrupting the class can result in loss of privileges."
Shinji listened to this and nodded, and Hikari got the
impression he was a bit uncomfortable. This was not too
surprising; being new at a school could do that to someone.
He thanked her again before sitting down and pulling out
earplugs and turning on a SDAT player.
"Great... another Rei." She muttered under her breath--
social interaction did not seem to be one of Shinji's greater
talents. She admonished herself immediately; it wasn’t nice or
fair to make snap judgments like that.
As she greeted the other arriving students, she took a look
back at him and decided she had been wrong about his photo. The
look in his eyes wasn’t that of sadness. It was more as if he
were haunted by something.
[]====[]
[]====[]
"Hey class rep!"
Hikari rolled her eyes. Kensuke Aida was a nice enough guy;
she had known him and his best friend Touji Suzuhara since first
grade, but when he went into military mode he became a world
class pain in the neck. Ever since the Robot incident he had
insisted on reminding everyone of this fact... in spades.
"What is it Aida?" She asked, letting her voice betray her
annoyance. She didn’t like being disturbed during lunch in the
first place, it was one of the few times during the school day
she could actually relax. The twinkle in Kensuke’s eyes was
enough to convince her that whatever he wanted it had to do with
either Nerv or the Giant Robot.
"I need to ask you something about the new guy."
"You mean the transfer student, Shinji Ikari?"
"Yeah, not that there are any other new guys, but can you
show me his school file?"
Hikari’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t technically against the
rules, but it still wasn’t proper to ask for such things. "Why do
you want to see his file Kensuke?"
"I wanna test a theory."
"I’m not going to play games Aida, tell me or leave me alone
so I can eat my lunch."
"Okay, okay, I think the new kid works for Nerv."
Hikari mentally rolled her eyes. It figured. "What makes you
think that?" she asked
"Have you seen those guys in black suits wandering the
perimeter of the school all year?
"Yeah... what about them?"
"Well as of today there are twice as many of them. The only
change in the past couple of days is the new kid."
"So what does his file got to do with that? It's just school
notes and other boring stuff."
"Don’t you know anything about espionage?"
"No Kensuke, but then again I have things in my life other
than military and anime."
"Cheep shot, but I’ll let it slide. Show me his file and
I’ll explain my theory."
"If it will get you to leave me to my lunch," She said as
she pulled her laptop out from the desk and booted it up. "Okay
Kensuke, here’s his file... now what’s so special about it?"
"Look there!" Kensuke said excitedly, pointing at the
screen.
"What?"
"The gaps in the history!"
"Kensuke Aida, if you don’t start making sense..."
"They erased some of his school history! And look here,
there’s no parents listed other than a guardian."
"And this proves what, exactly? He had a private tutor for
a couple of years. That doesn't mean anything"
"Well of course it means nothing by itself, but when you
take the pieces and put them together..."
"Go away and let me eat in peace Kensuke," Hikari said in a
strained voice.
"Okay, but mark my words, there’s something weird going on
with this guy."
"Kensuke!" She growled.
"Alright, alright," Kensuke said as he ducked out the door.
Hikari let out a sigh as she turned back to her lunch. Kensuke’s
imagination was going to get him in trouble of him one day.
[]====[]
[]====[]
She couldn’t say that she was surprised.
By the time she made back from the equipment room, the
locker room gossip mill was already in full swing. Every singly
girl in class seemed to have a theory about the transfer student,
and they each apparently felt the world would end if she didn’t
share it with everyone else.
"Well I heard he came here because he got in trouble with
the law."
"No, Kensuke says he works for Nerv!"
"Oh as if! What would they want with a scrawny wimp like
him? Did you see how slow he was on the track?"
"Oh please, I think he’s a cutie."
"I bet he had to leave a girlfriend behind and that’s why
he’s so quiet."
"Ooh, think he needs help healing his wounded heart?"
Hikari rolled her eyes. This would keep up for at most a
week, then the girls would promptly forget about it when
something new happened. They would joke, giggle, and dare each
other to ask him out-- but that’s about as far as it would go. It
was about the only predictable thing left in Tokyo 3.
'At least its not a new girl' she thought, 'I’ve had to
break Aida and Suzuhara’s little photo racket up twice this year
already.'
[]====[]
[]====[]
The final bell rang and she yelled out her instructions to
the class. Yelling was the only way that she could get their
attention some days.
The teacher walked out and the rest of the class began
gathering their things. Rei was gone before Hikari could say
anything; she would have to talk with the girl some other time.
It had been a long day, mostly due to the fact that the
teacher insisted on going over the same material every day during
the final hour. By now the entire class could probably quote it
line for line. It was about the only reason she didn’t crack down
on the private messages in the classroom chatsite.
'Let no one ever say that the reign of Hikari Horaki was not
a tolerant one,' she thought with a grin. She would get out of
her older sister’s shadow yet! As she finished packing her things
and walked out the door, she wondered just how much easier it
would be if her Kodama hadn’t been such a terror in the
classroom. She had learned the hard way that following such an
act was not the easiest job in the world. Fortunately over the
course of the year she seemed to have finally been accepted in
the position and the grumbles had faded to almost nothing.
Stepping out of the front doors of the school and into the
daylight she saw the new student standing across the street
looking out at the city. In the distance the buildings were
lowering into the underground shafts that protected them during
attack. She had forgotten that there was a scheduled evacuation
drill in the main block, theirs would most likely be in a week or
two.
She had only seen the spectacle a couple of times since the
final construction, so she stepped across the street to watch it
as well. When she made it to the rail where Shinji stood, she saw
that he was shaking. His hands gripped the railing so tightly
that she could hear his knuckles pop.
Concerned for the boy, she tapped him lightly on the
shoulder and asked if he was all right. He jumped back from her
touch and for a moment she actually thought he was going to run
away. When he realized who it was he seemed to deflate as he let
out a sigh of relief. Even so, she could clearly see that
whatever was bothering him ran deep, he seemed to still be
looking for a way to leave quickly.
"I-I’m... okay, thank you. Sorry if I startled you Miss...
Horaki?"
"That’s me," she acknowledged with a smile, "and it’s
alright. _I_ should be the one apologizing. I mean-- I’m the one
who snuck up on you. Are you sure you’re okay?"
"Yes... I--I just have a lot on my mind right now... I
should go, sorry to trouble you." He told her as he headed off
down the road.
"What a strange boy" she said to herself as she headed home.
[]====[]
[]====[]
That night, as she got ready for bed, Hikari found herself
thinking about the new student. He seemed so distant from
everyone around him. He hadn’t spoken to anyone the entire day
beyond the initial greetings he got. She wondered if it was
because he was just shy or if he was simply unfriendly. He didn’t
seem mean or rude, just self contained.
Kensuke was convinced the guy was the Robot’s pilot now, but
how he came to that conclusion was beyond her. Then again she had
never claimed to understand Kensuke in the first place. She hoped
Touji was ok. For all his antics with Kensuke he was a nice
enough guy, and one of her best friends. She was more than a bit
worried; he hadn't been back at school since the incident. The
news reports said no one had been injured, but after she had seen
Rei... she wasn’t as sure.
A she finished dressing for bed and turned out the light,
she wondered if Kensuke was right... if the new kid was in fact
the pilot then he was a hero, he had fought to save all their
lives. But if that was true it didn’t match the boy’s attitude.
He didn’t seem like the type of person a military organization
would hire. He seemed so... lost.
She didn’t even know why she was thinking about this, it was
just distracting her from her job as class rep and her
schoolwork. But even as she tried to wipe all such thoughts from
her mind, even as she drifted off to sleep, she kept seeing
Shinji Ikari’s wounded eyes and wondering what had happened to
cause such pain.
[]====================[]
To be Continued...
[]====================[]
Authors incoherent babbling:
Wow this might be the shortest thing I’ve written ^_^, but
on the other hand; it marks the beginning of a story. The idea
exploded in my head (yuk) when I was reading the ‘In Other Words’
message board and someone asked why there weren’t more
Shinji/Hikari fics out there.
"Well" I said, "that’s a darn good question."
Being the only marginally sane person in the cast of
Evangelion, (not counting the bridge bunnies) Hikari is an oasis
of peace in the desert of angst that composes Eva’s later
chapters.
Keep this in mind as you read the fic:
A smart fella once said "the future is not set, there is no
fate but what we make." And indeed the future is in constant
flux. The choices each and every person makes every moment of
their lives have small, sometimes immeasurable effects one the
lives of others. Sometimes the smallest choices can have the
largest effects, altering entire destinies. In short it’s the
butterfly effect.
Touji/Hikari fans may hate me for this. Rei/Shinji fans will
probably hate me for this. Asuka/Shinji fans will most likely be
shouting for my head on a pike by the end.
The rest of you, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride
Hotwire
Chain Lightning Studios
http://hotwire182.freeyellow.com/chainlightning.html
That's about it for this month. E-mail your submissions (articles, columns, songs, artwork, poetry, fiction, whatever...) to me at throkda@swbell.net.