SacAnime, Sacremento, CA Sep 3-5

[Mercurial Morpheus]

Curious if anyone intends to hit SacAnime next month for Mari's concert. I'll be there Sunday, having to miss the rest of it thanks to my family habing the worst timing for Disneyland trips ever (not the first time they've picked a lousy week @_@). http://www.sacanime.com/

Edited August 22, 2010 by Mercurial Morpheus

[Tochiro]

Apparently noone turned up to pick her up at the airport and she was less than impressed... ^^; Not a good start...

[Noriko Takaya]

Her rants on Facebook are pretty indicative of the way they are treating her. She's angry and I don't blame her. The staff over there are treating her very unprofessionally. As much as I hate to see her quit the show, I wouldn't mind if she said to hell with it and went home.

[UN Spacy]

That's £ucked up. What a bunch of amateurs.

I feel sorry for her. ;_;

[Tochiro]

Well, apparently the performance went ok, although she wasnt picked up at the airport; wasnt contacted at all for 24 hrs after she arrived at the hotel and c) apparently was screwed over on the sound check.

I mean seriously - how can cons expecte guests to come back when they are run this unprofessionally. Here in Japan someone would be out of a job if something like this happened.

[Million Star]

well the sacanime `staff` are just volounteers so they can`t be out of a job. I`m sure that if they had jobs they would lose them over this in America. Actually in Japan it is VERY hard to lose your job for incompetence. If companies REALLY want to get rid of someone (rare) they will just bully the person until they resign. I`ve seen it happen multiple times.

[EXO]

They dropped the ball... it happens. You just gotta pick it up and make up for it.

[Mercurial Morpheus]

I know I'm too late on this, but I just got back from the con and heard some from my staff friend (who tried hard not to name her, but I knew anyway ). I saw the posts before heading up too, though I'm sure she deleted some as it didn't sound that bad (a lot of self-depreciating stuff). So I hadn't heard about the airport thing, which is messed up if true. There's two sides to the coin, and I hear that she wasn't exactly gracious under fire either . For the sound problems, she apparently was very unwilling to work with the staff on anything and was swearing up a storm (apparently even telling the crowd that "You've probably heard that I've been Bitching") . So essentially they both had issues with one another. None of this being very unusual for her or cons. No one's perfect and it sounds like both sides were being a bit unprofessional. I love Mari, and I know my friend has had bad run ins with her in the past, so maybe he's a touch jaded, so I take it with a grain of salt, but don't just rag on the con, especially if you weren't there and are just going on her rants. I know SacAnime ain't the best, but few are. I'm sure there's truth in both sides of the story, but I know I sure as hell haven't heard all of it . I wish I'd caught the Saturday concert (not like I enjoyed the run up the state that replaced it anyway) to see it first hand myself. I hate hearing about my friends fighting with an artist I appreciate, no matter who starts it.

Still it sounds like she patched things up by the concert, so it's s'alright. Probably a mix of the usual con shakes and hiccups.

She was still rather nice on Sunday, and didn't seem too terribly disappointed at the Macross stuff she was signing. She participated in the Q&A well enough. She even seemed quite excited to learn that Minmay has a bunny like creature in The First. That said, it was fairly obvious she wasn't entirely enjoying all her time there and it makes me wonder why she bothers with cons if she doesn't really enjoy them. I'm sorry if it is the case. It was quite off and on, but I suppose it was understandable. She even knocked herself to another friend when discussing AX. He told her the surprise guest was Yoko Kanno, and she commented that, "everyone would rather see Yoko than her anyway" when we said we were hoping it was her at the time. Shame she thinks that way.

Did anyone here actually catch the concert? Personally, I was just glad that I got to see her again, get my items signed (once again, just about everything Minmay related has her name attached ), and that she still remembers me.

Edited September 6, 2010 by Mercurial Morpheus

[eugimon]

Glad things worked out. I had wanted to go and get my vf1d signed but life got in the way, oh well.

[Million Star]

I know I'm too late on this, but I just got back from the con and heard some from my staff friend (who tried hard not to name her, but I knew anyway ). I saw the posts before heading up too, though I'm sure she deleted some as it didn't sound that bad (a lot of self-depreciating stuff). So I hadn't heard about the airport thing, which is messed up if true. There's two sides to the coin, and I hear that she wasn't exactly gracious under fire either . For the sound problems, she apparently was very unwilling to work with the staff on anything and was swearing up a storm (apparently even telling the crowd that "You've probably heard that I've been Bitching") . So essentially they both had issues with one another. None of this being very unusual for her or cons. No one's perfect and it sounds like both sides were being a bit unprofessional. I love Mari, and I know my friend has had bad run ins with her in the past, so maybe he's a touch jaded, so I take it with a grain of salt, but don't just rag on the con, especially if you weren't there and are just going on her rants. I know SacAnime ain't the best, but few are. I'm sure there's truth in both sides of the story, but I know I sure as hell haven't heard all of it . I wish I'd caught the Saturday concert (not like I enjoyed the run up the state that replaced it anyway) to see it first hand myself. I hate hearing about my friends fighting with an artist I appreciate, no matter who starts it.

Still it sounds like she patched things up by the concert, so it's s'alright. Probably a mix of the usual con shakes and hiccups.

She was still rather nice on Sunday, and didn't seem too terribly disappointed at the Macross stuff she was signing. She participated in the Q&A well enough. She even seemed quite excited to learn that Minmay has a bunny like creature in The First. That said, it was fairly obvious she wasn't entirely enjoying all her time there and it makes me wonder why she bothers with cons if she doesn't really enjoy them. I'm sorry if it is the case. It was quite off and on, but I suppose it was understandable. She even knocked herself to another friend when discussing AX. He told her the surprise guest was Yoko Kanno, and she commented that, "everyone would rather see Yoko than her anyway" when we said we were hoping it was her at the time. Shame she thinks that way.

Did anyone here actually catch the concert? Personally, I was just glad that I got to see her again, get my items signed (once again, just about everything Minmay related has her name attached ), and that she still remembers me.

Interesting post, I was hesitant to write anything negative about Mari Iijima myself due to her being worshipped here. I have to say I can believe there are two sides to the story of the con, because after reading Mari Iijima`s facebook for the last 6 months she does come off often as over senstive and a little prima-donna ish, and really a little too sensitive about being typecast as Minmay. I love her music and voice (Macross and non), have most of her albums but as a person, I`m not sure I would want to hang out with her. But thats 99% of famous people.

and I guess she does cons for the money, she even offered Japanese lessons on mariimusic.com at one point (still does?), after all, like athletes, singers generally only have a limited time at being marketable and they have to make as much money as possible during that time. I know I`ll contribue to her retirement fund by continuing to only buy her material through marimusic.com. starting with the Lorna Doone reissue next! whoo hoo!

[Mercurial Morpheus]

I know what you mean about saying things that are negative, but Mari is human after all. People tend to forget that about stars they love. Even I can't say what happened 100%, though I'm sure both parties played their part in it. I've heard the stories, but I tend to leave it to how I've interacted with her. She's always been nice, but you can sort of tell that she's still not thrilled at being Minmay. I agree that reading her Facebook makes it look like she was feeling especially apprehensive about the Minmay issue leading up to the con. Mentioning things like "not wanting to be nostalgic" and how she "sings the old songs for us, not because she has to" and how she'd rather "play for strangers than those that just know her old stuff". She knows that's how she's relevant to anime cons, and isn't happy about it. Unless she does a newer anime though, her ties to the cons will always be from the distant past. I think she sticks to it and redid Minmay for ADV to keep it open as an avenue for new fans, which is a nice attitude to have. I personally don't see anything wrong in acquiring new fans from something you did long ago while appeasing older fans, much like how a band will play hits from older albums, and it's not like her entire concert is Macross songs. Interestingly, she performed "An Angel's Paints" at SacAnime, which is rather amazing, as she usually sticks to just DYRL?. It may be old, but it is something you did after all.

Still I can get how she wants to be seen as a current artist, not someone who's glories are behind her, which is the feeling she's presenting as having online. That's the nature of the art though. People will love you for what they love about you. I love her new stuff and all, but her connection to Macross seals it. It's a character I love, and songs I enjoy, and I really don't care that they're 30 years old or not. It's why I try to make the effort to buy her latest CD or what not if she's selling it when I have her sign Macross stuff. Still, if she wants to tap the anime audience, she has to realise that there's nothing wrong with being Lynn Minmay. It's an issue that affects a lot of stars, and I agree that it sucks when your career is so long that it's like you can never top yourself. Best you can do is use it as a bridge, and that's probably why she still does cons.

She probably has no idea I actually met her before I even knew who Minmay was too (met her at Fanime 2001 and all I knew was the CD they were playing for the line).

[nanoplasm]

Interestingly, she performed "An Angel's Paints" at SacAnime, which is rather amazing, as she usually sticks to just DYRL?. It may be old, but it is something you did after all.

At her LA performance earlier this year, she performed DYRL and said she hasn't played DYRL (at LA) for a few years.

I was hoping for Angel's Paints as well, but if I had to pick between DYRL or that, it will be the former.