1 degree from nino - my short chat with Michael Arias

There are times in one's life where one must make a decision to act or face regretting the inaction forever: buying or selling a certain stock, deciding on whether to buy that cute little number on sale, or just even deciding to ask someone out....

This was certainly the dilemma I found myself in on Wednesday night, April 25th, after the Tekkon Kinkreet premiere at the MoMA.  Should I ask director Michael Arias for an autograph or not?  The tension was really high as the Q and A that followed the movie had ended and a throng of people were swarming towards director Michael.  At the same time, the group that had come with me to watch were itching to go home - it was really late, we were all hungry, and we had a long trek back home -- not to mention having to wake up early the next day.

So, between thinking that I should have been better off just watching by myself and that this will be the absolute last time I will ever invite anyone to go with me (except for my sister), I figured, what the heck? I really have nothing to lose. agreed, it might be a little embarrassing...but, hey, aside from my little group, nobody else there knew who I was and I will most likely never see these people again.  Of course, I also faced the wrath of my weary and hungry companions... 'well,' I thought, 'they'll survive, so let them deal with it!' I've come this far and I'm not gonna back down now...

Armed with my pen and my ticket, I bee-lined to the front of the theatre where director Michael was. A small crowd had gathered around him with people waiting to get their turn for an audience. There were so many! With my luck, I won't ever get close enough to get an autograph. But, I was already there and it was too late to turn back. I squirmed my way to get closer and just when I thought I was in a good spot - BAM! - the whole theatre went pitch black. WTH?! I guess it was the signal to leave and everyone started heading - or should I say grappling? - toward the exit. Fearing that my chance for an autograph was gone, I started heading out too... But then, a stroke of genius! I thought that if maybe, I stood by the doorway and waited for director Michael to pass by, I could still have that one shot at an autograph.  So, needless to say, I stood by the doorway; the theatre crowd to my left anxiously awaiting Michael to come out and director Michael about to pass by to my right.  Oh please, please come already!!  The anxiety mixed with impending embarrasment was killing me... I swear I was going to faint because my heart was beating too fast...then there he was! 

I had mustered up what little courage I had left and managed to say, "Michael, thank you," and that the movie was great and I really enjoyed it. I asked if whether Tekkon will be released on DVD here since they were releasing it in Japan and he said it's not yet released in Japan ( XD Hazukashii!!!!!!!!!) I corrected myself saying, "Right it's only on preorder," and asked if it was going to have english subs.  We got interrupted so I didn't quite catch his reply.  after he addressed the lady's question,  I finally asked if he can autograph my ticket. He gladly obliged. It seemed, though, that he was taking a lot longer in scribbling on my ticket than i had hoped (i could feel the eyes of the crowd outside already boring a hole through me)...so instead of the awkward silence, I decided to chat a bit and said we're big fans of Ninomiya. "Ah, Ninomiya-kun!" he said, adding that Nino was very easy to work with. And because Nino was familiar with the manga, they did not have to explain a lot to him (that's our Nino!) To that I said, Nino was very busy this year, with Iwo Jima...and he said, "Right. Actually, he didn't join us until after he finished Iwo Jima"... "Oh, I see," I said.  I just had to tell him that it was great that he allowed Tekkon to be shown in NY because we didn't think we'd ever have a chance to see it. I even mentioned that there was another Ninomiya fan in Boston ( I read it in nino_daily) that really wanted to see it too, but couldn't come down to NY.  He said to look for a wide release of the movie in June/July...(yay!! wait, am I even allowed to print this??? O_o *getting ready to be hunted down by Sony*)

Again, we were interrupted... I figured it was my cue that I was already overstaying my welcome. so when they finished, I politely said, "Michael, thank you again" and started to pull away...that's when he said, "promote the movie to all the Ninomiya fans!" (You betcha!) I think I said "I will" and that was it.  He got pulled into yet another conversation and I went to regroup with my already very unhappy party.

I was so nervous and shaken by the experience that I really didn't get a chance to see his autograph on my ticket until I was walking away.  Can you imagine my surprise when I flipped my ticket over and saw not only an autograph but a sketch of Shiro! one of the characters in the movie! and not only that, he even wrote a message in Kanji!  Arrghhh... too bad I can't really read Kanji just yet, but my lovely cousin has offered to translate it for me. Yatta!! I'll post it when she's done. Also, courtesy of my equally lovely sister-in-law, who unbeknownst to me, took some pics of me while I was getting my autograph and chatting with director Michael, I am able to share them here.

*long sigh of relief* all in all, after all that was it worth it? absolutely! no regrets at all! Director Michael was very gracious...completely down-to-earth and had no air about him at all. i wanted to hit myself for not giving him my biz card, but i should just count my blessings, ne? like the fact that instead of having 6 degrees of separation between me and nino/arashi, for that brief moment, i was only 1 degree away from being connected to them. 

And my being an Arashi fan notwithstanding, it was an excellent film.  I am ready to rally my support for it because of that and because director Michael is such a wonderful person who has taken the daring leap of releasing a film that used a slowly disapperaing trade called hand-drawn animation. I hope many more will support it too and help revive this dying art.