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This is a brief report of naucon'99. Our naucon has a special meeting once a year. In the meeting lasting for 2 days, the attendance discuss something related with Nausicaa, Mr.Miyazaki and his works. This year, 9 people joined at the meeting, naucon'99.

13:00 Tokyo station
Naucon'99 members, except those who joined later, gathered at Tokyo Station. And we took Touhoku Shinkansen (super express) YAMABIKO 43 to Fukushima, which is located at South Touhoku region about 200km north from Tokyo.

13:20 Departure
The train leaving for Morioka.

In the travel for one and a half hours, we took lunch with beer, and circulated some do-jin comics that were bought at Comic Market 56 in this summer. Griffin's report of MoMA and New York Film Festival were also circulated.

These are naucon'99 official(?) name plates.

15:05 Fukushima station
We arrived at Fukushima Station on time. It was cooler and more comfortable than in Tokyo.

We took a rest for a while at a beer counter :)

Then, we got on a rent-a-car and went to the venue.

16:00? Takayu
After driving for 30 min, we arrived at Takayu. Takayu-Onsen (the spa of Takayu) was placed at halfway up to the Bandai-Kogen (Bandai highlands) which was a part of Bandai-Asahi National Park. The hotel Hige-no-Ie we stayed was one of the Ryokan (Japanese style hotel) with an open-air hot-spring. It was surrounded by full of nature, beautiful colored leaves and a mountain stream. We checked in, and enjoyed hot-spring and scenary at first :)

19:10 Dinner
Though 2 members hadn't arrived yet, we started a banquet at a dining room.

This is a menu. It was a full-course Japanese style dinner. Every dish and sake was very good.

20:40 Completed
The rest of members finally joined and made a toast again.

And the official posters also arrived.

Two types of posters were available.

21:30 Set up
After dinner, we prepared for a main conference with some AV equipments. We turned our room into a mini theater :)

The posters were also displayed.

21:40 - 23:15 Opening & Main session

Each member introduced himself and talked about something related with Mr. Miyazaki and the Ghibli. Here were digests of their talks.

• Mr. Sakai (aka Mugicha) - `Kazetsukai-kobo' in the future
  
  He is a chairman of the do-jin circle `Kazetsukai-kobo'. It reaching 10th anniversary, he talked about the direction of his circle.
  He said, "We have talked less and less about Mr. Miyazaki and his works after `Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke)' was released. But the number of visitors at the Kazetsukai-kobo's web site doesn't decrease. Over 100,000 people have visited there so far. I want to coutinue the do-jin works as long as I can."

• Mr. Sato - present state of Miyazaki Hayao Networker F.C. SIG
  
  He is a board master of Miyazaki Hayao Networker F.C. SIG (we just call `JHAY'), which is a B.B.S. style communication service on BIGLOBE. It was established in 1987 and our naucon community originated in JHAY. He talked about a present state of JHAY.
  He said, "As the Internet becomes more popular, the number of B.B.S. users have decreased. Facing this situation, JHAY started ML forwarding service 2 years ago. It forwards all messages posted on B.B.S to the ML, and those posted on ML to B.B.S. It enables the Internet users to join JHAY easily. I manage to contiune its activity by getting the members from the Internet users."

• Mr. Kataoka
  
  (I'm sorry I missed taking a log of his talk ...)

• Mr. Saito - the advertisement of `Tonari no Yamada kun (My neighbors the Yamadas)'
  
  He was a pre-master of JHAY. He talked about the advertisement of `Tonari no Yamada kun (My neighbors the Yamadas).'
  He said, "I regreted that the advertisement of Yamada was the worst among all Ghibli's films. Hakuhoudo is the advertising company which took charge of the film. I thought Hakuhoudo put too much confidence in the name of the Ghibli. The newspaper `Nikkei Sangyo Shinbun' reported that Hakuhoudo spent 600-1000 million yen (6-10 milllion US$) for Yamada's ad. It was as same price as Mononoke's. But I didn't feel that so much money had been spent on it. I didn't see the ad of Yamada on magazines and on TV so much. As a result, the Yamada had been shown only for 6 weeks, and made over 1 billion yen (10 million US$) in the red. Whether the story of Yamada was good or not, I think this dificit could have been avoided if Hakuhoudo had taken more efficient way of Yamada's ad."

• Mr. Nanbu - a model of `The Valley of Wind'
  
  He talked about a model of `The Valley of Wind'.
  He said, "I think that Hunza in Pakistan is the most similar to `The Valley of Wind.' I'd like to go there, but last year Pakistan did an experiment of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, coup detat was occured. So I missed a chance..."

• Mr. Fukuhara - my favorite films
  
  He joined a naucon meeting for the first time. So, he talked about an encounter with naucon and his favorite films.
  He said, "I like `Mimi wo Sumaseba' the best. When I heard Mr. Kondo was died, I got a great shock..."

• Mr. Yamamoto - about Mr. Takahata
  
  He talked about `Tonari no Yamada-kun.'
  He said, "I was disappointed with the `Yamada' though I like Hisaichi Ishii..."
  We discussed whether a director should make a film as he likes. If Mr. Takahata make a film as he likes, the film is very cofused and accepted by only a part of audience. Mr. Miyazaki also tends so. We imagine it should be better to put some restriction on the director's demand.

• Mr. Kawamata - another aspect of Mr. Miyazaki
  
  He talked about another aspect of Mr. Miyazaki. He showed a model magazine `Scale Aviation'. It reported on the model contest of Savoia S-21, which was a red plane of Porco Rosso in `Kurenai no Buta (Porco Rosso)'.
  He said, "When Mr. Miyazaki talks about his works or cartoons, I feel he is too serious. But when he talks about his interests, for example tanks, planes, etc., I think he seems more lively, and sepaks more frankly."

• Mr. Miwa - about the Ghibli's museum
  
  I'm a chairman of naucon. I talked about the Ghibli's museum which will be opened at Mitaka, west of Tokyo, in 2001.
  I said, "I can't understand why Mr.Miyazaki and the Ghibli build the museum. I'm sure that they are professional animators and they have done good works on animated films. But I think their works are not suitable for a museum nor for an amusement park. So, I'm anxious about how the Ghibli's museum is going to be."

23:15 Video session
We terminated the main session and had a break time for taking a bath. After a while, we moved to the video session. We watch the following cartoons:

• TV animation `Card Captor Sakura'
  • New opening song "Platinum - by Maaya Sakamoto"
  • No.42 "Sakura no Makkura Gakugei-kai (Sakura in the dark stage)"
  • No.43 "Sakura no Sayonara Meirin (Good-bye! Meirin)"
• TV animation `Koutetsu Tenshi Kurumi (The steel angel Kurumi)'
  • Opening song
• TV animation `Ima Sokoni Iru Boku (Me, standing there now)'
  • No.1 to No.3

26:00 End of 1st day
We went to bed ... zzz.

7:00 Morning
Some members went to a hot-spring. Taking a bath in the morning definitely had us refreshed.

8:00 Break first
The taste of fresh rice `Hitomebore' was very good.

9:00
Mr.Nanbu and Mr.Kataoka left for their homes earlier than others. Mr Saito took them to Fukushima station by his car.

The number plate was ... ? :)

9:45 Closing
We adopted the Takayu Declaration. The Takayu Declaration is `We are watching them from now on.' It means that we should discuss not only the past works of Miyazaki and the Ghibli but also their current works and what they will do in the future.

And We decided naucon 2000 will be held at Tokyo next summer.

10:00
We took a photograph at the entrance and all of the programme was finished.

That's all.

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