Just looked this up. You're not kidding when you say 'tolerate the bus ride'....

  > The overnight Dream Tokushima bus runs from Tokyo and
  > Shinjuku (10 hours, ¥10000 each way).

ref: http://wikitravel.org/en/Tokushima

When I was a student, I usually took a bus for Nara <-> Tokyo for around 5000 Yen each way - but that was barely tolerable, indeed. Even if the bridge to cross the Osaka bay must add a significant cost to the ticket when coming from Tokushima, I would be surprised if you could not find cheaper.

Yup, I'm starting to feel that it can't be awesome enough to justify $200 and 20 hours sitting on the bus. Still it's very cool that these HN meetings happen and I agree Tokyo is the best place for them.

If there are still room for me, there will be at least one guy from Kyoto, so not that far :) I think someone else already booked in is from Kansai as well.

Yes.