CON REPORT - ACEN 07
May. 14th, 2007 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
croikOh Anime Central. Your Anniversary year, and you FUCK UP SO HORRIBLY!! WTF ACEN STAFF!?
So I got back at Acen, and I have to say, this was probably the most disappointing year that I've been there. Which is a shame, 'cause I was really proud of our cosplay this year. There were very few setbacks in that department (nothing like Edgeworth's crotch seem falling apart, at least!). Walking the convention was fun. But everything else was kind of a mess, and I hardly bought anything. TK and I are even considering switching conventions, if we can find another one that's feisible, distance and cost wise...
Until then, my con report:
The day before we left, TK had some bad luck (flat ties woes!) so we joked about getting all the bad out of the way before our trip. But it FOLLOWED us to Chicago!!! We always leave Thursday morning so we can get there that night, and be ready for the con come Friday morning.
First, as anyone who frequents F_W would know, Acen staff didn't send out the mail-ordered badges in time for everyone to actually receive them. TK and I didn't get ours. So after the five hour drive to Chicago (thankfully uneventful) we had to go down to registration after all, and wait in the 2 1/2 hour line to get a replacement badge. I chatted in pictochat to some girl dressed as Chii. She wanted to order a pizza together but I couldn't trust someone dressed as Chii so I said no. (JK, I wouldn't trust ANYONE at Acen :D).
So we got our badges and bags, and what do you know, they don't have any of the panel schedules printed out. No one knows what's going on Friday! They told us we'd have to pick them up from Customer Service the next day.
So Friday, we doll up and head out! I was cosplaying Amaterasu, and TK cosplayed Rao, both from Okami:
Yeah, that's me trying to look cool XD;;;
First stop, dealer's room! On the way there, we ran into Issun, right in the tunnel!
She was adorable.
The dealer's room opened at 9 am, and was emmmmmmpty. I don't know if everyone was asleep or at opening ceremonies or what, but it was kind of creep to have so few people moving around the venders. I made a beeline for Sasuga and picked up the manga I needed: Gantz 20, Trigun Maximum 12 (volume of Legato the sex slave!) and Hellsing 8 (holy shit they killed Maxwell, I never knew!). I agonized for a while over getting a PSP and FFT:SS, but chickened out at the last minute. And then, in a strange turn of events, was convinced by a vender to buy Anima Mundi, a PC choose your own adventure type game. Appparently there's some yaoi in it (in the first couple minutes I told the Devil I was gay! :D). It's kinda interesting so far.
On the way out, we ran into Waka!
After some more running around, we went out to find some trees for more pictures:
GODLY PEE ATTACK, GO!!!
And this semi-emo side view I don't remember taking, but I kinda like XD
While TK went to find Con Ops on a secret mission, my bro and I ducked into the game room to scope things out. We found Skeletor playing The Punisher. Too appropriate not to take a picture of:
I watched several matchs of a Naruto fighting game (the GC one, 4 player battle), at least half a dozen with different players in different stations, and whoever played as Naruto one every time. CONCIDENCE!?
I also came upon some guys playing Gears of War. Up until that very moment, I hadn't really believed all the hype about how amazing HD graphics are. But now...I do. Gears of War on a flatscreen made me a believer.
I MUST OWN A PS3
(Not the reaction GoW would have wanted, but who wants a stinky 360 anyway?).
That evening we went to the AMV contest showing. With very few exceptions, THEY ALL SUCKED. As someone who's made AMVs, I was very depressed by the (lack of) quality of the entries. The best was clearly the Haruhi Suzumiya dance video, and it was great. The rest? Mostly ick. God I can't even describe most of them, they were so bad. Especially the pedo video about the old guy who looked like Gumshoe who slept with a junior high girl. EWWWWWWWW what was that anime anyway!?
Spent the rest of Friday hanging out and watching anime / playing games. We would have taken in a panel or something, except they STILL didn't have panel schedules printed out for us to take. LAME.
Saturday, we went back to the dealer's room first thing, but I didn't get anything that time. Walked out to the McDonald's for lunch, did some cosplay watching. Come that afternoon we got our outfits on again.
This time with weapons!
Walked around some more, got pictures taken. We ran into another Amaterasu, which was neat. Our outfits were totally different (she had a tail!). We were heading back to our room to ditch the weapons and head to get in line for the masquerade when I overheard some goth chick saying it was SOLD OUT. This was a shock to me, as the Acen Masq has always been open admittance. NOT THIS TIME. She explained that the con decided, WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE, that they would be handing out tickets for the masquerade instead of just having the line. Hardly anyone knew, and all of a sudden it was closed. We couldn't get in to the masquerade.
FUCKING LAME.
So we tried to go to some panels instead, but because everyone else was in the same boat, all the good ones were full. The line for Hentai-a-go-go was wrapped around the entire floor practically. So we sat in on "Character Development in Anime" which turned out to be held by a dub actor, who went on about how he likes to "create" the characters with his voice, blah blah, doesn't really care about the original version, made me want to strange him with his own ego etc. Very lame.
So we did some more cosplay spying and ended up hanging out in the room some more with more anime and games.
Sunday we didn't go in cosplay. But on our final trip back to the dealer's room, I got a little FFIII red mage figure, and a Totoro hoodie. Very cute.
And no convention would be complete without Snake in a box:
So that was the con. Not terribly thrilling, but not a total bust. Not sure if we'll be going back to Acen next year. At least cosplay is always fun.
As a side note, there was a TON of furry and crossplay this year. No offense to those people, but...omg, it was seriously out of control. Giant bearded men shouldn't cosplay Azumanga.
And that was my con~
So I got back at Acen, and I have to say, this was probably the most disappointing year that I've been there. Which is a shame, 'cause I was really proud of our cosplay this year. There were very few setbacks in that department (nothing like Edgeworth's crotch seem falling apart, at least!). Walking the convention was fun. But everything else was kind of a mess, and I hardly bought anything. TK and I are even considering switching conventions, if we can find another one that's feisible, distance and cost wise...
Until then, my con report:
The day before we left, TK had some bad luck (flat ties woes!) so we joked about getting all the bad out of the way before our trip. But it FOLLOWED us to Chicago!!! We always leave Thursday morning so we can get there that night, and be ready for the con come Friday morning.
First, as anyone who frequents F_W would know, Acen staff didn't send out the mail-ordered badges in time for everyone to actually receive them. TK and I didn't get ours. So after the five hour drive to Chicago (thankfully uneventful) we had to go down to registration after all, and wait in the 2 1/2 hour line to get a replacement badge. I chatted in pictochat to some girl dressed as Chii. She wanted to order a pizza together but I couldn't trust someone dressed as Chii so I said no. (JK, I wouldn't trust ANYONE at Acen :D).
So we got our badges and bags, and what do you know, they don't have any of the panel schedules printed out. No one knows what's going on Friday! They told us we'd have to pick them up from Customer Service the next day.
So Friday, we doll up and head out! I was cosplaying Amaterasu, and TK cosplayed Rao, both from Okami:
Yeah, that's me trying to look cool XD;;;
First stop, dealer's room! On the way there, we ran into Issun, right in the tunnel!
She was adorable.
The dealer's room opened at 9 am, and was emmmmmmpty. I don't know if everyone was asleep or at opening ceremonies or what, but it was kind of creep to have so few people moving around the venders. I made a beeline for Sasuga and picked up the manga I needed: Gantz 20, Trigun Maximum 12 (volume of Legato the sex slave!) and Hellsing 8 (holy shit they killed Maxwell, I never knew!). I agonized for a while over getting a PSP and FFT:SS, but chickened out at the last minute. And then, in a strange turn of events, was convinced by a vender to buy Anima Mundi, a PC choose your own adventure type game. Appparently there's some yaoi in it (in the first couple minutes I told the Devil I was gay! :D). It's kinda interesting so far.
On the way out, we ran into Waka!
After some more running around, we went out to find some trees for more pictures:
GODLY PEE ATTACK, GO!!!
And this semi-emo side view I don't remember taking, but I kinda like XD
While TK went to find Con Ops on a secret mission, my bro and I ducked into the game room to scope things out. We found Skeletor playing The Punisher. Too appropriate not to take a picture of:
I watched several matchs of a Naruto fighting game (the GC one, 4 player battle), at least half a dozen with different players in different stations, and whoever played as Naruto one every time. CONCIDENCE!?
I also came upon some guys playing Gears of War. Up until that very moment, I hadn't really believed all the hype about how amazing HD graphics are. But now...I do. Gears of War on a flatscreen made me a believer.
I MUST OWN A PS3
(Not the reaction GoW would have wanted, but who wants a stinky 360 anyway?).
That evening we went to the AMV contest showing. With very few exceptions, THEY ALL SUCKED. As someone who's made AMVs, I was very depressed by the (lack of) quality of the entries. The best was clearly the Haruhi Suzumiya dance video, and it was great. The rest? Mostly ick. God I can't even describe most of them, they were so bad. Especially the pedo video about the old guy who looked like Gumshoe who slept with a junior high girl. EWWWWWWWW what was that anime anyway!?
Spent the rest of Friday hanging out and watching anime / playing games. We would have taken in a panel or something, except they STILL didn't have panel schedules printed out for us to take. LAME.
Saturday, we went back to the dealer's room first thing, but I didn't get anything that time. Walked out to the McDonald's for lunch, did some cosplay watching. Come that afternoon we got our outfits on again.
This time with weapons!
Walked around some more, got pictures taken. We ran into another Amaterasu, which was neat. Our outfits were totally different (she had a tail!). We were heading back to our room to ditch the weapons and head to get in line for the masquerade when I overheard some goth chick saying it was SOLD OUT. This was a shock to me, as the Acen Masq has always been open admittance. NOT THIS TIME. She explained that the con decided, WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE, that they would be handing out tickets for the masquerade instead of just having the line. Hardly anyone knew, and all of a sudden it was closed. We couldn't get in to the masquerade.
FUCKING LAME.
So we tried to go to some panels instead, but because everyone else was in the same boat, all the good ones were full. The line for Hentai-a-go-go was wrapped around the entire floor practically. So we sat in on "Character Development in Anime" which turned out to be held by a dub actor, who went on about how he likes to "create" the characters with his voice, blah blah, doesn't really care about the original version, made me want to strange him with his own ego etc. Very lame.
So we did some more cosplay spying and ended up hanging out in the room some more with more anime and games.
Sunday we didn't go in cosplay. But on our final trip back to the dealer's room, I got a little FFIII red mage figure, and a Totoro hoodie. Very cute.
And no convention would be complete without Snake in a box:
So that was the con. Not terribly thrilling, but not a total bust. Not sure if we'll be going back to Acen next year. At least cosplay is always fun.
As a side note, there was a TON of furry and crossplay this year. No offense to those people, but...omg, it was seriously out of control. Giant bearded men shouldn't cosplay Azumanga.
And that was my con~
