A week has now passed since Anime Central 2008 and life has settled back down to what passes for normal. Still I am filled with fond memories of a really good time. Friday my main objective was to make it to the concerts which I did. Peelander Z was, well, unique. They put on a fun show, but honestly, I couldn’t really get into their music. They were followed by Mari Ijima show which was pretty low key and a nice change up from the Peelanders. Halcali was up next and well worth the wait! I loved their j-pop hip hoppy sound and can’t wait for their albums to see a US release. I found a bootleg recording of the concert and now can’t get Endless Lover’s Rain out of my head. Please release soon!^^ The rest of the night was spent mostly in the AMV room watching Hentai AMVs. Not that I’m a big fan of hentai, but I really had a good time with Nate, Flying Elf, and the rest of the AMV regulars at Youmacon so I thought it’d be cool to enjoy some of their craziness again, and indeed it was! I’ve been really inspired to improve my own productions by all of the incredible videos I saw at ACen. I was also happy to see my own AMVs screened during the free play periods too.
Saturday the main focus was on cosplay and the masquerade. I always bring out my new costumes on Saturday, so I spent the day as Shuichi Shindou and finally got a chance to experience fangirls first hand. It was pretty cool having people recognize the character and call out, “hey Shuichi!” Not to mention getting a number of hugs and photo requests. Kakkoi!^_^ The kids were pretty popular in costume too, especially my youngest son as little Mario!
Attending the masquerade after a year’s absence felt really good! I was so angry last year at having missed it that there was no way I was going to let that happen again. The show was good, but I felt like there were too many yaoi skits. A couple of years ago, it was fresh and new, but there are no more original yaoi skits to be done, so please people, just stop it. After the masquerade I spent some time on a serious photo quest before I would need to dump my bag for the Soap Bubble rave. This period was interrupted by the now annual arrival of paramedics to take someone to the hospital.
The line to enter the dance was very long and part outside in the cold which was not going to work well with the costume I was wearing. So I decided to wait it out watching some totally f*d up crazy videos with ngsilver and company. After a wait, the line was gone and I went into the dance where I was immediately hugged by a young woman who liked my costume, yay!^^ I really don’t know how long I danced that night, all I know is that it was after 4am when I got back to my room. Yes, I had a ridiculously good time!
Sunday is usually a somber day at cons for me because it means the party is nearly over. This one was little different except for a lot more check out drama than usual. I was so happy about the previous night that I was determined to make things as easy as possible getting my crew out of the room. So I ended up carrying a lot of stuff great distances and giving a lot of commands to keep everyone coordinated. I think it worked pretty well. Working together we got it all done. After sending the wife and kids back to the city, I went to the AMV awards and then made my final swing through the dealers room before heading back to the city myself.
ACen 2008 was definitely better than 2007 for me! I got a lot more photos than last year (click here for photos) and I had a lot more fun cosplaying. A week later and I’m still smiling.^_^