RDrake’s anime roamings

Ok, this was my first time at such an event. No sure way to compare to previous ones. I must have missed the last one for some embarrasing unknown reason…

Well, in total though quite alot of good and bad, I must say. Just let me try put it together in an organized manner.

First off. All my photos sucked. Terribly. On account of me being stupid and using the wrong settings without realizing it. Of course, I blame my camera for sucking too, but what’s done is done. I’ll be uploading my pictures later in a seperate post for anyone who really cares, but I think that the others have much better stuff to see, so just a sec…Will update this part when tj_han puts up part three…

tj_han part 1 , tj_han part 2, Darkmirage, Tsubaki, bjorn, tedfox, raven_eve,

Somehow I managed to miss out all the animebloggers. Shame on me. I also missed umehiko, but that’s an exception, as I saw her a few times, but never realized that she was doing Yuki, having said something about Eureka 7 and so on. GAH! She fit the Yuki role too well. I blame her no-sugar diet Tsubaki said something about. So that meant that I spent the whole day wandering about the place alone…well, ok, call it a full immersion experience with no external guidance.

Ok, good and bad parts, I’ll start with bad.

Somehow, planning and co-ordination sucked. I mean this seriously. I’m not even comparing to previous years because I can’t. I mean, look, they print a perfectly nice little booklet showing off the timetable, then go ahead with their own imaginary one onstage. What the heck is the meaning of this? Some of the scheduled song and dance stuff didn’t come on, like the SHnY one that people were most likely anticipating. Also, what happened to the pair competition? If there’s only one pair, and it’s a walkover, AT LEAST SAY SO CAN RIGHT?!!! Leave all the paying customers sitting down there in the dark without knowing what is going on…

And ticketing…hahaha, I have bad things to say now. GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK!!! So I come at 12pm means I pay 12 dollars. Meanwhile, those guys who come late at roughly 3pm come in for free…Certainly says alot towards the organisers’ attitude towards punctuality. I simply couldn’t believe my eyes when I looked at the entrance area halfway through the day and noticed that no one was selling tickets, and that, heck, the gate was pretty much busted, letting people stream in regardless of whether they paid or not. What’s more, most of the happening stuff happened at 3pm onwards. Coming early, and thus having to pay, was a waste of valuable time and money. Beware…I want to kill someone for this…

The MCs seemed rather weak. I know some good ones and yea, a decent job would include getting the crowd to participate. Sure, it’s not an easy job, but it’s also one of the most CRUCIAL ones which MUST be done right. Peppering the audience with lame jokes certainly didn’t work.

No media coverage, at least I don’t think so. No media representatives in sight. Is this a good or bad thing? Probably bad, though thankfully it meant the poor planning wouldn’t hit the news or something.

On the whole, the sad parts were mainly organization based, thank goodness. The good parts follow.

Pretty good cosplayers. Yes, of course the event is all about the cosplayers. So long as they’re there, they’re good, and they participate, organization faults are tolerable. The pictures say everything. Go check them out, if you haven’t yet already. I saw Linali, and took photos…Then I saw someone dressed as Nakoruru!!! Damn, lost her before I could take any photos. *Runs over to Tsubaki’s to wonder at his.*

The shops sold interesting stuff. Like those dollfies, or whatever they’re called. My sister seems to be crazy over them or something, always looking at them over the net. They certainly look better in the flesh plastic than onscreen. I didn’t buy anything though. Nothing all that interesting to be worth my money. People say this is because KKnM was around…

Now on to the more personal reflections stuff. Must say that the cosplayers were much more professional than I expected them to be. Ok, most of the things I heard about cosplayers before this were mainly horror stories, like how the Americans can’t cosplay decently for nuts. Well, this has certainly changed alot of my mindset. Umehiko is pretty much the prefect Yuki.

Also, I liked the ambience, almost enough for it to be worth my 12 dollars. (By the way, 12 dollars could have bought something good in Osaka, so that’s saying alot.) It feels ver…interesting to be surrounded for once by people with a passion along similar lines. Other days, being an anime fan is quite lonely…

Only downside was the timing. I just came back from Osaka in the morning, then grabbed some sleep before waking up in time to rush over which was very much unneccesarry thanks to bad points 1 and 2. (The first couple of hours were good for photo oppurtunities though, not so crowded, so lot’s of space…) Having already been quite destabilized by a trip to Japan, going to a cosplay event straight thing next pretty much shell-shocked me. I’m not sure whether I can get used to normal life again anytime soon…sob, as long as it’s in time for school next year.