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Ok, now that that is done, I shall share with you my little experiences with the largest anime convention in the Midwest. Seriously, though, after only going to Anime Milwaukee, this was a huge mind-blower. Thoroughly mind blown, that's me. It was so much fun, and totally different from AMKE in many ways.
Part of those differences were totally on my husband and me, though.
The first major difference was totally our decision. Since neither of us were particularly inclined to meet any of the voice actors, we skipped them entirely. It's not that there wasn't any respect or motivation, since Attack on Titan is my husband's current favorite, but more that we didn't recognize most of them. Additionally, we knew that those lines were likely to be ridiculous. We were right. Every time we walked by one of those rooms, there were stupid-long lines. I might have stood in those lines for different people. As it is, we got to experience lots of other things.
We did get up early in Friday morning to stand in line for the A New World chamber orchestra concert with Nobuo Uematsu and Arnie Roth. I was bouncing up and down excited to see what would happen. At first, I expected it to be something on a large scale, having just seen Distant Worlds, but this was smaller and more intimate. I definitely think that they accomplished their goal with the setting. We were all very excited that it was the US premier of that particular concert AND we were more excited that Arnie managed to get Nobuo to play a piano/violin duet with him on stage. That was super cool. The negative? Two things: I'm not a fan of piano solos very much, and there were two really longs ones. This is no reflection on the pianist. He was amazingly talented but I'm just not up for them in general (shameful, since I'm a mini-pianist). Also, I was sleepy after being up at 5am and I was doing a little bit of headnodding during Zanarkand. I felt bad, because that's not very polite, but it's SO much a song that will make anyone that relaxed. Husband told me that the drummer did a little headnodding himself. I felt better. So, it was a little bit of a let-down, but I'm still glad we got to go.
*Terror Alert!* While sitting against a wall, in line for the FF concert, I almost tripped someone by having my legs sticking out. Startled, I pulled in my legs and looked up as the person whisked by. I don't even think that he realized how close he was! Worse? It was Nobuo Uematsu. Good things I'm super short. That is not my chosen way to meet famous people.
Okay, what else...
We didn't go to very many panels. I went to one panel that was exactly what I thought it would be, but so much better than I thought it would be. I can't even remember the name of it! But it was great. It was basically a gay guy's views on yaoi. I mostly agreed with many of his points, and he was funny. It's very important to be funny. He has this blog: 3episodetest.blogspot.com . It's another anime review blog, but it's only the first 3 episodes of each. So, it's kind of a different take than what I do. He also posts a lot more frequently. Give it a shot, and let me know what you think in the comments below.
All I wanted to do, for sure, for the whole weekend was go to Cards Against Humanity! We didn't go, though. We stumbled on it at AMKE when a different panel was dumb. It was a lot of fun and I was hoping for a repeat performance. Alas, we're not that patient and by the time we dragged our butts back it was a really REALLY long line. So we settled for Funimation Peep Show. BEST MISTAKE EVER. It was hilarious, but hugely underattended. I won a little prize for tweeting about it. I'm jealous of the guy who got the High School DxD lunchbox, though. Sadface.
I dragged my husband to a different yaoi panel - with a completely different vibe. This was fangirl to the max. I also enjoyed it, kinda, but it was probably not the best to sit through after the previous one. All of the little things that panelist had said were stuck in my mind. HOW COULD HE!? Also, I was annoyed with the distribution of series under their made up categories, and couldn't say anything because the room was packed.
There were some other panels I would've liked to attend but couldn't because of lines. I'm just not that patient, I guess. Not when there were other things to try. I kinda wanted to go to the Yaoi-ing Game too, but it was at 2:45am, so, no. We also went to an Attack on Titan type fan panel. We had to wait outside for enough people to leave because it was over attended, but it didn't take too long. It ended up being stupid anyway. We probably stayed for about 15 minutes. We only managed to get in because they'd reached the point of spoilers (via the manga) and people were leaving. I just didn't care. It was still boring. Oh well.
Wake Up, Girls. I just started watching it, and I admit part of it is out of obligation. I'm a huge fan of crunchyroll.com and it's one of the many things I subscribe to for anime. I like subscribing. While I was searching the story for something else, I stumbled upon something that was $0.00. Who wouldn't want to look at that, right? It was a poster and a place in line to get autographs from the Wake Up, Girls girls. So, I "bought" them and headed over to crunchroll right after getting my fancy stuff from Funimation (because I pay them, too. I got ribbons). So, I got #3! I was still a little confused, but I figured it out shortly. I'd gotten third place in line for the Wake Up, Girls autograph session at the crunchyroll booth. What I hadn't realized is that only the first 50 people who pre-registered were guaranteed spots, and those were being given out in order of day-of registrations. So, I got signatures of the 5 cutest little Japanese girls I've ever seen. They were super sweet, and I hadn't realized that they really are the age they are. So, now I have to watch the series, and then I can feel even more awesome for having their autographs. Ha!
We ate food, caught up on the English Attack on Titan, and slept-in some. We even managed to eat lunch with my mom when she came into to see us. Yay! We used the stairs to get everywhere, despite the old knee hurt, but the elevators were nuts. Much better organization than AMKE, though. I appreciated it, even though we didn't use it much.
Finally, shopping. Oh, the vendor area was crazy. We made the same mistake this time that we made at the last convention. We told ourselves "We'll just look around today and then buy everything later." Warning: This is a poor decision. If you see something you really want, buy it right that minute. Between lines, panels and food, I didn't actually get to shop much for anything I wanted. Somebody did pretty good, but he had more time to look around when I was waiting for those signatures. We bought lots of stuff we don't need - which is everything - and some things that took me awhile to decide on. I only bought 3 manga, and I think that was a good plan, too. I can find almost all of the manga I'm interested online somewhere. My current addiction is blind boxes. I wish I'd found more of them. Shopping last minute on Sunday is a big No-No. We only had an hour before I had to be somewhere else, AND all 30,000+ people had the same idea. ::sigh::
Overall: AWESOME. I was sad when it was over, even if I wanted to get home. I think we might be addicted since we're already looking for upcoming cons in the area. I had a lot of fun.
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Tips:
Don't high five everyone who wants to high five you. Easiest way to get ConFlu (or ConCrud). Also, Vitamin C is your friend.
The connecting tunnels are longer, but keep you out of the street (I was shoved into the street too many times by huge crowds).
Get a room on a lower floor to avoid elevators.
Don't be afraid of room service.
Breakfast is important.
Panels with professionals are usually better than fan panels.
If you hate the panel you're in, or couldn't make it to the one you want, try something else (like Funimation Peep Show!) because it might end up better.
SHOP ASAP. I recommend knowing what you're looking for before you go it, and impulse shop after.
Be wary of grab bags - check the vendor's other stuff before grabbing random things - I was far more successful than my husband in this endeavor.
If you decide not to say in the convention hotel - which does have pros and cons - then stay at one super nearby. I would've hated having driving back and forth. I'm sure my brother wouldn't have liked me waking up his family at 2am, either.
Any questions?
Best 2nd Convention Ever!
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