#03 A Closer Look at – Animecon 2011

First of all, I want to apologize for taking so long to the point of finishing it on the last day of the week, that is, if you don’t consider Sunday the first day of the week.

I was still recovering from weariness and writing in my own log for myself, but in the end I figured I write better when trying to entertain my readers. ^.^

Animecon 2011

Anyway, from May 06 – May 08 I’ve been to an anime convention located in the Netherlands, a city called Almelo, held inside a hotel which was rather convenient for those who wanted to stay the entire weekend and lived far apart from the convention.
As for me, I live about an hour from the hotel by bus > train. It was a pain to travel back and forth, but in the end, it was worth it.

Cosplayers

The sight of cosplayers everywhere was marvelous, even though this was the third time for me at an anime convention and the second time at Animecon, they won’t fail to surprise you. Of course, some were better than others and conversely, but seeing the cosplayers while asking for pictures alone was already worth a day.

Pictures

(Click for full size and better quality, put mouse on top of image for little comment~)

Some of the pictures didn’t turn out as well as I thought, my apologies for that since I wasn’t paying enough attention.

My friend as Dante from Devil May Cry

Luka and Miku from Vocaloid

“Will of the Abyss” and Xerxes from Pandora Hearts

Kakashi and Minato from Naruto

Samurai Warriors

Mio and Yui from K-ON!

Shinku and Barasuishou from Rozen Maiden

Two maids

Ciel and Pluto from Kuroshitsuji

Moka from Rosario + Vampire

Her nick is DinjaDONUT btw.

Dante and Moka

Alice in Wonderland

Two maids and my friend in kimono

The Trinity Blood gang

Petro Orsini from Trinity Blood

Hatsune Miku from Vocaloid

Tsukasa from Lucky Star

Two lolitas

One of the winners for the Cosplay Fashion Show

Another winner of the Cosplay Fashion Show

Yuuki from Vampire Knight and an original costume

Thank you for your pictures everyone and I hope you enjoyed the convention!

Next time I’ll be bringing a photographer with me who claims to be better at handling cameras, so I’ll be counting on him! It’ll be more convenient for me too since I won’t have to carry it myself anymore, leaving me with more cosplay options as well. (I have a cosplay which doesn’t have pockets, which is one of the reasons why I didn’t wear it to the convention)

Activities

For people to stay for the entire weekend there must be activities, activities are things people do and in this case for entertainment. What activities did Animecon 2011 offer?

Anime

There were 3 rooms where they showed various anime on some big screens at specific times, but really, who goes to an anime convention just to watch anime? (No offense for those who do XD)
I decided to give it a try at the start of the convention as a warm-up: MM! episode 01 for a quick laugh. (It is very regrettable that the author died recently)
What I immediately noticed was that the subs weren’t exactly the best ones out there. The nickname “butaro” for the protagonist was only displayed as “butaro” in the subs, not even a rough translation, neither explanation.

(butaro is a combination of 豚 / ぶた / buta which means pig, and his first name 太郎 / たろ / taro = pig taro which could best be translated to “pig boy” if you have to) NOT CONFIRMED

Manga

A room with quite a stack of manga was made available for those who wanted to pass time reading. From 0:00 AM until 6:30 AM they also put some H-manga in place for those who don’t mind being watched. ww

Eroge

In the same room as the manga room there apparently was a showing of a “Adult dating sims” as they call it, I assume that they were referring to ADV eroge.
According to my lolicon friend (who stayed those 3 days without any sleep) it was even in Dutch.

Games

Now surely you can’t have eroge there if you don’t even have “family friendly” games. The game room this year seemed a bit bigger than before which includes old arcade games as well as the ones you see now. The only game I played was a scrolling shooter arcade game near the entrance of the room where I only barely reached the top 10 high score. ww
There was also DDR (Dance Dance Revolution), I fail at it so I didn’t bother trying.

Karaoke

Same location as the DDR, though naturally not at the same time. A pretty decent selection of songs, but a lack of a good atmosphere. The room was too small and bright for most people to get into the mood.

Maid Cafe

I missed my chance again this year.

“Main events” (copypaste from log ftw)

AMV Compo – A competition of making the best AMV (beforehand), they were shown on a big screen and judged after.
I must say that there were quite a few good ones included.
Winner:

Cosplay Compo – Groups of cosplayers had prepared an act for the cosplay competition, unfortunately
it didn’t go as planned due to rather excessive technical difficulties.

Aural Vampire Concert – A live concert of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aural_Vampire . Pretty awesome
but bad volume control since the vocals were really hard to hear.

Cosplay Fashion Show – About the same as the cosplay competition (Including
the technical difficulties), just without the “group” part.

Closing Ceremony – Revealing the winners of various competitions, of which some will even be participating
in competitions in the following countries: UK, France, and Japan.

Dealer Room

Apart from all these fun but not exactly free of problems activities there was also a room dedicated to the selling of anime/manga/figures etc. merchandise, also called the “Dealer Room”.
It’s probably one of the more impressive inclusions of this anime convention, though I haven’t particularly seen much I wanted to have.
The only things that took my interest were a Baldr Sky glass poster and a relatively small dakimakura cover of fortissimo. I only bought the Baldr Sky poster since I figured the dakimakura cover should be much more expensive and I had other priorities.

Other showings

Hatsune Miku 39′s Giving Day Concert – A showing of Hatsune Miku’s concert on screen, I didn’t watch all of it but I would certainly go if there were to be a concert held here in the Netherlands and if they still use a transparent screen. I also liked how they sometimes used a different outfit for the characters, especially the commando/sergeant/nazi outfit of Miku or whatever you call it XD.

The things I haven’t seen or heard anything about from friends are omitted~.

Last words

Animecon 2011 was fun, and yes I would go again next year.

Writing this post was less fun, there’s too much negativity, too many subjects to cover and sure shit happens, but because of that there was too little incentive for good jokes that aren’t derogatory, which I am trying to avoid specifically here, in this post. (My writing ability isn’t getting much better from it either)

Let’s hope there won’t be as many problems next time, because I don’t think I can hold it in anymore XD.

Bye bye. -_-

(Now let’s lighten the mood with some lame ass written OMAKE)

Omake (Extra) – Cosplay Adventures: Trap Chaser

Anyone who goes to conventions will encounter them: Traps. Whether it is considered one of the better or worse things about conventions is up to you. As for me, I don’t mind at all~.

Friday

I saw someone when I entered the washroom, and for a split second there I thought I entered the wrong washroom, but it was a trap and a good one at that too~.
My urge to ask for a picture rose, though I hesitated because of the following reasons:

1. He seemed busy applying his crossplay.
2. Asking a trap felt a tad more awkward.
3. I hadn’t asked anyone else yet to get used to it.
4. I intended to ask for more than just a photo, such as how he did it. Tsun disapproves.

My friends kept calling me for reasons I don’t remember, so I left the washroom and anticipated for another chance the next day.

Saturday

I may or may not have seen him, but either way I was too tired to give chase. Not to mention chasing a trap kind of makes me sweat drop and I can’t help but think “WHY AM I DOING THIS!?” or ”AIN’T I CHASING THE WRONG ‘GIRL’!?”. ^.^’

Sunday

I think I saw him helping out on stage, without his costume D:

The end~

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