So anime conventions are up there on the scale of nerdy events for the lower-social class, much like Star Wars and Star Trek conventions and, to a lesser extent, comic conventions. There's no shortage of costumes based on favorite anime and video game characters, Pocky and Ramune, and embarrassing rambunctious games and events thrown by the attendees more often than the staff. Many things were halted before they could get too out of hand, such as the Naruto-exclusive game of Red Rover, but other acts of embarrassment continued to prevail, the biggest of which being the rave. But we'll go over the days one at a time; let's start with day one, Friday.
The crew arrives around 1pm, and everything is already in full swing. Can't find the convention center? Follow the parade of Akatsuki members, or Team Fortress 2 and Final Fantasy XIII characters. The release of some of this year's newer titles, mainly FF13 and Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver, brought about a lot of related costumes, though old favorites, such as Naruto, One Piece, Darkstalkers, and Street Fighter still prevailed in large numbers.
The Game Room was an early stop: the room was laid out nicely, with plenty of room to walk around in, and less crowding than in the past. There were two Rock Band setups, two tables for multiple fighters, and plenty of arcade cabinets and retro games. The Game Room was sure to be where most of the weekend was to be spent.
The Dealer's Room had a lot of variety as well, with lots of games, trinkets, DVDs, manga, keychains, pins, posters, figures, and more. The Dealer's Room was easily one of the best places to go, and I met up with a lot of friends I hadn't seen in years. However, I've walked around enough, it's time to get to the bank and get some money to eat, shop, and enjoy myself.
Until I get a text while at the bank. The Super Smash Bros Brawl tournament, one of the main and only reasons I go to Raleigh for this convention in the first place, is fully booked. When confused as to how this 128 (or 256...? Don't really remember right off) man tournament got filled so quickly, I was informed that, without notice, it had become a 32 man tournament. Well, fuck, there's goes nearly the whole weekend. Pissed off, I return to the convention center to find that, in fact, only one Wii console was brought, and 128 people wouldn't be able to have a tournament on one console in only three days. Well, there would always be Rock Band, which last notice had been changed to Friday night instead of Saturday.
So most of the time was spent hanging with friends, checking out cosplays (many of which were good), and spending time in the Dealer's Room or the hotel room. Later, news would reach my ears that the Rock Band tournament, once again at last minute, would be moved to Saturday again. It was official - there was literally little reason to go to the Game Room. A little alcohol would send me into the JRock Dance, however, where the girls would dance with each other or their boyfriends, and the boys would stand around outside the dance floor looking nervous being around girls. The music wasn't too bad, if you don't mind not hearing English. Meeting up with friends again, we pretty much rounded out the day and retired, hoping Saturday would be a bit more eventful than Friday.
Day two brought around more crowd watching. Taking a step into the Game Room long enough to see Rock Band was replaced with Guitar Hero III (that's right - not Guitar Hero 5, World Tour, or Smash Hits, but mother fucking THREE), I immediately left, as the large crowd around the only Rock Band setup meant finding time to practice would take thirty to sixty minutes per play. No reason to be in the Game Room for now.
So, dressed as a Team Rocket grunt, I did the only thing I could think of to kill time - I got "in character," and walked around to harass anyone I could find. Telling Akatsuki members that you like their costumes because you love Bleach pisses them off. So does confusing Luffy for a Farmville character. Terry Bogard will look at you confused if you call him Mario. It became apparent - the most fun I had thus far was talking shit to everyone for shits and giggles.
I ditched the Tatsunoko vs. Capcom tournament I was excited for to help my friends find food, which they didn't find, and rushed back to make a decision between the Rock Band tournament or the Super Street Fighter IV tournament. I chose the former, as I'm better at music games than fighting games, and had a band that was stoked to play. We got to play with shitty Rock Band 1 drums and a Guitar Hero controller without a strap, and had to play the winning band first (though, according to our drummer, if the tournament had been seeded we would've met our first opponents in the finals).
The tournament was run like this: each band picks a song, both bands play those songs, and the total score would decide the winner. While I believe this is one of the worst decisions ever, we abided by these rules. They picked Laid to Rest, by Lamb of God. The song is the simplest song EVER on vocals, with only speaking parts, but each instrument is incredibly difficult. Upon starting the tournament match, the guitarist missed several notes, and the band restarted the song. While in EVERY GAME THERE'S EVER BEEN A TOURNAMENT FOR EVER considers pausing, much less restarting, a forfeit, the organizer argued that "It's no big deal, there's no way that's unfair." Someone inform tournament organizers everywhere that restarting is totally fair, whether you fuck up a song, die at 10% in Smash, or lose most of your life without landing a hit on your opponent in Street Fighter.
They did a bit worse on our song, The Running Free by Coheed and Cambria. So worse, in fact, that we ended up beating them by 300,000 points. This was no easy feat, however - considering the Street Fighter tournament organizer not only turned down the Rock Band tournament's speakers, but also using the speakers NEXT to it to announce tournament matchups on the other side of the room, and then proceed to babble nonsensically. He talked a little through our rivals' second song, but talked nearly nonstop through ours, so much so that the vocalist's mic picked him up over her, causing her to miss several spoken parts in one of our songs. On top of this, I cannot play without a guitar strap, while the guitarist before us always does, but "we're using the same equipment, so that's fair." No, you playing without a guitar strap all the time is an advantage for you while I struggle to hold it up in my lap is a disadvantage for me. This is NOT fair. Needless to say, while it's hard to say if we would've beaten them or not in an environment MEANT for a Rock Band tournament without outside interference to both of our bands, it would've been a lot closer than it was. Every tournament was run poorly, which is a shame considering how well the Game Room was setup to begin with.
Irritated, we left to get a few drinks and hit up the rave, or as I like to call it, "nerdy shitheads that think they're cool by swinging around glow sticks on strings to awful electronica." My group ran off without me, causing me to run in alone to find them, and would result in a glow stick to the head and two forearms to the face. Furthering my opinion that all anime convention raves are gay and a total waste of time, I left my friends to enjoy the circle jerk while I left for Chinese food and, ironically enough, anime on basic cable.
It was the last day, and after waiting 45 minutes for a shower only to find we didn't have enough time for one before check out (fucking gross, should've gotten one the night before), I put on some clothes that weren't so sweaty and got back into Team Rocket garb, awaiting Sunday. Normally, Sunday is known as the least exciting (read: WORST) day of the convention. The con closes early, there's less to do, and everyone's so tired that they'd rather go home early and waste the fee they spent to come on Sunday than stay. We stayed a bit, however, and hit up the Artist Alley for the last time, meeting a few artists that Katie knew. With the two of us in costume, we decided we should be a part of the Pokemon photo shoot.
Dreading the event (and being around a bunch of embarrassing losers for a prolonged period of time), we went and discovered it was actually more fun than we thought it would be. The last day was actually one of the more fun days, even though we ended up leaving early.
Summary/Hints and Tips:
Saying you "lost the game" wasn't funny three years ago. Nothing has changed.
If you have a glow stick on a string, let me tell you now: you are NOT cool. That's why you're alone when you swing them around.
Try avoiding mainstream characters. I love Lucas from Mother 3, but I would NOT look good as Lucas. Try going for someone you look like, or someone we won't see so damn many of.
"Marco Polo" does not work with your eyes open. Or outside of a pool.
Screaming across the convention center to someone three stories down and across a large area of people is something a 7-year-old would do. Not a 17-year-old.
Most of you give /b/tards a bad name. C'mon, you KNOW the first rule...
Best Cosplays:
Four Tetris blocks
Stormtroopers (with mics to project their voices)
Many of the Final Fantasy XIII characters
Morrigan
Ryuugi Rena
There are really too many to say, but these are off the top of my head, and they were pretty amazing.
Many of these pictures are not taken by me, and many thanks goes to those that took them.
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