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 Amecon 2007 review |
Sleepy -_-zzz
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| 13/08/2007 |
15:18 |
None |
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After last year, I'd pretty much decided that I wasn't going to go back to amecon, but this year proved me wrong and we all had a much better time. Last year, part of the problem was that we only arrived late on the Friday, so I'd already missed many of the fun events on the Friday and missed half of the yaoi panel, then we didn't get an events list in our con bag because we turned up late so b/f ended up getting stuck in the lift when he went back to find one.
So yes, last year, not impressed...
This year we booked extra time off and came down on the Thursday night instead. Registration was pretty smooth, though the first and last lines were packed and the middle line had no one in. Not only did we get an events list in this pack, but also pocky and a fan - the fan was a brainwave as it was completely boiling all weekend.
Sun means you're sweating like crazy in some costumes, which isn't a good thing but also some costumes just don't fit under an umbrella and drag though puddles - I'd sooner have the sun than rain.
On the Friday we went to the Mecha Bingo - which I won, woohoo! - and then to the pub quiz. I said before I went that this pub quiz I would stand a chance which as opposed to the usual geography/history/sports rounds I suck at in the normal pub quizzes, but this was impossible. The questions were difficult even for seasoned anime fans. They had some good ones for bonus points though - Explain the End Of Evangelion in less than 100 words.
Unfortunately the panel quiz from last year wasn't on this year. The Feel The Cosplayer round was pretty funny.
On Saturday I was cosplaying Shalua Rui from Dirge Of Cerberus. This was like cosplaying Seishiro last year as next to no one knew who I was. Damn you Vincent for not having a more popular game! I think my costume turned out pretty good, but there are some things I'll have to change if I do it next year - the shoes were a bitch to walk in and I kept having to take them off and wear trainers which is easier said than done with a robot arm. My lab coat kept blowing off my shoulders in the wind so next year that will probably be taped on and my wig kept going in my eyes. The wig was the worst bit but my hair is too fine and too black (from cosplaying lulu) to do Shalua properly.
A lot of Saturday was spent queuing as we waited for the Bring And Buy sale. When we got there though there was some good things still left - I got a cool loligoth skirt and top. There was a raffle thing in the dealers room and I won a loligoth headband too. We also went to the Elegant Gothic Lolita Tea party on the Saturday too, where I chatted to the lady doing the Japanese talks and another lady who came from all over the place. A group of people cosplaying as the guys from Ouran High Host Club were serving and there was free tea, coffee and cake so I was happy. Though I had turned up in a long velvet skirt and a black Victorian lace dress and felt under-dressed...
On the Saturday night was the masquerade which was better this year as we got to sit down on real chairs (more on them later...), but it was over an hour late and went on for ages as the cosplayers had to walk through FOUR rooms and stop to have their photo taken in the third. There were some fantastic cosplayers in the catwalk - the two pyramid head guys were freaky up close and the group with Seymour (don't call him "Maester", that's just giving him what he wants...), Bride Yuna and Tidus were funny.
The Auction was also good again, but there is always fanboy stuff and never fangirl stuff. Then again, would I spent £200 on bishie guy towels... probably not.
The VK panel was also good this year and talked about the history of visual kei and some of the sub-types. A bit disturbed as one of the ones that was played turned out to be this eroguro band who are apparently a little crazy and weird.
Oh, on Saturday we also went into the art room only to find a photo of myself last year cosplaying Lulu. We asked the guy about it and it turned out he had a spare so now I have a big professional photo of my Lulu cosplay - I'm totally made up, thank you so much!
On the Sunday I'd switched back to my Lulu costume as despite it being an arse to walk in and put on, it's actually much easier to wear. I'd only tinkered with it slightly this year and painted the lace purple and grey so she didn't look so much like a loligoth.
We spent most of the morning in the kimono demonstration and the tea ceremony which were both very interesting. It sounds like kimonos are very piratical now... I also learnt the meaning of all the belts on Lulu's costume - apparently it symbolises she's a virgin which is interesting considering what happens in the next game. I'd presumed it was some kind of chastity belt sort of reference which is sort of the same thing as the trading arts model of her has her lying down with all the belts undone o_O...
Overall though, I get the impression that Japan is currently not a good place for women. The lecturer was saying how when women apply for jobs, they have to say their age and include a photograph of themselves as they are also judged on looks. Also if a woman has a similar level job to a man, when they go to the office in the morning the woman has to get their early to clean the man's desk before he arrives. I'm glad to say that both of these are illegal in this country and the audience seemed completely shocked, I kind of expected the guys to be like "Woo, slave women!", tsk at me :(. She also mentioned how recently one government official said publically that women were just baby-making machines and the prime minister backed him up and one man in the audience said that if a member of the cabinet over here did that they would have to resign.
I'm really shocked by how this is in Japan, how can a country which is so advanced also be so backwards? So that's put me off a little, but if I think like that it would be just concentrating on the bad points, like thinking that the whole of the UK is filled with Daily Mail reading, BNP Nazis...
~Ahem~
We also went to the Omake which again was funny. That Man made a come back hosting Anime Night Live which was very good, I love the re-re-re-release of Evangelion (Evangelion, the No Emo Edition), the Condensed Evangelion edition and Alucard running a hotel. Death Note Countdown was also very good:
L: Argh! [falls off chair] It's a shinigami!
Light: No, that's just Carol Vorderman.
The guys from the Ouran High Host Club were also very good and the 24/Metal Gear Solid skit. No Tonberrys thrown at my head this year though :P
Anime-wise, this year I didn't see much at all... I wanted to see Wolf's Rain and Chevalier D'Eon, but couldn't due to technical and timing issues. We did see Petite Cosette though, which looked pretty interesting in a grim, rivers of blood, razor-wire, X/1999 kind of way.
Cosplay-wise, there were some fine ones I have to mention including the lady with the big hat from Trinity Blood, the guys from Ouran High Host Club, the Tzusuki Asato from Yami No Matsuei, the Red XIII who must have melted in the heat, the Light and L who were chained together, the Vincents and Lucretia who let me have my photo taken with them and the Ryuks.
Overall, I really enjoyed myself this year and am planning my next cosplays to deal with the post-con blues (thanks for the advice in the con-book), but there were still some things I'd change. The cafe was once again terrible, so we didn't really eat all weekend. The cafe next door was actually really nice, but this and the uni shop closed for the weekend :( it wasn't like they wouldn't get business if they opened.
The queues for some of the things, like the bring and buy and the dealers were really long, but if you don't queue you miss the good stuff. Just seemed like on the Saturday we spent most of the time queuing and waiting when we could have been watching anime.
Finally, for god's sake, get a bigger venue! Or one with seats. For the masquerade to have to run through four rooms and for everyone to have to sit on the floor is rubbish. This may be okay if you're in jeans and five years old but we're not. At the last Ayacon, none of this was a problem - there was a nice restaurant which was open til late all weekend and a massive screening hall which easily accommodated everyone.
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| Amecon 2007 Photos |
Sleepy -_-zzz
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| 13/08/2007 |
13:47 |
Post-con blues |
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| "Best chair cosplay ever!" |
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Long time no see...
Back from amecon 2007 - fine time was had by all I think. I've uploaded my photos. The photos didn't turn out so great, but pen-chan took loads more better ones which hopefully he'll be putting up soon.
Random amecon 2007 review next post. |
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 Comments |
Gone off coffee for a while
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| 21/03/2007 |
19:32 |
None |
None |
I've added a code field to the comments page now to try and block some of the spams getting through, though I guess some will still get in in any case. The minibio on the sidemenu has been added and the comments page is back up with a slightly different layout. |
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 Moving journal |
None. Zip. Nothing. T_T
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| 12/03/2006 |
22:45 |
None |
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Hi. My journal has been moved and can now be found on livejournal. I've resisted doing this for quite a while since I've wanted to be able to make my own journal, but livejournal have done what I need already, so there you go...
Thanks for reading!
Pandora =^.^= |
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| Pokey-trauma! |
Meh +_+
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| 25/01/2006 |
12:18 |
Sleepy |
Spooky nibelheim music |
Finally, I've seen a Vincent Price film. They showed Witchfinder General on BBC1 last night.
It really wasn't like what I expected. He looked a lot less dapper than he did in any photos I saw. Blah at beards. On a side note, a guy at work moaned at me because I said I didn't like guys with beards and there was a guy in the office with a beard. I'm sure the other guy didn't care if I did or not seen as he was (presumably happily) married. I didn't know what to make of that, I didn't think it was bad of me to have an opinion... just bad of me to express it, I guess.
So, the film. Yeah, it was pretty good, he was creepy. I wished his horrible sidekick guy dead on many occasions but the tenacious bastard kept on going.
All in all though, it was good, but it felt like Price-san could have done more. So the only choice I have is to go out and watch more! Damn shame. I want to see the House of Wax one, but the only version they have in the DVD shops is the new version. Though maybe I'll watch the new version to see Paris Hilton offed.
Last night we also went to the pub quiz at the sacrifice of missing the Korean episode of Asian Invasion. Oldboy is still my favourite favourite favourite film, except for the scene with the tv. Loads of manga is now coming from Korea as well, including Doll and Tarot Cafe, so Korea is meant to be the next place to be after everyone's gotten over Japan. |
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 The Compliation of Final Fantasy 7 |
Ticking over ^_^
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| 20/01/2006 |
02:44 |
Swings and roundabouts |
None |
I want the time back when we all complained that FF7 should have some kind remake and there was no hope of us ever actually getting one.
On the up side... more Vincent and Sephiroth than I can shake some black materia at.
On the down side... more Vincent and Sephiroth than I can shake some black materia at.
TBH, I don't know what I'm complaining about and why. Except fame seems to have changed them somehow and I didn't expect them to change :P
Lalala, off to crazy land.... |
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 Get Backers, Bureaucracy Man |
Ticking over ^_^
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| 17/01/2006 |
19:19 |
None |
None |
Well, I've found out why I should be watching Get Backers...
Also, I finally tracked down Bureaucracy Man. Man, you should have seen how many forms... |
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| Holiday so far |
Ticking over ^_^
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| 17/01/2006 |
15:04 |
Relaxed |
Rammstein |
Ever felt like you have this calling in life, but haven't found it yet and until then you're just trudging along? Well I've finally found mine FIRE!!
They've decided to sell my nana's house as the land, rather than the house so we (had to apparently) cut down trees to speed up the process. Dad bought an incinerator to burn the branches and other burnable stuff but my family can't start fires for toffee. All the branches were still wet since they'd just been cut off so David was making excuses and left me to take over this small smouldering pile of cinders. Anyhow, I fixed this with five minutes, some newspaper and some dry twigs and shouting Live! Damn you! in the manner of some crazed ER surgeon.
First two days of holiday have been fun so far. Yesterday I visited Penchan for a bit in Lancaster. I met Rachael another person who likes digimon and managed to bump into Craig, Paul, Doidge and Adam in the new County Cafe and Diner. I don't really know what to say to them. They all seem really nice, but they're still friends with certain people which kind of puts me on edge.
The new look for what used to be Cartmel Coffee Shop is cool, it's all purple and black, my favourite colours. They've extended this theme into the toilets though which is a bit weird. The cubicles are all black it's a bit like going the toilet in a coffin.
Afterwards we watched the first two episodes of season 2 of Lost. There seems to be more plot now.
Today I've just done lots of quizes and watched Last Order. Haha, Hojo's voice...
Tseng looks a bit different :/ and I'm not sure if the blonde woman was Elena or not. Zack seemed cool. There are a lot more random Turks now. Maybe there was a cull before the start of the game...
I'd be quite interested to see what Sephiroth was like before the start of all this. On the photo in Tseng's file he looks distracted. Did he hate his job? What? Maybe that comes out in Before Crisis or something, but I have no hope of playing this. Bad Squaresoft! [bats them on the nose with rolled-up newspaper].
Anyway, I did many silly quizes:
[MEME] .
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| PC World = Evil... But you already knew that. |
Meh +_+
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| 14/01/2006 |
16:13 |
Sunny |
None |
Boo, XP has died again. I have SUSE on this one now... which now penchan has shown me how to update it properly works a treat. But Dave's computer still runs XP and since I've decided to change the CPU/motherboard/memory, it's screwed it's eyes shut and stuck it's fingers in it's ears and refuses to work. I have a perfectly legal XP key stuck to the side of the computer which is no longer running it, but no XP disk since PCWorld decided I won't ever need a disk with XP on because XP is foolproof and totally stable and will never need re-installing ever. Or if it does, you can get them to do it, but at the expense of all your data.
So, bottom line, I need an XP disk. Observe the perfectly legal key on the side of my computer. The only hope I have of getting one out of PCWorld is to spend however many hours on hold on a premium rate phoneline (£1.50 a min)... For that I could probably buy one. But that's not the point! Buying one is crazy in itself. £150 on amazon, for an operating system at least 3 years old. Though I suppose Overclockers have it for £60-odd, which is more reasonable, but still un-necessary. For that I could buy a return ticket to Prague and espresso whilst I'm there.
Sorry, I've lost the thread of my rant now...
I've just been searching through old boxes for a copy of XP, but no such luck. I did find lots of random things I'd forgotten about though, including a dippy photo of my sister with a drawn-on pirates beard and a photo we had taken in 6th form of me, Emma, Andrea and Lora crammed into a booth in the Trafford Centre.
In good news, I have 2 weeks off work! One of the benefits at work is that you can buy extra holidays, so I thought I'd miss being a student and bought another week. Then I got tied up trying to get code to work and didn't take them and was reminded in December that I had three and a half weeks still to use before April. So two weeks off now and one on my birthday. Happy happy joy joy. |
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| The Shield and the lack of decent manga |
There was a line, I stepped over it... Let's not talk about it. O_O
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| 08/01/2006 |
02:14 |
None |
Rammstein - Sonne |
So, The Shield... That's a bunch of laughs. Well, I laughed when he smacked the paedophile guy with the telephone directory. But no one likes paedophiles so I guess he wins there. I wasn't so happy later when he random knocks out a guy in a bar because he's had a bad day at work. Also, when he was flirting with the police woman made me feel a little sick. Him and sex in the same place? surely a Venn diagram from hell...
As for manga/anime stuff, I'm a bit dis-heartened lately. All the manga's I've liked I'm either waiting for the next to be released (good luck with X/1999) or I have already. The last good one I heard of was Tarot Cafe. Seems like the more people who jump on the going-to-Japan bandwagon, the less good anime is coming out. Not that I am disappointed or sad in anyway that my interest is becoming more popular and I can walk into town and pick up a copy of Fake whenever the hell I like. It's just that I liked it back when they were showing 3x3 Eyes at one in the morning on C4. I suppose before it felt sort of special and rare, now I just go to Forbidden Planet and pick something up for a few quid. Maybe now I can just get to Forbidden Planet easier, who knows?
Anyhow, I got a copy of Tokyo Godfathers to watch over Christmas which was really good. It's about three tramps who find a baby in a pile of rubbish and try to return it to its parents. Anime which isn't all bishie guys with huge eyes and swords... It is really sweet though, a really good Christmas movie. I also made the possible mistake of buying Grave of the Fireflys. I've not re-watched it yet, I'm not sure I want to. |
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