September 2, 2006

AnimeFEST Saturday

Saturday I guess would be considered the first real day of the con for me so I wanted to make the most of it, especially since I would really only be able to enjoy the con for these two days with my fights home being on Monday. After Tiff and Derek changed into their cosplay costumes (Tiff as princess Pluto, Derek as Setzer), we headed downstairs. Derek broke off to do his own thing while me and Tiff wandered a bit, checking everything out. I did a lot of my shopping in the dealer’s room that day, the first time at a con where I could actually buy stuff. All in all I got an FMA card set, an FMA chance figure box that ended up having Roy Mustang and Liza Hawkeye inside, an Edward Elric action figure, FMA pin set, Sailor Moon SuperS phone tag set, an Evangelion puzzle clock, a grab bag, the Gunslinger Girl boxset, the Trinity Blood DVD1 LE (a month before it’s on sale), and an Alphonse Elric figure for buying the two Funimation DVDs at their station. The grab bag had inside a plushie from Chobits which I gave to Tiff (I forgot what it was of), Love Hina V1 manga, Cardcaptor Sakura V3 manga, bootleg Gundam Seed DVD of the last two episodes, and some Japanese movie called Ping Pong. We did some wandering and took a couple pics before getting some dinner before the concert Since Derek didn’t want to see the concert, Tiff got changed back to her normal clothes and then we headed towards the West End, where we ended up going to TGI Friday’s for dinner. On the way back we had an interesting experience. There was some dude selling flowers on the street on the way back. He gave Tiff a set saying that she didn’t have to pay, but then made us kiss for her to keep them. I awkwardly kissed her on the cheek but he wanted a kiss on the lips, so we awkwardly did so, but then he made me pay him $10 for the set. It was really odd and awkward the whole thing, though Tiff did at least pay me the money for the flowers, who she ended up just giving to an Aries since we really had no way to keep them fresh or anything. Then we jumped in line for the concert.

The concert was the best I have ever been to. Granted I’ve only been to a few, but this one had so much energy and everything that I doubt will ever be repeated. Once they let the line in, they had Ramen and Rice playing as we were all being seated. They’re a violin and cello duet and they performed various arrangements of anime and video game songs. They were very good, and it was a nice touch to have as we waited for FLOW. Once everyone was seated (it was weird to have seats for essentially a rock concert, but it really helped maintain order), there was a brief intermission before FLOW took the stage. They were unbelievable. Not only was their performance off the charts, but their crowd interaction was amazing. The energy between the band and the audience was beautiful and I have yet to see matched. Even better is that we were sitting in the sixth row, so we could see the band clearly, making it even more awesome. I just can’t stress how good the entire thing was and I really hope I can see them again sometime.

After the concert we wandered for a bit thinking of stuff to do. I was thinking about entering a DDR tournament, even though it would be on a console, but it didn’t happen. There was supposed to be one at 8 and then another at midnight, so we scoped it out in the middle of the supposed 8PM one after the concert. The only thing was that there was nothing to scope besides two guys playing Stepmania on a laptop. Another guy with a more elaborate setup for Stepmania eventually showed up, and we heard him say to someone he was supposed to run a DDR tournament but no one showed up for it. After hearing that, I decided it wasn’t worth entering since there would probably be no one else interested, and that it wasn’t even an actual version of DDR with the pad seemingly not working too well as I watched him test out some songs. We decided to go to the Otaku Hell panel to watch some really random things. It was really fun, between the stuff they showed and the commentary by the panel holders and audience. After that we went back to the room to find Derek locked out since he had left his key in there the whole day. After letting him in, we played Stepmania and Tetris DS for a while before heading off to bed.