Day 1:
Travelling to Leicester went without a hitch, we arrived, made our way to the university campus and queued up at registrations where we were given our wonderful conbadge and conpack (containing the conbook that no-one reads until after the con).
After we were registered we attempted to go find our “on-site” *cough*1/4 mile away*cough* accomodation. We failed, so we went back and asked where it was. This time we knew we were headed in the right way, since we spotted a signpost plastered to a bus stop. ^_^
We eventually got to the accomodation, dumped our bags and returned to the con, where we metup with other people in the bar, and drank until the opening ceremony. There were technical dificulties, Monica Rial done the chicken dance while we waited.
After that it was time for the now infamous pub quiz. Our team totally owned the 4chan, and “loli or legal” rounds, but we seemed to fail in the other vaguely more anime related rounds. The final round of the pub quiz… “Guess how many sticks of pocky can fit into someone’s mouth”… and now for your viewing pleasure, it’s on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-RcXRZ77IE
Hmm… after the pub quiz, i think it was karaoke, i sung the OP of Popotan and the ED for Haruhi (with dance of course).
And we ended the night with a Eurobeat/ParaPara party, and an 80′s cheese disco. Ugh… lots of drunkenness that night! Oh… and the best thing about the night… the crazy kebab/burger guy outside our accomodation… best food all weekend!!
Day 2:
Woke up, had a rather poor breakfast (dodgy fry-up, small portions) from the cafe. Queued up for the dealers room, bought a few doujinshi, which i must say i was mostly dissapointed with, i mean, why put yuri on the front cover if there is hardly any yuri inside. T_T
Then went and queued for the bring and buy, but after an hour of queuing there was hardly any good stuff left, so i didn’t buy anything.
Went off to the anime panel quiz, which failed because both teams seemingly didn’t know anything about anime. o.O
Stayed in the same room for a few industry panels which were rather interesting, also good to hear the industry guys saying they like the smaller con’s compared to the faceless commercial sellout London Expo. The piracy panel would have been good, but there was no-one to argue that piracy is good this time, therefore it turned into a lecture. Blah Blah.
Went to watch the masquerade, where Monica Rial was commentating as Ame-chan, it wasn’t layed out very well, but we did get a closer look at the costumes this year.
Then off to the auction which was absolutely hilarious… nice to see a crazy auctioneer that enjoys laying into the crowd! And i managed to win 4 out of the 5 towels that were up for auction (the other one i didn’t bid on anyway). From now on people in the UK con scene shall forever know me as “the guy that spent absurd amounts of money on 4 towels at the Amecon 06 auction”, people even came up to shake my hand and take photo’s of me! (yes that is a 30cm ruler in the pic below for scale)
And finally that night, the anime/jpop party. I arrived late and so missed the only UNDER17 song that was played T_T. But other than that, it was amazingly great… also lots of beer that night, and i didn’t have to pay for any of it, people were buying for me! And yet again… kebab/burger guy outside the accomodation… great!!
Oh, and also, i think we ended up looking at doujinshi/catgirl hentai with members of the Amecon committee in a kitchen in the accomodation for like an hour at 2am… strange.
Day 3:
Had breakfast… came across some American voice actors (one of which seemed overly excited at my Negima t-shirt o.O), went off to watch the screening of the Negima dub. Suffice to say, i shan’t be doing that again. Negi… poor Negi… what did they do to you! T_T
Went to the cosplay cafe… was kinda expecting some… uhh… females… but…
Didn’t stay there too long, would have liked to though, seemed to be filled with great people, but unfortunately the Omake performances were starting soon. So we gulped down our tea (yes i’m British) and rushed off to the Omake.
It was rather entertaining, and also for your viewing pleasure, here’s the full length video: http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-729782706026105085
You’ve gotta love the 15min mark with the “It’s Ninja Steve!” “Ninja Steve!” “Ninja Steve!” “Do you work for Ninja Steve!!!”. I guess that won’t make sense to anyone who hasn’t attended a UK convention… but we all laugh. ^_^;;
After the omake, there wasn’t much else, we hung around the games room watching the comittee members DDR, then went back to our rooms to sort out our stuff and pack.
Overall, great fun, wish it could have gone on longer, wish i didn’t accidentally ignore people when they called my name (i feel really bad about that now), wish i didn’t buy some of that rubbish doujinshi.
Bring on Auchinawa… and Ninja Steve!
(the rest of my Amecon photo’s are here: http://www.pori.co.uk/?p=882 i would be tempted to say my favourite cosplay’s were the season fairies, or the Haruhi)
I must admit, i do prefer her speaking more normally as she does in these clips than her higher pitched voice on that youtube video (yes, *that* video). >_>
And it looks like the new series will be set 6 years later… following on from the ending of A’s. ^_^ Just waiting for my copy of Megami to arrive now!
