First of all let me start by saying Connichi (should perhaps be called “Momoi-con”) was 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000x better than Anime Expo, though the main epicness happened after the convention (you know, “epicness” doesn’t even come close, i need a word greater than that).
On with the report (as usual, all my photo’s are in the photo section)…
Thursday:
Plane, all very smooth, especially after the London Underground network was back to normal in time. Got to Frankfurt, got on high speed train to Kassel, lots of hills and tunnels along the way (sorry, didn’t take any pictures then). Hotel was very nice, hotel restaurant was very nice.
After we’d eaten it was our quest to locate a German pub and drink German beer, that was a mistake, lol. We ended up in a cupboard of a pub with no movement space at all (possibly due to the band playing at the time… covers of Rod Stuart songs etc. lol). We survived two drinks in there before realising that getting to the toilet would be impossible, so having experienced an authentic German pub we went back to the hotel bar and finished the night drinking there. Man, German beer is strong. o.o
Friday:
Uhh yes, and we won’t be drinking German beer for the rest of the weekend (or so we thought… lol… epic contained later).
Friday morning, ate breakfast, went to Connichi building, and what a building it is:
After a somewhat slow queue we got our badges exchanged for weekend ones and we were good to go. Though the event wasn’t open yet, so we went to grab some food (i got to eat currywurst… it’s definitely not the best thing i’ve ever eaten, but it was edible… i guess…).
Once we got back and everything was open we walked around the dealers rooms and the event area, to be honest it only seemed like there were a few more people than Amecon, not nearly as many people as the London Expo gets, i’m led to believe they possibly count each day as a separate attendance in their attendance figures. As for cosplay itself, generally not much better than Amecon, far too many naruto and bleach characters (like taking up 50% of all cosplay, lol), so we were initially pretty disappointed. And as we were discussing the disappointment in cosplay i spotted something… “hold on a minute, is that what i think it is?? A Nanoha *points over there*!!!” …now i was quite impressed there, we didn’t even see any Nanoha cosplayers while we were in America, so she gets bonus points for cosplaying Nanoha! 
All in all with the cosplay it was mostly naruto/bleach, but there were a few gems in the crowd! (also… there were like no Haruhi cosplayers anywhere until the last day when about 3 turned up at once… one of which was the aforementioned Nanoha cosplayer… i guess Haruhi must not be that popular in Germany).
After admiring the few decent cosplay’s we went to go to Halko Momoi’s first autograph session… an hour in advance, and i was at the front of the queue, lol. Everything went ahead on time and i walked out with my Mail Me CD signed, at that point i thought “well, it can’t get any better than that” (oh how wrong i was). On the way out we saw the people from Momoi’s Japanese fan club, coverman seemed to recognise us straight away (possibly because of the AX t-shirt i had on), and he gave us both a present:
Yes, it was one of those battery powered momo-i glow light stick things that we so wanted while we were in America, thankyou coverman! Far better than a glowstick during a concert!
Also at that point met up with Ochawan who had come over from America, she was very helpful in communicating with the Japanese people when we couldn’t understand, thankyou Ochawan!
Went to the main hall to go wait for the opening ceremony, seemed it was running slightly late, so we ended up in some sort of comedy singing parody group’s performance, lol, we understood nothing, seemed to be some sort of song about World of Warcraft, and something about Zelda and Link, and a song involving every anime related word under the sun set to Weird Al Yankovich’s “What’s your horoscope for today” song. It was quite funny despite not knowing a word of anything they were singing, lol.
Anyway… opening ceremony then started, we moved down to the front to sit with the people from Momoi’s Japanese fanclub. Momoi came on, lots of cheering and glowsticking, no idea what any of the rest of it was about, and neither did the people from the fanclub as it was all in German, lol (oh, i guess m.o.v.e were there too, lol).
After that had finished Momoi came down and sat near the front since she was going to be judging the omake (well we assume it was the omake) which was on next, and while we were waiting she posed for photo’s (for quite a while, lol, aww, such a nice person, and such a cute kimono):
After that i finally worked up the courage to ask some of the German cosplayers for photo’s, no idea what the word for photo was, but i got there eventually, lol. All of the decent cosplay’s i took photo’s of, and they’re all in the photo section up there.
Omake started… absolutely hilarious… we had almost no idea what was being said, and yet it was still funnier and more entertaining than 90% of any other Omake’s we’ve seen. Asuka cosplayer from evangelion stripping on stage, pleanty of yuri kissing, we just made up translations for the stuff we didn’t understand and it was hilarious, lol. The presenter was also a genius.
After that had finished we waited around for a while because they were going to be showing Haruko Up-Date on the big screen in there at 11pm. Momoi came on stage to introduce it, greeted by more cheers and glowsticks from everyone at the front, and we sat back and enjoyed it, including glowsticking to the Saigo no Rock song at the start, lol.
Got back to the hotel well after midnight and went straight to sleep, very tired.
Saturday:
Got breakfast (the hotel’s breakfast was pretty good, they know how to do a proper fry up, lol, and their tea wasn’t bad), made our way to the event place. Went to Momoi’s 2nd autograph signing where we met up with yokohama, the person in charge of the German Momoi fansite. Not quite sure why i was queuing up as i’d already got her autograph the day before, but oh well i was in the line now, and managed to get a photo of a fairly cute Komugi cosplayer (i noticed almost all of the female cosplay’s you’d usually expect to find men wearing over here actually had women in them in Germany, lol), and i bought a load of Momoi merchandise (the merchandise stand was far far greater than AX’s, they had armbands, more t-shirts, calendars, phone straps etc. etc.). Ended up going back into the autograph room, couldn’t really ask for another autograph, lol, so i asked for a photograph, and mentioned that i was one of the two that went to see her at AX from England, she responded with something along the lines of “Ahhhh… you left a message in my book too.” and then got her own phone out and asked to take a photo on it with me. Ahhhhh… *dies* ^__________^
…and at that point i again walked out of the room thinking “well, it can’t get any better than this”. After that was over we hung around with the Japanese fanclub people for a little while.
I think we just hung around outside for a while, oh i forgot to mention i got the Gainax guy’s autograph earlier that day, and bought something instantly from the bring and buy stall:
A very strange week it’s been, lol, seemingly everything i have said has come true, i really wanted a Hattori Mitsuru calendar, as mentioned in my last post before leaving when i pre-ordered those 2008 calendars, and what do i see at the Connichi bring and buy, oh yes, the only Hattori Mitsuru calendar that was released (as far as i know), yeah it’s 2005, but it’s still damn pretty, i think i’ll put it up next year anyway, and it only cost me £1!! Whoever put that up for sale, you should feel bad as i’d have been willing to spend £50 on that, lol.
Anyway yes, after more loitering, practising the concert calls outside with a really quiet laptop and the fanclub people, and then shopping for water for the concert later that day we made our way to start waiting for the m.o.v.e concert. At this point me, Matt, and Ochawan had seemingly merged with the Japanese fanclub people as we were helping them move all the glowsticks, call books, and leaflets into the hall, i hope they didn’t mind us being there. =/
As for the m.o.v.e concert, it was quite average really, though the girl was incredibly pretty, and the guy singer was quite funny (when he wasn’t stroking his crotch… much to the delight of the women in the audience). Even though they’re clearly the bigger band, they felt more of a warm up for Momoi as she was performing right after them.
Once m.o.v.e had finished we helped distribute the glowsticks, call books, and leaflets to everyone in the audience, not knowing German made it difficult to explain what they were supposed to do with them, but i guess they understood, lol. Was really successful thanks to the Japanese fans for bringing all of that stuff over (i brought a measly 50 compared to their 1000 + books and leaflets), thankyou for making the concert so much fun!!
First concert started, all of her best solo stuff was sung, seemed like a really long concert too (at least compared to AX). Two surprises were that she sung Kujibiki Unbalance… really fun… “dochira ni shiyou kana ten no kami-sama no iu toori” *repeat*! And second was that she sung Yume no Baton in German, with seemingly excellent pronounciation!
I really made an effort this time to learn the long chant for the Ai no Medicine song, but as a backup i had it written on the back of my con badge, lol, that was amazing being able to join in that chant live surrounded by everyone else that knows it off by heart…
Kawaii kawaii cho kawaii
Halko no cosplay cho kawaii
Donna cos demo moe moe no
Halko ni autabi doki doki
Anata no koto wo omoutabi
Takanaru kodou ga tomaranai
Koi no yamai no shohousen
Halko no egao wo kudasai na
It was an absolutely amazing concert, better than both at AX for sure. Cheering for the encore was really hurting my throat, lack of water + shouting at the top of your voice for a few minutes is unbelievably painful, lol, but i endured. And amazing that everyone switched to the blue glowstick at the final song as per the instructions… a sea of blue lights, truly wonderful.
And again… walked out of that concert thinking “well it’s not gonna get any better than that” (i’m noticing a running theme here). Went back to hotel, very dead, showered and slept.
Sunday:
Woke up, had breakfast, went to con. This time pretty much straight to the building where Momoi was doing yet another autograph session, lol. No, i didn’t queue up this time, we all just sat around, i ended up playing Harvest Moon DS for like 1-2 hours, lol (Celia ftw).
Momoi’s 2nd concert was starting a little later so we all again went to the concert hall and briefly helped handing out what was left from the day before, i think they managed to keep half of the glowsticks for Sunday. Another amazing concert, though slightly shorter. It really is great just turning around and looking at the crowd a sea of glowsticks.
After that concert we somehow managed to catch her as she was leaving and say thankyou, she shook our hands!!!! Ahhhhh… so soft *_* like being touched by God. Again… thinking to myself “it truly cannot get any better than this, my life is now 100% complete”……
…and now this is the part i’m still having trouble believing actually happened myself, lol… a real life dream…
After going back to the hotel for a shower (Momoi concerts give you a hell of a good workout, lol) we were going to meet up with Ochawan and go get something to eat somewhere, so i phoned her and she said to me that she’d spoken to the tour person in charge of Momoi and her fanclub group and that they said it was ok for us three to go along with them out to the restaurant they were all going to (i think there must have been about 20 of them)……. WAAAHHHH!!!!! NO WAY!!!! Restaurant + Momoi + fans… my brain had stopped functioning at that point, lol. Suffice to say i was incredibly nervous.
When the time came we got on the bus, kinda sitting towards the back trying to hide feeling very nervous and out of place. o.o;;; Bus journey was short, with Momoi commenting that the Deutsche Bahn train company logo “DB” was DragonBall, lol.
Arrived at an incredibly posh looking German restaurant where everyone was taken to a room with a huge table at the back.
Orders of drinks were first, lol… most people opted for the “mugi mugi” beer lol… some sort of German wheat beer… Komugi… mugi… wheat… how could we not go for it, lol.
Starter arrived, was incredibly delicious, Momoi moved seats around the table so she could speak to everyone. (i did take pictures inside the restaurant, but it’s not really appropriate for me to stick them all over the internet)
After that the main course arrived, also delicious, and Momoi announced there was to be a quiz with prizes. 3 questions, 3 prizes, first person to guess correctly wins. The prizes were alarm clocks where you could record a message on it, and Momoi would record a message to wake you up! Well…….. somehow i got the 3rd question right and so i won the clock:
http://img.pori.co.uk/uploads/2007/09/ConnichiMomoiClock.avi
(video of clock)
After that we ate dessert (so very sweet, lol), briefly spoke about conventions in the UK compared to the rest of the world………….. lol. 
And other misc conversations with the fanclub members (oh how i wish it was easier for international people to join). Momoi came around one last time with some photographs and signed them individually for everyone (she really likes signing stuff, lol).
And then it was time to leave… awwwwww. 
Back to the hotel, one last round of signing stuff before Momoi spent time shaking everyone’s hand and personally thanking them for coming (and then chasing after the bus with them all on waving goodbye jumping up and down with glowstick in hand….. sooooooo cute!!!). Ahhh… 4 hours we all spent together, it really feels like a living dream.
MOMOI-SAN.. THANKYOU!!
EVERYONE FROM THE FANCLUB… THANKYOU!!
OCHAWAN… THANKYOU!!
YOKOHAMA… THANKYOU!!
Thankyou all for making this the best, most amazing weekend ever. *cries*
