Anime Convention!

ACen 2012: maybe the best way to spend a cold, rainy weekend in April.  Unless you're one of the poor coslayers who is stuck doing your photoshoot outside. 

This was the first anime convention I've been to, but I had been to a furry convention in the same hotel back in November with a friend.  That convention was much smaller than ACen.  I got to the main hotel around 3pm, was directed through the walkways above to the convention center, and waited in hour in line for a badge (which was apparently a very short time to wait in line.)  In front of me was a chatty young high school girl cosplaying as Homestuck, and behind us a couple rows were a group of scary clowns.  There was also a friend from my school a couple rows in front of me in line for a badge, but we kept losing one another throughout the day.

When I finally got my badge, I realised that I would be late for the panel that I wanted to go to, so I just browsed the dealer room and artist's alley instead.  I only picked up a few things in artist's alley, but one of them was a totally awesome custom pin that I got one of the artists to draw for me.  And also a Metroid hat.  Everyone should have a Metroid hat.  It's much better than having actual Metroids on your head.

One of the "memes" of ACen is "Got Soap?" and I really wish more people would actually pay attention to that.  For the most part, the smell was fine, but I could walk maybe ten steps, and the BAM! the smell of armpit would hit me.  I spoke with my dad about this later, since when he asked me how the anime convention went, I just said "it was smelly...", and he thought it was from people wearing heavy costumes, but no, the cosplayers were usually the better smelling of the bunch.  Unless they were cosplaying as ponies, but at this point I just expect bronies to have an odor and brace myself for it.  I also noticed a lot of airline employees with a definite "damn kids" expression on their faces as they were trying to get out of the hotel as quickly as possible.  That was pretty funny, but made me wonder how the kids at ACen are behaving.

I managed to avoid bronies, got to hang out with Bill Nye the Science Guy (well, a kid dressed like him), and while I was waiting in line for a Lolita Fashion Show, managed to find my college friend to talk to her for a while.  The room for fashion show was full up by the time I could get in, but that's okay.  I walked around, trying to find college friend, and trying to find another panel to attend, and ended up in another hotel going through the weird above-ground walkways (that on a cold April day I was thankful for.)  I decided I didn't want to go to the "Lolita Fashion and Lifestyle" panel in that other hotel, because anything I could learn there I could learn on the internet, and walked back to the main hotel, only to see a crowd in the walkway overlooking the main hotel's entrance, and an even bigger crowd gathered on the sidewalk and street below.  And also firetrucks and police cars.  Someone pulled the fire alarm probably.  People on the street seemed to be trying to rush through the police and hotel staff to get back into the hotel sooner.  Had there been a real fire, they probably would have burned, but hey... NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANIME.

We were let back into the main hotel just in time for the Pokemon panel, which was awesome, and was actually in a room that could seat all of us, and the guy running the panel showed us an untranslated Pikachuu short and answered our questions.  My question was about Ash's father, because that's a mystery I've always wanted to know (except I think it's Professor Oak), but the panelist said it was probably Giovanni.  I still disagree for... reasons.

There was another panel I wanted to go to about occult anime, but I was kidnapped instead.  It wasn't anything serious thankfully, and just some other conventiongoers that wanted me to speak on their improvised panel that they were holding in place of a cancelled one.  It's okay.  The occult panel got cancelled too.  But public speaking makes me nervous.  However, since I was KAWAII AS FUCK that day, people wanted hugs, and I generally don't mind giving hugs to people who ask nicely for them.  So I guess that made up for my not talking.

The two girls I hung out with after we got kicked out of that panel room were really sweet, and we went and got snacks, tried to play some card game in the tabletop gaming room, and went to a parody panel (this is where some really awesome talented funny person redoes the voiceovers for an anime to make it hilarious.)  Around 1am I finally decided it was time to head home.  There was a rave going on in the hotel ballroom at that time, and I saw at least two ambulances pull into the hotel as I was walking to the L station.  The Village of Rosemont's emergency services department must be absolutely THRILLED with ACen already.