Post by spiritmage234 on May 22, 2008 13:24:10 GMT -5
Yay! I was finally able to go to Anime Central in Rosemont, Illinois this year, which is by Chicago. I had so much fun and I just had to tell you guys about it. ^_^
Here's the full experience:
spirt-mage-234.livejournal.com/165454.html
but I'll paraphrase it with pictures to go. ^_^
The con was for the whole weekend through May 17-18. Since I got in Chicago on that Friday, I just planned to stay at the con for the entire day Saturday. I was told to get there early by a friend, or else I'd have to wait in a long@$$ line. Well, I just said, “No biggie. I’ll tell my ride to get me there bright and early,” and it’s not as if I’ve never had to wait for something good to happen (Like how I waited for my box sets of Fushigi Yuugi and Rurouni Kenshin in the mail, to get out of secondary school, and how I’m currently waiting for the return of Avatar… In JULY).
Some tips about Anime Central in particular.
Pre-register AND Pre-pay.
And if you don’t do the above,
get there early.
(Like, REALLY early (I mean 5 o’clock in the morning early).)
And if you don’t by any chance,
Bring some sort of portable entertainment device,
Some food rations,
and a beach ball.
And for the love of G*d,
Go to the bathroom.
The line was hell, simple and plan. You first had to stand in a four hour registration line, then a one hour payment line. So you best come prepared for a loooooooooooooooooooooooooong morning/afternoon.
After a while, people just started throwing paper airplanes in the line, and from the look of some of those intricate flight patterns and the aerodynamics, a lot of these nerds had nothing better to do during class than draw Americanesque manga.
But you got to meet a lot of neat people in the line. The thing I like about these conventions is that you meet all of these people - from different ethnicities, religions, orientations - from all over the region - possibly the country - who like the exact same thing(s) as you.
I also just love the dress code there! If you didn’t cosplay (as either a character from a series (ANY series) or a J-rocker or Lolita), you just wore your best anime/nerd t-shirt. If you didn’t wear that, you wore traditional Far East Asian garb. If you didn’t wear that, you wore your best Hot Topic outfit (such as those chain pants with matching corset). And if you didn’t wear that, you just wore anything Asian related. I myself wore my black and red chain pants from Hot Topic, my stenciled Rurouni Kenshin halter top (which I made myself), and my Japanese print hoodie, tied up with some brocade hair sticks in two buns. It was wonderful.
nd the plus side to standing in that line was that the staff began to throw out free t-shirts and bags. I was lucky enough to catch a t-shirt.
After five hours of embollisms later, I'm finally out of line! Yay! So I began to wander and take pictures. Lots of pictures. So many great costumes, and just people in pretty traditional dress. And I purchased some great stuff.
I think the only major disappointment I had was that from standing in line for all that time, I missed a lot of panals that I wanted to go to, but there's always next year.
So next, I'll be better prepared, and hopefully some more of my friends can come. And by then, hopefully,
we can all cosplay. (Didn't think I'd go without seeing some Avatards did ya? ;D)
Here's the full experience:
spirt-mage-234.livejournal.com/165454.html
but I'll paraphrase it with pictures to go. ^_^
The con was for the whole weekend through May 17-18. Since I got in Chicago on that Friday, I just planned to stay at the con for the entire day Saturday. I was told to get there early by a friend, or else I'd have to wait in a long@$$ line. Well, I just said, “No biggie. I’ll tell my ride to get me there bright and early,” and it’s not as if I’ve never had to wait for something good to happen (Like how I waited for my box sets of Fushigi Yuugi and Rurouni Kenshin in the mail, to get out of secondary school, and how I’m currently waiting for the return of Avatar… In JULY).
Some tips about Anime Central in particular.
Pre-register AND Pre-pay.
And if you don’t do the above,
get there early.
(Like, REALLY early (I mean 5 o’clock in the morning early).)
And if you don’t by any chance,
Bring some sort of portable entertainment device,
Some food rations,
and a beach ball.
And for the love of G*d,
Go to the bathroom.
The line was hell, simple and plan. You first had to stand in a four hour registration line, then a one hour payment line. So you best come prepared for a loooooooooooooooooooooooooong morning/afternoon.
After a while, people just started throwing paper airplanes in the line, and from the look of some of those intricate flight patterns and the aerodynamics, a lot of these nerds had nothing better to do during class than draw Americanesque manga.
But you got to meet a lot of neat people in the line. The thing I like about these conventions is that you meet all of these people - from different ethnicities, religions, orientations - from all over the region - possibly the country - who like the exact same thing(s) as you.
I also just love the dress code there! If you didn’t cosplay (as either a character from a series (ANY series) or a J-rocker or Lolita), you just wore your best anime/nerd t-shirt. If you didn’t wear that, you wore traditional Far East Asian garb. If you didn’t wear that, you wore your best Hot Topic outfit (such as those chain pants with matching corset). And if you didn’t wear that, you just wore anything Asian related. I myself wore my black and red chain pants from Hot Topic, my stenciled Rurouni Kenshin halter top (which I made myself), and my Japanese print hoodie, tied up with some brocade hair sticks in two buns. It was wonderful.
nd the plus side to standing in that line was that the staff began to throw out free t-shirts and bags. I was lucky enough to catch a t-shirt.
After five hours of embollisms later, I'm finally out of line! Yay! So I began to wander and take pictures. Lots of pictures. So many great costumes, and just people in pretty traditional dress. And I purchased some great stuff.
I think the only major disappointment I had was that from standing in line for all that time, I missed a lot of panals that I wanted to go to, but there's always next year.
So next, I'll be better prepared, and hopefully some more of my friends can come. And by then, hopefully,
we can all cosplay. (Didn't think I'd go without seeing some Avatards did ya? ;D)
