Ayacon 2009
Finally, here it is: the writeup for Ayacon 2009! With an awful lot of photos too!
Friday: The shape of things to come
All photos have been shrunk for this writeup, so if you'd like a full size version drop me a line and I'll send you it! Also not all the photos I took are posted here; you can find the complete collection here. If you recognise yourself or someone else in any of my photos, let me know and I'll credit them.
The venue, the Warwick Arts Centre. Which is actually nowhere near Warwick.
Our group consisted of me, Stuart and Scarlett. But we had an interesting addition this year: Scarlett's friend Gemma. Who had never seen an anime in her life. What had happened was that Scarlett had been telling her about going to the con, and then next time they met Gemma announced that she'd brought a ticket. We assume she thought it might be some kind of artist event or something. It was going to be a huge culture shock for her; she was either going to love it or hate it. We're guessing it turned out to be more of the latter.
Our original plan was to drive to the con and get signed up, then go to the hotel, drop our things off then come back. But we managed to get an early check in (despite getting horribly lost by going down the wrong turn-off at the roundabout) so went to the hotel first. Now, I never bother with onsite accommodation because, if you'll excuse the pun, they're a con. £50 a night for a single room, which meant for our group it would have cost £600. Instead we stopped somewhere a 10 minute drive away that cost us £15 each per night. £45 vs £150 for a weekend? Not really a contest there. Plus the hotel was lovely. Turns out that the manager was actually my little brother's former boss, hee. Small world.
On arriving at the con, we wandered around trying to find registration. Ran into felflowne and keith_copping, who were also trying to locate it. Eventually we found it after asking someone wearing a badge. Turns out this was a regular problem; we also got asked several times where it was. But no matter, because we got registered straight away. Compared with the hour and a half we had to wait last year, it was a massive improvement!
We sat outside to rummage through our conbags and look at the event schedule. During this we met up with Noly, ramothlindan, quinsisdos and j3573r. Since we had time before the opening ceremony, and because the dealers room was strangely not open, we got some food at the bar. The only thing on the menu I liked was the chicken teriyaki. That dish became hideously familiar to me over the weekend.
I missed the entire TWEWY group, but here's Neku, Beat and Rhyme at least!
Bucky O'Hare! Fuck yeah!
Digimon cosplay is sadly rare. Here's an awesome Wizardmon though.
I've secretly always wanted to cosplay as Justin from Grandia. I wonder if there were anymore Grandia coslayers around?
Oh man, Giovanni cosplay.
Everybody loves Professor Oak. EVERYONE.
Later on we met up with jaybizkit. I also ran into Gaara, who was pretty ill; his chest was hurting so badly he hadn't slept in days and couldn't laugh. When I saw him on Saturday he said he'd been hospital in the morning and he'd been diagnosed with a chest infection. Ouch. His friend Tim was highly amused that I still call him Gaara, a name he hasn't gone by in years. Habit I guess :p
At the opening ceremony we were introduced to the special guests. Unbelievably the ceremony not only started on time, but had no technical problems! This happened repeatedly throughout the weekend; seriously, I don't know how many blood sacrifices they performed to make things run so smoothly, but it was greatly appreciated!
The opening ceremony.
After the ceremony we went to see Wolf's Rain, which I really liked. Turns out it's a lot like how I run the World of Darkness game Werewolf: The Forsaken; they're hunted to near extinction and forced into hiding, which is against their nature and drives them mad. I must try and get a hold of the full series, because I really enjoyed it.
Then it was off to the yaoi panel. To be perfectly honest I didn't find it very entertaining; it was mainly a slideshow of images with the occasional clip. Although the rabbit clip from last year was shown, which always makes me laugh. There were also some complete idiots at the front waving corn around like it was funny. Apparently the panellists had to get the gophers to shut them up. I really wish I'd gone to the skit writing workshop instead, to witness the horrors wonders of keith_copping. In the end I left and went to the games room, meeting up with Stuart.
Hamtaro wouldn't do a krum-krum or a kush-kush for me :(
It's mangamad!
Son Goku, the monkey king. Original version!
Bondagecard. He must have been so hot wearing that...
Shiki from TWEWY.
At the yaoi panel we spotted Stuart's clone sitting near the front. They look creepily alike from the back. I was starting to wonder if there was something Stuart wasn't telling me!
This Luxray was one of the girls who cosplayed as Ixion last year! Another excellent fursuit :D
In an effort to show Gemma the wonders of anime, we took her to see Death Note, a series both me and Scarlett love to pieces. Afterwards we asked her what she thought of it.
"I don't really like having to read all the subtitles."
Oh dear.
As we walked to the karaoke I explained the whole dub vs sub argument to her. I'm not entirely sure if she saw anymore anime the entire con. Obviously it wasn't her cup of tea.
I wanted to get up and sing at the karaoke but Scarlett refused, so the rest of the night was spent watching other people sing. analogue27, you are so coming next year so we can duet 'I'm Giving Santa a Pikachu for Christmas'. It was amusing how much everyone joined in when popular songs came on. Still Alive had everyone singing along, swaying their arms and glowsticks. The English Pokémon theme got sung multiple times as well. After midnight we headed back, ready for the next day.
Mangamad on the karaoke
Saturday: Going to prison, brb
As usual, today was my cosplay day. Once we'd parked up Scarlett and Gemma went to the EGL catwalk whilst Stuart attempted to sort out my wings. At home I had the problem of them falling open so they lay against my body rather than sticking out; this time I had the opposite problem and they were leaning against each other. Sigh. Eventually we got it all sorted, so off I went!
Here's me as BJ The Reaper! That baggy hoodie really makes me look chubby, heh. Sadly only two people actually recognised who I was. Still, I really enjoyed this cosplay, despite the inconvenience of having wings. How the hell the reapers manage in the game is beyond me. Then again, I suppose theirs aren't made of cardboard.
First item of business- the dealers room! And I had to take my bloody wings off. It was quite a good dealers room this year, and very large. My loot is at the end of this post. One embarrassing thing that happened- I was looking through the plushie box in the bring and buy and saw a Cresselia plush! So I picked it up to buy it- then discovered it was attached to the arm of the Cynthia cosplayer standing next to me! Whoops XD Luckily she saw the humour in it. Manga Entertainment also had a stall, which I never saw anybody visit. Wah wah waaaaaaaaah. There was quite a nice range in the dealer's room, so after we'd dropped off the loot I stalked around finding cosplayers for a while.
Ike from Fire Emblem.
This Nabeshin was impressed I recognised him; apparently very few people knew who he was! I told them they should be ashamed of themselves. He agreed.
The Great Saiyaman! Looking at other peoples' photos he did this pose in every one. His knees must have been knackered by the end.
I saw Dark Magician and asked for his photo, but didn't notice the Yami Yugi crouched on the floor besides him! Luckily I got a picture of both of them in though.
This cosplayer actually had a fan inside the suit, to make his Snorlax inflate up!
Me being a creepy stalker. I saw the Snorlax cosplayer eating and couldn't resist.
Marth from Fire Emblem.
At 1pm there was a showing of episodes 1-5 of There Will Be Brawl (they ran out of time for the last ep). If you’ve never seen it before, GO WATCH IT NOW. It's absolutely brilliant. I pretty much battered my friends with sticks to make sure they went, and they all came out saying they loved it. Right after was a voice acting Q&A panel by Matt Mercer, a special guest who had come all the way from LA. He's the creator behind Brawl and does various voices in games. That man is bloody lovely. He's so friendly and incredibly funny. He also shared the story of his 'special massage', when he was in Thailand, had a full body massage which caused a...reaction, and then got asked if he wanted something special. He was teased about that for the rest of the con.
Matt at the VA panel.
We also went into the games room, but didn't get to go on DDR because Scarlett refused and it's no fun doing it on your own. Rum, who I met the day before in the bar, was drunk and playing on Sing Star. He offered the microphone to me, whilst the other one was taken by another cosplayer (I didn't recognise your character though, sorry!). There was one song I simply had to select, since I'd seen it go by on the option screen. What was it? This.
Yes, we goddamn rickrolled the entire room!
Quite a lot of people joined in whilst we danced around and sung (I won, but barely!). Someone also recorded it and said they were putting in on youtube, so if you see somewhere wearing a half-assed reaper costume (since my hoodie was unzipped at the time), that's probably us XD
Also, I must share the story of Creepy Stalker Guy.
I was playing on the drumming game, with Scarlett and Gemma watching. Someone came up behind us to watch, who was later named Creepy Stalker Guy (CSG), due to appearance and behaviour. After I finished the song I offered the drumsticks around and CSG took them. I explained to him how to play and he got quite into it. I left to go on Sing Star before moving onto Brawl. CSG followed. I sat with Scarlett near DDR. CSG followed. Literally, every game we went on in the games room he followed and stood watching, before playing when we'd finished. I asked if he wanted to play DDR with me, but God knows what his mumbled reply actually was (according to Scarlett at one point he said he didn't want to because he didn't know me. Eh?). It's a good thing he didn't take up my offer, actually- we later saw him dancing by himself on it and, uh, let's just say he got a bit too much into it. Arms waving and everything. After beating a quick escape, we spent the rest of the day looking over our shoulders to make sure he wasn't still following us D:
Then it was time for food before the masquerade! Myself, Jay and Stuart went to the pub round the corner, only to find it closed (wtf). The other café didn't serve anything nice, so it was back to the bar...and another chicken teriyaki for me. Bleh.
Heading off the masquerade we were confronted with an enormous queue, waiting to get in. Scarlett called to say she was near the back, but on the way there we ran into Noly and co, who let us push in. This was actually only the second masquerade I've ever seen; I'm normally in them! But since my reaper cosplay was quite simple I decided to give entering a miss this year and just sit down and enjoy the show.
The masquerade was excellent. It started on time (causing a chorus of "LIES!" on Pictochat), and the entries this year were great. There were breaks every third of the way through; the first interval was another special guest, the singer and VA Momoi Haruko. I didn't go see her concert on Fri, so didn't know what to expect. It was, uh, interesting. She carried an orange cat-thing plush, which I think she called Aki-chan or something of the sort, talked to it in Japanese then launched into song. Her sort of pop isn't really my thing, but she was a good singer and very enthusiastic and happy to perform. Genki is seriously the only word you could use to describe her. Her English wasn't too good but she really made an effort, bless. The second interval involved the Taiko drummers, who did a performance.
Onto the masquerade photos! I took an awful lot because people were moving about on stage, so I'll only put a few of each up. More can be seen on my account here. Sorry about the formatting here; when the pics were put side by side it made the screen far too wide and a nightmare to read the text, but resized the photos looked awful. So...you get a long list of them instead.
Luxray again, this time with trainer.
Excellent Wolf Link, although it must be agony on her poor back!
Not entirely sure what this is from, but awesome gun.
SUPERTEEN EXTRAORDINAIRE! FREAKAZOID! FREAKAZOID!
Son Goku from Saiyuki, after his diadem has been removed. Check out those claws!
Poor Walter swung around his wires and managed to smack himself with them. He was so embarrassed!
Midna and Zelda.
A big steampunk group.
No idea who they are, but absolute massive props to anyone that actually makes decent looking wings! They're the proper shape and everything!
Romeo x Juliet
Nausicaa. I actually thought they had a beard at first until they came closer and I saw it was a mask >_>
We interrupt this masquerade to bring you this mini-concert!
Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty.
Some more steampunk.
No idea again, but I liked the outfit. Reminded me of Florence, heh.
Yoshimitsu.
DM again.
Blanka, complete with manly chest beating!
Kai and Tyson from Beyblades.
Servo from MST3K! Your life is now complete.
Travis from No More Heroes. He'd actually converted a lightsaber to be the beam katana!
Mangamad again, with friends. I think that might be the girl who cosplayed DMG last year.
Ike and Marth. Marth even had the pattern on the back of his cloak!
The Taiko drummers.
Soul Eater group.
The nurses (from Silent Hill?) were excellent. They stayed in character the entire time on stage- even chasing the presenters!
I dunno again. Someone from Resident Evil?
Canti from FLCL.
A brilliant Bowser!
I love Gone With The Blastwave. When they came on I said "Where's the spork?", and lo and behold, they pulled one out! :D
Apparently this moogle kept getting asked if she was a Pokémon all day.
Kiara from Inuyasha.
Another nice wing.
Need moar Poliwhirl.
Rule 34: Hot Snorlax and Bowser action!
My favourite photo of the entire con.
After the masquerade Scarlett and Gemma went to the MADstravaganza panel whilst me, Stuart and Jay went to the pub quiz. We joined forces with Fudce, Chaos and a guy whose name I can't remember. Last year our team name was Chicks Dig Giant Robots, since we're huge fans of Megas XLR. After discussion with the others, we became Team Chicks Dig...I'm Sorry, Do I Know You? (PS, Yes Our Chairs Are Taken). Mainly because we got fed up of people asking if our chairs were taken!
As usual, the pub quiz was brilliant and absolutely hilarious. Rounds included 'which of these is a real jrock song title', 'loli or legal' (we're going to prison, btw, for not knowing the difference) and 'guess the gender'. There was also an actual anime round, a Japan general knowledge round (which Chaos aced) and a real life round. At the end when scores were compared to see who was the winning team it was a three-way draw...and we were one of the teams! So it was time for sudden death, and the tie breaking question was 'where and what year was the first Ayacon held?'. It was in the conbook, so there was a mad scramble before everyone realised they didn't have it with them! One team didn't provide an answer, the other got it wrong, and we got the location wrong but the year right...so we won! Whoo! :D We got told our prizes would be announced during the closing ceremony on Sunday.
Since the bar for the quiz was packed my wings, already looking worse for wear, got battered by the crowd and one of the spikes tore off. Although I did have the materials to repair it, in the end I decided to not bother and just wear normal clothes on the Sunday.
Sunday: Epic wins and fails. Also, Chair
Sunday was an odd day. There was nothing on in the morning, but then a 6-hour straight load of events. So I brought lots of food from the shop since I wouldn't have the chance to eat once the events started. Then it was back to the dealers room again for some last minute bargains. I got the contact details of one seller, who said that when Heart Gold/Soul Silver come out he'll be getting the giant Ho-oh and Lugia plushies. I want the giant Ho-oh so badly D: Must keep my eye out for them!
Yay for Speed Grapher cosplay! Apparently he had left his money cigar in the room.
What is this I don't even
Professor Layton and Luke. I know the latter picture far too well...
I utterly failed to notice the Malik when I asked Yami Bakura for a photo. I had to reassure Malik that I wanted both of them in the photo, not just Bakura!
This Pegasus was brilliant. Not only did he have a Millennium Eye, he'd also made a card of Yugi's grandpa. The quote? "YUUUUUGIIIIIII!" I love it when people go all the way with little details like that :D
Stuart and I went to see MAR, which was decidedly average, then went to kill some time in the games room. Now, in the weeks before the con I spent bloody ages training up my squad to lv100. I was really looking forward to having a battle with someone, but didn't find a single opponent; everyone I asked had either not brought their games or had only just started so had a low level squad. In desperation I made the following sign in an attempt to find someone:
It didn't work :(
Played on Brawl for a while, then went to the manga reading room. Got food, and then the big crush of events was upon us!
First up was the There Will Be Brawl panel, run by Matt and JoEllen, who plays Zelda and does all the costumes. Also, as a treat, they'd hooked up a webcam, so joining as an extra panellist was Matt Key, who plays Luigi! It was 7am in LA so he was tired, but what amazed me the most was that he was drinking from a Barack Obama coffee cup from McDonalds! Imagine if McDonalds over here put prime ministers on the coffee mugs!
Matt and JoEllen at the panel.
I have no idea what's going on here.
This happened a lot.
The panel was brilliant. They opened up the floor to questions and answered them all, throwing in anecdotes like when they were filming in a sleazy motel and the tiny Asian owner with a thick accent threw them out thinking they were filming porn. Now, earlier on in the weekend it was joked that Matt should put on a dress, and during the panel a gopher provided one! Since Matt's such a good sport he put it on (still talking as he did so) and did a twirl on stage so the other Matt could see. Then someone in the audience donated a green wig and a toy, and, well...
I didn't get the chance to ask my question (do the cast know the identity of the killer, or is Matt keeping it a secret?), but after the panel I saw him outside and asked. Turns out only a select few people know who the killer is. Matt and JoEllen also signed my con badge!
After the panel was the AMV showcase. Oh man, I lol'd at Top Gar, though I had to explain to Stuart what gar actually means. Then the final event before the closing ceremony/auction: Sunday Night Live. Rather than run an omake, Ayacon decided to do something like a talent show. It opened with the Taiko drummers again. They were good, but since I get easily bored just sitting and listening to music, I opened up my DS and went on Pictochat. The running commentary throughout SNL was bloody hilarious. Although they did ruin the drummers when someone pointed out that one of them wasn't wearing a bra, so then all you could see was JIGGLE JIGGLE JIGGLE. Argh. After that came the show.
Oh my God.
Now, omakes are a lot like a bag of Revels; really good ones mixed in with ones you hate. It's all part of the appeal really, not knowing what the next act is going to be like. SNL? About 60% fail. In the performers' defence, they only had two weeks to prepare, and from what I can gather Ayacon said no skits were allowed, but sortof changed their mind right by the end.
So, most of the acts were singing, and only a handful actually had anything to do with anime. There was a guy playing an out of tune guitar (although since he was cosplaying Walter from Hellsing I was hoping he'd rip the strings off and go slaughtering Nazi vampires with them as his Angel of Death persona, but alas that didn't happen), a bloke as a schoolgirl doing standup (at least I think it was comedy; I could barely make out what he was saying), and two acts involving swinging round weighted socks poi. Which is forever ruined for me because on Saturdays in Portsmouth all the emo kids who can't get bus money off their mum hang around the Guildhall and swing them about. Then there was a girl doing a burlesque dance. Dressed as someone from Lucky Star. Jesus Christ. I'm not one to throw stones since I'm not the most attractive person myself, but seriously, watching an overweight girl caress her ass like she thinks it's sexy before draping herself over a chair so we can stare at her boobs is NOT something I find entertaining. Pictochat pretty much imploded as well, which makes me glad I wasn't the only one to think so.
Good acts? Well, there was the FMA magic show, which was excellent. I fully expected Ed to climb inside his suitcase at the end and vanish for the grand finale! There was also a girl who sang and managed to hit some incredibly high notes (one person in Pictochat, after she hit a note I'm sure should be beyond the range of human hearing, cried "MY GLASSES!"). Then, of course, the final act- Team Giblets! Nowt much I can add here; the name alone should tell you how brilliant it was. YOU FLAIL USELESSLY.
CHAIR! The highlight of every con!
You know you love it. We got treated to a dance of these two, but it's taking forever to upload it on this connection so...maybe later.
Since SNL finished early rather then have a break they moved straight onto the auction. A lot of really nice posters were for sale. The one item I bid on? This guy:
GIANT PIKACHU. I got seriously outbid though; in the end it went for I think £105! When it got brought out the stage was nearly stormed by a Team Rocket group. Then, as the price went up, Team Rocket started bidding! They were completely in character as they did so, which was hilarious. At one point a Giovanni cosplayer bid against them, which was most peculiar ("I guess the Boss is sick of waiting!"). But TR won in the end, so they all promptly ran on stage, grabbed Pikachu and ran off again XD
Speaking of which.
Rhys from Fire Emblem. I spotted them during the auction and had to take their pic sitting down, just in case they thought it was a bid! Luckily I managed to find them afterwards for a proper picture.
Then came the closing ceremony. I was a bit nervous all through this, since they started calling people up to accept the prizes they'd won. But when the ceremony finished, they completely forgot about the pub quiz! So afterwards down I went to the front and asked about it. There were facepalms as they suddenly remembered, so they told us to go to Ops to receive our prizes.
This is the photo Jay has been waiting for...him and Matt! That made his weekend :)
In Ops the person we needed was in hiding, so off we went next door to find him. Our prizes were the con tshirts. And, completely surprising, not only did they have a ladies, they also had it in my size! Gasp :O The male tshirts were too small for Stuart and Jay, but they took them anyway.
It had been absolutely ages since we'd eaten, and since everywhere was closed (and there was no way in hell I was going to eat chicken teriyaki for three days straight), we ordered Dominoes. The rest of the evening was spent chilling out with everyone, which was really nice. As midnight approached the staff were hinting at us to GTFO, so we said our goodbyes to each other and left. Adam also challenged Stuart to jump on him. It nearly didn't end well.
Special mention of Monday morning: we missed breakfast at the hotel so went through a drivethru Subway (holy shit, that is seriously the greatest idea ever). But when we were parked at the petrol station a jeep pulling a trailer with two cows inside came in to fill up, and one of the cows just stared intently at me with great wide eyes. For the entire time I was eating a beef sandwich. Made me feel uncomfortable, let me tell you.
Now, onto my loot!
My signed conbadge! I was carrying this around like it was made of glass, I was so scared of smudging it!
The tshirt from winning the pub quiz.
A boxset of Phoenix, oh man. And it was only £15!
Veedramon pushie! He's going in my car.
Lucario came with a strange tablet in a clear plastic bag. I think it's a sweet, but I don't really want to risk eating it...
Ever since I ran my Mystery Dungeon RPG I've been collecting these figures. I used to get just my favourite Pokémon, but now I pick ones that will be helpful to my players! I've got over 100 of the bloody things now!
So, overall impression? Ayacon was brilliant. The range of events was great, it was well organised and I had a lot of fun. The past Ayacons I remember were good, and they certainly didn't let me down this year; it was a very good con and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Next year Ame is back. Will they improve on last year? Let's wait and see. I'm still buying my ticket as soon as it comes out!
Friday: The shape of things to come
All photos have been shrunk for this writeup, so if you'd like a full size version drop me a line and I'll send you it! Also not all the photos I took are posted here; you can find the complete collection here. If you recognise yourself or someone else in any of my photos, let me know and I'll credit them.
The venue, the Warwick Arts Centre. Which is actually nowhere near Warwick.
Our group consisted of me, Stuart and Scarlett. But we had an interesting addition this year: Scarlett's friend Gemma. Who had never seen an anime in her life. What had happened was that Scarlett had been telling her about going to the con, and then next time they met Gemma announced that she'd brought a ticket. We assume she thought it might be some kind of artist event or something. It was going to be a huge culture shock for her; she was either going to love it or hate it. We're guessing it turned out to be more of the latter.
Our original plan was to drive to the con and get signed up, then go to the hotel, drop our things off then come back. But we managed to get an early check in (despite getting horribly lost by going down the wrong turn-off at the roundabout) so went to the hotel first. Now, I never bother with onsite accommodation because, if you'll excuse the pun, they're a con. £50 a night for a single room, which meant for our group it would have cost £600. Instead we stopped somewhere a 10 minute drive away that cost us £15 each per night. £45 vs £150 for a weekend? Not really a contest there. Plus the hotel was lovely. Turns out that the manager was actually my little brother's former boss, hee. Small world.
On arriving at the con, we wandered around trying to find registration. Ran into felflowne and keith_copping, who were also trying to locate it. Eventually we found it after asking someone wearing a badge. Turns out this was a regular problem; we also got asked several times where it was. But no matter, because we got registered straight away. Compared with the hour and a half we had to wait last year, it was a massive improvement!
We sat outside to rummage through our conbags and look at the event schedule. During this we met up with Noly, ramothlindan, quinsisdos and j3573r. Since we had time before the opening ceremony, and because the dealers room was strangely not open, we got some food at the bar. The only thing on the menu I liked was the chicken teriyaki. That dish became hideously familiar to me over the weekend.
I missed the entire TWEWY group, but here's Neku, Beat and Rhyme at least!
Bucky O'Hare! Fuck yeah!
Digimon cosplay is sadly rare. Here's an awesome Wizardmon though.
I've secretly always wanted to cosplay as Justin from Grandia. I wonder if there were anymore Grandia coslayers around?
Oh man, Giovanni cosplay.
Everybody loves Professor Oak. EVERYONE.
Later on we met up with jaybizkit. I also ran into Gaara, who was pretty ill; his chest was hurting so badly he hadn't slept in days and couldn't laugh. When I saw him on Saturday he said he'd been hospital in the morning and he'd been diagnosed with a chest infection. Ouch. His friend Tim was highly amused that I still call him Gaara, a name he hasn't gone by in years. Habit I guess :p
At the opening ceremony we were introduced to the special guests. Unbelievably the ceremony not only started on time, but had no technical problems! This happened repeatedly throughout the weekend; seriously, I don't know how many blood sacrifices they performed to make things run so smoothly, but it was greatly appreciated!
The opening ceremony.
After the ceremony we went to see Wolf's Rain, which I really liked. Turns out it's a lot like how I run the World of Darkness game Werewolf: The Forsaken; they're hunted to near extinction and forced into hiding, which is against their nature and drives them mad. I must try and get a hold of the full series, because I really enjoyed it.
Then it was off to the yaoi panel. To be perfectly honest I didn't find it very entertaining; it was mainly a slideshow of images with the occasional clip. Although the rabbit clip from last year was shown, which always makes me laugh. There were also some complete idiots at the front waving corn around like it was funny. Apparently the panellists had to get the gophers to shut them up. I really wish I'd gone to the skit writing workshop instead, to witness the horrors wonders of keith_copping. In the end I left and went to the games room, meeting up with Stuart.
Hamtaro wouldn't do a krum-krum or a kush-kush for me :(
It's mangamad!
Son Goku, the monkey king. Original version!
Bondagecard. He must have been so hot wearing that...
Shiki from TWEWY.
At the yaoi panel we spotted Stuart's clone sitting near the front. They look creepily alike from the back. I was starting to wonder if there was something Stuart wasn't telling me!
This Luxray was one of the girls who cosplayed as Ixion last year! Another excellent fursuit :D
In an effort to show Gemma the wonders of anime, we took her to see Death Note, a series both me and Scarlett love to pieces. Afterwards we asked her what she thought of it.
"I don't really like having to read all the subtitles."
Oh dear.
As we walked to the karaoke I explained the whole dub vs sub argument to her. I'm not entirely sure if she saw anymore anime the entire con. Obviously it wasn't her cup of tea.
I wanted to get up and sing at the karaoke but Scarlett refused, so the rest of the night was spent watching other people sing. analogue27, you are so coming next year so we can duet 'I'm Giving Santa a Pikachu for Christmas'. It was amusing how much everyone joined in when popular songs came on. Still Alive had everyone singing along, swaying their arms and glowsticks. The English Pokémon theme got sung multiple times as well. After midnight we headed back, ready for the next day.
Mangamad on the karaoke
Saturday: Going to prison, brb
As usual, today was my cosplay day. Once we'd parked up Scarlett and Gemma went to the EGL catwalk whilst Stuart attempted to sort out my wings. At home I had the problem of them falling open so they lay against my body rather than sticking out; this time I had the opposite problem and they were leaning against each other. Sigh. Eventually we got it all sorted, so off I went!
Here's me as BJ The Reaper! That baggy hoodie really makes me look chubby, heh. Sadly only two people actually recognised who I was. Still, I really enjoyed this cosplay, despite the inconvenience of having wings. How the hell the reapers manage in the game is beyond me. Then again, I suppose theirs aren't made of cardboard.
First item of business- the dealers room! And I had to take my bloody wings off. It was quite a good dealers room this year, and very large. My loot is at the end of this post. One embarrassing thing that happened- I was looking through the plushie box in the bring and buy and saw a Cresselia plush! So I picked it up to buy it- then discovered it was attached to the arm of the Cynthia cosplayer standing next to me! Whoops XD Luckily she saw the humour in it. Manga Entertainment also had a stall, which I never saw anybody visit. Wah wah waaaaaaaaah. There was quite a nice range in the dealer's room, so after we'd dropped off the loot I stalked around finding cosplayers for a while.
Ike from Fire Emblem.
This Nabeshin was impressed I recognised him; apparently very few people knew who he was! I told them they should be ashamed of themselves. He agreed.
The Great Saiyaman! Looking at other peoples' photos he did this pose in every one. His knees must have been knackered by the end.
I saw Dark Magician and asked for his photo, but didn't notice the Yami Yugi crouched on the floor besides him! Luckily I got a picture of both of them in though.
This cosplayer actually had a fan inside the suit, to make his Snorlax inflate up!
Me being a creepy stalker. I saw the Snorlax cosplayer eating and couldn't resist.
Marth from Fire Emblem.
At 1pm there was a showing of episodes 1-5 of There Will Be Brawl (they ran out of time for the last ep). If you’ve never seen it before, GO WATCH IT NOW. It's absolutely brilliant. I pretty much battered my friends with sticks to make sure they went, and they all came out saying they loved it. Right after was a voice acting Q&A panel by Matt Mercer, a special guest who had come all the way from LA. He's the creator behind Brawl and does various voices in games. That man is bloody lovely. He's so friendly and incredibly funny. He also shared the story of his 'special massage', when he was in Thailand, had a full body massage which caused a...reaction, and then got asked if he wanted something special. He was teased about that for the rest of the con.
Matt at the VA panel.
We also went into the games room, but didn't get to go on DDR because Scarlett refused and it's no fun doing it on your own. Rum, who I met the day before in the bar, was drunk and playing on Sing Star. He offered the microphone to me, whilst the other one was taken by another cosplayer (I didn't recognise your character though, sorry!). There was one song I simply had to select, since I'd seen it go by on the option screen. What was it? This.
Yes, we goddamn rickrolled the entire room!
Quite a lot of people joined in whilst we danced around and sung (I won, but barely!). Someone also recorded it and said they were putting in on youtube, so if you see somewhere wearing a half-assed reaper costume (since my hoodie was unzipped at the time), that's probably us XD
Also, I must share the story of Creepy Stalker Guy.
I was playing on the drumming game, with Scarlett and Gemma watching. Someone came up behind us to watch, who was later named Creepy Stalker Guy (CSG), due to appearance and behaviour. After I finished the song I offered the drumsticks around and CSG took them. I explained to him how to play and he got quite into it. I left to go on Sing Star before moving onto Brawl. CSG followed. I sat with Scarlett near DDR. CSG followed. Literally, every game we went on in the games room he followed and stood watching, before playing when we'd finished. I asked if he wanted to play DDR with me, but God knows what his mumbled reply actually was (according to Scarlett at one point he said he didn't want to because he didn't know me. Eh?). It's a good thing he didn't take up my offer, actually- we later saw him dancing by himself on it and, uh, let's just say he got a bit too much into it. Arms waving and everything. After beating a quick escape, we spent the rest of the day looking over our shoulders to make sure he wasn't still following us D:
Then it was time for food before the masquerade! Myself, Jay and Stuart went to the pub round the corner, only to find it closed (wtf). The other café didn't serve anything nice, so it was back to the bar...and another chicken teriyaki for me. Bleh.
Heading off the masquerade we were confronted with an enormous queue, waiting to get in. Scarlett called to say she was near the back, but on the way there we ran into Noly and co, who let us push in. This was actually only the second masquerade I've ever seen; I'm normally in them! But since my reaper cosplay was quite simple I decided to give entering a miss this year and just sit down and enjoy the show.
The masquerade was excellent. It started on time (causing a chorus of "LIES!" on Pictochat), and the entries this year were great. There were breaks every third of the way through; the first interval was another special guest, the singer and VA Momoi Haruko. I didn't go see her concert on Fri, so didn't know what to expect. It was, uh, interesting. She carried an orange cat-thing plush, which I think she called Aki-chan or something of the sort, talked to it in Japanese then launched into song. Her sort of pop isn't really my thing, but she was a good singer and very enthusiastic and happy to perform. Genki is seriously the only word you could use to describe her. Her English wasn't too good but she really made an effort, bless. The second interval involved the Taiko drummers, who did a performance.
Onto the masquerade photos! I took an awful lot because people were moving about on stage, so I'll only put a few of each up. More can be seen on my account here. Sorry about the formatting here; when the pics were put side by side it made the screen far too wide and a nightmare to read the text, but resized the photos looked awful. So...you get a long list of them instead.
Luxray again, this time with trainer.
Excellent Wolf Link, although it must be agony on her poor back!
Not entirely sure what this is from, but awesome gun.
SUPERTEEN EXTRAORDINAIRE! FREAKAZOID! FREAKAZOID!
Son Goku from Saiyuki, after his diadem has been removed. Check out those claws!
Poor Walter swung around his wires and managed to smack himself with them. He was so embarrassed!
Midna and Zelda.
A big steampunk group.
No idea who they are, but absolute massive props to anyone that actually makes decent looking wings! They're the proper shape and everything!
Romeo x Juliet
Nausicaa. I actually thought they had a beard at first until they came closer and I saw it was a mask >_>
We interrupt this masquerade to bring you this mini-concert!
Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty.
Some more steampunk.
No idea again, but I liked the outfit. Reminded me of Florence, heh.
Yoshimitsu.
DM again.
Blanka, complete with manly chest beating!
Kai and Tyson from Beyblades.
Servo from MST3K! Your life is now complete.
Travis from No More Heroes. He'd actually converted a lightsaber to be the beam katana!
Mangamad again, with friends. I think that might be the girl who cosplayed DMG last year.
Ike and Marth. Marth even had the pattern on the back of his cloak!
The Taiko drummers.
Soul Eater group.
The nurses (from Silent Hill?) were excellent. They stayed in character the entire time on stage- even chasing the presenters!
I dunno again. Someone from Resident Evil?
Canti from FLCL.
A brilliant Bowser!
I love Gone With The Blastwave. When they came on I said "Where's the spork?", and lo and behold, they pulled one out! :D
Apparently this moogle kept getting asked if she was a Pokémon all day.
Kiara from Inuyasha.
Another nice wing.
Need moar Poliwhirl.
Rule 34: Hot Snorlax and Bowser action!
My favourite photo of the entire con.
After the masquerade Scarlett and Gemma went to the MADstravaganza panel whilst me, Stuart and Jay went to the pub quiz. We joined forces with Fudce, Chaos and a guy whose name I can't remember. Last year our team name was Chicks Dig Giant Robots, since we're huge fans of Megas XLR. After discussion with the others, we became Team Chicks Dig...I'm Sorry, Do I Know You? (PS, Yes Our Chairs Are Taken). Mainly because we got fed up of people asking if our chairs were taken!
As usual, the pub quiz was brilliant and absolutely hilarious. Rounds included 'which of these is a real jrock song title', 'loli or legal' (we're going to prison, btw, for not knowing the difference) and 'guess the gender'. There was also an actual anime round, a Japan general knowledge round (which Chaos aced) and a real life round. At the end when scores were compared to see who was the winning team it was a three-way draw...and we were one of the teams! So it was time for sudden death, and the tie breaking question was 'where and what year was the first Ayacon held?'. It was in the conbook, so there was a mad scramble before everyone realised they didn't have it with them! One team didn't provide an answer, the other got it wrong, and we got the location wrong but the year right...so we won! Whoo! :D We got told our prizes would be announced during the closing ceremony on Sunday.
Since the bar for the quiz was packed my wings, already looking worse for wear, got battered by the crowd and one of the spikes tore off. Although I did have the materials to repair it, in the end I decided to not bother and just wear normal clothes on the Sunday.
Sunday: Epic wins and fails. Also, Chair
Sunday was an odd day. There was nothing on in the morning, but then a 6-hour straight load of events. So I brought lots of food from the shop since I wouldn't have the chance to eat once the events started. Then it was back to the dealers room again for some last minute bargains. I got the contact details of one seller, who said that when Heart Gold/Soul Silver come out he'll be getting the giant Ho-oh and Lugia plushies. I want the giant Ho-oh so badly D: Must keep my eye out for them!
Yay for Speed Grapher cosplay! Apparently he had left his money cigar in the room.
What is this I don't even
Professor Layton and Luke. I know the latter picture far too well...
I utterly failed to notice the Malik when I asked Yami Bakura for a photo. I had to reassure Malik that I wanted both of them in the photo, not just Bakura!
This Pegasus was brilliant. Not only did he have a Millennium Eye, he'd also made a card of Yugi's grandpa. The quote? "YUUUUUGIIIIIII!" I love it when people go all the way with little details like that :D
Stuart and I went to see MAR, which was decidedly average, then went to kill some time in the games room. Now, in the weeks before the con I spent bloody ages training up my squad to lv100. I was really looking forward to having a battle with someone, but didn't find a single opponent; everyone I asked had either not brought their games or had only just started so had a low level squad. In desperation I made the following sign in an attempt to find someone:
It didn't work :(
Played on Brawl for a while, then went to the manga reading room. Got food, and then the big crush of events was upon us!
First up was the There Will Be Brawl panel, run by Matt and JoEllen, who plays Zelda and does all the costumes. Also, as a treat, they'd hooked up a webcam, so joining as an extra panellist was Matt Key, who plays Luigi! It was 7am in LA so he was tired, but what amazed me the most was that he was drinking from a Barack Obama coffee cup from McDonalds! Imagine if McDonalds over here put prime ministers on the coffee mugs!
Matt and JoEllen at the panel.
I have no idea what's going on here.
This happened a lot.
The panel was brilliant. They opened up the floor to questions and answered them all, throwing in anecdotes like when they were filming in a sleazy motel and the tiny Asian owner with a thick accent threw them out thinking they were filming porn. Now, earlier on in the weekend it was joked that Matt should put on a dress, and during the panel a gopher provided one! Since Matt's such a good sport he put it on (still talking as he did so) and did a twirl on stage so the other Matt could see. Then someone in the audience donated a green wig and a toy, and, well...
I didn't get the chance to ask my question (do the cast know the identity of the killer, or is Matt keeping it a secret?), but after the panel I saw him outside and asked. Turns out only a select few people know who the killer is. Matt and JoEllen also signed my con badge!
After the panel was the AMV showcase. Oh man, I lol'd at Top Gar, though I had to explain to Stuart what gar actually means. Then the final event before the closing ceremony/auction: Sunday Night Live. Rather than run an omake, Ayacon decided to do something like a talent show. It opened with the Taiko drummers again. They were good, but since I get easily bored just sitting and listening to music, I opened up my DS and went on Pictochat. The running commentary throughout SNL was bloody hilarious. Although they did ruin the drummers when someone pointed out that one of them wasn't wearing a bra, so then all you could see was JIGGLE JIGGLE JIGGLE. Argh. After that came the show.
Oh my God.
Now, omakes are a lot like a bag of Revels; really good ones mixed in with ones you hate. It's all part of the appeal really, not knowing what the next act is going to be like. SNL? About 60% fail. In the performers' defence, they only had two weeks to prepare, and from what I can gather Ayacon said no skits were allowed, but sortof changed their mind right by the end.
So, most of the acts were singing, and only a handful actually had anything to do with anime. There was a guy playing an out of tune guitar (although since he was cosplaying Walter from Hellsing I was hoping he'd rip the strings off and go slaughtering Nazi vampires with them as his Angel of Death persona, but alas that didn't happen), a bloke as a schoolgirl doing standup (at least I think it was comedy; I could barely make out what he was saying), and two acts involving swinging round weighted socks poi. Which is forever ruined for me because on Saturdays in Portsmouth all the emo kids who can't get bus money off their mum hang around the Guildhall and swing them about. Then there was a girl doing a burlesque dance. Dressed as someone from Lucky Star. Jesus Christ. I'm not one to throw stones since I'm not the most attractive person myself, but seriously, watching an overweight girl caress her ass like she thinks it's sexy before draping herself over a chair so we can stare at her boobs is NOT something I find entertaining. Pictochat pretty much imploded as well, which makes me glad I wasn't the only one to think so.
Good acts? Well, there was the FMA magic show, which was excellent. I fully expected Ed to climb inside his suitcase at the end and vanish for the grand finale! There was also a girl who sang and managed to hit some incredibly high notes (one person in Pictochat, after she hit a note I'm sure should be beyond the range of human hearing, cried "MY GLASSES!"). Then, of course, the final act- Team Giblets! Nowt much I can add here; the name alone should tell you how brilliant it was. YOU FLAIL USELESSLY.
CHAIR! The highlight of every con!
You know you love it. We got treated to a dance of these two, but it's taking forever to upload it on this connection so...maybe later.
Since SNL finished early rather then have a break they moved straight onto the auction. A lot of really nice posters were for sale. The one item I bid on? This guy:
GIANT PIKACHU. I got seriously outbid though; in the end it went for I think £105! When it got brought out the stage was nearly stormed by a Team Rocket group. Then, as the price went up, Team Rocket started bidding! They were completely in character as they did so, which was hilarious. At one point a Giovanni cosplayer bid against them, which was most peculiar ("I guess the Boss is sick of waiting!"). But TR won in the end, so they all promptly ran on stage, grabbed Pikachu and ran off again XD
Speaking of which.
Rhys from Fire Emblem. I spotted them during the auction and had to take their pic sitting down, just in case they thought it was a bid! Luckily I managed to find them afterwards for a proper picture.
Then came the closing ceremony. I was a bit nervous all through this, since they started calling people up to accept the prizes they'd won. But when the ceremony finished, they completely forgot about the pub quiz! So afterwards down I went to the front and asked about it. There were facepalms as they suddenly remembered, so they told us to go to Ops to receive our prizes.
This is the photo Jay has been waiting for...him and Matt! That made his weekend :)
In Ops the person we needed was in hiding, so off we went next door to find him. Our prizes were the con tshirts. And, completely surprising, not only did they have a ladies, they also had it in my size! Gasp :O The male tshirts were too small for Stuart and Jay, but they took them anyway.
It had been absolutely ages since we'd eaten, and since everywhere was closed (and there was no way in hell I was going to eat chicken teriyaki for three days straight), we ordered Dominoes. The rest of the evening was spent chilling out with everyone, which was really nice. As midnight approached the staff were hinting at us to GTFO, so we said our goodbyes to each other and left. Adam also challenged Stuart to jump on him. It nearly didn't end well.
Special mention of Monday morning: we missed breakfast at the hotel so went through a drivethru Subway (holy shit, that is seriously the greatest idea ever). But when we were parked at the petrol station a jeep pulling a trailer with two cows inside came in to fill up, and one of the cows just stared intently at me with great wide eyes. For the entire time I was eating a beef sandwich. Made me feel uncomfortable, let me tell you.
Now, onto my loot!
My signed conbadge! I was carrying this around like it was made of glass, I was so scared of smudging it!
The tshirt from winning the pub quiz.
A boxset of Phoenix, oh man. And it was only £15!
Veedramon pushie! He's going in my car.
Lucario came with a strange tablet in a clear plastic bag. I think it's a sweet, but I don't really want to risk eating it...
Ever since I ran my Mystery Dungeon RPG I've been collecting these figures. I used to get just my favourite Pokémon, but now I pick ones that will be helpful to my players! I've got over 100 of the bloody things now!
So, overall impression? Ayacon was brilliant. The range of events was great, it was well organised and I had a lot of fun. The past Ayacons I remember were good, and they certainly didn't let me down this year; it was a very good con and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Next year Ame is back. Will they improve on last year? Let's wait and see. I'm still buying my ticket as soon as it comes out!