Anime Evolution 2007 Day 2
My brother and I got to the con at around 10:30 am today. There’s not a lot going on so I went to the dealers’ room. I got a couple of free videotapes from one of the sellers. I also saw my friend, Winnie, who’s helping out at one of the tables. She cosplayed and the character looked familiar but I don’t know where exactly I saw it. I talked with her a bit and I moved on to browsing other stuff. She was selling mostly doujins and there’s a box full of yaoi ones >.>. Anyway, I looked at a bunch of various merchandise but I didn’t find anything I liked. There was an interesting one that I saw: a set of Code Geass trading cards. I thought it was kinda expensive though: $50 for 54 regular cards and 9 "special" cards. Anyway, I went to the CNL section and bought the Karekano DVD set for $70. I was originally aiming for Last Exile but it was $100 for the whole thing.
We met up with Jenny, one of our friends. I actually managed to convince her to come. Because of various interests, the three of us often ended up splitting up and leaving each other to his own devices. Well, as long as everyone enjoys the con, it’s all good. During various times throughout the day, I’m either alone, with my brother, with Jenny, or with both of them. It’s like an RPG where your party members come and go as they please.
After going to the dealers’ room, I lined up with my brother for the cosplay cafe. A whole squad of nice-looking girls in various costumes greeted us. A server in a kimono was assigned to our table and we ordered some noodles and milk tea. The big rip was that the one who actually brought the food to us was a guy. What the fuck, man! This is not what I came for in a cosplay cafe for obvious reasons. Another disturbance was that someone asked me to help out a couple of her friends who needed a guardian to get into the con. Yup, I unofficially became the guardian of two guys that day. Anyway, I got back to the table and ate my cup noodles and milk tea in a tetra pack :P.
After the cosplay cafe, I watched the cosplay contest for a bit. The most memorable performance I saw was by two Prince of Persia cosplayers. They had this battle scene and they performed some nifty moves. Pretty impressive. I later learned that they were the judges’ choice for one of the judging categories.
At 3:00 pm, I watched the Full Metal Alchemist movie. The bad thing was that they showed the dubbed version. The voices are ok but I watched the anime in Japanese with subtitles. The movie itself was ok, but not something I’d be giddy about.
After the movie, I went back to the Convocation Mall for the 2nd round of the Anime Idol contest. Some singing again and then my brother got surprised when the organizers asked him to perform a song. Apparently, their intermission act was unavailable and so they needed one in quick notice. My brother actually obliged them and sang a verse and chorus of Gackt’s "Love Letter" in a capella. His performance was pretty good.
I went to another dealers’ area in the convo mall and bought a couple of Magic precontructed decks, and played a bit of Magic with my brother. I used the mono-blue precon while his was a red-black concoction.
Shortly before the concerts started, I went backto the convo mall to get seats for the concerts. I also happened to see Jessica and Jaclyn (I saw her pass and this is the spelling. I’m too lazy to edit the previous post.). We talked for a while and then it was time for the Moo-ve concert. Moo-ve is a Japanese cover band but they’re based in Vancouver. They cover Japanese songs but during the concert they played a lot of L’Arc-en-Ciel songs.
In the middle of the concert, my brother said that they’re selling some BACK-ON merchandise. My brother and I lined up and we bought a bunch of stuff. I bought the Chain and Blaze Line singles plus one of their mini albums, New World for a grand total of $50. With that, I got a free BACK-ON poster. My brother bought a T-shirt on the other hand. But man, I’m a sucker for free stuff. That was actually pretty expensive. On the plus side, I got a silver wristband so I have priority for the autograph session.
The Moo-ve concert finally ended and I really enjoyed it. The band played with a lot of energy. Anyway, I tried to convince Jessica and Jaclyn that BACK-ON was really good. I also told them I heard their live concerts are excellent. They didn’t really believe so it’s up to BACK-ON themselves to convince them.
And holy, did they do some convincing! All the songs were awesome. I was jumping around, waving my arms, and singing along to the songs that I know. Chain, Hikari Sasuhou, Blaze Line, Eyes, etc… they were all awesome. I was yelling "Trust meeeeee" during the Eyes chorus. I was pumping my fists during almost every song. If not, I was waving my arms and jumping around.
In the middle of all this, Jenny suddenly showed up. Good thing she didn’t miss the concert. Jaclyn was all pumped up too and she was really into it. In fact, she ran to the merchandise section during the concert and bought a cd XD. It’s a testament to how good BACK-ON is. If my words weren’t enough to persuade her, then their music definitely is. I’m pretty sure Jenny, Jaclyn and Jessica (lol, all J’s) were all converted.
In the end, my arms were tired from all the waving and my throat was hurting from all the screaming and singing. BACK-ON did a couple of encore songs and that was that. The concert was pretty short, but definitely enjoyable. My brother, Jaclyn and I headed to the autograph lineup afterwards. BACK-ON Chain single: $15, Blaze Line single: $15, New World mini album: $20, meeting BACK-ON up close and personal, shaking their hands and getting a CD autographed: priceless.
After the autograph session, I took some pictures of my sister, Jamie. OK, so she was wearing a schoolgirl uniform that day because she was also in the cosplay. Being the slightly perverted, newly converted zettai ryouiki fetishist brother that I am, I asked her to raise her socks above the knees. She grudgingly allowed me this… perverseness, mainly because I told her about this concept beforehand as a suggested moe concept for the cosplay cafe. I took a couple of pictures of her holding a paper fan. Her friend offered to take a picture of us, with Jamie hitting me with the fan. As she was pretending to hit me, she also called me "Onii-chan". I just about melted right there as massive amounts of moe hit me like a one-ton anvil. Anywaaay, after that, my sister took a picture of me, Jaclyn and Jessica (who also got a cd and had it signed) holding our recently signed stuff. I look so dark compared to the two girls ;_;.
After some chatting and more picture taking, I finally said my goodbyes and headed to the karaoke room where my brother and a bunch of mutual friends were going to sing. I badly messed up my song though because I can’t read the karaoke because of the font and the fact that the text moves downwards as it is being sung. But all in all, we all had a blast.
Day 2 end! Final day blog coming later.
