Jennifer's 365 Project

So today is the first full day we're spending at Anime Central (ACEN). The night was a little rough. I woke up to some kids shouting loudly and being asked if they were drunk. The correct answer I assume is yes, judging by the empty bottle of rum we stumbled across in the stairwell later that morning.
We both wake up early normally, so we were up and ready for panels when they started at 8:30. The first we sat in on was about Folklore in anime. It was interesting and I walked away with a few series I might check out based on some suggestions they provided.
Now ACEN spans several hotels plus the convention center (where all the shopping is). Neither of us had any intention of purchasing anything, but we still walked through it a few times just to see all the different merchandise and costumes. While there were a lot of Cloud's from Final Fantasy VII, or miscellaneous characters from Bleach and Naruto, there were quite a few you don't see every day, including Gandalf (who I didn't managed to catch a photo of).
Like I said in yesterday's post, if there's one thing anime conventions seem to have, it's lines. And long ones. We stood in line for a bit for the FUNimation panel only to discover about ten minutes before it started that it had been rescheduled to another room several hours later. We also eyeballed the line for the Masquerade (which, unlike Youmacon, appears to be more of a costume contest/skit and not exclusively a dance) and quickly decided that the line (pictured above) wasn't worth waiting in for several hours.
We popped in a few other panels throughout the day; one on comics adapted to film, politics in video games (run by two Zach's from FFVII, no less), the rescheduled FUNimation panel, and a portion of the Stand-up and LOL.
The stand-up panel we waited in line for the longest, and with my trusty DSi I didn't mind the wait too much. I wanted to make sure we could get in, especially since I absolutely LOVE the stand-up they do Friday's at Youmaon.
This event was two hours instead of the one Youmacon has done in the past, it certainly didn't seem to need it. The host of the panel opened with discussing his old age (of 29) and how it was time for him to grow up and stop attending anime conventions. This seems to run counter to how you should ever start an event at an anime convention. He should also taken note of his audience, since a good portion of them were not younger than him. So the way he opened the floor for open mic was, to say the least, uninviting. I'm not sure if that is the reason for the succession of drunk con-goers standing up to deliver comedy or what. Either way, we left after about twenty minutes since they had reached the end of the people signed up and were cycling through people who wanted to go again. Maybe the event competed too much with others going on. Either way, were were disappointed - it was the one panel of the whole convention we were really looking forward to.
ACEN was, overall, a disappointing experience. That's not to say that the con itself is bad or that if you have never attended an anime convention to skip this on. If you live in the Chicago area, I'd seriously attend it. But after attending Youmacon and JAFAX the last several years, I had anticipated an event of this size to be better organized. For me, the experience here wasn't not unique and was, in many ways, a step back (for example, misprints in the schedule guide, a lack of mobile-formatted schedule to see updates/changes to the schedule).
I did think it was awesome that FUNimation was at the event and I could go to one or all of their panels if I desired; they are someone smaller conventions aren't able to attract. Everyone was super friendly and there were a bunch of interesting panels, don't get me wrong. But in many ways it was basically Youmacon with double the attendees and spanned across multiple hotels.

Maybe I'm burned out from all the traveling lately, maybe I had unrealistic expectations. Probably a little of both. I've always heard fantastic things about ACEN and I just didn't feel it this weekend.

Anyway, here's some shots from the weekend.

Onward to a 4-day weekend! This weekend is Anime Central. I've been interested in attending this convention for a few years, as it is one of the larger anime conventions in the country.

We've been gone on a long weekend at least once a month for the last several months, however, and we're getting a little exhausted. We had this trip planned before the engagement or choosing the wedding date, and in retrospect had I anticipated getting married in June, I probably would have skipped booking this trip until next year.
After getting caught in mid-afternoon traffic through Chicago (which had an interesting bit of fog hanging around downtown), we arrived at the hotel and convention center a little after 3pm local time. The hotel had already sold out all of the parking it had available, so we had to park several blocks away and hike over with our luggage. Luckily the offsite parking was cheaper so it worked out for the best.

Next was checking in. Hyatt offers express check-in through a web portal. It's like the airline check-in but for hotels. So I gave them the estimated arrival time and they emailed while we were on the way to let me know the room was available. Checking in was super easy as well. I just walked up to a kiosk, had it scan the printout of the check-in, and the machine popped out a receipt and room key. As a result, I didn't have to wait in the long line of attendees attempting to check into their hotel room.
With key in hand we set off to find the nearest stairwell. The first thing you really need to do, once you know where your room is, is to secure the nearest stairwell. Using elevators at an anime convention doesn't work. Between attendees riding the elevator up to go down (or vise versa) and large costumes, the wait for an elevator can be thirty minutes easy.
Our room was nearby the stairwell and we were only up a few floors, so things really worked out for us. We dropped everything off and headed out onto the con floor. Adam and Comfort have a booth there, so we navigated over to Artists Alley to say hi! We also discovered that the panel they were hosting, Creating Your Comic/Manga from Concept to Publication, was in an hour so we hung out a bit then headed over to watch their panel. The panel was awesome and educational for me. While I'm not a comic or manga creator, I certainly learned about page layouts and other things I completely take for granted when reading comics.

We spent the rest of the day bouncing around from this place to that, then had a delicious Thai meal with Adam and Comfort. Chris and I got to see the incredibly long line that weaved its way out of the convention center and down the street. It looked to be hours long. I'm really, really happy I paid an extra $2 to have my badge mailed to me. One thing anime cons seem to have are insanely long lines. I dont know if it's volume, disorganization, or a combination thereof.