Uhh it happened in my proverbial back yard, so I attended to mainly rep Elisa. This is as “hangout” as a hangout con can get for me.
The thing is, Anime Next is actually an okay convention by all means. This year however they screwed the pooch in a few ways, namely whoever did the schedule sort of slipped. It didn’t show till less than a week before the con, and it was even wrong in some places. The Guidebook version was at times, incorrect, compared to reality. The print version was, at times, incorrect compared to reality. And these incorrectness didn’t even overlap. Actually the former isn’t a problem until you had to be the agent of change? Like, we had to go to Panel Ops and tell them to fix it on Guidebook?
That might not seem so bad but they screwed up at least two events on their schedules, putting them in the wrong time/place/location, and it’s not fan panels, these are industry/GOH items. And one of these weren’t fixed until like, hours before.
The second problem, which is a persistent problem, is that the con has outgrew the venue. A lot of pain came from it in various ways, but I’m not going to belabor something that had less to do with Anime Next’s inability to run a con. Next year they’ll relocate to Atlantic City, so who knows? Maybe that counts for something.
That just means it’ll be out of my back yard, and it’ll be one less thing I have to worry about next year. I attended technically five events this weekend: Elisa Q&A, Trigger autographs Saturday, Elisa concert and the post-concert autograph & photo event. Elisa’s pics are all very much on Facebook, including our silly group shot. Other than her new song from Expelled from Paradise, there wasn’t anything new from her Sakuracon set.
But what’s different is that she’s way more personable this time than last, really laying in thick in the questions and what not. Gotta give her props!
The trigger guys are what you’d expect. Wakabayashi and Koyama are such bros. Sushio is like little bro. Anyway, it was a lot of fun with those guys as always.
I was suppose to do a few other things, but RL stuff got in the way. So much for a $70 badge.
Aside from that, I did another backyard grilling thing and people came and hung out. It was nice to see everybody and I hope I get to do it again. With the move to AC though, it’s unlikely possible to repeat that. Anyway, this marks yet another anime con where I offkai’d pretty hard. And all it took was a trip to Costco, really, among help from Eggtart M@ster and a few backstage ninjas. The home field advantage is for real.
PS. No food pics–since it is weird to photograph my regular digs. New Brunswick college hangout spot Stuff Yer Face is probably the highlight, since I only go there once every other blue moon. I rounded out the weekend with a whole #5 from Tastee’s. That, and copious amount of Chinese food. Go to Tastee’s to see Mr. Obama’s John Hancock. Save the Fat Sandwiches for silly con Q&A panels. Have a true neutral classic Jersey hoagie there.
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