Author: Omni

Here’s a rundown of how my weekend (well, Friday & Saturday) at AWA 11 went:

Friday:
Didn’t arrive at the Cobb Galleria until late, and registration took a good 45 minutes. I am never pre-registering again, since the walk-in registration line moved several times faster as the pre-reg line and was about 1/3 as long. Since the dealer’s room was closed by the time I was done registering, I pretty much walked around with my friends admiring various costumes, and then went home.

Saturday:
Got to the convention around 3:30PM, and spent the next hour in the Dealer’s Room. The only things I bought were Nana volumes 10 through 13 from the Sasuga vendor. I tried to pay him in yen (I happen to be carrying around 2000 yen in my pocket from when I passed through Narita a year ago), but he wouldn’t take it. The Dealer’s Room itself had the usual array of merchants, though it felt like there were less weapons vendors than last year (not that I was looking for one). Spent a little time perusing the artwork at the Art Auction and the Cosplay Gallery. I also spent a few minutes in one of the video rooms and watched some 10 minutes of Appleseed (which I still haven’t seen all of). After dinner, we returned to catch the last 15 minutes of the Yoko Ishida concert. By that time, she was doing Para Para Dance stuff and getting the audience to join in.

Of course the main attraction of the night was the Costume Contest. I find cosplay a good indicator of what regional audiences are currently watching/interested in. I didn’t bring my camera though, so you’ll have to rely on A Fan’s View for pictures.

Granted, this wasn’t a huge con like Anime Expo, so the costumes didn’t really offer much from recent seasons. It felt a lot like this was the watches-Cartoon-Network crowd, which is pretty understandable especially since its headquartered right here in Atlanta.

Overall I had a pretty good time. The only thing I regret not doing was going to the video rooms on Friday and seeing whose subs they were showing for unlicensed series like SHUFFLE!, GSD, Tsubasa Chronicle, FMP! TSR, etc.

As the final post of a marathon of blogging, I just wanted to inform everyone that I’m going to be at Anime Weekend Atlanta tomorrow and Saturday (well, it’s already tomorrow). I had a blast there last year and am very much looking forward to going again this year. Getting to see the cosplay contest alone makes admission worth it.
What does this mean for blogging? Tomorrow’s Zettai Shounen will probably be really late (not that too many of you care). You can still expect a Gundam SEED Destiny post on Saturday morning, though it might be a tad rushed. DCSS will not be done until very late Saturday night (if not Sunday), and odds are someone else will have to provide the raw this week (I can’t believe I’ve managed to do it for the past 12 weeks).