Yukan Blog! » Conventions

Game On: Report from an Exhibition

newgeekphilosopher — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 12:28:58 +0000

It’s like Timezone only old school! 0_0

I couldn’t take any pictures myself because of copyright issues with the games at the Game On exhibition, so here’s some Google impressions of what the exhibition looks like.

Here is Donkey Kong and Galaxian. I love Galaxian and play it often, whereas I recall spending hours completing the Donkey Kong game in order to progress in Donkey Kong 64. There were plenty of old arcade games like this in the Game On exhibition as the exhibition is a showcase of the history and future of video gaming. I got to play on a few of these but didn’t get a very high score. Discs of Tron was another game I tried, and I found it entertaining but somewhat overrated. It’s like a throwing disc game where you generally have to hit the other guy off the platform, but you have to make sure you don’t get knocked off yourself.

This exhibition reminds me how annoying old arcade games used to be as I played them when I was a kid exploring the back of Timezone, because sometimes people would leave a game unattended in the middle of a game without finishing their game! Who does that? Clearly people at the Game On exhibition do, because there were plenty of paused games on consoles like the PS2 (Odin Sphere was an example of an abandoned and lonely game, as was the Dreamcast Tennis game). The Dreamcast looked so lonely and neglected, crying out for love. But it was playing a crappy tennis game so it got none. T_T

Oh Sega Dreamcast, you always did lose out…

While I was at the Game On exhibition I tagged along with a Romanian guy who was one of my brother’s dorm buddies. He has the biggest crush on Kasumi (the girl in blue in the middle) from Dead or Alive, so naturally he always plays as her when he plays Dead or Alive Ultimate. Even though he was getting his arse handed to him by his brother who was visiting from Romania, he insisted that Kasumi was awesome. Still, she has less dignity than Chun-Li from Street Fighter II Turbo, which I had a go at playing as Chun-Li with my brother who was playing as Ryu. My brother handed my arse back to me too, but not only that, he called Chun-Li a slut just to knock me off my SNAG guard.

I mean how is Chun-Li a slut compared to Kasumi from Dead or Alive? Chun-Li has dignity, and is awesome without having to expose too much chest.

I got the chance to play a real Game and Watch instead of just my newly acquired second hand copy of Game and Watch Gallery Advance. Sadly to say, Game and Watch Gallery Advance makes the Game and Watch games a hell of a lot easier to play than the original format. Donkey Kong on Game and Watch is a pile of donkey doo, at least on the original version. The presentation of the handheld in the exhibition was poorly lit because most of the playable handhelds featured were backlit, like the DS Lite, PSP and Game Boy Advance SP. The Game and Watch was left to rot in the dark by comparison, and I might have been able to play the damn thing had I better lighting.

I played some Final Fantasy VII, only to find that the graphics suck. Boy do the graphics suck, the story is great, but boy do these graphics suck. I mean look at the guy on the left’s arms, he looks like he has Elephantiasis or something.

After a round of Doom on an authentic Windows 95 PC, me, my brother and his dorm buddies decided to wrap it up with a try at the Steel Battalion mecha simulator. It was all your Gundam nightmares come true!

Who the hell can control 40 buttons? You’d need to be a hentai tentacle monster to play this!

Well that’s it for my Game On exhibition coverage, hope you enjoyed it. The exhibition was held at the State Library of Queensland and you can see it until February next year.

Manifest ‘08, Saturday

blissmo — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:57:29 +0000

This was my first time ever to an anime convention, so I was pretty hyped up about it that I could barely get any sleep the previous night. I tried to wake up early for this special event the next morning, but slept in an extra hour and got ready by 8 am before gathering at the station. I went with 7 freaks (no midnightrose—-only if I could show you a picture of her) to Melbourne University, and because we had no idea where we were really going, we stalked a couple of cosplayers dressed as a fox and a duck.

Basically …

I was a bit disappointed about Manifest, but I suppose that was because I had a very limited time to hang around since it was my friend’s birthday, so we kind of had to do her thing, which involves no anime whatsoever. I didn’t attend any of the special events or watch any previews—-Australia’s probably the only country that receives the latest things last. Hopefully I’ll be able to venture around Manifest more next year and actually bring some cash along. I saw a few people cosplaying as Naruto, but couldn’t really tell if they were Narutards. No one asked them for a photo—-not that I saw anyway—-so I didn’t either. I have a reputation to protect. Sadly, I didn’t see any bloggers. I mean, I wouldn’t want to meet with me either, unless I’m desperate enough to want a neck pain for the rest of the day from looking down for too long (ha-ha). I’m not actually in any of the photos because in possibly every photo I’ve been in, I’ve either blinked, my eyes are half-open, I’m looking elsewhere, or I’m smiling in this freakish way.

10:00-11:30

We arrived at 10 am and got lost for about twenty minutes. We tried reading a map, but we couldn’t figure out what all the numbers meant. At last we found the never-ending line but then this guy just came up and randomly decided to hug my friend, who was dressed as Mario. There were thousands of really good cosplayers so it made some of us, who weren’t cosplaying, look like the outcasts instead. When we finally found our guardian, who clearly had no interest in anime (he found refuge in his phone for the whole day), we did what anyone else would have done: we cut in the line. Even so, for one hour and another bloody half we waited in a long queue while some of us wandered off to take photos. Only a few minutes had passed and I was already faced with an issue: my nerves got to me. You know, with me being short and all, I don’t really have a loud voice so I tried sign-language: I just stared at a particular cosplayer from a distance until they took notice in me. That continued for a while until my friend started asking for me, which was probably really strange because I was the one holding the camera.

11:30-2:15

Okay, so we had to ask someone for directions for where we should go next until we found ourselves in this really cramped room where you get to buy … stuff. I didn’t have any money on me except 10 dollars so I brought a small Nagato figurine for 8 bucks and saved the rest for charity. I saw loads of adorable plushies and wanted a few, especially the Yoshi and colourful mushrooms, but I decided to screw it, go home and make my own (which I never got around to doing, by the way). When it was my second time around the area, someone kept poking me on the shoulder, and I was certain that the suspect knew me, but when I saw the back of his head, I couldn’t tell who it was. After shopping for a bit more, we went outside again and took heaps more photos. I only wanted to take pictures of the professional cosplayers, so that’s exactly what I did. I stumbled across midnightrose a few times, who was wearing a kimono or yukata (is there a difference?) on that day. Very pretty indeed, but she’ll kick me to death if I upload an image of her. Anyway, my friend wanted to meet some guy from the JPOP radio show in Melbourne, and when she did, believe me was the silence really awkward. Man, I live for these moments.

2:15-5:00

I had to get home before 5 or else I was in deep shit. Anyway, the guy who had been poking me turned out to be a family friend. Although the day doesn’t sound really thrilling, it was fun and I saw a lot of people who I thought would never be interested in anime. The costumes were really good, but my favourite one is the two guys dressed as characters from Final Fantasy. Everyone seemed nice, but my friend said people were calling her the slutty version of Mario for the entire day. My other friend got pissed because she unintentionally bough three Ulquiorra keyrings when she wanted an Ichigo one (she gambled with one of those toy machines). She also lost her ID card, so that just made everything worse. Eventually, she got over it, except the guy in charge of organising the cosplaying competition was really pissed and kept shouting at people. Sometimes when we asked for a photo, the cosplayers looked reluctant. Sigh. Maybe we were just too cool for them?

Apologies for not linking these images to a larger size, but I was too lazy to.

A-Kon 19: Dallas’ Best!

JLeeson — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 04:33:12 +0000

Sadaharu is too cute for you not to read this.

I had the pleasure of getting to go to my first ever anime convention today; a 35 dollar pleasure. The annual Dallas A-Kon event took place May 30th (yesterday) and May 31th (today) and will end end June 1st (tomorrow). I won’t deny that people from all over the country probably came to this thing since it’s popularity was high enough to have people from different conventions in other places handing out fliers for events that would start next year.

I must admit that this event was nothing more than a glorified anime market. This may sound like a bad thing, but it totally isn’t. When I was in Ireland I was overjoyed to find an anime stand hidden in a back street market in Dublin, but this was like that stand X1000. I near crapped myself! The event snuck up on me because, on a whim, I checked the A-Kon Website last night (er, this morning at 1) and saw that it was starting at 8 am. So I suppressed my excitement and willed myself to sleep. At 9:30 am, I woke up and realized that I didn’t have anybody to go with, so I called up berkles and had him meet me there. I knew that it was too late to get an outfit. I could have sworn that the A-Kon was the following weekend, but since I was was wrong I knew I wouldn’t get to go as Luffy. So, fortunately enough, ya’ll won’t get to see me in cosplay.

I arrived ahead of him, waited in line for the longest time, and purchased both our tickets so I didn’t have to wait on him waiting in line (he paid me back of course). During this time in line and separate from anyone that I knew, I saw many cosplayers and rubbed shoulders with strangers in Bleach shinigami outfits. I must say that I hate being close to strangers, I don’t deal well with them, but when a tall black mad clad in Ichigo Bankai is standing behind you with a released Zanpakuto you just can’t help but feel at home. I got through the long line and was surprised to catch a glimpse of Death the Kid, a moderately attractive Yoko, and the most beatiful Eureka I have ever seen. If I could have claimed anyone as a soul mate it would have been this Coralian cutey. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of these three and some others because I was either in line, the costume wasn’t good enough, I didn’t like the show, or I was too nervous to approach them.

Elizabeth from Gintama

Probably one of the most shocking cosplays that I saw was this Elizabeth. I was confused as to how the person made this costume but more so impressed that somebody other than me is awesome enough to watch Gintama. Berkles turned to me later and agreed that the Elizabeth cosplay was the coolest thing by far. (That was before he found a model kit of Aznable Char’s “Red Comet” Zaku.) He did point out that he was pretty sure that there was a Katsura with the Elizabeth, but since I didn’t notice I can only assume that the costume sucked. The entire time I was staring at her, I wondered whether the cosplayer had hairy legs. (lol, Elizabeth joke!)

Mitsukuni Haninozuka from Ouran High School Host Club

Yes, I’m aware that this is a girl, but this was the only Host Club member I saw. I recognized the jacket and almost had to pinch myself and ask ‘Is that Ouran High School Host Club?” At first I thought that this was Suou, but when she handed her handful of purchases to her friend so that she could take the picture, she held on to the bunny. I immediately was so excited that I had grabbed a Honey-sempai out of the gaggle of people. I could care less that this is a girl. Ouran High School Host Club was awesome and Honey was my favorite of all time. I just had to get a picture of Honey because I knew blizzy would be overjoyed. I sure hope she is. This cosplayer is adorable!

Maka from Soul Eater

Yes, It’s Maka. I mentioned that I saw Death the Kid (he was like 10 years old). I let Kid slip away so I was not going to let Maka get through my fingers. I wasn’t a big fan of the wig, but the scythe sure made up for it. That is a pretty accurate lookin’ Soul in scythe form if you ask me. I should have asked questions of these people like “Omfg! Did did you make that scythe?” or “You wanna Resonate with me?” I’m a fool for having let these opportunities pass.

All in all, that Soul Eater is a great anime; therefore, great cosplay! Since I am co-blogging the anime with blissmo I felt obligated to take a picture of her for you all. I kind of place ownership over her.

San from Princess Mononoke

This picture was a must. A classic Miyazaki film, my favorite anime movie of all times, and one of the first animes that got me interested. I first saw this movie in theaters with my dad and brother actually. They aren’t really into anime as much as they used to, but when I showed my dad the shot he recognized it and said “Mononoke!”

That wolf with her had a guy in it. I could tell he was getting hot, but anytime a person with camera in hand came up to the two of them, she’d slam his wolf head down over his human face and get into a Mononoke pose. She was very into her character down to the eyes.

These are just the people that I took pictures of. Sorry that I didn’t get one of C.C. or Zero, but they both had an entourage. All the Lights and L’s traveled in groups most of the time too, so I was not about to challenge a chocolate eating super detective or a mass murdering Death Note user with my puny camera.

Of course, I didn’t go home empty handed. I bought the Sadaharu plushy (Gintama) that you see in the post header, an Ayanami Rei nurse figure (Neon Genesis Evangelion), a Konata chibi (Lucky ☆ Star), and a Euphemia / Zero / Kaguya doujin (Code Geass – Hangyaku no Lelouch). I was pretty please in the end, except the guy at the doujin stand cheated me out. He acted like he was an expert on hentai and such, commenting on how certain models were superior to others due to perfected shape of boobs, but when it came down to it he sells me an untranslated and censored doujin. He lied to be about being a Britanian fan. I got my ID out and suffered public embarrassment around weeaboos only to get cheated out of my money. Oh well, I’m still slightly proud of my very first doujin.

So, a great experience and 107 dollars later, here I am writing up what I can only say was a great day for an anime geek. I wanted to tell you all about my fun time and hopefully ya’ll can tell me about a convention you might have gone too.