 Report by: MappymanThe con began with a long 10-hour drive over a span from Montgomery to Erlanger. On the way Shawn and I picked up my friend Dogbert. We partied at his house most of the night... well the Entire night actually where we played DDR, hung out at the mall and just pretty much wore ourselves out.The next morning Dogbert and I were still awake playing DDR, but we had to go. Long long trip ahead of us... but after 8 hours drive, we had made it: SugoiCon The hotel was nice. the lobby was very large and had a fountain right in the center. The rooms of the con were all branched off from the lobby so pretty much everything was in plain view which made everything easily accessable. Well much like every con, one of the most exiting thigs to look forward to was.... The Dealers room. at first the dealers room seemed kinda....desereted. well i went in as SOON as it had opened but there werent enough dealers at the time so it wasnt "ready yet" really. it was nicely laid out. the tables were across the wall with the center attraction being the representatives from Anime Central (who for some reason i confused with the fansub group Central Anime... go figure i guess). Prices were very reasonable. Especially plushies. i couldnt help but get one of my favorite characters from Puyo Puyo...Suketoudara the FishGuy!!! A cel collection had a few ranmas and other animes but once i saw a very very rare 80s anime i had to buy it. It was from Sea Prince & The Fire Child. one of my all time classic anime favorites Dealers room i Bought: Ai Candy art book autographed by Robert DeJesus. I talked with Bob for a bit about how much i really like his character Banzai Chibi Chan in PSM and how i subscribed to it mainly because of his amazing artwork. Bob and Steve Bennett are actually planning to team up and and make a joint comic called "A Whole Lotta BS". very cool! Love Touch Dojinshi by Akira. I never go to an anime con without getting Something of the adult material, but this time i had an excuse!! One of the artists who draws Dojinshi was there and she was autographing her comics so i just had to capture this rare opportunity. When signing it i really debated on whether she should put my real name or alias, but she was looking at my con badge wondering what to put so i simply told her Scott would be fine. a shame Manga never increases in value because an autographed Dojinshi should be priced pretty well. I still wonder if Japanese artists/animators prefer their fans to thank them in English or in Japanese. ive gotten the same reaction thanking them in both languages. *shrug* Suketoudara Fish Guy Puyo Puyo plushie I woulda gotten Arle, Coffee, and Jelly if i had gotten to the dealers room before it closed Saturday. they had several other really cool UFO Catcher Dolls and figurines. Even a Yakkuru elk from Mononoke Hime! Sea Prince & The Fire Child original cel! While digging through a few miscellaneous cels i stumbled on one from Sea Prince and The Fire Child. Amazing considering how rare it was. it looked like it had two of them! so after bottling up all the courage i had, i spent $70 on a cel. i figured ive Never seen any merchandise on this amazing movie and i wont ever see much anywhere else so i bought it. turns out the cel behind it was $80 and wasnt nearly as good of a picture but still, had it been a little cheaper i would have bought that as well. Dave Merill, president of AnimeWeekendAtlanta was there and asked me "Do you know what Anime thats from?" Of course i do! i love 80s anime! its good to know Dave is just as big if not one of the biggest 70s & 80s Anime fans like myself. he actually remembered Unico too! Its just too bad he never got to see my Toby costume... The CDs were retail prices so i nixed getting any of those. Where did all of the SM & Ever Anime dealers go to? arrrgh! The next day the CDs dropped to a 20% discount. tempting, but nonetheless... its not SM so itd still cost me more than $10. there was a really sweet 2 CD Initial D compilation of remixed songs i wanted too. too bad it was a hefty $50 and even with the discount...too much for me to afford. got to speak with kevin lillard of fansview.com. turns out hes a big fan of the old version ThumbsPlus program like me. (ThumbsPlus is a picture editor downloadable from thumbsplus.com) said the newer ones are a lot harder to use than new ones. kevin also told me the reason he couldnt attend the dragoncons are because theres usually an anime convention going on at the same time, or near when it takes place. I sat through a few video rooms at this con. X Movie was finally dubbed so i wanted to see how it came out. Yuck, very poor. they left the wonderful soundtrack intact, but voices were horrid! not to mention the dialogue was changed...nay..."dumbed up" somewhat. What really bothered me was at the ending some group of girls were laughing their heads off about something and its NOT a comedy! Fuma! Fuma is dead and you're laughing? thats soooo uncool. Street Fighter Zero was playing dubbed as well and im not going to even bother mentioning how badly dubbed that was. Lets just say it makes DBZ seem like a shining gem of dubbed anime. A shame since i just loved the anime style so much that the voices just ruin it. Corn Pone played sooo much late Friday nite! They played their anime parodies, live action, and movie previews. it was SO funny, all of us were just falling out of our chairs laughing. One of the best segments was the parodies showing just how BAD Americans dub some anime, like line changes, stupid quotes and horrible censorship. it was just too hilarious! Little Vash! oh man, while heading out to the parking lot i saw this boy costumed as vash yet he didnt have the yellow glasses. i just HAD to help him on this because his costume was so great. My glasses were perfect yellow to complete his Vash costume and he was so exited i was going to let him borrow them for the con. i told him he could wear them all day if he wanted to because id be in another costume anyway and they suited him SO well! Karaoke was held in the large panel room. not a major attraction but it a had a decent audience. Mike Corbit was going to sing Captain Jack i figured id join him since i knew the song as was in my Rage DDR costume anyway. as part of his act he threw down the dance pads at the beginning of the song and danced on them during it. its was great! A Large gundam group all joined together to sing Just Communication (but only like 2 of the 20 people actually knew lyrics), and Jenny sang the last song of the night "Fly Me To The Moon". she only knew the first chorus so it was funny seeing how she told them to quickly "Cut Cut!!" before the rest of the song played. the video game room was cramped but had a good selection. 8-7 27'inch monitors (one was broken). 2 Playstation 2s, dreamcast and Ps1. games included- Dead Or Alive 2, Armored Core 2, Gradius III & IV, Tech Romancer, Guilty Gear, Destrega, Marvel Vs Capcom 2, Jet Set Radio, Real Robots Final Attack, Capcom Vs SNK, and for a limited time only; Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix! With all the equipment and only so much space the room had very little walking space but they had chairs and tables lined up nicely so things fit fairly well when it wasnt too crowded. Smoking. Jah, and for some reason the hotel allowed indoor smoking. Kentucky rules i suppose but this crowd of smokers hung out right in front of the video & delaers rooms and that just bothered me. i mean the weather wasnt That cold that they couldnt have stepped out for a smoke for just a few minutes. oh well ConSuite. well, very small, very simple, and once again....very Free! Cold cuts, peanut butter & jelly. the minor amount of food, yet satisfying. i finally got to see the Jet Set/Grind Radio commercial there too, yay! as SOON as i went to the dealers room in that costume (i kid you not man) 8 people taking pics. a few knew that i was from Unico, and others just really liked the costumes design. Cosplay was SO well organized, but a bit different than other cons. there was no stage, no skits, no whobajoob about whos who and whats what. Saturday morning you sign up to be in it. You write how many people in your group, your costume, the Anime its from, and any other details about the costume. Later that day they made an announcement that anyone...including people who didnt sign up to gather in costume in the main lobby. Dance. ok well the DJ Failed...poorly. for some reason he wanted to play "Just Communication" over and over because its popular. ugh. oh well he DID play my Best Of Napster CD which had the Neverending Story Remix which I really like & BubbleMan Fuxing Hardcore Mix which got Dogbert and i grundging around like Jay & Silent Bob. It was wicked! The Chibi Duo Maxwell girl suddenly donned these Knee High boots and mini skirt and she could Rave! Yowza, she looked hot (literally!) and i just had to give her my other pair of glowsticks so we could both stand out in the crowd. The DDR and other game tournaments were great! They played the games on a projected screen used for Anime Videos so the resolution was really good and sound came out of the speakers. Marvel Vs Capcom 2 was really really cool to watch. the people had all the moves combo'd perfectly and it was always a close match. one guy came back from a big loss with Amingo (which ive Never seen anyone play his character as well) and put the match to a last desperation type win. the matches were really great to see the best of the best play. Then came the DDR tournament. It came down to myself, Jill Valentine (who costumed as
Faye Valentine the day of the tourny), John (Y2KJ!) and the DDR "God", Ed. All
of us did fairly well the first round. taking it easy with more freestyle than trying for
points, but then came round 2! thats when there was no holding back. try your best of the
hard songs to keep in the running. I tried my best songs, but since i slipped up on a few
i went for the really challenging song on a higher difficulty; Another Mode. I
failed...pretty bad too. -=Side Notez=-Desperately Seeking Agent Orangea sort of side-mission on my part i thought id add to the review as it was a part of my con experience. long story short; i LOVE Seanbaby.com, and any way of interacting with it is such a thrill for me. hdjjewboy is one of his biggest fans and is active on his site a lot not to mention has a few cool sites of his own. One of hdjjewboy's friends was attending the con; his name...is Agent Orange. after sending me a pic of him i noticed someone who had a strikingly similar resemblance to Agent Orange. not only that but when he saw me wearing my seanbaby.com shirt he gave me a look. it HAD to be him. i pestered the guy asking all about who he was and if he knew what seanbaby or who hdjjewboy was, but he just denyed everything. turns out he was just the run-of-the-mill fanboy; Jeremy *** (something or other, who cares really ^_^). well anyway i think myself and friends all gave him something to definitely remember as i called him Agent Orange for the rest of the con, and got a picture with him as if he were a big celebrity. Not until the next day in the game room did i meet the Real Agent Orange who looked identical to the other guy... aside from the chin pierce. Agent Orange was so cool, it turns out he runs a video game site and is good friends with hdjjewboy. Ah, well theres my pointless story. Quotes:"ddr survivor!" Mike and John's idea"Take a DUMP" ~Mike (Describing someone falling down) Jennys sneeze! Beefy Tasuki Etard Rolloids "Where is the flag? It is a mystery..." ~Mike, descibing his refrence to fatchicksinpartyhats idea of "HideTheFlag" game where he shoots off his enemies while hiding out in a high tower lookout using the Miguel quote. "Wassssup?!" "Not much, kickin some ass" "Ok, the next person to say whazzzup, DIES" "Hey Vegita, Wassssup?!" "Who IS that guy who posted the thing on the COSP ML about starting a Mascarade Band?" "Hes my hero!" ~Mike "I'm not inPOPsicated!" ~Susie "ALPO smile" ~Dogbert John, Mike, Kris, Jason, Scott, and Jahmal Velcro Head! Chibi Steve Bennett doesn't get any cheeze! "Nola!!!" ~Elfeater "Can I Pounce you!?"~Ranma Chan "SugoiCon shoulda been KawaiiCon all the little kids who cosplayed were just so Precious" |
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