Anime Central 2008
5/28/2008
Acen was, for lack of a better word, amazing. After the let-down of Sakuracon, I really wanted a laid-back, fun time with friends and, thankfully, I got just that. I got to spend time with people who I rarely see and wear low-maintenance costumes – oh, and BEST IN SHOW? The convention started a couple days early this year. On Wednesday night, Krystal flew in from Seattle to distract me from my homework and pump me up for the con. We didn’t have a lot of time to hang out before Sakuracon when we weren’t sewing so it was nice to be together and not have to stress over unfinished costume pieces. We just lounged around, slept in late, and ate a ton of fatty, Chicago food. I took it upon myself to ensure that we ate pizza as much as possible…and we did. We finished up last-minute things for the con and Joe joined us mid-day on Thursday for lunch at Chipotle and cake shakes at Portillos. Joe, Krystal, and I took the train to the convention center to try to pick up a badge for Krystal but we failed. Afterward, we went back to my apartment so Joe and I could finish No-Face and Krystal could finish her Winry shoes. Around 10, we took the train out to the airport to pick up Kayla and Mandy and ended up getting there a little late. Either way I was very happy to see them! It was bizarre having Krystal, Kayla, and Mandy all here at one time – I never thought they’d come out here for a con and especially not together! Everyone was hungry so we went to a late-night diner by my apartment and went back to my place sometime around 1AM. When we got back, I worked on No-Face as much as I could but didn’t want to pull a Sakuracon part 2 so I gave up and called it a night when I got frustrated. Who would have known that NO-FACE would cause me grief? On Friday, we took the train to the con around 1. We got to the con and walked around for a while so the girls could familiarize themselves with the hotel. We ended up walking to McDonalds where we ate and made some plans about what we were going to do for the rest of the day. We went back to the con where we slipped past security and made it to the FMA voice actor panel. I have become a bit disenchanted with the possibility of meeting FMA voice actors but I have to admit that having the Vas for Ed, Al, Winry, Roy, and Lust all in one room was pretty awesome. I was also happy to see that Vic remembered me again! He waved to me during the panel when we walked in and it gave me flashbacks to Sakuracon the year before when I was absolutely dying to meet him. It’s crazy how things can change. After the panel, we met up with Joe and unloaded our stuff into the hotel room and got to see Megan and Courtney. We all changed into our other costumes - me, Kayla, and Mandy into Ouran and Krystal into Misa. It was REALLY fun being the twins with Kayla! We got a ton of attention which was bizarre because back when I cosplayed Ouran, no one cared! Anyway, we were complete hams and referred to Mandy as m’lord and it was awesome. We ran into Chris, Britt, Nana, Walter, Britt #2 and Jim at some point and it was really nice to see them all again! We ended up going back to the hotel room to eat and hang out around 10PM. There were some issues with Kayla’s room and she and Mandy ended up rooming with us. I finally finished up No-Face which I was unhappy with but I didn’t want to get too anal over a costume Joe would only wear once, you know? We all ate and hung out and were probably too loud but we had lots of fun! Saturday morning we woke up expecting continental breakfast which WE DID NOT GET. We were all very disappointed and a very angry Megan stormed down to the front desk, only to arrive back in the room 20 minutes later with a tray full of food. Have I mentioned how much I love her? As we were getting dressed, we stopped to watch a long, colorful parade of Indians walk past the hotel. This seems like irrelevant information but it was cool at the time. After that, we changed into Spirited Away and, after some construction issues with No-Face, we walked over to the hotel. Man, Joe was booking it in No-Face! He didn’t even have eye holes and he was walking faster than u s. At the hotel, we just hung out against various walls as to not get in anyone’s way. That wasn’t really a problem considering 65% of the attendees were in the registration line for the entire day. It was literally a little eerie being there in the morning when it was so empty! Anyway, Joe was amazing as No-Face and responded with “uh..” to everything we said. We got a lot of positive attention and No-Face’s harness managed to stay in one piece so it was smooth sailing. I found Heza, Rachel, Dani and Heather and got to catch up again with them for a little bit which was great! I’m sad I didn’t get to see your sweet baby, Heather! Anyway, Joe went back to the hotel at one point and the rest of us went to eat at the little restaurant under the dealer’s room. Afterward, Krystal and I had to change into our Light and L costumes and make it down to the green room. I have to say, the whole masquerade experience was REALLY enjoyable. The staff was VERY nice and everyone in the green room was in unusually good spirits. There was sweet 80s music playing and it was like a mini-dance party. The masquerade itself was really crazy – the craftsmanship contest was intense. I felt badly for people competing for craftsmanship because there were very few awards for SO many amazing costumes. Hopefully they’ll bring back judges awards next year. The skits varied from moderately entertaining to hilarious and there was nothing really terrible, thankfully. When it was our turn to go on stage, I was really nervous. The stage was set up in a way in which part of the audience could see backstage – meaning they would be able to see me before I went on stage. To fight this, I wore Joe’s No-Face costume to hide my identity and lurked backstage as Krystal went on. The reaction we got was AMAZING. I set up the skit in a particular way so that the audience would catch on to the Saw reference early on but they caught on from the VERY beginning and the whole first minute is just a wall of laughter. The middle was meant to be kind of a “filler” but everyone liked it anyway! The ending went as perfectly as it could have and I was so proud of how everything went! We got backstage and hung around, enjoying the other skits. When the judges announced the awards, I didn’t expect to win anything but was incredibly happy because of how well the skit went. In fact, after they announced the judges’ awards for skits, my heart stopped beating quite so hard because I figured that if we WERE to win an award, it would be thanks to one of the judges who like the Saw movies. Well, we didn’t win one. The MC went through the awards and stopped on Best Skit/Best in Show and I made a mental list of the skits that were still in the running for the award, completely forgetting to include my own. When the announcer said, “I think this is the way we all wish Death Note could have ended” my jaw DROPPED. I spun around to stare at Krystal and they announced our skit number and we both SCREAMED. I didn’t even realize that I still had the saw in my hand as we ran on stage to accept the award. I tried to play it cool like L and saunter on stage but it failed miserably when my hunch dissolved into a giddy, jumpy skip-hug with Krystal. When we got back to the green room, I slouched against the wall in the back and watched my knees shake. Krystal and I just kept staring at each other, repeating, “WE JUST WON BEST OF SHOW AT ACEN” quietly to ourselves and giggling ecstatically. I’m sorry to go into so much detail but I am VERY proud and I want to remember this moment because this only happens once. This is the first skit I have ever written and produced by myself and I still can’t believe how well it was received. The fact that my ridiculous idea could win Best in Show at ACEN is mind-blowing to me. Acen’s masquerade awards have always seemed unattainable to me and it’s a very big deal to me! Thank you to Zach, Dane, Chris, and Pat for helping me out with voices and audio - I obviously could not have done it without you guys. After the skit, we were greeted with really kind words of praise in the hallways and it was almost overwhelming. We got back to the room and were beaming for the rest of the night. I had to go to a shoot for Craig’s documentary and the girls were nice enough to come along. Afterward, we ate pizza and I talked with Kayla and Mandy out in the hallway for a while. One of the highlights of the night was when a foreign-sounding, snooty hotel worker marched through the hallways with IRT, complaining about the Acen guests. “I come up here and there are 6 or 7 of them sleeping in the hallway! They are here and HERE! What do you want me to do, kick them? It’s pissing me off!” The guy literally followed a group of people to their hotel room and said he had reason to believe they were smoking – when really he just wanted to make sure that there weren’t 10 people sleeping in one room. When he left, IRT half-heartedly scanned the hallways and when they walked past us I said I was sorry they had to deal with that douchebag. I think it was the first time I ever got along with Acen’s IRT. Afterward, we went back to the room and sat around for a while longer. “Hey guys, I’m Yuna!” Joe and Krystal went to bed but the rest of us stayed awake for easily one of the best parts of the convention – SHADOW PUPPETS. Megan, Kayla, Mandy, Courtney and I just sat by the window and made shadow puppets for a solid half hour and laughed until we cried. We eventually made it into bed around 4AM and woke up at 10 the next morning. Krystal and I wore our Bleach costumes and Kayla and Mandy changed into Ouran. We went back to the dealer’s room and shopped for a while where I finally got to stop and talk to Mel and Barbfor a while. And I finally said hello to Beverly whom I had seen many times but had never said a word to until then! Anyway, Kayla and Mandy bought some super cute piggies and Megan, Krystal and I walked back to the hotel to give the area one last sweep in our Bleach costumes. We ran into Tara who I had been looking for all weekend! She showed me her final photography project which turned out great and gave me a couple of prints of my own. Kevin was nice enough to take some photos of our Bleach costumes until we had to run back to the room to change and check out. The day ended when I changed back into Kaoru and Kayla and I got some more twinny pictures. Krystal had to head to the airport to catch her flight so I hugged her goodbye and wished her a good flight. I think I have been spoiled by seeing Kayla, Krystal, and Mandy twice in 2 months and it didn’t hit me until much later that I won’t be seeing them for over a YEAR. It’s crazy. Afterward, Joe, Kayla, Mandy, Megan and I went to Denny’s for a badly-needed meal. We then drove back to my apartment to change and wind down before we went to Portillos so Kayla and Mandy could have their share of cake-shakes. We then walked from Portillos to Buckingham Fountain so they could get a fair view of the city since it was their last night in town. We acted stupid (“1,2,3”) and laughed a lot and made it back to my apartment sometime around 11. For t he rest of the night we watched footage from the con, ate cookies and popcorn, played uno, and headed to bed sometime around 3AM. Unfortunately we had to wake up at 5:30AM to get to the airport so that probably wasn’t the best idea… I’m still a little thrown off physically (S L E E P) and am completely incapable of concentrating on anything but it is worth it. I am so thankful to have had such a good convention and am glad that my friends didn’t pay $400 to have it go to waste. TL;DR – I had an amazing time and I’m still on a post-con high. Thanks for the fun times, Acen.
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