And now back to your regularly scheduled waiting for Dark_Sage to post something relevant~

 

Saturday

12:00 Noms

It ain’t a con without eggs bennies, so Soup and I hit up The Delectable Egg for breakfast.

 

1:00 Cowboy Bebop w/Shinichiro Watanabe & Dai Sato

What a fucking panel. Watanabe and Sato spent the entire thing blatantly discussing how little they gave a fuck about Bebop at this point and constantly referencing weed being legal in Colorado.

Actual Watanabe quotes, mostly for the Bebop kids who can’t seem to let it fucking go:

“Bebop was so long ago, we’ve forgotten about most of it.”

“Don’t be disappointed if I start talking about Ghost in the Shell even though I didn’t work on it.”

“We’re doing this panel primarily because we were asked to.”

“Please feel free to ask any questions about other things we’ve worked on.”

By the time it got to q&a, the panel was over because somehow they were only scheduled for a one-hour timeslot. Watanabe and Sato were confused as fuck when told they had to clear out for the next panel to start. Maybe give your guests more than an hour to talk next time, NDK-kun?

 

2:00 AMV Contest

NDK gives Sakuracon a run for its money with how much the congoers care about AMVs, which I can appreciate.

 

As far as AMV Contests go, uhh, this was definitely an AMV Contest.

 

My Best of Show pick:

Feldzug M.O.E. (Shit can’t be posted cuz ceddic ain’t uploading it till September 18th.)

 

Other good ones:

Stinger, by Copycat_Revolver [Burn it Down, Awolnation – Monogatari]

We Fall, by WhiteDex [The Fall, Seven Lions – Kyoukai no Kanata]

Sanctuary, by SliceofLife [Various]

Blithe and Bonny, by Unlucky Artist [No Sass, Photay – KyoAni]

…I really like AMVs.

 

6:00 Grimaldi’s

Come pizza choice paralysis time, Soup and I came up with the incredible idea of just throwing everything we thought would be good on it. And so came this monstrosity:

Jalapeños, sun-dried tomatoes, oven-roasted sweet red peppers, and double bacon, all on a pesto sauce. Epicureans, you can see where this is going.

Can’t say I regret ordering it, but I have a feeling this kinda food is one of the abominations Sunday School warned me about.

 

7:00 Drank and watched power metal AMVs

 

9:00 The Laws & History of Hentai

Being the only 18+ panel of the night, we were way more hyped than we should have been. Oh god, we should have known.

Everything about the panelists was wrong. I could write an article about the horrors I witnessed, but let me just leave you with some quotes I was able to transcribe:

• “All doujinshi is licensed”
• “I just learned what cunnilingus is last week, when I was researching content for this panel”
• “The most commonly known example of eroge is Huniepop”

Also, there were no actual porn images — just text/SFW bullshit, and the head panelist mentioned she was triggered by half of what she found online. Ditched pretty quickly.

 

9:15 Why can’t Saturday be Friday?

Unable to bear the horrors of virgin trailer trash any longer, we went back to the Palace for rave prep.

And by that I mean finishing off our handle of bourbon.

 

11:00 Raves & Bitemarks

 

Midnaito

There is at no point which I will be down enough to anirave for more than an hour. Shout out to chirpy birds for giving me way more range than anyone on the dance floor, at least.

Soup, somehow, lasted till 2:30. Don’t know how that kid does it, but I suspect the alcohol may play a part.

 

 

 

Sunday

12:00 5280 Burger Bar

It was a pretty good burger.

 

1:00 A Fan’s Guide to Tokyo

Soup was pumped as fuck about this shit. Me-sama? Not so much.

As I have negative interest in going to Japan, I whiled away my time by counting when weebs said stupid shit.

• “Can I rent a mobility scooter in Japan to get around?”
• “What are some cool spots to hang with the locals if I don’t know any Japanese?”
• “Can you recommend how to see everything in Tokyo while being on a budget?”

After the first five minutes, I couldn’t transcribe any more. Maybe there’s something to be said for having shame.

 

2:00 More Watanabe/Sato

The no-fucks fiesta continues. This time with q&a. (A=Audience Member, W=Watanabe, S=Sato)

A: “You mentioned yesterday that you wanted to talk about Ghost in the Shell. Could you expand upon how it personally affected you?”

W: “That was a joke.”

 

A: “The Spore Planet episode in Space Dandy… like, I was high when I watched it and I still didn’t get it.”

W: “I believe the story was accessible, maybe you need more chemical aid to get it.”

 

W: “Champloo doesn’t have TVs, so our story is way more accurate than Gintama.”

 

W: “I noticed a couple stories we worked on together seem to draw heavily from Run, Melos!. Care to comment, Sato-san?”

S: “Well, I mean it’s probably getting close to public domain by now…”

Panel was again only scheduled for an hour, held in the same 60-person-capacity room Watanabe & Sato were in on Saturday. Guess “Anime Improv”, “Taiko With Toni”, and “The Anime Dating Game” were just that more deserving of being on the Main Events stage.

 

3:00 AMV Contest Winners

Mainly went so we had an excuse to sit for an hour. Winners were about as panderhard as expected so I’m not even gonna give them the dignity of a report here.

 

4:30 The Ethics of Death Note

Mistakes were made. Should’ve just called it a con after the AMV Winners.

 

5:30 “Pavano sounds fancy, let’s go there”

The entrees were okay, but if you’re in town with a pal, splitting a flatbread app and each getting a Caesar salad would do you perfectly. Next time.

 

8:00 Back to the hotel to write, for you <3

 

 

Yes/No?

The Good

• Line management
  • Not only were there designated line spots, the staff also handed out cards so people couldn’t cut
    • 
• AMVs, sort of
  • I liked how pumped the attendees were for AMVs, but the event managers had clearly given up on anime 10 years ago with the kinda shit they let into the contest
    • Some guy actually put in an entry where it was just his ugly stoner mug superimposed on bad anime and it fucking won Judge’s Choice
  • Ballots were cool tho
    • 
• Love Live Dancing
  • Learning how to Love Live was fun as fuck

 

 

The Bad

• Packing everything into the basement of a hotel limits attendee options considerably
• If you’re gonna fly in guests from Japan maybe you should fucking give them more than two 1-hour, capped-attendance panels
• This kid
  • tl;dr: Offered to hang with a random on Twitter out of the infinite goodness of my sagey heart, dude bails to hit on a chick, then gives up on 3D forever. Ditch the bros, you gonna get hosed. Lesson fucking learned, huh?

 

 

The Rec:

If NDK is convenient for you to get to, it’s worth a visit. Shit’s in (sort of) downtown Denver, so even if you get bored there are options available.

Still, don’t go out of your way until they do something to pump attendance up, like a venue change or simply further expansion into the Sheraton. Con felt in desperate need of ~more~.

 

tl;dr: Would be willing to go again, but would not go out of my way for it.