ACen 2006: Aftermath

Acen was fun this year, and aside from being extraordinarily tired, I’m none too worse for the wear. I have about two and a half hours of film to go through and encode, as well as a couple interviews with some interesting folks from Artist Alley.

Unfortunately there were some issues this year I didn’t enjoy. I’ll begin by first noting the planning folks had to contend with the amazing Acen 2005 experience, which was very hard to top. For the first year I’ve gone, there was no Con Suite. The elevators have me convinced they were built by blind drunk carnies, as once again, many broke down for the duration of the convention. The schedule? Posted a mere three days before the convention, and even then, contained glaring mistakes and complete omissions. The video rooms? Mediocre and cramped. And for the first time I recall, a prom and a wedding took place in the same area of the hotel as the convention. The date and venue has been the same for years, so how did such scheduling conflicts occur? They reserved way too much room for Artist Alley; there were three empty rows of exhibition tables in that area of the con.

What was good about the con? The video gaming room: lots of variety, and they had an on-site staff devoted to repairing broken machines. Anime Hell was as always, hilarious. Being a little drunk, I found Here Comes Dr. Tran dangerously funny; I was literally in pain from laughing by the time it was over. I also enjoyed the anime music video awards. The video that won the award for drama featured Saikano, which looks mighty interesting. I found out that one of my favorite manga, Battle Angel Alita has a sequel I didn’t know about, meaning purchase was required. I guess that’s what I get for assuming the series had been concluded. I don’t know how I managed to only buy one set of manga while I was in the dealer room.

Now I get to spend a couple days figuring out good video editing software and putting all the good video clips and pictures online. I also spoke with one of the artists in Artist Alley and plan on getting a charcoal done for the cover of the online book I will be starting once I finish writing up Anime Central 2006. Maybe when I catch up on my sleep, things will go more smoothly. Now excuse my while I look for Saikano on DVD.

Until Tomorrow