animu fest 08

I'm finally blogging something that isn't a random thought or CoH.

I wish a couple of things: that I had gone for the first day and that I had a better camera. Actually my bro has a better camera, but I don't know how to use it properly and it isn't nice taking it without his permission or at short notice.

Narrowly avoided death by chicken nugget in the morning. On the way to Suntec, I dropped by the War Memorial Park and sat around a while, then moved off. Overland around that time is much calmer, more my kind of place than Citylink; only two other people in the park besides me, and they were taking photos.

There wasn't much of a ticketing queue around by the time I got to the hall, so I just picked mine up and walked in. The ticket was slightly reflective and I wondered how they were going to keep track of the pass holders who went in and out. I supposed it was a stamp-like thing, which was right. There were a couple of cosplayers hanging around, but not as many as later. A few I couldn't recognize, but I wasn't surprised since I don't consider myself into animu hardcore-like anyway. The place was smaller than I had imagined, but still pretty big and noisy still.

I was supposed to meet JY, but he didn't respond for the moment. Not that I didn't have anything to do on my own. I walked around the booths, took a look at KKnM, took a look at its queue, and went somewhere else. Had my eye on some figurines in the meantime, but couldn't decide whether to buy them or not. I don't like to spend money on a whim. There was a nice Shining Wind one, but it was $90, and I had $100 for everything including meals and the slightly shiny $5 red ticket. There was a figma Rin, which I would get later in the day, but of course I didn't know that at 10.32am. So I spent an hour browsing for would-be loot. Also walked through the Sky Crawlers and Genius Party sections. The planes thingy looked interesting, but I forgot to look it up at home. A few minutes was spent in front of the Toradora TV. There were some domo-kun shirts and some CDs at the far right end, near the prints, but I suddenly lost interest when I saw the Odex logo. There were figurines to be bought with the money in any case.

Found JY, or was found. Went and watched Melty Blood a while. But fighting games aren't really my type, so I resumed walking around some more after watching the same guy beat coms and random challengers with Nanaya Shiki, trying to come to some sort of decision about where my money was going. Got some general advice about figurines from JY, which will most probably govern my choices in the future. I got the figma Rin when Ian and Dian came, putting an abrupt end to the need to decide if I was going to get a more expensive $90 figure. A decent buy, well within the budget, and great with the lighting where I have it at home. Well-positioned yellow light, dark backdrop and dark wood flooring makes most figurines look good. I'll take a photo with my bro's camera some time. After lunch, Ian, Joel's and Dian's departure, stoning near the Melty Blood corner was the order of the day. I tried reading Paddy Clarke Ha^3, but dozed into half consciousness for about 15 minutes. Guess I shouldn't have played CoH automatch and slept at 2 the night before (and got up at 7). I did win though, against a Brit player who went too heavy on the anti-infantry and died when I did my tank call-ins and vetted my infantry. On hindsight, I could have ended the game earlier by playing less conservatively, like flaming his centre mortar pit, calling in the StuH sooner and sleeping earlier.

Dneo came later, and after some walking around again and purchasing an A3 Hatsune Miku print, which is still waiting for a place on my wall, I watched him play Melty Blood. He played pretty impressively and beat more or less everybody who came around. But he said he wasn't really that good. My eyes and hands are untrained at fighting games anyway. He offered to let me play on his credit, but I didn't want to embarrass myself. I'm content with feeling secure with CoH and RTS anyway.

I felt awkward when Dneo and JY were walking around with me, pointing out things that were cool, while I could only respond with a 'mm' or raise an eyebrow, even though I did think those things were pretty nice. Some really nice figures in the display section. Noticed how they did the lighting. I had seen some of the pieces while browsing online before, like Alter's Chua Churam and a gigantic angel-thing that looked really cool and expensive too.

I don't really need to say much about the May'n concert. One of the first actual concerts I'd gone to that I had taken an interest in. As I looked around, I saw more hardcore fanboys/girls. There was a scary lady, who was jumping up and down. Alas so much for no photography. I liked the songs, loved them Live. The bass sort of reverberated through me and the crowd. And I thought my subwoofer was pretty good. It's striking how much difference in the sound quality there is when you bend down into the crowd to reach your bag.

Got more animu-smart thanks to JY and Dneo yay. Too bad Herrick wasn't around. But I'm sure he's doing good work in Sabah. Next year, we'll all be free from IB. More chalet and more conventions.

=)