So… Minami Con 10. Where to start?
Friday
Friday morning began with a mad rush to get into University for my 9am Maths lecture, where I had to hand in this week’s problem sheet, and also had to hand in two Physics sheets due in that day. Missing breakfast and the following two hours’ of Energy and Matter lectures, I came home for a while, then headed to the station to meet Adam and Richard. After they came back to mine for a while, we went back to the station agin to find Ant, and headed to Minamicon! Lots of nice stuff was included in the welcome pack (the t-shirt, as well as the bag itself and a pin badge. That afternoon was mostly spent trying to get the games room (full of much Bemani fun) set up, and included a trip back to mine yet again to pick up Adam’s IIDX controller.
The only anime we watched that day was Dokkoider (thoroughly mad, by the way), and we spent quite a bit of time in the Games room (much to Richard’s annoyance, unfortunately…). That evening was the opening ceremony and party, and… wow! Tons of free food, an awesome atmosphere, great music and some… interesting dancing. I finally got a chance to dance in a way I enjoy to music I enjoy. Who cares if everyone else in the room thought I was an idiot? ^^ (Apologies if you got hit by any paper streamers, by the way…) The conga lines for Love Tropicana (Jungle wa Itsumo Hale nochi Guu opening) were great, too! Eurobeat continues to wind Ant up (^^) and we unfortunately failed to get Love Shine played…
At about 1am we headed back to mine, and all attempted to get to sleep in my crowded, cold room…
Saturday
Woken up by snoring at 7am, and further so by scampi.swf at 7.30, we tried to sort ourselves out and get to Minami for the main event day. By the time we finally joined the queue for the dealers’ room at 10-ish, the line was already down the corridor, but not half as bad as we expected it to be. Once inside, I managed to get away with half a dozen mangas, a t-shirt and plushy keyring thingy, Adam whored everything Noir- and Disgaea- related in sight, and Richard attempted to practically buy up Otaku and United Publications. Most of my day was divided between the dealers’ room, the games room, and going out for lunch. One brief stop to actually watch some anime ended up being Matantei Loki Ragnarok, which seems a very odd mix of cuteness and doom. In the afternoon, Adam, Ant and I entered the DDR competition. I may have won the beginner tournament (they didn’t announce the winner… there wasn’t really much point ^_^), while Myst won the real thing.
The evening’s main event was the cosplay masquerade, with some really stunning costumes appearing. Lammasu (spelt right?) won the floor costume competition, and deservedly so, with a stunning Anthy (from Utena) costume. Beautiful costumes aside, the show was really stolen by Wessex Anime’s Samurai Pizza Cats skit, which was hillarious!
After the masquerade came the auction, then the karaoke. Between those, though, I was introduced to the “Incest Game” (based on Angel Sanctuary cards), which was kinda’ scary but also great fun! We spent most of the karaoke sitting around chatting and laughing, although we did all join in (from the back) during Watashi no Tamagoyaki and Love Tropicana. We headed home afterwards, and this time got a more relaxed night’s sleep.
Sunday
After sleeping in a bit, we turned up for the third and final day of the Con’ pretty much just in time to see the first two episodes of a new series called Paranoia Agent, which is very, very messed-up indeed… Back in the dealers’ room I managed to find a long-waited-for copy of Cardcaptor Sakura book 6 (after being unable to find one for nearly a year, I think…) Not an awful lot of gaming happened today, although I did get a few goes on Pop’n Music 9 (which owns, by the way!). After tea we went to watch some Marmalade Boy, then came back for the closing ceremony. A good, and relaxed, end to one of the best weekends I’ve ever had.
Online registration for Minami 11 in a week or so!