AFO 2015

Hey everyone!

This year, I attended Anime Festival Orlando for the 4th year in the row. It was my best AFO yet and my first convention since coming back to the U.S.!

FRIDAY

Anime Festival Orlando is the best central Florida convention for hosting panels. Panelists are provided with great tech equipment and if there are any issues, there will be someone who can help you. Because of this, I hosted panels for the 2nd time this year and things went very well.

AWKWARD FAMILY FUN

My first panel was titled "J-pop Idols 101" which consisted of a slide show presentation talking about the basics of J-pop idols: expectations for idols, groups, and the intense fans. I felt like this was going to be interesting to people because of the popularity of the anime Love Live. That series did a great job on introducing J-pop idol culture to people which has encouraged fans of the show to explore other idol anime like AKB0048, Idolmaster, and so on. However, I'm not sure if many people actually went out and learned about 3D-real people idol groups so I thought that this may spark peoples interest in these 3D-real people groups.

The turnout was great, especially for a Friday panel! I had a little bit of tech issues in the beginning with trying to get the sound from my laptop to connect with the speakers but it all got figured out and I was able to learn something new in the process WOO. There was one thing that made things awkward though. As part of my presentation, I talked about the 80s idol group Onyanko Club and their well-known single "Don't Take Off My School Uniform." Right before I was going to show the video, a family walked in and there were like 3 kids and a bunch of adults. I swear they were Filipino LOL. I guess they all bought passes to check out the con?? It was really weird for me because although this isn't some x-rated panel, the content was a little weird for kids to see LOL. The actual content isn't really bad but the implications I guess are well...awkward to show to kids? Anyways, that was when I was about maybe one-thirds done with the presentation, and they stayed for the rest of the time. My friend told me that one lady in the group looked like she was judging hardcore. That is understandable LOL.

At the end of my panel, I told people that if they had any questions about the groups I talked about or are just general fans of J-pop idol stuff that they could talk to me...but no one did LOL. I was hoping I could meet some new friends and potential members for my dance group.

FLORIDA BEING...FLORIDA

After my panel, it was about 5pm so I went back to my hotel room and pretty much became stranded. There was a really bad storm going on so I took a nap and I stayed there for like 4 hours booooo.

KARAOKE

My second and final panel I hosted was Kakkoii Karaoke. I hosted this last year on a Sunday and the turnout was pretty good. This time I was placed Friday night during the Pleasure Pixels performance as "all-ages entertainment" which made me feel important LOL, but that also made me think that I would be managing 12 year olds the entire time. Luckily that wasn't entirely the case.

My panel ended up being in a big room with a small stage so that made is really cool for people to come up on stage to sing and dance. I think people generally had a good time but some people were disappointed that there was no time left for them to sing. To me, it was pretty obvious that if there was only 15 minutes until the panel was over, and there were 10 people left on the list and I was number 7, there would be no time for me to sing so I would just leave. I realized that I needed a better process for this because I guess it wasn't obvious to other people. Next time, given the allotted time, I'll calculate about how many songs can be sung within the time period and then just create slots for people to sign up. If all the slots are filled up then no one else can sign up to sing, so maybe that will make people feel a little less disappointed. I can ask people to be put on the waiting list so that if in case there is extra time left, then they can sing. LOL LOGISTICS.

SATURDAYYYY

MAID MADNESS

Saturday I agreed to help out with Cafe Peko Peko. I like to say I'm their number one fangirl as if it's a legit position in the cafe. I helped with badge checking and manning the door in case some one tries to walk in the cafe not knowing how it worked, which happened a few times LOL. I was also able to record some video too so I could make a 2015 video of their cafe, to show their improvements. It was really fun.

COSPLAY SKIT CONTEST

Okay so here is where I go a bit more in depth than my vlog. To me, this cosplay skit contest was a big deal to me. Friday night, I had a dream that I wasn't able to be in the contest, and I cried LOL so that definitely gave me the motivation to make sure I sign up for this and do my best. I was really really excited because it would be my first time being on stage since coming back from Japan and I think I improved a lot. Working with the circle I joined at school in Japan made me realize that performing is something I love so I must seize every opportunity I get. Well, this was one opportunity.

In theory, I thought it would have been a good idea to dance to two songs. My cosplay was of Nico from Love Live (Bokura was ima no naka de ver aka BODYLINE COSPLAY THAT SOOO MANY OTHER PEOPLE HAVE LOL) and since I was by myself up there, I thought it would be fitting to dance to her solo version of songs. I combined Bokura wa ima no naka de and start dash. The first part of my skit was basically just the first opening. At the end of that part everyone thought I was done and everyone clapped...keyword: everyone. The sound people thought that was the end of my performance and lowered the volume on my music. I held up my hands and was like, "wait!" in a funny manner to the audience. I looked over to the sound people and they were like "lolwhoops" and then highered the volume of my music (which is why in the video below, you hear the 2nd song fade in. Originally, it started about a second after the first song ended). It wasn't too embarrassing though! It was funny, but during the 2nd part, I felt like the audience was already done with me. I thought that having the 2nd song would be a good idea, but I was really only thinking about Love Live fans, which did not consitute majority of the audience. My one friend told me, constructively, that the 2nd song sounded a little boring compared to the first song and that I should have just stuck with only the first song. That was a really good point and it left me thinking about it for a while. For Metrocon 2014 when my two friends/dance group members competed in the skit contest, we had two songs, but the 2nd song cut into the first song so it was more out of nowhere, which didn't make the audience think that the performance was over after the first song. It was something I never really thought of before but thanks to this experience and my friends criticism I was able to learn something new WOO.

There was only one award given to particpants in the skit  contest. There was only 6 of us so I thought it was fair. I was really really really really really really hoping I won, but when the winner was announced I wasn't surprised. Not only were those contestants very experienced but their skit told a bit of a story and involved some creative thoughts of their own whereas mine was just copying stuff from the show. Although because I didn't win, I did feel a bit embarrassed and I thought that maybe I didn't do as good as I thought I did, but I saw some footage of myself and I felt better. I can proudly say that this is my first entry at a convention that I'm not at all embarrassed of! I'm still proud of my entry from metrocon 2014 I did with my friends, but there were parts where we were out of sync, I messed up a moved, danced too fast, etc. At AFO this year, I think I did a good job with keeping to the pace of the music and I didn't entirely do any moves wrong so YIPEEE.

LATE NIGHT SHENANNIGANS

There's not really much else I can say about the pool party and the rave. I actually did end up getting really sick. I doubt there's any reason to go into detail since it's PROBABLY PRETTY OBVIOUS. But you know what, since this is a personal blog shared to others I feel like I might as well be candid with whoever is reading this. Saturday was my first time ever really "partying-hard" at a con. Sure, it made the night more fast-paced and more exciting, but the after effects were terrible. I didn't end up sleeping until like 5am and at that point I felt like I didn't have a stomach or any insides left in my body! Packing in the morning was hell and took so much willpower and getting back to eating normally was difficult. After helping out with the cafe Sunday, which was fun, I was too tired to do anything else. I ended up just sitting on the ground with Taylor trying to regain energy but realizing that it was too late and it would be better off if we just went home to pass out. I was hoping to talk to more people Sunday, go around the dealer's room once more and hopefully vlog some more interesting moments, but I was way toooo tired. Moral of the story: don't party too damn hard at a freakin convention

AND TO CONCLUDE

I can't end this blog without saying how nice it felt to return back to cons. I know Florida has a TERRIBLE reputation for conventions and drama and wannabe cosplay famous people, but none of that has affected me personally and deeply. At these conventions, I've made so many friends. Sure, you could argue whether or not their "real" friends or not, but I have fun with these people, they're happy to see me and we sharing the same experience that is whatever con it is that we're at and that's all that matters.

I was really surprised at the number of people who said "welcome back to America" when first seeing me. I didn't expect people to say that at all to me which was not only funny but also so nice! Thinking about it in retrospect made me feel all warm and fuzzy. Going through school and finding it hard to find a place to call my own and a crowd where I felt totally accepted and welcomed by others (and feeling the same towards them) was hard, but at cons, I never have that problem and I think that's why myself and everyone else feels so connected and attached to cons. Once you start going regularly, it's hard to imagine life without it!

I'm excited to see what new opportunities and strange things will occur now that I'm back in the U.S.

My next convention is Umicon so stay on the lookout for vlogs and a future blog post!

Thanks for reading

until next time~*~*~*~