I thought i was over it, I thought I was getting better. But because of the recent hype SDCC( San Diego Comic-Con) from news sites and friends Instagram, my PCD was starting to relapse. In case you don't know what that is, PCD (Post Con Depression) the depression you get after spending 2-4 days straight at a convention walking till you feet bleed, eating expensive food, and sleeping on the floor in a crowded hotel room. Despite that exhausting stress during those days at a con, you also have tons of fun going to screenings, panels, scouring for that particular merchandise you can only find online. It is because of these things that going back to your shitty life of work and school can be such a downer and that's when PCD kicks in. While looking on line for a cure I came across one of the fun ways to treat it is to talk about it, but since I have no one to talk to, I'll just write about it. Specifically, about my time at Anime Expo. Yes it's been a good while since the convention, and I feel weird posting another post concerning anime, but whatever I should continue to keep this blog thing up. My next post will be about movies or something I swear.
Volunteering
The number one thing that drove me to volunteer at Anime Expo this year was the fact that volunteering there was a good way to pay for my badges and a good way to meet people. The work is pretty much what you expect it to be, which is mostly grunt work, such as getting greeting bags ready and crowd controlling lines. A lot of co-volunteers that I met there seemed unhappy with the jobs and some who was planning to work the whole 4 days changed there minds and was only gonna work that one shift they signed up for. I think another thing that rubbed volunteers the wrong way was the sort of work hierarchy that they had. To put it simply if you were a AX volunteer(like me) you had to wear an ugly over-sized traffic vest and for the most part stand for 4 hours straight (we were supposed to get breaks but that rarely happened). The SPJA volunteers on the other hand got a way better vest, rooms paid for, and quite a few got to sit down. I for one was fine with being an AX volunteer, I wasn't expecting it to be glamorous and really was just doing it so I can get the free badges so I didn't care.
Anime Screening
I haven't been to AX since high school, but the one thing I looked forward to back then was going to the anime screenings. I don't watch to much anime, so this was always a good way to find some new things to watch. Unfortunately while I did find a few I liked (I personally thank AX for introducing me to Monogatari) a lot of screenings according to the schedule were shows I already knew and/or wasn't interested in. Fortunately, though one of the screenings I went turned out to be one of the big highlights of my time there, the "Vintage Anime Laser-disc Screening". I am a huge fan of vintage anime, so after finding out there was a screening showing old anime for almost 5 hours, I was on board. The screening showed several shows such as Tenchi Muyo and Ah My Goddess which to my sort of shock most people in the audience didn't know about( and made me feel for the first time a bit old). Regardless it was still a lot of fun, especially since you can hear several audience members make funny commentary over the movie, another reason why I like going to screening. The best one out of all of them though had to be Riding Bean, an action anime OVA involving a seemingly action hero with a tricked out car who can apparently survive a bullet to the head flip a car shortly afterwards. This movie got the most reactions out of the audience because of how insane it was.
Night Life
No I didn't go to any of the raves and I waited too long to buy a ticket for the night cafe. My night life at AX was mostly walking around the convention Friday and Saturday night checking out the gaming room and manga lounge. Despite it not being a huge party, I actually enjoyed my nights here( also I heard the parties aren't too good). After the stress of walking around and standing in long lines all day, this was a nice and calm moment to genuinely relax at a convention. It was basically what you would be doing if you had a quiet night night at home but this time, with thousands of others to share that time with. I think what took the most endurance those night those was Saturday night where I stayed up till 4am at the Marriot watching anime till it was time to catch my train.
All in all, it was a fun experience after not going to AX for so long and sucks to be back in reality. I honestly have no real interest in something like Comic-Con, but it would be fun to attend a smaller(and cheaper) convention soon. Now if you don't mind, I'm off to sulk over the fact I missed out on yaoi bingo.
No comments:
Post a Comment