~phil's blog

Last weekend, I went up to Auchinawa, an anime convention in Glasgow. I’ve never been to an anime convention before, and the reasons are probably obvious – I don’t think it’d be fun to stay in a hotel for a weekend while being surrounded by flailing crazies ranting on about how Natuto is better than Dragonball Z, and so forth. Myself, I certainly do like anime, and treat it as an equal to any other form of visual media, but I’m not an obsessive otaku. So when Anicom decided they were going to go to the convention earlier in the year and I put my name down, I didn’t really know what to expect, or whether I was going to enjoy myself.

Turns out that I had a fantastic time over the three days. I was right about the whole crazed otaku thing, but it wasn’t really that bad. Nobody tried to stab anyone with a cardboard weapon or pretended they had super powers, so any disasters were averted. Most of my time was just spent socialising with the Anicom lot, or slowly melting on the DDR machine (Damn you, DDR:UK!), but the events were kinda fun. Here’s a few highlights that you won’t get unless you were there with us:

• Elevators and alcohol bring out Rob’s bad side… apologies to the Canadian cosplayer.
• Bunnies are bad. Very, very bad.
• We’re very susceptible to advertising, and the Glasgow Airport area is now Pimms-free. Bolly good.
• PBC is the society’s ‘drunken uncle’ when it comes to dancing.
• Pictochat is sadistically hilarious at times when you’re in a room full of retards.

So, yeah, good times. Made a few new friends, did some animu-related things, and had a good time overall. But compared to everyone else attending, our society sucks when it comes to liking anime. Oh well, at least we know our drinks.