by Adol The Red » Sun May 18, 2014 6:36 pm
Just got back from ACEN (anime central). Man, I have not had that good of a time in a while. The drive sucked, because what is normally a 5 hr trip for us became a 7 hr trip, 2 and a half hours of that just crossing Chicago. A single 2.9 mile segment took an entire hour. Thankfully we found a better route so the trip home was much more agreeable, but it pretty much killed Friday for us.
Saturday, though... Saturday was great. My fourth ACEN and this is the first time I actually went to panels. Three out of four were Touhou related, which turned out to be far more fulfilling than I expected. I understand that its a rabid fanbase and after my initial OMGCHECKTHISOUT!!!!! phase I try to take care in not overwhelming people who aren't interested. Among my main group I'm the only one who plays the games and I don't know if I have the patience to find a good Touhou forum, so most of my geeking out is solitary (did that sound horrible to anyone else?). I've got to say, it was really great just hanging out most of the day with other Touhou fans and going nuts. The only downside was that I didn't spend most of the day with the people I went there with, but we still hung out a good deal over the weekend. And we went to the Crispin Freeman Q&A together - I'll suppress my fanboy sqeeeing so you can't hear it all the way from over here. That was pretty damn cool. Then after that we ate pizza that was good because we were starving, and I went to a Touhou rave. I don't dance, but it was still pretty fun, and I would have stayed all night if I could have.
I'm sad that it's over. Normally ACEN for me is buying things, people watching, and just getting away and being around people with similar interests for a weekend. This time it was more, and for the first time since I can honestly remember I found myself wishing a day didn't have to end. It was great fun, and I hope my bank account is up for a return trip as soon as possible.
Epic , brah!
