AnimeFest 2013 summary

[witchann2]

Otaku are the most normal people I´ve ever met in my country. I consider myself lucky to start watching anime (and read manga, and watch J-movies and doramas, and listen to J-pop etc. etc. etc. ... XD) and getting to know that there are the people around me, who can enjoy their hobby so much, who are able to have a real fun without any hypocrisy.

It´s an incredible irony. Other citizens stare at us walking in cosplays on the streets with their eyes wide and quite often with clear remarks or gestures to let us know, what they think about us. That we are the crazy clowns, who have nothing better to do than creating a fuss. They judge us without even trying to understand why we are doing something like this. And they never will.
While the exact opposite of what otaku are like is true. We don´t care what other „normal“ people think, we are having fun. We enjoy the time we spend together and we do not hurt anyone doing it. And that´s far more than what most of people can say.
I was persuaded about it once again on this year´s AnimeFest in Brno.

I escaped the reality for something over two days. It always feels like to be at the place, where you belong. Among people who enjoy (or ship XD) the same things like you. It´s possible to start the discussion with some total stranger there and talk for hours. Half of the visitors in cosplays or in something at least similar to that, everybody smiling at each other, laughing in an hour-long queue and making fun of incoming rain clouds. It doesn´t matter what character you have, nobody will laugh at you, but with you. Maybe only yaoi fangirls are a little crazier than the others, but they still belong there. Not to mention that they seem happy to see some homosexual couple instead of being rude to them. Everybody is the part of it, everybody is making something special from a convention like this.
I cannot say that each otaku is the same. There are some stupid assholes as everywhere else, yes. But as far as I´m concerned, I have NO bad experiences with anime/manga fans.
Otaku will never send you to hell when you ask for help. More like they offer their help to others. It´s the community in which we feel connected. And even though the number of visitors is increasing each year, so it´s not so private event as it used to be, it still has this atmosphere.
And I love it. I cannot imagine not being there every year...

Well, I should write something specific too, ne? XD
This event really makes me excited and happy. Every year, it starts during the journey to the place already. Simply only seeing somebody else in the train, wearing „something strange“, or with katanas peeking up from the suitcase (as in mine and my sis case) is enough to look forward to it even more.
The program is always full of tempting choices and it´s simply impossible to catch up everything what you would like to. But some otaku try it anyway and don´t even sleep because of it. XD
So, what I managed to see or visit this time?

Lecture: „To where the yaoi fans dissappear?“
They do NOT dissappear. XD It was the very first lecture I visited and this is the main point of it. It was a real fight to get inside the small hall and there were more guys than I expected! XD It was fun! We found out that the girls start to read or watch yaoi in younger and younger age. XD
Just to make it clear, I do not watch yaoi. I saw some, yes, I don´t need to lie about it, but somehow I´m more fond of two living guys clinging to each other than the animated ones. And more over, one of the things I love about anime, are the great and original stories. And I´m sorry, but yaoi animes do not usually include any proper story. :D

Movie: Berserk - Golden Age Trilogy
I – Egg of the Supreme King
II – Battle for Doldrey
III - Descent                                           
Series of movies adapted from quite old manga series of action horror dark fantasy genre.
It´s one of the "classics", so we simply had to see it. I didn´t expect I will laugh during watching it, really. But I couldn´t help it when there were so many yaoi hints! XD And I wasn´t the only one.
And one thing, by which I was so amused, was the sight at two Japanese filmmakers who were the guests of this AF. They were enthusiastic from our reactions. :D
But this great story gradually got much more serious and in the end it wasn´t funny at all... I think I will never get some of the scenes out of my head.
We were the first ones after the Japanese audience to see the third part of this anime, as it was the first out-of-Japan premiere! It felt good, heh. :) And it has absolutely awesome music in it.

Lecture: „The news in anime“
This one was fun! Even though I expected 2013´s news and not 2003... XD
But it was good to remind the anime treasures with which we all started. :)

Contest: Cosplay Theater
It included a few funny performances from various animes. It was not as hilarious as the last year, but it was worth of it anyway.

Lecture: Fanservice in K-pop
Well, after this “lecture” I realized that I´m very normal person with my AKame obsession. And I´m willing to listen to K-pop from time to time, but I will NOT watch it! I agree with one quotation I´ve heard the previous day – There is so much fanservice in K-pop, that there´s NO place for music! XD XD

Lecture: The world of samurais - Facts and fiction
This one was interesting, I´ve already known the most of the facts which were told, but I liked it anyway.

Lecture: Japanese games, slash and other bizarre things
Hell, after THIS I think that the people who are into slash (I mean who are being able to slash ANYONE and ANYTHING) are totally out of their minds. XD

And of course, we also visited the Announcement of competition results and Conclusion of the whole convention, which was already quite sad. You could feel in the air that nobody wants AnimeFest to end...

And! One of the most important things!
I met there with Jana! It´s a secret :-P, but she wrote really beatiful AKame fanfiction in Czech. I´m really happy we were able to meet and spent some time together, Jani! I knew we would get along well, and the result was better than my expectations! :)

So, I didn´t catch everything what I wanted, but I´m quite satisfied anyway. Our accomodation was ok, our cosplays came up quite well, we made a lot of photos, bought some useless but cute souvenirs and I´m already looking forward to the next year.
As for the minuses... Mainly I didn´t like only those huge CROWDS of people in front of every part of program, and the weather wasn ´t very pleasant, as it was quite cold and raining. But we otaku can handle anything, ne? XD

PS: I will post some photos in the separated entry later. :)