While my trip was a positive experience, Otakon 2011 was pretty disappointing (which’d be a real problem if I was paying for the trip myself). I ask myself: would I go back next year? Even if I had to pay for it? I’m thinking no, not unless they bring over, like, Hanazawa Kana or something. But this isn’t a negative post, I think.
Probably the cutest Madoka cosplay I saw.
As I’m sure you know, I’m very passionate about karaoke (if you don’t know, please familiarize yourself with these videos~). Being as K-On!! was one of the best shows of the year and was a show about music with a number of really good opening and ending themes (even some great B-sides!), it seems like perfect karaoke material.
Or it would, were the songs not insanely difficult to sing. I pride myself on being exceptional at singing fast and complex songs—last Otakon, I did Shounen Heart, a rap song by Home Made Kazoku from Eueka Seven, almost without error (and those errors aren’t made all the time). But K-On’s music is a whole level above that.
My Day 0 post can serve as an introduction. I’ve also posted about my haul and my karaoke performances. Here goes the daily details – please note that this post is pretty messy and long. I kept putting off writing it, but TheBigN is still doing his this late, and I read these inspiring words form ghostlightning that made me think something would be better than nothing.
This post will be very hard to read if you don’t keep this in mind: I have two younger brothers. One is 17, and one is 12. I refer to the 17yo one as ‘bro’ or ‘brother’, and I refer to the 12yo one as ‘baby bro’ or ‘baby brother’. If you do not see the word ‘baby’, then I’m not referring to the 12 yo.
Us about to leave. From right to left: Funeral, brother, dumbass, baby bro
Otakon is always about karaoke for me. In 2008, I performed Taiyou no Mannake e by Bivattche (Eureka Seven op 3) and SoulTaker by JAM Project (Op to The SoulTaker, my favorite anison, on accuont of JAM playing at Otakon that year). Sadly, I have no videos of those performances. In 2009, I legendarily and creepily performed Kuusou Rumba by Ootsuki Kenji to Zetsubou Shoujo-tachi (Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei op 1) which you can watch here. This year, I went all out and did three different songs, with a total of four performances, since I did one twice. I’ll be presenting them in the order they were performed, which is also a convenient gradation of EPIC scale.
This was done at the request of Zzeroparticle from the MyAnimeList club ‘Anime Music Piece of the Week.’ I mentioned my love and skill for singing this song, and so he challenged me. The sound reception on this (new) camera and the ability to hear my voice above the music was far better than expected, so if it sucks, it’s mostly my fault for sucking XD. I think it gets off to a rocky start, but is all-around a decent performance :D Nice to have a video of my singing a song that isn’t completely and utterly creepy XD. Now that I finally have a camera with which I can easily do these videos, expect more in the future!
(yes, I am aware of the huge zit on my forehead, the general disturbing nature of my beard, and how gross my desk is, if you can see it. If you were wondering, Funeral filmed this video on my new Canon Powershot SX110 IS)
I’m gunna try to go through my time at Otakon as fast as possible. There are a number of things that deserve their own posts, some of which I’m sure someone else will do better (such as someone who’s camera didn’t run out of memory during Yamakan’s QnA.) This was an extremely fun and extremely fast otakon that, while not legendary like last year’s, was still a much-needed thing in my life and unforgettable. Pics will come in a second post, later.
My Sword Is Unbelievably Dull 