(Note: There might be some more reviews written by the other members of Spork of Doom and more pictures at a later date. Keep an eye on the main page for a news post.)
Hrm… what can I say about AWA?? Well as Kerzan already mentioned, AWA has been a convention that I wanted to go to for years. Well, it didn't disappoint. The con is as large, if not a wee bit bigger, than Megacon. But where Megacon is a mix of Sci-fi, American comics, gaming , and anime, AWA is all about Japan .
The video rooms were plentiful and they all rocked all day long. AWA is the only con I've attended where they actually showed hentai after hours in a video room, despite all the nastiness that might occur. They had some really interesting looking panels, but since there we so many (most of which happened on Friday) we missed a lot of them. The Costume Contest was pretty cool and seems to get bigger and better every year. I will admit that I was expecting to be blown away by the AMVs, and was surprised to see that “Living Life Under the Gun” might have been decent competition for some of the winners. Our current AMV would have been a stronger showing, but it's still kicking our asses.
I do have some gripes about the con. They put way to much stuff on Friday and not enough events on Sunday. Since we arrived late Friday we missed almost 60% of the con. Oh well, next year we will arrive earlier. Secondly, the con is very strong against bootleggers and does not allow any vendors who sell bootlegged DVD's. While I understand that we need to support anime by buying it from the American companies, what about the stuff that hasn't been licensed yet? I was really looking for a copy of Battle Royale (1 and 2) and Macross: Do You Remember, Love? . Still looking actually. And also, FUNimation sucks! Why would I wanna support them?? ADV, Geneon, Media Blasters, and Central Park Media are all companies that I will gladly give money to. I gave money once to FUNimation and bear that shame to this very day.
Anywho… AWA rocks and we will be attending AWA 12 next year. We hope to have a bunch of AMV's to enter and are shooting to stay at the Waverly.
Oh, and as a side note about the “We Play Violent Video Games!” sign in the car. Traffic did not slow down after the Church Bus. When I noticed that we were passing a Church group, I slowed down (I was driving at the time). Ever so slowly I crept pass the bus so that anyone who wanted to look at our sign could. After the driver read it and had his amusing reaction, I zipped around in front of them and slowed down even more. And the way the bus shrank in the rear view, you would have sworn he slammed on the brakes.