(UPDATE: Oh God! There was more of them!!)

Well I WAS going to put up a Zootopia review, but I was at ACEN this weekend so I thought ‘Why not? ACEN Blog!’ Sorry it took so long. This goes up Wednesday, so this week’ll have two posts. (Without individual episode reviews, we’re going with one a week.)

I’ve been going to ACEN every year for the past four years, ever since I moved to Chicago and hopefully I’ll continue to go to it in the future as well as other Chicago based cons. I also tend to get a hotel room with a bunch of my friends. Easier than commuting anyway. Note to self: Never be cardholder again.

My friend, the guy I’ve mentioned whom I call Joe, and I met up around 8ish on Friday at our train stop, fully packed and stocked up on bananas, which I bring every year. I got us breakfast, though our Dunkin’ Doughnuts decided to give me double the amount of biscuits…not that I mind. Free biscuits! Also, I remembered my kitty hat, but I forgot my 3DS which had been charging. Oops.

It took us about an hour to get to the con, but we made it. It was then that we got into a bit of a mix up. I had accidentally booked us into the Rosemont hotel instead of the O’Hare one, but thankfully we were able to straighten it out and we got our room. And for cheaper than originally too. Now I just have to wait for my original money to come back so I can refund everyone the difference.

Our room was a decent King sized with an extra cot for the girls to sleep on, since there are fewer of us than the guys (my idea). Top floor too. It took us a while to get settled and I was late for my shift at my club’s booth in the dealer’s room…oh yeah, we had a booth this year. Booths are cool. So I stayed an extra hour to cover my shift. I’m not buying anything this year so I just got a present for my best friend’s birthday and returned for my second shift. None of the panels I wanted to go to started until 3.

Off topic: anyone remember the DesuDesBrigade? I do. I use their word for the sky bridges at ACEN now: The Final Fantasy Corridor Experience.

IMG_3290[1]
IT NEVER ENDS!
The first panel I went to was on Japanese Localization of American Comics, think the Marvel Anime, the bad Ninja Turtles OVA, and so on. My favourite that they mentioned was the Marvel Disk Wars series, which I never finished, but I liked. Deadpool is apparently voiced by Dio from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in it. Cool. The guys running it also do the Oregon Trail panel, a popular long time mainstay of ACEN.

The next panel was one of a two part panel about Mythology in Anime and Manga. They covered Western mythology with Asian mythology being covered on Saturday. Apparently, Japan knows about as much about African mythology as Americans do. That’s sad. Japan does tend to favour Western European mythology than any other foreign mythologies.

I went to my club’s photo shoot, but most people had already left. So, my friend Joel and I went back to the room and decided to get everyone’s Chinese food order. Apparently, I didn’t make it clear to Joe that we were getting Chinese and he was left out. To be fair, he said he was getting McDonald’s. Besides, everyone got food eventually.

So everyone in our room hung out, watched Steven Universe and Adult Swim while we waited for the Oregon Trail panel. Joel and I went to it. It was funny and lewd and awesome!

I was woken up Saturday morning by the guys talking, no surprise, but it’s fine. I didn’t need that extra hour of sleep anyway. Once we were clean, we went to the hotel’s buffet. Good food, could’ve used some salmon though. They had lots of fruit. I took a nap when I got back and then it was time for my next booth shift. My friends and I play I-Spy with the different costumes. It’s fun. The booth basically became a locker room for my club since we all pretty much used it for storage and the area behind the curtains for a changing booth. I hung out there until my panel started at 1:30.

So, I, like an idiot, messed up where panels are so I missed the Madoka analysis panel, which sucks because I was looking forward to it. I did manage to get to Part 2 of the mythology panel where I found someone who knitted like I do and we shared frustration on the type of yarn I was forced to use on my mother’s scarf. ..Did I mention I knit? I do.

The panel was, like I said, on Asian mythology, mainly Chinese and Japanese. This means that ‘Journey to the West’ was a major part of the panel. I had no idea that Goku from the Dragon Ball series wasn’t just based off Sun Wukong and was in fact named after him too. His name in Japanese is Son Goku. A lot of stuff brought up I actually remembered from Digimon such as the Sovereign Digimon from 02 and Tamers and, of course, the twelve Devas from Tamers based off the 12 animals Chinese Zodiac like in Fruits Basket.

I didn’t go to any other panels cause I was burned out for the day and my wig is REALLY itchy. So my friends and I watched Animaniac, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim while we tried to decide where to get pizza from. We had previously wanted Giordano’s, but then my mother offered to pay for our pizza as an early graduation gift so we decided to stick to what was on GrubHub. Thanks Mom! We decided on Bacci’s, but GrubHub called and said they couldn’t confirm the order so we had it cancelled. We then decided on Romani’s, which ended up being cheaper so we also got some soda.

Essentially, what we ended up with was a pizza party watching Adult Swim while we waited for Toonami to come on. Our friend, whom I shall call Jess, brought her friend dressed up like Sadako and I might have thrown a pillow at her. What? That’s scary! Anyway, we got the pizza and everyone was happy. 3 large pizza, each with different toppings. Something for everyone, though our club president ended up getting only two slices of cheese cause he was late.

Now here’s where the funny part happens. So we’ve eaten the pizza and are settling in to watch Toonami when a guy from Bacci’s calls and tells us he’s downstairs. They never got the cancellation order. There were apologies and, as far as I know, my mother didn’t have to pay for two different pizza orders. Thank goodness! People filed out around the time DBZ Kai ended and it was pretty much room people, plus a few others, by the time HunterxHunter started. I headed to bed around the time One Piece started and the next day I packed up and left. I had a baby shower to go to.

I thoroughly enjoyed ACEN this year and hope to come back and see my friends next year. Who knows? I might actually cosplay next time.

Total Deadpool Count: 30

*I have other pictures, but I’m not gonna post them out of respect for my friends’ privacies.

(Photos via Me)