Anime Dance Weekend

A sixth Anime Dance Weekend (Advik) took place this weekend in Prague at KC Zahrada. This is a convention mostly about anything coming from Japan (anime, cosplay, jrpgs, music games, karaoke, martial arts, japanese cuisine etc.)

We had a music games programme at Advik for several years till we were banned by the organizator stating that no one actually cares about music games. This wasn't true, but well, we did not really care. Someone else took our place and everyone could be happy. I was getting text messages about 'where is Beatmania IIDX?', 'Where is dance dance revolution?' etc the next year when we weren't present.

After some time I attended Advik. This time not because of music games but card games. I had a stand there and wanted to recruit new Magic players and teach some people other games as well.

The problem with KC Zahrada was this - the place wasn't big enough to hold more than 500 people. How many people came to Advik? 1500? That's a lot. That also meant that we card games and board games were placed in the middle of a nearby square. We had a big tent with some tables and chairs. It was nice but we weren't really sure if the tent can survive three days of rain and storms.

[I'll add photos later, my bluetooth stopped working]

The first day we found out that stronger wind is a problem and that we will need to keep the tent on the ground somehow. So the quest for finding a hammer began. After 5 hours of trying we managed to stick the tent to the ground. Note that we already used a LARGE AMOUNT of tape to keep the structure standing.

The next it started raining and our tents were moved closer to Zahrada. We still had place were to organize tournaments but it was impossible to try to sell something. In the meantime I was signed up for several tournaments. It was nice to play music games after a long time. I also managed to play PIU, I'm grateful for that. Some people were amazed by my skill, some just couldn't understand it. It seems that the new blood needs someone to show them how the games can be played. Some comments on facebook regarding me playing were a novelty. But it wasn't anything like a 'crazy japanese girl running from one pad to the other'. Some that amused me were [during a tournament]'ugh, hm, you aren't the national DDR champion by a chance?' or 'hm I've seen you somewhere already...[thinking] in game page [realization] ... you were third at Worlds right?' or 'Should we still try when you get 100% on anything you play?'.

I have to say that I was rather surprised that still people remember me from certain TV shows and from articles in magazines. When I was actively going to conventions and fairs people knew me in person. But now there are new people who never saw me in person and still know me.

I did not go to any presentation or panel discussion but I do not regret it. This is for other people not me. I'm not interested in mainstream anime nor discussing so called anime with people who don't even know Ghost in the Shell, Shinseiki Evangelion or Akira. Well, I don't want to blame anyone or say they aren't anime fans. But most people there like Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, Fate Stay Night etc but hardly know something like for example Ergo Proxy. Some don't even know who Miyazaki is and I just think that these so called Otaku should know that there are different anime styles and there are famous movies and directors.

There were even people not knowing anime who came there just to see all those lolita girls. People got drunk, smoked sisha and then ended up somewhere in the nearby bushes doing well, you imagine.

I don't know if this is how it looked like in the past few years I did not attend conventions, but that's not how I imagine a convention. There were many organization problems and there was a hostility between czech and slovak organizators. Otherwise there were things that were at Advik once more and made it better. No matter what I guess people enjoyed the convention. I have heard only negative comments so far, but I've seen many people having fun and enjoying their stay at Zahrada.

As for me and the shop. We sold some goods, booster packs and organized several tournaments. People came to play even when it was raining heavily and the tables were wet. I even managed to give out prizes and I hope that next time we will have better conditions for playing card games, board games and selling.

(btw I also played on my Real Edition which was at Advik and managed to A some 9s and pass 5 and sometimes 6 on doubles. I found out that not playing for a long time makes someone lose the skill^^ I need to convince my muscles to do their job once again. Same goes to PNM. I don't know how but from level 40 I got to level 29...-_-... it was physically demanding^^)