M Dash 27 - Blog by Hecko X » Trips and Events

Merry Christmas 2011!

Hecko X — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 22:21:34 +0000

Photo of Nash on my desk

A very merry Christmas from M Dash!

I spent my Christmas with Nashayla and her family, having my first Danish Christmas since childhood, when my grandparents were still alive, and trying certain foods for the first time ever! :D

The day consisted of us going to church, singing, coming home, eating a feast of a Christmas dinner, singing some more, and then opening some presents.

I got a gift certificate for 10,000 Japanese yen (for books) and a framed photo from Nashayla of herself, which is now sitting on my work desk ♥

CAESAR THE GUARDIAN KITTY!

I gave a lot of gifts this year, totalling roughly 2,000 DKK! owo

I gave my mom a “best mom in the world” medal and money.
I gave Nash’s dad the album Flash Gordon by Queen and two beers from Sarajevo.
I gave Nash’s mom the book 1Q84 (the first one in the trilogy).
I gave her sister a pair of breakfast bowls, since she recently moved out.
I gave Nash two pairs of white gloves and a joke gift.

Our presents were well protected by the guardian cat of Hell’s gates, Caesar! >:3

All in all, a pretty awesome experience, and I’m really grateful that they let me take part. Apparently, it’s a first for her parents to let outsiders join ^^’

Nash's joke gift: hat and gloves of Tony Tony Chopper from One Piece; her favourite character

J-Popcon 2011

Hecko X — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 03:34:56 +0000

Unlike previous reviews of J-Popcon, this will only be a single post, similar to my previous ‘conclusion’ themed posts, rather than a day-by-day followed by a sum-up. This is because I was mainly working in a booth during the weekend, so what I got to see was fairly limited.

Dealer Room & Artist Alley

Dealer Room
Photo by D. Hansen

Compared to last year, these were placed at far better locations. Last year, the AA broke several fire safety rules, but this year, it was safe and rarely ever congested; people could stop at the various artist booths without blocking traffic.

Likewise, last year, the line to the DR was extremely long, meaning people could wait upwards of two, sometimes even three, hours, before getting in, due to the person limit of the room it was placed in. This year, it was placed in a room with probably 8 times the legal capacity (due to 7 or so extra fire exits), so there was no wait, which was a big bonus.

That being said, they had apparently decided not to have the DR be a free area this year because of, quote, ‘lack of sponsorships’, which dumbfounded me. Making it a free area would have not only freed up labour (2-3 guards keeping watch), but also given dealers a higher potential revenue, meaning the booths could have sold at slightly higher prices. It was a lose-lose decision.

Security

Speaking of guards keeping watch, J-Popcon sprung for a few security guards during the evening, which was comforting. Additionally, the gophers standing watch this year actively asked to see wristbands wherever you went, which is a VAST improvement from last year, so kudos there!

On the downside, it was easy to bullshit your way through, which I did whenever I forgot my dealer badge (I didn’t have a wristband either). As long as you said it with confidence, you could just walk past while they tried to figure out wtf just happened; no one tried to stop me.

Game Room

Photo by J. Andersen

The game room felt a bit empty on the digital side, but to have a Kinect dancing game hooked up to a projector projecting to the far wall was a really good idea. The Sonic tourney, while I don’t really like Sonic games, was a breath of fresh air from all the usual fighting game tourneys.

During packing on the final day, there was apparently a lot of confusion as to what belonged to whom, so for future reference, making ‘lending contracts’ with what items at what value are borrowed from whom might be a good idea. This also works as a safeguard in case something breaks or is stolen during the convention.

This year, the digital game room shared with S.A.R.Z., a Swedish initiative for traditional board and card games. In my opinion, this was a wise decision, as it not only kept the ‘gaming zone’ within the same area, but it also filled out the room so it didn’t look entirely empty.

There was actually a manga lounge in there too, but it was rather small and I only noticed it by accident, so I have no real comments on it.

Con-book and website

There was no con-book this year, which was sucky. Not only is a con-book a great momento, it’s also a legal security blanket for the convention. For instance, J-Popcon had several rules concerning what was and wasn’t allowed in regards to photography at the convention, which they posted on the website. However, when you bought a ticket, there was no “I accept these rules” condition, the rules were not hung up by all entrances, nor were they printed in the con-book since there was none.

What this means, in short terms, is that people can go “screw the rules” and as long as they follow Danish law, they can do whatever the fuck they want with the images and J-Popcon will have no legal right to say anything about it, because there was no explicit consent on the website nor implicit consent from anything that was physically handed to the participant.

That being said, I do fully understand that there just wasn’t enough money for a con-book, so I don’t blame them at all for not having one. However, the lack of having the participants express explicit consent to the rules when they buy a ticket – a tick box with “I have read and understood the rules, terms, and conditions” would do – is just beyond dumb.

Events and schedule

Yamazaki Urita drawing
Photo by R. Kanan

The schedule was a bit stripped of events. That isn’t to say there weren’t any events going on, but rather, half of the events weren’t written on the schedule. That is just beyond me.

Even though the events not mentioned in the schedule were hosted by third party organizations, e.g. Alpha Entertainment, S.A.R.Z., etc., they all take place at J-Popcon, so they should logically be written in the schedule.

Having to search 6 different sites for a full overview of the schedule of events is NOT cool. The very last thing you do before finishing an event schedule is calling up every single damn one of the event makers to make sure nothing has been forgotten or otherwise left out.

On the plus side, the events hosted by J-Popcon were, for the most part, punctual. There was only one cancellation – that I know of – and the biggest delay was 30 minutes, as opposed to the 3-4 hours the past few years.

On the down side, besides an interview they posted online, they didn’t do much to bring attention to their VIP guest from Japan: manga artist Yamazaki Urita. No one really knew who or where she were until they were told, which was a shame.

Conclusion

While there’s still a way to go, J-Popcon has definitely improved over the last year. They would do well in trying to get someone to handle on-site PR, but other than that and a few bumps here and there, I think they did really well considering previous years. For the first time half a decade, assuming they continue progressing this way, I actually look forward to seeing what they come up with next year.

A Mahjong Awesome Time

Hecko X — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:55:08 +0000

Two days ago – Saturday – I was at a evening of friendly Mahjong hosted by Nashayla, which included hours of mahjong with seven other people, yummy nachos, a lot of smack-talking (from me), and internal betting.

We were playing a variation of the Chinese Classical Scoring Rules that I have dubbed the Gavnholt Edition, which pretty much just omits most special hands except for one suit and all chow hands. For those interested in learning to play with it – or already know, but are too lazy to do the calculations manually – I’ve created a spreadsheet (with a bit of help from Nielsm) to be used for it, which can be downloaded here.

Long story short, it was an awesome evening that simply MUST be repeated some day, except for the fact that I pretty much lost horribly each time we played OTL

Image of the spreadsheet

I R Great Kamen Rider of Friendship!

Hecko X — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 00:06:53 +0000

The Postmen with their featureless
faces and lack of individuality.

Today, an unspeakable evil happened! One of the otherwise docile creatures that inhabit our fair planet carelessly made a life changing error… Known by their red torso, black legs, and markings, which indicate that they are part of the collective hive known as… “The Postal Service“!

Casting aside their individuality, the creatures are known simply as “Postmen,” charged with the duty of safely delivering messages from one person to another. I too, was once one of them, but the strain on my body was too great, and the hive cast me out.

But because of my time with them, I know the inner workings and beliefs of their sanctums, and today… someone had committed the lesser of The Three Pillars; sins that ‘carry’ the principles of the hive and which must never be broken, for the result would be chaos.

The Pillars are:

The Obelisk – Theft of a message; punishable by death by excruciating torture.
The Colonnade – Loss of a message; punishable by death by bleeding.
The Pilaster – Wrongful delivery of a message; punishable by loss of a limb (third time is death).

The Royal Letter of Friendship.

The lesser being the Pilaster, which was broken when the postman delivered a message – seen on the left – to Nashayla, which was not addressed to her or any of the other residents of the secret Nash Cave of Wealth (secret in name only; hiding under the guise of being a middle-class cave).

The normal procedure is to drop the message into one of the collection boxes, showing the trademark red colour of the creatures and also carrying their mark. It is then collected and returned to the hive, which redistributes the message and attaches an order of punishment for the creature who delivered it the first time around.

However, seeing the nature of the message, and the prefix “To the dearest …” on the cover, I took it upon myself, AS THE GREAT KAMEN RIDER OF FRIENDSHIP – FURENDO GARDIAN!!, to deliver the message to its rightful recipient and to save the Postman from possibly meeting its demise.

The Castle of the recipient.

After exhausting my sources and using my tracking skills to their extreme limits, I managed to locate the living of the recipient. The travels were not without their element of danger though, as I faced panthers, bears, leopards, and finally, the King of Beasts, the mighty lion. However, with my great fighting skills derived from many years of training in preparation for the King of Iron Fist tournaments, I walked all over them!

Finally, I had reached my destination… With my strength waning from the battles, I knocked on the door. At first, there was no answer, but after a while, a figure appeared. Oddly though, the figure was male, and the recipient was female, so when I asked about the indescrepancy, a hard truth befell me… The princess was in another castle…

Fortunately though, she’d be back later in the evening, so I dropped off the message and all was well. JUSTICE PREVAILS!!

TL;DR

Got an incorrectly delivered letter, thought the envelope was endearing, so rather than dropping it in a mailbox for later distribution, I looked up the address online and delivered it myself. The rightful recipient was at work, but her companion was very grateful on her behalf.

First Batch of Elephants

Hecko X — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 00:36:55 +0000

It was nice to get a bit away from work and talk a walk. I even got to hang out with Nashayla, when she got off from work, since it was pretty close by. We went to eat at Sunset, so that was kind of new to me. Apparently, they people there don’t know what a panini is, which is a bit ironic, since they sell them.

Anywho, important lessons were learned: 1) wear sun screen; 2) the map is NOT trustworthy. Now for the elephants:

Elephants

Horton by Henrik Stenberg	Mosha the World at your Feet by Jane Veveris Callan

Human within Elephant by Kamol Tamseewan	Blue Mermaid by Ittikorn Chai-ngam

Indigenous by Joël Bigaignon	Elephant Meeting Place by Hans Kuijs

Mujhe Jaldi Mara by Kristian von Hornsleth	TUTU by Jeppe Eisner

Doot 4 by Marco Evaristti	Spina by Erika Severin

Map

The Elephant Parade

Hecko X — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 10:00:23 +0000

"Blue" by Cornelius Corneille.
Was sold a few days ago and won't be displayed.

Starting today, Copenhagen is having an elephant parade! It’s not a parade of real elephants though, but rather a cultural event and fund raiser to prevent the extinction of the Asian elephant. To read more about the event, click here.

Anywho, from today to August 25th, 102 painted fiber glass elephants (formerly 103, but one got sold only days before the event and thus won’t be displayed) will be set up around the city of Copenhagen.

My idea is to go out into town every 2-3 days and take pictures of 10 elephants, that I’ll then display here on M Dash. This is to prevent me from going crazy sitting at home working non-stop and also to give me a chance to bug Nashayla at her new job, where they sell miniature porcelain versions of the elephants ;P

In addition to photos of the elephants, I’ll be uploading a map to show the progress of my ‘adventure’. I hope to get a picture of all of them, except maybe five – as they are placed in areas where you have to pay for entry – by the end of this month.

KodachiCon 2011

Hecko X — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:39:59 +0000

Last weekend was the weekend for KodachiCon 2011! I went there with Kurikku, JFS, and Zeneth, who are all part of Genki; JFS had a special invite because he was responsible for the karaoke room, while I was invited to be a cosplay judge since there were issues with my payment.

Saturday

Anywho, we get there bright and early to set up and I start by blowing most of my Swedish money on Japanese candy, which is dirt cheap in Sweden (between half and a third of the price in Denmark). With Kurikku, I also signed up for two contests, and joined a few other things along the way as well.

Mr. Game and Watch
photo by Ali Jehad

They started off with their traditional anime piñata smashing, which this year was in the shape of Totoro from Tonari no Totoro, and was as usual made by the talented Catarina Batista.

Later in the day was the cosplay competition, which I helped judge; something Kurikku found pretty amusing… =.=; Some of the sketches were pretty good; there was even a dude dressed up as Mr. Game & Watch and a girl dressed up as FFX Yuna doing most of the dance from the Sending.

For the rest of the day, I meanly played Tekken 6 and made new acquaintances. It was funny, because people would come over, and if they saw I wasn’t holding a controller, they’d ask “YOU LOST!? O.O” lulz. When I went on stage during the closing ceremony the day after, some even yelled Mokujin at me XD

The evening was spent playing the story/card game Once Upon A Time… with a bunch of peoplez after which I went to Heavy’s place to spend the night.

Sunday

Sunday was a bit more ‘hectic’ since there were a lot more events, but ironically, a lot less to write about. We participated in This One Goes to Eleven, which was a super fun quiz themed event, and ended up winning. Later came a make-shift Tekken 6 tourney, which I ended up winning. Like last year, the finals were against Kurikku. Lastly came Jeopardy, where all three teams completely bombed the Final Jeopardy question and we came up last XD

At 18:00 was the ending ceremony were the prizes were also awarded. I got two medals and Kurikku made me go on stage wearing a way to big Genki hoodie ;P After that, we went home and I got to chillax a bit.

Conclusion

It was a ‘cozy’ convention, but the list of events was a bit thin compared to last year, so people were mainly there in order to socialize. They only had one cinema which was always full, and a smaller game room, the latter of which I’m guessing that it was in part because of the decision by Terebi Ge-mu (who have been responsible for game rooms in previous years) to quadruple their fee from 6,000 SKK to around 25,000 SKK. However, though the game room was smaller, it was still pretty good, and they still had several good tournaments, so it was money well saved.

The contests were good, and we are definitely using some of the events for Genki this year, though we need to think of a better buzz-in system for the Jeopardy game, since it really becomes more of a “buzz when you think the question is about to end” than knowing the right answer. Well… knowing the right answer helps, but you know…

So lots of fun; I just hope there are a bit more events next time.

Hitler Hears Genki 2011 Moves to Roskilde

Hecko X — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 19:11:23 +0000

For 2011, Genki has moved to Roskilde in order to house the increased of guests number of guests, as it would be uncomfortable, not to mention illegal (fire safety), to try and fit them all in Valby Kulturhus.

A lot of people from the city of Copenhagen, however, have complained about this move, stating that Roskilde is simply too far away and whatnot, despite the increase in travel time being a mere 10 minutes.

While they are entitled to think so, I still believe it is a whiny response, considering that people from Funen or Jutland (not to mention the Ferry Islands!!) travel for hours in stride to get to Copenhagen, yet some (not all!) people from Copenhagen are in outrage from the 10 minute increase of sitting down and being driven. Thus, I felt the pressing urge to parody the reaction.

Snowy Serbia

Hecko X — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 19:08:13 +0000

So, I’m currently in Serbia with pretty much no Internet connection. It’s been snowing non-stop since I got here, and we’ve reached 50-100 centimetres in some places. The picture on the right is of my house in Draginac.

It’s pretty nice, if not for tomorrow being the Day of the Dead, which means we have to burrow through the snow for 2-3 kilometres to reach the family grave and light candles. But all good, tradition trumps wet pants ;P

Anywho, as most of you have probably guessed, being in Serbia means I have little to do, other than work on Comic Party translations and scanlate. This means that once I return to Denmark, I’ll be releasing some new chapters of Grappler Baki, so look forward to that c:

That’s all for now! Hope to be back in DK soon, and that the snow doesn’t mean cancelled flights! D:

J-Popcon 2010 – Day 2

Hecko X — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 06:02:51 +0000

Saturday is considered the ‘biggest’ day of the convention, since it’s the only full day of events and also because many of the larger events are held on Saturday for that very reason, due to their long duration.

One of the major events for the game room was the Danish Championship in Super Street Fighter IV. I myself didn’t participate, mainly because I had other stuff to do, but also because of the contradicting information on whether or not it was a buy-in tournament or a free one, and also because they didn’t supply spare PS3 arcade sticks in case people, like myself, only owned a stick for an Xbox 360, which also meant being at a MAJOR disadvantage from the get-go. I asked why they didn’t supply back-up sticks, but never got a straight answer, so I just gave up and left.

Not long after, Aucry called me to say he had arrived and we decided to do a sweep to test out security, while waiting for the Maid Café to open. Bluntly speaking, security was pathetic. Now don’t get me wrong, the security people hired to keep an eye out for trouble, especially during night hours, were GREAT! So kudos for getting them. Many (though not all) of the gophers, however, didn’t seem to be familiar with the rules of the conventions or the full extent of their responsibilities, cause they never enforced the rules, not even those stated by Danish law, such as people not blocking fire exits, not harassing others, etc.

If people just didn’t care, because there were no real consequences like getting their rights revoked and getting kicked out (since J-Popcon was lacking staff), or if they genuinely needed eye surgery because they didn’t see anything, I don’t know. Whatever the case, it was fucked up. No one bothered to ask to see my armband, which I had hidden, nor ask if I was a VIP, since I hadn’t put on my badge and no one knew me personally, so pretty much anyone could just walk in for free.

Aaaaanywho, with nothing really fun to do, we decided to get in line to the maid/butler café, which was open for like 3 hours only. It was pretty cool, as the entire staff was dressed in maid and butler outfits, and the place had been decorated drawings of famous maids and butlers from anime, including a chibi drawing I did of Sebastian from Kuroshitsuji. By the time we got in, most of the cakes had unfortunately been sold out, so we settled for some rum ball dango (essentially three mini-rum balls on a skewer) and drinks.

After they had closed, I had to return to collect some money, since because the treasurer for J-Popkai was being saifhabnkdjbfaæhf, Nashayla (the maid café organizer) had to borrow money from Genkai to have cash for the register. She couldn’t use her own money, as she had already invested +6,000 DKK in the maid café, that had yet to be refunded, and she was thus flat broke. So that was a bit of a lulz factor for all us Genki organizers; the only reason J-Popcon had a functioning maid café was thanks to Genkai coming to the rescue. But it’s all good, not their fault their treasurer is a bit FFFFFFFFFFFFFF, they can just elect a new one next time.

By the time I was done, the cosplay show was just about to start (thanks to the almost traditional delay). Killl had saved me a seat, so while I don’t usually like cosplay shows, I decided to give it a go. If nothing else, it could inspire ideas for when Genki was to be held. A thing I liked was that they took the delay and made fun of it, but the joke was overused and the “yes, we have another delay, which is a must, since we’re J-popcon” (para-phrase, but she actually said this) went from being funny to just being sad and giving a lot of new comers a bad idea of the J-Popcon image.

I unfortunately had to leave during the break, since I had a dinner date with the always lovely Nijidono from Funen, whom I hadn’t seen for months. During dinner, we talked about what was good and bad about J-Popcon, both of us concluding that the artists had been severely fucked over. Then, somehow, conversation shifted to physics and the refraction of light. Dunno how it happened, but that’s why I love hanging out with her; random science discussions and trivia. Upon our return, I heard that my two friends had won the Danish WCS qualifications, so I was like “…FUCK YEAH!! \o/”

The rest of the evening was pretty much spent hanging out with various friends. We were sitting in the vicinity of the giant hall, so we also got to hear the two back-to-back music concerts by Sounthesia (who had contacted Genki, but then never got back to us) and PRESS PLAY ON TAPE. Both had relatively large crowds, but the entire electro music doodlio is not really my thing, though many others seemed to enjoy at least the latter concert. This was also when I was introduced to the party game “Once Upon of Time…“, which was just brilliant.

I had looked forward to seeing what would go on at J-Popcon After Dark, since I missed it the first night, but due to internal conflict, the event had simply been cancelled. Leave it to Afflaf to save the day (or well… night) by going “fuck that” and organizing several games of Mafia. After another hour or so, me and Heavy decided to call it a night and catch the last train home, while Randi and Afflaf decided to stay.

J-Popcon 2010 – Day 1

Hecko X — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 06:55:50 +0000

Two weeks ago, Denmark had it’s 8th annual j-pop culture convention by the name of J-Popcon. I had been invited as a VIP guest in order to write a report of the convention and as a show of friendship between Genki and J-Popcon. I had originally planned to write the report immediately after the convention, but alas, I got sick and then rather busy with more pressing matters. But enough meaningless chatter, on to the report!

Because I was in the area of the convention venue with 20 minutes to kill before having to pick up some friends who were crashing at my place, I decided to have a quick look at the venue and pick up my entrance pass, since they had given the option of people picking them up four hours before the start of the convention to reduce queueing. So I got there around 14:30 (2:30 PM), an hour and a half before doors opened, and not surprisingly, I was the only one there.

I later heard that only few had come to pick up their passes ahead of time, and I can’t say I blame them; the only thing ‘open’ before 16:00 was the manga lounge, so with stuff like the anime cinema and game room closed (where people could go to kill time until everything else opens up), who’d want to leave home, pick up the pass, go home again, only to go back an hour or two later, when everything else opens? If I hadn’t already been in the area, I would’ve waited too.

In the end, when I returned with my friends, there was a giant queue, but in comparison with previous years, I think it was processed more quickly, thanks to their new system of barcode scanning. Double the amount of scanners and computers would still have been a plus though, since with 2200 prepaid guests, with only like two computers and scanners for prepaid people, even if they people manning them are super human and process a person every 10 seconds, that’s still 3 hours to process the entire queue. Part of the queue can be seen in the background on the picture to the right.

Anywho, after having waited for like 45 minutes, me and my buddies were in, ready to take a look around. We were each given a con-book, which was actually quite well made. There was a small editorial followed by the three-day programme and event explanations; something we had sorely missed in our Genki 2010 con-book (event explanations). It then proceeded with bios of all the guests, each ending with a small box for their respective autographs, which I thought was an absolutely brilliant detail!

I sorely missed a map of the venue though, but more importantly, I missed a page with the rules! This might seem like a minor thing to forget, but if no convention rules are handed out to people at a convention, they quite simply don’t apply :/

The rest of the day was spent walking around checking out stuff, though regrettably, I didn’t see as many events as I would’ve liked:

They had some sumo suits they had borrowed from Bosei, but they didn’t really do much with it. Every time I looked inside, it was either completely empty or had only a very small group of people in it. Making a sumo tourney could’ve been super fun!

The opening show was great and informative, but rather drawn out. The first video was funny, but the second one too long and rather pointless. The speech by the president of the union behind the convention was disorganized and long-winded. He had apparently written a speech beforehand, but during the first two minutes, he made a sidestep and said he lost track and then decided to crumble up the paper on stage and throw it away. Funny, but evidently a very bad move; he spent 20-30 minutes on stage saying stuff he could’ve said in only 5.

The voice acting panel was, despite cancellations from two of the voice actors, pretty good. While I wasn’t a fan of any of the voice actors, I still think it was extremely cool that J-Popcon could get them to come, and the 100-200 fangirls would most likely agree with me. I felt kind of bad for Momoi Haruko, the only Japanese voice actor there, since only 1 in 5 questions were directed towards her, while the remaining ones went to Vic Mignogna.

The anime dating game look pretty good, and there was no shortage of contestants (cosplayers). It did, however, seem a bit rushed with very little question time, but I might just have caught them at a bad time. It seemed like everyone, including the people asking, were just picked out of the audience, so I don’t know how organized it was. At Genki, we usually have people sign up to be the person asking questions, so they have time to think of good and funny stuff, while the people being asked are picked from the crowd. But people seemed to be having fun, so all good.

I spent the next few hours in the game room, which was somewhat disappointing to me. It had a few cool things, like some music games and such, but it felt like it was 50% retro consoles and games, 25% Super Street Fighter IV (the Danish Championship was to be played the next day), and 25% really cool stuff, like being able to play Tony Hawk on a board-like controller or the 3-day workshop where you could help create a game. It’s not that it was bad, but considering the game room wasn’t alone this year, but cooperated with GamersLounge.dk, who has hosted several HeadStomper tournaments which are famous in the fighting game community of Denmark, the game room could’ve been SO much more than it was.

I caught a glimpse of the Artist Alley just before it closed. All I can really say is that I feel really bad for the artists… The were placed in a corridor away from the main building, which was so narrow that if you stopped to actually take a look at their art, you be blocking everyone trying to pass, so you’d literally cause a potential fire escape hazard if you wanted to buy something.

There was a concert by Momoi Haruko, which a lot of people seemed to like a lot. It was not really to my taste as the pitch was really high and the voice ‘cutesy’, which really makes my skin crawl… Despite that, it was really cool they [J-Popcon] set it up, though they were apparently hassled by fans who were mad about the lack of glow sticks, which is apparently a norm at Momoi Haruko concerts ;>.>

I spent the rest of the evening hanging out with friends, and unfortunately didn’t realize I had missed the Unions in DK panel until it had just finished. I spent the next to days raging over that, since I was certain it wasn’t to be held until Saturday. I went home with my friends at around midnight, since we needed to catch the trains while they were still semi-regular, so I unfortunately also missed J-Popcon After Dark; their version of Genki’s Otaku Hour. I heard later I hadn’t missed out on much though, since it just ended up with them rough-housing in the sumo suits and actually breaking one of them.

Thus ends the first day of J-Popcon. Holy crap that was a long post… OTL

J-Popcon 2010 – Preface

Hecko X — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:17:32 +0000

Before starting my review of the convention, I thought it would be good to write a preface explaining a few things that should be kept in mind while reading this.

First off, since I expect quite a few Danish readers will come across this at one time or another, I’d like to dispel a rumour that has been circulating; no, there is no bad blood between Genki and J-Popcon. Yes, we have a friendly ‘rivalry’ going and occasionally poke fun at each other, but it’s all in good spirits and in order to improve for the sake of the guests.

Second, it’s important to remember that this year, J-Popcon practically re-invented itself; they moved to an entirely new venue, used an entirely new check-in and payment system, and with a large number of organizers never have tried anything like this before, so stuff was bound to go a little haywire every now and again, since everything was pretty new to everyone.

That being said, I’ll make a few notes on the pre-con impression. In order to not turn this into a wall of text, I’ll do as much in keyword form as I can:

The Good

The website was used a lot better this year, compared to previous years.
Fresh blood in the organizer group = fresh input.
Registration and payment system was great and easy to use
Lots of high profile guests, who I’m sure many are looking forward to seeing/hearing.

The Bad

Registrations were up extremely late, though in J-Popcon’s defence, this was due to their contract with PBS (Payment Business Services) dragging out. They found it pretty annoying too.
Many cosplayers complained that requirements for doing an act during the cosplay show this year has been insane. As a result, fewer groups have entered this year, compared to previous years.
Some organizers have expressed that internal communication was less than satisfactory.
Several artists have expressed dissatisfaction about the expensive prices (Weekend = 350 DKK entry + 150 DKK booth + travel expenses) and that despite it being ‘first come, first serve’, J-Popcon would pick and choose which artists got in, to get a wider range of art; they thought it unfair that they could be bypassed by someone signing up later, just because their art might be similar to someone else’s.

The Outlier

This isn’t necessarily as bad as it is odd, at least to me, but J-Popcon have decided to wait with accepting receipts and refunding the organizers until after the convention. I’ve since talked to their main PR guy who said that it was simply due that it was too much work to do gradually, which is true; it’s a lot more work to do it gradually (I did that with Genki) than over the course of one or two days, but the advantages are also immense.

For one thing, organizers don’t go without money for weeks (some invested thousands of their own money to get events done, and had to borrow more to ensure they could still be held), which leaves a lot of unhappy faces, but more importantly, the treasurer knows -exactly- how much money has been spent and how much is left leading up to the convention, and can control spending accordingly. Doing everything after the con leaves too much hoping and guesswork for my taste, which is why I personally try to avoid it. Besides, in the event of a deficit (which is probably unlikely, but still), who get’s stuck with the bill to pay everyone else back?

See comment section.

KodachiKun 2010

Hecko X — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:59:53 +0000

I died, hence no updates until my ghost figured out how to press keys on the keyboard, lololololol 8D Ok, no. I’d love to say that I’ve simply been swamped with translation work and meetings for Genki, which I have, but truth be told, the only reason I haven’t posted is because I was too lazy to get off my ass and pick up my BlueTooth extension from my pencil case that was just far enough out of reach that I had to actually put my legs off my desk, get out of the chair, and actually take two steps. AND THEN BEND DOWN ALSO, I MEAN, WTF!? D8< BUT I'M HERE NOW, SO RET'S GO!!

About a fortnight ago, I went to SWEDENLAND with a group of friends to attend KodachiKun 2010, a one-day convention by our (Genki’s) lovely Swedish partners, Mangakai Lund. It was, in a nutshell, KodachiCon in a scaled down version, which is pretty cool for a social get-together and have some anime fun. That was also the main reason I went as well, to see all my rovery Swedish friends again; YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!! ♥♥♥ ;3;

Before going, I had promised myself that I’d do more than just hang around the game room and whoop people’s asses in Tekken 6 with my Mokujin of EPIC AWESOME, but alas, that’s all I did :c To be fair, I think Kurikku and Cezar each won a match against me, SO KUDOS!! >.<)b An audience starting gathering every time I was playing, so it was kind of embarrassing, but it made me a bit happy nonetheless~ ^////^ But I might just be thinking too much of myself, they probably gathered with other people too, BUT STILL!! XD

Regardless, I had a lot of fun. The most awesome part was probably when Alvoha (friend of mine who travelled with us), and I swear this is true, made me feel like Mighty Mouse. I was finishing up in the make-shift Tekken Tourney (won 1st place and 70 Swedish Kroner) when he comes up and says:
[Alvoha]: “We need your help… The Swedes are slaughtering us in Jeopardy, so we’re tagging you in for me.”
*Dramatic rise from chair*
[me]: “VERY WELL!! >:3”
*Queue Mighty Mouse theme on the left*

We (me, Kurikku, and jfs) ended up winning on group effort, lulz, so all good. We each got a different Lucky☆Star figurine and a key-chain from an Anime I didn’t recognize. We kept the figurines, but gave the key-chains to Alvoha for being a good sport. After the closing ceremony was over, we headed towards the station, but made a stop for me at the candy shop across the station because candy is CRAZY CHEAP in Sweden. Ended up buying 2.3 kilograms (around 5 pounds) of candy, only to get home and the day after be told I’m not allowed to eat candy because my calcium levels are too low… FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Maré de Agosto Festival 2010

Hecko X — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 02:31:40 +0000

I’ve been super busy trying to get as much work done for Alpha Entertainment before leaving for Serbia, since the first issue comes out in the beginning of November, and by then, I have to finish translating 10 strips of Faux Pas and the first two chapters of Usagi Yojimbo, not to mention typeset the entire magazine ^^’

So anywho, here’s a post by the ever so awesome and curly-haired Henryacores, who participated in the music festival, Maré de Agosto.

So two yeeks ago was the 26th Maré de Agosto summer festival which, like always, I’ve attended. I’ve written a post on last year’s edition back then as well, so it’s a cool idea to read it before this. [linky Hecko, you lazy!] [Hecko edit: FFFFFFFF!! D8]

The Maré de Agosto summer festival is a world music festival that takes place in Praia Formosa beach at the Azorean island of Santa Maria. This year’s line-up was as varied as last year’s: the ever-present obvious rock and reggae were complimented by mind-blowing pumping, Brazilian tunes, North African sounds and national Portuguese tunes.

The festival was organized the very same way as last year. Composed of the main Maré Stage and the secondary TMN Stage (former castle stage. Renamed in order to kiss the main sponsor’s ass), the festival would have some minor shows and acts on the afternoon on the TMN stage, but the real thing started everyday at 22:00 with a small act by the same percussion bands as last year, and on the last day, with an act from the people who took part on the percussion workshop that occurred. After this minor act, two bands would play, the first starting at 22:30, and the second one starting at half past midnight and then a DJ would take the main stage while a third band would make the old people who don’t give a damn about DJs move to the TMN Stage. In the end both stages would feature DJs until 5:30.

Other than the line-up, I felt major differences this year. For one, I felt like I was on some random summer festival: Everywhere I looked, I could only find outsiders and/or younger girls. Also, there weren’t any gypsy shacks (D8), since they were kicked off and replaced by hotdog cars and such.

Like last year, my cousin (8D) was my ride to the festival, and then take me back with him by around 5 – 6 AM, when the gates closed off. So, everyday we left home by 10-11 pm. We should actually get there sooner, because parking there was a pain: We usually walked almost a km back to the car. Not that much, but it’s pretty boring if you consider it’s a climb, and you’ve usually booze on your blood by then.

So, the first day, the 26th of August, started with NOIDZ, some Portuguese freaks whose music is pretty much noise. It was brutal. My feet ached from jumping. Their show consists of four guys dressed like creepy aliens pumping with hardcore beats on their guitars. It was by far the best show of the festival.

After NOIDZ ended, a duo of Portuguese DJs by the name of Bandido$, who were actually pretty cool. I remember them playing some cool dance music, until showing some classic tracks like “Thunderstruck” and having the crowd go wild. I gave up on the rave by 4 AM, since my cousin had challenged me for a swimming race in the afternoon, so I was pretty tired, and went back to the car earlier. Since I was tired, I sat on the wall next to the car, and ended up falling asleep. When my cousin got to the car he thought I had gotten a ride home, and if he hadn’t miraculously seen a wasted body to the right with some tune playing on him, I’d have slept on the street. >>

The second day was the most expected, because of Disneyland After Dark. However, it started with Speed Caravan, a French band who mixed North African sounds with rock. I actually liked it, since it set a fine start for the show. As for D-A-D, it was really awesome, and one of the best concerts of the festival: all I remember is jumping with a friend in the middle of the lights and countless people around.

The female DJ duo Heartbreakerz came after D-A-D, but I don’t really remember them, and I heard they played some weird stuff, so it probably wasn’t impressive. I remember moving to the DJs on the TMN Stage, and the music there was something pretty vulgar. On the second (or first, considering there’s only one band Thursday) day, we went home earlier because my cousin was kind of tired, and the music wasn’t so good, so we just went home and rest for the following days.

The third day was pretty cool too, but had a rough start with Grooveria, some Brazilians with a concept of blending traditional Brazilian groove, and showed some remixes of classics from Bossanova, but their percussion sounded quite arritmic. What helped the show for me was the intent of making a beer cup pile that night toghether with a friend. I think it hit the twenties.

After Grooveria, Walter Strout followed up. I had no idea who he was but my cousin said he was like, this big Blues legend, or at least a relative, and he wasn’t wrong. The guy was very cool, and I really enjoyed his show, but I already was pretty drunk by then, after drinking half of that cup pile >>. I do remember I was so drunk I actually smoked a full cigar, even though I can’t smoke a shit sober, only to hit the enlightened conclusion that cigars ain’t worth shit. Seriously. It tastes like nothing. At least weed makes you high and booze can be sweet.

On the DJs, I don’t really remember them >> I think after the concerts I went to hang out with my friends at the field they were camping at, and started joking around with the accent of a girl from Terceira (Another Azorean island. Each island has distinct accents) who was hanging around with us. Poor kid. I have no memories from the DJs that day.

Sunday, the final day was pretty awesome. The first concert was from the Portuguese band Oquestrada, whose music sounds like Fado and really traditional Portuguese tunes. They manage to have cool music and pretty fun lyrics, but the concert wasn’t so good, because I think it lacked a lot of interaction between the artists and the public. So I grabbed my cousin Bean and a beer and we went to Nessa’s tent to hang out with her, her American or Canadian or whatever friend, Steven, and her sister. We chatted around and drank some of Nessa’s awful booze. Pretty cool time.

After Oquestrada ended, we went back to the stage to see Omar Perry, the reggae concert of the festival. It was a really awesome concert though I can’t remember the music, but I do remember it finally started to rain a bit (The weather that weekend was extremely freaky. It was always cloudy but it never rained, which was making me anxious). Omar Perry had a cool concert, and the show was so intense he even asked the public for a joint and smoked it like a chimney. Drunk Henry thought it was a cigar and had to look twice.

After the concert I went again to my buddies’ camp site to hang out before heading to the TMN Stage, where a Portuguese rock band called Tornados was playing. I really liked their music, because they played a really awesome 80′s Portuguese rock, again with fun lyrics, and not the shit commercial rock those kiddo fake bands that kids hear today (like Jonas Brothers and that). The TMN Stage had a cozier feel, because it is much much smaller than the main stage, so when I went to the bar I stayed there for a while, chatting with an older cousin’s friend who looked on his late 20′s, but was actually as old as me. Smoking does heavy shit to you.

Anyway, when I got back to the crowd, a some weird guys called Bunnyranch was already playing. I didn’t even notice the change back then, because both them and Tornados were four-man bands. I guess the music was pretty different. I don’t remember them much. I do remember Bla Bla Bla DJ, who came after, and ended the Maré with an awesome set, ending with current mainstream tracks that lifted the crowd high up. I danced a lot.

After the concert was over I left with my friends and went with them to their tents, until my cousin called me by around 7 AM for us to go home. Just like last year.

Overall, this edition of the festival was really good, but not half as good as last year’s. By any chance. Probably because my buddy was in damn Canada, maybe because I was drunk by midnight. No, scratch that. I was always drunk last year too. I don’t know. It was probably because I was expecting something a hundred times better than last year, since I’m moving out of the island and diving into Lisbon for college life. I’m just happy this Maré was awesome as always, no matter if less than before.

Genki 2010 Over

Hecko X — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 03:16:59 +0000

It’s now been a week and a half since Genki 2010 ended… Initially, I had hoped to write daily reports like I did last year, but I am unfortunately unable to do so because unlike last year, I did not have the spare time to actually make rounds at the convention; I was mostly doing check-in or reception duty when I wasn’t running back and forth solving problems suddenly occurring.

As such, I’m just gonna sum up the convention real quick-like. Major success with 65 different events, only very few delays, and a single cancellation since the dude who was supposed to hold a panel didn’t show up. A vast majority of people went home happy and some even said it was the best con they’ve been to in years. So that’s pretty cool ;P

At the same time, we also learned that we are still lacking in experience and the top 3 things to remember for next year is better communication, check-lists to make sure we don’t forget anything, and better communication!

But despite being busy, I had a nice time with everyone. It seems quite a few people were worried for my well-being though, since I’d be so busy I’d forget to eat and sleep ^^’ The 1UP shroom at the top right is actually a reference to that. The guy who made if for me gave it to me saying “here’s a 1UP mushroom so that you’ll have an extra life in case you die or something.” I thought that was fucking awesome XD But thanks everyone for caring and for the many huggles (I lubz huggles) and I hope to work with you all again next year ♥♥♥

Got 5,000 Genki Business Cards in the Mail

Hecko X — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:30:47 +0000

So… just got 5,000 Genki business cards in the mail… Friggin’ insane…

Anyway, I’ve added a scan of the front and back of the Genki business cards to the bottom of the post. The concept is that it’s just a ‘template’ and then people write their own names and contact info on the back when handing them out (getting everyone personal ones was too expensive for the union). Also, we’re giving some to stores to put in each manga they sell as a form of advertising.

How do you like them?

So, What’s Up with Genki?

Hecko X — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 10:28:59 +0000

I just realised that I hadn’t posted anything about how work for our convention, Genki 2010, is coming along, so I figured I’d rectify that!

Truth be told, the last few weeks have been paperwork hell for me. Being the accountant of the union, Genkai, which is behind events such as our convention Genki, it has been my job to balance the books. This means that I have to daily check the bank accounts (yes, plural, since I also manage books for the associate company), balance the books, send out confirmation emails to all the people who have joined, and then take note of who joined, when, and so on. I’ve probably sent out +500 mails in the last 3 weeks. Receipts and stuff like that also go through me, so I have to approve and organise all of them OTL

But despite me totally emoing over paperwork and deadlines, we’re doing pretty well. Our last deadline is on my birthday, July 23, because I’d probably forget otherwise and I most likely will anyway (random factoid: The last deadline we had was actually Kurikku’s birthday, May 27, when we open for registrations). But when we reach that point, we’re only gonna be working on making sure stuff run smoothly during the convention itself so we don’t have to stop parts of the convention because something broke down, but could have been avoided. We’d rather not have to fix stuff in the middle of the con and possibly cancel events; that sucks T^T

Our top priorities right now is to get permissions for weapons display and setting up the stage (since it’s an outdoor stage and we have to think about noise pollution), and making sure that eeeeverything is 100% legal by the time the con starts. For this reason, we (Kurikku and I) have gone on many trips to the tax office, the Copenhagen municipal office and to several police station departments. It would really suck if we held the most awesome con ever and then had our egos get groin-kicked by getting arrested and/or fined for something totally redundant… =.=;

And that’s all for now~. The next Genki 2010 update will probably come during the convention which is only a month away now 8D

Btw, all the drawings, which are of the Genki mascots (Ping&Pong), we’re drawn by the rovery Kaiki of hybridcage.net. I think their new designs are pretty cool *nod nod* And now if you’ll excuse me, I must be off; my bananaphone is ringing! >:3

Buddies’ Day Out

Hecko X — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 12:11:38 +0000

So, a few days ago Thursday, three friends and I, who had all been in the same group for the Year 2 Project, went out to celebrate having passed all of our exams. We had long since decided that when we finally finished the year (or “cleaned the year“, as we say in Serbia if you pass all your exams), we’d go to dinner and bowling, so that’s exactly what we did! 8D

We started off going to a burger joint named after a city in Canada, Halifax. None of us had ever been there before, which made it kinda cool for all of us since we all got to test out something new. Considering that it was a burger joint, their selection was fairly limited (5 types of burgers), but you could ‘customise’ them by selecting what kind of meat you wanted in them (e.g. 175g beef, 275g beef, chicken, etc.), what kind of side order, and what type of dip you wanted.

The burgers were absolutely delicious, but the prices were pretty damn spicy. Even the cheapest burger + side order on the menu was 110 DKK and a small drink was like 25 DKK. There are really good places with all-you-can-eat buffets with free drinks and ice cream for 2 hours for almost the same price, so I was a bit D8 about it, but it was pretty good nonetheless, and the waitress was pretty patient with us ^^’

Afterwards, we went bowling. Since we had like an hour and a half until our reservation at the bowling alley, we decided to walk there and had some fun in the meantime. We made it with like 20 minutes to go, so I can imagine it was further away than we thought XD

Anywho, long story short, we could all use some more practice (I’ve added our games to the end of the post)… And I seriously need to get back in shape, I was pretty sore the next morning, lulz XD In any case, it was a super fun day out, so thanks you guys!!

Genki @ Komiks

Hecko X — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 02:47:52 +0000

Okay, truth be told, this event is almost a month old which is why I’m a bit “hnnngh… ;>.>” about posting it, BUT HEY!! I haven’t really posted for ages because I’ve been busy with exams (which are now over), scanlations (which are partially on hold due to either vacation or licensing), and Genki work (which is now far more manageable), so I figured what the the hey~.

Anywho, Komiks is probably the largest comic book convention in Denmark. Compared to the comic conventions in the US or the manga conventions in Japan, it’s not; like comparing an ice cube to the iceberg that sank the Titanic, but here, it’s pretty effing big! Anywho, Genki were especially invited because the Komiks organisers had apparently heard about us (wuuuw) and wanted us to give their participants a taste of the East (mainly focusing on manga, but also other things).

So we essentially had us a miniature Genki convention with a manga lounge, a game room (organised by one of our Swedish partners, Terebi Ge-mu), a chill-out café with drawing and Perle bead making, and even an anime showing. The only thing that sucked is that we had no flyers for Genki to hand out and our banner wasn’t up until Sunday, so PR-wise, we crashed and burned (people didn’t know who organised it XD). But people at least had fun at our little corner of Komiks, so it’s all good.

I myself had buck-loads of fun too; I got the kick-assatastic drawing of Young Flaming Ninja from Kaiki (seen on the left; she gave me the original sketch), met this chick that I’m currently ‘seeing’ (it’s a very casual relationship/arrangement, we’re not actually dating), and lost Kurikku to Samir from Sweden in a game of Super Street Fighter IV XD

Kurikku in turn, in a vain effort to win back his freedom, lost me, the chick I’m seeing, and aaaaaall of Genki to Samir, so now, we’re all Samir’s bitches until I get a chance to win everything back in a game of Tekken 6. And I’ll win his girlfriend and cat from him also, JUST BECAUSE!! JUST BECAUSE, SAMIR!!! >:3 /shakes fist at Samir

Oh, and one last funny story about the event: Terebi Ge-mu, the dudes from Sweden setting up our game room for Komiks, had prepared and safely locked away their consoles to get them to Komiks. They get to Komiks, and when they’re just about to unpack, they realise that they never got the keys from the guy who helped them pack their stuff. So now, we had like 8-10 consoles locked away in two red whatevers from IKEA and no key.

Kurikku suggest that they go to the IKEA 45 minutes into town, buy the same “metal cupboard storage”-thingy so they can get an identical key, and come back and unlock the ones they brought from Sweden with the consoles in them. I tell them no, since I can get them open without the key. Kurikku liked his idea better, so off to IKEA they went, and 30 minutes into their road trip, the van BREAKS DOWN in the middle of the highway, leaving them stranded for hours. And guess who had manage to pick open the locks with a hairpin and a screwdriver only a few minutes after they’d left XD

KodachiCon 2010

Hecko X — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:35:27 +0000

Ok, wow. I’m so tired… Anyway, this weekend was when KodachiCon 2010 in Lund, Sweden, took place, and boy was it cool. I actually wanted to take a bunch of pictures, but my cameraphone went into roaming mode as soon as we entered Sweden and the entire battery was drained before I ever got the chance to take pics, so I got zilch. Check out their gallery on facebook though: KodachiCon Gallery

This was actually my first con abroad, so it was big relief to me to have the ‘safety net’ of going with a few friends as well as the con being organized by Mangakai Lund, the Swedish partners of Genki. I initially wanted to write two big posts, but I’m tired and busy with exams and such, so I’m just gonna make things short.

All in all, the con was pretty cool and chillaxed. In number of participants, it was about the same as Genki 2009, but they actually utilized the venue space (which I think was smaller than what we had) REALLY efficiently. The only place that ever felt crowded was the 2 metres between the doorway leading to the gameroom and the stairs leading to the lower level.

In terms of events, there was a cosplay show that I unfortunatelly didn’t go to, game room by Terebi-Gemu + game tournaments (I won the Tekken 6 one~ 8D ; got a medal and two games), an auction, a karaoke room supplied by us (Genki), a traditional game room (i.e. boardgames) + contests by S.A.R.Z., two cinemas; one dedicated to anime, the other dedicated to J-drama (they had also planned for an outdoor evening cinema, but it started raining), cool in-between events like Jeopardy and Mafia (which I really wanted to try having read the manga Doubt, but I was just way too tired), and lots lots more.

I got to meet a lot of really cool people, including some of the best Street Fighter and Tekken players in Sweden (I was no match for them in SF, but in Tekken, I whooped ass >:3 ), and in my opinion, their con was super duper awesome!! The only thing I regret was spending too much time in the game room, I wanted to go see some of the other stuff as well D8

Oh, one thing I thought was a bit “… but why?” was that the ‘kiosk/cafeteria’ didn’t really sell food other than snacks/candy and then breakfast during the morning. I mean sure, there was a McDonald’s and a petrol station like 5-10 minutes away so it wasn’t like people were dying of hunger, but since they already had an electric keddle free for use (if people had bought like tea or something, I guess), why then not hook up an extra one and then sell cup noodles or something? I think that would’ve been pretty cool. But then again, it might have been done like that for safety reasons (to avoid people being idiots and scalding themselves or others big-time) or maybe they need some licence to sell that kind of stuff, I dunno.