An Anime convention, in Florida? Yes, a new convention branched off from MegaCon and took place 2 weeks from Otakon. This was the con's first year and they did a great job. I nearly missed this convention, but glad i had made it.

Friday night Waffle, Cybil and myself left for Orlando. Less than 10 miles down from the base, we hit a large piece of torn-truck-mud-guard-plastic shrapnel, and nearly blew a tire. Thud thud thud thud THUD THUD, the sound of a nearly flattened tire. Luckily half a mile down the road there was a rest area where some mechanic guy had all the necessary replacements to fix a tire and attach a spare. Note to self; learn how to change a tire =P. After that the trip ran smoothly and no other car problems happened. The car actually ran better with the new tire because the previous one was old (Curse You Firestone!)

We arrived around 1 and since the hotel was fairly small i was able to find Shin's brother in the lobby no problem. Chris and Loki also drove by and i got to get a spot in their room (thanx guys!). Finding the way around the con was no problem because well, it was fairly small. 1 video room, 1 dealers room, and 2 panel rooms. The Ramada where it took place was a nice place. Mainly outdoors and only 2 stories tall, which eliminated any complaints about slow elevators ^_^

Walking around i saw my friend from home, Alex and another friend whom i haven't seen since early high school, Ivan. i was really surprised to see they actually came to a convention, but this goes to show that now that Florida has conventions, its a chance for people of the southeast US to actually go to cons instead of having to travel great distances to find any. There were actually quite a few newbies to the anime scene at the con. Gundam Wing, DBZ, and Sailor Moon fans mostly. And this was a great con for people who haven't been to any cons before because everything was easy to access and the people running it were very understanding to people's needs.

The dealer's room had the BEST prices i have ever seen at a con. This was the first year i got just about everything i wanted to get and not break the $200 mark. Of course most CDs were EverAnime or SonMay, but the selection was amazing. a vast selection of various soundtracks, as well as J-Pop and video game music. wallscrolls were very affordable and there was a great variety to choose from. I even managed to find a vampire hunter d amano yoshitaka wallscroll! i've never been able to find any amano wallscrolls and it was so great to find this one. there was plenty of walking space in the dealer's room so there was no worry of giant crowds blocking your way to a certain area you might to get to.

The Florida Cosplay Mailing List was having a meeting in the lobby, but i wanted to go to Wendee Lee's panel instead because i had missed her earlier presentation. Wendee Lee is such a cool person! only about 20 people attended her panel, but it was still fun. She explained how she had gotten into voice acting, her many voices she did, the companies and people she worked for and also how at times, she will put her own emphasis on a character to make it seem more suiting. Like for a ditzy female she would change a line from "Alright, let us be off" to something like "Yay! Lets Go!" because it looks much better in the final production. I got to speak to Wendee afterward and got her to autograph my Iczer 1 video. She will always be a favorite voice actress of mine, and it was such a great honor to meet her in person.

Fujikoma kept up its video game party tradition later that night with all new games i brought. Final Fantasy IX, Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix, Chocobo Stallion, Rockman, and of course Bust A Move 2 were some of the games we played. We also had a parody showing of C-ko's newest project "Koko Wa Otaku II" (parody dub of Koko Wa Greenwood [thanks SO much C-ko! you're awesome!]) which everyone thought was hilarious! We also watched Macross 7, Maho Tsukai Tai, Roadbusted, and some of the new music videos that Fujikoma was working on. The party of course had a righteous supply of Mountain Dew, the official Fujikoma beverage! ^_^

Saturday Name That Anime Tune definitely was one of the best panels. There was a nice group of people participating and the challenges were definitely a true test of music knowledge. Most of the songs were named after about 3 notes which shows some people really know their theme songs. Nobody in our group won, but we did fairly well. In the OTAKU rank we named several that I'd be amazed if anyone else knew. Lets see, i think they were Grimm's Fairy Tales, Super Mario Brothers Super Show, Dragon Warrior, YS, and Iczer 1. We made the mistake of individually answering questions instead of teaming up to answer them and pull our points together. They later had a Name That Video Game Tune contest in which we combined our answers by telling one person out of all of us to answer. The video games they played were definately a challenge. a few were on totally obscure systems like TurboGraphix or Import Famicom. 2 songs even came from Fighting Street which nobody could answer. amazingly only 2 songs were played from Final Fantasy games, which we named immediately. In the end it came down to a tie between Alex and another guy. and the final final tune played was a remastered remixed Zelda theme. A very cool panel, and it was great to participate in it.

Ha-Do-KEN! the video game tourny definitely went well. The games were projected onto the big screen and the sound was nice. They even had arcade-style controllers to give it a real tournament style feeling. a lot of people participated and after every win the audience applauded the winner. There were a few sore losers in the game but most people shook hands after the match agreeing to a good game. Alex was extremely good at Alpha 3; he even pulled a Demon Super finish with Akuma/Gouki. But because he just HAD to get his trademark win, he lost the second match trying to finish the guy in style. oh well, he did fare pretty well through most of the tournament. How did I do? heh, well i despise Arcade Sticks. i even have one, but i never use it. so i lost because i cant use arcade controllers for crap. thats my story and im sticking to it. The Tekken Tag tourny got a lot of people exited. not only because its a Playstation2, but because most of the people had never witnessed a Playstation2 in real life yet. So for most of them, just being able to play the game was a thrill. Shin COULD have won the tournament. arrgh! if he hadnt have left early he would have been in the finals and won, but for some reason he left 3 minutes before they announced that he had made it into the last rounds.

The closing ceremonies were nice. They talked about the goods and bads of their first con, the turn out of members (way more than theyexpected for such a small con), thanks to all of the guests, and even a slideshow of the first two days! Hash productions even gave out T-Shirts to the audience (i got one! ^_^)Sunday night a handfull of us went out to eat at Outback Steakhouse which was fun. We took up an entire section of the restaurant! I got to sit with the dealers from Anime Pavillion where we talked about plans for upcoming conventions and other oddities. WackoTTL hit a giant rain puddle on the way there, and since the car was a convertible, we got seriously splashed! He said in all of his years driving in convertables, that has never happened to him either. That night Waffle and I just listened to the CDs we had bought and chilled out.

Anime Festival Orlando was a great "new" con. One thing i notice is that with early cons, people are very friendly because there aren't many of us and whoever is there...well, we'd like to get to know some people. WackoTTL just sorta pulled people into his little convention. Bystanders just sitting there got to know the "group" and associate. Simply by telling them "Youre now part of Pete Rox Con '97!" made them feel like part of the group. A nice way to meet more people, and makes for a very relaxing con. The dealers had nice prices, nay, VERY nice prices!! in fact, i don't think i've seen such a great selection for such great prices. The people running it were Very helpful and tried to help as many people as they could. For some, it was the first time they had gone to a convention, and it was easy to tell that they really enjoyed their time. Not just good for beginners, but also a chance for hardcore con-goers to relax with the simpleness of a new con. I really enjoyed my time there. mostly because i had so many friends there, but also because of the convince of a small con wiithout the hustle and bustle of bigname cons (Otakon has 50x more people! X_x). Gripes? Well i didn't get a program book because of the unexpected attendancy, but i easily found my way around the con. I mean its not like i could get lost with only 3 main rooms to go to ^_^ I will go next year, and i really hope the service is just as great as it was this year! Cool new con with great promise.