This is a bit more in-depth then the LJ post last week:

http://www.animetion.co.uk/features/allnighter10/allnighter10maypg1.htm

So I got back earlier today from what was my...sixth..?...(possibly)...Anime All-Nighter from London, an event held at Apollo Cinema in Piccadilly Circus which plays anime all night from midnight to 8am approx. Attendees get a goodie bag (with DVDs, books, etc.), energy drinks, ice cream and tea & coffee. Not bad for £30 and usually its really good. This year I was a bit disappointed though, due to the films shown:

Redline - racing anime which has a similar style to that of Dead Leaves but longer and less interesting. It looks great but the pumping soundtrack was not what I wanted when I was knackered, plus the nitro-racing looked very daft despite how well drawn it was. I nodded off about fifteen minutes in, only to wake up for Amy to tell I missed an unnessacary showing of breasts on-screen. Thankfully these reappeared a moment later and then I nodded off again and awoke for the finale. It was ok, but I wanted a really 'wow' film to kick things off, not something average.

Bleach the Movie 2: The Diamond Dust Rebellion - shite. Complete and utter shite. Poorly written, poor voice acting (I'm looking at you Renji), terrible TERRIBLE plot devices and the usual homo-erotic 'we are friends, therefore we must fight to the death but admire each other despite our bloodlust' storyline. Plus depsite the film not being around Ichigo, he still has to sort everything out and the other characters take second fiddle. Utterly poor bad guy who had a very very shite reason for his resurrection. Hilariously awful for a little while, before it became unbearable awful.

Musashi - Odd one this. It was billed as docudrama of the great swordsman, which led me to believe it would be an action-fest with a basic amount of fact. Not really. What you got was a Mii like old bloke reading out the life of the swordsman like a lecture, with the odd bit of indiscrimate killing of children from the *aheam* 'great' swordsman. Pretty much the entire cinema slept for this one, even one of my friends who studies Japanese history fell asleep. This may have been a good choice for the Japanese Arts Festival, but not at 4am in the morning at a sweaty all-nighter.

FMA: Brotherhood - the first episode of the excellent series and the best thing shown all night! Great action, story, characters....well you know the rest. Can't wait to see more of this series.

Fate/Stay Night movie - this started out well, but I dosed off after about twenty minutes in. It was really good up until that point but I was just too knackered! When I woke up I had no idea what was going on. I asked my friends afterwards, who stayed awake for the film longer then I did, and they said it got quite messy at the end and made little sense but it was decent action nonetheless.

Overall it was the worst all-nighter I've been to, as there was no killer film in the line-up for me, which there has been at every other AAN I've been to. I'm surprised they didn't show Eva 2.0 or Summer Wars, considering these have been shown prior to the AAN so I'm sure they could have been put on the bill. Never mind though as I'm sure the next one will be of the usual AAN quality.

I would have gone to bed as soon as I got back, but I found much drama happening on the internet which had to be looked into. It'll be interesting to see how things happen since the change.

At long last the Alcon 2009 feature is done. A full report on each day of the event which should prove interesting for attendees and non-attendees alike:

http://www.animetion.co.uk/features/alcon09/alcon09main.htm

Last year I attended the very first Kitacon and was hugely impressed by how well run it was. It was also fantastic fun so it was never in doubt that I would be attending the second Kitacon, held the weekend just passed.

I'm now going to totally steal the win/fail format to round-up the event. It works a bit better on LJ, plus I'm going to start shortly on a feature for Animetion, so best concentrate most of the writing on that.

So...

Managed to but tickets and change trains to Northampton in the space of five minutes - WIN

Unexpected friends on said train - WIN

Saw more friends when we arrived at Northampton station - WIN

Saw even more friends when we arrived at the Park Inn - WIN

Dinner with the lovely Phil & Lydia (Genki Gear) and top bloke Steve (Neon Martian) - WIN

The opening ceremony was pretty much on time - WIN

Team Giblets video in said ceremony - WIN

Bar prices - FAIL

Wetherspoons next door with much cheaper bar prices - WIN

Decent music actually got played at all the parties - WIN

Met several new awesome people - WIN

Met several new dull people - FAIL

Ibis charging me for two rooms on Sunday - FAIL

Kita's got talent actually contained talent - WIN

Team Giblets again - WIN

My friend Emily's artwork being featured on the con badges and t-shirt - WIN

People other then my friends actually came to the Hello Kitty panel and enjoyed it - WIN

And of course me and Amy spending our first con together as a couple - WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN !!!!
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I'll come back to this list letter as I'm sure there are is plenty more WIN to add. One other thing is that I was very impressed with how helpful the committee were when it came to the running of the Hello Kitty panel me & Rich did. Scowny was in email contact with me prior to the event and Macula came to our aid when we compeltely failed at using the projector. Everytime I spoke to the committee about anything, they were always great.

I'm going to post on people's FB profiles tonight, as I've got far more people on there then my LJ.

Oh and last years Kitacon feature can be found here - http://www.animetion.co.uk/features/kitacon09/kitacon09main.htm

I'm going to be writing most of the feature for this years Kitacon over the Easter weekend. The finishing touches are just being done for the long overdue Alcon 2009 feature first.

Our writer Matt Dark has just completed two new reviews:

Claymore vols 5 & 6 (anime) - http://www.animetion.co.uk/Reviews/anime/claymore56(matt).htm

Naruto Ultimate Ninja 3 (game) - http://www.animetion.co.uk/Reviews/games/ultimateninja3(matt).htm

Also new writer Andy Milford recently did an entertaining review of The Dark Crystal manga, something fans should avoid it seems!

http://www.animetion.co.uk/Reviews/manga/darkcrystal(andy).htm

My co-webmaster Rich has just completed a write-up on Nakano Broaday, an anime shopping area in Tokyo:

http://www.animetion.co.uk/city/nakano.htm

Nakano is kind of like a retro Akihabara and was one of my favourite areas of Tokyo. If you are thinking of travelling to Tokyo anytime soon, this feature is well worth a read.

I picked this up at Expo last month and just got around to reviewing it:

www.animetion.co.uk/Reviews/books/cosplayfever(tom).htm

It will be interesting to see what volume 2 is like when it comes out.