ACen 2023

with rare exceptions, I don’t usually make an effort to travel very far for conventions. most of my life I’ve been spoiled for choice being close to otakon, katsucon, and MAGfest, and between the three you can manage an already pretty healthy diet of fan hangouts and industry cheerleading. last weekend happened to be one of those exceptions as ACen pulled an especially good hat trick thanks to some dedicated volunteers (shoutouts chris and sujay) and headlined tadokoro azusa, tanaka rie, kubo yurika, and ichinose kana as guests. wow!

due to ongoing visa delays and overall travel difficulties, overseas guests fell off a steep cliff starting with the pandemic, but this marked for me a new spring with an american con clawing back some of its luster after things had been looking pretty dire the past three years. I am closer to ACen now after a move last year, but regional flight prices don’t really tend to reflect the difference of a few hundred miles in a meaningful way. when kugyuu showed up at ANYC in 2019, I even reluctantly gave up my VIP spot to a friend because it seemed such a hassle to travel for an autograph and a panel or two¹. but four seiyuu guests, old heavyweights and fresh faces? you had me at “koroazu” but then you had me swimming in gravy.

autographs were a fair mess, with the con proper apparently transitioning to a digital system while the guests brought over by sekai project (kubo and ichinose) operated initially on a lottery and also first-come-first-serve waitlists that had people lining up when the exhibit hall opened. most people I know were lucky to get one digital spot², though some awareness of the system by the second day helped pull people off of waitlists. an oldhead with 20-odd years at ACen I lined up behind during the first koroazu session told me about the window of physical ticketing where they were all released at the open of the con day, which had some non-negligible number of attendees needing first aid rendered for what I can only envision were E3-style mad dashes.

koroazu signed my d/zeal CD, one of the many that I still have left over from a renban, and I got to tell her how cool it was to see her open at million live 6th in fukuoka. then I said I hope I get to see her perform at the fancy new arena digs in yokohoma next year before skittishly shuffling away. she signed my name in romaji because I smudged the hiragana chicken scratch on my post-it note so badly that I said “yeah areku is fine” without really thinking about being more specific.

panels can always be a mixed bag but you really just have to laugh at how some people have no filter. maybe every third question at the ichinose panel had someone trying to creatively dance around gwitch spoilers to see if she would in some way make a grand exclusive narrative reveal. koroazu’s panels were definitely a highlight, and probably just the level of fan asking questions at them is a cut above which helps³. the danger of seiyuu coming stateside is they might leave knowing what “no cap” means thanks to sujay.

things mostly closed for me with synergy, the attack the music run event that has a regular showing at ACen, and they’re also able to rope in names like taku takahashi, ram rider, and tanuki that wouldn’t show up many other places in the states with such force⁴. kyary pamyu pamyu surprised here for one song as well after I missed her concert for a panel and I probably did enough oshijumping in that moment to keep me practiced for tokyo idol fes. two meatheads rushed me from behind to try to squeeze into my spot at the front and celery man was there.

there’s more minutiae to go over but I should probably cut this loose. I did get to walk around downtown during a lull on my schedule and hit some of the usual landmarks. did you know the sears tower uses bundled tube architecture and looks like blockout when viewed in cross sections?