Anime weekend

Well, I'm back from a whole weekend watching anime (=Japanese animation) in Almelo. I should say up front that I'm not an anime expert. I mostly tag along with a friend of mine who is much more knowledgeable in that genre.

Anyways: it was fun. Not in the least because of all the cosplayers (costumed player); visitors that dress themselves as an anime characters. You can see some cosplayers if you follow the link at the bottom of this post.

The best anime series I have seen was Dennou Coil. A summary from Wikipedia:

Dennou Coil is a Japanese animation science fiction series depicting a near future where augmented reality (AR) technology has just begun to enter the mainstream. AR is combining the real, physical world with the digital world. In the series this is combined with special glasses. The series takes place in the fictional city of Daikoku, a hotbed of AR development with an emerging city-wide virtual infrastructure. It follows a group of children as they use AR visors to unravel the mysteries of the half real, half Internet city, using a variety of illegal software tools, techniques, and virtual pets to manipulate the digital landscape.

Example of Dennou Coil on Youtube

It show some interesting UI (user interface) stuff like virtual displays emerging out of thin air or pet dogs with status bars.

Another one was Lucky Star, although that was particularly hard to comprehend because of the speedy conversations. A summary from Anime News Network:

Portrays the lives of several school girls attending a Japanese high school with a very loose humor tone. The main heroine is Konata Izumi, an athletic and intelligent girl who, despite these attributes, is not in a sports club, and her grades remain low. Her laziness at school is due to her love for anime and video games, and she is not interested in much else.

I had much fun when they discussed eating techniques in Lucky Star. Well, the whole audience in fact :-)

And finally: the pictures I took on Animecon 2008.