Midori na Silhouette

And so, day 2 coverage begins with a bit of Macross. As usual, this post will feature cosplayers.

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The first ACGC of the year took place in Tropicana City Mall, on the 21st and 22nd March. As compared to the first ACGC of last year, this event was great.

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Oops, I totally forgot to post about this event until now. ^^;

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Sorry for the long absence ^^;

Here’s the doujin, “Project: Durian” from the ACGC 2008 Finale.

Honestly, I found this doujin to be.. bad.

Intro page. At least the editor’s note is funny

This doujin contains 4 unrelated stories, with durians being the common theme.

IMHO, the quality of the stories went from: relatively funny > boring > bad > I regret this purchase.

Before I talk more about the doujin, let’s take a brief look at the stories…

“A Durian Flavoured Drink” starts off introducing Sharry. No matter what he does, he is unable to find a life partner attract girls.

One day, after talking to “God”, he is given a durian flavoured drink.

He buys more of this drink (which turns out to be available in convenience stores), and by drinking it, he manages to attract more women. However, he did not read the warning label on the can, which says not to drink it “after 10 PM sharp”.

So one day, he goes to meet a girl, but he finds out that she he it’s really a guy!

He later realizes that the durian drink has been making him hallucinate, and all the while he was dating ah quas (ah qua= slang for gay). And that’s how “A Durian Flavoured Drink” ends.

Next is “Impossi-durian”, the longest story in the doujin.

The story begins with the Black Suits gang being attacked and robbed by Mr. Mercenary.

Mr. Mercenary did his job for the Mamak gang, and took the box, which was supposed to be full of gold. But when the boss of the Mamak gang opened the box, all that was inside was a durian. Meanwhile, Clyde of the Black Suits gang explains that the gold is actually hidden inside an empty durian shell, and that Mr. Mercenary has taken a decoy.

Unfortunately for the Black Suits gang, Mr. Mercenary did get the right one. When he RAGE’d got angry and threw the durian…

It split open and gold spilled out. The Black Suit gang finally realizes that Mr. Mercenary took the right box, and starts to hunt down Mr. Mercenary.

Now being chased by both the Mamak gang and the black suits gang, Mr. Mercenary gets onto Abu Bakar’s lorry, and asks him to drive, saying he’s an undercover cop.

The Mamak and Black Suits gangs continue to chase after him, when Abu Bakar, a former “raja mat motor” (King of Bikers), decides to use his skills to get rid of them.

So with the Mamak and Black Suits gangs off their tail, Abu Bakar takes Mr. Mercenary to a safe place: the police station (LOL).

Mr. Mercenary is caught, and that’s the end of “Impossi-Durian”.

Next up, “Something Begins” (Title is parody of Batman Begins).

Kiddy, whose parents get killed one day, decides to train himself to fight evil. After training for years, he wants to choose his secret identity, when he sees a bat.

It appears that he was about to choose a bat to represent his secret identity, but then a durian falls and kills the bat.

Later, the pirate king of movies is visited by Kiddy, and we see that he chose for his secret identity to be represented by a durian.

His name: Durianman.

Forgot to rotate this image, and can’t be bothered to

He fights by using headbutts, because of his spiky helm. But that’s all we get to see him use. There isn’t even a durian mobile.

In the next few pages, we see the pirate king of movies all tied up, with a durian left behind in the scene, and that ends “Something Begins”

The next story, “Keeper of the Grave”, is so bad, I don’t want to talk about the story. I shall let the ugly (but detailed) art, and lameness of it all talk for itself.

And I refuse to show any more than that.

This doujin was done by TeamWorks, and I purchased it for RM6. When I saw the cover, and browsed through and saw Durianman, I thought it was worth a shot. But by the time I reached the last page, I wanted a refund. I could have spent that RM6 in better ways, like buying more of Kid chan’s art!

I will now be even more weary of Malaysian doujins.

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As with most conventions, people normally walk away with at least a freebie or two. This convention was no exception, and I managed to pull in quite a bit of loot. Too bad I didn’t get the panda hammer though.

Anyway, let’s take a closer look at the freebies I got.

This U Mobile notebook and pen is the most useful freebie from the convention. It’s a little bulky though.

Got this free PC Gamer magazine. But it’s a December 2006 issue…

Got four free games. (Five, plus one more I forgot and did not bother to take pictures of) The top left game is a 2002 PC game. I have not tried it yet. The rest are MMOs.

Top right and bottom left games are Chinese games. Bottom right (Dispatch of Army) is an online FPS

On the underside of Dispatch of Army, we see Last Chaos.

And this, would probably be the second best freebie.

A Juiced Eliminator strap. Looks pretty coolsome, doesn’t it?

So, which was the best freebie? IMO, it was this drawing by local artist Kid chan.

Kid chan had a booth, and after all her stuff was sold out, she had a “free sketch” session. This was one of the free sketches.

Now, let’s take a look at the two posters I got- I LOL’ed when I saw this first one.

NOT my kinda game

I wonder, is this game any good?

Aside from freebies, there were also goods to be bought at the convention. I saw some interesting stuff, and here’s what I bought from the convention:

The three photos you see are Kid chan’s artwork. I got all 3 for RM3. A pretty good deal, for such beautiful artwork.

I believe this piece is called “Tear”. Was slightly upset to see that this picture still had a watermark on it.

Hatsune Miku! There was also a print of Len, but I did not get that. This Miku print was the reason I decided to buy any of Kid chan’s prints at all. ^^;

Just a random girl I think? But the detail and beauty of this picture made me fall in love with it

This last item, was done by Team Works. I got it for RM6

It’s a doujin consisting of four stories. I will talk about this one in detail in a seperate post. ^^;

Well, that’s all the freebies I got from this convention. A friend of mine went on a “freebie quest” and managed to get much more stuff.

I couldn’t be bothered though.

There were also a few prints I had considered buying, though I’ve forgotten the name of the pieces now. I only remember that it had something to do with Ifrit and the like.

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My vote for best cosplayer goes to this girl

Last Sunday (28th September) was the second day of the ACGC 2008 Finale. Since I already (sort of) covered the booths on my previous post, I will cover mostly cosplay in this post.
The cosplay competition was held on this second day of the convention, afterall.

Once again, a warning- I have level 0.1 0 photography skills, and since I (usually) refuse to use flash, the following contains both clear pictures and blur pictures.

Well, if you’ve read my coverage of day 1, you would know that all the computers at the convention were down for a long while. I got to the convention a little later this time (at around 1 PM), but it was good to see all the computers up and running already.

During both day 1 and 2 of the convention, random computers were running CoD4 at random times

After arriving home on the first day, I looked at the pictures I took, and was highly unsatisfied with the quality. So for day 2, I decided to try different settings.

What I deemed to be the convention’s “rest area” during day 1 was turned into a “cosplayer’s square” in day 2

Unfortunately, trying all those new settings drained my batteries. And since I am so noob, I only got tons of blur, unusable, overdeveloped, and underdeveloped pictures. As a result, I have much less pictures to share today as compared with day 1 coverage.

All the CoD4 tournament computers properly set up this time

I realized I forgot to mention this during day 1 coverage. There were a couple of (as some of my friends call it) CoD4 clans there. Like this one clan that’s supposedly one of the best: ESP (Eat Sleep Play)

Mr. Pikachu and Kitteh of ESP

Grr of SWL

Oh, remember the Panda Hammer I mentioned in day 1 coverage, and the queue it formed for the booth? Well, the queue got wayyyy longer in day 2.

The line stretched all the way towards the outside of the convention site

I had thought of getting one myself, but after looking at the massive queue, I gave up immediately

Anyway, who cares about all that? Let’s move on to the cosplayers. Once again, I will need help with identifying some cosplayers, so please feel free to point out any familiar characters.

Not sure if she meant to cosplay as Kurauchi Anna, or if she was just wearing the maid outfit from He is My Master

This next cosplayer, IMO was the most epic of them all. XD

Gao Hai of Code Geass R2

Ran Shuuei on the left, and Ri Kouyu on the left, both from Saiunkoku Monogatari. I can’t identify the character in the center

Keroro Lady from day one!

Apart from just cosplayers, there were some pretty goth-loli girls there too.

Girl on the right is <3

I really hope someone can help identify this character! I need to watch the anime she comes from. lol

Not sure who exactly, but some Naruto girl?

Graham Aker from Gundam 00. It’s the reverse trap Gino from day 1. I also found out later that she’s one of the judges for the cosplay competition

Hollow Ichigo from Bleach

At the Mo Siang booth, Runup (the company that owns Mo Siang) had a dance performance.

There was a dance performance on the first day as well, but I missed that.

In my panic, I forgot to use flash, and I even failed to get a shot of their finishing pose. So fail, me.

I also realized that I should have taken a VIDEO of the dance. Epic fail.

Spitfire (far left) from Air Gear, and Cross Yuki (far right) from Vampire Knight.

The three musketeers uhh… what?

Alternate costume Zasalamel from Soul Calibur (Thanks to Panther for helping identify this character)

Amane Misa (left) and Ryuuzaki/L/Lawliet (right) from Death Note

Why is L wearing shoes?

As with almost every anime convention with cosplayers, there will be a Narutard Naruto cosplayer or two. There were quite a number here, but I did not take many pictures of them. The only good Naruto cosplayer, IMO, was a (reverse trap) Gaara cosplayer (and I failed to get a picture of her. Yay).

There was this one booth, Gamefe, which was entirely Chinese (meaning I did not understand what their booth was about). But they seemed to be promoting some games, and a singer/actor.

The lady in the dark dress is the said actor/singer

Suigintou from Rozen Maiden

At this point, my battery died already, so now it’s pictures taken with my phone. *Cue horrible quality*

Am not too sure, but I think La Corda D’oro?

Spirit (left) and Maka Albarn (right) from Soul Eater

“MAKA CHOP!!”

For the cosplay competition, there were only 8 contestants. To name a few, Spitfire, Gaara, Hollow Ichigo, Spirit, and Gao Hai.

For the competition, each contestant had to do a performance on stage (with or without aides). Spitfire did a “skating tutorial”, Hollow Ichigo did a fight scene, while Spirit re-enacted two scenes from Soul Eater. Gaara, along with a few other Narutards Naruto cosplayers did a dance routine.. first to High School Musical (struck out for great justice), then to the “Ask a Ninja” theme song. XD

IMO, Gao Hai had the most epic performance. He forced a guy to hold a banana while he sang a Chinese song, then he suddenly grabbed the banana away from him and the tralala song played. XD

But as for who won the competition, I do not know. There was an hour an a half before the results were announced, and since my camera batteries were dead, I decided to head back home early.

Overall, the second day of the convention was much better as compared to the first day.

Albums: Day 1 Day 2

Day 1 coverage here.

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Last Saturday and Sunday, the ACGC 2008 Finale (Anime Comics Games Convetion) was held here in Malaysia, at the Mid Valley Exhibition Center.

But before I continue, I must warn you- I have photography skills at superb as a blind potato, so what you’ll see in the following is a mixture of clear pictures, blur pictures and very blur pictures.

I arrived at Mid Valley at 9AM. The convention was scheduled to start at 10AM, so I loitered around until about 9:30 AM.

At 9:30, I snuck in through the staff entrance (LOL), so I got to take a look around before the crowd arrived.

The stage where the events were held

Note that the pictures from this point on are out of chronological order.

Some games I expected hoped to see were Red Alert 3, Emil Chronicle Online, SPORE, Dead Space, and Soul Calibur 4. But let’s take a look at the booths there…

The U Mobile booth. As far as I know, they are a 3G service provider. And they support orenji.

Poser.. =_=ll

The Mo Siang booth. Some MMORPG in English and Chinese.

Top Speed - some MMO racing game by IAH

A couple of chibis playing the game. Looked like an average racing game to me.

Being advertised as one of the features of the ACGC, here’s the Nintendo booth.

The WiiFit. I did not get a chance to try this.

Aside from the Wii and WiiFit, Nintendo also had a couple of DS Lites (5 of them) for trial.

They attached the DS Lites to platforms, and in such a way that you couldn’t take out the stylus to use. So while everyone was using their fingers to try and play, I took out my phone’s stylus, and started laughing at everyone.. in my heart.

This booth, OffGamers, was pretty lulz. In the morning, almost NO ONE was paying any attention to it. But after people started to find out that you could get “Panda Hammers” (the thing the girl is holding in the top picture) at this booth for free, a QUEUE started to form. No other booth had a queue.

The panda hammers. They’re pretty cute, no? XD

Fantagetar. Another MMO I know nothing about, and want to know nothing about.

As I moved along the convention area, I was delighted to see an ECO booth.

*BUT* all the computers were down. YAY.
In fact, just about all the computers in the convention were down til lunchtime (or later).

At 2 PM, I get back to see this.

All screens blacked out except for one, which was playing an ECO trailer.

20 minutes after that, and all the computers are playing trailers. I pretty much gave up on this booth at that time.

Later still, at 5PM, I decided to just take another look at the booth, and guess what I see?

YES!! ECO!!

But then I noticed it was all in Chinese. orz

On the outside of the ECO booth, we had Angels Online (and some other game, which I’ve forgotten about already).

Because it was an Anime Comics Games Convention, I had expected this (following) booth to be there.

ANIME TECH

I refuse to upload any more pictures of their booth.

Except maybe this poster.

Sasuke - a traine and teammate of Narut

There was this booth, Michael Soft, that constantly had people hanging around.

Their product was this system that would let your computer run without a hard disk. Not something that would normally attract many people, right?

What? Over 200? You mean it’s not over 9000?

The real reason this booth could attract so many visitors, was probably because they had WORKING computers. And all the gamers wanted to leech off of that.

Towards the end of the convention site, there were the CoD4 computers.

Unfortunately for the CoD4 players, the tournament, which was supposed to start in the morning, started at 4 PM, and lasted until past 10 PM (Note that the convention was scheduled to end at 9 PM). Why?

Because their computers were rendered useless too

They ended up using only one row of computers, which really slowed down the speed of the tournament.

As one of the better booths around, there was d_code Toys & Hobby.

A figure, gunpla, etc. online store. They had some pretty cool stuff up for display.

Is Haruhi supposed to be sitting on Nagato’s chair? O_O

There was also this coolsome car, which was mostly ignored throughout the convention.

At one booth, there was this SC4 banner, that made me think that I would get a chance to play the game. But noooooo. There wasn’t even a single PS3 at the convention site.

For PS2 as well aye? I must get this game then

Right at the end, there was a whole row of tables that were rented to artists and the like to sell their goods.

But honestly.. Their goods aren’t that great. ^^;
Not quite up to standard (unless you’re talking about Malaysian standard).

X chains. When I saw this, I immediately thought of Squee ^^;

I bought this comic, Project: Durian. I will talk about it some other time.

Another doujin. The cover is.. honestly, quite a turn off.

The woman who was selling the above doujin! Keroro Lady!

Well, there were a couple other booths there, but that’s all I’m willing to show. The rest were pretty minor.

Those who go to conventions regularly/have been to a convention would know that there is always at least a lady model or two, there to pass out flyers, provide assisstance, and the like.

This convention was no exception, and thankfully, there were PRETTY ladies.

The Wii girls were veeeewii pwiitty. *shoots self for lame pun*

As I was trying to get pictures of this cute girl, another girl at the same booth was glaring at me. I soon got too freaked out by her glare to try and take any more pictures.

This girl on the left was pretty much glaring at everyone too.

Race queens?!

She’s so pretty!

I realized only later that I had stopped her twice for pictures. How embarrassing of me.

Even though the cosplay competition was not on this day, there were a couple of cosplayers around. I’ll need help identifying them, so don’t hesistate to point out a familiar character.

Kikyo(?) and Luffy

This Luffy cosplayer was a rather hilarious guy. Throughout the first day of the convention, he was taking other characters props and playing around with them.

I could be wrong, but… Mulan?

Reverse trap Gino Weiberg!

Moar reverse traps. Himura Kenshin on the right.

Yet another reverse trap. Some character from Prince of Tennis I think?

As identified earlier, Himura Kenshin.

Axel (who later “switched” costumes to become Spitfire)

Kurosaki Ichigo on the right.

Everytime Luffy tried to shoot, the arrow would drop

Ichigo’s props

Wahaha

The mask Ichigo is holding belongs to Hirako Shinji. Did not see any Shinji cosplayers though.

Yaoi shot?!

Well, overall, I’d say that the ACGC 2008 Finale day 1 was pretty fail. Most of the computers, as I mentioned, were not set up properly until 12 PM+, the people there for the CoD4 tournament had to wait WAY overtime, and they had so little GOOD games to play there. I really wanted to give RA3 and SPORE a go, but this convention didn’t have either. :\

Day 2, on the other hand, was much better. Stick around for a post on that.

Albums: Day 1 Day 2

Day 2 coverage here.

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