AYACON 5

SUNDAY: it ends so soon?

7:30? What is this 7:30 you speak of watch alarm? It may have worked yesterday, but I was feeling worse this morning than last. *changes alarm* I was able to sleep in at least another hour which did me the world of good. Checking with people just outside I confirmed that we did need to vacate the rooms quiet early, in fact I think I was a bit late, but no worries. Cramming everything I could into my main bag, trying to keep only the essentials in my backpack for easy access, I geared up and moved out.
I had some time before the kick off of the Naruto tournament but not that much time. Therefore I skipped breakfast and went for my final visit to the dealers room like a good con-goer. Don’t worry; I swiped the three bourbon biscuits from my room to nourish myself… ok, worry.
I handed in YATA’s submission to ADV, grabbed a free copy of ‘the white chamber’ game by Studio Trophis, brought the Tenchi Muyo OVA 1 & 2 collection and some much cheaper DVDs, and got chatting with Emma and Jen from the TSW forum.

Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3: The tournament

I arrived at the games room to find out that all yesterday’s efforts were for naught, someone had turned the rumble feature off, mistaking it for turning the auto-save on… that’s Japanese menus for you. So we were all back down to the basic initial characters but it didn’t seem to bother many. Squatting next to Fiona she told me she had already played and was beaten. This came as somewhat as a shock, as she cleaned the floor with most yesterday. A guy called Paul (badge name and character being Rock Lee despite cosplaying as Itachi) had challenged and thrashed “Crazy Sasuke Girl” as he called her. I was hoping to see Fiona battle in the tourney but when I saw the rest of Paul’s battles I understood why she was knocked out so early. The guy was practically invincible. He fought better than the CPU level 4, constantly juggling his opponents in the air with long combos and finishing them off with a super before they could even fall on the ground. Still wearing my black kat-hat, I was slowly becoming known as cat-boy when being called back up to the seat for another battle. Through the nervousness I still somehow won each battle with my favourite character, Shikamaru. The battles went on…
Rock Lee was easily in the final and the next battle was to decide who would go against him. It was then I kacked my pants, I was to face Ropponmatsu, the guy who set the whole tourney up. Possibly the longest and most tense Shikamaru VS Shikamaru battle commenced. The crowd were going crazy as we reached the third round (he totally owned me in the first and I fluked a win back), both characters teleporting all over the screen, getting the odd hit on each other here and there. Everyone (including myself) thought it was over when my character was hit by the special move leaving me with little energy left. However, through the last two rounds I had slowly picked up on Ropponmatsu’s habits. He definitely had more experience on the game overall, but I think I had more with the particular character we were both playing as. By what I thought was pure spawn I some how got the last hit in as the crowd cheered for both of us.
I kinda ran away at this point, forgetting there was only one round left and I had to face Paul. I nearly quit there and then but I decided to face the insane challenge.
Wham! Oro? The first round was over in seconds, everyone was cheering for Rock Lee as I was easily defeated. Through seeing his pervious battles I could see no weaknesses and it was showing here too. I decided to play as safe as anything, forget spending my chakra trying to hit him with special moves, I needed to keep it to use the replacement technique and escape those devastating combos of his. This did work for a while and through a few lucky openings I was able to get him as low on health as I was. The crowd all started chanting for Rock Lee’s final special attack to finish me and win the tourney. Both of us were shaking with adrenaline and I noticed the slight hesitation from my worthy opponent. He did as the crowd wished, he opened Lee’s final charka gate, a technique that sapped the last of his energy but causing him to gain a full bar of charka nearly instantly. Everyone went crazy as we had a stand off, suddenly he performed the super and teleported in front of me, leg kicking into the air to finish me off, and at that very second I had hit my own combo of buttons and teleported behind Lee. Everyone went spare, they couldn’t believe there was to be a third round.
Both of us shaking now even more than before, we battled on, the audience’s cries unstopping now, all cheering us both on. As I had saved some charka from the last round I risked a semi-super attack (down&X, not just X), which the moment I did I wish I hadn’t. Shikamaru sent forth his shadow towards Rock but he jumped over Shika, leaving me wide open. What surprised everyone was something that even I had forgotten about at that moment, before Lee could turn around and attack me from behind, the shadow had double-backed on itself and snapped at his leg causing him to lose a fair chunk of health. I laughed in disbelief and joined in with the gasps of surprise. It seemed like the longest battle I had ever had on the game, we both traded attacks and I avoided a super from him but through his combos alone he had me down to a mere pixel of health. Like a trapped mouse I fought back, getting him down to just a sliver of health as well. More and more people were peering through the door to the room to see what all the screaming was about. With only one hit from either of us to settle it we both attacked practically in turns, both quickly dodging and attempting to counter. Everyone went even more manic as we both jumped around and side stepped to dodge attacks. Then I timed it just right to jump backwards to dodge his next attack as he jumped forward, a quick button press saw him unable to defend against the shrunken thrown at him. I had won?!
The room went absolutely manic and both Paul and I turned to each other with huge grins on our faces, I extended my hand for a shake and he took it before launching forward for a congratulation hug and pat on the back, we were both still hyped and shaking from it all and I finally stumbled back to Fiona who I discovered had been filming the last half of the battle.
Afterwards I had a post-fight chat with Paul and then Fiona and I headed out (before we got locked in, we were the last out, lol).

The kick-ass video of the last two rounds taken by Fiona is now here
(so intense she forgets she's filming halfway through - 31.6MB)

Panel quiz

We quickly checked out what was happening with the Sweatdrop: One page Comic event in the artist’s alley but both Fiona and I wanted to go to the panel quiz. This consisted of a “Question of Sport / Never mind the Buzzcocks / They think it’s all over / Have I got news for you“ type quiz show but obviously anime orientated.
The two three-person teams were made up of AyaCon committee members, including our Kate (from the pub quiz) on one team with Will Blewitt.
It’s hard to explain but it got a lot of laughs with the two teams messing around, trying to sing anime intros, figure out connections between certain shows, weird stuff brought off ebay, and feeling up cosplayers while blindfold. I have a few photos and videos with sound, but the quality is so bad they’re not worth putting up. I somehow gained the entire audience a pretend point by voicing my agreement with the quiz master on how ace Bakuretsu Tenshi/Burst Angel is. In fact the audience gained a few other points from others getting answers that the teams didn’t. Then we lost one because a girl’s mobile went off with a Naruto theme, not that our score counted anyway, lol. Congrats to all involved though, it was very entertaining (bar that last game that supposedly from some radio show according to Fiona, not many of us knew how that one worked properly).

It all comes to an end… damn, that weekend went fast

Fiona was trying to avoid the Blood concert quiet a bit but I snuck in for a minute or two to try and take a few photos, sadly they didn’t come out too well either… damn dark places. Girly-looking rock men? *shrug* Well, they had tons of fans and got everyone going. The closing ceremony was supposed to come right after their gig but didn’t because they were running late anyway. The closing ceremony was then condensed into a few short words and an explanation as everyone came out of the concert. It was a great time to take a few pictures of practically everyone there at least.
Fiona and I hung out with one of her friends and got some food before I had to leave, barely dodging a small crowd all punishing a Sasuke plushy.
It was a short weekend and so much was missed but I had so much fun… right, when’s the next con?

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