My Reviews: Aninite 2011

For my september review I wanted to review the Kindle 3 from amazon but I postpone that for next month and rather share my experience at the Aninite 2011 convention in Vienna.

This year I visited the Aninite 2011, which is basically a convention for anime fans. First of all I have to say that I am no anime fan nor do I even recognize 99% of the characters or know anything related to this genre.

Well, why did I go there then? Basically because Doug Walker from ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com was there and I am a huge fan of his work. As a bonus Noah Antwiler aka Spoony was at the convention too, so I decided that it might be worth going there. Since I live in Austria and it isn’t very likely that I will see these guys any time soon, it was an opportunity not to be missed.

So what were my impressions? Well, at the beginning of my visit I was rather bored, because I came to the convention on saturday afternoon right when Doug and Spoony left for lunch. So I wandered about the different rooms with merchant booths, artists selling their pictures and stuff, looking at an enormous amount of merchandise I’m not really interested in and seeing dozens of cosplay people. The cosplay seemed to be the major part of the whole convention because everywhere people were posing and taking pictures of each other.

I’m not so much into that stuff but I had to admit that the whole atmosphere was rather relaxed and friendly. People were having fun, the whole convention crew was extremely friendly and helpful and so it was a rather enjoyable afternoon. The prices for food and drink were also more than reasonable for such an event so all in all I must say that I didn’t feel in the least bit cheated, even though I didn’t care for the main theme of the convention.

Another observation I made was that this whole anime and cosplay thing is a rather clever thing for nerds to get to see some half naked girls. In my youth I was more of the Star Trek nerd and if you look at Trek-related conventions they are packed with overweight guys and if you get to see an occasional girl there you are rather lucky. But this whole anime thing with its art, costumes, glittery stuff and so on seems to attract quite a lot of girls, many of them even very pretty. And best of all many of the costumes leave very little to the imagination or rather they are directly derived from somebody’s wet dreams. Many classic anime costumes are centered around school-girl outfits, french maids, nurses and wearing stuff that you would usually only find in an adult store. So looking back I must say maybe I should have gotten more into anime than into Star Trek. 

In the late afternoon a Q&A was appointed for the ThatGuyWithTheGlasses crew and I had to stand in line for over an hour to get a good seat (or rather a good place on the floor in front of the stage). I have to tell you that I really hate to stand in line and usually avoid it whenever possible, so halfway through the waiting process I seriously considered if all this was worth the effort. But in retrospect the hour long Q&A was very enjoyable and after another standing in line for about half an hour I also got my autograph, dvds and picture from Doug and Spoony. This was definitely a highlight for me.

From left to right: Myself, Doug Walker, Noah Antwiler

So summarizing the event I would say that even if you are not a big anime fan it might be an experience to go to such an event once and let the whole atmosphere sink in, but probably if you don’t have any additional reasons to go there, then you probably won’t make the effort because physically it is rather exhausting pushing and shoving through hundreds of people all day long. But if Doug will be attending next year as well, then I will probably go there again.

By the way, if you are interested in the Q&A, it is already online on youtube: