Anime St. Louis is really the impulse convention of the year for me.  I always decide to go at the absolute last-minute, and then somehow the arrangement just works.  This year, I have Heidi to thank for providing the little convincing needed to go.  Seriously, those puppy dog eyes are powerful stuff.  I also need to thank Alisa for providing lodging during the convention so I could attend all three days instead of just one.  Now, without further ado, the convention coverage!

First, the attendees and staff really had it together this year.  Gone were the crazy registration lines from last year.  The setup for this year avoided clogging an entire area of the convention.  When I got there, they opened a third line when only five people were waiting to get people through faster.  I still think the form asks for too much information, but I complain about that for every reg form.  Then with the lost and found this year, one of my friends lost her badge.  In the 10 minutes it took for us to realize it was missing, it was already turned in by someone and waiting for us.  I heard similar stories from others in passing.  We had a tornado warning during the convention as well, and everyone handled themselves very well despite the scare.  So, props to everyone who attended this year.

Now, I am not the panel attendee by any means.  I normally go to conventions to socialize and shoot group photoshoots.  I run panels because I enjoy doing it, and because it has some perks.  However, I don’t know nearly as many people in the central Midwest circuit as the eastern circuit, so I looked into it for this convention.  ASTL suffers from the same programming headaches as everyone else.  There were scheduling conflicts, a few blank spots on the list, and I felt the schedule overall was a little underwhelming.  Despite this, I feel the situation has still improved over last year.  I think I’ll try to get into the mix a bit next year.

The first panel on the talking block is Soul Eater, one of my favorite series.  I want to say this was the first time these girls ran the panel.  It was a little bare bones for my liking, but they were certainly enthusiastic about the subject material.  They also didn’t fall into the “tech trap” that occurs when you suddenly realize the projector will not work for you.  I’ve seen several panels in the past get totally derailed by tech failures, so my hat’s off to them for continuing with what they had available.  They have a lot of room for improvement, so if they get the slot next year, I expect some growth.

The only industry panel I went to this year was the “free-for-all” on Sunday.  Unfortunately, only three guests were still at the convention and available.  Voice actor Troy Baker, Internet personality Doug Walker, and musician Tadahisa Yoshida talked with us for about an hour.  I loved the former two and I regret missing their panels at the convention.  Fortunately, I have another opportunity to see Doug at Matsuricon this year.  Tada was a bit of a fish out of water at the panel, but I have to give him credit for showing up at a Sunday afternoon event.

Then I have the duo of Brad and Derek.  They ran the Code Geass panel with Kira on Friday, and the Naruto panel with Wyatt on Saturday.  These are truly fantastic panelists.  They know their material thoroughly, injecting both insight and humor.  They can also manage the freeform panel setup I enjoy so much more than dissertation style.  If you’re in this region and they have a panel on a series you’re interested in, go to it.  Seriously, if I ran programming at a convention, I’d offer them slots immediately.  I’ve run out of ways to suck up to them for now, but rest assured I have an R&D division working around the clock to develop new methods.

This year ASTL split up the Masquerade into two portions.  The first covered the walkons, and the second had all the skits.  It’s kind of odd when most conventions do both segments together, but I think it works out better.  You only have to attend the Masquerade for the aspects your interested in, which prevents people who just want to see walkons from blocking those who just want to see skits from having a seat.  From the attendance, many people just wanted to see the walkons.  A show of hands at the skits showed only a small portion of those people in attendance.  That’s a good thing because the skits pretty well filled the room.

The staff hosted two dances this year, and I went to both of them.  Friday was the 80s dance, which I liked simply because it was different.  I think song choice needs to improve for next year, but I still had fun in a setting different from the normal fare.  The rave techno dance was also a lot of fun.  The music had some nice variety and a good flow.  Nothing irks me more than a DJ who sticks to the same basic beat, or “safety zone”, for 15 minutes at a time.  I didn’t have that problem here.  I do have to say calling the rave a techno dance is about as effective a euphemism as calling H1N1 the flu, but whatever works for them is fine with me.

Finally, we have the Dealer’s Room, Artist’s Alley, and Game Room.  I’m not much of a shopper myself, and because I went to this convention on impulse I also had no money set aside for buying anything.  The Alley was somewhat small, and the Dealer’s was somewhat big.  The Dealer’s Room also felt like Colossalcon where they had a lot of stuff but it still felt underwhelming.  Maybe the likes of Acen and Otakon have spoiled me.  The Game Room, however, was more than satisfactory for a convention this size.  They had plenty of TVs and consoles setup, including a full Xbox 360 LAN.  They provided a DDR Extreme machine as well, but it fizzled out at some point on Friday.  I suppose you just can’t have everything.

TLDR: I thoroughly enjoyed Anime St. Louis.  In just two years, it has come from being a clustersuck to a solid performer in the region.  There are still faults but the staff has still improved year over year.  In 2011, I intend to plan my attendance instead of just showing up.