Anime Central 2001

ACen 2001: Final Thoughts

ACen felt a little disorganized, but considering the construction going on it's understandable. Unfortunately, it's not acceptable for the hotel to schedule construction during any convention, especially knowing that well over 3,000 people would be in attendance. By Sunday afternoon much of the floor space was re-opened for attendees to walk around on, but the hallways were still littered with construction equipment. To top it off, Anime Central officials were informed of these plans a mere week before the convention itself, which prevented possible negotiations and left many caught off guard. That's simply rude and inexcusable on the part of the hotel.

Thankfully, during the opening ceremonies, Carl Horn announced Anime Central 2002 will occur April 19th through 21st at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare, a much larger hotel with a significantly better reputation than the Sheraton Arlington Heights.

One unusual occurance with Anime Central was the total lack of Pioneer representatives. No Pioneer industry panel was listed in the guide book, and hours of searching revealed no trace of any incognito Pioneer employees. I'm a bit disappointed that such a large company failed to show up to one of the largest anime conventions in the USA. Two years ago, every major company raced to attend Otakon (at that point, only mildly larger than this year's ACen). Why is it, this year Pioneer couldn't even spare one employee to discuss their products with fans?

I just want to say "Thank You!" to those who enjoyed the on-the-fly translation of Sakura Taisen 3 shortly before the Video Game room closed on Saturday. Myself and several other students of the Japanese language provided some rough English translations for a portion of the game, and I hoped it was as much fun for the players as it was for us translating. I'd also like to say hello to Zentradie whom I met at the Con Suite, and a certain young lady who asked me to attend the Vampire Hunter D showing at 2:30am. I'm very sorry I missed that, but I hope you enjoyed it. If by some strange twist of fate you read this, e-mail me (cookie at animenewsnetwork.com). :)

And, of course, a big thank you to everyone who attended Anime Central -- the excellent costumes and the polite fans and staffers really made this a great convention. Thank you, everyone for making it an incredible convention!