Chapter 1: DDR and Casinos

Acen came and went. It marked the 10th anime con I attended and the first in a different time zone. It was also the first anime convention I got to meet many different people I know online.
Mostly from Irc channels like #fushigiyuugi on EFnet. I also found out one of the fansubbers I hang with's friends is a another fellow on #fy that I know. It's like meeting two people and having them merge into one. At the con and in real life I know him as Zulfan, and online I knew him as Hotohori.

The reason why I mention Zulfan is because he is a part of this story. As he helped us out at Motor City Con. MCC is NOT an anime convention. It's the first and only Comic Book convention I have attended and worked in. Needless to say. I now have an upmost respect for Otaku, for anime fans aren't HALF as freaky as Comic Book nerds.

But our tale begins a few states away in Illinois, still being in Chicago. It starts right after the con and in a place few people in the East Coast ever heard of but the west coast people know it all too well: Gameworks. Gameworks is an invention of Sega. Imagine a Chucky Cheese's (1980's era CC's, not that bullshit they have today) made for grownups. It's an arcade/bar/resturant. Needless to say I fell in love with the place. Instead of plopping tokens you purchase credits on a card with a barcode on it. So you don't have to worry about jingling tokens or losing them or whatever. In addition GW being an adult establishment (adults = more money) they can afford top notch video games and even imports from Japan. THIS is why I fell in love with the place, for they had Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and Guitarfreaks.

Yup you people from California are already nodding and smiling. You already know well the addiction that is DDR. For those unfortunate souls who have not gotten addicted to this yet DDR is a "dancing" game. Yeah, it's a video game where you use your feet instead of your hands. The cabnet itself is a huge sound system. And the controllers are two platforms with arrows pointing in the cardinal directions that light up when you step on them. The game's directions are very simple, step on the arrows when the indicator appears on the screen. With luck, even a white boy can look like a dancer. it's magical, it's addictive, and it's a money drainer!
Although I own this game at home and have the special dance pads created for it there's nothing like playing it in the arcades and making an utter fool of yourself in public. Right now in the Philippines we are into the "4th Mix" of the game, and I've been spending the 20 Piso (40 cents) a pop laborously to get good, for the #fy crew put me to shame. When I get back to the States I should hopefully be up to par with them.

The reason why I mention DDR and GW is that it marked the most money I ever spent in an arcade to date. I used a HUGE chunk of my pay and wasted 50 bucks at Game Works. About 80 percent of that money on DDR. At one buck a play, that's a lot of "dancing".

Anyhow that was the aftermath of Detroit. It gets more interesting in the later chapters, promise.

On to Chapter 2!