Fant-Asia St. Louis held its 9th annual anniversary bash this past Saturday at the St. Charles branch Fantasy Shop. Starting in the morning and ending late at night, fans from all across the metro area came together to celebrate their love for anime in the air conditioned comfort of the Fantasy Shop’s gaming area.
Brian Lan, head organizer for Fant-Asia, said that the club’s annual anniversary celebration tends to draw a fairly large crowd. He estimated that at least 70-80 people showed up to enjoy the free DDR, refreshments, and anime. Some of the anime features the club was showing hadn’t even hit stateside yet.
One of the features, Wonderful Days actually did hit stateside in limited release a year ago under the name ‘Sky Blue’. It was shown briefly at the Tivoli Theatre in the U-City Loop. Wonderful Days hasn’t been released yet on DVD in the US but Brian managed to get a hold of a copy via his online connections.
Along with all day anime programming, Dance Dance Revolution was another attraction at Fant-Asia. Club members had an interesting DDR set-up I hadn’t seen before. They were playing DDR from a computer and not through a Playstation 2 like I do.
I was told by club member Mike Votaw that they were using a computer program called Step Mania. Anyone with a computer can download this free dance program along with songs and turn your PC into your own DDR juke box. There had to be hundreds upon hundreds of songs stored on that particular machine.
I didn’t dare dance for fear some young thing would step up and school my ass. I’ve only been playing DDR for three months, and I don’t get to practice that much due to an old knee injury and the fact that we piss off off our downstairs neighbors whenever we play. I asked Mike Votaw, who’s been playing DDR for some seven years if he could demonstrate his mad skillz. All I have to say about that is “Duuuudde, how can anyone possibly move that fast?†I was impressed and so was Dave.
Mike says he practices DDR maybe six or seven hours a week to get to the level he’s at now. Most people wished they exercised that much a week.
Fant-Asia also featured a make shift “art alley†to show case local talent. There were some anime inspired works, but the majority of the drawings were American comic book based.
Cosplayers mingled in the crowd and there were enough cat girls, fox girls, and what-the-hell girls, thrown in the mix to make the affair feel like a micro con.
All in all, Fant-Asia St. Louis’ 9th annual anniversary shin-dig was a blast and really catered to a variety of fans. Anybody interested in attending future meetings or wants more info on the club, visit the Fant-Asia St. Louis homepage.
Here’s the short, low-quality DDR video I shot of Mike breaking out to the DDR beats: http://youtube.com/watch?v=dzrKpZMWJms
Wow, i don’t think i’ve ever seen myself play like that before.
I don’t look nearly as retarded as i thought i did
Nice write up, as always, and I’m glad you guys enjoyed yourselves!
LOL, you didn’t look retarded! I was truly amazed. You even inspired us to play DDR more often, to the dismay of the people in the apartment below us. You should totally start a business and charge people for DDR lessons. Seriously…
I noticed that no one mentioned the wicked hentai tentacle cosplayer. That dude was awesome. And I heard he took second place, but the first place fellow wasn’t even anime based, so I say he took the prize.