Non-Religious Faith Renewed

Have you ever seen Dogma? There's a scene where Linda Fiorentino's character is talking to Chris Rock. She makes the Christian analogy about when she was young and her faith cup is a lot smaller, but as her growing up and her cup becoming larger and more difficult to fill. That was a perfect way to describe how I felt.

So in the film, Fiorentino's character is suffering from a lack of faith. A few too many things happened (or didn't happen) to her that got her doubting her faith. Eventually Alanis Morissette (God) works her miracle and she comes out after the conflicts with her faith cup brimming with whatever liquid you use to fill them.

So how does this relate to me? Over the last year or two, I've had a difficult time really getting excited about AKB48. My favorite members were still their same old cute selves. The new names I was having a hard time remembering. And the music was having progressive changes, not sticking to conventional J-Pop.

I chalk most of this up to not being in Japan and not having a constant stream of content to keep me involved. It's difficult in the states to get Japanese TV Shows and content. While the situation has improved, it's still not as easy as say walking to the store and picking up a magazine so a live show is out of the question.

Flash forward to today. I can now understand why Nick love going to concerts so much. And while I don't listen to the same music or do the same thing at concert, the energy is the same. There's something about being with a large group of people all cheering for something together that I can really get behind. I can support it even more when it's AKB48.

Out of this experience, I can say that I want to see more live shows. I want to get more dedicated with the cheers and chats. Maybe learn a dance or two. Going back to that original analogy, I'm filled with an over abundance of faith. I had one of the best times at the live concert. I'm currently transferring about 50 GBs of new content to my external Hard Drive from a friend here. I'll have to spend extensive time when I get back to Austin reorganizing my MP3 player. And in a project that has been in the works since I left for Japan in January,  this trip has helped me solidify the Official Relaunch of JapanCast. More details will be announced over the next couple weeks but look for Girl Groups and Anime Sundays starting  August 1st.

So that was my Anime Expo experience. I didn't get an autograph this time, mainly because of horrible management from Anime Expo this year (I've heard it's every year). But that's another story and I didn't want to spend this entire post complaining on things that could have improved at this con. I was lucky enough to get pictures during the autograph session using my Press Pass. There were a couple hundred fans who didn't even get the chance to be in the autograph room even though they waited for a couple hours outside.