Trip to the 2011 MCM Midland Expo

My first trip to Telford was a nervous one, since I’ve never been to the Midland Expo before. It was also my first time driving to one, still with a friend accompanying me and an early journey to our destination. I was looking forward to my first experience there.

Arriving 30 minutes early, the queues started to build up with various impressive cosplay’s showing a wide range of anime characters and sci-fi costumes, everyone including my friend (who was a newcomer to conventions) showed a mass amount of excitement before the doors opening, if you didn’t know, the first 2000 people who arrived at the event got a free steelbook boxset of Voltron. Massive thanks to Manga Entertainment for such an offer.

As the doors opened my first thought was to check out Nintendo’s new 3DS console; which made it’s first public European appearance here, the booth was full of upcoming games that were to be released – such as Pilotwings, Kid Icarus, Ridge Racer 3D etc. However the game that had most of my time, was the updated version of critically acclaimed Zelda – Ocarina Of Time. My first impressions on it were good, it looked and played like a regular DS with the addition of a stick on the left side of hand-held which was very helpful when moving a character. Of course you may be wondering what the 3D is like; since there have been articles on problematic eye strain, which were true since it was my first time looking at this effect, it just could be some thing to get used to plus you can switch it off anytime. All I can say for now is that I enjoyed my experience with the console.

There were appearances from both MVM and Manga Entertainment, giving us a wide range of DVD titles to buy. MVM had the majority of their boxset’s at great prices, I managed to get my hands on the Samurai Champloo boxset which has been on my list for a while. The appearance of Manga Entertainment was also accompanied by Kaze UK which they brought new Bleach and Death Note soundtracks which I have never seen before. I had a quick word with Andrew Partridge who now works for Kaze; we had a conversation about the exciting “We Love Anime” tour that is coming to cinema’s all around the UK (to see more details visit the website http://we-loveanime.com)

A visit to the great people at Tecmo Koei Europe who where showing there upcoming games Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll & Warriors: Legends of Troy, arcade games provided by DDR UK and a massive amount of anime/manga stalls, it was a splendid day out that exhausted not only myself but my wallet.

On the way home – I asked my friend if he enjoyed himself and the response was not only yes, but now he wants to go to more in the future. That’s the magic when going to these conventions, it’s about enjoying yourselves and having fun.

I will now be awaiting the first MCM London Expo in 2011, so I hope to see you all there!