Anime Diet in Vegas – a special report from the perspective of an Otaku

So…what did you guys do last weekend? Well, Mike and I decided to hit Vegas. We booked everything in advance, and only afterwards discovered that it was Memorial Day weekend: crowds and traffic galore. We didn’t think too much about it, though.

As you know, Akiba (Akihabara) is like heaven and a rejuvenating place for die-hard anime fans. Therefore, in comparison and contrast, a place like Las Vegas, where a lot of “cool people” gather, is like a poisonous pit for us…well, not really. We weren’t jumping with exceedingly grandiose joy but we really did have a great time.

And yes, for all you fujoshi/yaoi/”BOYS” love fans out there, we did stay in the same room and we did stay up late at night. We shared a bathroom and even the shower. There, you happy now? XD Forget boys love, it was more like old farts love…Oh wait, I  believe some of you ladies out there actually like that!

Don’t ask us about our johnson sizes; they’ll freak you out!

We talked a lot about politics (politics??!!), the future of Anime Diet, the tourney (we barely won over the wonderful Anime Princess), the New Media, the Old Media, the bizzare, the weak, the Epic Fail and the sensual…OK, OK, fine, I’m kidding about the last one.

We weren’t too different from some of the less affluent tourists. We stayed at the Sahara and it looked somewhat run down and less clean, but it was quite acceptable. In case you didn’t know, the Sahara was a really famous hotel back in the old days and famous people like Elvis stayed and played there. Now it’s just a sad shadow of its former self.

I got some Coors beer from the liquor store near the check-in counter and they were expired! I just couldn’t finish that shit. It tasted like crap. I’m rather used to luxurious brands such as Asahi Dry and of course, Ebisu beer (Misato approved). But I ended up getting Miller Draft from a CVS. Of course, Mike was stone-cold sober and so no, we didn’t do the things that yaoi fan girls would love to hear about. Sorry to disappoint. And for other people who wonder if we did anything truly sinful, well…

Let’s say Mike never even noticed any of these obvious signs in the back of taxis and promotional vehicles and his eyes totally glazed over these obvious ads stuck onto newspaper vending boxes. The only thing that we both noticed was a girl wearing a skimpy top and daisy-duke walking with a brother. I guess some of that good mixed-racial sex was going on. Hey, we’re all humans and it’s all good stuff. But no, neither of us ever even came remotely close to that. Mike refused to gamble until I gave him 10 bucks (yes, that was it) and told him to give it try. He totally gave up after only losing $2. I just figured that I wanted to have fun and get with the program – it was Vegas, baby – so I played. But I didn’t lose much. I’ll tell you what, though, with the current “money in-ticket out” system, there are no more spacing issues with the machine. Which means the machine doesn’t have to spit out when it’s full – it’s all paper – so the odds, which are obviously rigged, are now impossible. Well, that’s the point. I mean, who gets money back after riding an amusement park attraction?

The slot machines were just that, gambling amusement attractions. You and I will never get good at them.

When we got to The Forum Shops inside Caesar’s Palace, we were geeks in the homefield of the hotties and the jocks. It was as if an Otaku had gone to Shibuya by accident and gone into the enemy’s home turf, except we wanted to go there – or I told him we should go because he’d never seen it before. And so, with the fascination of an anthropologist, Mike walked around in a near-daze, totally enthralled with all the fake + overly dressed people. When I asked him about the stores, he just replied: “Stores? What stores?”

Apparently he never even bothered to notice Victoria’s Secret or Louis Vuitton. However, as soon as he spotted the Apple Store out of the corner of his eye, his Terminator Scanner came into laser focus, and he dragged me like Arnold did John Conner and we proceeded to get into the store. The same thing happned with the Sony Style store. Sadly for me, I never got a Bloggie or I could’ve shown you folks my version of the famous Anime Diet Video Diary.

So I lost my geek badge and he kept it. Eh.

We ate very well and we got our testosterone boost watching the Tournament of Kings, in which the Czar of “Russia” was our champion and he was quite a badass. But of course, as in any good wrestling show, the most badass person always gets ripped off by the end. He didn’t win the championship. The showmanship as well as the set up was fun, though. We weren’t allowed to take videos and pictures but you know what? It was a million times time better to be part of the live audience. Videos and pictures would not have done any justice to the awesomeness of the show. It was oozing with manliness and the women in the audience totally loved it. I wonder if some of them got wet?

So yeah, mildly speaking, we had a great time all the way.

There is more. But I’ll have to save that for a vid cast or something.