#huge banner saying i do not recommend you playing any of those games (they suck)

[wizardessheart-sideb]

This week’s episode is here! It was a bit of a downer, but next week we’ll have some fun! As usual, transcript under the read more.

HEWWO

Hello everyone, welcome to Royal Magic Academy Radio, a podcast about Wizardess Heart. I’m your host, Mari. I’m home from Anime Expo and ready to start working on this stuff again. My trip was pretty crazy and I needed more downtime than I expected, so thank you everyone for being patient with me. And since a lot has happened and I had a lot to say anyways, this episode’s gonna be fairly long. So, let’s get on with the show.

GAMING NEWS

We have a LOT of gaming news. The new collection event, Touch the Stars. We also got new items in the Make a Dates. And we got a brand new route featuring the newest love option, creepy ghost I mean Gray! We also got confirmation that Wizardess will be getting a season 10, which I’m personally far more excited for! We also have a special log-in bonus going on and it’s ghost-themed, so I’m already obsessed with it.

And finally, we have a brand new feature in the game! With Gray’s route and on, there will be an option to get reminded of what happened in the last chapter. I think this is an amazing feature and although the past routes, as of now, aren’t going to implement it, I still think it’s a really nice thing to have because let’s face it, sometimes you drop games for a month or more and need to get reminded about stuff. Or you’re like me and you never remember anything ever.

ANIME EXPO

Now, I'm sure a lot of you are eager to hear about Anime Expo this year, especially since I've been pretty quiet about it on all my social media. I always get really tired after cons since they're so over-stimulating in the first place, but this year was. Well.

I would love to say that AX was amazing this year. I'd love to tell you guys that it was so much fun, so well-organized, etc. But that'd be lying. And also you can't use the words "AX" and "well-organized" in the same sentence unless the word "isn't" is between them. This year's con was a god damn nightmare.

I've been going to AX for a couple of years now. This was my sixth year and I have to say this was the WORST Anime Expo I've been to.  

Let's start with the lines. Now, it's always a joke that Anime Expo gets called LineCon because the lines are insane. Now, those lines are usually for panels, food trucks, and badge pickup/registration. AX didn't start mailing general admission badges until last year, and that was the year they started doing RFID badges. Last year was their FIRST YEAR using these and it went fine! This year however, no.

They didn't have enough security for 100,000 attendees and lines to get in were hours long. I was lucky it only took me 2 and a half hours. Some of my friends waited in line for 4 hours. Some people on twitter were saying as much as 8 hours. The next day they fixed it but it was disgusting to see a con that could clearly handle this situation well, as entry lines last year were fine, handle it so poorly.

And then there's staff and volunteers. Normally, I've only ever had issues with the convention center staff. Some of them are rude and misgender a lot of attendees. Which for me personally, I get it, since I'm biologically female, I present super femininely, and I don't wear pronoun pins. But I've seen staff misgender people with pronoun buttons the size of a baby's head and with bold text on it. While facing them dead on. And I can't really forgive that. 

But this year some volunteers were hella rude which. I've honestly never experienced before it was pretty shocking hearing the stories. I don't blame volunteers for being frustrated considering how shitty this con is ran, but I don't think taking that frustration out on anyone is okay.

This con is the biggest in the US. I'd be far more forgiving of the hiccups if 

1) The con was just starting out. 

2) They were small.

3) They didn't have it under control last year.

4) The con didn’t passive aggressively blame attendees for their own incompetence, like they did with the long lines Day 1.

But that's not the case. This con is huge and has been going on for years. I know every con is going to have their struggles and that's fine. It's expected and it's totes okay. But this year was awful. They seemingly went back on things and it was worse than last year. Especially considering lines and security. That is unacceptable considering it was totally fine last year. I just. I do not understand how you can regress so much. This year's con was terrible and I'm not going back next year.

And now that we have the salt out of the way, we can talk about the good things. And I'll play some footage of the con in the background, so if you want to see it and you're just playing this in the background, go ahead and switch over, but I will try and describe Solmare's booth the best I can. I'd also like to thank some of the team members from Ceragon Dubs for joining me in this segment! Originally we were all gonna vlog together but. It was my first time vlogging so I was pretty lost so we're just gonna use the footage and not include audio. Enjoy my horrible cinnamon topography, guys.

It was honestly a really lovely booth and I really enjoyed it. It was just. So beautiful and I know that's really silly, but I loved it. The walls were lined with concept art for Obey Me! on one side, manga on the other, and then Moe Ninja Girls. The front section of the booth was tall and had banners for Obey Me and Moe Ninja Girls hanging and it was just. Idk why, it was such a unique design and to be honest, a lot of booths at AX are kinda the same-looking. The booth essentially had 4 parts: a survey area, the area for the Moe demo, a place for a small Obey Me demo, and a place to take a picture with the Obey Me cosplayer they had.

I played a couple of the Obey Me demos and I’m honestly excited for it. I do have to stay tho there wasn’t anything outside of Obey Me or Moe, so that kinda sucked. Although I do think they were handing out the Klaus headbands from last year one day, since I saw some people wearing them when my friends and I were outside rehearsing for our performance.

Also, this isn't an Ikemen fan account, but I have to give HUGE props to their company for the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. So there’s a space issue with AX and you’re not allowed to sit in the exhibitor’s hall, and there used to be two halls were you could sit and AX stupidly made one into the 21+ lounge, so there’s really only one place to sit. Ikemen had like. One third of their booth as a merch shop and the other ⅔ were a sitting area where they were playing their dubbed animated shorts and honestly, it was so nice have a place to unwind and it was great. I don’t think I got any pictures of it, but it was sooooo wonderful. 

But anyway, that was Anime Expo. I’m not going next year, and this year kinda sucked as a last hurrah, but it’s like that sometimes. 

ROUTE REVIEW

Okay, so let’s shift gears a bit. It’s time for a route review, yay!!! Today we’re gonna be talking about Hugo’s route! Now, we all know Hugo is one of my favorite dudes, but I have to say, his route was so incredibly well done.

It was well-written, the plot was compelling, and all the loose ends were tied up or had a satisfying ending. Not to mention they had a lot of good foreshadowing. The one that stays with me is them winning the promise pendants in a game competition and those necklaces later coming handy towards the end. Everything is cohesive and although it’s definitely not what I expected, it’s hands down one of my favorite routes in the game. It does jump around to places and the plot itself is kind of weird, but the writing team makes it work and make sense. But the way things tie into each other is well done and I love it for that.

I also love the romance in it. Sometimes you love a character, but their route doesn’t really do them justice. Falling in love with Hugo felt natural and I definitely fell for him while reading, and all this time later, I’m still as smitten with him as I was when I first read his route. The romance was also pretty cutesy, but then again I just love the whole bodyguard and protectee falling in love trope, but still. 

So bottom line, Hugo’s route is one of my favorites in the game and I definitely recommend reading it.

CONCLUSION

Whew, we had a lot to talk about today! From here on, I’ll be back to my regular uploading schedule, so unless major things happen in a week, we won’t have long-ass episodes like this. I know this episode is kinda negative and I'm sorry but... you know, I had to, you know... Call out Anime Expo. As you guys know, I don't really like being negative, especially on the podcast but... I would be lying not to mention all the shitty things that happened and... I know a lot of you probably are interested in Anime Expo, since it is the biggest con in the US and it's in LA, which, I love LA. So I want you guys to know the full story of the con even though a lot of things were really terrible and I had a really bad experience this year. And next episode, I'm gonna make sure that everything's a lot more light-hearted and fun and positive and stuff, and kinda, you know, make up for this episode. But anyway. Thank you everyone for listening in this week! This is Mari, signing off.