Anime Detour 2008
Sakura-Con 2008
Anime Boston 2008
Sogen Con 2007
AnimeIowa 2007
Anime North 2007
Anime Boston 2007
Anime Detour 2007
Otakon 2006
Anime North 2006
Anime Detour 2006
Otakon 2005
Offsite Links
At which I learned the internet cannot teach you social skills.
Note: This con report was originally posted as a thread on a message board, so its format and language are different from my later reports. This was the first anime convention I ever attended.
Thursday, August 18
Well, I just got back from picking up my registration stuff and getting food - an hour and a half after the doors opened, not bad! The line was insanely long - it wraps all the way around the building and then some - but it moved very quickly. I know for a fact there are people out there living the con through me (you poor unfortunate souls -_-) so I'm doing a bit of an unusual picture post here. It's...
CON FOR NON-CON PEOPLE! The con experience in pictures!
First of all, yay, it's Baltimore!
First of all, the pre-reg line. This was the first year Otakon's had a registration cap, so instead of just a few people pre-registering there were about 20,000. See, the convention center takes up two entire blocks, separated in the middle where a street goes through. The prereg line Thursday went all the way around the building. The end of the line could see the front. Plus, it included this balcony thing in the back, which is where I ended up waiting for two hours before it opened. Witness:
See those people down on the ground? That's MORE LINE. Fun times.
Friday, August 19
Now, today, first day of the con.
The convention center! One of the entrances, anyway.
Inside this entrance is a big lobby where the cosplayers tend to hang out.
Lobby from the other direction, taken from on top of that balcony you can see in the above picture. These are the infamous fountains everyone keeps going on about meeting next to.
I'm not a big one for taking pictures of cosplayers unless they really impress me. I got these of some well-done Sailor Senshi (more showed up so I had to take another one -_-):
And a nice Vash:
A whole TON of Fullmetal Alchemist cosplayers that got together for a shoot:
No sign of Usagi Kou or Man-Faye thus far, but I hear Man-Misty is on the prowl. -_-
Lessee, today...first of all I went to an immensely boring webcomic panel. That was disappointing. After that it was...umm...well, I had to walk to Office Depot so I could get these pics online, so I guess that was it until the ASMR meetup! Oh wait, no. First I stopped in at a video room where they were showing some current music videos from Japan. There was good stuff and bad, just like here, but one thing I found interesting was that their music videos could be extremely sexy without having to be about sex. There were some very hot videos without any grinding or a million sex-crazed dancers or dirty lyrics. Interesting cultural difference, there.
Argh...the meetup...hrmph. I'm not going to discuss it right now. Let's just say after today I'm probably going to be lurking a lot more. -_- It was all right, just rather disappointingly short I suppose. First of all we got together in the Otacafe (the karaoke room). As if I didn't dislike the Azumanga Daioh theme enough already...
[Photos of board members omitted for privacy reasons.]
So after that we went over to the food court and pushed a bunch of tables together. I'm still in the dark on why we didn't find a restaurant somewhere. Got a nice group picture though.
And then we broke up. And that was it. The whole thing was about an hour and a half. o.o
So I wandered around all by myself for the rest of the day. *shrugs* Meh. Not like I earned any company with the way I behaved at the meetup... -_- Anyway. Moving on. On the way back to the convention center I passed some folks doing sparring matches on this skywalk patio. I have a little video clip, but I have to wait to upload that until tomorrow because I'm keeping my roommates awake with this posting. ^^;;
Then I hit the dealer's room for two hours. It seriously takes that long, at LEAST, to get through the whole room and look at everything. And here it is.
See that overhang waaaay in the back? The entrance is under there. The booths fill this ENTIRE room and the area under the overhang. It is unbelieveably massively huge. Bought a bunch of stuff, I'd post a pic but again, tired roommates. I'll snap a shot of my goodies sometime tomorrow.
After that I watched the first few episodes of "Rose of Versailles." Definite precursor to Utena. It was a little corny in places, but interesting. Then I tried to go to what was supposed to be a showing of the new Hellsing, but it had been cancelled and switched to something else. Thought about going back to the hotel, but it was only 9:00, I figured I should watch SOMETHING. After getting completely ripped off by some Aramark guy who didn't know how to do math, I went to the LONG-ASS MOVIE FROM HELL: "2009: Lost Memories." It was a live-action drama with an interesting concept - an alternate reality where Japan didn't lose WWII and in Korea terrorists are trying to separate the country from Japan's control - but it went ON and ON and ON in the most slow-motion overdramatic ways. It had its moments, but WAY too many of them. It lasted from 9:30 until almost midnight. -_-;;
And that was today.
Saturday, August 20
I have some extra time, so... Saturday!
Today was rather lacking in terms of scheduled events. I tried to get up early, but failed, and ended up half an hour late to the fanfiction workshop. First, though, here's the convention center from the correct angle. This is the other end of the place, the other main entrance.
This is also the entrance closest to my hotel, but alas, they wouldn't let anyone in there this morning unless they were registering. So I was even more late to the fanfic workshop due to having to walk a block and a half to the fountain lobby entrance. -_-
As it was, the fanfic thingy turned out to be a pseudo-panel instead of a workshop. We didn't get to do any writing or fic work whatsoever, and the questions were mostly along the lines of "are crossovers okay?" and "what about this pairing?" Basically stuff that's already been hashed out 100x on fic forums. Kind of disappointing. Especially because there were only two people running the thing, so small range of opinion there. One of them was a former SM fic writer who used to post here (and seemed to think ASMR had shut down O.o), but I've forgotten her pen name.
T.M. Chiba in his suit got mistaken for a Donald Trump cosplayer by some random idiot. Heehee. XD
Next it was on to the Sailormoon panel, again with T.M. Chiba and we ran into LT Stormwalker there. They were missing some panelists so I sort of volunteered myself, and ended up an impromptu panelist ^^;; but since the focus ended up being on the history of Sailormoon and Naoko-sama's role in it all I was kind of useless. -_- Oh well, at least I got to feel important for a few minutes. ^.~
There were some good cosplayers who showed up at the panel, however, and since I had (bum bum BAAH) MICROPHONE POWER!!! I was able to gather them all together afterwards for a photo.
After that, there wasn't really anything scheduled that caught my interest. I ran into some random ASMRians and hung around and chatted for a while, then ran into some other ASMRians and hung around and chatted with THEM for a while, but that was about it. Now I'm back at the hotel waiting for my roommates to tell me where they are, because we're supposed to go to dinner together. Later I'm planning to go to a manga-drawing panel and then some fan parody videos. That's it for now except a few cosplay pics.
A kickass Saturn costume!
A box of Pocky! XD
A fangirl hunter!
Heehee. Yes, that's a bundle of Sailormoon plushies tied to the end of a fishing line. It really reels in, too.
There was also a really kickass Kirara (sp? from Inuyasha) costume, but I didn't manage to get a picture of that.
Sunday, August 21
Sunday there was drama, after which I lost all desire to finish my con report.
