Anime USA

Late AUSA post is super, super late. But it hit right around the time where I was doing a lot of traveling and then I needed to catch up with work. But here is my late AUSA con report.

The con center itself is a fairly decent looking hotel. Though its really too bad that the hotel is getting too small for the con. I went last year and I thought it was a bit crowded, this year was pretty bad. It's been a while since I've been in a con this crowded and this was probably one of the worse. Though I heard a rumor that the con moved to a new location for next year. The hotel itself was really rather nice. And the rooms were really massive, which I guess doesn't matter any more.

They were far more up on badge checks, near the escalator points, but I didn't notice any by the elevators. Maybe they weren't allowed to. But they had the typical ones right by the dealers and artist alley. Speaking of artist alley, I really rarely ever buy stuff from there but there was someone selling these adorable Tiger & Bunny plushies so I had to snag one up.

I got the small one in the front. But look how cute they are! Whoever the artist is, someone link me, I want to credit you.

The dealers room was alright, again, the layout was rather odd. It's almost sectioned off into two areas, and you have to weave your way around. I tend to like getting figures more then anything, so there was maybe a few booths (Anime Sekai being my favorite), but otherwise I didn't end up seeing a lot that I liked. Also on Friday they didn't open until 2pm, which made no sense to me. Most dealers rooms won't open up until around noon, but I don't understand at all why they waited until 2pm.

Unlike most cons I actually spent time going to a few of the panels. One of them was a beginners cosplay's panel, just to see what it was like. I felt rather bad for the people running it, because they had the poor luck of being next to the game room and they didn't have a mic. But otherwise it was a well run and presented panel.

Speaking of the game room...it was probably one of the worst game rooms I've seen. And it wasn't because of the content. The location was small, the room was near impossible to navigate through, and it had tons of people crammed in it. They needed a bigger room, hopefully next year they'll do that.

When it comes to cons, this con is more of "hangout with friends and take photos" con. In the area there isn't a lot (there is a CVS that sells booze) but other then that, once you walk around the hotel there isn't much. I wouldn't recommend coming from far away for this con, but if you live within the east coast I think this con is worth checking out. It's slowly growing into something bigger, so I'll be excited to see where they go next year.

And of course some photo highlights from the con.








And of course the rest can be found here. Enjoy!

Connecticon 2011

Connecticut Convention Center; Hartford, CT
July 8-10th
Website

This was another one of those conventions where I was surprised at the last moment that I could go (literally, I found out 2 days before the con I could make it). I've heard of the con before but never really experienced it until now. The con itself is one of those big mix cons, it's not just anime, but video-games, sci-fi and everything else. They do a pretty good job of mixing everything, and there was a ton of different people. If I had to compare the size it reminds me of Ohayocon.

This was one of the few times I actually got the chance to really check out the panels, and I'm glad I got to. About all the panels I went to were really great. One of the more different panels I went to was the Parkour panel (which a lot of Assassin Creed cosplayers showed up to, no surprise there). While not really fitting too much into the whole con, it was an interesting panel to go to, to hear about what Parkour was really about.

Out of the main events, I saw the Dating Game, Masquerade and the Death Match (also a very small bit of the chess game). What I want to start off with, and what I didn't know, is that a lot of these have these main skits that the people running them do. I don't think the idea is bad, but they ran WAY too long. The best example is the Masquerade. It was supposed to end at 10:00pm so the Geek Comedy could begin. We left by 11:00pm and they were still doing their skits. The Dating Game was run the same way, everything was pre-decided and was just made to be a skit. Which is fine, if that's what they want to do. But something like this shouldn't be done for the Masquerade. The Masq is for the people who entered, who made costumes and skits for it. It really shouldn't be overrun by the people running it. The skits ran on FAR too long. I think if they need to do something like that, they need to make sure they run far shorter, they'd be far more enjoyable.

But moving on, I caught the end of most of the skits, and they looked pretty good. They placed the winning AMVs at the end and ALL of them were amazing. My favorite was "Captain Jack Sparrow" one...I wish I could find it online just to post. The Death Match was amazing. The MC was great and I loved to be able to cheer for the characters I wanted to win. I sadly didn't get to see the end of that, but I think the events where the audience can participate are the best.

The dealers room was pretty fantastic. Lots of space and a lot of really good booths. There was one in particular though that was selling nothing but knock off figures. The prices were super tempting, extremely low, but every single figure there was a knock off. I know some people don't really care either way, I'm particular about the figures I buy. If I'm buying a figure I want it to be authentic. But my favorite booth Anime Seikai was there. If you're going to buy a figure Anime Seikai is the best place to do it. They have a ton of figures, all authentic and range in pretty decent prices. I love seeing their booth at cons because they always have new figures. (Okay I think I've pumped up Anime Seikai enough). Another great thing was the Artist Alley set up. The room was pretty big and there was a lot of different types of artists there.

I really loved the layout of the whole convention. There was a lot of space, and it was pretty easy to get from one place to another. I think it worked out well because the amount of people there. I have a feeling once the convention gets larger this will be more difficult to fit everyone, that's pretty normal for any con. But the size and the center was perfect. I had a really good time overall, I would definitely come back to this con.

Photos








And of course the rest of the photos are here. Enjoy!

Zenkaikon 2011 & Photos

Vally Forge Convention Center, King of Prussia, PA
March 18-20th
Website

Zenkaikon is a newer con, that's still slowly sort of growing. It seems to be one of those cons that do seem to get better with every year. They learn from their previous mistakes. I've attended for three years so far, and I've seen a lot of improvements from year to year.

First off the space. The space has been improved SO much. Last year they weren't in the Scanticon but the area next to it, the hotel area. It was so awfully cramped. There was no place to really stand around and hang out, or get photos if you needed to. But this year they got several floors of the Scanitcon center and it was a huge sigh of relief. There was several floors to walk around in, a nice big area for people to hang around in on the bottom floor, while all the panals were held at the top floor. There was a second floor between but I guess they weren't able to get that for the con, since it was blocked off the whole time. But it was a HUGE improvement over last year. There was a small place selling food (rather expensive food, but they did give you a lot of it, between $6-8) but it was convenient. I seriously can't tell you how happy I was about the space, because of how bad it was last year.

This con I'm never really focused on my own cosplay quite so much, I'll wear a costume but I don't care for the meetup quite so much so I got the chance to see a few panels. Now I can't really judge all of them, only the ones I went to. Also I was only there on Saturday so I can't speak for anything else that happened, only for what happened on Saturday. And it was a 50/50 experience. The first panel we went to was something on Lovecraft and it was...pretty terrible to be honest. The idea behind the panel and the information that could have been presented would have been great. An information panel on Lovecraft and his universe. What it ended up being was a slightly unorganized, book pimping panel. The author there seemed to know what he was talking about, but he spent the entire time talking about himself as an author and talking about all of his books (within ten mins of the panel he had all of his books on him and he pulled them out to show everyone). If you're running a panel, I don't have a problem with your pimping your merchandise. I have a problem with you doing it throughout the whole presentation. If you're going to do it, do it after the panel. As your ending it, make a mention of it and where they can buy it. It's annoying and rather eye rolling to watch you do it throughout the whole panel.

The panel I did really liked was the Square to Bioware panel, the one on American and Japanese RPGs. It started with a quick sort of information part, but included a huge audience participation and discussion. It partly plays into my interests, since I like discussion, but I think the guys did a good job putting it together and kept on topic, but still allowed people to talk and share their opinions. They were overall really enjoyable. The guys who ran it were g33kWatch so check out their website.

The last event I got to see was the masquerade. And this was a pretty vast improvement from last year. Last year was in a really small room, and there was only a few people really interested in it. This year they had a whole stage set up and two large screens. The way the seating was set up was around the stage, but for whatever reason the two large screens set up along the sides weren't playing the masquerade, they were just showing the logo. So the people who were sitting along the sides were pretty much missing out on about everything. Maybe the cameras weren’t working? But if you have an area set up that large then they really, really needed to get the screens working. But they seemed to be taking a step towards making the masquerade more legitimate with the stage and giving more people the chance to actually see it. Zenkaikon is the con that tends to give out a lot of awards, but with a con as small as it is, it’s not really surprising.

Another big change was the dealer’s room and artist alley. With the growing interest in the con I suppose they were able to get more dealers interested in selling. The dealer’s room was pretty big, with varied types of booths. The artist ally was mixed in there, which wasn’t unusual. But what was strange was that they had a different hallway for ore of the artist ally. There was an artist alley B section with like maybe 5-6 artists there. I have no idea why they did that. The B section was upstairs and far away from the main dealers room/artist alley. We found it by accident, maybe they ran out of room in the main area, but with how big it was, they probably could have easily fit them in.

I think that’s about all I can say for the con. I’m happy to see the con starting to grow and improve. I think there’s still little stuff they can improve on, but I’m glad to see them better and better with each year. I’ll be curious to see what they’re like next year.

Unlike most posts, I tend to make two separate ones for photos and con reports. But I really didn’t take that much photos, so I’m tacking them on at the end of this post. Enjoy!

Katsucon 2011: Photos

Normally I like to start with a con review but this time I'm going to start with the photos first, because I know more people would want to see that a bit more. I tried to take as many as I could, there are much more from a few of the gatherings I managed to stalk. Feel free to take any image you see if yourself, friends or whatever. I'd appreciate a link back if you do. So I hope you enjoy!

Cosplayers








More cosplayers here.

Umineko








More Umineko photos here.

Other Gatherings
Umineko








And the rest here and here.

Magfest 9: Photos

Here's some of the photos I managed to collect with my new camera. I gotta say it's much nicer to see with my new camera rather then the flash flushing everything out. I tried to get as many cosplayers as I could get, there really wasn't as many as there is at an anime con. But with Katsucon I should be able to make up for that. Anything that I don't end up posting I'll give a link towards my photobucket so you can view everything I took. And please, don't mind mind me being ridiculously late with posting photos.


Cosplayers
I'll try and post some of my favorite from the con.

Borderlands cosplay. I really don't know a lot about the series but I really liked her cosplay. The contacts are intense.


Dr. Wiley, the hair was intense. I saw a Metal Man wandering around...I should have snagged his photo.


Ramona Flowers. She was really rather pretty, I'm pretty sure she was working at that booth.


Dread Pirate Roberts. The puppet is terribly awesome.
More cosplayers are here. There really weren't a whole lot I got photos of sadly, it's not a big cosplay con. Katsucon should make up for that.

Guests
A few of the guests I managed to snag photos with or snag photos of.


Linkara, Liz and Phelous.


It's like this odd triforce. Linkara, Spoony and Jewwario.

So you might be noticing a trend. Linkara. It's really more of an accident how he keeps ending up in my photos. Like the one above, it was a Spoony panel but he had Linkara and Jewario come up and riff with him. And the one with Phelous, he just happened to be there. And then I happen to run into him several times...The first night was the above Spoony panel, I caught him right after and snagged a photo. The second time I was taking photos of the hallway and saw him walking by, so I waved and said hi, he saw me holding the camera up and stopped. I was sort of stuck so I took a photo, and the third time I saw him I just figured may as well get a photo from every day.


I promise you Linkara I'm not a stalker. Just an accidental one. And hello to Obscurus Lupa in the background!


And the two from the previous post, Spoony here.


And AVGN!

The Con Itself

The registration line...and the 2 hour wait.


The game room, wonderfully dimly lit, but all dem screens.


The dealer room, much, much smaller then really what I'm used to. But I don't think a big focus was the dealers room, but it really didn't stop me from looking the place everyday.

And a link for anyone who wants to see whatever else I have that I didn't feel like posting or highlighting. Thank you all for looking! For Katsucon I should be far more up to date on posting.