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 was reminded that the otaflu is a force to be reckoned with.
Thursday, March 27
When I decided to do both coastal cons, I was ready for the crazy schedule, the lack of sleep, the general exhaustion, the expense and stress. But I forgot about one thing: the otaflu. I got con plague from Boston, and it worsened on me over the week. So I was pretty sick over the weekend. Like "dear God don't let me pass out on these wonderful people" sick. So I didn't do as much as I normally would have. :\
[Pre-con romping about Seattle omitted.]
When I got to the Sheraton, I checked in (got a very conveniently-placed room, yay!) and waited for olesia to arrive. When she did, I was ready. :3
BNF repellent! Yays!
Later olesia tried to commit seppaku with the Anti-Ego Sword, and it fell over and bonked her in the eye. o.o Thou shalt not abuse the Anti-Ego Sword. ^^;
So we hung out for a few hours, and I unpacked my cosplay stuff and started sewing the new hooks onto my dress. Somewhere in there we headed over to the convention center to pick up our badges and stuff. The Seattle convention center is crazy confusing. There are extra rooms and passages and lobbies and escalators all over the place. At the end of the weekend I still needed help finding the dealer's room.
Prereg pickup was refreshingly fast and easy after Boston. I looked through the schedule and marked down a few things I really wanted to go to. Some of the options were... interesting. ^^; I never did find out what "anime fairy meat" was.
Vayleen was flying in at midnight. There's a shuttle bus serving the downtown hotels, but it stops running at night, so around 11 PM we walked a few blocks to a regular bus stop and took the city bus to the airport to meet her. Kinda scary, but not too bad. Long trip, though. The only problem was, thanks to freezing the heck out of my lungs earlier, any moderate amount of outdoor exercise made my lungs ache all over again. It was like that all weekend, even when it wasn't very cold. So annoying. >.<
But we got there, and before long there was Vayleen. :) And I actually recognized her! Well, mostly. I saw her walking around and had a feeling it was her but I wasn't sure. >.> Fortunately she recognized me. Otherwise I was going to make olesia go over and ask. Hee.
So then there was olesia and Vayleen, that crazy crazy pair. Not as crazy as they could have been, I suppose; for the most part they were relatively normal, if more energetic than most, but every now and then this big burst of hypercrazy would come out. While waiting for the bus at the airport, for example, suddenly they were jumping around on the rocks. xD (bad nighttime cell phone pictures, boo!) I was too tired and sick to join in. :\
The bus ride back was less than fun, since I was feeling worse, and the ride was very bumpy, which was not Vayleen's cup of tea. But we eventually made it back to the hotel safely. :)
Friday, March 28
Friday I got up at roughly the same time as the others, but I stayed and took a shower while olesia went with Vayleen to pick up her badge. Then they came back to the room and helped me make our bento lunches, since I was sick and didn't want to touch all the food. Then we headed over to the con to do the Big Favor - getting Dos the autograph of Ali Project's Arika Takarano. (Hee, I got her name off Wikipedia... and looking at the autograph I see she romanizes it as "Allica." Interesting.)
olesia and Vayleen had been told the line wouldn't be allowed to form until 1:30, and a lottery system would be used to randomly select the group that would get autographs. So we went to the area around the designated time, and were then told that the autograph sessions were delayed half an hour. So we went out into the lobby and found a place to have lunch. Bento time. :D
Vayleen looks kind of disgusted in that picture, but it was good, I swear ;_;
We went back to the autograph area at 2:00 and were given tickets for the raffle... which never actually occurred. When the group showed up, the line just started moving forward. Apparently they'd decided to do autographs for as many people as they could fit in the alotted time. We were worried we wouldn't make it, since we were toward the end, but Takarano-san was awesome and signed for everyone in the line. :) Still, the whole lottery thing was lies and fail. Rather annoying, that.
Arika Takarano was the only one signing, but the people with her - band members? backup of some kind? (I don't know much about the group, I am fail, I know ^^;) were dressed awesomely. Yes, they are all men. ;)
I couldn't get a picture of Takarano-san herself, since she was sitting down and signing and thus always behind someone. But she was very pretty and friendly. :) I felt kind of silly getting an autograph when I didn't really know the group, but I had waited in line, so what the heck. It took some courage to hand over the item I've been getting autographed, and I'm sure she didn't know what was written on it, but she seemed amused... xD
She took up the whole back side of the blade, haha. xDD I wore it as the front side for the rest of the weekend. ^^
So we got Dos his autograph, and made him very happy telling him so via text message. There was a bit of a snag when olesia tried to communicate how to spell his name, but she solved it by writing it on her hand so Takarano-san could copy it down. And Vayleen, an actual fan of the band (at least we had one!), got her CD autographed. ^^
Somewhere in there we also made a quick run through the dealer's room, which was next door, but I wasn't in much of a shopping mood at the time. I did pick up a copy of Death Note #13, however, the volume of supplemental material that just came out recently. :)
After that, olesia went off to meet up with some of her other friends, and I think Vayleen went to visit a friend of hers in the Artist's Alley, so I went to a showing of "Upbeat/Fun" AMVs in the dedicated AMV video room. (Dedicated AMV room, yay! Sakura-Con has an entire section of the convention center set up as "the multiplex," with themed video rooms.) Those were some of the weirdest AMVs I've ever seen, and I'm not kidding. Some of them were very good, but others... WTF were these people smoking? Definitely an interesting experience. o_O
After that... I think I went back to the hotel room for a while... and then the three of us met up again to find a place for dinner. There weren't a lot of options that weren't out of food or stuffed with long lines, but there was a restaurant that wasn't too expensive. olesia decided to go meet up with her friends again, but Vayleen and I had dinner there. It was just okay, but at that point food was food. I was hungry. :P
Then it was time for the AMV contest, I believe. We went up to the top floor and sort of butted in line where olesia and her friends were waiting. :3 Vayleen and I both had our DSes, but nobody was in pictochat. ;_; So we made one of our own, and sat there until people joined. And they did. We ended up with almost a dozen at one point, mwahaha. Behold our 1337 chat-forming powers! >D
Jessi from .moon found us while we were waiting in line. :D She's a friendly and energetic person, from what I could tell in the sadly brief time we talked. I wasn't feeling well, and had been pretty out of it all day, and was somewhat distracted by the pictochat to be honest >.> so I wasn't as talkative as I wish I had been. :( Jessi asked if we wanted to hang out later, and I really wanted to say yes, but my body was whining for sleep and I knew I had to finish sewing the hooks on to my dress. So she went away, and I felt bad, I pretty much blew the first real .moon meetup. I fail. :(
The AMVs were pretty good. Nothing stuck in my mind as blow-you-away amazing, but it was an entertaining show. I don't have a ballot on hand at the moment, but when I have a chance to revisit it I might remember some top choices. There were three or four videos in there that had been in the Boston contest, including the seizure-inducing Fun/Upbeat one and the Kingdom Hearts vid that had won Best in Show. And that was where I realized something about AMVs. Venue, venue, venue. Room setup totally matters. I'm not sure what it was, since the Sakura-Con setup wasn't all that different from Anime Boston's, but the upbeat vid wasn't nearly as obnoxious and seizure-inducing in Seattle, and the Kingdom Hearts vid had somehow lost some of the power it had had in Boston. It was strange.
There was one entry that stuck out in my mind, which was a comedy video featuring "failed Opening Ceremonies" auditions, i.e. anime characters lip-syncing silly songs. It was very unusual in that I found it very funny, and as many people know, I'm not one of those people who thinks lip-sync = automatic win. Normally I think that kind of thing is lame. But this one really cracked me up. The excellent use of masking, and addition of fun things such as autobots spelling out Y-M-C-A, definitely helped. xD Absolutely going to download that one.
Another thing that made the AMV contest interesting was the bouncing rubber floor. o.o I'd never been in an earthquake zone before. The dance was going on next door, and since the building was designed to be flexible in case of earthquakes, the floor shook like crazy. It was really obnoxious, especially since I was sick, and double especially since it made the projectors (and therefore the videos) bounce as well. Ugh. Annoying. ><
I voted in the contest, but I never found out who the winners were, I don't know when they were announced.
After that I think I went straight back to the room? I had to finish getting my costume ready, which took longer than I thought it would, like it always does. It was pretty late when I finally got to sleep.
Pictures from Friday!
^ Someone finally made this costume! I've seen all the other possible costumes from Azumanga Daioh all over the place, but this one only once before. I'm planning to make one myself, since it's so rare.
^ Dressed up for the Masquerade Ball.
^ Most awesome Ed EVAR. You can't see the computer well with the flash, and unfortunately my flash-off shot came out blurry. ;_; But you get the idea.
Forgot to include these pics of the venue in Friday's report:
Our disaster-area hotel room. >)
The convention center main entrance, as seen from the block the Sheraton is on. It was less than half a block from the hotel. :)
The Artist's Alley, which was up in the walkway crossing the road. Disappointingly small. Apparently the facility has limits on how much of the space can be used. :\
Main escalators going up... This section of the convention center had three floors, and there were a further three floors in another area. A big Sakura-Con banner was hanging at the top.
Hallway leading to a large area in front of the dealer's room where a lot of cosplayers would hang out for pictures. At the left you can see the giant Schedule board, where they had printed out a large copy of the entire convention schedule. Great idea, IMO, especially since the pocket guide book was pretty confusing and bulky to carry around.
Moving on...
Saturday, March 29
By Saturday I was death warmed over. Miserable to the point of tears. I didn't want to get out of bed, let alone cosplay. But I hadn't dragged all that crap all the way out to the West Coast to wimp out. I stayed in the room while olesia and Vayleen went to eat, however.
Eventually I dragged myself upright and got my costume on. olesia came back partway through the Plutoifying and helped me get my train on. I can do the snaps by myself, but the hooks turned out to be trickier; I'll have to remember to attach them before putting the dress on from now on. I was too tired to make bento that day, which is unfortunate. I'd really hoped to do it more than once. :\
I didn't do much of anything on Saturday; I was just too unwell to care. Vayleen was already in line for the Ali Project concert by the time I left the hotel room, so I went to visit her in line, since she'd really wanted to see me in costume. I had really wanted to go to the concert, but it would've been too uncomfortable in cosplay, not to mention being sick. :\ So I pretty much just wandered around for a while taking pictures and having pictures taken of me. There weren't many, which was fine by me. I wouldn't want to be one of those gorgeous cosplayers who can't move due to constant photography. I have a comfortable balance with the Princess Pluto costume.
Somewhere in there I went back to the hotel room for a while, and ran into olesia again, as well as a couple of Chrono Trigger cosplayers. Awesome! :D
Apparently there was almost a complete cast at the con, by total coincidence, and they had arranged to meet up for a group photo at 5. That's all that motivated me to get up and out of the hotel room again, after I dozed for a while. I was late getting to the meetup area, but they were still there getting pictures taken. :D
On the way I ran into a nice Haruka and Michiru pair who asked for a picture with me before I got one of them. :)
Vayleen met up with me after she got out of the concert, and we went to Subway, which had a reasonable line for once. There was a friendly Ouran cosplayer in line with us. ^^
Then we went back over to the lobby by the dealer's room and basically hung around there until the Sailormoon panel. olesia joined us there when she had time. They were nice enough to take some cosplay pictures for me. I went a bit lighter on the eye makeup at this con.
And I got a picture of them! :D
Finally it was time for the Sailormoon panel. When we got there, I finally ran into the Sailor Saturn cosplayer I'd been hearing about.
We got some pictures taken of us together, too, but I don't have one of those.
The panel was... okay. I always have a harsh opinion of Sailormoon panels, because Anime Boston has the above-all best one anywhere, and I don't only say that because I'm on it. It's just an awesome presentation. But the Sakura-Con one was all right. I believe it was being run by the Luna and Artemis I photographed on Friday, but it was hard to be sure. They essentially went over the basics of the series, the differences between the versions, the origins of their interest in the fandom, and things like that. Kinda flat, but not bad. I did have to resist the urge to examine the guy's artbook collection for bootlegs, though. Bursting bubbles is mean... >3
After that... I can't remember what we did next. I think that's when we wandered around for a while trying to decide what to do. We tried the gaming area, but everything was too busy, or there were events going on. Eventually olesia split off again for a while, and we decided to meet up again for AMV Hell 4 at 10:30. Vayleen and I went down to the AMV room to wait, but it ended up being moved to Main Events. olesia joined us there.
I've never been a huge fan of the AMV Hell series, but 4 was pretty funny. Definitely enough funny moments to make it worth watching, although it had its usual share of "meh." It was really heavy on the Haruhi and Death Note, as well as some key others. Vayleen had to keep covering her eyes at the Death Note bits to avoid spoilers. xD Personally, I'm glad AMV Hell 4 is the last of the series ("Yes, it really is" was plastered all over the thing). IMO it's a smart move to end it before it gets too old and tired. (I'm sure there will be plenty of ripoffs, though, ugh.)
After the AMV contest and AMV Hell 4, I must admit to a strange desire to watch "Gunslinger Girl." Even despite the weird chest-storage gimmick. I'm curious and intrigued.
By the end of AMV Hell, I was in pretty rough shape, thanks to the shaky floor once again and having stalled on taking my meds. >.> So it was back to the room for me, where I finally got out of my cosplay. The annoyance of doing cosplay cannot be overstated. I really need to get a corset made, because OW. The hooks for the train were a huge success, though. I got stepped on a lot, and it never ripped, and the side hooks only popped off once or twice. MUCH better. ^^
There was another random burst of craziness while I was combing out my wig... Vayleen and olesia got into a wild pillow fight. xDD They're so entertaining. Hee.
Pictures from Saturday!
^ This group couldn't move from this pose for at least 10 minutes. People wouldn't stop taking pictures. xD
^ One of olesia's friends, of the type who could barely move due to all the photography. xD
Sunday, March 30
Sunday was extremely brief, since I had to do the thing I never ever do, which is leave early on Sunday. I hate when people leave early on Sunday. But with the time zone difference, even leaving at noon I wasn't going to be home until after 8 PM, and I had work the next morning. :(
So I got up, packed up my stuff, and rushed over to the con for a quick spin through the Artist's Alley and dealer's room. I didn't have time to examine every booth fully, but I made it through most of both, and picked up some good stuff. Only a few things this time, though. Just a couple of prints and some Death Note figures. Not much else was particularly catching my eye.
Then we had to rush back to the hotel to get checked out by noon. Fortunately they had express checkout options, so I just signed the form and dropped it in the dropbox with the keys. In other words, we were able to check out a little late without penalty. :3
I stuck around a little while to go with Vayleen and olesia to store their stuff at the bag check in the hotel. I missed the initial shuttle bus I was planning on taking, but I had some extra time, and as it turned out that bus never showed, so it was just as well I didn't try to take it. xD
At the bag check, we had the GREAT SODA GIVEAWAY BONANZA! I had bought three 12-packs of soda since it had been on sale at Target, and we had half of it left by the end of the weekend. So olesia made a sign, and they were going to give it away in the convention center, but instead they just started yelling "FREE SODA!" in the bag check line. It took a little while, but soon it was bye-bye soda. People were freaking out with excitement over the free soda. It was awesomely hilarious. xDD
After that, olesia and Vayleen waited for the airport shuttle bus with me, and waved goodbye like lunatics when I left. My biggest regret about the whole con is not taking a picture of them doing so. It was so sweet. I'm tearing up just remembering it. But I fail at capturing special moments. ;_;
I slept the whole flight home, met my dad and my sister for dinner when I got there, and that was the end of that.
A few more pictures from Sunday.
Hey, it just occurred to me that I accomplished something impressive: I had a drama-free experience at Sakura-Con! xD From a lot of stuff I've read over the years, Sakura tends to be dramatastic. I certainly overheard a lot of drama going on. ^^; But besides the sickness, no drama for me! VICTOLY! :D
