A-kon 21

A-kon has come and gone, and here I am posting about it in less than a week! Exciting.

Unfortunately I don’t have much of a con report, because I didn’t see much of the con.  A great deal of my experience was ruined by terrible roommates.  I have learned a lesson there.  Sadly, I think I could have made room plans with a complete stranger and THEY probably would have been more courteous than these two people, one of whom I was acquainted with.

I’m happy to say that the cosplay this year was actually pretty varied.  There’s still some Chi’s (Chobits) about, but not near as much Naruto/Bleach/Kingdom Hearts/Final Fantasy as I’ve seen in recent years.  It’s nice to see that the crazes seem to be calming down a little bit.  However there must have been around 20 Luffy’s and at least a dozen Grell Sutcliffe’s which sucked for me, because I was looking for a specific Luffy and a specific Grell and I was also silly and didn’t bother to message either of them before the con so we could get together.  That’s an opportunity missed, especially since I don’t think I’ll be going back to A-kon next year.  I want to try and hit another convention, and my thoughts are going toward either Anime Boston or Anime Weekend Atlanta.

I did some cosplay for a few hours.  I got hugged quite a bit, mostly by people also cosplaying Deidara from Naruto.  It’s pretty weird, but nice to be loved.  I have to admit that at that point I was pretty down, and hugs from strangers picked me up some.  Yeah, I know.  It’s weird.  I also really enjoyed baffling fellow con-goers by simply staring at them when they decided to speak to me.  Mostly about how odd it was for Deidara and Gaara to be sitting together without fighting or being dead.  I’m pretty awkward socially, but it was also pretty funny to just watch the bafflement on their faces as they continued talking, like that was going to get me to respond to them.  Poor guys.

I did buy a lot of figures, and I will probably be taking some pictures to post over the weekend.  I was happy to find a Grell Sutcliffe, which goes nicely with my Sebastian, and I started a Zoro collection with a 10th anniversary One Piece figure – where apparently they had some joint thing going with Dragonball.  What a weird crossover.  Anyway, I also picked up about half a set of Petit Nendoroid Vocaloids, but I didn’t manage to get a Kaito, who I REALLY wanted.  However I did snag all three versions of Miku, though I have to confess that mostly I wanted her default.

I’ll leave you with pictures of my favorite cosplayer out of the approximately six cosplayers I took pictures of.  I’m getting weirdly shy about taking people’s pictures – I always mean to take more pictures, but I usually don’t.  Cursed shyness.  Anyway, here’s a couple pictures of a cool Zoro cosplayer.

Zoro cosplayer A-kon 21 (2010)

Zoro cosplayer close-up A-kon 21 (2010)

Seel! Wait, I mean Ciel!

If you follow me on twitter, you might remember that I complained quite a bit last weekend about sitting next to a guy wearing a skirt.  If you don’t follow me on twitter, that’s cool because I’m going to relate the entire story anyway.

This past weekend was Naka-Kon, a Kansas City anime convention running for its sixth year at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center.  I had applied to be staff this year, and I could be found at the Volunteer desk.  Whenever my director was away from the desk for a while there was usually another staff member sitting there with me.  One happened to be a guy cosplaying Riku Harada from D.N. Angel.  His costume was nice, it was just too bad that he completely acted like a guy.  Wearing a dress.  He would sit in his chair with his legs wide open, and then turn toward me to stare at what I was writing.  It was terribly awkward for me, mostly because I couldn’t leave, and I didn’t want to speak to him.  He’d already tried talking to me, but just quit after I didn’t show any signs of being impressed by what he was saying.

The funny thing is he’d talked to my roommate the day before.  Unfortunately that bit of conversation formed my initial not-exactly-positive image of him.

Him: Hey, you’re Rikku!

Roomie: …..yep.

Him: I’m Riku too!

Roomie: …..that’s cool. (shifty eyes)

Him: We should get a Riku from Kingdom Hearts, and (something I don’t remember), and make a whole group of just Rikus!!

Roomie: …uh….yeah.

Then we took our leave of him. Quickly.

I was happy to see a pretty complete cosplay group for Kuroshitsuji at Naka-kon.  I was surprised too, since the anime is (to me) pretty new, and not licensed (as far as I know).  I had personally just started watching Kuroshitsuji a couple weeks before Naka-kon, so I was especially tickled to see the cosplay group, and since I was working, sent the roomie off with my camera to get pictures of them.

Which brings me to my main-ish subject of this post: Ciel Phantomhive.  Starting Kuroshitsuji, I really didn’t like Ciel all that much.  He just seemed to me to be your fairly typical young, educated/smart, aristocratic, expressionless male.  In short, he’s better than everyone, and lets them know that they bore him.  It’s really overdone, so I’ll admit that I wrote him off.

Then I saw the episode of the anime where Ciel had to be disguised as a girl, wearing one pink and frilly dress.  That’s cause for chuckles normally, but it actually got me to like him.  The reason I started liking Ciel with his whole cross-dressing fiasco is that he was visibly uncomfortable with his situation.  His stance and expression showed his discomfort and the fact that he definitely did not want to be doing that.  Having to avoid his fiancee helped with the humor/discomfort.  For me, that made Ciel relatable.  He didn’t do the “cool guy” thing of showing absolutely no change in expression, and that’s why I now like him, at least more than I did.

Weekend Update!

This past weekend I’ve been pretty busy.  It was the weekend of Naka-Kon of course, and of course it was lots of fun.  I really enjoyed myself even though the grand majority of my time was spent behind the volunteer desk.

Overall it seemed like a calmer, more organized convention than it had in past years, and a lot safer for that.  I’m not sure if I’ll want to staff again next year or not…at the moment I think I’ll wait and see.  I really didn’t do anything besides work and visit the dealer’s room.

I also didn’t realize how big a draw two raves can be.  I personally don’t think that two are necessary, but from this weekend, I’ve learned that most of the Naka-kon attendees really want both those raves.  This year, one got replaced by a formal ball, and I heard the ball was actually pretty boring.  It’s a nice concept, but really, I’d be happy with a dance party sort of event.  Not a rave, not a ball, a dance.  That’s just me though.

I did pick up some figures, of course.  Not as many as I have in previous years, but the quality outweighs the quantity.  I’m debating on which to have a figure post about first, and I may put up a new poll for that.

I was also very impressed with the many awesome people who donated their time to help with registration and badge checking, including my roommate who got drafted because she was hanging around and chatting with me.  She rocks, and so do all the other volunteers.  I was also quite happy to see the number of adults starting to become larger as well as the usual 20-something and under crowd, especially in volunteers.  It warms this little otaku’s heart.

More later.  I’m going to sleep now and prepare for my boring week of working.

Short and Sweet: Naka-Kon update

Voice actor Kyle Hebert is the first confirmed guest for Naka-Kon 2010 being held in Kansas City in February. I’m looking forward to February now a lot more than I normally do. :]

It’s pretty unlikely you haven’t come across his work, he’s a hard-working voice actor. His most notable role might be that of the narrator of Dragonball Z as well as Gohan with more recent roles such as Kiba in Naruto and Kamina in Gurren Lagann.

I’m so excited now! ^^

Motaku Day 2

If you’re looking below this post for day one, rest easy.  There’s no day one post.  I could only attend Sunday.  Had a college buddy visiting and I wanted to see her baby, then I got sucked into Bioshock.  I’m going to say this repeatedly, but Bioshock scares the heck outta me.

Anyway, back to the convention.  This is Motaku’s first year in existence.  There seems like there’s a little drama between this and attendees of Naka-Kon which has been running in this area for about 5 years now, but as far as I know, there’s no drama between Motaku and Naka-kon or their respective staff.  In fact, I think I may apply to be staff next year.  It’s really close to where I live, which is nice.

The staff in general did seem harried, but that’s to be expected for a first time convention.  They also greatly benefitted from previous con experience, as I believe most of the staff are veterans of previous Naka-Kons.  I didn’t get to do much, but what I saw looked pretty favorable.  There is definite organization and I could tell they did need some help, but unfortunately that also seems to be a regular condition at any convention.

The only part that I did not enjoy was the cosplay competition.  I couldn’t tell you about the back end since I didn’t participate, I merely sat in the audience and watched.  However, what I saw was not at all favorable.  I could not clearly hear the announcements from where I sat, so I had no idea who was walking the runway or what character they were portraying from what anime/manga/video game/etc.  Also there seemed to not be much in the way of telling cosplayers what to do i.e. “walk to here, stop, pose for this long, walk to here, stop, etc.”  Although that might just be cosplayer nerves.  I know when I walked the runway at Anime Festival Wichita, I just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible, to hell with pictures.  That is an issue that can easily be addressed next year, whether it be by taking suggestions and revamping the cosplay competition or simply finding someone to direct it with more experience.

Most of the problems could be fixed with experience.  Also with my own experience as a con goer, I do realize that some problems like lack of staff, not many panels, etc honestly aren’t so easy to fix.  Listening to what I’m thinking were staffers, there were some panelists that cancelled, leaving them hanging, which always sucks, and one of the main guests came down with H1N1, causing her to also cancel.

So I think I may try and do my part to help out whether it be to apply for a staff position once that opens up, or even put in a couple of my own panel ideas.  I’ve had the notion to try and run a panel for a couple years now, and I think Motaku might just be the right fit to try it out and see what does and doesn’t work.

I *did* cosplay, but people kept thinking I was not the character I was going for.  I was trying to cosplay Hanatarou from Bleach, complete with medical squad bag, but my wig looked more like Rukia.  This leads me to think that perhaps I should just make a prop of Rukia’s sword and keep it easy on everybody. Heh.

I’m looking forward to next year, and I’m expecting to see better and better things come out of Motaku.  They’re off to a great start.

New favorite convention story

Part of the fun of going to conventions is the stories you bring back.  Some are good, and some are horrible abominations that you’d rather forget about.  Usually if you ask me for convention stories, unless I just attended one, I won’t remember any.  I’ve got a horrible memory for that kind of thing, unless someone reminds me of a story, then I’ll recall it and tell whoever will pretend they’re listening.

Anyway.  This will be my favorite convention story for a while, at least until the next convention I go to, which currently will probably be in October.  Theoretically that’s plenty of time for me to make new cosplays and save money.  Theoretically.  I’ll just have to see how it’s looking in September.

This last weekend I went to Anime Festival Wichita in Kansas (which by the way is really boring to drive through.  I almost fell asleep both ways.)  The character I had decided to cosplay had gray skin and wore a sleeveless vest, so I put gray makeup on my face and arms for that, and was wearing one bright yellow wig.  Also, yellow contacts, but those weren’t really too noticeable unless one happened to look directly at my eyes.  I’m sure you can tell it was a unique costume.  Some people scoffed at me as I walked past (yeah lolitas…that’s original, pfft), and some gave props for having the guts to wear that much makeup.  Pretty standard comments.  The ones I really hate are people who feel the need to critique my costume and yet are wearing their normal clothing.

Off topic again.  Gah.

The hotel was nice, but what was unusual about it was that the rooms were a pretty fair distance from the convention itself.  We had to traverse one long hall and then go up a elevator to get to the convention.  One of the times I was returning to my room, there was an elderly couple in the elevator.  I got in at the lobby.  I was in my full costume.  The lady was so fascinated by it that she was apparently going to stay on the elevator, but her husband told her they had to get off there and pulled her out.  As she was being pulled she told me it wasn’t because I got on the elevator, which still cracks me up.  Hehehehe.

So if you made it through the rambles to the actual story, I hope it was worth it.  Since I have no more weekend trips at the moment, I may try and get back to posting about what I’m watching, reading, and playing.

Anime Festival Wichita 5

This weekend I went to a small anime convention held in Wichita, Kansas.  My friends and I had gone last year and enjoyed it despite the extremely small size, so we were looking forward to going again this year.

I’m happy to say there was quite a bit of growth.  Larger hotel, more guests, more events.  The area around the outside of the hotel is beautiful and I’m really looking forward to taking pictures next year.  I didn’t dare spend any time outside this year as most of the time my arms were covered in makeup and I didn’t want to sweat it off.  Cosplay critics are harsh, I should know, I’m pretty critical of cosplay myself.  I never think that defects in costumes might have been caused by mishaps, but that’s not the subject of this post.

Speaking of cosplay though, there was some good cosplay.  My personal favorites were from Future Diary (Mirai Nikki) and Gintama.  Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera on me when I saw Elizabeth so I won’t be posting a picture of that one.  I will post the picture of Yomotsu Hirasaka from Future Diary.

I also participated in walk-on for cosplay for the first time ever.  I like the way their walk-ons are set up, but I still think it goes too quickly.  My friends sadly told me they’d only managed to get pictures of my back.

There were a pretty good variety of guests.  I did manage to get to a couple panels which were fun, and tried a viewing room, but that was ruined by the random jerks who were sitting and discussing pretty much every popular series they could think of (Naruto, Bleach, Code Geass).  Loudly.  Loudly enough to completely drown out the speakers in the room.  Needless to say, I wished I had a prop sword I could beat them with.  I do like the way the autograph session was set up, with people sitting in a panel room, and a row at a time lining up to go through the table.  It was orderly, and it prevented people from standing in line forever before they got their autographs, and is actually a pretty good solution to the whole line-jumping problem that can arise.

All in all a good convention.  I was glad to see the growth, and I was just as glad to see that this convention at least is pretty well-behaved.  There was no running, and no asses yelling about ‘the game’, which are the two things that automatically ruin conventions for me.

My only complaints are personal really.  I wish I’d made it to more of the panels and had taken more pictures.  Unfortuantely my cosplay had crazy prep time involved…I’m going to guestimate an hour and a half at least, and most of that was due to the makeup on my arms.  Which sucks when you sit between two people and try not to rub off on either of them.

I’m looking forward to next year

Anime Festival Wichita – cosplay!

From frequenting the bulletin board for the local Kansas City anime convention, Naka-kon, I have made plans for cosplaying at Anime Festival Wichita, held in Wichita, Kansas in July.

A fellow forum goer was asking for a partner in a D. Gray Man cosplay of Jasdero and Debito, wanting a Jasdero and I thought, hey why not?  So I have volunteered.  I have also quickly made a new buddy, which I think is just awesome.  Just as awesome is the fact that this new buddy of mine is very detail-oriented in cosplay.

You may look forward to progress pictures and finished pictures.  Maybe even a video or two XD

MTAC Ninja and Serial Experiments Lain

This weekend I attended MTAC Ninja in Tennessee.  The weather was beautiful all weekend, and I was very comforted to see many older cosplayers.  I’d attended a closer convention earlier this year (Naka-kon) and had felt somewhat uncomfortable being one of the older cosplayers in a crowd of cosplaying teenagers and kids.

That alone makes me want to go back to MTAC next year.  I am an anime fan, but I also would like to connect with more people my age rather than feeling like an overgrown kid all the time. -_-

I even managed to go to a panel.  As usual I meant to go to more than one, but I forgot about the second until halfway through it.

Also MTAC seemed like it had a lot more music going on than usual.  There was a battle of the bands to determine who would be opening next year, and 4 performers/bands, one of which was a local band.  We went to the concert Saturday night to see the Slants and the Notorious MSG, and I can say that both bands have a new fangirl.

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Now to my anime-watching.  As you may or may not know, I’ve been watching all the anime I own, one by one, by the order I put them into a binder.  As you may notice, that order is pretty random.  So far I have watched Samurai 7, Chrono Crusade, Loveless, Trigun, FLCL, and Serial Experiments Lain.  If you’d like to have my thoughts on any of those series, let me know!  E-mail sailorsamus@araknamedia.com.

Well, any of the series besides Serial Experiments Lain.

For an older anime (released in the 90s), it holds up well.  Sure, the animation is obviously dated when you compare the colors to the much smoother coloring of today’s anime, but the digital effects hold up well, and so does the story.  The basic story could be said to be still very relevant today.

That being said, I find to be a very confusing series.  I’m not at all sure I know what happened, and I think I’m going to have to read up on it online and watch it again.  Heh.  I have found that it’s not something I can play in the background while working on other things, I must simply sit, watch, and pay attention to get all the story.  I would still highly recommend watching it however, especially because it could now be considered a classic anime.  I’d even go so far as to suggest that you would not have the current series of .hack without Serial Experiments Lain.