Anime Conventions

So...now that the other shoe has dropped in politics (i.e. the election has happened)...anyone else going to Anime USA?

My sis and I are heading to Anime USA!

We could meet up for a little while, if anyone's interested. I'm taking the bus from NYC down to DC on Friday so I probably won't be there in time for Friday events, but I plan on being around for Saturday and Sunday.

For what it's worth, the schedule is available here now: http://schedule.animeusa.org/

Funniest Thing at the con; watching the Stay Puft Marshmallow man try to sit down.

I didn't see the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, sadly. Unfortunately, AUSA wasn't particularly good and I ended up not doing much aside from getting drunk with a few of my non-Troper friends in the hotel rooms. Ended up not spending a lot of money, which was good, I guess. I attended the Touhou panel on the last day, which was nice for just chatting about Touhou generally but became quite meme-tastic after awhile.

edited 12th Nov '12 3:43:21 PM by HouraiRabbit

I went to Anime USA! Was there late Friday evening, and then much of Saturday.

On Friday evening, I got there in time to attend a panel about the meaning of the term otaku, and the role of otaku in society. The sociologist leading the panel talked about how the otaku is an information-based role, where information is the most (or among the most) desired thing. And how anime conventions have become increasingly accepting of non-anime fans, and the rise of pan-geekery. Not sure how much I agree with his implication that acceptance is generally pervasive, but he might be right about the trend if it's true that there were a lot fewer non-anime cosplayers at anime conventions a few years ago.

Speaking of non-anime stuff, my friend (who is a Homestuck friend) attended a Homestuck panel at the same time. There were many Homestuck cosplayers all over the place. He enjoyed it; I, as a non-fan, was slightly annoyed.

I was also annoyed that there weren't more Nanoha cosplayers...or just Nanoha stuff in general. Maybe two vendors had Nanoha stuff, and there was one lone Fate Testarossa cosplayer.

There was also a Cure Black cosplayer, and Cure White was conspicuously absent. I was wondering how she transformed. (FWIW she appeared with a Jessica Rabbit cosplayer.)

There were at least two (or maybe three) Lieutenant Surge cosplayers. I wonder if this is because this is the DC area, with U.S. military people nearby. But anyway, one was especially impressive—he was (1) accompanied by a girl cosplaying Raichu, who helped retrieve from his backpack (2) what looked like a tin of rations labeled chicken, which (3) actually contained chicken that he started eating by hand while waiting in line.

I encountered a Navi (from The Legend Of Zelda Ocarina Of Time) cosplayer who came with a little hand-held speech bubble saying "HEY! LISTEN!". I humorously told her "Shut up, Navi!", and she responded with a bit =(...and now I feel bad about that. Lol.

The convention saw lots of firsts for me—first time I've been to something this big, for starters, and first time I've bought stuff at a con. Also first time I bought J-pop, or any music CD (as opposed to digital purchases) in a while. (It's angela's Sora no Koe, specifically the English-language printing called Voice of the Sky, in case you're wondering.) Also picked up (new) Rocket Girls complete DVD set (finally!) and Final Fantasy The Spirits Within (used). And first time I've bought a figurine (in a long time, if you count action figures I got as a kid)+—I got this little four-inch thing of Captain Nanoha Takamachi in her military uniform, which will make for a simple but nice desk-decoration.

The place that sold me the angela CD had two other C Ds, both of Utada Hikaru. And some bubblegum + trading card packages for Smile Precure characters. I wonder if I should have picked those up too. Oh well. The stall specifically selling J-pop, however, was a disappointment. I think they were specializing in boy rock/metal bands, and I was asking for non-current artists anyway, but I asked about Melocure, savage genius, Ritsuko Okazaki, and Rie fu. After four tries I got the response "We don't really carry that kind of stuff." Oops...

I also went around multiple places asking if anyone had Idolmaster merchandise. Only one place did and it was cell phone stickers and even then they were missing the one for Chihaya. :( Most places didn't have anything Idolmaster.

Also had my first maid cafe experience. It wasn't as glorious as I'd expected. I paid $12 for an omelette over fried rice, whose main distinction was that it was decorated with ketchup by our waitress maid, who attempted to draw Gengar's face but instead produced what looked like a Zakenna face. And two friends got green tea ice cream.

Meanwhile, I missed a bunch of panels I'd been meaning to go to. Oops. It seems I had a decent time anyway.

I also spent over four hours each day in various forms of transportation—the shuttle from my school to the metro station, the Orange line, the special shuttle due to the Orange line outage between two certain stations, the Orange line again, and then the Red line. And then coming back in the evening it's worse, because trains past 9 PM are very sparse in timing. And finally, I paid $25 to learn to not leave my badge at home.

And now those two friends are trying to get me into cosplaying...

I saw two of the Lt. Surge cosplayers, as well as a variety of Umbrella, STARS, and one guy in what looked like SAS garb from the Iranian Embassy siege but it was for some game or other, I'm sure. Loads of Homestuck people and one guy with a dead-on Psy cosplay. Yes, he was doing the dance while people took pictures.

I did karaoke on Saturday and also sat in on Cherami Leigh's panel Sunday. I hadn't heard of her until then, so it was a little interesting.

My legs are killing me from all the running around on the Red, Yellow, and Blue lines (I went to see Arlington Cemetary while I was there), plus the con stuff. I was afraid I was going to get shin splints or something, especially since I also run for exercise every day.

edited 12th Nov '12 6:22:32 PM by HouraiRabbit

Where was Karaoke? I couldn't figure out where it was being held.

First panel room outside the Artist Alley. The second was AMVs for most of the day and the third was the board games room. Then the video games area. They did karaoke twice a day and once on Sunday; there was a guy who was killing himself trying to do some Nightmare song. "A" for effort but "C" for voice training.

Is that one of the rooms where Cosplay Burlesque was held?

I thought they were just random event rooms, rather than ones dedicated to karaoke.

edited 14th Nov '12 11:16:44 AM by GlennMagusHarvey

Nah they are random event rooms, they just had a couple of hours blocked out for karaoke. I think it was something like 11 to 2 each day.

Not an anime convention, but still a geeky stuff convention, this time for videogames and videogame music:

Is anyone else thinking of going to Magfest, which is 3~6 January 2013 at the Gaylord in National Harbor, Maryland (near DC)?