Otakon con report
Only a week late. xDDD
zipchan and I left on our epic adventure of epicness after work on Thursday night. I was already pretty tired from work, so staying awake was an endeavor, but we managed it, somehow! I think it was mostly thanks to this really, really terrible coffee that she made. It was too bad to drink outright, so instead we forced ourselves to take a drink every time we yawned. That did the trick up until we ran out of coffee and both started getting jittery from the insane amounts of caffiene. DX Loud, crazy-ass music helped a lot, too.
We got to the convention around 10am on Friday morning and after parking and hauling our stuff up to the room, I got changed into White (girl trainer from Pokemon Black/White), expecting an insane registration line. Instead I got...twenty minutes of waiting for my badge. xD Go pre-registration! Unfortunately zip didn't pre-register, so she waited for quite a bit longer and I stuck it out with her after running around and grabbing food and water for her. ^^; The first picture I got was a Lyndis from Fire Emblem but just like last year I accidentally deleted the picture...but this time I got another one! 8Db The first picture I technically got was a Mei-chan cosplayer (FMA) who was in line behind me in the pre-reg line. :3 I also got a crap-ton of people recognizing my costume, going "wow, that was fast", asking which starter I was going to pick, etc. I enjoyed being the only White at Otakon while it lasted, because over the course of the weekend I think I met SIX others. xD There were four others alone at the Saturday Pokemon photoshoot! Oh Gen 5...
After finally getting badges and everything, I went ahead and changed into my gijinka Flygon costume because I honestly couldn't wait to bust that sucker out. I had a blast in the costume, too! There were malfunctions liek whoa - the wing harness actually cut into one of my shoulders a bit, and by the end of the night it was barely holding together by a thread (I kid you not), the antennae didn't want to cooperate, my goggles eventually broke, the shoes were uncomfortable after wearing them for most of the day, etc. I still had tons of fun in the costume and I'm totally going to wear it again, possibly/probably to AWA. I had a lot of people recognize me and I got SO many people d'awwing over my Trapinch plushie. =D The Friday Pokemon photoshoot was tons of fun too, as was the giant Pokewalker orgy at the end of it. :D
I got some Digimon swag from the Artist's Alley, zip and I bombed the picture machine Funimation had set up in the Dealer's Room, we tossed some postcards into the Hetalia postcard pile, and we mostly just ran around acting like spazzes for most of the day. The only panel I wanted to go to we ended up missing most of because the service was slow as all hell at Hooters (just...don't ask), but what we caught of the AMV Hell 5 panel was hilarious and I'm so glad I went. Can't wait to see the final product at AWA!
I took 28,867 steps on Friday. Just Friday. Even though I spent 10 hours of that in the car. oO
Saturday we got up early to go to the Artist's Alley panel which was informative but sort of boring. The fact that it was at 9am didn't really help, but *shrug*. After that we mostly ran around as Filia and Amelia being all ~old school~. At some point there was a Gourry cosplayer and I had my Official Fangirl Moment as I ran after him spazflailing and going "GOURRYGOURRYGOURRYGOURRYOMGPICTUREPICTUREPICTURE".
You see, every six months I'm allowed exactly one of those moments where I lose all rationality and demote to the likeness of a five-year-old. This was my Official Fangirl Moment, no more until Katsucon or so. xD
Seriously though, Gourry cosplayer = awesome, Gourry cosplayer while I'm in a Slayers costume as well = YESSSS. But even after all that I didn't ask for a picture with him...oh well. DX
More perusing of the Dealer's Room, didn't find much anything of interest (no Kamen Rider...*sniff*) but we DID photobomb Funimation's photo booth again as Filia and Amelia. 8D
We *attempted* to go to the premiere of the first 10 episodes of Hetalia dubbed. In fact, we waited in line dutifully, got seats near the back of the room, sat patiently, aaaand the DAMN FIRE ALARM WENT OFF. >[ Only bad part of the con (aside from the general lack of sleep). So instead of that, we went back to the hotel room for a bit of reprieve from being in costume. Then we had a photoshoot and I changed into White as soon as I possibly could. Wandered for a bit, went to the Pokemon photoshoot. There were five Whites there including myself, and two Blacks! !! 8D Also a Zorua gijinka, two Mijumarus, a Pokabu, and PROFESSOR FREAKING ARARAGI. We at one point just sort of took over the photoshoot with our EPIC GEN FIVE-NESS. AWWW YEAH.
We went from the shoot to what we thought was going to be waiting in line for ridiculous amounts of time to get into the masquerade. We pretty much just waltzed in (though why did they check our bags twice and our badges three times? Oh well...) and got pretty good seats. The pictochat before the masq started was pretty funny. There were some damn impressive costumes in the contest as well. And then the skits! Last year was a mind-blowingly amazing masquerade. It really raised the bar of quality for skits in my opinion. This year was...
I unfortunately have a lot of criticism about the masquerade this year. As someone who's done skits for around five years now (skipped this year due to budget/time constraints) I think I'm entitled to give criticism on skits. Also, this is not directed at any one skit in particular.
The masquerade sucked overall. 90% of the skits didn't seem to have any thought put behind them whatsoever. The ones that did were the ones that won (mostly). Even some of the ones that had great writing or a great premise had...lackluster costumes. Very lackluster costumes.
Too much Vocaloid. I was about ready to stab myself in the face if I saw another Miku cosplayer by the end of the masq. There were also waaaaay too many skits that should have been in the karaoke instead. The Mio cosplayer that sang and played "Fuwa Fuwa Time"? That was amazing! She was both singing and playing the guitar, and the premise of her skit was that she had been left alone on stage by the rest of her friends and was forced to perform alone. Even people who haven't seen K-On got that much. The other "lets sing a song for the hell of it" skits didn't really even have that. There were also too many skits that would have made SO much more sense in another medium - like an AMV, or a fanfic, or even fanart. They weren't really "skits" so much as just cosplayers shuffling around with a song playing in the foreground. There were also a few skits where I was left scratching my head, trying to figure out what exactly happened and/or why the performer(s) in question thought it would be a good idea to do that on stage.
Skits I DID like? The aforementioned Mio singing and playing the guitar, for starters. "The game your gameplay could be like" Final Fantasy skit with the Old Spice reference I liked, as well as the BlazBlue skit explaining "anime conventions" to Taokaka. All four Pokemon skits were entertaining, though my favorites were the one with Professor Oak being the senile old idiot he is ("I remember now, your name is Awesome!") and by FAR my favorite skit in the entire masquerade was the Telephone skit. The skit with Roy and Ed singing about how yaoi fangirls are crazy was great, too, as was the Evangelion skit with Shinji suddenly bursting into showtunes. The skit with the massive Miku group was really good, too. Of course the Angel Sanctuary skit because...well, Angel Sanctuary and...wings. WINGS. Kefka singing about poisoning pigeons in the park was just deliciously evil. And the Kamen Rider Den-O skit because...Kamen Rider.
And then after the skits there was X-JAPAN. No words can truly describe how incredibly happy I was to be able to witness Yoshiki and Sugizo performing live. And they just so happened to play my two favorite X-Japan songs, one of which is and has been one of my favorite songs period for a good eight years now. And unlike a lot of people I was actually ecstatic that they DIDN'T have the new vocalist with them. They performed "Forever Love" and "Endless Rain", with Yoshiki on piano and Sugizo playing a violin in place of the vocals and the overall effect was just...beautiful. I mean, I'm tearing up just writing about it.
I know a lot of the reason why I was in tears when they played "Forever Love" was because that's Hide's song and they didn't have someone else singing the vocals, and had the violin in place of the vocals. It's also just because it's a song with a lot of emotional baggage attached to it, for a lot of different reasons.
They played the two songs, with a short Q&A session between them. Yoshiki has really good English and a great sense of humor (somehow both of these facts surprised me...*shrug*), and between him and Sugizo I was having a moé overload. They are so cute~!
So yeah. X-Japan. Forever Love and Endless Rain performed live. Worth the price of the Otakon ticket. Worth the horrible drive up to Baltimore and back to Columbia. Worth the cost of the hotel. Worth every freaking penny I spent at Otakon. I somehow felt like I was cheating them because it was technically a performance I saw for free. It was an experience I don't think I'll be forgetting for a long, long time.
It was just. so. pretty. *_*
*ahem* Anyway, after the masquerade we had dinner, crashed the Kamen Rider photoshoot (they only recognized me after I went "Nakerude~" and did the neck-crack thing. xD) and just sorta floated around the con for a while, before finally going back to the hotel and going to sleep. Sunday we woke up early again, I got into my final costume (Sabrina from Heartgold/Soulsilver), we got everything packed up and into the car, and we went to the Yugioh Abridged panel. At 9am! On a Sunday! It was sort of unnerving on the way over there, because it seem liked the con was pretty dead. I made the joke that most of the con was probably in the panel but as it turns out I was right. xD The room was packed to the gills! Someone pointed out that when you get that many people into one room on a Sunday morning it's called religion, which was met with huge applause and laughter.
The panel was a lot of fun, and getting to see the new abridged episode early was tons of fun, too. Nothing like watching an episode of Yugioh abridged with hundreds of other otaku to laugh and applaud and cheer along with you. The "this little Kuriboh holds more power than all of Team 4Kids" line was possibly my favorite, just because the entire room exploded in cheering. Great way to start Otakon Sunday, if I do say so myself.
Overall, though, Sunday was "meh" day. Everyone and their mother is/has been playing Heartgold/Soulsilver recently, but barely anyone recognized me, even with my trusty Abra plushie to give them the hint. In fact, the little guy got a TON of "aww, he's so cute!" reactions, so at least there was that. But I mean, come on. When I squeal over a custom-made Marsh Badge in the Artist's Alley and drop $2 on it like it's nothing, and then you ask me "So, who are you cosplaying?"...that really made me lose some my faith in the artist's alley community as a whole. There's creating art to sell because you genuinely like the series. And then there's cashing in on the latest trend. Yes I know it happens a lot and it's good business to cash in on whatever's popular, but still! I wouldn't have been upset at all if I'd been buying, for example, something a bit more generic like a Pokeball or an Abra keychain or whatever. But a Marsh Badge. Sabrina's own fucking badge.
That being said, I still had fun! I got a bunch of pictures of the Digimon photoshoot, fist-bumped with a Masaru cosplayer because he recognized me, fangirled over a Ken cosplayer, and zip and I got pictures taken by a professional photographer. We just sorta hung around for a while doing nothing before finally deciding to head out. And thus, another Otakon passed, and we began the stupidly long drive home. Ugh. I fell asleep more times than I care to admit, even when we blared "Telephone" as loudly as possible and sang along horribly (in my case at least)
Overall:
Years I've Been to Otakon: 2!
Costumes Worn: 4! (Took 5, didn't wear Ling)
Pictures Taken: 105
Swag: Digimon keychains and print, Pokemon prints and bookmarks, free Hetalia swag from Funi, Sabrina button, bookmark and Marsh Badge (all from Artist's Alley, Dealer's Room sucked this year)
Steps in Pokéwalker: 56,000 (like I said, 28,000 of that was Friday alone!)
Favorite Costume: Gijinka Flygon
Official Fangirl Moment: "GOURRYGOURRYGOURRYGOURRYYYYYPICTUREPICTUREPICTURE!!!"
Favorite skits: Pokemon/Telephone and Kefka and the pigeons tied for favorite
Favorite moment of the con: "Forever Love"
Kamen Riders spotted: ten!
zipchan and I left on our epic adventure of epicness after work on Thursday night. I was already pretty tired from work, so staying awake was an endeavor, but we managed it, somehow! I think it was mostly thanks to this really, really terrible coffee that she made. It was too bad to drink outright, so instead we forced ourselves to take a drink every time we yawned. That did the trick up until we ran out of coffee and both started getting jittery from the insane amounts of caffiene. DX Loud, crazy-ass music helped a lot, too.
We got to the convention around 10am on Friday morning and after parking and hauling our stuff up to the room, I got changed into White (girl trainer from Pokemon Black/White), expecting an insane registration line. Instead I got...twenty minutes of waiting for my badge. xD Go pre-registration! Unfortunately zip didn't pre-register, so she waited for quite a bit longer and I stuck it out with her after running around and grabbing food and water for her. ^^; The first picture I got was a Lyndis from Fire Emblem but just like last year I accidentally deleted the picture...but this time I got another one! 8Db The first picture I technically got was a Mei-chan cosplayer (FMA) who was in line behind me in the pre-reg line. :3 I also got a crap-ton of people recognizing my costume, going "wow, that was fast", asking which starter I was going to pick, etc. I enjoyed being the only White at Otakon while it lasted, because over the course of the weekend I think I met SIX others. xD There were four others alone at the Saturday Pokemon photoshoot! Oh Gen 5...
After finally getting badges and everything, I went ahead and changed into my gijinka Flygon costume because I honestly couldn't wait to bust that sucker out. I had a blast in the costume, too! There were malfunctions liek whoa - the wing harness actually cut into one of my shoulders a bit, and by the end of the night it was barely holding together by a thread (I kid you not), the antennae didn't want to cooperate, my goggles eventually broke, the shoes were uncomfortable after wearing them for most of the day, etc. I still had tons of fun in the costume and I'm totally going to wear it again, possibly/probably to AWA. I had a lot of people recognize me and I got SO many people d'awwing over my Trapinch plushie. =D The Friday Pokemon photoshoot was tons of fun too, as was the giant Pokewalker orgy at the end of it. :D
I got some Digimon swag from the Artist's Alley, zip and I bombed the picture machine Funimation had set up in the Dealer's Room, we tossed some postcards into the Hetalia postcard pile, and we mostly just ran around acting like spazzes for most of the day. The only panel I wanted to go to we ended up missing most of because the service was slow as all hell at Hooters (just...don't ask), but what we caught of the AMV Hell 5 panel was hilarious and I'm so glad I went. Can't wait to see the final product at AWA!
I took 28,867 steps on Friday. Just Friday. Even though I spent 10 hours of that in the car. oO
Saturday we got up early to go to the Artist's Alley panel which was informative but sort of boring. The fact that it was at 9am didn't really help, but *shrug*. After that we mostly ran around as Filia and Amelia being all ~old school~. At some point there was a Gourry cosplayer and I had my Official Fangirl Moment as I ran after him spazflailing and going "GOURRYGOURRYGOURRYGOURRYOMGPICTUREPICTUREPICTURE".
You see, every six months I'm allowed exactly one of those moments where I lose all rationality and demote to the likeness of a five-year-old. This was my Official Fangirl Moment, no more until Katsucon or so. xD
Seriously though, Gourry cosplayer = awesome, Gourry cosplayer while I'm in a Slayers costume as well = YESSSS. But even after all that I didn't ask for a picture with him...oh well. DX
More perusing of the Dealer's Room, didn't find much anything of interest (no Kamen Rider...*sniff*) but we DID photobomb Funimation's photo booth again as Filia and Amelia. 8D
We *attempted* to go to the premiere of the first 10 episodes of Hetalia dubbed. In fact, we waited in line dutifully, got seats near the back of the room, sat patiently, aaaand the DAMN FIRE ALARM WENT OFF. >[ Only bad part of the con (aside from the general lack of sleep). So instead of that, we went back to the hotel room for a bit of reprieve from being in costume. Then we had a photoshoot and I changed into White as soon as I possibly could. Wandered for a bit, went to the Pokemon photoshoot. There were five Whites there including myself, and two Blacks! !! 8D Also a Zorua gijinka, two Mijumarus, a Pokabu, and PROFESSOR FREAKING ARARAGI. We at one point just sort of took over the photoshoot with our EPIC GEN FIVE-NESS. AWWW YEAH.
We went from the shoot to what we thought was going to be waiting in line for ridiculous amounts of time to get into the masquerade. We pretty much just waltzed in (though why did they check our bags twice and our badges three times? Oh well...) and got pretty good seats. The pictochat before the masq started was pretty funny. There were some damn impressive costumes in the contest as well. And then the skits! Last year was a mind-blowingly amazing masquerade. It really raised the bar of quality for skits in my opinion. This year was...
I unfortunately have a lot of criticism about the masquerade this year. As someone who's done skits for around five years now (skipped this year due to budget/time constraints) I think I'm entitled to give criticism on skits. Also, this is not directed at any one skit in particular.
The masquerade sucked overall. 90% of the skits didn't seem to have any thought put behind them whatsoever. The ones that did were the ones that won (mostly). Even some of the ones that had great writing or a great premise had...lackluster costumes. Very lackluster costumes.
Too much Vocaloid. I was about ready to stab myself in the face if I saw another Miku cosplayer by the end of the masq. There were also waaaaay too many skits that should have been in the karaoke instead. The Mio cosplayer that sang and played "Fuwa Fuwa Time"? That was amazing! She was both singing and playing the guitar, and the premise of her skit was that she had been left alone on stage by the rest of her friends and was forced to perform alone. Even people who haven't seen K-On got that much. The other "lets sing a song for the hell of it" skits didn't really even have that. There were also too many skits that would have made SO much more sense in another medium - like an AMV, or a fanfic, or even fanart. They weren't really "skits" so much as just cosplayers shuffling around with a song playing in the foreground. There were also a few skits where I was left scratching my head, trying to figure out what exactly happened and/or why the performer(s) in question thought it would be a good idea to do that on stage.
Skits I DID like? The aforementioned Mio singing and playing the guitar, for starters. "The game your gameplay could be like" Final Fantasy skit with the Old Spice reference I liked, as well as the BlazBlue skit explaining "anime conventions" to Taokaka. All four Pokemon skits were entertaining, though my favorites were the one with Professor Oak being the senile old idiot he is ("I remember now, your name is Awesome!") and by FAR my favorite skit in the entire masquerade was the Telephone skit. The skit with Roy and Ed singing about how yaoi fangirls are crazy was great, too, as was the Evangelion skit with Shinji suddenly bursting into showtunes. The skit with the massive Miku group was really good, too. Of course the Angel Sanctuary skit because...well, Angel Sanctuary and...wings. WINGS. Kefka singing about poisoning pigeons in the park was just deliciously evil. And the Kamen Rider Den-O skit because...Kamen Rider.
And then after the skits there was X-JAPAN. No words can truly describe how incredibly happy I was to be able to witness Yoshiki and Sugizo performing live. And they just so happened to play my two favorite X-Japan songs, one of which is and has been one of my favorite songs period for a good eight years now. And unlike a lot of people I was actually ecstatic that they DIDN'T have the new vocalist with them. They performed "Forever Love" and "Endless Rain", with Yoshiki on piano and Sugizo playing a violin in place of the vocals and the overall effect was just...beautiful. I mean, I'm tearing up just writing about it.
I know a lot of the reason why I was in tears when they played "Forever Love" was because that's Hide's song and they didn't have someone else singing the vocals, and had the violin in place of the vocals. It's also just because it's a song with a lot of emotional baggage attached to it, for a lot of different reasons.
They played the two songs, with a short Q&A session between them. Yoshiki has really good English and a great sense of humor (somehow both of these facts surprised me...*shrug*), and between him and Sugizo I was having a moé overload. They are so cute~!
So yeah. X-Japan. Forever Love and Endless Rain performed live. Worth the price of the Otakon ticket. Worth the horrible drive up to Baltimore and back to Columbia. Worth the cost of the hotel. Worth every freaking penny I spent at Otakon. I somehow felt like I was cheating them because it was technically a performance I saw for free. It was an experience I don't think I'll be forgetting for a long, long time.
It was just. so. pretty. *_*
*ahem* Anyway, after the masquerade we had dinner, crashed the Kamen Rider photoshoot (they only recognized me after I went "Nakerude~" and did the neck-crack thing. xD) and just sorta floated around the con for a while, before finally going back to the hotel and going to sleep. Sunday we woke up early again, I got into my final costume (Sabrina from Heartgold/Soulsilver), we got everything packed up and into the car, and we went to the Yugioh Abridged panel. At 9am! On a Sunday! It was sort of unnerving on the way over there, because it seem liked the con was pretty dead. I made the joke that most of the con was probably in the panel but as it turns out I was right. xD The room was packed to the gills! Someone pointed out that when you get that many people into one room on a Sunday morning it's called religion, which was met with huge applause and laughter.
The panel was a lot of fun, and getting to see the new abridged episode early was tons of fun, too. Nothing like watching an episode of Yugioh abridged with hundreds of other otaku to laugh and applaud and cheer along with you. The "this little Kuriboh holds more power than all of Team 4Kids" line was possibly my favorite, just because the entire room exploded in cheering. Great way to start Otakon Sunday, if I do say so myself.
Overall, though, Sunday was "meh" day. Everyone and their mother is/has been playing Heartgold/Soulsilver recently, but barely anyone recognized me, even with my trusty Abra plushie to give them the hint. In fact, the little guy got a TON of "aww, he's so cute!" reactions, so at least there was that. But I mean, come on. When I squeal over a custom-made Marsh Badge in the Artist's Alley and drop $2 on it like it's nothing, and then you ask me "So, who are you cosplaying?"...that really made me lose some my faith in the artist's alley community as a whole. There's creating art to sell because you genuinely like the series. And then there's cashing in on the latest trend. Yes I know it happens a lot and it's good business to cash in on whatever's popular, but still! I wouldn't have been upset at all if I'd been buying, for example, something a bit more generic like a Pokeball or an Abra keychain or whatever. But a Marsh Badge. Sabrina's own fucking badge.
That being said, I still had fun! I got a bunch of pictures of the Digimon photoshoot, fist-bumped with a Masaru cosplayer because he recognized me, fangirled over a Ken cosplayer, and zip and I got pictures taken by a professional photographer. We just sorta hung around for a while doing nothing before finally deciding to head out. And thus, another Otakon passed, and we began the stupidly long drive home. Ugh. I fell asleep more times than I care to admit, even when we blared "Telephone" as loudly as possible and sang along horribly (in my case at least)
Overall:
Years I've Been to Otakon: 2!
Costumes Worn: 4! (Took 5, didn't wear Ling)
Pictures Taken: 105
Swag: Digimon keychains and print, Pokemon prints and bookmarks, free Hetalia swag from Funi, Sabrina button, bookmark and Marsh Badge (all from Artist's Alley, Dealer's Room sucked this year)
Steps in Pokéwalker: 56,000 (like I said, 28,000 of that was Friday alone!)
Favorite Costume: Gijinka Flygon
Official Fangirl Moment: "GOURRYGOURRYGOURRYGOURRYYYYYPICTUREPICTUREPICTURE!!!"
Favorite skits: Pokemon/Telephone and Kefka and the pigeons tied for favorite
Favorite moment of the con: "Forever Love"
Kamen Riders spotted: ten!