Kotoricon retrospective
This is a bit of a weird entry, because it's a retrospective on something that happened earlier--that I *meant* to blog about, but never got around to doing so.
Last year, Dana and I went on an epic (not really) trip to Kotoricon, at the Glouster County Community College (1/15/11) in NJ, outside of Camden. I'd actually seen an ad for Kotoricon on Facebook, and was tempted by the minimal pre-reg fee and proximity (also, the voice actor who played Johnny in Shadow Hearts 3 was gonna be there..... :D ) By that point, Dana had already been to AnimeNext, and was eager to keep going to cons that were close and affordable.
It was pretty much a perfect combination of "I have winter break, you can take the day off, let's do it!" We had to get up pretty early, since pre-reg opened at 9-ish, and it takes us about an hour and a half to two hours to drive there. (Mom forgot that I was leaving at 7 AM, so she woke up to me moving around, and asked if I had insomnia again.) After a quick pit stop at good ol' DD, we were on our way, and only got turned around a few times. Thankfully, GLaDOS kept up on the right path, and traffic wasn't bad, for early on a January Saturday morning.
We really had no idea what this was going to be like, since neither of us had been to a "small" con, let alone one hosted by a school. NO ideas of what to expect at all. Getting there wasn't bad, and the signage was good enough that we had no trouble finding the pre-reg booth and general con area. Apparently, the con was run by the college's anime club, and everything looked to be staffed by students and their families. Also, the pre-reg booth was full of goodies, like Black Butler promo cards!
The schedule was sort of sparse, so we did a lot of walking around...we saw an all-female taiko drumming group, and did a lot of looking at their version of Artist's Alley, which seemed to be filled with Perler-bead crap and badly drawn yaoi. They had a small Dealer's Room area that did have a few things: one manga seller (mostly yaoi), a D&D/Warcraft table, a candy table, etc. There wasn't a lot of stuff that I was interested in buying. I did pick up Volume 1 of The Crimson Spell for $5, along with some candy and a LeetStreet Boys CD. Dana didn't really buy anything, I think, but spent a lot of time chatting up the vendors. I think she's really starved for in-person nerd contact.
There weren't a lot of panels (definitely not, compared to the 2012 schedule), but we dropped in, anyway. We caught a boring Steampunk 101 panel (which wasn't very informative), and later on dropped into the strangest one I've ever seen. They got this guy called "Cosplay Comedian Joe," who seems to be a local otaku, to come in and do a few panels. Homeboy was wearing an Ouran jacket with Ed Elric's wig and automail, and looked full-on retarded. He showed us some of his godawful AMVs (and offered "advice"), and then spent about half an hour showing clips from anime and complaining about women who wear panties with "cutesy, little-girl prints" and get upset when people make fun of them for it. Seriously.
The guests were meh. Jamie McGonagal canceled, and besides Uncle Yo, who delivered a pretty good stand-up routine that afternoon (poor Dana had never seen an Uncle Yo performance!), there was some guy who played a villain from Power Rangers. And the LeetStreet Boys, but more about them later.
We ended up spending a lot of time at some AMV panels; how to make them, tips and tricks, some sample ones, etc. One of them was run by Scott Melzer, who had made the "This is Otakudom" fan parody. This is one of my few connections to fandom stardom: I know the Wismer sisters, who were customers at Scott's anime video rental store back in the day. They were acquaintances, and were almost cast in This is Otakudom. So I know someone who knows someone who did something cool. And then went to that someone's panel. Anyway, he showed off his latest fan parody, made from Akira, which was quite good.
The Masquerade was about three acts long, and awful. Horrible attempts at dancing and witty banter. at least Uncle Yo made a decent MC. There were other live events--a group of sisters performing anime-inspired songs, a Japanese cosplayer wannabe idol's karaoke time, etc.
Our last event of the day was the LeetStreet Boys concert. This was one of the other "pulls" to get Dana to come. She's not only a fan, but she's friends with Matt Myers, who fronts the whole thing. It had a surprising amount of people, and dancing in my seat was only mildly awkward. Aside from some technical issues, the concert went fairly well, and we sang along to all of the ones we knew. If only Dana would have stopped shouting "Freebird!"...
The only really bad things: Dana lost her camera (which had a picture with me and the BEST and nicest Sebastian Michaelis cosplayer I've ever seen), and Ben wouldn't stop calling her, even thought she told him she was at a con.
So it wasn't that *bad*, just kind of boring. I think I'd give it a second chance.
Looking at this year's schedule, it seems like it was vastly improved on, and I'm a little miffed that I didn't get to go. But Janet and I weren't able to work out transportation on time, so it never happened. Boo.
Last year, Dana and I went on an epic (not really) trip to Kotoricon, at the Glouster County Community College (1/15/11) in NJ, outside of Camden. I'd actually seen an ad for Kotoricon on Facebook, and was tempted by the minimal pre-reg fee and proximity (also, the voice actor who played Johnny in Shadow Hearts 3 was gonna be there..... :D ) By that point, Dana had already been to AnimeNext, and was eager to keep going to cons that were close and affordable.
It was pretty much a perfect combination of "I have winter break, you can take the day off, let's do it!" We had to get up pretty early, since pre-reg opened at 9-ish, and it takes us about an hour and a half to two hours to drive there. (Mom forgot that I was leaving at 7 AM, so she woke up to me moving around, and asked if I had insomnia again.) After a quick pit stop at good ol' DD, we were on our way, and only got turned around a few times. Thankfully, GLaDOS kept up on the right path, and traffic wasn't bad, for early on a January Saturday morning.
We really had no idea what this was going to be like, since neither of us had been to a "small" con, let alone one hosted by a school. NO ideas of what to expect at all. Getting there wasn't bad, and the signage was good enough that we had no trouble finding the pre-reg booth and general con area. Apparently, the con was run by the college's anime club, and everything looked to be staffed by students and their families. Also, the pre-reg booth was full of goodies, like Black Butler promo cards!
The schedule was sort of sparse, so we did a lot of walking around...we saw an all-female taiko drumming group, and did a lot of looking at their version of Artist's Alley, which seemed to be filled with Perler-bead crap and badly drawn yaoi. They had a small Dealer's Room area that did have a few things: one manga seller (mostly yaoi), a D&D/Warcraft table, a candy table, etc. There wasn't a lot of stuff that I was interested in buying. I did pick up Volume 1 of The Crimson Spell for $5, along with some candy and a LeetStreet Boys CD. Dana didn't really buy anything, I think, but spent a lot of time chatting up the vendors. I think she's really starved for in-person nerd contact.
There weren't a lot of panels (definitely not, compared to the 2012 schedule), but we dropped in, anyway. We caught a boring Steampunk 101 panel (which wasn't very informative), and later on dropped into the strangest one I've ever seen. They got this guy called "Cosplay Comedian Joe," who seems to be a local otaku, to come in and do a few panels. Homeboy was wearing an Ouran jacket with Ed Elric's wig and automail, and looked full-on retarded. He showed us some of his godawful AMVs (and offered "advice"), and then spent about half an hour showing clips from anime and complaining about women who wear panties with "cutesy, little-girl prints" and get upset when people make fun of them for it. Seriously.
The guests were meh. Jamie McGonagal canceled, and besides Uncle Yo, who delivered a pretty good stand-up routine that afternoon (poor Dana had never seen an Uncle Yo performance!), there was some guy who played a villain from Power Rangers. And the LeetStreet Boys, but more about them later.
We ended up spending a lot of time at some AMV panels; how to make them, tips and tricks, some sample ones, etc. One of them was run by Scott Melzer, who had made the "This is Otakudom" fan parody. This is one of my few connections to fandom stardom: I know the Wismer sisters, who were customers at Scott's anime video rental store back in the day. They were acquaintances, and were almost cast in This is Otakudom. So I know someone who knows someone who did something cool. And then went to that someone's panel. Anyway, he showed off his latest fan parody, made from Akira, which was quite good.
The Masquerade was about three acts long, and awful. Horrible attempts at dancing and witty banter. at least Uncle Yo made a decent MC. There were other live events--a group of sisters performing anime-inspired songs, a Japanese cosplayer wannabe idol's karaoke time, etc.
Our last event of the day was the LeetStreet Boys concert. This was one of the other "pulls" to get Dana to come. She's not only a fan, but she's friends with Matt Myers, who fronts the whole thing. It had a surprising amount of people, and dancing in my seat was only mildly awkward. Aside from some technical issues, the concert went fairly well, and we sang along to all of the ones we knew. If only Dana would have stopped shouting "Freebird!"...
The only really bad things: Dana lost her camera (which had a picture with me and the BEST and nicest Sebastian Michaelis cosplayer I've ever seen), and Ben wouldn't stop calling her, even thought she told him she was at a con.
So it wasn't that *bad*, just kind of boring. I think I'd give it a second chance.
Looking at this year's schedule, it seems like it was vastly improved on, and I'm a little miffed that I didn't get to go. But Janet and I weren't able to work out transportation on time, so it never happened. Boo.