Fanime 2012 Post-Con Report
Pre-Con
I put off making the head of the doll prop until the last minute. But I'd rather have done that than have it stare at me for multiple nights. Otherwise, if I had made it when I should have made it, I would have gotten more than 3 hours of sleep prior to the drive up to San Jose...
Thursday, May 24
I almost slept through my alarm. Rather, I heard my alarm, then closed my eyes again. If I hadn't caught myself after that, I would have definitely overslept. Nita (nitaspitas) got to my place at 9am, just as I was starting to take stuff out the door to load the car. We left around 9:30am.
We made one pit stop at a rest area for bathroom break and lunch. Her mom packed us lunch! =9
We shared a table with an older couple that was also heading up to NorCal. GPS ended up taking us towards the 99, but we wanted to go back to the 5. We even came across an actual crossroad... XD In any case, we arrived at 4:30pm in San Jose, and used less than 1 tank of gas the whole drive up! We checked in, got our staff badges, and eventually made it up to green room.
Me and Nita waiting in line for staff badge
Around 7pm, we heard news that the power transformer had blew, and that the Hilton and the convention center were without power. (There were some emergency backup power supply, though.) They had gotten word that power wouldn't be up until 9:30pm, but actually the power was restored by 8:39pm. So, for that time, we were stuck in the green room with some of the guests until the elevators could work again. And then, some of the other guests were stuck on ground floor... They did get the service elevator working, but needed to manually call it every time with the security guard.
Once everything was working again, GR staff and guests went to Billy Berk's for dinner. Ended up being a pretty late dinner.
My dinner (mac and cheese with chicken)
Satsuki's dinner (crab in trout)
We had gotten complimentary wi-fi, but for some reason when Nita tried to log on with two different devices, it said that one of them was charged for using the wi-fi. She called down and got that sorted out, but I wasn't charged when I tried to log on with my third device. Weird.
We called it a night pretty late (~1-2am).
Friday, May 25
Morning meeting at 9am, Nita and Jo-Ann did morning showers while I did evening showers so that we wouldn't cross-over too much. I got stationed at the main room, so I got brief on the meeting later. Then we waited around until Opening Ceremony, which went pretty well... until they figured out that the ball needed for the opening pitch had gotten taken up to green room (because they thought it needed to be signed), so someone had to run up there, grab it, and bring it back. But it was all still within the allotted time-slot.
With that over, my guest (Yamaga Hiroyuki-san) had nothing else scheduled for the day because his one interview was cancelled, so back to green room we went. Lunch was Vietnamese sandwiches.
I excused myself at 4:30pm to meet up with ensuing for help taking stuff over for with swap meet check-in at the Fairmont. There were almost NO signs for how to get there, so we finally used the elevators to get up to the 2nd floor and looked around for other possible swap meet people. Got there with time to spare, and seeing as how I was #3 on the pre-reg list for Friday, we got settled in pretty quickly.
ensuing as Yuki from Tsuritama
Additionally, they noted I was staff and let me pick a nice location by the doors. I managed to sell 95% of my stuff. Also got a couple pictures of some nice cosplay.
This girl bought something Natsume-related from me, and I ended up giving her another something Natsume-related for free. She was really nice!
Persona 4 cosplayers
Briefly saw fawnfawn at the swap meet.
Swap meet was supposed to be over at 11pm, but they ended up letting it run until 12am. During that 1 hour, I kept my stuff out, but tried to tidy up what I could so it would be easier to pack up the rest of the stuff and head back quickly. Got back, showered, and went to sleep around 2am.
Saturday, May 26
I wore my Ib cosplay today. =)
Morning meeting at 9am again. First thing on Yamaga-san's schedule was the Yamaga Party, so we headed over there when the time came. It's like a meet-and-greet type of event with some food. Some of the talks at the table were quite... different, LOL. The first table (which ensuing was party of) ended up talking about surgeries!
After it was over, he then had 2 back-to-back interviews scheduled, but the first one was really short because the interviewer was really nervous, and they couldn't get in touch with the second one so they decided to cancel it.
Lunch back in green room was In-N-Out. I ordered the protein-style cheeseburger, but it was kind of hard to eat...
My new favorite tea drink of the con pictured at the right
There was nothing else schedule for him, so Satsuki (by the way, I worked with her at my first job at Anime Gamers/Broccoli!) enlisted me to help her out with her guest (Koyama Shigeto-san). I was to meet up with her at 4pm in green room.
I had an hour to pass, so I took my break and went to Artist Alley. On the way there, someone tapped my shoulder, and I didn't know the person who did it. Then! I noticed what they were wearing... LOL.
Mary and Ib cosplayers from Ib
In the Artist Alley, I managed to find and visit kurafufu, @carneaglariel, kurot, ener, kixies, gem2niki's sister, torrentialrain, kiwimangoodness, and @LavenderIce.
Me and @carneaglariel
Lav gave me an Ib print. I bought a Penguindrum pin of Esmerelda from ener. Also bought prints from kurot and got candy from her as well. (Though, I seemed to have missed KL.)
Ended up not meet with Satsuki in green room, but instead got instructed to make a reservation for dinner for Koyama-san, AhYung, and me. Satsuki wanted to attend a panel, so I was to fill in her spot for dinner. I did a walk-in reservation, and then headed over to the Fairmont where Koyama-san's autograph session was. The way he did the dog from Panty & Stocking differently each time was amusing. Especially when he caught himself making a mistake, because then he'd make the dog think of the correct spelling and rewrite the name a few times. =P
Dinner time came and we went next door to McCormicks, got in the orders before Satsuki headed off.
My dinner (chicken salad with really sour olives in balsamic vinaigrette)
A piece of Koyama-san's really rare steak and AhYung's flat bread margherita pizza
I actually hadn't studied up on any of Koyama-san's works because I wasn't assigned to him. But he was pretty easy to talk to, and I actually talked more with him than I thought I would. There was talk of shows, conventions, etc. It was pretty relaxed. =)
Koyama-san had a work deadline pretty soon, so after dinner, I gave him 5-hour drink, just in case. I made sure to say, "just in case." AhYung and I parted from him at his floor, and went on to green room. AhYung later told me that she saw him outside taking pics instead of working... LOL.
I forgot to get a proper picture of my Ib cosplay, so here's a grainy one from my iPod...
Later in the evening, I helped AhYung to get Chiba-san goods signed at his autograph session for her friend. We then stuck around to help clean up after the autograph session.
AhYung allowed to touch one of the dancers' abs
AhYung with both dancers
Alysa with both dancers
Finally got back to the room at 1am and crashed into bed.
Sunday, May 27
Usual 9am meeting. Lunch was dim sum. I got recruited to write the signs after Nita and Jo-Ann translated them.
Just this enough was filling enough for me.
Yamaga-san had an autograph session in the Regency II Room, and then the Yamaga Tea Ceremony in Crystal Room. There wasn't much publicity about the tea ceremony, so we were worried that not enough people would come, but it eventually worked out and turned out to be a pretty nice little sitting.
Prior to the event, Yamaga-san and Kentaro ran the CM to make sure it worked okay.
He showed the CM and trailer for Dantalian no Shoka first, and explained about the tea that he brought. It was official Dantalian goods, the tea was orange chocolate and smelled SO GOOD. (You can find it on the GAINAX site for 1575 yen.)
Tea canister side 1 (Dalian)
Tea canister side 2 (Hughie)
Paper cup for tea
Yamaga-san used a timer and did all the tea stuff himself.
Yamaga-san served the tea himself.
I also found out before the tea event started that he was also wearing a Dantalian tie and tie clip!
Then he showed 3 eps of a show called EA's Rock, which is a live action sentai-type show. The rest of the time turned into a Q & A session.
When that ended and clean up was over, I went over to Koyama-san's Character Design panel in the Marriott to help out with the raffle tickets. Koyama-san had said that he did not want people to record or photograph certain images cause it would be really bad for those to get out. I caught one Press guy doing it and had him delete all the videos he took from the panel. When I reiterated that there was to be "no pics or videos" of those particular images, this guy just went "Okay..." as if saying "So what?" If you're Press, you should know better. He had been hanging around and loitering at some of the autograph sessions, too, and had actually cut in line to be the first one at Yamaga-san's autograph session, so I was quite wary of him and he was definitely on my visual-recognition list.
And... to my shock (and slight horror), Koyama-san had saved that energy drink to chug at the panel. OTL (See here for the pic and run down of that panel)
When that was finally done and over with, I headed over to Artist Alley before it closed and gave the plush I had used for my Ib prop to kurot. (Not before taking a few pics of it. ^^)
Sign courtesy of Lav
Ran into this Misaki cosplayer from Another on the way to the Artist Alley.
Found these Natsuki and Haru cosplayers from Tsuritama in the Artist Alley.
Then, it was back to green room again, and a big group of us GR staff and guests went to Yokota-san's 18+ panel and sat in the front 2 rows. Maybe that's why he was a little more conservative this time. XD;; After all, his senior, Yamaga-san, was sitting right in front of him.
Back to the hotel room before midnight! Packed up a little so that the morning checkout would be smooth. Still ended up sleeping around 1-2am.
Monday, May 28
Final morning 9am meeting. Yamaga-san was the only one who had GOH panel, so we hung out in the main green room until he had his GAINAX panel. After his panel, he did some autographs, and then it was off to Artist Alley, where he would meet up with Yokota-san for lunch, and I would meet up with Nita (assigned to Yokota-san) and Jo-Ann. I almost didn't have a chance to say bye to Yamaga-san and Kentaro (the main person assigned to Yamaga-san), but luckily they were still in Artist Alley, so we found them.
Me, Yamaga-san, and Kentaro
I managed to finally come across lucathia at gem2niki's table, but then confused her Maya cosplay from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for Elsie from Kami Nomi Shiru Sekai. OTL The last people I got to say bye to before leaving were KL (milk_of_lime) and Kurot, and then Nita and I took off in my car, while Jo-Ann went in her car.
We stopped for drive-thru lunch at McDonalds (20-piece mcnuggets), which Nita fed me as I drove. XD We hit two pockets of heavy traffic, but because I didn't use the brake much but instead shifted gears, I still made it back on another single tank! We had a lot of fun just laughing at other drivers speeding up meaninglessly.
Also, Satsuki later texted that Koyama-san wanted to know where to buy the energy drinks so that he could take them back as omiyage. XD; He later said that he bought up the whole section, LOL.
Goods/Others
*[C] BD v.1 from Mew
*candy from Kurot
*Esmerelda Penguindrum pin purchased from Rene
*Ib, Kuroko no Basuke, and Guilty Crown prints bought from Kurot
*Ib print from Lav
*print from Carneaglariel
Better shot of the previous two
Yamaga-san's autograph
Others' Con Reports
lucathia_rykatu → here
kiwimangoodness → here
I put off making the head of the doll prop until the last minute. But I'd rather have done that than have it stare at me for multiple nights. Otherwise, if I had made it when I should have made it, I would have gotten more than 3 hours of sleep prior to the drive up to San Jose...
Thursday, May 24
I almost slept through my alarm. Rather, I heard my alarm, then closed my eyes again. If I hadn't caught myself after that, I would have definitely overslept. Nita (nitaspitas) got to my place at 9am, just as I was starting to take stuff out the door to load the car. We left around 9:30am.
We made one pit stop at a rest area for bathroom break and lunch. Her mom packed us lunch! =9
We shared a table with an older couple that was also heading up to NorCal. GPS ended up taking us towards the 99, but we wanted to go back to the 5. We even came across an actual crossroad... XD In any case, we arrived at 4:30pm in San Jose, and used less than 1 tank of gas the whole drive up! We checked in, got our staff badges, and eventually made it up to green room.
Me and Nita waiting in line for staff badge
Around 7pm, we heard news that the power transformer had blew, and that the Hilton and the convention center were without power. (There were some emergency backup power supply, though.) They had gotten word that power wouldn't be up until 9:30pm, but actually the power was restored by 8:39pm. So, for that time, we were stuck in the green room with some of the guests until the elevators could work again. And then, some of the other guests were stuck on ground floor... They did get the service elevator working, but needed to manually call it every time with the security guard.
Once everything was working again, GR staff and guests went to Billy Berk's for dinner. Ended up being a pretty late dinner.
My dinner (mac and cheese with chicken)
Satsuki's dinner (crab in trout)
We had gotten complimentary wi-fi, but for some reason when Nita tried to log on with two different devices, it said that one of them was charged for using the wi-fi. She called down and got that sorted out, but I wasn't charged when I tried to log on with my third device. Weird.
We called it a night pretty late (~1-2am).
Friday, May 25
Morning meeting at 9am, Nita and Jo-Ann did morning showers while I did evening showers so that we wouldn't cross-over too much. I got stationed at the main room, so I got brief on the meeting later. Then we waited around until Opening Ceremony, which went pretty well... until they figured out that the ball needed for the opening pitch had gotten taken up to green room (because they thought it needed to be signed), so someone had to run up there, grab it, and bring it back. But it was all still within the allotted time-slot.
With that over, my guest (Yamaga Hiroyuki-san) had nothing else scheduled for the day because his one interview was cancelled, so back to green room we went. Lunch was Vietnamese sandwiches.
I excused myself at 4:30pm to meet up with ensuing for help taking stuff over for with swap meet check-in at the Fairmont. There were almost NO signs for how to get there, so we finally used the elevators to get up to the 2nd floor and looked around for other possible swap meet people. Got there with time to spare, and seeing as how I was #3 on the pre-reg list for Friday, we got settled in pretty quickly.
ensuing as Yuki from Tsuritama
Additionally, they noted I was staff and let me pick a nice location by the doors. I managed to sell 95% of my stuff. Also got a couple pictures of some nice cosplay.
This girl bought something Natsume-related from me, and I ended up giving her another something Natsume-related for free. She was really nice!
Persona 4 cosplayers
Briefly saw fawnfawn at the swap meet.
Swap meet was supposed to be over at 11pm, but they ended up letting it run until 12am. During that 1 hour, I kept my stuff out, but tried to tidy up what I could so it would be easier to pack up the rest of the stuff and head back quickly. Got back, showered, and went to sleep around 2am.
Saturday, May 26
I wore my Ib cosplay today. =)
Morning meeting at 9am again. First thing on Yamaga-san's schedule was the Yamaga Party, so we headed over there when the time came. It's like a meet-and-greet type of event with some food. Some of the talks at the table were quite... different, LOL. The first table (which ensuing was party of) ended up talking about surgeries!
After it was over, he then had 2 back-to-back interviews scheduled, but the first one was really short because the interviewer was really nervous, and they couldn't get in touch with the second one so they decided to cancel it.
Lunch back in green room was In-N-Out. I ordered the protein-style cheeseburger, but it was kind of hard to eat...
My new favorite tea drink of the con pictured at the right
There was nothing else schedule for him, so Satsuki (by the way, I worked with her at my first job at Anime Gamers/Broccoli!) enlisted me to help her out with her guest (Koyama Shigeto-san). I was to meet up with her at 4pm in green room.
I had an hour to pass, so I took my break and went to Artist Alley. On the way there, someone tapped my shoulder, and I didn't know the person who did it. Then! I noticed what they were wearing... LOL.
Mary and Ib cosplayers from Ib
In the Artist Alley, I managed to find and visit kurafufu, @carneaglariel, kurot, ener, kixies, gem2niki's sister, torrentialrain, kiwimangoodness, and @LavenderIce.
Me and @carneaglariel
Lav gave me an Ib print. I bought a Penguindrum pin of Esmerelda from ener. Also bought prints from kurot and got candy from her as well. (Though, I seemed to have missed KL.)
Ended up not meet with Satsuki in green room, but instead got instructed to make a reservation for dinner for Koyama-san, AhYung, and me. Satsuki wanted to attend a panel, so I was to fill in her spot for dinner. I did a walk-in reservation, and then headed over to the Fairmont where Koyama-san's autograph session was. The way he did the dog from Panty & Stocking differently each time was amusing. Especially when he caught himself making a mistake, because then he'd make the dog think of the correct spelling and rewrite the name a few times. =P
Dinner time came and we went next door to McCormicks, got in the orders before Satsuki headed off.
My dinner (chicken salad with really sour olives in balsamic vinaigrette)
A piece of Koyama-san's really rare steak and AhYung's flat bread margherita pizza
I actually hadn't studied up on any of Koyama-san's works because I wasn't assigned to him. But he was pretty easy to talk to, and I actually talked more with him than I thought I would. There was talk of shows, conventions, etc. It was pretty relaxed. =)
Koyama-san had a work deadline pretty soon, so after dinner, I gave him 5-hour drink, just in case. I made sure to say, "just in case." AhYung and I parted from him at his floor, and went on to green room. AhYung later told me that she saw him outside taking pics instead of working... LOL.
I forgot to get a proper picture of my Ib cosplay, so here's a grainy one from my iPod...
Later in the evening, I helped AhYung to get Chiba-san goods signed at his autograph session for her friend. We then stuck around to help clean up after the autograph session.
AhYung allowed to touch one of the dancers' abs
AhYung with both dancers
Alysa with both dancers
Finally got back to the room at 1am and crashed into bed.
Sunday, May 27
Usual 9am meeting. Lunch was dim sum. I got recruited to write the signs after Nita and Jo-Ann translated them.
Just this enough was filling enough for me.
Yamaga-san had an autograph session in the Regency II Room, and then the Yamaga Tea Ceremony in Crystal Room. There wasn't much publicity about the tea ceremony, so we were worried that not enough people would come, but it eventually worked out and turned out to be a pretty nice little sitting.
Prior to the event, Yamaga-san and Kentaro ran the CM to make sure it worked okay.
He showed the CM and trailer for Dantalian no Shoka first, and explained about the tea that he brought. It was official Dantalian goods, the tea was orange chocolate and smelled SO GOOD. (You can find it on the GAINAX site for 1575 yen.)
Tea canister side 1 (Dalian)
Tea canister side 2 (Hughie)
Paper cup for tea
Yamaga-san used a timer and did all the tea stuff himself.
Yamaga-san served the tea himself.
I also found out before the tea event started that he was also wearing a Dantalian tie and tie clip!
Then he showed 3 eps of a show called EA's Rock, which is a live action sentai-type show. The rest of the time turned into a Q & A session.
When that ended and clean up was over, I went over to Koyama-san's Character Design panel in the Marriott to help out with the raffle tickets. Koyama-san had said that he did not want people to record or photograph certain images cause it would be really bad for those to get out. I caught one Press guy doing it and had him delete all the videos he took from the panel. When I reiterated that there was to be "no pics or videos" of those particular images, this guy just went "Okay..." as if saying "So what?" If you're Press, you should know better. He had been hanging around and loitering at some of the autograph sessions, too, and had actually cut in line to be the first one at Yamaga-san's autograph session, so I was quite wary of him and he was definitely on my visual-recognition list.
And... to my shock (and slight horror), Koyama-san had saved that energy drink to chug at the panel. OTL (See here for the pic and run down of that panel)
When that was finally done and over with, I headed over to Artist Alley before it closed and gave the plush I had used for my Ib prop to kurot. (Not before taking a few pics of it. ^^)
Sign courtesy of Lav
Ran into this Misaki cosplayer from Another on the way to the Artist Alley.
Found these Natsuki and Haru cosplayers from Tsuritama in the Artist Alley.
Then, it was back to green room again, and a big group of us GR staff and guests went to Yokota-san's 18+ panel and sat in the front 2 rows. Maybe that's why he was a little more conservative this time. XD;; After all, his senior, Yamaga-san, was sitting right in front of him.
Back to the hotel room before midnight! Packed up a little so that the morning checkout would be smooth. Still ended up sleeping around 1-2am.
Monday, May 28
Final morning 9am meeting. Yamaga-san was the only one who had GOH panel, so we hung out in the main green room until he had his GAINAX panel. After his panel, he did some autographs, and then it was off to Artist Alley, where he would meet up with Yokota-san for lunch, and I would meet up with Nita (assigned to Yokota-san) and Jo-Ann. I almost didn't have a chance to say bye to Yamaga-san and Kentaro (the main person assigned to Yamaga-san), but luckily they were still in Artist Alley, so we found them.
Me, Yamaga-san, and Kentaro
I managed to finally come across lucathia at gem2niki's table, but then confused her Maya cosplay from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for Elsie from Kami Nomi Shiru Sekai. OTL The last people I got to say bye to before leaving were KL (milk_of_lime) and Kurot, and then Nita and I took off in my car, while Jo-Ann went in her car.
We stopped for drive-thru lunch at McDonalds (20-piece mcnuggets), which Nita fed me as I drove. XD We hit two pockets of heavy traffic, but because I didn't use the brake much but instead shifted gears, I still made it back on another single tank! We had a lot of fun just laughing at other drivers speeding up meaninglessly.
Also, Satsuki later texted that Koyama-san wanted to know where to buy the energy drinks so that he could take them back as omiyage. XD; He later said that he bought up the whole section, LOL.
Goods/Others
*[C] BD v.1 from Mew
*candy from Kurot
*Esmerelda Penguindrum pin purchased from Rene
*Ib, Kuroko no Basuke, and Guilty Crown prints bought from Kurot
*Ib print from Lav
*print from Carneaglariel
Better shot of the previous two
Yamaga-san's autograph
Others' Con Reports
lucathia_rykatu → here
kiwimangoodness → here