Anime Iowa Con Report
Aug. 13th, 2007 01:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppetWARNING: This post is image heavy. Dial up users, you have been warned.
There is one thing and only one thing I will say to summarize my con experience this year: I am never not being staff for AI again if I can possibly help it. This is probably the least post-com emo I may have ever experienced in my history of going to cons, and being on staff is the only thing I can blame/thank. ALSO, ANIME IOWA IS THE BEST FREAKING CON EVER, EVEN THE GUESTS AGREE, come seeee meeeeeee!
That being said, for me the con really started on Thursday. I started it out by arriving late for the pre-con meeting by an hour. Oops.
Spent a lot of time printing things out, as we had neglected to get to the blank badges until then, and being shown the ropes by AmberGold, who is a veteran volunteer for Registration and thus Knows What She's Doing. Without her, Friday would've been much more of a disaster. Got to see Pat's new hair, which is awesome and of which there is a picture near the end. Also we went out and bought supplies (cardstock and ink mostly, though we also signed MindBridge up for this Staples account thing that got us 10% off the ink and five free reams of paper). On the way back we stopped at Sushi PoPo, which had fantastic food for moderate prices and someone who really knew what they were doing when they made the tea. Clearly I need to do some research on preparation.
Got back to the hotel, where I called Mom for a ride home shortly after; it had been a long day, and Pat and AmberGold said they had things under control without me, so. Slept when I got home.
Friday morning can, for me, mostly be summarized by the following two phrases: "Printer Issues" and "L through Z".
What happened is as follows: I got to the reg table about 8:30, due to waking up a bit late and getting slightly lost and taking far too much time putting on my costume. There we got back to work on printing out new blank badges and rounding up volunteers to stuff bags with programs, right up until AmberGold asked where the PreReg names-to-numbers thing was. Turns out, we didn't have it printed out ¦D; We'd forgotten it existed/we needed it. This, sadly, was around ten in the morning, and we were scheduled to open for eleven o'clock. So Pat did some digging in the computer and found what we needed, and we canceled whatever other printing was going on to get that done.
And then, a few pages in, we found out it was printing out of alphabetical order.
Pat immediately called John, the guy who knows how to get the computer (collectively owned by MindBridge, which has two other cons) to sit up and beg, to get down to the reg desk stat and help us out.
He showed up at ten-fifty, at which point the PreReg line was monstrously long, and I could hear a few of the waiting public announcing the remaining minutes as they ticked by.
To his credit, he got the list printing out alphabetically in short order; working against him was the fact that my printer - which we had to use, as the one in storage was killed and/or didn't have the install information on it - was abysmally slow AND, as we discovered not long after printing what we thought was the complete list, for some reason the computer had decided to print out odd numbered pages first, leaving out the even numbered pages until later.
Needless to say, disaster followed. Through some miracle, we managed to get the PreReg line moving around noon, and AmberGold had the At-The-Door reg line moving at least a half an hour before that. Most of the people were, thankfully, understanding, though I did get one in my line who stopped and made a point of informing me that she was disappointed in how this whole thing was run and, when I explained what had happened, that we should have foreseen such a disaster. In retrospect, I would've liked to tell her that her talking to me was only taking up more time and slowing the line further, but I don't always think well on my feet. It's probably for the best anyway. We got better organized after a short period of time, though I still ended up having to shout for people whose last names began with "Q through Z!" (instead of the earlier "L through Z") for a while.
By the time I got my first break a few hours after opening, we had things fairly well under control. The lines for registration in either direction died out around seven o'clock, though we kept the table open until midnight.
THAT WAS THE OVERALL SCOPE OF THE DAY AS FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF ME AS REG STAFF. The following were much more from the point of view of me as a con-goer ¦Db
LOOK LOOK LOOK, IT'S BENDER, HE'S AT ANIME IOWA! Really crappy photo because I didn't have a lot of time to set up my camera, and then once this one was taken he was kind of on his way, but that's all still cool, 'cuz Bender will still be worshiped wherever he goes. O Bender, u so awesome ♥ You're my bending mentor, you know ♥♥♥
Some girl who was in my reg line. Not officially in costume, and claims a friend of her dragged her in, but what she was wearing still pinged my cosplay senses. I can only assume I'm comparing her to an obscure BL character or something, because that's the only thing I can think of that fits.
Taken on my first break. 'Cuz she was there, and I've liked the idea of the costumes for a while. (There was also a Queen Minnie and Daisy, though I didn't get their pictures sadly.) When she was walking around the next day, she had little blue glowy bits up and down the black stripes on her sides and white face paint.
THIS ONE HAS A STORY TO IT. So, while on break, I came upon a Himawari-chan cosplayer. I was overjoyed, and stopped to ask her if I could get her picture with a specific character ♥ She said yes, and had, in fact, seen a Gaara not too long ago in the Dealer's Room; in fact, she was more than willing to help me track him (or another one) down so I could take a picture of them together. I, of course, was overjoyed, and rushed back to the Reg desk to leave my bag and take my camera and water pouch, because whee, Gaara/Himawari picture(s)!
It. It took a while to find a Gaara. We didn't actually see any in the Dealer's Room, though we were sidetracked briefly by some friends of the Himawari-chan cosplayer, at which point I happened upon a Toph I'd been seeing go back and forth and managed to arrange a time to meet so we could arrange a time to meet for a photoshoot ¦Db I promised to tell the person who I had been assured would be dressed as Episode2x07!Zuko about the meeting time when/if I saw him.
Back to the story! We eventually made it out of the Dealer's Room, after no success in our Gaara hunt. We finally made it out to the front lobby (aprx .8 miles from the Dealer's Room by hallway), outside of which we found out a Gaara would be returning to meet friends in a short amount of time, and yes, he would be willing to have his picture taken with Himawari-chan!
Gaara did indeed show up, and his picture was indeed taken, though the following five seconds of video were taken first before I realized that my camera was on the wrong setting and that was why the flash hadn't gone off ¦3 (If anyone has any tips about how to rotate the whole thing ninety degrees, they would be much appreciated. Also an explanation on how to take screencaps from Media Player Classic - eet eez not zo much werkink for mee.)
The video can be found here.
And then came this picture, which was entirely Himawari-chan's idea, and I love her forever for it ♥♥♥♥♥
Side note: For whatever reason, Gaara's hair turned florescent pink in the photos I took, though not in the video; I did my best to correct the color change in PaintShop Pro, but if you look closely you might see a pink ring around it. I've also got the unaltered photos with me. His hair turned out fine in the video, though. I'm sure someone who knows much more about hair coloring products and light refraction would be able to tell me why that happened, but I for one haven't a clue.
SPOILERY McSPOILERFACE!!1!11!one!!1! ...He was glad that someone recognized who he was supposed to be, as not many people had. He also informed me that he'd been breaking the hearts of little children by telling them that [BLEACH SPOILER] he killed Rukia [/SPOILER]. I'm not sure whether I actually made things better or worse the one time I managed to shout after him, "She got better! DD:"
Suigetsu ♥♥♥ My favorite of the new Naruto characters thus far, though I can't say I've been keeping up all that well recently. Was still amused whenever I saw him and a Zabuza in the same room.
On the "only related to photos" side, I met up with both the Toph and the Zuko, and arranged for a photoshoot the following day at approximately 10:30 in the morning.
And I'm pretty sure that's all for Friday.
Saturday was pretty tame as far as the Reg desk was concerned, though we did break the magic number of 2350 (which I hear was involved in a few bets) before closing. Only a few events to talk about, but lots of pictures.
Avatar photo meetup! I was so glad everyone made it, as I wasn't sure whether Zuko would get the word T^Tb Toph's sister had the wig on Saturday, since they only had one and Toph had used it yesterday, but it's still all cool.
Zuko vs Katara showdown pics, as requested by Yours Truly ;)
Zuko vs. Katara and Toph, again as requested by me. As staff, I really shouldn't have forgotten that weapons were only to be drawn in the Photo Op area, but thankfully Zuko reminded me ¦D; Stop being a bad example, socchan!
This was all before lunch. Shortly after lunch, Asian Chris arrived in drag, as seen in Anime Iowas past.
Here he is, looking pretty and sitting on Pat's lap...
Here he is, lounging artistically...
Here he is from the side...
And here he is sitting next to Pat. Chris Inna Dress: the perfect accessory to any convention table!
Later on in the day, this lovely young lady stopped by:
I honestly thought she was actually some sort of plant monster, like you see in various Final Fantasy games and Magic Knight Rayearth, but when she got closer I finally saw the panties draped and tied on her extra appendages. Of course!, I realized, She's a tentacle monster! So of course I asked for a photo ;)
She also informed me that she and her friend would be back tomorrow, dressed as a spayed catgirl and emo catgirl respectively, which I told her I looked forward to photographing. Probably my favorite cosplays of the con.
Pat was called away around four o'clock, as she had volunteered to be a victim in one of staff member Evan's panels that day at four-thirty, and was instructed not to wear a costume. The panel was called cake, there were three other volunteers, and Evan was in charge of it, so it would involve public humiliation of some form.
It turned out to be a combination trivia contest and game show, in which the audience was asked obscure questions about anime, manga, and Japan, and the people who answered correctly were invited on stage to improvise something funny. The staff members then had to do their best not to laugh at the improvisations; if they did laugh or react, they got cake'd in the face. After acting, the audience members were given pieces of cake of their very own (to eat, not in-the-face'd) and allowed to sit back down. One of the show highlights was a Suzumiya Haruhi cosplayer who improv'd a Chex Mix commercial in a combination of Otaku Japanese, Engrish, and a US southern accent. I think she also proposed the Pokémon/EVA fusion, though I could well be wrong.
Throughout most of the panel however, which I had missed the first half hour of anyway as Registration didn't close until five, I was actually somewhat distracted. You see, across the room there was a Kohaku (of Tsukihime) cosplayer, and ever since I had let the opportunity slip away from me at Acen to take a Yagami Light/Kohaku picture I had made the firm decision that I would not allow it to happen again - a personal vow that was aided by the sheer number of Light cosplayers at AI this year. As soon as the panel ended, I nabbed him (yes, he was crossplaying) and the nearest Light and asked for a picture. And I got it ♥
Hopefully it's not just Ancient CFUD History by now, as I don't keep up with things as well as I'd like, but there it is :3b
Then there was a considerable amount of nothing as a lot of people waited in line for Cosplay passes and I struggled to find something to do. I finally parked myself where the Great Debate (which I had never been to) would take place and... waited.
The Great Debate occurred, I volunteered, debated, ate honey wafers in record time, and talked about anime physics with my mouth stuffed full of marshmallows. I did not come anywhere close to winning the infamous Innuendo Award, though I did make it past the first round of elimination-by-lack-of-applause. The Haruhi from Cake made it to the final four, but was eventually eliminated. The Ultimate Showdown ended up being between a Phoenix Wright and a Xemnas; Xemnas won in the end.
I was slightly disappointed when it let out, because that was where I had arranged to meet the only other CFUD player who said they'd be at AI. ...And then I found out she was the Haruhi from before. ....Yeah.
One picture is all I've got, 'cuz she was in a hurry and busy with other friends and stuff, but "Pictures or it didn't happen DDD:" won out in the end, so. Didn't manage to Audience!marry her, though, boof. THERE IS STILL PROOF IT HAPPENED THOUGH, even if you can't see it (yet?) because I forgot to ask if she would mind if I posed it. Also Anime Iowa now officially has a sucky track record for CFUD meetups and me. Two of them now, and neither one of them lasting more than five minutes. Thank God for Acen is all I've got to say.
And that pretty much ended Saturday. Registration closed up with something like 2359 badges registered, and a warm body count of around 2200 (a number of people had yet to claim pre-reg badges).
Sunday was, if possible, almost slower than Saturday - but that's only if we ignore the people pre-regging for 2008 (which is going to be held in the same hotel from August 15-17, Just So You Knowand can plan to come); we got 113 of those.
I only have five pictures from Sunday, four of which were taken before noon.
...I couldn't resist.Can you say "Saki-chan"?
The tentacle monster cosplayer returns as the spayed catgirl ♥ Love thelampshade head gear.
The emo catgirl accompanies her. She went to great lengths to make the cutting look authentic. (Note: no catgirls were harmed in the taking of these pictures.)
At one-thirty I ducked out to go to Breaking Into the Industry, a pane about jobs in the anime market and how one might go about getting them, hosted by three of the guests. (I did not know who they were. I fail in many ways.) It was an incredibly informational panel, in which I learned a great many things that would be of interest to many an otaku. For example, people who want to improve dub quality should not look into voice acting, but into script adaption (a job less thankless only than editing). Also, a lot of the decisions made about US anime adaptations are not made by the voice actors, or the directors, or the producers even; quite a few of the things that people complain about in One Piece apparently came right from the Japanese company heads. And the Arucard vs Alucard thing? Goes straight back to the author, who admits with good humor that he made a spelling mistake. People who want to be voice actors should start with regular acting, should honestly go in with their normal voices when trying out, should be prepared to live where the work is, should definitely have demo tapes, and should be ready to listen to the director. "Sure fire" voice acting classes are pretty much BS from people looking to make a quick buck, whether or not they're the real thing. Veeeery informative.
Checked back at the Reg desk, then made a quick stop at the Dealer's Room - the first I'd made that weekend with the intent to look at things in consideration of buying them. Did not, in fact, end up spending any money, though I ended up talking at length with a dealer about Avatar.
Went to Closing Ceremonies, which was a total blast, and at which all the guests were given a piece of unprocessed corn, and where they told us that they all really, really enjoyed AI as a convention and found the congoers to be very friendly and pleasant overall. So, you hear that? Big important people like our convention!
The last half hour or so of Closing Ceremonies was devoted to premiering the Xenosaga anime in English, for which I returned to the Reg desk to wait for what may have ended up being a rush, but was in reality only a trickle. Did get the singular amusement of watching Andrew try and get some of the guests to pre-register for next year, though XD To be fair, he wasn't at closing ceremonies and wouldn't have recognized them by the corn they were holding, and I'm certainly no one to be pointing fingers at people who can't recognize famous persons by their faces alone, but I was still amused.
Pack-up followed, which itself was followed by me finally getting up the guts to approach Greg Ayres for a Same Hair pic of him and Pat next to each other:
See? Completely the same hair. ...Well, almost. Certainly close enough, though. (Plz to correct me if I got his name wrong.)
After that was pizza in the consuite for staff and volunteers, and then we went home and crashed.
All in all, it was an enjoyable, successful con, and I can hardly wait for next year.
There is one thing and only one thing I will say to summarize my con experience this year: I am never not being staff for AI again if I can possibly help it. This is probably the least post-com emo I may have ever experienced in my history of going to cons, and being on staff is the only thing I can blame/thank. ALSO, ANIME IOWA IS THE BEST FREAKING CON EVER, EVEN THE GUESTS AGREE, come seeee meeeeeee!
That being said, for me the con really started on Thursday. I started it out by arriving late for the pre-con meeting by an hour. Oops.
Spent a lot of time printing things out, as we had neglected to get to the blank badges until then, and being shown the ropes by AmberGold, who is a veteran volunteer for Registration and thus Knows What She's Doing. Without her, Friday would've been much more of a disaster. Got to see Pat's new hair, which is awesome and of which there is a picture near the end. Also we went out and bought supplies (cardstock and ink mostly, though we also signed MindBridge up for this Staples account thing that got us 10% off the ink and five free reams of paper). On the way back we stopped at Sushi PoPo, which had fantastic food for moderate prices and someone who really knew what they were doing when they made the tea. Clearly I need to do some research on preparation.
Got back to the hotel, where I called Mom for a ride home shortly after; it had been a long day, and Pat and AmberGold said they had things under control without me, so. Slept when I got home.
Friday morning can, for me, mostly be summarized by the following two phrases: "Printer Issues" and "L through Z".
What happened is as follows: I got to the reg table about 8:30, due to waking up a bit late and getting slightly lost and taking far too much time putting on my costume. There we got back to work on printing out new blank badges and rounding up volunteers to stuff bags with programs, right up until AmberGold asked where the PreReg names-to-numbers thing was. Turns out, we didn't have it printed out ¦D; We'd forgotten it existed/we needed it. This, sadly, was around ten in the morning, and we were scheduled to open for eleven o'clock. So Pat did some digging in the computer and found what we needed, and we canceled whatever other printing was going on to get that done.
And then, a few pages in, we found out it was printing out of alphabetical order.
Pat immediately called John, the guy who knows how to get the computer (collectively owned by MindBridge, which has two other cons) to sit up and beg, to get down to the reg desk stat and help us out.
He showed up at ten-fifty, at which point the PreReg line was monstrously long, and I could hear a few of the waiting public announcing the remaining minutes as they ticked by.
To his credit, he got the list printing out alphabetically in short order; working against him was the fact that my printer - which we had to use, as the one in storage was killed and/or didn't have the install information on it - was abysmally slow AND, as we discovered not long after printing what we thought was the complete list, for some reason the computer had decided to print out odd numbered pages first, leaving out the even numbered pages until later.
Needless to say, disaster followed. Through some miracle, we managed to get the PreReg line moving around noon, and AmberGold had the At-The-Door reg line moving at least a half an hour before that. Most of the people were, thankfully, understanding, though I did get one in my line who stopped and made a point of informing me that she was disappointed in how this whole thing was run and, when I explained what had happened, that we should have foreseen such a disaster. In retrospect, I would've liked to tell her that her talking to me was only taking up more time and slowing the line further, but I don't always think well on my feet. It's probably for the best anyway. We got better organized after a short period of time, though I still ended up having to shout for people whose last names began with "Q through Z!" (instead of the earlier "L through Z") for a while.
By the time I got my first break a few hours after opening, we had things fairly well under control. The lines for registration in either direction died out around seven o'clock, though we kept the table open until midnight.
THAT WAS THE OVERALL SCOPE OF THE DAY AS FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF ME AS REG STAFF. The following were much more from the point of view of me as a con-goer ¦Db
LOOK LOOK LOOK, IT'S BENDER, HE'S AT ANIME IOWA! Really crappy photo because I didn't have a lot of time to set up my camera, and then once this one was taken he was kind of on his way, but that's all still cool, 'cuz Bender will still be worshiped wherever he goes. O Bender, u so awesome ♥ You're my bending mentor, you know ♥♥♥
Some girl who was in my reg line. Not officially in costume, and claims a friend of her dragged her in, but what she was wearing still pinged my cosplay senses. I can only assume I'm comparing her to an obscure BL character or something, because that's the only thing I can think of that fits.
Taken on my first break. 'Cuz she was there, and I've liked the idea of the costumes for a while. (There was also a Queen Minnie and Daisy, though I didn't get their pictures sadly.) When she was walking around the next day, she had little blue glowy bits up and down the black stripes on her sides and white face paint.
THIS ONE HAS A STORY TO IT. So, while on break, I came upon a Himawari-chan cosplayer. I was overjoyed, and stopped to ask her if I could get her picture with a specific character ♥ She said yes, and had, in fact, seen a Gaara not too long ago in the Dealer's Room; in fact, she was more than willing to help me track him (or another one) down so I could take a picture of them together. I, of course, was overjoyed, and rushed back to the Reg desk to leave my bag and take my camera and water pouch, because whee, Gaara/Himawari picture(s)!
It. It took a while to find a Gaara. We didn't actually see any in the Dealer's Room, though we were sidetracked briefly by some friends of the Himawari-chan cosplayer, at which point I happened upon a Toph I'd been seeing go back and forth and managed to arrange a time to meet so we could arrange a time to meet for a photoshoot ¦Db I promised to tell the person who I had been assured would be dressed as Episode2x07!Zuko about the meeting time when/if I saw him.
Back to the story! We eventually made it out of the Dealer's Room, after no success in our Gaara hunt. We finally made it out to the front lobby (aprx .8 miles from the Dealer's Room by hallway), outside of which we found out a Gaara would be returning to meet friends in a short amount of time, and yes, he would be willing to have his picture taken with Himawari-chan!
Gaara did indeed show up, and his picture was indeed taken, though the following five seconds of video were taken first before I realized that my camera was on the wrong setting and that was why the flash hadn't gone off ¦3 (If anyone has any tips about how to rotate the whole thing ninety degrees, they would be much appreciated. Also an explanation on how to take screencaps from Media Player Classic - eet eez not zo much werkink for mee.)
The video can be found here.
And then came this picture, which was entirely Himawari-chan's idea, and I love her forever for it ♥♥♥♥♥
Side note: For whatever reason, Gaara's hair turned florescent pink in the photos I took, though not in the video; I did my best to correct the color change in PaintShop Pro, but if you look closely you might see a pink ring around it. I've also got the unaltered photos with me. His hair turned out fine in the video, though. I'm sure someone who knows much more about hair coloring products and light refraction would be able to tell me why that happened, but I for one haven't a clue.
SPOILERY McSPOILERFACE!!1!11!one!!1! ...He was glad that someone recognized who he was supposed to be, as not many people had. He also informed me that he'd been breaking the hearts of little children by telling them that [BLEACH SPOILER] he killed Rukia [/SPOILER]. I'm not sure whether I actually made things better or worse the one time I managed to shout after him, "She got better! DD:"
Suigetsu ♥♥♥ My favorite of the new Naruto characters thus far, though I can't say I've been keeping up all that well recently. Was still amused whenever I saw him and a Zabuza in the same room.
On the "only related to photos" side, I met up with both the Toph and the Zuko, and arranged for a photoshoot the following day at approximately 10:30 in the morning.
And I'm pretty sure that's all for Friday.
Saturday was pretty tame as far as the Reg desk was concerned, though we did break the magic number of 2350 (which I hear was involved in a few bets) before closing. Only a few events to talk about, but lots of pictures.
Avatar photo meetup! I was so glad everyone made it, as I wasn't sure whether Zuko would get the word T^Tb Toph's sister had the wig on Saturday, since they only had one and Toph had used it yesterday, but it's still all cool.
Zuko vs Katara showdown pics, as requested by Yours Truly ;)
Zuko vs. Katara and Toph, again as requested by me. As staff, I really shouldn't have forgotten that weapons were only to be drawn in the Photo Op area, but thankfully Zuko reminded me ¦D; Stop being a bad example, socchan!
This was all before lunch. Shortly after lunch, Asian Chris arrived in drag, as seen in Anime Iowas past.
Here he is, looking pretty and sitting on Pat's lap...
Here he is, lounging artistically...
Here he is from the side...
And here he is sitting next to Pat. Chris Inna Dress: the perfect accessory to any convention table!
Later on in the day, this lovely young lady stopped by:
I honestly thought she was actually some sort of plant monster, like you see in various Final Fantasy games and Magic Knight Rayearth, but when she got closer I finally saw the panties draped and tied on her extra appendages. Of course!, I realized, She's a tentacle monster! So of course I asked for a photo ;)
She also informed me that she and her friend would be back tomorrow, dressed as a spayed catgirl and emo catgirl respectively, which I told her I looked forward to photographing. Probably my favorite cosplays of the con.
Pat was called away around four o'clock, as she had volunteered to be a victim in one of staff member Evan's panels that day at four-thirty, and was instructed not to wear a costume. The panel was called cake, there were three other volunteers, and Evan was in charge of it, so it would involve public humiliation of some form.
It turned out to be a combination trivia contest and game show, in which the audience was asked obscure questions about anime, manga, and Japan, and the people who answered correctly were invited on stage to improvise something funny. The staff members then had to do their best not to laugh at the improvisations; if they did laugh or react, they got cake'd in the face. After acting, the audience members were given pieces of cake of their very own (to eat, not in-the-face'd) and allowed to sit back down. One of the show highlights was a Suzumiya Haruhi cosplayer who improv'd a Chex Mix commercial in a combination of Otaku Japanese, Engrish, and a US southern accent. I think she also proposed the Pokémon/EVA fusion, though I could well be wrong.
Throughout most of the panel however, which I had missed the first half hour of anyway as Registration didn't close until five, I was actually somewhat distracted. You see, across the room there was a Kohaku (of Tsukihime) cosplayer, and ever since I had let the opportunity slip away from me at Acen to take a Yagami Light/Kohaku picture I had made the firm decision that I would not allow it to happen again - a personal vow that was aided by the sheer number of Light cosplayers at AI this year. As soon as the panel ended, I nabbed him (yes, he was crossplaying) and the nearest Light and asked for a picture. And I got it ♥
Hopefully it's not just Ancient CFUD History by now, as I don't keep up with things as well as I'd like, but there it is :3b
Then there was a considerable amount of nothing as a lot of people waited in line for Cosplay passes and I struggled to find something to do. I finally parked myself where the Great Debate (which I had never been to) would take place and... waited.
The Great Debate occurred, I volunteered, debated, ate honey wafers in record time, and talked about anime physics with my mouth stuffed full of marshmallows. I did not come anywhere close to winning the infamous Innuendo Award, though I did make it past the first round of elimination-by-lack-of-applause. The Haruhi from Cake made it to the final four, but was eventually eliminated. The Ultimate Showdown ended up being between a Phoenix Wright and a Xemnas; Xemnas won in the end.
I was slightly disappointed when it let out, because that was where I had arranged to meet the only other CFUD player who said they'd be at AI. ...And then I found out she was the Haruhi from before. ....Yeah.
One picture is all I've got, 'cuz she was in a hurry and busy with other friends and stuff, but "Pictures or it didn't happen DDD:" won out in the end, so. Didn't manage to Audience!marry her, though, boof. THERE IS STILL PROOF IT HAPPENED THOUGH, even if you can't see it (yet?) because I forgot to ask if she would mind if I posed it. Also Anime Iowa now officially has a sucky track record for CFUD meetups and me. Two of them now, and neither one of them lasting more than five minutes. Thank God for Acen is all I've got to say.
And that pretty much ended Saturday. Registration closed up with something like 2359 badges registered, and a warm body count of around 2200 (a number of people had yet to claim pre-reg badges).
Sunday was, if possible, almost slower than Saturday - but that's only if we ignore the people pre-regging for 2008 (which is going to be held in the same hotel from August 15-17, Just So You Know
I only have five pictures from Sunday, four of which were taken before noon.
...I couldn't resist.
The tentacle monster cosplayer returns as the spayed catgirl ♥ Love the
The emo catgirl accompanies her. She went to great lengths to make the cutting look authentic. (Note: no catgirls were harmed in the taking of these pictures.)
At one-thirty I ducked out to go to Breaking Into the Industry, a pane about jobs in the anime market and how one might go about getting them, hosted by three of the guests. (I did not know who they were. I fail in many ways.) It was an incredibly informational panel, in which I learned a great many things that would be of interest to many an otaku. For example, people who want to improve dub quality should not look into voice acting, but into script adaption (a job less thankless only than editing). Also, a lot of the decisions made about US anime adaptations are not made by the voice actors, or the directors, or the producers even; quite a few of the things that people complain about in One Piece apparently came right from the Japanese company heads. And the Arucard vs Alucard thing? Goes straight back to the author, who admits with good humor that he made a spelling mistake. People who want to be voice actors should start with regular acting, should honestly go in with their normal voices when trying out, should be prepared to live where the work is, should definitely have demo tapes, and should be ready to listen to the director. "Sure fire" voice acting classes are pretty much BS from people looking to make a quick buck, whether or not they're the real thing. Veeeery informative.
Checked back at the Reg desk, then made a quick stop at the Dealer's Room - the first I'd made that weekend with the intent to look at things in consideration of buying them. Did not, in fact, end up spending any money, though I ended up talking at length with a dealer about Avatar.
Went to Closing Ceremonies, which was a total blast, and at which all the guests were given a piece of unprocessed corn, and where they told us that they all really, really enjoyed AI as a convention and found the congoers to be very friendly and pleasant overall. So, you hear that? Big important people like our convention!
The last half hour or so of Closing Ceremonies was devoted to premiering the Xenosaga anime in English, for which I returned to the Reg desk to wait for what may have ended up being a rush, but was in reality only a trickle. Did get the singular amusement of watching Andrew try and get some of the guests to pre-register for next year, though XD To be fair, he wasn't at closing ceremonies and wouldn't have recognized them by the corn they were holding, and I'm certainly no one to be pointing fingers at people who can't recognize famous persons by their faces alone, but I was still amused.
Pack-up followed, which itself was followed by me finally getting up the guts to approach Greg Ayres for a Same Hair pic of him and Pat next to each other:
See? Completely the same hair. ...Well, almost. Certainly close enough, though. (Plz to correct me if I got his name wrong.)
After that was pizza in the consuite for staff and volunteers, and then we went home and crashed.
All in all, it was an enjoyable, successful con, and I can hardly wait for next year.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 07:36 pm (UTC)