An Anime Convention in my own Backyard – Anime North 2010

Well more like one about 8 hours away from where I live. Hilarious how Anime Boston is closer to me and it's out of the country. Anyway, Anime North is Canada's largest anime convention. Somewhere on twitter after it all I saw someone say that there was total attendance of about 18, 500. Which, when I really think about it, that's pretty darn good considering last year it did seem a little smaller (about 16,000 I think). Anime North was my first anime con and that was last year. So really I'm kinda still a con goer noob but either way I find them fun. It was interesting going back again this year knowing what to expect a little more.

We decided to go in late Thursday night from Quebec, Canada and make our way to Toronto. We drove all through the night which worked out to be the best option for us because during the day would have sucked with all of the crazy traffic, let alone all the weird construction randomly spread out through the highways. It's always good getting there a day before or early the day of so you can relax a bit before a super busy weekend. Like in Boston I have friends in Toronto so we stayed with them for the weekend. It was great being with them for the entire weekend (and Monday) especially since these friends are into anime too and came with us to the con. All pictures in this post were taken by my friend. ^_^" I have no issues with Toronto except the crazy traffic that turns a 10 minute drive into a 30 minute one but at least the drivers around us weren't crazy.

Unlike many other con's where it's all in one building, Anime North is spread out between about 4-5 different buildings and there just happens to be very busy roads in the way of each, not to mention the highway it's self. It was A LOT of walking and I'm not made for walking sadly because of my back problems so it was highly inconvenient to attempt to go anywhere other than the double tree hotel and the main hall where all the big events / dealers were. Friday night (because during the day we got there late and mainly just wondered around looking at cosplayers) we did manage to get across the highway (likely because I had a lot to drink and I feel less back pain when in that state...) We checked out some gaming rooms and the Nominoichi, basically a huge garage sale but for anime stuff. I didn't find anything I liked there because we got there late. Generally you show up for those kind of things right when doors open to see all the stuff and get first dibs. After that we made our way back to the main area.

Otakubaloo = The Parking Lot Rave. It was basically a small enclosed patio taken over by a dj booth. My boyfriend was booked to play at this the following night so we decided to check it out Friday as well. Right beside this stage, indoors, there was the Friday Night J-Rave and I gotta say outside was WAY better. The stage set up indoors was to say the least lackluster. They had so much fog in there you couldn't even see the stage unless you were like 3 meters away. The lighting sucked and I'm pretty sure the "DJ's" that were in there were just playing tracks off of winamp... It was ungodly hot in there as well. Would it have really hurt to put some large industrial fans in there? After some night shenanigans in the hentai rooms we went back home.

Saturday of every con is generally the day everyone shows up fully in their cosplay. There was easily thousands of new people to look and take pictures of. I love just walking around (or sitting in a heavy traffic spot) just to see the cosplayers. Laugh at really bad ones and stare in awe at some amazing ones. For the rest of the day we popped in and out of The Double Tree's panels and sat through The 404s. They are comedy improve from all across Canada that preform every year at Anime North. I find them to be quite funny and they have many shows throughout the weekend. My favourite is the 18+ showing at night in one of the huge stage rooms. There are generally more "sexual" jokes and a lack of pants for this performance. Highly amusing. My bf had to leave early during their late performance to go and preform at Otakubaloo. We joined him a little later to see a nice crowd dancing away to what he was playing. One thing I really liked about Otakubaloo on Saturday was that a lot more of my friends showed up to see my bf play. The promoter had put this really cool video projector on the side of the buildings wall showing a lovely mix of anime shots that was maybe 30 minutes or slightly longer. It was fun trying to pick out who came from what anime.

After Otakubaloo we made our way back into some hentai panels. These were highly amusing because people were generally in there just to make fun of it. There were of course a lot of people just sleeping in there and I'm pretty sure there was one dude jerking off  in one of the corners. lol... Nothing really beats one guy getting pissed off at everyone when they were laughing during Bible Black. He kept going on and on about how the story was SO good and that's why he was in there. Yeah ok there buddy! XD The best part during one of these shows was when the guy was getting a blow job from this chick and just before he came she switched to using her hands and there was this dramatic dodge she did while his sperm sprinkled past her face... LOL the room erupted with laughter for a good 5+ minutes afterwards. After we had our fill of hentai giggles we wandered on home, stopped to get some food along the way. One thing I noticed is that Toronto has sweet potato fries everywhere. Certainly makes up for their lack of good poutine.

Sunday was a slow day for us and there wasn't anything interesting going on anyway so we arrived late. We checked out the dealers room to see if anyone had anything good to offer but for the most part there was nothing interesting. My boyfriend did get something he's been waiting so long to get. He bought a Cactar from Final Fantasy. It was slightly over priced in my opinion but well worth all the joy that little guy has brought us since then. We were going to get the Tonberry as well but we thought one silly purchase was enough for the weekend.

Overall this con is fun but very unorganized. I enjoy it because it's in Canada and I get to see a lot of my Ottawa and Toronto friends in one place. The lack of anyone really interesting from the industry was a little disappointing but not overly concerning to me. I look at this con more so to see friends, cosplayers, and enjoy music more than anything else. It really drives me crazy how everything is so separated too. I was spoiled with Anime Boston having everything in once large building. The volunteers again this year were very rude. Do NOT get kids of volunteer if they aren't mature enough to handle a situation with a lot of people around. I do not need to get yelled at by some kid because I wandered through an out door even though that door was NOT labeled as an out door and the 10's of people in front of me were doing the same. If you want to do crowd control think it through properly damn-it.

Anyway good con and lots of good times were had. Of course I shall return next year. Here is a thread on the forum site for Anime North with a lot more pictures from the con.^__^

A Canadians first trip to Anime Boston

So I decided to go to this con at the very beginning of the year. We have friends that live in Boston so I figured it would be a lot of fun to visit them and go to a con other than Anime North. (which is the only other con I have been to) I gotta say I was highly impressed with Anime Boston and I do plan to attend again next year. Anime Boston 2010 was held on April 2-4. I'm aware that it's been a while but I've been busy since I got back with real life situations that has delayed my post a little. (ok a lot)

We drove down from Quebec, Canada on the 1st as we wanted to get settled in a head of time and enjoy in full what the weekend had to offer. Long car rides kill my back as well so having a day to rest before trying to marathon walk for a weekend was much needed. After it all, I was nice and sore for a week after but it was worth it. We had lovely weather while we were down there too which was nice because apparently it had been raining for a solid 2 weeks before we got there. Boston drivers will always scare me. Learn how to drive please! Unlike Anime North, everything at Anime Boston was in one building that you could easily walk from one place to the other. I REALLY liked this aspect of it as I saw way more things that I wanted to because I could find where everything was easily. The building seemed to go on forever. There was a lot of walking done.

I meet the author of The Anime Almanac and he was really nice. He introduced me to some others that he knew but I completely forget their names. I saw the author of JanaiBlog from a distance because I was too shy to go up and say hi the first time I saw him (sitting in the moe panel of course) and he left early when I was going to say hi to him after the FUNimation Industry Panel. Which was a very interesting panel to attend. I ended up going to a lot more panels than I thought I would but I gotta say all were really fun. There was a manga panel with one of the weirdest guys running it and I always wanted to argue with his points because for the most part he was way off. One of the best panels I attended was done by The Department of Alchemy called Impact of Evangelion. I meet him too but said nothing other than 'hi nice panels this weekend.' And basically ran away afterwards, I'm a really shy person heh.

The highlight of the con was a performance by the Video Game Orchestra! This alone was worth all the money spent in getting to Boston for the con. Another highlight of the con was the guest of honour Nobuo Uematsu. We attended every panel he was doing and it highly inspired my boyfriend to continue what he loves doing and that's making music. He even played with the VGO when they were preforming! The most memorable things he said was the answer to this question. "How did you come up with the opening theme to Final Fantasy?" His answer was that one of the guys came to him at the last minute and said we need a little diddy for the opening of the game. Can you do one please? He of course said ok and wrote a little tune in literally 5 minutes and it has become one of the most well known songs ever among video game players. I also enjoyed his response to "What was your first instrument?" He said it was the guitar and later he picked up the piano and said they are basically the same cords/notes wise but the piano is easier to use so he prefers it. LOL awesome! Here's the video we took of him playing with the VGO. (sorry about the sound quality)

Saturday night we ventured into the "rave" and I gotta say that was entertaining and fun. There was some pretty crazy stuff going on in there and the DJ was pretty awesome too. I'm generally not one for "8-bit" music but it was fun to hear and see everyone having a really good time. The only thing that wasn't so cool was seeing all the cracked out kids sitting on the floor outside of the entrance. LOL We got a really fun little video here of some kind of robot surfing the crowd. (again sorry about the sound quality)

The cosplay was like any others honestly. There was some really amazing ones and some not so amazing. I took some pictures but most didn't turn out very well so I'll link to a thread on the AB site that has a lot more pictures than I could have ever provided for those that are interested. I did cosplay myself but it wasn't 100% and honestly I just didn't have the money to get my hair done the right way. It's not like anyone would have recognized me anyway. I went as Nanako Yamamoto from Hanamaru Youchien and my boyfriend went as Naozumi Tsuchida. I made the aprons myself and I personally think they turned out really well.

The dealers room was about what I expected it to be. It was split into 2 rooms that were joined in the middle by a hallway. I was impressed at how much stuff there was but I honestly didn't see a lot of really amazing deals. I didn't end up getting anything because we ended up spending our money on parking. We drove there each day from just outside of downtown. I suggest not doing this and using public transit or walking if you can. Hell, get dropped off and picked up at the end of the day if you can. The parking costs were stupid but couldn't be avoided on this trip for us. Next year we shall be better prepared for that.

Anyway there's my review. Better late than never! Next up is Anime North in pretty much 2 weeks. I promise to have my report from that up way sooner than this one ended up being. Overall this was a very enjoyable experience and I'm sure I'll be back next year. ^__^