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elwenWent up to San Jose for the weekend to attend Fanime with the UCLA anime club. At some point after PMX last year, I had been musing that I was outgrowing conventions: I had already decided to go to Fanime, but I wasn't finding myself looking forward to it in any way. I didn't really want to meet guests, I didn't really want to sit in on panels, I certainly didn't need to watch anything they were showing, and I don't really spend money in the dealers' room. So I ended up wondering, is looking at cosplayers that worth it?
As it turns out, I haven't really outgrown cons after all. Maybe PMX was just too tiny, and one day wasn't enough, or something. Even though there was a lot of messed up stuff at Fanime this year -- the UCLA club got totally short-changed in the masquerade, if you ask me -- I still had a great time. Not that there aren't a billion complaints I could make, primarily on how Fanime judges (for the AMVs and for Der Cosplay) are totally on crack and have no sense of what's good and what's not and what the crowd likes.
So I won't go through a chronological account of what we did, but I'll just talk about notable things. First was that I continued my trend of not buying much merchandise but buying a lot of art. For some reason I've been obsessed with this idea that I need to get more posters and things to hang on my walls, even though the bigger reason my walls are empty is probably that I'm too lazy to put things up. So I looked for posters with nice group pictures, but didn't really find anything. [I was really tempted by a couple Bleach posters, like a full-body picture of Byakuya, and one with Renji and Ichigo.] In the end the only anime poster I got was one of the four main characters from Saiyuki, with a big Homura in the background behind and above them. [Gah, I really don't like Homura. And I had to stare at him all the way home on the car, too.] I did buy a lot of fanart and original art from the artists' tables, though. Most notable was an 18x16 print of Stephanie Pui-Mun Law's Dragonknot. Her art is so amazing, I had a lot of trouble deciding what to get, but I figure a single large-size high fantasy print would be more appreciated than getting a lot of small prints, although I also really liked Catknot, Crows of Winter, and Death. [I am so buying her tarot deck when she finishes it.]
I tried going to a few panels, but most of them were crappy. [I'm not surprised, considering the panelists apparently got their schedules two days before the con.] My sister hadn't heard of any of the artists on the webcomics panel. The Tokyopop panel was boring, although I don't know what I was expecting from it. The CLAMP panel was nice, though. At last I know why X is on hiatus, although the truth is bleaker than what I used to think. I had thought it was just that Mokona had arthritis or something and couldn't draw the manga. In reality, apparently Kadokawa Shoten wants CLAMP to change the ending, and CLAMP's response is to refuse to do anything for them until they give in. And Gohou Drug, which was also being published by Kadokawa, got dragged into the fray and is also on hold. *sigh* I don't foresee either of them relenting anytime soon.
I probably should have gone to the fanfic panel. That's usually pretty interesting -- writers are always good for interesting discussions -- even though it's depressing because it reminds me how sloooowly I write. I also tried to go the anime club panel but we had to leave. The topic list had been pretty interesting. Most of the people there were officers of various clubs, and I realized I could actually relate to things they wanted to talk about, like how to balance the titles you show, attracting new members, finding places to hold showings, what else to do, etc. Sadly, all I got to hear was the first half of the discussion on "leaving a legacy", otherwise known as how to sucker people to become officers before you run away. Most of our officers are good for another year, but I don't know who's going to take over when Sarah and I graduate. We were elected when we were frosh, though, so there's still hope.
Then there were the two mainstays of conventions: AMVs and cosplay. Most of the AMVs were really good. I need to go downlod them all now. Fanime was in the San Jose McEnery Convention Center this year, and they used the Civic Auditorium for AMVs. It was huge and there was a balcony, so it was pretty exciting. The audio was crap, though. It wasn't that noticable for AMVs, but I couldn't understand most of the skits in the masquerade. Once again, I was surprised that most of the awesome cosplayers I saw around weren't in the masquerade. I honestly thought, without bias, that the UCLA group had some of the best costumes and definitely the best casting. But maybe that's not what's important, I guess. What was really annoying was that there were a lot of song and dance skits that went on a long time, and not a few pointless stupid annoying skits. While UCLA had faithfully followed the rules and stuck to a 3 minute skit, with the result that they didn't leave much of an impression, and the people who broke the rules won the awards. None of the groups I thought were good got anything, though. It was even worse than the year all the awards went to the Gundam guy. But I guess that goes to show that Fanime has a legacy of crappy judging. At least we got to see Dieter (sp?) kiss the guy from the SNK fanservice skit. XD
So yeah, those were the highlights. Like I said, most of the awesome cosplayers I just saw walking around. I'll try to get pictures up soon, but I want to install Gallery first, so I can put the 2003 pictures back up, and also the PMX pictures. And all the stuff from Blacker Interhovses, Frosh Projects, and the like. So it might not happen until summer.
Now I'm kind of excited to go to AX and see how the two cons compare. I'm also fired up again to make a costume, but I doubt a month is enough for me to get anything together. Definitely not the Xellos costume. But I was thinking I might try my hand at Ren from Erementar Gerad. Although she will be very obscure this year since the series is still airing in Japan, but it's been licensed in the U.S., so only people who download shadier fansubs will have seen it. *ahem*
Well, I can always just go as Mistress 9 if I get lazy.
As it turns out, I haven't really outgrown cons after all. Maybe PMX was just too tiny, and one day wasn't enough, or something. Even though there was a lot of messed up stuff at Fanime this year -- the UCLA club got totally short-changed in the masquerade, if you ask me -- I still had a great time. Not that there aren't a billion complaints I could make, primarily on how Fanime judges (for the AMVs and for Der Cosplay) are totally on crack and have no sense of what's good and what's not and what the crowd likes.
So I won't go through a chronological account of what we did, but I'll just talk about notable things. First was that I continued my trend of not buying much merchandise but buying a lot of art. For some reason I've been obsessed with this idea that I need to get more posters and things to hang on my walls, even though the bigger reason my walls are empty is probably that I'm too lazy to put things up. So I looked for posters with nice group pictures, but didn't really find anything. [I was really tempted by a couple Bleach posters, like a full-body picture of Byakuya, and one with Renji and Ichigo.] In the end the only anime poster I got was one of the four main characters from Saiyuki, with a big Homura in the background behind and above them. [Gah, I really don't like Homura. And I had to stare at him all the way home on the car, too.] I did buy a lot of fanart and original art from the artists' tables, though. Most notable was an 18x16 print of Stephanie Pui-Mun Law's Dragonknot. Her art is so amazing, I had a lot of trouble deciding what to get, but I figure a single large-size high fantasy print would be more appreciated than getting a lot of small prints, although I also really liked Catknot, Crows of Winter, and Death. [I am so buying her tarot deck when she finishes it.]
I tried going to a few panels, but most of them were crappy. [I'm not surprised, considering the panelists apparently got their schedules two days before the con.] My sister hadn't heard of any of the artists on the webcomics panel. The Tokyopop panel was boring, although I don't know what I was expecting from it. The CLAMP panel was nice, though. At last I know why X is on hiatus, although the truth is bleaker than what I used to think. I had thought it was just that Mokona had arthritis or something and couldn't draw the manga. In reality, apparently Kadokawa Shoten wants CLAMP to change the ending, and CLAMP's response is to refuse to do anything for them until they give in. And Gohou Drug, which was also being published by Kadokawa, got dragged into the fray and is also on hold. *sigh* I don't foresee either of them relenting anytime soon.
I probably should have gone to the fanfic panel. That's usually pretty interesting -- writers are always good for interesting discussions -- even though it's depressing because it reminds me how sloooowly I write. I also tried to go the anime club panel but we had to leave. The topic list had been pretty interesting. Most of the people there were officers of various clubs, and I realized I could actually relate to things they wanted to talk about, like how to balance the titles you show, attracting new members, finding places to hold showings, what else to do, etc. Sadly, all I got to hear was the first half of the discussion on "leaving a legacy", otherwise known as how to sucker people to become officers before you run away. Most of our officers are good for another year, but I don't know who's going to take over when Sarah and I graduate. We were elected when we were frosh, though, so there's still hope.
Then there were the two mainstays of conventions: AMVs and cosplay. Most of the AMVs were really good. I need to go downlod them all now. Fanime was in the San Jose McEnery Convention Center this year, and they used the Civic Auditorium for AMVs. It was huge and there was a balcony, so it was pretty exciting. The audio was crap, though. It wasn't that noticable for AMVs, but I couldn't understand most of the skits in the masquerade. Once again, I was surprised that most of the awesome cosplayers I saw around weren't in the masquerade. I honestly thought, without bias, that the UCLA group had some of the best costumes and definitely the best casting. But maybe that's not what's important, I guess. What was really annoying was that there were a lot of song and dance skits that went on a long time, and not a few pointless stupid annoying skits. While UCLA had faithfully followed the rules and stuck to a 3 minute skit, with the result that they didn't leave much of an impression, and the people who broke the rules won the awards. None of the groups I thought were good got anything, though. It was even worse than the year all the awards went to the Gundam guy. But I guess that goes to show that Fanime has a legacy of crappy judging. At least we got to see Dieter (sp?) kiss the guy from the SNK fanservice skit. XD
So yeah, those were the highlights. Like I said, most of the awesome cosplayers I just saw walking around. I'll try to get pictures up soon, but I want to install Gallery first, so I can put the 2003 pictures back up, and also the PMX pictures. And all the stuff from Blacker Interhovses, Frosh Projects, and the like. So it might not happen until summer.
Now I'm kind of excited to go to AX and see how the two cons compare. I'm also fired up again to make a costume, but I doubt a month is enough for me to get anything together. Definitely not the Xellos costume. But I was thinking I might try my hand at Ren from Erementar Gerad. Although she will be very obscure this year since the series is still airing in Japan, but it's been licensed in the U.S., so only people who download shadier fansubs will have seen it. *ahem*
Well, I can always just go as Mistress 9 if I get lazy.
