ANIME NORTH 2006
PAN'S CON REPORT


Another Anime North has come and gone, and so, it is time, once again, for a lackluster con report. Yay!

This does not even come close to covering everything I did at the convention, and it doesn't mention most of the people I saw or hung out with, but hey, it's something. ^^;


Yay, for Con Plague!

Every year, one of my friends is really sick at Anime North. It's like some sort of horrible horrible tradition. This year it was unfortunately my turn. I started getting sick about a week before Anime North. I had a fever, was coughing and felt like general death. I started to lose my voice the Wednesday before the convention. I used to loose my voice all the time at conventions, but that was usually from overuse and it hasn't happened in years. This year, I lost it due to sickness. By the time Friday rolled around, I could barely talk. ;___________;

I didn't really mind too much, because I can still get photos without having to talk. It's annoying though, because I can't really talk to anyone or compliment them without sounding like death, and that's not cool.

The other thing that really bothered me were the two or three people who assumed that because I couldn't talk, that I couldn't listen. I was mute, not deaf. I can hear you perfectly fine! You don't have to slow down your words and increase your volume so I can hear you. ARGH! ><;

I was the sickest on Friday, and started feeling a little better by late Saturday afternoon. What a way to spend the convention. I really really dislike being sick. .__________.


The Jeff Nimoy Mission

In interviews in the past, Jeff Nimoy has mentioned that he hasn't seen a lot of his work. He's also mentioned that he is usually out of the loop when it comes to what's new in the Digimon universe. Shortly after Jeff was announced as a guest for the convention, a pal of mine, Cyberdramon, e-mailed me with a plan to give Jeff a copy of some of the stuff he was missing.

I meet up with Cyberdramon on Friday night and he gave me a copy of the DVDs for Jeff. Cyberdramon had a copy himself as well. The plan was that whoever found Jeff first would give it to him. And so the mission began.

I managed to get to Jeff's autograph session on Friday night. It was such a treat to meet him. I didn't say much to him, since I wanted to keep it short and sweet (and sounded like death). I explained the DVDs, and gave them to him. Then I thanked him for all the hard work he's done over the years. As a Digimon fan, I really wanted to meet Jeff and thank him for all the amazing work he did on the series. He really is one heck of an incredible man, and I am very happy I got to meet him.

And so the mission was completed. ^^


Digimoning it up!

I wore two new costumes at this convention. On Friday, I wore my new Naruto costume (creative, I know). I put a truckload of work into it, and into getting the details right, so I was thrilled at the way it came out. My friend, Blue Rose, made a Kakashi costume (the best I've ever seen), and I spent most of Friday with her. We had our photos taken quite a lot, which made me happy, since I'm ridiculously proud of my Naruto costume. Mind you, Blue Rose's sharingan got a lot more attention. Holy shiny, she makes such a good Kakashi, it's scary!

On Saturday, I was cosplaying as Tai from Digimon. If you know me, you know I've been wanting to make this costume for years. I finally did. I have some issues with my costume (I don't like the shorts, the wig kept resting higher than it should've, and there was no way I could make his costume to scale ...you try to pull off that crazy hair of his! XD), but it was still a blast to wear. I was blown away by the amount of people that recognized my costume! I guess Digimon still lives! :3

There was another Tai cosplayer there (I love Tai, and more people need to cosplay him!), and I kept glomping her. She was so awesome. She changed into Matt on Saturday afternoon, and that made me even more happy. ^^ Speaking of Digimon cosplay, I ran into a Mimi at some point, and on Sunday, HikariLight and Seed-chan cosplayed TK and Davis from Digimon 02. I adored their costumes to bits. :3 They made me soooo happy~

And, uh, on Sunday, I was supposed to wear Tai again, but although I could talk more, I was still feeling sick, so I stuck with something a little more comfortable and wore my gothic formal outfit from Saturday night instead. I apologize if you were looking for me. ^^;

...in conclusion, there needs to be more Digimon cosplay! :D


Fighting Evil By Moonlight

This year, Anime North held its first-ever Moonlight Masquerade ball. They've wanted to hold something like this for a long time, but they figured that it wouldn't be very popular. A little while after pre-registration opened, they started selling tickets online. They sold all 100 of them in no time, which shocked everyone. Another 100 tickets were going to be available at the door, but it became clear that the event was a lot more popular than they expected.

This was good and bad. It was good, because it proved that there was interest, so a larger ball could be held next year. It's bad, because there were only a few tickets left and a ton of people wanting to go. The line on Saturday night took up an entire hallway and even went outside. A lot of people in line had made outfits and masks specifically for the event.

There were only a hundred tickets available at the door, but there were over a hundred people in line. True, some would be turned down due to dress code violations, but still, there were a lot more people in line than tickets. Because people started to line up early and because the event started over an hour late, some people were in line for a very long time -- many of which couldn't even get in. It might have been wise for someone to have sold tickets to the first hundred people in line earlier on in the evening. That way, those people could have come back to the event after it began, instead of waiting in line for hours. Moreover, all those people who were waiting in line and who couldn't have gotten in would have been told so earlier, and therefore, would not have had to waste their evening in line.

But I do have to give credit where credit is due. Considering this was the first year they tried to run this event (and it was therefore, experimental), they handled it well. I'm looking forward to seeing how this event is handled in future years. ^^

As for me, my friend Sakura and I were going to go to the ball and even brought special outfits for it, but we didn't even bother getting in line. Instead, we hung around the lobby with our friend Ren and took some photos. It was fun. We hung out with some of our friends and ran around having crazy fun. We may not have gone to the ball, but I think we had just as much fun. ^^


KAT-TUN and Cosplay Frogger

There was a KAT-TUN meetup on Saturday. In a nutshell, KAT-TUN is a Japanese boyband. Some fans were getting together one Saturday afternoon. They were going to cosplay one of their photosets when they wrote the letters of the "KAT-TUN" on T-shirts. I was Tai at the time, so I couldn't participate. Or so I thought. Turns out that their "N" wasn't going to make it, so with the help of another girl, I cut an "N" out of paper and had it safety-pinned to my Tai t-shirt. Yay for KAT-TUN! XD

On a totally different note, from my hotel window, I had a great view of the convention center, which also meant I had a great view of all the cosplayers j-walking across the road. At some point on Saturday, I started taking photos of j-walkers, because it was really amusing. I also videotaped some of it. I really need to upload the footage somewhere. XD

And for the record, there was only one car accident. We're pretty sure it was from drivers looking at cosplayers instead of the road. :/


"Lockdown" and the Yellow Vests

There were a bunch of "lockdowns" on Saturday night. This term makes me sooo angry. Basically, a "lockdown" happens when a minor goes missing. The doors are closed to make sure the kid can't get out and all the rooms are checked for the kid. That's all that happens. But the term "lockdown" makes it seem like the con is under attack or something. It should be called "a-child-has-gone-missing-down" or "we're-watching-the-exits-down", not "the-con-is-under-attack-down". Argh. I strongly suggest changing this term before next year. Also, to those security members that told everyone in the green room to "get down on the ground" during the "lockdown" on Saturday night, you suck!

Another thing: Security was wearing yellow vests this year. This was a good idea because it was really easy to find security when you needed them, but it was bad because a lot of people thought that being given a yellow vest equated with being given super powers. Having a yellow vest does not mean you can be rude to people asking you questions. You should not yell at congoers to "get out of your way" or stampede like maniacs down a hallway, especially when there isn't an emergency. And even if there is an emergency, your job is to keep people calm. Not freak them out.

Overall, security wasn't as bad as many people have been reporting. You have to understand that Anime North is volunteer run, and with a con this large that keeps increasing in size, they need all the help they can get. Working like this, there are sure to be some bad apples. Overall, they were a minority. A lot of the security I dealt with at this con were quite good. ^^

If I have a complaint, it's how little information security were given about their job, and what to do when certain situations arise. I suggest having some sort of handbook for security in the future. Also, if security abuses their powers, they should have those powers taken away. Oh, and security should carry around maps at all times. I swear they mostly get asked where something is, and half the time, they have no idea. Heh.

Well, this was the first year of the yellow vests. We'll have to wait and see what happens next year. ^^


A Few Colorful Characters

I saw and talked to a ton of people at the convention. I want to mention a few of them here, briefly.

On Friday night, I spotted a girl cosplaying Pharaoh Atemu and ran up to her. She did an excellent job on her costume. She made all the jewelry nicely. Her wig was made of fabric, but was one of the best Yugi wigs I have ever seen. I made a Pharaoh Atemu costume a few years back, and it wasn't anywhere as good as hers. She totally blew my costume out of the water, and that made me so ridiculously happy! X3 I totally fangirled her. And I kept fangirling her every time I ran into her an the convention. Her costume was soooooo good! ♥

Another cosplayer I kept running into is Rock nam Lee who was dressed as Kenpachi from Bleach. He was really nice to hang out with briefly at the con. He used his real hair for his costume and even glued bells into it. Now that's dedication!

I ran into Mackenzie (Phantomon!) a few times at the convention as well. She really helped me out on Saturday when I still couldn't talk. Thank you!

I saw Brad. I LOVE YOU, BRAD.

A girl I see at lots of conventions came up to me on Friday and asked me to write her another haiku. I was sick, so I kinda failed at the endeavor. So to make it up to you:

Socks, socks, everywhere
But why are all of them pink?
Look at the fireflies

...I fail at life. XD Moving on.

I want to say how much I loved all the Kabuto (from Naruto) cosplayers at this convention. There was an Orochimaru and Kabuto in particular that I really liked. They were together on Friday and Saturday. The Orochimaru was really into his character and when you asked him for a photo, he asked if you wanted the regular or "extra". If you answered "extra", he'd take put a fake tongue in his mouth and damn, he was cool. He also had a stamp of the curse seal and was going around cursing everyone. It was great. XD

Those same Kabuto and Orochhimaru cosplayers also get points for being in character. They were working for security on Saturday and I ran into them a few times throughout the night. In the evening, at some point, the Orochimaru wasn't feeling well, so Kabuto escorted him out. I couldn't help but think how ironic that was that Kabuto helped that sick Orochimaru escape the convention. I told that to the Kabuto cosplayer when I ran into him later (and asked how Orochimaru was feeling). Dude, those guys were great.

And Amy was neat to see. She painted really pretty angel wings on the back of her dollfie. And at some point during the convention, she bought me a cute little figure of Goku from Saiyuki. X3

Oh, and on an amusing note, a guy came up to me, told me how much he liked my site then stared at me in silence for a long while before saying that I was shorter than he imagined me to be. I thought that was hilarious. Yay for being 5' tall! XD

And to all the people I saw and didn't mention, I LUFFLE YOU ALL! ♥


Overall

I spent the majority of my convention running around taking photos. I took over 1200 over the weekend, which says something.

Because I was sick, I laid low for a lot of the convention. I wasn't as overexcited as I usually am, and because I wasn't press this year, I didn't have any commitments. This let me relax with my friends a lot more, and to take lots of random detours instead of my usual panicking to get to Place A by Time B. I rather liked the relaxed pace, and minus the sickness, I'd like to repeat it again.

Overall, I really loved Anime North this year. I fear this con report doesn't reflect that because I cut so much out and complained a lot in it. Please don't get me wrong -- I had a great time at Anime North this year. In fact, it's probably been my favorite year yet. I really enjoyed myself. ^^

And I absolutely cannot wait for next year! X3