Sakuracon09 report (sorry for the long posts)
Sakuracon 09 report...
OK, I'm going to take this chronologically and put one whale of a disclaimer up front. We did the con with only about two or three hours sleep the night before. Basic exhaustion and the usual "Con-Crud" I've gotten from every single convention I've ever been too have tinged my observations.
Observations are broken down into the Good, the Bad and the Fugly.
FRIDAY
-Good
Yamaguchi Kappei autographs were right off the bat! Our biggest line wait was out of the way by freaking noon. Even better, Kappei was a BLAST. If you ever get the chance to see him at a convention MAKE TIME.
-Bad
Friday was dominated by the only really major bummer about this year's con, Registration. Registration could not have been worse if you intentionally set out to do it poorly from the get-go. We had pre-registered long before the event, and yet we waited in line for over an hour to pick up our badges. In fact, most of the wait was in the line, to get in line for one of the five booths serving pre-reg attendees (incidentally, only three of them were labeled pre-reg, so even THEY admit they screwed up). Ordinarily, I would say that this wait was attributed to them simply being swamped on the first day... HOWEVER... For the entire duration of our time in line the walk-up line was SHORTER. In fact, for most of the hour, it was half as long.
-Fugly
The Washington State Convention Center has floors of poured concrete. If you're VERY LUCKY, they put a carpet over it. Between registration and the immediate autographs, we'd been standing on the concrete for over two hours. It gave the pair of us leg pains we still haven't recovered from.
SATURDAY
-Good
We wound up seeing some things we hadn't expected to: The Peter Fernandez (voice of Speed Racer) panel on being in showbiz for 75 years, some of the "You're Under Arrest" TV show, and the first episode (kinda) of Macross Frontier. We also saw the Yamaguchi Kappei Q&A which was the highlight of the day. He sang the Sogeking song (though he wondered why he gets asked to sing that all the time) said he was thinking of branching into original music, and was a genuinely fun and engaging guy. I didn't know that he does the Japanese voice of Bugs Bunny, or that he is the Japanese dub actor for Goku in "Dragonball: Evolution".
...oh, and while he DID utter the word "kamehameha" in a sentence he did NOT shout it to the rafters fireballs did NOT jump from his fist, nor was it the coolest moment in the history of the universe. Just sayin. Don't want to get him in any trouble.
-Bad
While we DID see a lot of things we hadn't planned on, it was basically because not too much sounded interesting.
-Fugly
The Live Dubbing panel was a complete debacle. Someone apparently swiped all their equipment before the panel started. So they totally ran out of time. Also, while Macross Frontier was fun, the video kept corrupting horribly. I overheard someone say most of the fansubbed stuff was doing that.
Sunday
...Honestly, Sunday was just a mad dash through the dealer's room and a stop-off at a panel about anime jumping the shark. The panel was sort of a joke as it was just some dude asking if we thought blank show had jumped the shark/nuked the fridge/jumped on the couch and why.
Final Thoughts:
Sakuracon09 was fun, but it was not my fav con experience. There didn't seem to be a whole lot of interest there actually. We left early each of the three days, usually cause we were worn out, but also because there just wasn't much going on. Aside from Kappei, I think I'll be hard pressed to remember much of what happened at this event ten years from now. Of course, since most of us remember cons for what goes WRONG rather than right, I guess that's a good thing.
We're going next year. Maybe it will be better.
Just fix registration dammit!