Otakuthon recap
1. PANEL REPORT. Under the cut: Tales + Type-Moon
Weeeell okay not REALLY.
But as far as I'm concerned, both the Tales panel and the Type-Moon panel were a success!~ The crowd wasn't big, but I think for what it's worth, we managed to keep the attention of the people who came and who were truly interested by the series. At the end, I think... Running a panel is actually quite a lot like discussing things on a forum! Except it's way easier to topic jump (that and time constraint ;;), and the people that are listening to you, that are talking back to you, are within touching distance. I honestly had a lot of fun; Tales had a lot of material and I could have honestly went on talking about it for another hour. We started out with the most popular titles: namely, Symphonia, Abyss, and Vesperia. I was honest about what I liked, on how I enjoyed the light-heartedness start of Vesperia, like how Yuri just left to chase after a thief and ends up getting involved in everyone else's problem. Also on how the heaviness in plot of Abyss killed some of the enjoyment for me, but I do acknowledge it for its depth of story, and in turn we all talked on how cheesy Symphonia was, how awesome Yuri is, how fantastic Guy is, and just kind of jumped left and right at whatever that popped up to mind. XD; I'm a bit worried if we spoiled anyone when I made a mention to the bonus bosses to unlock the fell/devil arms, since it's Nebilim, Duke, and Abyssion and all... But I hope if I did spoil anything that anyone would consider major, they'd forgive me for it. >>;
Anyway! We then talked about Legendia and Phantasia. I HAD to comment on Klarth's glossy magazine - COME ON IT IS TOTALLY A PORN MAG, and how awesome Senel is for being a Tales hero and punches shit up with his fists. I also raved about Legendia's music, and two people in the room actually recognized my Merines dress!~ That made my day, one of the several things. XD; I did also find myself fall back on some of the old topics I recall from the Tales forum, such as how Lloyd was self-taught, Reid knows what he does because he hunts bears for food and became a pro hunter from that, Stahn just found an awesome talking sword, but Senel was actually in the marine, soooooooo. Oh lulz fighting experience. We tipped our hat off to Viva Tales of and how Jade and Zelos made the greatest duo ever, complained about Bamco's bad marketing choices and lack of title release here, cheered on the new one that looks very shiny that is in production, and whined about Vesperia and Graces PS3 and if either of those will ever come to NA.
Tamara, one of the girls that I ran the panel with, also did an awesome powerpoint, which consisted of a bunch of Tales wallpapers that I picked out from the official site and such. For anyone interested to have a pack of Tales wallpaper made with official art, from the artist, anime cutscene, or/and in-game sprite, here's the download link:
Here!~
There's over 80 images, and should have something from every title (except Tempest forgive me ahaha ;;; ). :3 I think I'll put them up as scrolling background myself once I get my tower back, since Windows 7 lets you have a changing background for every x amount of time.
All in all I had a blast, though I do worry that maybe I spoke too fast, was too loud, or spoke too MUCH. XD; But if the other girls felt good about it and would be interested again next year, I'll definitely redo!
And as for Type-Moon, I was actually surprised once I noted that most people in the room knew T-M through Tsukihime and not from Fate/Stay Night the anime! Then again, maybe I shouldn't. People who only saw the anime wouldn't even KNOW about Type-Moon. :|a I saw a Lancer on Friday, and a Rin and Saber on Saturday; none showed. EITHER WAY. We've made quite a few references to all the most well-known memes (I grabbed a chair and slammed it down at the front. I had to.), looked over all routes in Fate and Tsukihime, discussed the Tsukihime/Melty blood manga, cried over G-Akiha, touched upon Kagetsu Tohya, Tsukihime Plus Disc, Fate/Hollow Ataraxia and its translation progress, and "Angel Talk". Did some comparison of Shiki and Shirou, and running a "raise your hand on your favorite protag", of course Shiki won again... Then we hopped on the inevitable bad H-scenes, how Shiki is just mean in bed while Shirou's just 'herp derp', and pffft I actually spent at least 5 minutes going on why I liked Ciel which I did for no one else, not even Gil, pffffffffffft-. I also shall admit to be guilty of using subject matters I saw on Beast's Lair (though I did ask the room who knew about BL and /fate/ - no one, actually. XD;)... Like Shiki being heartless in bed. Eg: how Arc asked him to be gentle and he piledrived her, and with Ciel it was literally surpraiz buttsecs!!!1!, XD;;;; Not sure if that bored people or actually entertained them, but the crowd was of a similar size to my Tales panel, I think? And again I don't think that many people left, and these who stayed raised their hands quite a few times, which is something that I was really happy to see and kept an eye out for, since comment from audience = awesome for you, for it means that 1. they're listening to you and 2. they're interested, hence engaged too. :33 The guy who ran it with me also bought his Nendoroid Shiki Ryougi and mini Ilya, which I coo'd over, and there was another UBW!Gil cosplayer ajdfhkjgh ♥ His Ea was nicer and could spin at the hilt, *___* I'd say I'm jealous, but... not really, actually. XD; I admired it, but I'm good with what I had, :3 We also took pictures together! I'll post those later, ahaha. ;; WE AGREED THAT THE THRONE OF HEROES/AKASHA GLITCHED, SO THAT'S WHY THERE'S TWO OF US.
Then we speculated over Mahono and UBW the movie and how awesome it's going to be, and... honestly I could have gone on too. Like Battle Moon Wars, Unlimited Codes, and so on. I also recc'd Fate/Zero like it's nobody's business ("It's by Nitro+, the company that did Saya no Uta, and you can find it on Baka-Tsuki! Google it! *__*") and a person there apparently didn't know Irisviel was Ilya's mom, making Kiritsugu her dad. I guess it WAS a spoiler and I explained how it was done, that Kiri's sperm was artificially implemented into Iri's body, and how SAD it was because Kiri tried to go back to Ilya after the war but never could, which is why she THINKS her daddy abandoned her, and... ;_; The guys complained why Ilya didn't summon Bahsahkah as Lancer/Archer since he would've steamrolled through everything, which was interesting to listen to. XD And then I remarked on the EX Missions in F/UC, such as Shirou's which was basically dodging bullets shot by Ilya while she drove on the Berser-car. :3333
SURPRISINGLY there WAS a guy who didn't know who Archer was! He started on speculating and we were all like OH IF YOU DON'T KNOW NOW WE'RE NOT SAYING ANYTHING GO READ FOR YOURSELF. I actually didn't see it coming and never got that part spoiled for me, so hopefully this'll be preserved for that guy too. My wig also sort of fell off during the panel, herp, but overall, I felt like it went nicely, too! So that boosted my confidence as well, which is why I'm thinking of trying that again next year too.
Also dipped by the Game room later that night to play some melty bread. They only had Act Cadenza and no Neko-Arc, which made me sad, but I had fun!~
TL;DR: First time running panels at a convention = AWESOME. I had loads of fun, talked about stuff I love, got the audience into it and involved (or so I'd like to think), and we never ran out of things to say. The hour for both panels went by really fast, and I can only hope that the people who attended had as much fun as I did. This might be my first, but it was definitely really enjoyable, and the good impression that it left on me do truly encourage me to repeat again next year - and who knows? I think I'll try to run a Fire Emblem panel in 2011. Maybe a Persona one too, we'll see... :|a
...Lol I might actually help out at the Touhou panel next year now that I think about it. There was 2 this year, but they were by the same group of people in French and honestly... Rather dull. Explaining to people about the cultural references in Gensokyo and what grazing, death-bombing, and these stuff are is just... boring. 8|; I know the people meant well, but it was honestly a drag, so friends and I will highly likely try to host one next year in English with richer content. I mean, when I'm at a panel and it feels like I'm listening to a college oral presentation... Yeaaah that doesn't feel right, 8|;;;
2. LOOTS
OTL Well so much for that.
I found Sakura Matou 1/8 PVC F/HA Battle Ver. for 60$. ...I got it on the spot; buying online+shipping would round up to that much, if not more, so I'm happy with it. ♥ It's sitting on my desk now; I really should take pictures soon. Also got Nendoroid Ryougi Shiki she is SO ADORABLE /puts on cat eats and leaves on forever. I can't wait to get my NekoArc Nendoroid so I can have them one next to the other. :3
ALSO BOUGHT DOUJINSHI.
Found Type-Moon Complex 01 by CCC for 30$. The infamous one where SHIKI CAN KILL SERVANTS. Also Another Mobius, the absolutely fantastic one that featured Caster. It was 16$ US so less than 20CAN. ...I honestly think "Another Mobius" is my best purchase at the con, holy shit. I mean I've read most of these from the packs archived on Tatari when it was still there, translated, even, but seeing them in person was a totally different story. There was also that one that featured Yuri between Rin and Sakura and I could recall clearly the story because I read the scanlations in which it was Rin trying to fill in for Shirou even when she knows she can't - despite the porn, it was actually really touching and sad, f-fff ;; Reading porn for story there must be something wrong with me 8|; The same booth had the original MB and MB Re-Act CD on sale, but hnnnnnnnnnnnng- I mean I have those on my computer, so I didn't get them. Was so, so tempted, aaah. ;;
On the Tales side they were selling ToS mystery box figurines. I DO love Kotobukiya's stuff and now that my ToS drive cooled down, I'd be happy with anyone, I picked one up.
Scored Presea with Diablos. ♥♥♥ I am okay with this. I am very okay with this. And then I did more shopping for other people, like a Lilith figurine from NightStalkers? Morrigan's sister, something by Capcom, a Touhou remix CD, for my friend Chaz, and a Vocaloid plushie for pseudo-geek's birthday. :3
OVERALL. I ate out with friends, met up with like EVERYONE I KNEW IN MONTREAL (seriously, between work friends, highschool friends whose names I BARELY remembered, CEGEP friends, and others, I kept running into people the entire weekend), hanged out with them, suffered together through cosplay discomfort with them, and... despite getting gypped out of the good hours for my Tales panel, it was a really fun year. I really look forward to Otakuthon again next year. Hopefully cosplaying as Aya from Touhou, among others. I'd love to pull Ciel, but we'll see. Battle Dress would be AMAZING, but I lack the tits and ajdkfhkjghkj body paint. orz;
So yes. My body still hurts right now, but it was worth it. ♥ Now off to bed, hnng.
Weeeell okay not REALLY.
But as far as I'm concerned, both the Tales panel and the Type-Moon panel were a success!~ The crowd wasn't big, but I think for what it's worth, we managed to keep the attention of the people who came and who were truly interested by the series. At the end, I think... Running a panel is actually quite a lot like discussing things on a forum! Except it's way easier to topic jump (that and time constraint ;;), and the people that are listening to you, that are talking back to you, are within touching distance. I honestly had a lot of fun; Tales had a lot of material and I could have honestly went on talking about it for another hour. We started out with the most popular titles: namely, Symphonia, Abyss, and Vesperia. I was honest about what I liked, on how I enjoyed the light-heartedness start of Vesperia, like how Yuri just left to chase after a thief and ends up getting involved in everyone else's problem. Also on how the heaviness in plot of Abyss killed some of the enjoyment for me, but I do acknowledge it for its depth of story, and in turn we all talked on how cheesy Symphonia was, how awesome Yuri is, how fantastic Guy is, and just kind of jumped left and right at whatever that popped up to mind. XD; I'm a bit worried if we spoiled anyone when I made a mention to the bonus bosses to unlock the fell/devil arms, since it's Nebilim, Duke, and Abyssion and all... But I hope if I did spoil anything that anyone would consider major, they'd forgive me for it. >>;
Anyway! We then talked about Legendia and Phantasia. I HAD to comment on Klarth's glossy magazine - COME ON IT IS TOTALLY A PORN MAG, and how awesome Senel is for being a Tales hero and punches shit up with his fists. I also raved about Legendia's music, and two people in the room actually recognized my Merines dress!~ That made my day, one of the several things. XD; I did also find myself fall back on some of the old topics I recall from the Tales forum, such as how Lloyd was self-taught, Reid knows what he does because he hunts bears for food and became a pro hunter from that, Stahn just found an awesome talking sword, but Senel was actually in the marine, soooooooo. Oh lulz fighting experience. We tipped our hat off to Viva Tales of and how Jade and Zelos made the greatest duo ever, complained about Bamco's bad marketing choices and lack of title release here, cheered on the new one that looks very shiny that is in production, and whined about Vesperia and Graces PS3 and if either of those will ever come to NA.
Tamara, one of the girls that I ran the panel with, also did an awesome powerpoint, which consisted of a bunch of Tales wallpapers that I picked out from the official site and such. For anyone interested to have a pack of Tales wallpaper made with official art, from the artist, anime cutscene, or/and in-game sprite, here's the download link:
Here!~
There's over 80 images, and should have something from every title (except Tempest forgive me ahaha ;;; ). :3 I think I'll put them up as scrolling background myself once I get my tower back, since Windows 7 lets you have a changing background for every x amount of time.
All in all I had a blast, though I do worry that maybe I spoke too fast, was too loud, or spoke too MUCH. XD; But if the other girls felt good about it and would be interested again next year, I'll definitely redo!
And as for Type-Moon, I was actually surprised once I noted that most people in the room knew T-M through Tsukihime and not from Fate/Stay Night the anime! Then again, maybe I shouldn't. People who only saw the anime wouldn't even KNOW about Type-Moon. :|a I saw a Lancer on Friday, and a Rin and Saber on Saturday; none showed. EITHER WAY. We've made quite a few references to all the most well-known memes (I grabbed a chair and slammed it down at the front. I had to.), looked over all routes in Fate and Tsukihime, discussed the Tsukihime/Melty blood manga, cried over G-Akiha, touched upon Kagetsu Tohya, Tsukihime Plus Disc, Fate/Hollow Ataraxia and its translation progress, and "Angel Talk". Did some comparison of Shiki and Shirou, and running a "raise your hand on your favorite protag", of course Shiki won again... Then we hopped on the inevitable bad H-scenes, how Shiki is just mean in bed while Shirou's just 'herp derp', and pffft I actually spent at least 5 minutes going on why I liked Ciel which I did for no one else, not even Gil, pffffffffffft-. I also shall admit to be guilty of using subject matters I saw on Beast's Lair (though I did ask the room who knew about BL and /fate/ - no one, actually. XD;)... Like Shiki being heartless in bed. Eg: how Arc asked him to be gentle and he piledrived her, and with Ciel it was literally surpraiz buttsecs!!!1!, XD;;;; Not sure if that bored people or actually entertained them, but the crowd was of a similar size to my Tales panel, I think? And again I don't think that many people left, and these who stayed raised their hands quite a few times, which is something that I was really happy to see and kept an eye out for, since comment from audience = awesome for you, for it means that 1. they're listening to you and 2. they're interested, hence engaged too. :33 The guy who ran it with me also bought his Nendoroid Shiki Ryougi and mini Ilya, which I coo'd over, and there was another UBW!Gil cosplayer ajdfhkjgh ♥ His Ea was nicer and could spin at the hilt, *___* I'd say I'm jealous, but... not really, actually. XD; I admired it, but I'm good with what I had, :3 We also took pictures together! I'll post those later, ahaha. ;; WE AGREED THAT THE THRONE OF HEROES/AKASHA GLITCHED, SO THAT'S WHY THERE'S TWO OF US.
Then we speculated over Mahono and UBW the movie and how awesome it's going to be, and... honestly I could have gone on too. Like Battle Moon Wars, Unlimited Codes, and so on. I also recc'd Fate/Zero like it's nobody's business ("It's by Nitro+, the company that did Saya no Uta, and you can find it on Baka-Tsuki! Google it! *__*") and a person there apparently didn't know Irisviel was Ilya's mom, making Kiritsugu her dad. I guess it WAS a spoiler and I explained how it was done, that Kiri's sperm was artificially implemented into Iri's body, and how SAD it was because Kiri tried to go back to Ilya after the war but never could, which is why she THINKS her daddy abandoned her, and... ;_; The guys complained why Ilya didn't summon Bahsahkah as Lancer/Archer since he would've steamrolled through everything, which was interesting to listen to. XD And then I remarked on the EX Missions in F/UC, such as Shirou's which was basically dodging bullets shot by Ilya while she drove on the Berser-car. :3333
SURPRISINGLY there WAS a guy who didn't know who Archer was! He started on speculating and we were all like OH IF YOU DON'T KNOW NOW WE'RE NOT SAYING ANYTHING GO READ FOR YOURSELF. I actually didn't see it coming and never got that part spoiled for me, so hopefully this'll be preserved for that guy too. My wig also sort of fell off during the panel, herp, but overall, I felt like it went nicely, too! So that boosted my confidence as well, which is why I'm thinking of trying that again next year too.
Also dipped by the Game room later that night to play some melty bread. They only had Act Cadenza and no Neko-Arc, which made me sad, but I had fun!~
TL;DR: First time running panels at a convention = AWESOME. I had loads of fun, talked about stuff I love, got the audience into it and involved (or so I'd like to think), and we never ran out of things to say. The hour for both panels went by really fast, and I can only hope that the people who attended had as much fun as I did. This might be my first, but it was definitely really enjoyable, and the good impression that it left on me do truly encourage me to repeat again next year - and who knows? I think I'll try to run a Fire Emblem panel in 2011. Maybe a Persona one too, we'll see... :|a
...Lol I might actually help out at the Touhou panel next year now that I think about it. There was 2 this year, but they were by the same group of people in French and honestly... Rather dull. Explaining to people about the cultural references in Gensokyo and what grazing, death-bombing, and these stuff are is just... boring. 8|; I know the people meant well, but it was honestly a drag, so friends and I will highly likely try to host one next year in English with richer content. I mean, when I'm at a panel and it feels like I'm listening to a college oral presentation... Yeaaah that doesn't feel right, 8|;;;
2. LOOTS
OTL Well so much for that.
I found Sakura Matou 1/8 PVC F/HA Battle Ver. for 60$. ...I got it on the spot; buying online+shipping would round up to that much, if not more, so I'm happy with it. ♥ It's sitting on my desk now; I really should take pictures soon. Also got Nendoroid Ryougi Shiki she is SO ADORABLE /puts on cat eats and leaves on forever. I can't wait to get my NekoArc Nendoroid so I can have them one next to the other. :3
ALSO BOUGHT DOUJINSHI.
Found Type-Moon Complex 01 by CCC for 30$. The infamous one where SHIKI CAN KILL SERVANTS. Also Another Mobius, the absolutely fantastic one that featured Caster. It was 16$ US so less than 20CAN. ...I honestly think "Another Mobius" is my best purchase at the con, holy shit. I mean I've read most of these from the packs archived on Tatari when it was still there, translated, even, but seeing them in person was a totally different story. There was also that one that featured Yuri between Rin and Sakura and I could recall clearly the story because I read the scanlations in which it was Rin trying to fill in for Shirou even when she knows she can't - despite the porn, it was actually really touching and sad, f-fff ;; Reading porn for story there must be something wrong with me 8|; The same booth had the original MB and MB Re-Act CD on sale, but hnnnnnnnnnnnng- I mean I have those on my computer, so I didn't get them. Was so, so tempted, aaah. ;;
On the Tales side they were selling ToS mystery box figurines. I DO love Kotobukiya's stuff and now that my ToS drive cooled down, I'd be happy with anyone, I picked one up.
Scored Presea with Diablos. ♥♥♥ I am okay with this. I am very okay with this. And then I did more shopping for other people, like a Lilith figurine from NightStalkers? Morrigan's sister, something by Capcom, a Touhou remix CD, for my friend Chaz, and a Vocaloid plushie for pseudo-geek's birthday. :3
OVERALL. I ate out with friends, met up with like EVERYONE I KNEW IN MONTREAL (seriously, between work friends, highschool friends whose names I BARELY remembered, CEGEP friends, and others, I kept running into people the entire weekend), hanged out with them, suffered together through cosplay discomfort with them, and... despite getting gypped out of the good hours for my Tales panel, it was a really fun year. I really look forward to Otakuthon again next year. Hopefully cosplaying as Aya from Touhou, among others. I'd love to pull Ciel, but we'll see. Battle Dress would be AMAZING, but I lack the tits and ajdkfhkjghkj body paint. orz;
So yes. My body still hurts right now, but it was worth it. ♥ Now off to bed, hnng.