Otakon Day 2 of 4 Part 2 of 2
Sorry I haven't been posting these as much as I would like to...been doing a lot more housework than usual lately, plus I locked halfway through my last one.
Anyhow, I think I was talking about the various dealers and the like...ah yes. Image Anime had their usual massive wall space as well as the end of a row, being the only Naruto headband dealers...marking up the price throughout the show. Wasn't worth $50 to me. They didn't seem to have much variety, just one or two of everything, which is cool and all, but by the time I was ready to make berserk spending decisions($70 for the 217th Optimus Prime rerelease, $90 for the 1/60th Strike Gundam with all of the armor packs), they were sold out. Definate lack of Zoids this year...just as well, save for the notably absent DA Lizards Blox/Z-Builders kit with the VHS tape, there was nothing you couldn't get at Toys R Us...hell, they even apparently released Irvine's Command Wolf in America...now if they'd just release Chaotic Century on DVD...
Wizzywig was a bit dissapointing for me this year. It used to be an old fallback of mine for mecha kits, manga anthologies, and toys and the like. Now they seem to only deal in the current fad plushies, toycrack and cards(and we all know how I feel about how they sell toycrack), list price DVDs and whatever mechakits they had left over, as well as a swag deal with Megatokyo. A lot of dealers left me wanting. Pandora's Cube had neat stuff out the wazoo, but nothing particularly rare or worth their prices. Their import selection was skimpy at best, mostly riddled with games that will be out in America at or around Christmas. Nothing spectacular outside of all of that. They had a used N64 for like $50. Again, mall, $30. They seemed to have more domestic games than anything else. Their toys and kits were nothing out of the ordinary either. They did discount VHS though. All of Gasaraki for $18...I should have moved on it. They were apparently selling bootlegs too. Ah well. Didn't mark down anything old or new...to think I was thinking of getting an X-Box(for once) too...ah well.
Kinokuniya Books was definately THE place for Import manga. Close to yen prices, good stock of well, everything, great people to deal with. Sasuga's "less is more" attitude certainly didn't win me over...niether did their overpriced grabbags or insane special editions, but to each his own. Then of course comes my Tekkoshocon-ian rants and raves about what belongs in the dealer room and what doesn't. Robert DeJesus. Great artist, didn't need a booth though. That should have been in the artist's alley. Japan Trips, other con advertising, and Dreamworks films: artist's alley or elsewhere. Most of them didn't get much walking traffic, and there seemed to be a lot of empty room in the artist's alley where they could have gone.
I did make some more purchases though...got Dancougar 1-6 and Dallos(world's first OVA) on VHS for $20 total, as well as V-Jump's Xenogears strategy guide. Great maps. After some shopping my sister and I decided to make for the game room and artist's alley. On the way we took the escalator to the ground floor, and I joked with the staffers at the door about when it was due to break. They didn't seem to think it was as funny as I did, and yelled at me about it. Now, I don't have anyting against staffers...ok, I do. If you're not having a good time, don't make it everyone else's problem. Especially the people that are making your hotel and admissions reimbursement possible. Most of them are ok and found a way to have a good time despite being under scrutiny. Some of them were cranky and abused their power. I heard that some of them were putting their hands on people. Some would bitch to their supervisor and on their blog about it. That's assault though. I've lost all patience with stupidity in the last 4 months. Just a rule of thumb. Don't piss off people in a room full of swords.
Game room and Art Show: NOT OPEN. Until 3 at least. There was a massive line for both though...I remember it being open sooner last year. Neither are particularly hard to set up, what with how typical console installation takes about 2 minutes. I would imagine that the hard part would be getting those sweetass RGB projectors going properly. Unless they're using bootswap for the import games, then they're asking for trouble. Anyhow...
We took a little bit of a walk. Nothing much going on. Got some pictures. Naruto was definately the cosplay thing this year. I was glad. Outside of being a big Naruto fan(sporting my swanky Kakashi pin Diana got me the whole time ^_^), it's nice to see that people were making a genuine effort with the costumes...never been a big fan of "this was in my closet" cosplay...some of the homebrew headbands were nicers than the Bandai ones. We got to the 35mm theatre for Char's Counterattack at 3:30...really nice seats, was dissapointed that not as many people turned up for it this year...I guess that's sort of a side effect of its DVD release and CN runs. God I love that movie. Fan participationg was pretty good. If you were there, I was the one that started the slow applause when Quess got killed. Gotta keep with tradition ^_^. After that was the Madhouse Panel. At just Maruyama and the Trigun director, sans banners and footage, it was a far cry from last year's panel. Wish I could have done TMR's panel...oh well...fucking schedule. Maruyama monopolized the panel, transscript's over at AnimeOnDVD(the scribe was sitting just behind us.) There was a lot of talk about Hajime no Ippo and the upcoming Gungrave and Tenge Tengyo(sp?) anime...I could have asked the final question, but I choked. We hit the hotel room after that and dumped off my purchases and got my traditional mall chinese Otakon dinner, then hit the game room. Lotsa Soul Calibur 2. Lots of Halo, lots of Smash Brothers. They had a couple of Viewtiful Joes running, which I didn't get to play. Got to mess with the new F-Zero. I suck at it, but it's pretty sweet. Reminds me a little too much of Wipeout for my liking. There were a lot of NeoGeo MVS cabinets running...all fighting games. There was 8 player LAN Halo going on Projectors, as well as what looked to be an SNK vs Capcom on another. Still liked it better last year. Art room closed the gallery way too early. The artists were good though. Not that I think any of them would do my commision(heh heh heh...) Ran into Joel, who was part of the Otakon group from 2001, we reminisced a lot and talked about a few things. I might become an X-Box convert yet. Played some Puzzle Figther with him until they closed the game room early(11:30!).The rave was alright. They played the Strong Bad Techno song and some remixes, didn't dance, just watched the ravers. With those glow sticks they look like they're all trying to kill eachother with lightsabers in the darkness(and through digicam screens). When all was said and done, Friday was a great day. Tune in next time for SATURDAY!
See you next time.
Anyhow, I think I was talking about the various dealers and the like...ah yes. Image Anime had their usual massive wall space as well as the end of a row, being the only Naruto headband dealers...marking up the price throughout the show. Wasn't worth $50 to me. They didn't seem to have much variety, just one or two of everything, which is cool and all, but by the time I was ready to make berserk spending decisions($70 for the 217th Optimus Prime rerelease, $90 for the 1/60th Strike Gundam with all of the armor packs), they were sold out. Definate lack of Zoids this year...just as well, save for the notably absent DA Lizards Blox/Z-Builders kit with the VHS tape, there was nothing you couldn't get at Toys R Us...hell, they even apparently released Irvine's Command Wolf in America...now if they'd just release Chaotic Century on DVD...
Wizzywig was a bit dissapointing for me this year. It used to be an old fallback of mine for mecha kits, manga anthologies, and toys and the like. Now they seem to only deal in the current fad plushies, toycrack and cards(and we all know how I feel about how they sell toycrack), list price DVDs and whatever mechakits they had left over, as well as a swag deal with Megatokyo. A lot of dealers left me wanting. Pandora's Cube had neat stuff out the wazoo, but nothing particularly rare or worth their prices. Their import selection was skimpy at best, mostly riddled with games that will be out in America at or around Christmas. Nothing spectacular outside of all of that. They had a used N64 for like $50. Again, mall, $30. They seemed to have more domestic games than anything else. Their toys and kits were nothing out of the ordinary either. They did discount VHS though. All of Gasaraki for $18...I should have moved on it. They were apparently selling bootlegs too. Ah well. Didn't mark down anything old or new...to think I was thinking of getting an X-Box(for once) too...ah well.
Kinokuniya Books was definately THE place for Import manga. Close to yen prices, good stock of well, everything, great people to deal with. Sasuga's "less is more" attitude certainly didn't win me over...niether did their overpriced grabbags or insane special editions, but to each his own. Then of course comes my Tekkoshocon-ian rants and raves about what belongs in the dealer room and what doesn't. Robert DeJesus. Great artist, didn't need a booth though. That should have been in the artist's alley. Japan Trips, other con advertising, and Dreamworks films: artist's alley or elsewhere. Most of them didn't get much walking traffic, and there seemed to be a lot of empty room in the artist's alley where they could have gone.
I did make some more purchases though...got Dancougar 1-6 and Dallos(world's first OVA) on VHS for $20 total, as well as V-Jump's Xenogears strategy guide. Great maps. After some shopping my sister and I decided to make for the game room and artist's alley. On the way we took the escalator to the ground floor, and I joked with the staffers at the door about when it was due to break. They didn't seem to think it was as funny as I did, and yelled at me about it. Now, I don't have anyting against staffers...ok, I do. If you're not having a good time, don't make it everyone else's problem. Especially the people that are making your hotel and admissions reimbursement possible. Most of them are ok and found a way to have a good time despite being under scrutiny. Some of them were cranky and abused their power. I heard that some of them were putting their hands on people. Some would bitch to their supervisor and on their blog about it. That's assault though. I've lost all patience with stupidity in the last 4 months. Just a rule of thumb. Don't piss off people in a room full of swords.
Game room and Art Show: NOT OPEN. Until 3 at least. There was a massive line for both though...I remember it being open sooner last year. Neither are particularly hard to set up, what with how typical console installation takes about 2 minutes. I would imagine that the hard part would be getting those sweetass RGB projectors going properly. Unless they're using bootswap for the import games, then they're asking for trouble. Anyhow...
We took a little bit of a walk. Nothing much going on. Got some pictures. Naruto was definately the cosplay thing this year. I was glad. Outside of being a big Naruto fan(sporting my swanky Kakashi pin Diana got me the whole time ^_^), it's nice to see that people were making a genuine effort with the costumes...never been a big fan of "this was in my closet" cosplay...some of the homebrew headbands were nicers than the Bandai ones. We got to the 35mm theatre for Char's Counterattack at 3:30...really nice seats, was dissapointed that not as many people turned up for it this year...I guess that's sort of a side effect of its DVD release and CN runs. God I love that movie. Fan participationg was pretty good. If you were there, I was the one that started the slow applause when Quess got killed. Gotta keep with tradition ^_^. After that was the Madhouse Panel. At just Maruyama and the Trigun director, sans banners and footage, it was a far cry from last year's panel. Wish I could have done TMR's panel...oh well...fucking schedule. Maruyama monopolized the panel, transscript's over at AnimeOnDVD(the scribe was sitting just behind us.) There was a lot of talk about Hajime no Ippo and the upcoming Gungrave and Tenge Tengyo(sp?) anime...I could have asked the final question, but I choked. We hit the hotel room after that and dumped off my purchases and got my traditional mall chinese Otakon dinner, then hit the game room. Lotsa Soul Calibur 2. Lots of Halo, lots of Smash Brothers. They had a couple of Viewtiful Joes running, which I didn't get to play. Got to mess with the new F-Zero. I suck at it, but it's pretty sweet. Reminds me a little too much of Wipeout for my liking. There were a lot of NeoGeo MVS cabinets running...all fighting games. There was 8 player LAN Halo going on Projectors, as well as what looked to be an SNK vs Capcom on another. Still liked it better last year. Art room closed the gallery way too early. The artists were good though. Not that I think any of them would do my commision(heh heh heh...) Ran into Joel, who was part of the Otakon group from 2001, we reminisced a lot and talked about a few things. I might become an X-Box convert yet. Played some Puzzle Figther with him until they closed the game room early(11:30!).The rave was alright. They played the Strong Bad Techno song and some remixes, didn't dance, just watched the ravers. With those glow sticks they look like they're all trying to kill eachother with lightsabers in the darkness(and through digicam screens). When all was said and done, Friday was a great day. Tune in next time for SATURDAY!
See you next time.