Sakura Con~ It's Over!
Sakura Con was last Friday to Sunday (Easter Weekend) and is the local anime convention for Washington. I went the Thursday before to pick up my badge, and attended the con on Friday and Saturday (had to attend family event on Sunday), and I have to say, it was one of my favorite years for Sakura Con.
Last year, most of my group of 10 cosplayed as Final Fantasy 7 and we all got a ton of group photos. We had a Cid, Aeris (me), Cloud, Zack,Yuffie, Two Tifas and than three people who didn't travel with us, I just signed them up. We all ran around having a blast, got a ton of photos, bought a CRAP lot of art and yaoi and generally had the time of our lives. I even got a picture of Sephiroth killing me~
This year, we didn't cosplay as a group, though we tried really fucking hard to get a FMA:B Homonculus group together, but there was only a Sloth, Lust (me) and two Greeds. My gloves didn't turn out quite the way I wanted and I'm going to try and fix them better over the year, and my hair color kinda left over the day so I have to say that the whole Lust costume was an overall failed experiment. But I know how to fix it and that's all good.
That was on Friday, and on Saturday I went with my ol' reliable Aeris costume~ I got a ton of pictures taken of me, a couple comments on how cute I was, a few on how they loved my basket of flowers (and yaoi) and one comment on how I was the best Aeris there, even if my dress wasn't split yet. I think it's 'cause I modified the dress and jacket instead of making them fresh like the rest of the Aeris's.... Aeriss... Aeriths? w/e
I went to a TON of panels this year.
Friday
Creating Manga with Daisuke Moriyama and Atsushi Suzumi: This was mostly these amazing Mangaka talking about their process and how they create their manga -- they also discussed if they thought that Americans could create manga like in Japan (general consences: No, it'd be different from Manga and American Comics though, unique)
Gulit|Pleasure: Creating a BL Circle: This was with an American doujin circle and they're the first doujin circle that is published in Japan that started in America. They also talked about how to make manga, and about creating a group of different talents, writing and drawing for example. It was rather encouraging, but at the same time, discouraging because they made it feel like creating doujinshi about other people's comics wasn't as good as creating original work -- Even thought they didn't think that way, that was how it felt afterwards.
AMVs that Inspired Us to Buy the Anime: Exactly how it sounds. It was an AMV marathon of badass AMVs. Including last year's amv contest winner --- two hours after it aired, every copy of the anime was sold out in the Dealer's Room, including their weekend supplies. That amv was..... Hold Me Now for Princess Tutu. I know, Princess Tutu The Magical Girl series that has ballet instead of fighting. But, this AMV made this series look BADASS. This was a whole hell of a lot of fun =)
Coming to a Theater Near You: AMVs that were to the audio of actual movie trailers =) It was awesome, and I don't remember a single one.
Saturday
Fencing Demo: That's right! A European sport at Sakura Con! Weird right?! It was super cool though and I got to see a bunch of people dueling in the middle of a giant room and I got a video of a Saber Fight =D
Cosplay Skit Contest: This one was interesting. It was my first year watching this contest, and it was soooooo worth going. I got to Gaara and Lee cosplayers have a dance off. Gaara soooooooooo won. Because he's Gaara of the Funk. It ended in an adorable GaaLee moment and I keep watching it once it was posted to the acparadise website. Unfortunately it's not on Youtube. This makes me sad....
Iron Editor: This is the first year that Sakura Con had the Iron Editor, which is an AMV creation contest where two competitors must make an AMV in two hours using at least three of five anime sources and one secret ingrediant which MUST be used. And for those two hours the viewers could watch them work -- But since that's boring, VicBond007 hosted entertainment. We all watched AMVs, played anime naming games (I soooo should have participated. I knew more than all of the conestants it seemed xD) and generally had a good time. And the AMVs produced through out this? Have to be some of the best AMVs I've ever seen. For real.
Fujoshi and Boys Love: Oooooooh this was fun. The woman running the panel was writing her thesis on Boys Love in comics >w< So she mostly went over the details of Boys Love, the implications, and there were discussions on a few things, like if shouta con should be legal or why lesbians like yaoi (I say it's because yuri is badly drawn)
Yaoi and You: Pretty much exactly the same as Fujosh and Boys Love, the woman also was basically writing her thesis on Yaoi in comics, but this was a rated MA panel. So, we got to talk about the actual acts of sex in the manga, not just vague discriptions. I met someone here who was cosplaying a character from Inazuma Eleven and convinced me to watch a few episodes =) It was over all a very fun panel, and I need to find a yaoi titled translated to Slaying of the Gentle Dragon.
There was a ton of pictures taken, a TON of yaoi bought, and after my group's yaoi and picture exchange, I'll post the pictures here =) We got some good ones~