Makoto Shinkai English Fan Forum and Site

Laz · Laz Joined: 09 Jan 2008 Posts: 1073

I'm not sure if any of you are Con goers. I've gone to a few over the past few years ... AnimeUSA, Otako and Katsucon. If so, please post about your experiences, what you liked/didn't like, etc. here.

Laz

Laz · Laz Joined: 09 Jan 2008 Posts: 1073

Kotsucon is held in Washing to, DC. USA. I live up the road in Baltimore so this is about an hour away by car and train (yes I paid attention while in the trains and Shinkai's trains are much cooler to ride on than the Metro in DC).

The hotel that houses the Con was very nice an there was a good layout, though it did get congested in the hallways at times when panels let out. When going to Cons, always try to pre-register ... it will save you time and hassel when you get there.

On Friday night, I saw a live action production of DeathNote, which was pretty good. I couldn't read the sub and there was no dub, but if you know the storyline .. it wasn't hard to figure out what was going on. The cool thing about this was how they wrapped up. Obviously you can't have a 2 hour movie that covers all of DeathNote, so they focused on the first half. They too some creative license with the plot but I thought it was actually better than the anime.

The Video Game room at Kotsucon was the best I've been through, mainly because they had old school stand up arcade games. I got to play DOnkey Kong, Ms Pac-Man, centipede and I even got in the top 10 scores on Robotron. For us old timers, game like these defined a good 10-15 year span in our lives Smile

On Saturday, I hit the dealer room and got some great deals on manga .. 10 for $40 and I also got some t-shirts. The highlight of the dealer room was I saw a 1/350 scale model of the Space Battle Ship Yamato for sale. My friend was reading the price and he's like ... I think it's $450! I took a look and it was $4,500. That extra "0" makes a difference.

After the dealer room, I went to a panel on Anime Clubs (I'm trying to get a Genshiken style club going in my city) and sat in on a panel on how to play "Go". Also dropped in on a Geek Comedy panel that was pretty funny.

I didn't see any Shinkai related stuff ... no panels (maybe I should have one at one of these Cons) and nothing for sale in the dealer room (posters, etc.). It would be cool if they put out a figure of the Tracer .. that is a nice piece of mecha ... and maybe a model of the velaciela too.

Anyway ... If you get a chance to go to a Con, they can be lots of fun.

Laz

Menasha · vc_bios_b960909 Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 822

I've never been to a convention as of yet but I do plan on going. I don't find it to surprising that there was no panels of Makoto Shinkai I think alot of people that are even into anime don't know about him haha!

I don't base that on much... just a feeling.

Though I resently found out there's an anime convention in my city of Calgary anually so next time around I'm going to check it out!

Menasha · vc_bios_b960909 Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 822

By the way what exactly do you mean by a Genshiken style club. I've never read the manga, but I'm just assuming it's basically like film study except a much brooder medium range?

Laz · Laz Joined: 09 Jan 2008 Posts: 1073

In the anime and manga the genshiken is kind of a catch-all club at the university where the story takes place. The Genshiken includes anime, manga, gaming and cosplay ... so it's not strictly focused on one specific interest. Since most of people who like one of those are usually into the others as well, it just makes sense.

I highly recommend the manga and anime, if you haven't seen it yet.

Laz

gleowine · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 7:05 pm Post subject:

Is anyone going to DragonCon in Atlanta, USA? Unfortunately, I couldn't go this year. But last year when I went, they had an Anime track that had more to do with Cartoon Network's Adult Swim than with Japanese anime discussion.

A "track" is what they call a schedule of panels and programs dealing with a particular topic. This year they've decided to add one specifically for Japanese anime. If anyone is going, I'd like to know what your thoughts were on this new track. Was it worth attending?

zitch · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 9:18 pm Post subject:

The only conventions I've gone to are local, Mechacon (anime) for the first couple years it was out, but I really didn't find anything there to keep going. I didn't find anything I would have wanted in the dealers room and they weren't showing any anime I had even the slightest interest in that I didn't already watch before. So it was largely a big waste of time, and I was spending it with a large group of strangers, many in crappy costumes.

I did go to Babelcon (Sci-fi/fantasy) in Baton Rouge this year and surprisingly found it more fun than Mechacon. They did have an anime room up and that's where I spent most of my time as, a) I knew the guy that was running it, and b) he was actually showing some more interesting anime, like stuff from the 80s and more obscure titles.

Looks like I might become anime director for Babelcon next year, but I'll see. They want to start appealing to younger generations at the convention for next year, and the big thing right now are anime and comics (both Japanese manga and American graphic novels), so they're expanding their anime line to help draw in more. If I do end up working for Babelcon, I do want to squeeze some Shinkai in there, of course... Wink

But that will depend more on the convention's priorities.

Junpei · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 9:07 am Post subject:

http://animania.net.au/2008/sydney-august/festival-info

Looks like I missed out another anime convention yet again. The one earlier on this year I missed because I couldn't find it in the city when I went, now this one I don't even know where it is. I do actually but I've never even heard of the suburb before.

Nick · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 11:12 am Post subject:

I've never been to a convention of any kind. They sound fun though.
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gleowine · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 8:23 pm Post subject: