Day 1:
My first anime convention ever was AnimeIowa 2009, I believe. At a mere 3,000 people, it was a nice introduction to cons at the tender age of 19. Since then, I’ve hit AnimeIowa every year and have been to MAGFest, the music and gaming convention in National Harbor, Maryland, the last two years.
So when I go from 3,000 to 9,000 to 12,000 (the second year of MAGFest) to 30,000 it’s a bit of a shock. That’s nearly three times the size of the previous biggest con I went to and the Exhibit Hall itself is probably bigger than AnimeIowa as a whole.
Hell, there is an entire booth dedicated to gunpla that’s bigger than some of the DVD and manga booths at AnimeIowa (and you can bet I’ll be buying a few gunpla for myself!)
The first day was spent in a car for about six hours, traveling from my humble state of Iowa into the crazy lands of Chicago, Illinois (or at least just outside it). And after that, I spent a lot of time in the Exhibit Hall just trying to take it all in. The first panel I attended didn’t happen until 4:30 p.m. when I hit “The History of Mythology and Manga with Crispin Freeman and Helen McCarthy.” I’ll tell you, if you ever have a chance to see either Crispin or Helen speak, DO IT. They are both brilliant minds and I was lucky to see them. Helen was actually at AnimeIowa in 2010, but I was naive and didn’t know who she was. I missed out on a more intimate venue and I regret it.
The real treat for me was seeing Charles Dunbar do his Kill la Kill panel, this time entitled “Kill la Kill and the Transformation of Old Legends.” I did not only gain a greater understanding of Kill la Kill as a show, I learned about Japanese mythology and history. Briefly, each of these characters represent important mythological figures in Japanese lore and Charles breaks it down brilliantly. I love the show even more after seeing him speak.
It’s a funny story, actually, of how I got into the panel. The room was capped at 60 people (why they were holding a Kill la Kill panel with a cap of 60 is beyond me) and the staff cut off at a certain point in the line, me being last. There were three stragglers who came in after me, so I didn’t end up being last in the room, just last in the line. But I was THAT close to missing out and I’m so glad I stuck around.
Day one of the convention was tiring, mostly from that six hour drive and just not being used to walking around that much. Day two has Wake Up Girls concert in store, so I hope I can get into that too.
Day 2:
I have to say, day two of Anime Central was much better than day one. Not only did it NOT include six hours of driving, but I also knew where a lot more things where. The panel rooms to the left of the Exhibit Hall, more panel rooms a floor above, and that other hotel with things I don’t care about. Oh also that TARDIS.
Ok, I guess the second hotel had one thing I cared about, a Super Smash Brothers Melee tournament. I didn’t get to participate since you had to sign up ahead of time and they were at capacity 10 minutes beforehand, when I got there. It’s a little unfortunate, but when you go from 9,000 people (when I participated in the Melee tournament at MAGFest) to 30,000, I guess you gotta turn people away.
This was also the day I hit up Vertical’s booth and finally bought some stuff. I picked up Twin Knights, finally, after reviewing Princess Knight for Deconstructing Comics a while back. I also got Utsubora, Velveteen and Mandala, and Flowers of Evil volumes 1-3. The former two were on suggestions from contemporaries Chris Kirby and Tom Zoth, so I don’t know what to expect. They like Love Live!, but they also like Milky Holmes. So it’s all over the place.
I don’t go to conventions to buy things though—ok, I don’t JUST go to conventions to buy things. THe main draw for me is the panels. And if I haven’t said just how important it is to see Helen McCarthy speak, then I haven’t done my job here yet. Seriously, go see her talk about stuff. I saw her Anime Encyclopedia panel and just hearing about the publishing world and her journey through it is fascinating.
I also hit up Crispin Freeman’s Q&A panel, which was your typical voice actor Q&A, and the beginning and end of the From the New World screening with director Chris Ayres and Saki actress Emily Neves. The screening just proved how excited I was at the beginning, how much the journey let me down, and how well it ended.
Most important part of day two was that I missed the Wake Up Girls! concert because I lost track of time, and was also picking up some yaoi for a friend back home, but I hear it was awesome. Now I’m bummed I missed it.
Day 3:
I hit two panels day three, same as one and two (I think), but they were back to back, so it seems like it was a lot more panels than any other day.
First off, I saw a previous of Helen McCarthy’s upcoming book, A Brief History of Manga. It looks REALLY GOOD and, from what I heard at the panel, I really want to buy it and read it.
The second panel I hit was Yoshitoshi ABe’s Future of Digital Manga panel. The name is a bit of a misnomer, as it didn’t really have to do with the future of digital manga, but the present. He laid out how he made manga, which was really fascinating. There was also a piece of art he did of Oreimo, drawing Kirino in his trademark style, which was absolutely gorgeous.
After this panel, I finally caught up with Twitter buddy @manjiorin, which marks the first time I’ve met someone online and then met them in person. We didn’t have much time, since we both had our respective things to do at the time, but I’d love to hang out again and especially meet more people at these convention things.
