The main stage’s programs were a colorful mix of the whole convention: fashion-show, the newest Star Trek movie’s screening, parapara, AMV collections, etc. Of course the cosplay competition also took place here. The usual craftsmanship and performance categories remained, while the third, new EuroCosplay competition was introduced for the second time this year.
Because of the nature of this event, not only anime cosplays were allowed to participate in the competition. There were few participants, so for the craftsmanship category, registering was also possible at the convention. Because of this, the average standard was a bit lower then the usual, nevertheless, there were many nice creations. Another novelty was the original category, for those who wanted to create their own character or an outfit for an existing character.
Interestingly, the Star Wars universe was not present in the competition (but outside of it, now that’s another matter), and only one participant was competing from Star Trek. Hopefully next time we will see more participants from these two legendary fandoms.
The EuroCosplay had 5 participants who demonstrated a great show with costumes of high standard. Aside from comics, games and animes, Avatar’s Neytiri was also present in this contest, who became also one of the con’s favourite character over the day.

To sum it up, this was a great, friendly and colorful convention. The location was convenient, the crowd split up evenly in the big hall. The staff and helpers did their best to make this event as successful and memorable as possible. The Hungarians finally have a mixed, multi-fandom and genre convention where everyone can enjoy themselves. We are looking forward to the next HoldfényCon, which, hopefully, will offer us more interesting new things.

Written by Ms.Tifa, translated by Mantis.

?

Overview

FanimeCon 2010 started on a beautiful Friday morning on May 28th, lasting until May 31st for Memorial Day weekend.  Thousands of adults and teenagers alike swarmed the Downtown San Jose Convention Center to enjoy their Japan-filled-weekend.

The special guests for this year’s FanimeCon included the Visual Kei band LM.C, Halko Momoi, Daisuke Ishiwatari, Toshimichi Mori, Mamoru Yokota, FLOW, Karen Dyer, Reuben Langdon,  Hiroyuki Yamaga, Carl Gustav Horn, Gilles Poitras, Jonathan Osborne, Ric Meyers, Keith Burgess and Ryan Gavigan.

FanimeCon first started out as a group of  anime clubs fifteen years ago in 1994 at California State University, Hayward. Today it has exploded as a leading convention on the West Coast with more than 15,000 attendees (according to their 2009 release).  FanimeCon catches the attention of approximately 2,000 new attendees each year with their new guests, events, and their famous Masquerade event.

Day One – Friday

FanimeCon started bright and early at 9:00AM. Cosplayers swarmed the main hall with groups and gatherings such as Heaven System, Capcom VS SNK, Fight Games, Avatar, and Tales Of (…). Friday also held anime shows like Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, the re-made Jungle Emperor Leo 2009, Slayers, Akira, Baccano, and Durarara!!.

While there are always many things to do at FanimeCon, there are events that Fanime likes to highlight for con-goers, and they are generally where you can see the amazing guests that are invited. On Friday some of the guests got their time.

Jonathan Osborne had his “A Decade of Death” panel and Q&A in the Mariott starting at 5:00PM. Jonathan is also known as the “Man of 1,000 Deaths” for his many roles in anime voice acting with dying characters. If you aren’t one who knows much about anime, or a parent who was dragged along by your young ones, you could join the “Anime Expert” Gilles Poitras with his panel “Anime For Parents”. Gilles Poitras had written numerous book titles such as “The Anime Companion”, “Everything A Fan Needs To Know” and a routine writer for magazine Otaku USA and Newtype USA.

Other panels included “Anime is Pin-up!” with Keith Burgess; an anime voice actor, script writer, and graphic designer. His voice work included Street Fighter Alpha and Neon Genesis Evangelion movies, Dead Leaves and Karas.  “Reuben and CAPCOM – Mo-Cap and Action!” with Reuben Langdon.  Reuben is known for a lot of work, most notably Dante from the Devil May Cry series, in which he both was the motion capture actor and English voice actor. There was also a Kung-Fu extravaganza with Ric Meyers, a martial artist who worked with some documentaries and alongside Jackie Chan.

Toward the end of the day the music fest just began with the Japanese rock band FLOW in the Civic Auditorium. Their rocking out performance gathered a large crowd, filling out the Auditorium.  FLOW is comprised of 5 members KOHSHI (Vocal), KEIGO (Vocal, TAKE (Guitar), GOTS (Bass), and IWASAKI (Drums). They are known for their anime theme songs from shows like Naruto, Code Geass, Psalms of Planets, Eureka Seven, and Persona.

If music wasn’t your thing and you wanted to get some extra cash, or maybe wanted to find your Holy Grail item, at 8:00PM Fanime held its yearly Swap Meet. The swap meet is a treasure trove of used and new items that fans collected over time and now need to make a little room by selling their collections and goods.

Day 2 – Saturday

This is the big day for most conventions. Come Saturday morning the temperatures started to rise extremely high. Con-goers battled the heat by heading indoors for the opening of the Dealer’s Room starting at 10:00AM. The Dealer’s Room was packed full of people browsing around for the newest and coolest goods. Rows of vendor booths filled the large exhibit hall. Pokemon, Naruto, Bleach, K-ON, and more can be found stacked up, dangling, and taped down along the booths. You could buy the largest Pikachu plush or the cutest phone charm of your favorite anime character. The Dealer’s Room truly had it all.

Today was also the day of meeting up with the special guest Halko Momoi for Autographs. Halko Momoi is known as a spectacular musician and entertainer, for her roles in anime and video games such as Anise Tatlin from Tales of the Abyss, Komugi from Nurse Witch Komugi, and is also the star of her own Internet Video Channel called “Akihaba-Love”. She also founded a J-Pop label called AKIHABA LOVE RECORDS.

Later that night starting at 6:30PM came the biggest event of them all. As Fanime states “the cornerstone event of anime cons”. Thats right, the Fanime Masquerade! This year they had a whopping 46 entries. The crowd was packed, the stage was set, and the skits performed beautifully.

There were many spectacular performances. Some were extremely funny, some very dramatic. To top it off the cosplay was a sight to see as well with beautiful costumes being displayed across the stage. The winners of this excellent show are as follows:

• Best Choreography, Group 24, Angel Hearts
• Best Comedic Skit, Group 8, Super Yaoi Brothers
• Best Dramatic Skit, Group 41, Paper Umbrella
• Best of Division: Performance, Individual, Group 42, Animator
• Best of Division: Performance, Group 11, The Coolest Geeks You Know
• Junior/Youth Achievement, Group 0, Who’s Cosplay Production
• Best of Division: Craftsmanship, Individual, Goup 16, ASKEW
• Best of Division: Craftsmanship, Group, W5, Minna no Nur-Puppy
• Best of Division: Advanced Craftsmanship, Individual, Group 7, Fujimoto from Face Full of Fire & We’re Not Twins
• Best of Division: Advanced Craftsmanship, Group 10, LoLorado
• Junior/Youth Achievement, Group 6, Spilled Milk Cosplay
• **BEST OF SHOW** Group 32, 2D Costuming

Day 3 – Sunday

Sunday morning was the Grand World Cosplay Summit. There were many excellent Judges for the Cosplay Summit who were well qualified to Judge the event. The Judges were from the US Darryl Hwang, Die, Vince of Darkain Multimedia, Etaru, ThePrincessZelda and Tokyo Kitty and from Japan Yokota-san (TV Aichi), and Edo.

The winners were a pair of girls Kathryn Griffin and Krystal Stoner. They had a beautiful skit from Fushigi Yugi that did a choreographed dance with scroll ribbons to tell the story of their two characters.

After WCS, Consplayers stopped by the Artist Alley to check out the local artists and all of their fantastic work. Here one can buy prints, badges, buttons, bookmarks, and homemade goods and fanart. Many talented artists from around the US and locally come to sell their goods to the public.

They also had the Arcade hall full of different type of games for those avid gamers (much like us here at Consplayers!). Their room had standard Arcade style games, racing games, Para Para, Guitar Hero, Shooting Arcades and Dance Dance Revolution. There was the LAN/TV grouping where you could trade your ID for a controller to play some classics or fight in a Super Smash Bros. tournament.  There was also a table top section for card game classics like Apples to Apples, Magic the Gathering, and Pokemon. You could also play the traditional Table Top Role Play Games like Dungeons & Dragons as well. Overall there was something for everyone in this fun filled room.

Sunday night also held FanimeCon 2010’s Black and White Ball. It started at 6:00PM at the Fairmont Hotel Imperial Ballroom. It is typically a formal dance that starts out Ball-esque but quickly degenerates into another rave. Many cosplayers go dressed in formal attire such as tuxedos, suits, dresses, and gowns. Some even cosplay as fancified versions of characters and bring their dates to dance with.

Day 4 – Monday

Monday is the last day of Fanime and come noon everyone is busy checking out of their hotels. This Fanime was no exception with busy afternoons and hotel lobbys being full of luggage, costumes, and sewing machines. This is typically the best time to head over to the Dealer’s Hall and get some last minute bargaining before they also pack up and leave. Giving some final farewells, Consplayers took their leave as well. That concluded the 2010 FanimeCon convention for us!

Conclusion

Overall Fanime was an excellent convention. They had wonderful guests and great panels to attend. You can always find something worth your wallet in the Dealers Room. The cosplays are spectacular, the shows are grand. A very welcomed addition was the Express Walkway Lanes and also the Massage Booths. A popular complaint was the extremity of the Weapons Policy (which had written rules that were vague and threatened to damage costumes with their “bonding” of props to costumes). Not really within their control are the Convention Center food prices, which were charging $9.00 for a microwaved hotdog, bag of chips, and soda. They also only accepted cash which was disappointing. Luckily the San Jose Convention Center is surrounded by a multitude of restaurants for the con-goer to dine at. We are looking forward to Fanime 2011 and always recommend this convention to everyone as one of the, if not the best West Coast conventions.

Click Above To See More Fanime 2010 Con Photos!

]]> http://consplayers.com/reports/fanimecon-2010-convention-coverage-report/feed 0 http://consplayers.com/reports/baka-con-2010 http://consplayers.com/reports/baka-con-2010#comments Sat, 01 May 2010 04:47:27 +0000 consplayers http://consplayers.com/?p=381

Report by Consplayers

We arrived, me and Pikminlink, on the morning of Apr 15th to Helsinki and right after we were taken to a couple of different places to be interviewed by different magazines. After that we were taken to the convention location which was held in a collage and finally after 30 hours no sleep we got to go to bed. The dorm house and the convention area was clean and quite. This was their second year for the con. On the next day we looked around the area and got a tour of the convention buildings, every one had work at the con to make every thing fine.
Saturday the con started at 10am, people came from everywhere. There was a long line for tickets and over 1500 people showed up, doubled than last year. Everything looked good, cosplayers were happy, the weather was good except it was a little cold. The opening ceremony was very nice and the room was full, it was held in the gym room. The dealer room was small but very nice, a lot of good merchandise for sale. Panels were also very interesting, it was really crowded including our panels. The Cosplay was very different and it was not like I excepted, they only had judging for all of the entrants and later gave awards. There was no stage performance. We found one food source area and that was good and the prices too, compared to food prices at USA conventions. The party was smooth and not too loud.
Sunday was slow because Saturday was the bigger day, but it was still a lot of fun. The closing ceremony was in the afternoon and a couple of hours later the whole campus was empty, everyone headed home with busses or with other transportations.
The whole con ran very smoothly and I didn’t hear about any problems or incidents. They took care of every thing, security was very nice and helpful, prop inspections was nice.
Overall for this con being its second year, it was very enjoyable

Report by Ms.Tifa, translated by Mantis

Traveling through the cold, snow covered landscape, visitors arrived at Székesfehérvár, Hungary, where this year’s first convention was held by one of our capital’s biggest fantasy and anime shop, Holdfényteam. Holdfénycon was different from the usual anime conventions, as it also welcomed fans of fantasy, sci-fi, comics and RPG. Therefore, besides the usual programs, like DDR, parapara, karaoke, AMV; also fantasy and sci-fi themed programs took place in the homely rooms of Köfém.
One curiosity was the 501 Legion, a Star Wars group, who gained the audience’s interest with their sometimes humorous, sometimes touching stories – besides their amazing costumes. Not only the rooms, but also the hallway offered programs for the visitors: the Moonlight Meido, – whose owner, Licorne was the main organizer and announcer at the con – had a little tea-pult, while a girl drew anime-styled pictures of volunteers. Besides these, some con-goers brought BJDs (Ball jointed dolls), while others formed a group around a guitar and singed happily.
Of course, one of the main event was the masquerade, with some twist. The jury members, who were also in costumes and made a one minute performance on stage, and after some more personal questions directed to them (the announcers and the members of the jury were all old acquaintances), the the actual competition began. For the first time in Hungary, also non-anime cosplays were allowed. Because of this, Disney’s Ariel and the 501 Legion with their costumes took part in the competition, too. This time participants could register on the spot, thus occurring a mixed group of cosplayers, both for craftsmanship and for performance – as these are still the two big categories for Hungarian cosplay conventions – though sometime a participant fitted in both category. There were quite a few good costumes and interesting performances. The jury also actively participated in the event, asking questions from participants or being given a bomb by one of the funnier cosplayers and trying to deactivate it. After the actual competition, invited cosplayers presented performances.
The drawing competition was also a big hit, almost 30 participants volunteered for the 2 hour long event. Beside the fanart category, also an original was announced, supporting the interest of the non-anime fans.
The organizers, helpers and guests participants worked together dynamically, almost like a family. The HQ for the staff was a kitchen-like room, sanctuary for the tired people, offering a bit chit-chat, refreshments and snacks (like wurst) that the staff made for each other. As it was meant for a first try, the whole convention was a friendly, somewhat informal, homely event, where old friends could meet and visitors could gain new acquaintances while enjoying the variety of programs. There weren’t any big problems with the stage or the changing rooms, though the later was a bit small, but it fitted with the event’s atmosphere. A small, though somewhat funny problem, that the cosplayers didn’t read through the competition rules, was solved by the flexible jury and the announcers.
To sum it up, this was a really great convention; together with our friends we really enjoyed it. We hope that we will have positive feelings after the next Holdfénycon as well, and be part of this friendly company again!

Report by Aramitama and Ms. Tifa

Before the start of the report, here is some information about Hungarian anime conventions. Since we’re a small country, we started making official animecons in 2005. After that time 3 were organized per year. Two bigger, in spring and in autumn at the capital city, Budapest, and one in the summer at another city. One of the biggest event in every convention is the masquerade (we just call it cosplay contest). We have 2 main categories: craftmanship and performance. Through the years the costumes’ standard became more and more higher, thus every competition is a new challenge for the participants.
Anime Christmas 2009 stands out of our ’ordinary’ cons for being held in the winter, therefore a lot of people walked around in Christmas-themed costumes.
The place was the same where the last minicon was held, the large K pavilion among the Hungexpo buildings. Here were a huge hall with the stage and seats and a few other audience rooms. The vendors had place in the back of the hall having new mangas and anime stuff. It was also a pleasant surprise that the visitors could spend half of their entry ticket’s price on a manga. In the small rooms were events like DDR, game consoles, drawing competition, workshops and karaoke. The masquerade, AMV contest, fanfiction reading and anime quiz took place in the big hall.
Compared with the bigger conventions, there were not as many contestants as used to be. Because of this, cosplayers could also registry at the information desk. Still, there were many great costumes and interesting performances. The participants’ costumes were from a great variety of animes, mangas and games. Next to the Hungarian mainstream animes, Bleach and Naruto and the well known Final Fantasy, the more and more popular Kuroshitsuji and D.Gray-man and, among others, the (yet) not widely known animes like DearS and Prince of Tennis were all present.
Luckily nearly everything was on time and no technical problems were found during the masquerade excluding the short blackout [power break] after the contest, which made some leave the place. The stage wasn’t large enough, however, unlike the main con’s stage, the projection screen was next to it so it was better for the photoshooting. It had only one small but relatively steep stair, which made difficulties stepping on for some contestants. As we both cosplayed from Utena, we were allowed to use the dressing rooms. There were problems with these, too, where the ladies had to trudge themselves through the boys’ dressig room.
The audience was also a bit passive, but hopefully it was because of the new place and the sudden cold weather.
All in all, it was a joyful, well organized convention adapting to the few scarncities. The cosplayers were great and everyone found something for him-/herself on the counters and could spend a day together with the old and new friends.
We’re looking forward seeing another con organized by Mondo!

Written by Consplayers

Summer Sac-Anime 2009 was on August 29th and 30th at the new and improved location, the Radisson on Leisure Lane. There were many highlights for this con, from their new guests to even the location itself. From the past conventions, Summer 2009 has been a vast improvement. It is to my delight that Sac-Anime will be returning to the Radisson for Winter.

The first big new thing was the new location. There was beautiful photography locations with the large lake in the middle of the hotel grounds. There was also considerably more space than the former Scottish-Rites Center, which was wonderful for all attendees. Larger rooms were provided for the events as well. The only downside to the location was that other event rooms were booked for another event going on, limiting the number of available rooms for the Sac-Anime event and the Artist Alley was placed in the middle of a busy hallway, which impeded traffic frequently.

The guests were a big highlight for this convention. It was a wonderful surprise to get away from the usual guests that come to the Sacramento conventions. This time, majority of the guests came from the acclaimed Resident Evil game series. The RE cast that came were:

Karen Dyer – Voice of Sheva Alomar RE5

Alyson Court – Voice of Claire Redfield RE

Paul Mercier – Voice of Leon RE4 and movie

Roger Craig Smith – Voice of Chris Redfield RE5

The Dealer’s Room was an excellent size. It had plenty of vendors and was easy to move around. Lots of interesting things for sale that seemed to be of higher quality than usual. The Game Room had a lot of attendees with the various games and tournaments held through-out the weekend.

Lastly, the Masquerade event. This was probably one of the weakest points for the convention. There was upset over special seating, poor timing to test the tech and audio, and a cramped space that went over the fire limit. It appeared that this event was run a bit half-hazardly and unorganized. The skits themselves were wonderful. Some amusing, some amazing costumes, and some wonderful performances.

All in all, this con was a very big success. It had a wonderful new location, new interesting guests, and excellent loot to come home with. Consplayers looks forward to attending again this Winter!

This was our first time invited to Otakuthon along with Cosplay Guest Pikmin Link and also our first time on this side of Canada. We heard many great things about Otakuthon and were excited to go.

The convention was located in downtown Montreal and it was huge. We had our own guest liasons, and they were super! The attendee count doubled this year so I had my share of taking photos of cosplayers. The hotel was located right across the street from the convention. I had a couple of panels during the convention and each of them went really well. The masquerade was the biggest event of the con, with about 46 entries ranging from walk ons to full performing skits and even though the judges made their choices that night, the awards weren’t handed out until the next day. Weapon Peace bonding wasn’t as harsh as other cons make it. The dealer room and the artist alley were joined into one big room. Everything was really nice, calm and organized.

One thing that wasn’t so great was during the autograph session, no one, not even press was allowed in to get a photo of the guests. We were told to get in line even if we were just getting photos for convention coverage. No one knew why this security member was rude to anyone about it.

Other than that, the staff and attendees were very friendly. Food was easy to get because on the bottom floor of the convention center, there was a food court with Subway, Tim Hortons and may others. The convention was great, and would love to attend again.

We were invited to TNT17 this year which was held in Mexico City, Mexico. This was the first time at TNT, but we had a blast. The staff was really nice and made sure everything was fine. Once we made it into the airport, Mario and his staff was already waiting for us. It was raining the first few days, but that didn’t stop the convention from happening. The only downside was the heat in the building. There was no air conditioning and with the massive amount of attendees in small rooms, it got really hot. Cold drinks and food were affordable.

We had a nice little photo booth set up and it was very successful, we were taking photos all weekend long.

The contests were a lot of fun and there were a lot of great costumes, but the only problem was we were placed behind the performances on the stage and this made judging difficult. The stage was also very tall and the people watching had to stand the whole time.

Mario always took us to eat every night, and the day after the convention took us to see the Pyramids. We managed to climb all the way to the top and all the sightseeing was a lot of fun!

Overall the con was very enjoyable and the attendees and staff were all really nice and the convention was very well organized.

By Camus

Hi great readers Camus here just to report what happened in Anime Mexicali XVIII December 13 to 14 2008. As always I attend these events to have fun and enjoy myself. The Con was celebrating their 4th year of non-stop consecutive conventions. I went thinking that they were going to go all out for this event. Well for the first day I have nothing to say because I did not attended but I was there all day Sunday.
Well first of all thanks to my friend Drakon for getting me tickets. There were 4 different prices for tickets; all-access (unknown), VIPs (150 pesos), regular (90 pesos), and after 3pm (60 pesos). When my girl friend and I got there around 12 pm I didn’t see that many people wish is always not a good sign, because we were looking for some friends. We started to walk around the Con and noticed that the dealers where in two different areas 2 inside and the rest outside. This was weird because it was really cold probably around 70 F, and there was a lot of space in the inside of the event, which was in a big Hall. After I got something to eat (pizza and yam yam’s), I started to take a lot of pictures. This Con had a got amount of cosplayers compared to the last one. The vendors had a bunch of great items specially a new store in Mexicali that had really rare toys and it had famicom games that I wanted. Also they had the yugioh card area which is always a popular one. The only bad part was that there was no video game area, when they had prommes a guitar hero tournament that I wanted to participate in.
The I went inside for the contest of the best cosplay and the best cosplay show. The winner of the best cosplay was a guy dressed as Kakashi from Naruto. I really didn’t think he was the best one I think it was mainly a popularity contest I personally think the girl dressed as Sakura was better. The winners of the best cosplay show where a team of cosplayers dressed as characters from Fire Emblem this guys did a great job on their costumes. I personally didn’t understand why there was a preliminary for the cosplay on Saturday (like they announced) and people were still able to add them self to participate in Sunday. That means that the ones that lost Saturday were still able to participate Sunday, I just don’t get it was confusing.
The special guest for this event were Irwin Daayan (voice of yugi Spanish version) and Eduardo Garza (voice of Ichigo from Bleach Spanish version), the shows that the special guest did where really funny and entertaining, they also do voices for other anime character for Mexico. Also there were two bands that closed the event “Agnima” and “Caja Negra”. Agnima played some good anime songs while Caja Negra was a more of a mexican spanish rock. I personally enjoyed both bands but Caja Negra was more my type of music. The bands did their best even with the bad speaker sound. Then I went home and looked at my pictures Im happy with the cosplayers pictures that I got and THANKS FOR READING.
The Highs: lots of cosplayers, new vendors, the bands, yugioh, the kids.
The Lows: no video games, scattered vendors, sound.

By Sai Hashimoto

Fanime 2009 took place on May 22nd till the 25th in the San Jose Convention Center.
The staffs at Fanime are very professional, well organized, and polite to their customers. It is refreshing to have excellent service at a convention. Even their Security and Prop Inspectors had little complaints from attendees for being overtly pushy as some tend to be.

Fanime had an impressive guest list this year. Their list included the guests: Momoi Halko, an idol from Akihabara, Hiroyuki Yamaga, the Executive Director from GAINAX, Inc., Reuben Langdon, the actor for Chris Redfield and Co-Producer from Resident Evil 5, Ken Lally from Heroes, Patricia Ja Lee who did the voice over work for Jill Valentine in Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Carl Gustav Horn, Gilles Poitras, Jonathan Osborne, Keith Burgess, Ric Meyers, and Ryan Gavigan.
There were many panels out there this year that were exciting, fun, and even educational. Some highlighted panels were Prop Casting and Making, Body Casting 101, Comedy Club at Fanime, Restricted Rock, Paper, Scissors, Intro to Lolita and Fashion Show, History of Zelda Documentary, Consoles and the Industry, Dark Horse Manga, There Will Be Brawl Q&A,. As usual there are also the video games room which was very large and rather full, the AMV contest which played over the screen in the hallway, and the Dealer’s Room which had a really nice turn out in merchandise and companies.
The Masquerade was a great success as usual. Once again the staffs here are really well organized, prepared, and extremely considerate to their attendees and competitors. The skits were many and varying from hilarious such as the Pokemon skit who won Best Comedic Skit, and dramatic such as the Tsubasa Chronicles skit with revolving backgrounds and an intricate set who came away with Best Performance.
Finally, the con practically ended with the Black and White Ball on Sunday night. The con went on till Monday but closed shop early, so this was the last big event for the weekend. All day they offered dancing lessons. Over all, the entire Ball went along smoothly. It was formal attire, ball style music and dance floor, with drinks and snacks offered outside.
There are very few things that went negative for Fanime 2009. One of the main things that stand out is the price of food. Understandably, this is out of Fanime’s control. However, if they were able to set up an agreement with the Convention to keep the prices lower, the con would be Golden.