Daigacon - Day 1 and a Half

Well, for my first content post I'm proud to say that I will be giving you information on not just anime, but something that has branched off of anime, and is now near and dear to every otaku's heart. No, not pocky, it's cons!

Specifically Daigacon, which holds a special place in my heart because this weekend is Daigacon's inaguaral showing, and this is also my first time at a con myself. I'd heard so much about con's, especially after listening to Otkau Generation and Weekly Anime Review's podcast episodes about their own con trips, and I guess I thought I knew what was coming. However, I've quickly learned you don't ever exactly know what's coming at a con.

Friday

So, let's start out with Friday, which for me started fairly disappointing. There didn't seem to be too many people, and coordination seemed to be, at the time at least, lacking. As such, I went to opening ceremonies, and I this is where I was worried, because there seemed to be as many staff and guests (combined), as there were visitors. Seeing the guests presented though made me feel better, and I was excited that Daigacon were able to as many guests as they did, particularly since this is a first year con after all. (Guests were/are: )

After that, I wanted to go to a couple panels; however, attendance was nil on one I wanted to go to, and maybe with the same logic that I had, no one else showed up to that one, which was regretful. So instead I went and sat in one of the viewing rooms and got my first glimpse of Ergo Proxy. Awesome... at least so far, although I only saw the first two episodes I definitely felt this was something I could get into. (Possible review later? Maybe...)

Next, I hung around the game room and saw the excitement there, which ranged from Halo to DDR, the Wii to Guitar Hero, and more. I played a little Halo, so I could prep for a possible tournament tonight, but other then that I didn't try any of the other games, yet... Also, while I was just kind of getting adjusted I purchased some stuff in artist alley. First, I got the official Daigacon poster (which I may put up a pic of), and then I stopped at another artist's booth and got a CD (I'll insert the name later), and two Naruto badges, one of Shikamaru, and one of Kakashi. All of this I felt was very cool, and I definitely started to see the positive side of the con.

Surprisingly enough, although I was there several more hours, I didn't do too much then either. I did go to one panel called Anime Hell (not AMV Hell), which regretfully took an hour before it started due to projector problems, but was thankfully worth the wait. Basically the panel involved watching videos, rare and strange, from Anime or just other Japanese productions. One that stuck in my mind, and is not for the easily offended, is a video called Tokyo Breakfast. This is an actual video, and is not dubbed. (Woah... is probably the first words you should expect to hear coming from your mouth after watching this.)

After this, I had reached my relative peak for the day, so off to bed I went.

Saturday - 1st Half

My Saturday started early with me arriving around 9 o'clock. Turns out, there was little to do till 10, so I went to the game room (which had moved temporarily), and watched some impressive DDR skills at work.

My first panel was a panel called 'Women in Anime', run by Kat, who's one of the Con staff. She presented a well-done, and professional presentation on women's role in Anime and how it's evolved over time. I was definitely impressed, and was thinking about what she said for some time (and may make a future post on the idea.) But that's for another time, no back to the con!

At this point, I was completely back with positive outlook (if not already), because Saturday's crowd was becoming impressive. For whatever reason, many of the high-schoolers apparently were getting one-day passes (affordability?), and thanks to them attendance blossomed. Regardless, I was glad to see so many faces, especially since the number of cosplayers increased dramatically as well. This made the Cosplay Chess much more feasible, and while we still had to wait 10 minutes for several non-costumed otaku to fill in as pawns, overall the event turned off to be very fun to watch.

Now, I don't think I've mentioned it thus far, but I had to work at this convention too (maybe I'll go into my job sometime), and thus the next few hours I spent working, but I've returned and will write more either when the con's over, or sometime tonight.

But now I must rest...