Animation on Display 2011 (Saturday, February 19th)

I attended Animation on Display in San Fransisco on Saturday, February 19th, 2011. The convention was held at the Kabuki Hotel in Japantown. I cosplayed 13-year-old Franziska von Karma from Ace Attorney: Investigations: Miles Edgeworth. My riding crop showed up at my door that morning, I found it outside right as I was leaving and had already given up on it. I attended with my boyfriend, though I met up with several friends there.

We drove to the convention from home, about an hour away, and as usual, we got lost trying to find Geary Street. Every single time we go to Japantown, we get lost trying to find Geary. I think MapQuest is laughing at us. So we drove around SF for about an hour, up and down the same street like a billion times, almost got into an accident, it was raining, roads were slippery, it was all bad. Then we finally just thought "screw it" and drove down whatever street names sounded familiar. Strangely enough, that worked!

So we went to get our badges, where staff geeked out a little ("You're the Magikarp people!?") over our panel, haha, it was pretty cool. I contacted my partner for the masquerade so that we could check in, but he was eating, so we decided to peruse the Dealer's Hall. The Dealer's Hall was tiny, but we were in a hurry because it was already about 3:30 and cosplay sign-ins ended at 4, so we didn't buy anything. Funny enough though, we ran into a girl cosplaying 18-year-old Franziska von Karma, and we took a photo together. I had forgotten my camera, but she sent me the picture! I was so excited, as you can see, we even had the proper height difference and everything! I'm even standing a little further back than her in the photo, and I'm still shorter, haha.

Eventually, my masquerade partner showed up, and we checked into the masquerade. We turned in our music for the performance and the judged looked at my costume (my partner chose to be unscored). They seemed somewhat impressed, mostly because I had lined everything. Judging probably took all of five minutes, haha.

After that, my boyfriend and I went to get food in the mall attached to the hotel where the convention was being held. Unfortunately, the mall is split into two buildings, and all of the food was in the building that we weren't in. So we had to make a mad-dash across the court yard through the rain. Waiting for food took forever, but mostly just because I really wanted chocolate taiyaki (fish-shaped pancakes with chocolate filling). So we ate hurriedly and made the mad-dash back across the courtyard and through the convention center to the panel room.

At the last-second, I wanted to change a couple of the slides, but the stupid program froze, so I didn't get to do it. I was actually rather upset. That entire section would have been so much better if I could have done what I wanted. Ah well. While I was trying to make changes, we overheard people talking about our panel, how excited they were for it. Apparently, there had been a line for it all day, because a group of people wanted to be the first in. Later someone told us that our panel was the only reason they came to the convention. Talk about pressure.

The panel went pretty well overall. We were really nervous (70+ people in the room!) in the beginning, so we talked too fast. The bulk of our presentation ended up only taking about half an hour. When I had rehearsed on my own, it took 40 minutes, so I know it was just because we were nervous and talking too fast. We also had backup material, which took another 20 minutes, so we filled almost the entire time quite nicely.

Everyone seemed to have a good time, so I'm quite pleased. There were only two things that really bothered me. The first was this guy sitting over on the side (too close to my bag for comfort, but he didn't seem suspicious) who took it upon himself to interject at random times with random comments and jokes. They were good jokes, though sometimes backhandedly making fun of my boyfriend and I, but I was more annoyed that he decided that it was okay to do this. We didn't know this guy, and it just felt like he was interrupting us.

The other thing that bothered me, and I mean really bothered me, was that during the questions portion, a woman asked "Are you planning on doing this panel again?" and when I said yes, she continued with "Well, next time, I'd like to see more research." Umm. Excuse me? Wow. Are you our teacher or something? Did you know all of this stuff without research before we told you? Would you like to host this panel? By all means, get up here and do it. No? Then be quiet. I know she thinks that she was trying to help, but that was just rude. In any case, all I did was say "okay" and move on to the next question. I'm not sure what else I could have done.

After the panel and gathering up our stuff, I dashed off to the second masquerade check-in, where I had to impatiently wait for my cosplay partner to finish changing into his Phoenix Wright costume. While I was waiting though, I talked to a few other contestants. Everyone was very nice and outgoing, it was really refreshing, since most cosplayers I talk to are shy like I am. I actually kind of learned some about different topics to talk to cosplayers about. Though my fallbacks are always "Did you make your costume or buy it?" and "How did you make that?" and they've never failed to spark further conversation.

My masquerade partner showed up kinda late, but we did have some time to talk and plan out our walk-on. We practiced a little, but not enough. I was nervous again, so, I rushed through practice. I knew that I knew what I was doing, but I also assumed that my partner knew what he was doing, which was unfair of me to assume. It was his first masquerade entry, so I feel like I should have walked him through the whole thing more. Well, now I know.

The masquerade was relatively short, it was over in about an hour. Yet somehow, I got a major headache during it. Which is both surprising and totally predictable at the same time, as I got a headache during AoD's masquerade last year as well. I think it was my wig cap, it's probably still too tight. Could have been a number of other things too, I suppose, loud music, funky lighting, I have no idea.

The "Half-Time Show" was bearable. It was an improvisation show, done with audience members who had experience in improv. It could have gone a lot worse, but it wasn't overly spectacular. Usually they do a game show, which is usually fun to watch (I like to see if I know the answers to the questions lol), but they didn't have enough time to set up the equipment, so they didn't do it.

Anyway, winners were announced, and my partner and I didn't win anything, but I think that most of the people who won did deserve it. The girl that won first place made her shoes! Like, her actual shoes! My mind was so beyond blown.

After the masquerade, we chilled in the lobby for a while. we got swarmed by photographers (usually happens after a masquerade) and just palled around with other cosplayers. I talked to a couple of random cosplayers, and the masquerade grand prize winner geeked out over my costume, which was completely unexpected and so cool. It was kind of like my own personal win.

By this time, it was late, so we went to leave, and then I remembered that I was supposed to sell Sheik's friend, a Sesshoumaru (InuYasha) pillowcase and blanket that I had bought for myself probably 6 or so years ago and just didn't want any more. I considered selling my Sesshoumaru plushie too, but it's so nostalgic, I decided to keep it. Anyway, we had to wait for a little while as Sheik and her friends were changing, and then we left.

Got kinda lost trying to find the freeway again, because freaking Geary doesn't intersect with any of the streets that MapQuest says it does. Freaking MapQuest.

Anyway, overall, I had a great time =D Hopefully I get to go back again next year! Shout out to everyone I didn't mention already (which is like everybody >_> Sorry guys)!

Quote of the Day:
Me: Why the caution tape?
Hetalia Cosplayers (with caution tape): PASTAAAAAA!
Me: Oh. That's why.

(Photo Credits: Photo 1: Sent to me by DarkFujin on Cosplay.com, Photo 2: [Visual Pie] Studios, Photo 3: RoflWaffles on Flickr/Cosplay.com, Photo 4: BlizzardTerrak Photography on DeviantArt/ACParadise/Cosplay.com)