Fanime Con 2011 (Days 0 - 4)

I attended Fanime Con 2011 every day from Thursday May 26th to Monday, May 30th, the convention was held at the San Jose Convention Center in downtown San Jose. I cosplayed a Koffing gijinka (Pokemon), 13-year-old Franziska von Karma (Ace Attorney: Investigations: Miles Edgeworth), and Clyde (Pac-Man). I attended the convention with my boyfriend, Ed, and met up with several friends throughout the weekend. We attended as both panelists and general attendees.

Day 0, Thursday - Because we were panelists, Ed and I could not pre-register for the convention, but we were told that we could pick up our panelist discount slips Thursday night (between 8pm and 10pm). So we left home around 7 to get there in time, not knowing what kind of line to expect. I cosplayed Koffing for the trip, since it's ridiculously comfortable, Ed didn't cosplay anything because none of his costumes are really "casual".

When we arrived (about 7:45pm), we waited around for a while until 8 when we began looking for the Stage Zero Information Booth where we were supposed to pick up our discount slips. We found it, but no one was there, so we asked a couple of friends (Jerry and Ashley) where it was and what was going on. Eventually we learned that the discount slips weren't ready, and wouldn't be until the next day. We were pretty upset, since we had made a special trip for it, also the discount slips were to be ready for pickup 8am to 10am on Friday, and we didn't want to get up early.

The good thing about going on Thursday though was that we were able to get started on our Cosplay Scavenger Hunt. I came up with the Cosplay Scavenger Hunt after a convention in 2010 when I realized that I never take enough pictures and I usually forget the camera. The goal was to take a bunch of pictures of a variety of cosplayers and people, both for memories in general and to show friends and family who didn't go or are just curious about what goes on at conventions. I thought that other people might enjoy it as well, so I posted it as an event on facebook and took a couple of suggestions for things/people to find. A lot of people seemed interested and said that they were going to play, but I currently don't know how many people actually did.

I also learned that my Koffing cosplay makes me completely invisible. Twice during the weekend (once on Thursday and once on Saturday) that I can remember, a friend was standing next to me (different friend each time) and completely didn't see me. I find it hilarious and insulting at the same time.

Day 1, Friday - Thanks to Fanime's disorganization this year, we had to get up way too early to get to Fanime in time to pick up our discount slips and badges. Thankfully, there was no line for discount slips, the staff that had them were extremely friendly, and I was overall pretty happy with their attitude and my interaction with them. I'm still upset that they didn't have their stuff together on time, and that there was no e-mail to warn us that they wouldn't have them, even though they claimed that they would send one if there were any changes, but that doesn't change the fact that they were very nice people.

Also luckily, the registration line wasn't very long at all. We stood in line for about half an hour, which was nothing compared to previous years of standing in line for 2+ hours, even when we pre-registered! Part of me wishes that we pre-registered this year too, it would have been the same price if we had done it the first day that it was available, but everything worked out in the end anyway.

Once we got our badges, I was asked for a photo, in which I used my riding crop to pose. A staff member saw and recommended that I get it peace bonded. For those who don't know, peace bonding generally means putting a zip-tie around the prop and writing down the name and badge number of the owner. unfortunately for me, some idiot who didn't know what he was doing (actually two idiots) decided that they had to peace bond my riding crop to my pants! After talking with FoxBerry and her boyfriend, we went back and had it taken off because it was previously stated by a staff member that Fanime was not peace bonding props to people's bodies because it's dangerous. When I went back, the woman working at the peace bonding station was absolutely mortified that someone had done that to me. She cut it off immediately and re-zip-tied the crop on the handle so that I could still pose for photos with it.

After all of that, the first event that we went to was the BAC at Fanime gathering. After a group photo, we played (well I watched) some cosplay improv, with games like "Questions" and "Freeze". We also played/watched a game where people tried to guess and act out how Ed and I met and started dating, and Ed and I had to say "Ding!" or "Buzz!" when they got a fact right or wrong. That was a lot of fun, haha, even though they couldn't guess where our first date was, they did get a lot of smaller details right, and it was fun to watch.

Afterward, we went to lunch with my friend FoxBerry and her boyfriend at Jack in the Box. Normally, I don't eat at Jack in the Box because of their cancer warning on their drive-through window. (It states that food there has chemicals in it that, when cooked, have been known to cause cancer. I know that pretty much everything, especially fast food, causes cancer, but it seems that not all fast food restaurants have had major enough issues to be required to put a sign up. Carl's Jr. also has this sign though. McDonald's and Wendy's do not.) While walking the two blocks or so to eat, Fox asked me if I was wearing sunblock, to which I replied, "No, but I should be fine." Haha. Guess who got sunburned.

When we were finished eating, we headed back toward the convention center so that I could attend the Ace Attorney gathering, where I was of course, in the sun for about another hour, contributing heavily to my sun burn. I was cosplaying 13-year-old Franziska von Karma. The gathering was pretty well organized, though there was a little bit of confusion in the beginning and during a shoot when I was coaxed into the shot only to hear "Why is there a Franziska here with us?" I had no idea why I was there, someone told me to get in there. Ah well.

We then browsed the Artist's Alley, Dealer's Hall, and Gaming Room. I got to play Puzzle Fighter, my favorite game to play in arcades and conventions, and I beat I think three guys who challenged me. Eventually, someone came along and wiped the floor with me though. I was only upset because in one-player mode, I was on my last challenger, the furthest I had ever gotten, and all of that progress was lost.

Around six, I headed out to find where the Hangry & Angry fashion show fitting was. We were told to meet in the lobby of the Marriott, which is really vague when you think about it. We weren't told who or what to look for, so I just went up to a group of extravagantly-dressed women standing with someone official-looking with a headset and asked about it. Thewy told me "Go upstairs, past the viewing rooms and karaoke room, behind the curtain, and into the open door." Which sounds a lot easier than it was, considering that they failed to mention the long, scary hallway leading to the curtain. However, I did find where I was supposed to go.

I was one of the first girls to arrive at the fitting, and I showed up while they were discussing makeup. I was originally asked to help with makeup, but I am nowhere near as professional as the girls who were doing it (they were fashion design students) so I didn't feel the need to offer my help, even though there were only two makeup artists / hair stylists for fourteen girls. I signed in and patiently waited for further instructions. It turned out that I wasn't even capable of doing the makeup that they wanted (a smokey eye, which I've somehow never learned how to do properly). While waiting, the girls there chatted a bit and were all very friendly. We were introduced to the designer of the Hangry & Angry line, Gashicon. She didn't speak English, but she had a representative with her who translated, though she had a heavy accent, which hindered some communication, everything worked out in the end.

When I got the e-mail confirming that I was chosen as a model, I told myself that if models were not treated well, I was going to leave. The entire preparation and show took a huge chunk of my time, and after bad experiences in the past, I refused to be treated poorly and disrespected after volunteering my time. Fortunately, this was not an issue. both Gashicon and her rep were very nice and respectful, as were all of the models and the makeup artists. The fitting took about an hour, and then we went home, because there just wasn't much to do, and I still had packing to do.

Day 2, Saturday - We woke up eeeeeeeearly so that I could get to the fashion show on time. I was to be there at 9am to get ready and rehearse for the show at noon. Having been in shows before that supposedly take 3 hours of prep time but really only take half an hour, I was pretty upset. However, it really did take us about three hours for everything, and I was glad to have the time to talk to some of the models and just kind of relax.

Of course, this did not go off without a hitch. First, the doors that I had originally gone through to get to the dressing room were locked. I went around another way and found a model talking to a Fanime Con rover. I immediately knew what was going on when I reached the conversation. This power-hungry rover was refusing to let us in. The other model and I immediately began throwing a fit, complaining that we did not get up at practically the crack of dawn and drive all the way there to get there on time and not be let in. Because there was a Guest of Honor behind the curtain (Gashicon), "No one is allowed in without an all-access pin." The rover even said, "I'm not even allowed to go back there because I don't have a pin." So he refused to even go behind the curtain to ask if the models were allowed in.

We argued for what felt like forever as more models and a makeup artist showed up and began complaining with us. The crazy rover put another rover in charge, telling them "Don't let anyone behind this curtain." and went to call staff. Meanwhile, I texted a friend who's on staff to come help us. Turns out we had both contacted the same staffer, haha. Yet, even with staff there, wee weren't allowed to go into the room.

Thankfully, the girl who was there before me began yelling back to the room behind the curtain that models were there and we weren't being allowed in, and Gashicon's representative came out. She explained that she was a Guest of Honor with Gashicon and the Hangry & Angry fashion line, and that she told us to go back there. Would you believe me if I told you that the rover still didn't want to let us go back there? Because he didn't. Even though the rep had the "Guest of Honor" badge and everything. Somehow, maybe the combination of everyone in the area hating him, he did let us in though. And in the room, we continued to whine and complain about what just happened, because that is the most ridiculous thing that we had ever had to put up with.

Things quickly got better after we got into the room though. We were provided with doughnuts, pastries, chips, and water, none of which I ate because my stomach was killing me, but it was still an amazingly sweet gesture. I talked with a couple of the girls about why we had decided to model for H&A and things like that. One girl told me that it had always been her dream since she was twelve to model for a big-name brand. I felt sort of silly, since I had actually never heard of Hangry & Angry before, but I'm unfortunately not very involved with the fashion industry, especially not overseas fashion. It definitely did make me appreciate the opportunity more though.

(Photo by Ben Lam) We rehearsed some of the show, mostly how to get into the right order, how to walk, and what path to walk. It was a long walk and a lot of posing, and unfortunately most of us ended up going way to fast. At the end of the "walk" we were to go off of the stage at the front, then turn around and look toward the stage. I panicked when I turned and there was no one on stage. I haven't done a ton of on-stage performing, but in everything I have done, I've been told that it's really bad to have no one on stage. All I could do was stay where I was though and wait for another girl to come out. Posing and stuff was difficult, because we were told to be "fun" and "cute" which I've never done while modeling before, I'm always told to be super serious and "fierce". I managed, though, I haven't seen videos, and I'm scared to, haha.

Even though the panel slot for the show was two hours, the fashion show lasted maybe twenty minutes, after which the models took a group photo for CrunchyRoll.com and a few for ourselves and Gashicon. We also received free Hangry & Angry t-shirts for volunteering, at which once girl exclaimed, "Yay! Free Brand!" Afterward, we were allowed to change back into our own clothes and leave.

While I was getting ready for the show, Ed went to the Pokemon gathering as Magikarp, but he said he didn't really enjoy it. He said that his costume was pretty popular there, but he was really disappointed that he was in only two group pictures and those was the main group picture with everyone and the Pokemon-only one, even though on the forums they said that there were supposed to be pictures of each type of Pokemon and stuff like that. So I don't really regret not going, other than I didn't get to take pictures of it.

I attempted to check in to the hotel early, but was told that no rooms were available. I left my number with the front desk, and they said that they would call me when a room was open. They didn't. Ed and I browsed the rooms again before sitting down to relax until 4 when I could check in.

This year, our room was on the 12th floor! Which was a pain at first, but it made getting an elevator a lot easier. After checking in, we got a few bags out of the car and put them in our room. We were going to go to my friend Robbie's 'Abridging a Series' panel, but somehow after checking in and getting our stuff, it was already over. I really wanted to go too. So we went home to pick up the rest of our stuff and were driven back to the convention by Ed's mom because we didn't want to have to pay for parking all weekend again. By the time we got settled, it was about 7 and I had missed my meetup with Raciel, who was going to buy hats from me, so there went a bunch of spending money.

We went back to the Dealer's Hall to browse more. I really wanted a Hangry & Angry doll like the one that I walked with in the fashion show, but they were $50 at the H&A booth! When we returned for what was at least the third time though, we went right around the corner from the H&A booth and found a booth selling slightly smaller H&A dolls for $20! So I bought an adorable one that looks almost like the one that I walked with, just in a different outfit. The character is Angry of the Hangry & Angry franchise, and it's so cute!

For a while, we watched the "Cosplay Battle" event hosted by our friend Robbie. Cosplay Battles are basically three-pose fights, two characters face off, they each do three battle poses that are based off of the character that they're cosplaying, and at the end, they decide who lost. It was a lot of fun, and it was run really well, but it started to get silly, so we took a break so that Ed could take a picture of the religious protesters that show up every year to try to "save our souls." Some people say that they're annoyed by them or bored of them, though I really wish that people wouldn't antagonize them. Also, I would be really sad if they suddenly didn't show up anymore. I would feel like they didn't care about us anymore. On the way back from the protesters, we got distracted by the ongoing Disney gathering, where we snapped a few pictures. My favorite cosplayers were the 'Nightmare Before Christmas' cosplayers. They were really good, and I just enjoy Tim Burton movies in general.

We attempted to go to 'Comedy Club at Fanime', but the room was full to capacity, and we didn't want to wait around until two seats next to each other opened. So we sat around the con some more. While sitting and doing nothing, we got a flier to "Rocky Horror Picture Show Live" for that night, and we decided to go to that instead of the rave because neither of us had seen "Rocky Horror" and we thought it would be awesome to see it live. Plus, it was only $10 a person and about a block away. Coincidentally, it was at a theater where my old Improv teacher works. He owns "Comedy Sportz" at a theater called Camera 3.

"Rocky Horror" was something else. I think we should have watched the movie before seeing it live, because the audience kept on yelling out jokes over the audio, and apparently that's just what happens during "Rocky Horror Live". Since we hadn't seen it and didn't know the jokes, we were lost for a little while. It was still fun though, after I accepted that I just wasn't going to hear the movie. There was a lot of audience participation, which included blowing bubbles, throwing toilet paper and toast, and spinning little noisemakers. I got pelted with both toilet paper and toast. It was like they were aiming for me.

We got back to the hotel room around 3am and went to bed. We discussed going to the rave, but we were just too tired.

Day 3, Sunday - Sunday was supposed to begin with dance lessons, but we were too tired, so we slept in. We put on our costumes (Pac-man and Clyde) and hit the convention around noon. Mostly we just wandered around the convention, getting stopped for pictures every couple of minutes and being stuck posing for what seemed like forever. Pac-man and Clyde are always really popular costumes for some reason.

(Photo by Steven)Around 5:30, we went back to the room to change into our Pokemon costumes for our panel. Then we booked it across the convention center to check in to our panel by 6:30. When we arrived, we were greeted with the usual "Oh, you're the Magikarp people!" which I still think is a million times better than being "The Pikachu Chick." We hung out in the Panelist Lounge until about ten minutes before our panel.

Here's where the night got crazy. We were supposed to be in Panel Room 1 (or Panels 1), and there was tape outside the door to mark where there was supposed to be a line. That was completely full, but it was only about 30 people. Next door to our panel, in Panels 2, was the lolita fashion show, were there were about 20 lolitas in line. Panels 3 had no line because there was no panel in the next slot. Across the hall from Panels 1, there was a line that went all the way down to Panels 3. After some deliberation and looking at people in the line, the presence of a Magikarp cosplayer told us that the giant, intimidating line was for our panel.

After discussing this with a staff member, the radio calls began. A Panel Head (someone in charge) came downstairs from the Panelist Lounge to scope things out and more radio calls were made. They were discussing moving us to Panels 3 because it was empty and larger. Almost twice the size, they said. Panels 1 held about 150 people, which is about the amount of people that we estimated (we guessed between 100 and 150 and requested a room that sat between 100 and 200). Panels 3 held 262 people. We ended up getting the transfer at the cost of about 15 minutes from our panel.

(Photo by Steven) So the line had to be moved and directed in by staff. While that was going on, we set up the laptop and argued about whether or not there was supposed to be an audio cable. I let Ed convince me that there wasn't, which led to losing another minute or so when we had to ask Staff to come find it. So other than a couple of minor slip-ups, such as me saying that Lake of Rage was in Red/Blue when it's really in Gold/Silver (one of the most embarrassing moments of my life), it seemed to go really well. The entire room, all 262 seats, was filled, and there were people outside who had to be turned away because there was no more space, and having any more people would have been a fire hazard. We were told by Staff when looking at the line that we had more attendees than the Guests of Honor, including the Japanese pop stars. We were told that the only panel that we didn't beat was Gaia. So we're pretty proud, even though technically they weren't there to see us, they were there to see Magikarp, but it was still pretty flattering that we had an idea that was so popular.

After the panel, we went back to the hotel room to change for the Black & White Ball. I had bought my dress a few months ago at a second-hand shop, and it wasn't until that night that I realized why it was in a second-hand shop, one of the darts came undone from about the waist down, while the other one still went to the floor. Fortunately, it wasn't really that noticeable. I wore Ed's Magikarp wig because my hair was terrible.

The B&W Ball was insanely crowded. We danced some, even though we didn't remember all of the "proper" dances (we mostly remembered the Waltz and the Cha Cha). However, we were only there for about an hour because a couple wasn't looking where they were going and a girl ended up stepping on Ed's foot with her stiletto heel. She didn't step directly on his foot, more on the side of it, and her heel slid down his foot and got stuck in his shoe. He was okay for a couple of seconds, but we had to leave because it hurt him so badly. We went back to the hotel and washed and bandaged his foot.

Then we headed off to FoxBerry's panel, "Digital Makeover: Cosplay Edition". It was a great panel, I really learned things and was interested, but unfortunately it was at midnight and was two hours long. We ended up leaving early because we were just too tired and didn't want to fall asleep at the panel.

Day 4, Monday - Monday at Fanime was short, we woke up, ate some cereal, packed, made two trips to pack stuff into the car, checked out, and went home. Even though this Fanime wasn't particularly eventful (didn't rave or go to the masquerade), it was still really fun, and I'm going to miss it.