| Frankly, all cons really do is depress me. Don't get me wrong, I think they're great. Its quite fun to be surrounded by fellow otaku, overdose on your favorite anime series, buy your sister Chobits plushies, and in Karo's case, cosplay the hell out of Miaka. But then you realize that your life is not an anime, will never be an anime, and you will probably never experience any sort of anime-like moment. This factor even takes its toll on someone like Karo. Karo, in my mind, is as close as you're going to get to a real human Serena Tsukino or Miaka Yuuki. She's an exuberant and bubbly person by nature, and beleive you me, she NEVER shuts up (and I mean that in a good-naturedly way). But the car ride home from the con was in complete silence. The story of Fushigi Yuugi, which Karo is obsessed with (which also makes me wonder why, then, did she decide to do a Sailor Moon fan site) expresses this very well with Miaka's anguish over Tamahome. She knows he's just a character in a book, yet she loves him as though he were a real, living, breathing person. Now, I know in the book, he is, but none of us (that I know of) have been sucked into any animes recently, yet we still love the characters as though we could go into feudal china and visit Hotohori in his palace. I remeber when Karo and I took a trip to China last year and visited the Forbidden Palace, all her comments pertained to "Hoto-sama's" life as the emperor. When they die, we cry, and when they accomplish an almost impossible feat, we rejoice (some cases go as extreme as to throw a mini-festival in the backyard *coughkarocough*). But as for more details on the con, I have to say that BAAF wasn't as great as it was last year. I think most of this pertains to the fact that it has increasingly grown in size, and many con-goers agree that it should be moved to a larger site. Several floors were constantly closed because they had filled to the capacity and were on the verge of fire-hazard, causing many to miss important events. Once you surpassed the obstacles, however, it was just as fun as ever. I can't count how many times we were asked to stop for pictures, or commented. We even managed to find several other Fushigi Yuugi cosplayers. We even found a girl cosplaying as Miaka in her school uniform, which was rather fun, as Karo was Miaka in her preistess dress. The movies at this years con were much more shounen (anime/manga more directed towards the male gender, although many females enjoy it) oriented, with the premeir of the Initial D movie. They did air Sorcerer Hunters and Rurouni Kenshin, amongst others, which are more a combination shounen/shoujo. Sadly, we did not make it to the korean anime, Doggy Poo, which Karo was dying to see (more for the title than the plot line, of which neither of us know anything). In the dealers room, there were not as many freebies as last year, and by the time we got in it was fairly picked over. Still, Karo, with her amazing female shopping sense, managed to find anything and everything we wanted/needed. She did, however, make me do all the haggling -_-. Over all, it was another great con. We hope to attend AnimeNext! this year, on the first weekend of October, but as both of us are rather broke, we don't know if we'll have enough to go. If we do, however, look out for Karo as Suzuka from Angelic Layer. |
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| BAAF |