Calyrica's Perspective: Anime Detour 2012

WARNING: PICTURE HEAVY

Let me start by getting this out of the way: I LOVED ANIME DETOUR. Okay. Moving on.

 

Friday, March 30 – Pre-Detour

I was so excited, I nearly threw up my breakfast four times, and I skipped lunch for fear it wouldn’t stay down. Dark_Sage said I sucked at driving, but my hands were shaking and I only touched the side bump once, which is why he made that observation. FFS, I’ve never killed anyone while driving.

So, we checked into our room (just the two of us) and got our badges. I dressed up (Dark_Sage never cosplayed) and we went our separate ways.

My Friday dress.

Friday’s Panels:

2PM: Mawaru Penguindrum:
This was entirely discussion in a small room, which was pretty much full. Some of the things we talked about was the usage of symbolism, why penguins were chosen, the historical references to the 1995 train bombings, and relating back to Utena. Really cool panel.

3:30PM: Mathematics in Anime:
An older anime fan made a powerpoint and everything about math references in anime. Being a mathematics teaching assistant and grad student, I was really interested in this panel. He showed a bunch of clips, mostly from older anime. But it was also really cool, and the panel was surprisingly well-attended. (Dark_Sage and I met up for this one, but he had to leave early to charge his phone.)

5PM: noitaminA:
This was my first of three panels I hosted this year. I had two co-panelists, but between them, they had seen two of the seven shows I wanted to discuss, so it was mostly me talking. It was actually a hard panel to run, as noitaminA wasn’t as good this year as it has been in the past, and I mostly wanted to focus on the past four seasons. I did supplement the discussion with videos of each, so that ate time. There were a lot of people until I opened up for discussion at about 5:45, and then people started filtering out. I was surprised people didn’t want to talk, but I guess it was still early.

None of the 7PM panels were to my liking, so I hit up the Artist Alley and Dealer’s Room (which I frequented on many other occasions.) I bought a bunch of stuff (which I’ll mention later) and then met up with Dark_Sage to go drinking.

We found this awesome room party, Distractions at Detour, and hung out there for like an hour. He had “Death in a Cup” which he explained was like 4 shots or something, and I had a “Sonic Screwdriver” with like half a shot since I’m a pussy. Then, the guys put on the Highschool of the Dead dub and even though only five of us were in the room, we had a total blast.

9:30PM: Karaoke
So the original plan was one song Friday and two songs Saturday. I pre-registered, so I figured I’d have priority or something, right? NO. WTF. Seriously. So I was 15th in queue, which would have been fine if they started on time. Instead, it was nearly 10PM when the first person went up, and I had a panel to run at 11:30. Dark_Sage took videos of the shitty singers, and he complained after every one went up, too. I originally wanted him there to record my go, but one of my anime club friends showed up, so I was like, “Seiji-koibito-sama, my Vocaloid friend can record it so you can go stop your ears from bleeding.” and he was like, “No, that’s cool.” and proceeded to liveblog “fmlfmlfmlfmlfmlfmlfmlfml.”

By the time I went up to sing, I had been shouting around to Dark_Sage and Vocaloid for a straight hour and half, so my karaoke sucked. Hence, no video, even though it was recorded. I was choking so bad at the end that I was brought water and someone stopped me before leaving telling me how concerned she was for the health of my vocal chords. (I sang with my iPod on the drive home and my vocal chords are just fine, but thanks for your worrying.) I got the most applause though, so whatever.

11:30PM: Yuri 2012:
I ran this panel with three others, whom I had NO communication with before the panel. As you can probably guess, it didn’t go too well. I rambled on about what was released since Yuri 2011 last year (when I jumped up to help run the panel spontaneously), and then we had a lot of time left (like 50 minutes), so we had to come up with discussion questions. No one had any. I tried to pull some out of my ass but I was tired and it wasn’t successful. Ah, well. Yuri 2013 will be next year.

Friday’s Picture Haul:

Fate/stay night was really popular. That’s correct: Fate/stay night. Not Fate/zero.

Msyu. Dark_Sage looked at this picture and burst out laughing. “Wow, someone liked [C] enough to cosplay it?” It was a good cosplay, though.

As expected, Madoka was everywhere this year. Interestingly, though, the only cosplays of the actual character Madoka were of Goddess Madoka.

There were a bunch of Morning Rescue guys. I only took this pic tho.

I don’t know if I’ve ever told anyone this, but I LOVE it when Asians cosplay. Mitsuru~ <3

She was so cute and tiny! I was kind of surprised to see a Deadman Wonderland cosplay.

He had the music playing and everything. Oh, my god.

Oddly enough, she never went to the Utena panel, and the Utena who did go left after about 10 minutes, so I couldn’t grab a picture.

She had the donut and everything!

So, as I asked Lyner for a picture, he was relieved and said, “People keep asking me, ‘Are you Cloud?'” DOES CLOUD HAVE A LIGHT-UP SWORD? NO? I DIDN’T THINK SO. Idiots.

There were 5 million Serahs around, but this is the first one I saw, so she’s the only one I snapped a pic of. Lucky girl. (Notice how I didn’t mention Snow. Serah’s where it’s at.)

Did I mention how much I love Asians cosplaying? Yeah. Awesome Chie. I was surprised at how little Persona cosplay I saw, though. There was more last year.

She was volunteering all the time. And her costume was really detailed, with the rosario and everything, but when I asked for a pic, she turned to the side. :-(

Such a perfect Eureka Seven cosplay! But after I took the pic, I got yelled at for blocking the hallway. :-(

Shizuma HNNNNNNG. She went to the yuri panel and I used her as an example. She went on about how Shizuma’s just misunderstood and deserves love, too! My kind of girl for sure. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Last year, the most popular cosplays were Vocaloid and Hetalia. This year, it was My Little Pony, Homestuck, and… furries. Here’s one of the hardcore ones.

 

Saturday, March 31:

So we got back to the hotel room at like 1AM, and I had to get up to run a 9AM panel. FML. My alarm went off at 7:30, and so I got up, got dressed in my Saturday cosplay, and went to the Starbucks in the hotel.

My Saturday dress. Shitty lighting, but there’s a ton of lace and bows all over that thing. I got asked for pictures left and right.

Saturday Panels:

9AM: You’ve Been SHAFTed:
The third and final panel I ran, and the best of the three imo. It went really smoothly. I was able to get a bunch of discussion going, and there were a lot of people who knew the anime and had a lot to add! Madoka was, of course, a huge topic, but I tried to limit Madoka to about 10-15 minutes and focus on the other anime SHAFT has produced, like Bake/Nise and SZS and stuff. It was with the two co-panelists from noitaminA, but they had a lot more to say. Or, well, if one of them wasn’t a half hour late, he would have had more to say…

I actually didn’t end up going to another panel until 3PM, even though I had a few I was semi-interested in. That was because I met up with a friend I met at Detour last year, who goes by Omex on IRC. He’s a gg friend and fan, so he makes fun of me and I whine and it’s a great friendship. We actually hang out most of the rest of the con. We met back up with Dark_Sage and showed him the consuite, which he had no idea about.

The consuite is a room that provides free rice, ramen, snack food, and pop. You see, Dark_Sage bought a lot of food over the course of the weekend, but that really wasn’t necessary. The three of us sat in the consuite for awhile, and then we split up and I ended up meeting Omex again at…

3PM: Time Travel and You:
Anime Detour took place at the Hilton Double Tree hotel, but even though it’s the largest hotel within a huge area spanning multiple states, it wasn’t large enough to hold all of the panels. The hotel across the street held a few. So, that’s where I had to venture to attend this one. I was looking forward to a great discussion about time paradoxes and Steins;gate, when the panelist mentioned around the time the panel began that we “couldn’t talk about steins;gate” since he “has never seen it”. I proceeded to give a semi-spoilerific synopsis, but even with that, we were forbidden from talking about it. The discussion devolved into Doctor Who (isn’t this an ANIME convention?) which already had its own panel earlier. Omex and I left about halfway through.

4:30PM: The Mikage Seminar:
(aka the Utena Panel)
So last year, I got to know a few of Anime Detour’s staffers. Two of which were Jessi and Revolutionary Jo. Jessi runs a lot of very informative and mature panels, and Jo is the head of programming. The Mawaru Penguindrum panel the day before was run by the two of them. After the panel, I walked up and lamented, “You two both have two of the panels I’m most looking forward to at the same time: Anime for Grown-ups and the Mikage Seminar.” I had attended both the previous year, so I was really excited about them this year.

So I walked into the Mikage Seminar, and immediately, Revolutionary Jo exclaims, “Yaye, you chose us!” So cool that she remembered!  We all fangirled/fanboyed about Utena for an hour, which was just as awesome as last year.

I had nothing at 6PM, so Dark_Sage and I went to Subway for dinner. We hadn’t seen each other since like noon or something. I was actually pretty glad, because I ran into a Menma cosplay at Subway (pictures later) and didn’t see her elsewhere.

7:30PM: Politics in Japan:
Earlier in the day, I had missed the History of East Asia panel because we were chatting with Omex, but that ended up being fine, since that’s kind of what this turned into. At first, the guy running it was acting like it was going to be a discussion, so I got a little apprehensive, but he lectured for the hour about history and took a few questions, and I found it absolutely fascinating!

Before the next panel, Dark_Sage and I caught a drink at the same room party as the night before, but it was a little more crowded and everyone was drunk, so we bounced pretty quickly. I had another weak “Sonic Screwdriver” and Dark_Sage had a “Caramel Apple” which he really liked.

9PM: Gender for the Mature Fan (18+):
One of my favourite panels from last year, and really fun this year, too! We didn’t actually break into an 18+ discussion until time was up, but we had a wonderful discussion between the panel and the (full!) audience. One girl posed this question: “I’m a social worker who just had to give a talk on the difference between gender, sex, and sexual orientation to psychology and sociology grad students this week. How is it that the anime fandom in general knows more about the difference between these than students with a college degree in psychology and sociology?” Quite a good question, and I’m not sure why at all.

Since I was skipping karaoke, I didn’t have anything planned. I then remembered I was invited to a Lolita Tea Party. It had started at 10, and the panel ended at 10:30, but I ran over to the room parties to try and find it. I couldn’t. I then sat outside the panel Dark_Sage was in and waited for him to finish so I could hang out with him for the rest of the night.

12AM: Haters Gonna Hate:
Dark_Sage insisted I wouldn’t get this panel, and to be fair, there were a few things I didn’t get, but I thought it was super fun and hilarious. It was a Pokemon panel led by Team Rocket entirely in character. They had a Farfetch’d and a Mewtwo that would add to the banter, as well. All of the questions were posed as if they were posed to the characters, not the panelists as fans. So great. Now, I played through Pokemon Blue start to finish. However, I do not recognize any Pokemon past the original 151 as existing, so I had a small pool of knowledge and stuff to make sense of the jokes. Dark_Sage was so cute in trying to explain everything to me. I think I ended up liking the panel even more than he did!

And then it was 1AM and we passed out in our room.

Saturday’s Picture Haul:

This was at my SHAFT panel. I had the Charlotte stand up to illustrate the art style at one point. And I made a contract with Kyubey and became a magical girl. The gem on my hat is apparently my soul gem.

I tried to get Ranka’s attention on three separate occasions to get her picture. Luckily, this one worked!

Finally found the Mami! Her teacup was full, too. That was awesome.

You can’t really see, but Sakura has little metal gold circles hanging all over on her. Super detailed.

Interesting story with this one. She was hanging out with her friends when I approached her for a picture. One of the guys goes, “You know who she is? I don’t even know who she is.” I say, “Yeah, she’s from Otome Youkai Zakuro,” and she just beams and expresses how happy she is that someone recognized her finally. I personally think it’s one of the best cosplays I saw all weekend.

One of the guys who helped run the Yuri panel the night before. Interesting question to think about: Is it crossplay if you’re a man cosplaying a crossdressing man?

Super cute Mion.

One of my anime club friends and his girlfriend. Also, best Link ever. His shield is 3D, not cardboard or wood or what not. He’s also wearing real chainmail.

Like I said earlier, I saw a lot of Serahs (and Snows), but a few Lightnings and only one Vanille. I guess FF13-2 is popular.

Amazing Celty. I have no idea how she was allowed that scythe, though. That thing is huge.

So I saw this amazing Saber and I’m like, “I need a picture.” Then, I see creepy Tohsaka Rin and I’m all, “I should be polite.” Luckily…

Saber without Creepysaka Rin! And Rider was fantastic.

This was the other Madoka and Mami. Of course, Mami was missing the hair, but it was really good otherwise.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw him going up the elevator! He’s from Digimon Tamers.

Anyone want to enlighten me on what these beautiful girls are from? Because they are GORGEOUS.

Pretty surprised to see Guilty Crown, too. Didn’t everyone hate that show?

EL PSY CONGROO. Awesome Okabe.

Spot-on Menma. SO CUTE AND TINY. She said she had a Jinta with her, but he wasn’t around. SO GLAD I went to Subway with Dark_Sage.

 

Sunday, April 1:

So, uh, I slept until like 10 this morning, and then we had to check out of the room like right away. But I was exhausted from the day before, and Dark_Sage had taken a nap in the middle of Saturday afternoon. I didn’t. It was fine, since I didn’t want to go to anything until 1PM, anyway.

Sunday’s Panels:

1PM: Gender Roles (not 18+):
I hung out with Omex for awhile and then we went here. Since the night before was mostly tame, I expected this to be pretty interesting, too. Margo (one of my favourite panelists ever) brought a ton of videos for this time. (She also cosplayed as Grell from Kuroshitsuji both days, but Saturday as feminine Grell and Sunday as the more standard Grell. Kind of neat.) We learned what it means to be male from the Bleach musical and what it means to be female from Tenchi Muyo and Ouran High School Host Club. We then watched some Takarazuka and a Grell scene from the Kuroshitsuji musical. All fun stuff. The discussion was neat, too.

2:30PM: Shin Megami Tensei:
Met back up with Dark_Sage for this one. The panelists were the people who did the time travel panel, so I was like, “Um, this might suck.” The panelists said not to talk about Devil Survivor 2 since it was so new and how it was so hard, and Dark_Sage was like WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU IDIOTS and then we left to see if the Dealer’s Room had any sales. We got some candy.

So then we met my parents for dinner (they were up for a different event). I wouldn’t mention this, except this conversation happened:

My mom: So was was the most popular thing to dress up as?
Me: My Little Pony.
My mom: {stops eating for a moment} You mean what you watched as a kid?
Dark_Sage: Yes.
My mom: What?
Dark_Sage: Not kids, either.
Me: People our age.
My parents: {dumbfounded looks on their faces}

Yeah. So I then drove Dark_Sage home, then passed an overturned car driving myself home. All in all, I had a fantastic time.

Sunday’s Picture Haul:

I was raised Catholic. I texted this to my parents. Haaaaa.
Story behind this one. I saw Jesus walking around with the bread and wine and I knew I needed a picture. I pointed out that he even had bread and wine, and he stated, “Well, it is Sunday.” I then said, “Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned. I did not attend mass this morning.” He laughed and said, “It’s okay. I didn’t, either. Come on Friday, and that’ll be fine.” It was a great joke.
(For those of you who don’t get it, Friday is Good Friday, which is the day people mourn Jesus being nailed to the cross. HAHAHA.)
TL Note: I am not religious.

Amazingly detailed Queen Victoria from Kuroshitsuji! She had a parasol and everything, but she set it down for the picture.

I didn’t see many lolitas, but this one was pretty~

Instead of just going with the pink hair like everyone else, this Sheryl Nome did the two-tone thing. I didn’t get it at first, but I really think that shows a lot of attention to detail. Someone watched the show, not just looked at art.

Lego Gundam at every con.

When I say that people were dressed up as My Little Ponies, I mean it. This pony was chasing a laser pointer dot like a cat. I kid you not. He/she was all over the place.

 

My Loot (and the stories behind it all):

I went through the Dealer’s Room multiple times. The first time, I bought Madoka. She was $35 and the only one the booth had. I later went and got Homura for $40 at a different booth. I pointed to the back of a Madoka box (the same one, but priced at $40) and asked, “Do you have any of the Mami ones hidden somewhere?” He said they had sold out an hour earlier. (It was about 6PM on Friday, so the Dealer’s Room had only been opened for 4 hours at this point.) I hung my head and moved on. At the next booth, they had Mami for $40. (They had her through the end of the convention.) At this point I left and returned to the room with my loot. I had set out to only buy Mami, but had bought Madoka and Homura because I hadn’t come across Mami yet. With that in mind, I considered completing the set with Sayaka (there were two figurines in each set, so no Kyouko), but Sayaka isn’t my favourite like the others. I decided against it.

But the thought kept coming back to me. On Saturday, I went back to the Dealer’s Room to consider it again, but instead I bought a wall scroll of Kyubey for $18, which left the convention with only two left of that wall scroll to sell. By the time I had changed my mind to purchase Sayaka, the Dealer’s Room was closed for the day. I was worried I wouldn’t get her – and after I had spent so long deciding!

But on Sunday when I returned, there was indeed two Sayakas left. I snatched her up for $38.

(Obviously before I had completed my set with Sayaka.)

I really like the little postcards from the Artist Alley. Each row of the postcards each set me back $10. So I got four Bakuretsu Tenshi, four Fate/stay night, two Nana, and a Fran to even it out. (My mom hates the Fran.)

But the purchase from the con I am most happy about, actually, is this one. I didn’t like Star Driver at all. I felt that it was very repetitive and many of the characters were annoying and unlikeable. Sure, it had many similarities to Utena, but it didn’t have the depth of character and plot Utena did. So why did I buy this print for $10 at the Artist Alley? Because it is truly a work of art. I eventually want all of the postcards I got this and last year framed, but this is the piece I want to be the centerpiece. Tomatsu Haruka’s character in Star Driver was amazing, as was her song, Monochrome. Every time I walked past this piece at the convention, I thought about how beautiful it was, but how much I hated the source anime. Yet, I kept coming back to it, and I’m so glad I did.

 

So yeah. That’s my take on Anime Detour. I’m sorry I’m not a pretentious sarcastic nerd like my boyfriend. But I’ll let him fill you in on the rest.