Anime Detour 2016

Because Dark_Sage will take a month to get his post up.

Since the first panel I wanted to hit up was at 12:30pm and I had to pick up D_S on the way, I had to leave my house at like 9am. It was gross. But we got there and ran into the first panel, Super High School Level Despair, which featured crossplaying Junko, Togami, and Leon. Junko was a great gay sassypants and stole the panel away from Monomi. They asked for our phone numbers to help “play the murder mystery” that didn’t start until after the panel. Which is when I didn’t care anymore, because I was hanging out with all of my local bffs yo: the Sage, Omex, and Omex’s roomate, Kona.

This was the cast. Dude, isn’t that the best Junko ever? I think so. I really do.

I was going to go to 2pm and 3:30pm panels, but the Artist Alley and Dealer’s Room were also calling their siren’s songs, and I had no choice but drop my wallet in offering. Here’s my prints haul from the Artist Alley:

And my haul from the Dealer’s Room. On the left is a Kantai Collection x Touhou Project yuri hentai doujin. Yes, you heard that right. On the left is a gigantic Canaan artbook, which includes everything you want in an artbook and more. And at the bottom is Kajiura Yuki’s Le Portrait de Petit Cosette soundtrack, whcih is absolutely stunning, even if the anime itself is not so much.

5PM was my Phantasy Star Online 2 panel that I was running with Omex, though he pretty much stole the show and rambled on about classes for forever. It was great, though, because I found out that like half of my local university anime club plays PSO2 and I had no idea. Apparently, I suck.

Some of you may remember my post about the fake American alpha release of Kantai Collection, which means that it’s no surprise that I went to the 6:30PM panel for Kantai Collection. Kona actually played the legit game for awhile, so she was helping me with the in-jokes that I hadn’t quite grasped yet. It was probably the best panel of the con, not gonna lie.

All of the room parties with booze opened up at 8PM, so that was the next stop. Three J-ello Shots later, the trek back to panels began. I had no interest in any of the panels, but apparently D_S liked the AniMinneapolis Kuroshitsuji panels so much that we had to go to Truth or Dare with the Phantomhive Servants again. I think we only lasted about five minutes before he rushed me out. We then crashed Super Sentai in the 1990s and fuck people know their shit yo. These guys were naming like villains and characters and events from all of these shows and I was just sitting in the back on D_S’s DS playing TWEWY.

9:30PM was the last panel slot that we cared to attend, and I got to pick this one. We went to the Anime by the Numbers trivia game, in which you had to guess all sorts of numerical trivia, such as “how many product placements are in episode x of xx?” which meant not even I knew these facts. So it was great.

We then went back to the hotel room to chill for a bit before falling into bed. FYI, D_S does not snore.

 

SATURDAY

D_S wanted to go to AMVs at 9am, but when we woke up, we said “fuck it” and went back to bed for two more hours. Best idea ever.

I have no pictures of myself cosplaying Senjougahara because the wig is the wrong color and wouldn’t stay on my head anyway. The uniform was on point, though, and after asking Omex in a panic, I had a stapler that got safety tied.

I spent most of the day trailing Omex as he opened three Nanoha grab bags and flipped his shit when he saw what he got. I also played mahjong with Kona until the Fate series photoshoot, which had a great mix of characters from all of the instances in the franchise, including some Grand Order shit, which I thought was really cool.

Everyone.

Fate/Zero

Servants

Sabers

Sabers fighting Diarmuid.

Sabers fighting Gilgamesh and the Savior of France

Best. Picture. Ever.

Masters.

Mysterious Heroine X defeating ALL THE SABERZ!

I went to a panel for like five more minutes before dragging Kona back up to mahjong for three more hours until the HIGHLIGHT OF THE CONVENTION.

The 9PM Yuri panel I run every year. This year had the same crew with the same powerpoint having the same discussions, including me being DESPERATE for some action. However, unlike previous years, it actually paid off, and I got some digits yo. And a first date coming up in the future.

There’s really nothing else that happened on Saturday, because immediately following the Yuri panel, I went drinking with one of the girls and a bunch of her friends and I didn’t get back to my room until 3:30AM. Though I did lose my keycard and had to wake D_S up. Sorry, dude. It was totally worth it. Until I realized I forgot to shut off my 7:30AM alarm. Sorry.

The Wonder Chef did give you a recipe if you took his picture.

There was a TON of Jojo stuff this year, including two Josukes, a Jotaro, a Polnareff, a Dio, and a Joseph, but this is the only picture I managed to take. Sorry.

     

There was a SUPER CUTE Hachikuji that I grabbed to get a picture of, she decided to take a selfie with me instead, and then she ran off before I could get a picture of her! Sorry about that.

 

SUNDAY

I woke up and immediately went to flirt with the cute girl from Saturday. I mean, I tried one panel (American Aidoru, where Love Live and iDOLM@STER cosplayers attempted very poorly to be idols), but my future wife my future girlfriend she was cosplaying Saber from Fate/zero so I just went hnnnnng and fawned all over her for the next five hours until I finally realized I should probably take D_S home.

 

Verdict? Best con ever.