Al is not a robot

Al is not a robot... (T_T)

Concert

・・・ぐったり・・・(>_<;)

今日は本家ブログの出張版。
しかも画像だけ。（爆）
手抜きで、すみません～（逃）

Anime Evolution 2007 (5)

Some after thoughts...

It was kind of sad to see so few FMA cosplayers comparing to last year. But again, Vic Mignogna was here, and I suspect his presence bought a lot of fans from out of town. There might still be some cosplay next year since the manga is still going. But once it ends, there will probably be none. Sob sob sob... I'd like to stay as a fan even after it's over. FMA is truly an amazing series.

Nevertheless, there were 4500(?) attendees this year. Last year it was in the 3-thousands. But... from what I saw, there seemed to be fewer people. Hmm...

Anime Evolution 2007 (4)

This was the last day. Since there weren't enough red-coat Ed around, I decided to wear my red fleece. And might as well a black T-shirt inside. This is the best I can do without a costume. (But even if I do have a costume, I don't have the guts to wear it.)

Missed the Gothic Lolita tea party I wanted to see. It was more like, I was late, but there should still be 15 minutes left. However, it wasn't there. The location was simply empty. Looked but couldn't find it. Oh well, guess it wasn't meant to be.

Ah! Finally caught the Winry cosplayer! Yay~!

The "yaoi" theme seem to be even more popular this year. The number of panels more than doubled from last year.

And then there were the "free yaoi hugs" guys in the cosplay hang out area! That was funny! Hey, if they're yaoi, aren't they only allowed to hug guys?

Some people took transit in their costumes. On the bus I overheard a girl (who dressed kind of like Misa from Death Note) talking to 2 female attendees from out of town. The girl say something like, they were saying, oh my god, our school is taken over by freaky people! The out of town ladies sure didn't seem too happy. And I thought, that girl was freaky herself too! (From the way she dressed, being too eager to talk, and trying so hard to act girly.) Oh well, it's over this year. I'm exhausted and still have a cold. Need lots of rest for sure.

Anime Evolution 2007 (3)

Since I don't have the guts to cosplay, I'd do it with accessories. Today I went to the con with a gift from my Japanese friend. She gave me an official FMA silver necklace during my trip last Christmas. There are plenty of bootlegs out there, but this is the real thing! (Later I found out it's around $150. Oh dear... I feel so guilty...)

Still exhausted from yesterday (plus the cold lingered), I arrived late at 3:30 PM, so missing the first 30 minutes of Shamballa. Seen it with the computer already, but I'd love to see it on a bigger screen. It was only a lecture room, not a real theater. But the sound quality was definitely a lot better than what I have at home.

The room was packed solid with people sitting on the floor on both sides! I managed to stand near the door, which was better, because the air was horrible! Hot and suffocating! If it wasn't for Shamballa I'd have left. There were constant interruptions. Throughout the show, more people were trying to come in, and a few left. There were about 140 seats, plus the extra people, so I'd say a total of approximately 160? They should have used a bigger room. I'm glad it's popular, though.

Then I met up with a friend and went to some panels. I'm so happy to have caught the Izumi cosplayer! That was probably the same Ed with her too. I was unable to take their picture last year. Don't remember seeing Rose, though. There was also a Winry cosplayer that I missed.

There was almost no FMA merchandise at the vendors. Kind of sad. But they might be sold out already. Never know.

Anime Evolution 2007 (2)

Hmm... overall there is a sharp decrease in the number of FMA cosplayer. Kind of sad. Ed's red coat should be so easy to spot, but couldn't really see any. Maybe 2 for the whole day? (But I was stuck behind a flea market table.) And at the end of the day, I photographed the same person twice. Haha!

Last year Vic Mignogna (Ed's voice actor) was here. That makes all the difference. Oh well.

Submitted almost all the drawing I did in the past 12 months from this blog to the drawing contest. Not really interested in the price. (Last year it was a pair of bear ears.) Oops, sorry I lied. There's a chance to be scouted by a publisher. Nevertheless, my main goal is to increase FMA exposure.
Oh! Ed and Envy spotted on the dance floor! There might be more army people but I was too tired to look. I'm even too tired to cough. Actually, I'm falling asleep as I type this. Better go. Doubt if I can get up early enough tomorrow.

Anime Evolution 2007 (1)

They are showing TV episode 1-4 and the movie!
Episode 1-4: Sunday Aug 20th, 12:00 - 14:00, Video 7, AQ3150
Shamballa: Saturday Aug 18th, 15:00 - 17:00, Video 6, AQ3153
(The movie is shown first?! Hmm...)
...and my FMA Pinkies won't make it to the convention. Sob sob sob...

Comic World 23 (in Hong Kong)

Feb 25, 2007. Comic World 23. A photo from a friend in Hong Kong. Her group's theme was Samurai 7. They had a doujinshi and doll cosplay of the show. Pretty interesting! According to her, the event was quite big. I'd love to see it in person some day.

香港の友達から、
2月25日Comic World 23の写真。
彼女が参加したサークルのテーマはサムライ7。
新刊同人誌一冊と人形のコスプレイ。
いいな～楽しそう～

Some after thoughts

I'm still exhausted from the convention after 5 days. Is it just lack of sleep, or age? Well, I did only get less then 13 hours of sleep in 3 days, and never had full 8-hour sleep since. The dark circles under my eyes won't go away. Sob sob sob...

Anyway, cosplayers are a reflection of popularity. The most number of cosplayers this time seemed to be:

1. Naruto
2. Bleach
3. FMA
4. Gothic Lolita
5. Final Fantasy

Argh!!! I can't believe I didn't take any photos of Naruto and Bleach!!! (Well, Naruto is pretty easy to cosplay, with that widely available store-bought metal plate head band.) There were plenty of Clamp characters too. Especially Chobits.

Missed a few cosplayers I'd love to photograph. Izumi, Ed with antenna (rare!) and suit case, Scar, Glutony, Suiginto, Souseiseki, Totoro, Eriol, Light & Misa, Nea & Melo.

I've only heard about the "half" Totoro. Oh I really want to see it! Anybody out there took any photos???

Stuff...
Pinky, FMA key chain, and ears.

I was surprised to see how popular yaoi is. And there was the men's beauty contest with women as judges. Hmm... feels kind of like a reversed sexist thing. When men go after women, that's perverted. When women go after men, that's trendy???

Anime Evolution 2006 day 3

2006 Aug 21. Much fewer attendees because it was a Monday. Slightly less than 5 hours of sleep was starting to do weird things to my mind.

I managed to arrived at around 12:30. The first event I wanted to see was the Lady Ashleigh's Tea Party. But I was curious about the Open Autograph Session. (Still haven't taken a picture with Vic yet.) So I stopped by the area and ended up chatting with some cosplayers. Photos too, of course. Turn out Vic wouldn't be there.

My blood sugar got too low again so I had to find lunch first. More food places were opened although not the main cafeteria. And I was bad... to go back to the dealer and get the key chain. Just one, though. Not a set. The person standing beside me was looking at those key chains too. An arm reached out in front of me and... argh? An automail arm! Oh that's another Ed cosplayer! The Rush Valley Ed in boxers showing the automail leg too! Of course, would I let her go without taking photos? Nooooo...

Ate the sandwich at the main stage. The Anime Walkof Finals was in progress. All I saw was guys taking turns to show off their dance movies, and eventually taking their shirts off.

More photos of cosplayer as I slowly walked towards the tea party location. Only to find out they're just closing. Argh!! The site was kinda cool, though. A little square area enclosed by 10-foot tall bushes. Like an outdoor room with leafy walls.

As I walked back, I ran into the same armour Al from the first day resting under a tree! More photos! And I got to chat with him and another girl from out of town. Actually, one good way to hunt for Ed cosplayers would be to follow this armour Al around! Because he's an Ed magnet! Not just Ed but everyone else too. Hey, who doesn't want a picture of him?

Then I thought I was late for the Candy Toy Crazy!!! panel. Turn out I messed up the time and it was fine. There were only 9 people in the audience. Kinda disappointing. I was hoping that there might be a bigger community of collectors out there.

To my surprise, the speaker knows me! We actually met in a toy store a few years ago and exchanged URL. And, he borrowed a few pictures from my toy site for his slide show. I wish he'd ask first, so I can give him better resolution ones. The content of the lecture was geared too much towards guys too. Godzilla and monster toys. Mainly about the speaker's own collection.

The highlight was meeting some ball jointed dolls collectors at the candy toy panel. I was so happy because I missed yesterday's doll panel! We chatted for a while and they showed me their dolls. They're beautiful... but dangerous of course. At this point, I'd stay away from buying any because they're really expensive.

I wanted to see the The Evolution of Yaoi: From Gravitation to Kyou Kara Maou panel... but I couldn't find the room! Aaaargh! I was pretty tired and my mind left me. Circling around the building, I ended up in the Charity Auction room. They were selling a bottle of water autographed by Vic. Starting price $5, sold for $20. Then a mouse trap from yesterday's game session or something, that got a whole bunch of autographs on it, including the voice actor who played Rattrap in Beasties and Beast Machines. The bid was at $40 when I left the room.

I ran out of energy and there was nothing else going on. So I just sat down at the main stage to wait for the closing ceremonies. More people were gathering too while the staff tried to organise VIP seating. Somehow they expected half the crowd to be VIPs but were shocked to see almost none! Nevertheless, they were pretty good at keeping the crowd entertained before the ceremonies started.

Then it was the final of Anime Idol. A girl vs a guy (sorry I can't remember their names). Both of them were excellent singers. After that, the announcement of various contests' winners. Argh! I won the art contest! Staff picked computer generated category! Yay~! And the prize was, a pair of clipped-on bear(?) ears! Cute! I wanted a pair of cat ears at the hat dealer's table but held off. Now these are perfect! The picture that won was the cat ear Ed + Alphonse in a basket. Maybe that's why the prize was ears although sponsored by Copic? I though it would be markers or some kind of art supply. But these ears are actually much better.

After that, was the presentation of a cheque to the BC Children's Hospital. It was from the Charity auction. They didn't count the coat check money so the amount written on the cheque was incorrect. The total was around $4500. The number of people attended was 3602. (Much fewer than I thought!) Then came the special thanks, and the other eye of the Daruma was painted in.

The final wrap up was a short documentary-touch video of the event. I'm sure it will show up on YouTube in no time. 2 people from Seattle forgot their passport at the coat check! (Yup, their names and city were announced.) Didn't see anyone going up to the staff. I wonder if they even stayed for the ceremony. Hope they got the passport back. Otherwise they can't go home!

A lot of cosplayer took transit in their costume. Including the armour Al! There was a Shinji cosplayer with his friends on the skytrain talking about how he didn't go home for 3 days, and thanks to a certain deodorant spray, 3 days without shower was no problem. Yikes... the last time I heard some one say that was when I was still working for a certain 3D animation studio. Nevertheless, the desire of photographing him completely disappeared.

Well, this ends my 3-day report on the event. Next year is Aug 17 -19. I might go again, depending on schedule.

Anime Evolution 2006 day 2

2006 Aug 20. It's passed midnight again. Managed to sleep for 5 hours. Much better than yesterday, but still no where near enough.

Day 2 started with "the State of Anime in Canada" open discussion panel at noon. I though I was 20 minutes late (thanks to grabbing a sandwich on my way) but there was room schedule conflict, so the panel started half and hour late. It worked out fine in the end. My friend was a bit late too, but he also made it before it started.

They talked about how and why anime isn't getting into Canada faster. It was mainly the "Canadian content" restriction. I didn't know the Mainframe shows like ReBoot was treated as Canadian content slot filler. That's why there're so many re-runs. And, the voice actor for Megabyte died last week. Too bad, he was a great actor. The rest of the session, was more like whining about the networks. (^_^) Free DVDs at the end but I didn't know the answer to most questions...

Until the speaker pointed out, I didn't notice the FMA dub hasn't been mutilated as badly as other anime. It's virtually uncut! (Ooooh but I counted one missing shot so far.) Well... guess I should be more thankful and complain less. (But whatever sucks, sucks!!)

Then, we wandered around the dealer's room. No line up at all today. There was a set of FMA key chains that I was interested in, but at $40 for 6, I have to hold off. And then there were these cute hats with animal ears or angry marks. At $25 each, they're still a bit too expensive. However, I've seen some people wearing an Al hat, which I'll buy for sure if I see one. (Provided that it's still $25.)

After that, we went to the voice actor panel. Vic Mignogna (voice of Ed), Michael Dobson, and Brad Swaile were the speakers. Vic's natural voice IS kinda high and whinny (sigh... that explains). He seems to be a better stage actor then voice actor. There were lots of FMA fans. (Of course.) Aaaargh! Found the same Izumi sensei cosplayer from yesterday!!!! Plus a few Ed cosplayers with automail arm! (Oh! I soooo want to take pictures of them~!) The Greed and Envy pair I missed yesterday happened to sit right behind me! And, there was Gluttony! By a female cosplayer! Oh~! I'd love a picture of her too! Shooting from my seat sure didn't work.

The panel started with a song that Vic did on his own about the FMA brothers. Some fan put together a clip for it using show footage. If you ask me, I don't think voice actors should sing. (Except for, if the character is a singer.) That goes for both Japanese AND English.

Vic was giving out free FMA card game cards. Got one, of course. Who doesn't like freebies. (But honestly, it's kinda useless to me. Oh well, it's a souvenir.)

The fans were crazy. But they were equally entertaining to watch too. A Winry cosplayer asked to kiss Brad Swaile. The audiences went nuts. Vic said he got his butt (both sides) grabbed by a fan before. Crazy...

Since I had to attend a friend's wedding banquet at 6, I needed to leave the room at 4:20, just missing the last 10 minutes. Turn out the bus didn't leave until around 4:35, so I could have stayed till the end. Grrrr... And there was the Ball Jointed Dolls panel that I really wanted to see, but it was at 5 pm... sob sob sob...

There seemed to be a lot fewer cosplayers today. Maybe every body's in the rooms. But I found 2 Nausicaa! That's old school, 1984!!!!! Wouldn't dream of seeing any fans. Nausicaa has been my #1 until FMA.

Hughes! With wings! (But no halo?)

Ed writing the State Alchemist exam... wait, is he cheating?

Tomorrow is the last day. Oh~! I want more photos! This chasing after cosplayers for photos is kinda like chasing after Mickey Mouse in Disneyland, isn't it?

Anime Evolution 2006 day 1

2006 Aug 19. It ran from Saturday to Monday. This entry is passed midnight so it's one day late. (Not to mention... by the time all the photos were ready, the upload is almost a week late!)

I've always wanted to try out SFU's Anime Evolution. This year, finally, I'm unemployed and don't have to sleep-in on the weekend. (However, my days and nights are flipped so it's actually much harder.)

Only got less then 3 hours of sleep. It was tough. And I'm not too familiar with transit either and made some mistakes. Plus, it was PNE's opening day, and maintenance day for the Skytrain. Oh well. Still managed to meet up with my friend at the University station without too much mishaps, and off we went.

The line up for registration was long... wait, that was the pre-registered badge pick-up line! There weren't even 10 people lined up at the door! Hmm... pre-register did save you $10, though. But when it got so crowed, the room started to stink, I'd rather get out of there ASAP. And then they ran out of bags for the freebies. More line up!

When the bags finally arrived, the size was huge! I bet I can get inside! Oh well, it was from a sponsor, so, can't complain. The freebies contains: schedule and brochure for the event, a Godzilla poster, Godzilla sampler CD, manga, postcards, coupons, and flyers. The bag is waaaay too big for them.

The opening ceremony was late so we hunt for food first. Nothing was opened except Mr. Sub and a bubble tea stand. The line up was looong. But in the same area was also the line up for the dealer rooms. That, was 10 times longer!

Thanks to the line-up, we missed 10 minutes of the Taiko drums. The martial art performance was absent because of clashing schedule. The Mayer of Burnaby was supposed to be there, but was he actually? There were supposed to be lion dance too but I didn't see any. Or was it all in the first 10 minutes that we missed???

So we finished our lunch and took some pictures of the cosplayers. There were a few FMA cosplayer and I had been eyeing for the good ones to photograph. There were about 3. Too bad... too bad... I kept waiting and didn't actually take too many photos. And I lost the one I wanted the most: Izumi sensei!

Yay~! A picture with the armour Al! I only saw 2 other Als. One wearing a blue coat and the other one, Shambala Al. (Or did I not recognise the rest???)

Vic Mignogna (Ed's voice actor) was there to sign autograph. I'm not into voice actors but I wanted a picture with him for this blog (hehehehe...) but the line up was way too long. There were plenty of FMA cosplayers gathered at his table, though. (Of course.) Oh well, I'll try again tomorrow.

The AMV Room also has a line up comparable to real movie theatre so it wasn't worth the wait. I'm into Pinky Street, so I attended the "Pinky Street 101" panel. Thanks for coming along, Steven! (I know you aren't into Pinky.)

Next, we went to the "Webcomic Workwhop" panel. Unfortunately I fell asleep. Too much walking around with only 3 hours of sleep had caught up with me.

The last panel of the night, "Yaoi, Zowie! I think They're Gay!". I was shocked at how popular Yaoi is! The lecture room was packed with Yaoi fans (loud ones too!) and they were all very open and excited and enthusiastic. Hmm... I feel so out-dated... Yeah, that's why I attended this one to find out more...

The Creation Station asked for submission for art contest. Any kind of art. Comic (printed or online), illustrations, novel, doesn't matter whether it's original, fan art, old or new. So I decided to enter with 4 pics from this blog. (There's no way I'll have time to draw new ones. And I'd like to boost the FMA content, hehehehe...) Still, some of the pics need to be touched up. Plus I needed to pick out an outfit for tomorrow's wedding banquet dinner of an ex-colleague. A week of trying to buy a new dress had failed. So I ended up going to bed at 5.

The convention continues tomorrow...