GURREN-BLOGGIN, CARAMELLDANSEN ON!!!!

Dang, I wish someone had gotten pictures of CJ and Janette Caramelldansening. And the Lavi cosplayer dancing on a chair was superiorly epic too.

Yes, this post means that CJ, Rakuen and Janette all survived the madness that was Matsuricon. CJ almost got groped at the rave, and Janette was perpetually glomped, but the epic Artist Alley, game room and panels kept us all sane. It would’ve been nice to have the three of us face off at Brawl, though.

Oh, and the actual freaking D.GRAY-MAN and LUCKY FREAKING STAR merch in the dealer’s room this year made things better too. Yutaka~ <333

CJ

I didn’t get there until 9:30 Saturday morning, but that ended up working out fine. My 10 FREAKING AM D.Gray-man panel (jeez, who’d I manage to piss off to get that hour?!) went well, with some hardcore fans and cosplayers showing up for learning and lulz. I learned some stuff myself (that bit about Allen’s arm = majorly obvious; I’m a nitwit) and met some epically awesome people. DGM cosplay pics below.

My Lou Fa (now spelled Rohfa T_T) cosplay went fine, but I found out at the last minute I wasn’t allowed to dye my hair purple like I was kinda supposed to. </3 My cosplay also randomly included my Cheese-kun plushie… totally non-canon, but everyone was like “OMG PLUSHIE DID YOU MAKE THAT? <3333″ There was a ton of Naruto and Bleach cosplayers (over9000 Kibas and Yachirus, talk about random) but Rave!Kakashi took the cake, big time:

Saturday largely consisted of AA and dealer’s room, with my second cousin’s wedding thrown in from 4:30-8:30. That kinda sucked, but at least I got some sleep in the car on the way there. I needed it. xD;

AA had several people I remembered from Ohayocon ‘08 or Matsuricon ‘07. I got my face drawn for a dollar again (I seriously get cuter every time~ xD) And I got a bunch of nice peoples’ business cards, but they have all disappeared. I think I put them all in a random volume of D.Gray-man :-X

Dealer’s room was moar epic than last year. I found one of those chibi Lucky Star figures (Yutaka <33333) some posters and a few old-skool OSTs. Macross Plus and Utena GET.

Unfortunately, I hardly got to go to any panels or events, but I caught part of Who’s Line and a panel for disgruntled NAY-roo-toh fans (yes that’s how the panelist pronounced it T__T)

The rave was five different kinds of epic. I randomly bumped into Drew, who I keep running into at Matsuri and Ohayocons (lol) and partied with random people, including Janette. Of course, there was about five half-naked anorexic girls grinding with random emos in the corner, so I was grossed out by that, and then this gross guy was just begging for a nice hard elbow in the stomach… <3 But Pokemon on the ceiling made up for that, big time. And there is nothing more priceless than someone you saw in SRS BSNSS cosplay earlier screaming “OMG ALUCARD <3333″ at the top of their fangirl lungs.

A few gripes: the PS2 with DDR on it in the game room kept freezing, despite my expert attempts to fix it (useful staff where? they eventually got it semi-fixed though.) Also, I couldn’t find Dusty, the programming director, Saturday morning, though fortunately I ended up not needing him anyway.

Overall, we rocked out. Epic lulzing at Sailor Moon dub was epic; epic rave was epic; epic random people handing out Pixie Stix was EPIC.

Janette

I had a really good time this weekend. I mostly ended up hanging around people the whole time, like Cj, but I made it to a few events. Friday night was a boring bust, so nothing to say there.

Saturday, I made it to CJ’s panel and learned all I wanted to about D. Gray-man in less then a hour. I also made it to the last 20 minutes of Who’s Line for the first time in my life, and had a fantasic time. The chemistry on stage and between the audiance really worked out well. Also, made it to a 1000 Yen Pyramid, and that was good clean Tristen McAvery fun. The girl who won was just amazing.

Sunday, my main event was seeing the Sailor Moon dub with Carly. Ohmigoodness. It was like Salior Moon+Health video about anorexia. I have not laughed so hard in a long time, I want more Sailor Moon dub.

I cosplayed as Fakir that weekend, and had a stuff duck down my shirt I refered to as my girlfriend. Those who had seen the show got it. The cosplay was great fun for me, and I hope to be cosplaying more in the future.

I’d like to make a couple shout-outs, one to Aardvark Tees for the free t-shirt and the other to an Artist in the AA for a free print of Kamina. She claimed she didn’t like it, so that’s why I got it for free, but it’s amazing. I’m considering framing it. My main regret is that I’ve lost her card.

The AA…I ended up in a very bad deal, and it flopped. Big time. Luckily, the person I worked with only had me pay half of what I owed, but the situation still stung. This would be a great time to say check out my blog, Black and Blue Socks on our blogroll, and see what I have for sale!

Rakuen

Another convention is done and over, this time Matsuricon. It’s a small convention, but despite that, it was pretty decent all around. The programming was fine, the Dealer’s Room and Artist’s Alley were varied and actually a bit large for such a convention and the game room I found superior to Ikasucon’s. And of course, at a small convention, it’s very easy to find and hang out with your friends, which is always a plus for me.

On the gaming side of things, my crew took home three of the tournaments. Team Donut won the Rock Band tournament with me playing guitar. At the Brawl doubles tournament, Ryzen and infernohit placed first, while Aura and Machinegun Norm came up in second. And at the singles tournament, infernohit took first, Fred grabbed second, and Ryzen snagged third, I ended up in 13^th. Both of my losses were to my teammates, first Aura and then Ukito. Thanks to everyone that competed, and congratulations to my comrades in arms.

On the event side, Ryzen did his usual set of panels, they were all ran well and had really good attendance for such a small convention. I popped into CJ’s panel for a few minutes when I had the opportunity, and she was doing very well, also. Whose Line on Saturday had good volunteers and suggestions out of the audience, and despite being only an hour long this time, it was among our best performances ever. Thanks to everyone that showed up for our shows, and we hope to see you all again.

Since I still have space remaining, I’m going to make one big shoutout. To Faye, Ryzen, Riley, Jnkolm, Sammi, Synth, Garam, Fred, Chaos, infernohit, Norm, Omni, Kane, Janette, CJ, Shawn, Emily, and Celeste: thanks for being the best group I could ever hang with. I hope to see you all soon. Specifically, at Sugoicon.

EDIT: CJ-ko with her Cheese-kun here. Also, the D.Gray-man panel (early on) and a huge photo gallery with random shots of some of us.