AnimeFest 2011

I look forward to AnimeFest all year because while smaller compared to AKon, for some reason the crowd at AnimeFest just seems vastly different. Held at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Dallas, the convention was stuffed with people of all shapes and sizes, including some very lost looking LSU fans! I definitely tried to go to as many panels as possible AND speak to as many cosplayers, con goers, randoms…Hell, I even talked to a couple who were at the hotel for dinner and got caught up in the craziness! Four days of non stop action was tough on us all but I had an absolute BLAST!

Please don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube where all of the footage we shot will be up soon!

That being said, let us commence with the recap!

Day One – Friday

I had originally planned on getting to AnimeFest before noon but plans went awry and I ended up getting there right after 4pm, missing out on the beginning of Dai Sato’s panel as well as missing out on Foam Techniques for Cosplays. I sighed wearily and set up camp in the corner where we could easily pull people to interview. I had a blast doing this, as talking to many different people proved interesting and fun. Luckily, the random passerby I spoke with were more than willing to talk to us, so be sure to look out for those videos on YouTube.  My schedule for Friday looked something like this:

10am – How to play D&D

2pm – Soul Eater Anime

4pm – Dai Sato

4pm – Foam Crafting for Cosplay

6pm – Summer Wars Anime

8pm – Anime Jeopardy Novice Edition

9pm – Cosplay Runway

What ACTUALLY went down:

10am – How to play D&D

2pm – Soul Eater Anime

4pm – Dai Sato

4pm – Foam Crafting for Cosplay 

6pm – Summer Wars Anime 

430-7pm – talk to a shit ton of people – this included several cosplayers, people in line for Bowling for Soup, and a lot of fangirls!

7pm – Beginning Mascot Creation – a panel dedicated to creating a mascot (think Bowser suit, random furry, Pedobear) and the best techniques to creating the costume.

8pm – Anime Jeopardy Novice Edition – pretty self explanatory, but as I did not make the cut, we left the panel early to get seats for the Cosplay contest.

9pm – Cosplay Runway – there were so many kickass costumes this year, we took photos (which will be up soon on our Facebook) and video which will also be up on our YouTube.

I did learn MANY things from the mascot creation panel so I’m hoping to implement those things in future cosplays and I was completely saddened to not be chosen for Anime Jeopardy. I am super competitive so it would have definitely been loads of fun to participate. I also very much wanted to learn the ropes for D&D and film my foray into, what I feel, is one of the nerdiest things you can do but I got to the con each day too late to sign up for it >_<

Day Two – Saturday

I had to work at Keith’s so I got to the con (yet again) later than I’d planned and missed out on several things I wanted to film and learn from (like plushies *cries miserably*). As you can tell, Saturday was MUCH more busy and to be honest, Saturday seems to be the day when everyone is out in full force and in full costume. The amount of people seemed to have tripled and it was tough going getting to the panels in time!

2pm – K-On! Anime

3pm – Felt Animals and Plushies

4pm – Learn to Dance for the Semi-Formal Ball

6pm- Naked Bacon

6pm – Cosplay Chess

6pm – Trigun: Badlands Rumble

7pm-9pm – talk to people and interview LoyalKNG

9pm – WTF Japan

9pm – Semi-Formal Ball

11pm – Rave

What ACTUALLY went down:

2pm – K-On! Anime

3pm – Felt Animals and Plushies

4pm – Learn to Dance for the Semi-Formal Ball

5pm – talk to people – I spoke with many more people at the convention, including several who had never been to a con before. How does that happen??? We also went through the dealer room and spoke with people about their purchases.

6pm- Naked Bacon – A word game panel that I got to participate in and film. Think Taboo but with incredibly odd nouns (one of ours was Cuba Gooding Jr. that we had to act out in charades. WTF.).

6pm – Cosplay Chess – A chess game played with cosplayers acting like the pieces, this panel room was filled to the brim but we got excellent video of it and it was a lot of fun.

6pm – Trigun: Badlands Rumble

7pm-9pm – talk to people and interview LoyalKNG – LoyalKNG was a group we ran across in the dealer room (who had a kickass Bomberman/Batman T-shirt for sale at their booth) and I was struck by how amazing and positive their concept/brand/way of life was so we spoke with Trung about it. I also spoke with more cosplayers, including a Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.

9pm – WTF Japan – Have you ever seen those fuckin’ crazy clips of commercials in Japan? Maybe like this one or this one? This panel was an hour long laugh fest dedicated to the craziest clips from Japan.

9pm – Semi-Formal Ball – Ladies and Gents dressed in everything from Victorian dresses to Steampunk to state alchemist uniforms. Very proper and very official dancing was had.

10pm – Arcade/Gaming Room – Surprisingly the gaming room wasn’t a happening part of the convention. There were no tournaments held and a lot of people didn’t seem excited to be there. I was lucky to find a couple of gamers (girls and boys alike) who wanted to be on camera for a few minutes but I wonder why the lack of enthusiam? What happened, gamers???

11pm – Rave – We popped in and out of the rave after almost being trampled by an improptu running conga line!

I think I had the most fun Saturday and like I said, there were a lot more people to speak with and I got to play pachinko. I have no idea what the game is about or how to play it but I poured a bunch of tiny silver balls into a machine and watched them fall down some pegs. I got to level 8 and won a cute Riku figure from Kingdom Hearts so I guess I did awesome at it.

Day Three – Sunday

I didn’t plan for much of anything on Sunday except for filming the entire Cosplay Skit event that was happening that evening. It gave me a lot of time to converse with more attendees and I asked several of them my “If aliens came to Earth” question. The cosplay skits were really great this year and one of them even included a Jigglypuff being skinned by Pyramid Head. Highlight of the evening definitely had to be the extremely large group of people that agreed to be on film screaming in excitement. I was also thrilled to see Lord Death being sandwiched between dancing fangirls of all ages and a fantastic Nicholson Joker being chased by an enraged Harley Quinn.

Day Four – Monday

The hallways are nearly empty, and the vibrant colors of costumes are missing. It’s a sad lonely day and there are tearful goodbyes between new found friends to be seen. Not much happens on Monday and it seems like people are more concerned with packing up and leaving than attending the few panels that were happening. We opted to head out after filming a goodbye segment and it was with a heavy heart that we packed up our equipment and left the Hyatt.

WE WILL SEE YOU NEXT YEAR, ANIMEFEST!