[youtube]http://youtu.be/ohBApq6Pfm8[/youtube]
Although FanimeCon 2012 kept going until Monday May 28th, I was unable to attend the final day.
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My last day of the convention and I was already overwhelmed by everything that I had seen the previous two days. Sunday proved to bring out even more cosplayers however, mostly due to the “Cosplay Spectacular” which is known anywhere else as the masquerade.
Before the masquerade however, it was time to catch a panel featuring one of the Guests of Honor, Shigeto Koyama. Mr. Koyama has worked on many animes, but also the Nintendo 3DS game Guild01. In the panel, he focused on Japanese animation and what hairstyles say about a particular character. As he was starting to discuss mecha designs briefly, I had to leave for the masquerade unfortunately.
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A huge draw to many anime conventions is the masquerade and FanimeCon is no different. When I headed over to the Civic Auditorium across the street from the convention center, I noted that the line wrapped around half the building. This wouldn’t normally be worth mentioning, except for the fact it appeared people were lining up 3-4 hours before 6PM to get a choice seat for the show.
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Once the show began it started off with a few Kung Fu performances, followed by a number of walk-on cosplayers. Once they were done, it was time to move onto the “skit” portion of the show. Many performances in this section were humorous, though because of the loud volume, it was difficult to understand what was going on at times. There were also a few choice skits that involved singing, which thankfully most were talented at what they did. Perhaps a huge highlight for me personally was one female who performed a few ballet movements. It was a treat to watch her tip toe across the stage with such grace. Overall the masquerade was decent, but it needed an intermission considering it was three hours long.
Once the show was over, I dashed over to the gaming hall once again to check on the population. With many of the main draws to the convention closed for the day, the room was buzzing more than normal. The handheld section barely had enough chairs for everyone. Among those seated, many had Nintendo 3DS systems while others had original DS, DS Lite, and even a few DSi systems strewn about.
FanimeCon 2012 wasn’t my first anime convention experience and it probably won’t be my last. Although there were issues here and there, for the most part it was an enjoyable experience, especially for the fans. I hope next year won’t suffer from the same power outage issues however.
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