Date: October 26-28, 2007
Location: San Mateo Marriott Hotel off of Delaware St. in San Mateo, Ca
Price: $40 for pre-registration $60 at door
Major attractions:
Bishonen cafe
Video Room/Library
Oki and Kawahara-sensei (creators of Ja-dou)
AMV Contest
Cosplay Masquerade
Bishonen Auction
Dealers Room/Art exhibit
Panels
Review:
So, due to various timing issues, I missed many sections of the event, but I did get to go to Oki and Kawahara-sensei's panel and autograph sessions, the AMV Contest and Masquerade, and the Dealer's Room (hehe).
I met Oki-sensei and Kawahara-sensei! Ok, so I went to their panel, got their autographs, and bought their dojinshi and a matted print of Ja-dou. Very cool. Oki-sensei did 99.9% of the talking, focusing mainly on art style and technique. She gave us a sample of how she paints the pictures, and the general format for getting a picture ready for a magazine, and answered a few audience questions.
Ja-doh Pictures:
I missed the cafe and skipped the video room (I'd seen almost everything they were showing). The library wasn't bad, small room with a few chairs and tables, maybe two dozen titles arranged alphabetically on Ikea shelves...good place to kill an hour between panels. I also skipped most of the panels, they seemed to have some timing issues with all the decent looking panels set to go at the same time the major events were, oh well. The Art exhibit was small but decent, and they had the artists set up so you could ask questions if you wanted. The dealers room was small as well, but they had a pretty decent selection of books. Most of the DVDs you could get at BestBuy so I wasn't impressed, but if you could read Japanese you'd have hit the jackpot. Notable dealers included Broccoli Books, Kinokunyan, June Manga, and Blu. I managed to pick up #s 8 and 9 of Boy Princess, so not a total waste of time. :)
Probably my least favorite aspect were the lines for tickets to the three major events: AMV, Cosplay, and the Auction. Basically, everyone stood outside for 1-2 hours before the staff even set up the lines, then they messed up where to let people in and out, so everyone was frazzled. They also made it so you could only get one ticket per line, so by the time I got the AMV and Cosplay tickets, I could have cared less about the auction, and ended up not going at all.
For the events themselves, the AMV had 17 vids (really made me wish I had sent mine in on time) that were all very good, but you had to stand in line again to get in, then they grouped you by 100s and let each group go in one at a time. Afterwards, you had to leave the room and go back downstairs to the outdoor courtyard (where it was FREEZING by this time) and wait for another 30 minutes, to once again by grouped by 100s and then allowed back into the hotel.
However, the cosplay was fabulous! I could not have hoped for more fun. I really should state up front that I HATE Naruto, but my favorite performance was by a Naruto group. They were very good at ad-libing and really played up the whole yaoi theme. And when other groups were in trouble, they jumped up on stage and helped out. It was a blast.
Other peices of art by Oki-sensei:
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