For AZ08, Nikki and I tried to do something different. Something more, even. First, we stayed all weekend, and were in it for the long haul. Second, we cosplayed. And third, we got an Artist Alley table. All of which was a lot more than we did on our first excursion to Animazement, the year before.



For costumes, we went as Lain and a Man in Black. We spend some time hunting down the appropriate clothing articles at thrift stores, and I certainly think we came close. Nikki managed to score a good skirt and jacket that was similar, though not an exact match, to that of Lain. Add to that a wig, which we cut ourselves, and we have a very good looking Lain Iwakura. For my costume, things were mostly pretty easy. A black suit, with a blue shirt and pink tie was simple enough. The prop "glasses" were more of a challenge. I used a simple pair of shades to start with, and made the eye piece out of various plastic parts. I also got a red led kit from RadioShack which completed the look and seemed to work pretty well. Granted, it wasn't an exact match either, but anyone who knew the character recognized me as such. The blinking led was also pretty eye catching.



The biggest reason, however, for doing AZ for us, was running an art table. We knew that sales probably wouldn't be huge, but we had hoped that at least we could break even and pay for our purchases at the con. Sadly, that didn't happen. We learned all too quickly that the best selling items were fan art. We had very little of that. In fact, I'm not too keen on even doing much fan art to be honest. I'm not as much of an illustrator as I am a fine artist, which is why I don't think the con crowd is actually my target demographic. We did sell at least enough to pay for our con tickets.

Another lesson learned was that running a table is pretty exhausting. We were there for three days, twelve hours a day. If you consider how much money we took in, and split it between two people, then we didn't even come close to getting minimum wage! Ah the joys of being an artist. Still, I won't say that I shouldn't have done it. It was a good learning experience, but above that it was actually fun too. I enjoyed myself, even if I was completely drained afterward.

On a more positive note, we managed to get some cool things as well. I scored an out of print Lain series guide, as well as some very affordable NGE Eva figurines. I wanted to get those Evas to draw from, as I don't expect them to really be worth much as a collectible in the future. I also got a good deal on the art book Warriors of Art: A Guide To Contemporary Japanese Artists, by Yumi Yamaguchi. I've had my eye on this title for some time, and was happy to see it at the con. Surprised even.



Our other purchases included artwork by other artists at the con, with whom I am happy to say that we made friends with since, mostly on DeviantArt. We purchased a very nice watercolor piece by OrShouldI, as well as prints by Yanomeko, Avoice, and Coey. So thanks to all of you, for all the wonderful artwork, and hope to see you all next time.



By the end of the whole ordeal, we realized that if we do repeat the art table endeavor, we'll have to probably alter our tactics somewhat. As I near the end of this post, I still need to mention one other thing. Which is that cosplayers were as always one of the highlights of the convention. We tried to take as many photos as possible, and have posted them in a flickr album as well. Check them out here.

Thanks for all the memories, and let's see how the new convention center in Raleigh will change things in 2009.

This year's Animazement convention has come and gone, and with it our trip thereto. I'm certainly glad that went, and many lessons have been learned. I know we didn't get the full experience of the con, but we still had a lot of fun there.

Resolutions for next year are topped by our intention to be in the artist's alley. Second to that is cosplay. After that I'd like to brush up on my game skillz in order to enter one or more competitions. That's not a huge list, but we'll probably have to get started on it soon in order to achieve these goals in time.

I have written a full report of our experiences, and I hope that you'll read it. Yet I doubt that many of you will read the whole thing, so I am offering this post as a table of contents. This way you can read about whatever interests you the most.

Animazement '07:

1. Getting There
2. First Impressions
3. Dealer's Room
4. Artist's Alley
5. Game Room
6. Cosplay

If you went to Animazement this year, we'd love to get your feedback. If you didn't we'd still like your feedback. We will endeavor to make it out to "the triangle" again this year. Definitely don't want to wait as long as next year's con.

Biggest thanks go out to Joe and Misty for putting us up over that weekend. Hopefully next year Joe won't have to work as much, and Misty won't get ill either (we hope very much that you are all better now Misty!). So thanks a million to both of you, and I'll be practicing my Guitar Hero skillz for our next get-together.

One of the best things about Animazement was all the cosplayers running around. Even before we entered the building we passed droves of them outside. I tried to take a few pictures as we went between one end of the building and the other. But it was mostly after we were done with the major attractions that I had time to walk around and hunt for cool costumes.

Admittedly, I didn't take that many pictures. I tried to look for particularly interesting costumes, to me at least. Several that I would have liked to take photos of I did not get a chance to. Not only that, but many of the costumes there I didn't recognize at all. I suppose I'm not as big an anime nut as I would like to believe. Of course there were a thousand Naruto costumes there, a series which I really care little about. Apparently Hot Topic carries Naruto headbands and other parapharnalia now, so that might explain a few things.

I think that one of the best costumes I saw that day was a particular Lulu, from Final Fantasy X (pictured above). The detail and accuracy of this costume was right on, and very impressive. So many belts. It must have taken forever to get that thing made. I saw a couple other Lulu's there, but none rivaled this costume. So congratulations to whomever created this ensemble.

Two other costumes caught my eye, both from Dot.hack//SIGN. The first was Maha, which was simple yet also accurate and effective, and the second was Tsukasa. Though the picture of the latter was not taken by me, I was able to find it on the Animazement forums. This is still one of my favorite anime series, so I was pleased to see some cosplayers representing it.


Another great costume I spotted arriving later that night. It was perhaps the most realistic costume, and definitely a well made one also. The character was in green robes, carrying a double-edged sword that was broken towards the end (pictured above). I believe that it was Broken Sword from Hero, though I didn't realize it at first. This costume, and the one of Lulu are my two favorites from the con. I wish I could hand out prizes or something.

As mentioned before, I wasn't able to get photos of all the costumes that I saw that day. However, I browsed the Animazement forums and managed to get a few additional pictures from this thread. One of the links therein took me to a site which contains sixty pages worth of Animazement photos. I recommend that you check it out, and you can find that page here. Another page with over 300 photos can be found here. For my little slideshow of cosplayers you can hit this link, and then view this awesome panorama shot of a bunch of cosplayers. I hope you'll find it vicariously entertaining.

Seeing all the cosplayers running around the con was one of the best things about Animazement. It certainly has given us a lot of ideas, and I think we'll try to come in costumes next year. Though there certainly are a lot of options for Nikki, I am a little more limited due to my facial hair. I don't like the prospect of shaving it all off just for one weekend, so I'll have to find the appropriate character to match. Maybe I'll even post about it ahead of time, but I may just want to surprise everybody.

By the time we had seen the dealer's room, artist's alley, and the art show, we were ready to spend some more time in the game room. As we entered, we saw several TV units setup against both the left and right walls (pictured above). In the back right were a couple DDR setups, and two Guitar Hero setups left of that. In the far back of the room were three large screens, one running the Saturn, and two Wii units on the other screens (pictured below).


The consoles on our left were running several different fighting games. Multiple Street Fighter games, Soul Calibur 3, as well as other 2D fighters I didn't recognize. Additional units in the back, between the Wiis and Guitar Heros were running some Naruto fighters that I wasn't familiar with either.

We split up and wandered off towards different parts of the room, and I went over to see some mad DDR skillz. I assure you, I was not disappointed. First, I watched a couple of people duke it out on a very challenging song, containing some really fast footwork. Now, I may not be anywhere close to their level, but I can usually tell whether a song is more or less difficult. This particular one appeared quite hard with many half and quarter steps mixed into an already quick tempo.

What impressed me the most, was that the winning player was a girl who looked like she was maybe 16 years old. Normally, people tend to become very animated while playing DDR, swaying and moving to the beat. The faster and harder the song, the more vigorous the movements tend to appear. Yet this girl, playing a very hard song, was hardly moving at all. Her feet were hitting every single step, often perfectly, yet her upper body was very much restrained. I don't believe I have ever witnessed a DDR player being quite so graceful, calm, and collected. She was the epitome of the "tech" style. My only regret is that I did not take any pictures in having been so mesmerized.

The DDR unit on the left had another two players competing, and once more I was impressed by the performance. Player 2 was not just doing well, but he decided to give all onlookers a nice show. He did the entire song backwards, meaning that he was facing us instead of the screen. This of course meant that he wasn't able to see what he was doing, yet he must have memorized all steps in order to pull this off. At the end of the song everyone gave him a round of applause, myself included, and deservedly so. An excellent representation of "freestyle" technique.

Having watched other people play for a while, I was ready to try my hand at something. Unfortunately, the game I was least rusty at was Soul Calibur 3, but it had been over a years since I last picked that one up. Silly me I had not anticipated playing it at the con, and it didn't occur to me to practice before coming. As Nikki and I awaited our turns, it became quite clear that Player 1 was very skilled. Nobody could beat him in the best out of five round setup.


When my turn came up I naturally choose Xianghua as my character (pictured above). She has always been my main, and I could at least remember some of her moves. I knew that victory was impossible, but I was ready to give it a try. First round I had pulled out many of my moves, and was mostly trying to remember how to play. Not entirely surprisingly I won. But that was of course my opponents opportunity to study my tactics. After that, he pretty much had me figured out, and I lost the rest of the rounds. Once again, not at all a surprise.


Nikki's bout went a little differently. She decided to try and throw him off by using Voldo (pictured above). I must say that she held up better than I did. Her first round was about the same as mine, where she easily defeated him. In the second round, however, things got a little more interesting. Nikki continued to surprise her opponent with Voldo's crazy antics and defeated him a second time. This, I suspect came as a bit of a surprise to all of us. Player 1 was not going to hold back after that, and pulled out all the stops, relentlessly barraging Voldo with his attacks, round after round. At the very end, he managed to get the win using a ring out. Nikki gave him a dirty look.

I think she did quite well for not having played the game just as long as myself. But then she always kicked my butt at Soul Calibur anyway. We even have a great little dating story about it, but I'll save you hearing that one yet again.

We waited around for a second try, hoping that that we would do better, but in fact we did worse. So I guess we should practice if we're going to attempt playing this game next year. That, and I should brush up on my Tekken skillz as well, with it being more my forte than Soul Calibur. I was sad not to find Tekken in the game room, but I learned that it was present both before we came, and after we had already left. Go figure.

Once we had our fill of the game room we made for the exit. Before leaving, one other screen caught my eye though. At the end, towards the DDR games, there was a Shuttle PC running an indy fighter. I first thought it might have been a Fighter Maker creation, which sported so many characters on one screen that you could hardly make out the portraits for being so small. Upon further research, however, I believe it was actually MUGEN. Now I'm tempted to try and get it running on my system. I think that this is a good sign, having a free indy fighter represented at the con. I might chime in next year to suggest running Super Cosplay War Ultra, which is a blast. Of course I suck at that one about as much as I do at most 2D fighters, but I still enjoy it.

After our escapades in the dealer's room, it was time at last to check out the artist's alley. I went by each table to look more closely at all the offerings. Granted that the majority of art there were by amateur mangaka and illustrators, but that's a good thing. It's nice to see us "little people" being represented so well. A handful of artists were present with more high quality work.

At the back of the "alley" I found Coey and a whole slew of her high quality prints. As I flipped through her portfolio I noticed that she was quite accomplished, and when I came upon her FLCL fanart I just had to buy one. Unlike the dealer's room, the artist's alley was very affordable. For $10 the print was now going home with us.

Be sure to check out her Deviant Art page, and her website. Though the site is currently down for maintenance, I do hope it will be back up soon. She had a small print of a Game Informer cover as well, though I don't recall ever seeing that particular one. Maybe it was a mockup? In any case, thanks for the great art Coey, and maybe we'll see you again next year.

One other table that had caught my eye showcased some very well done anime art carved into wood panels. It was done in a quite detailed way, and the wood was of good quality protected by a nice coat of varnish. Novelty factor aside, I thought the images looked very strong when presented this way. It gave all the contour lines a bold look.

As we moved on, we realized that we didn't have any way to carry the nice print around with us and didn't want it to get damaged, so a trip to the car was necessary. Upon our return we went over to see the art show that was in place close to the game room. Work was hung salon style, though the majority of it was not framed. Similar to what we saw in the artist's alley, the works there were primarily by non-professionals. Again, a select few pieces were of higher quality than the rest.

I think it would be a good idea to get some of our art into this exhibit next year. Our hope is also to get enough things put together to get a table in the artist's alley next year as well. Just got to remember the registration deadline.

Booth after booth was filled with all sorts of goodies, from toys to DVDs and games to weaponry. Almost anything was there and could be ours for the low price of a few limbs. I peeked at some artbooks, but didn't really see anything I couldn't live without. I was rather tempted to buy Nikki a cute Lain-style bear hat from Genki Hats, but we were slightly deterred by the price. So we circled around until I had a good idea of all the vendors, at which point we were mostly chatting with Nick and occasionally throwing an eye over the vendor tables.

That's when I found the game vendor. I saw several old Playstation games there, but was quickly put off by the prices. A copy of Silhouette Mirage was marked at $49.99. A ridiculous sum considering you can get it for $20 or less online. I was almost tempted by a copy of Rez for the Dreamcast, but once again the price made rethink that idea. Though still curious, I asked the vendor if they had by chance a copy of Lain for Playstation, a rare Japanese game. "Oh yeah," said the man excitedly and pulled it out for me to look at. For a split second there I was debating the possibility. Could it be that there was any chance at all that this game may at last come into my possession? Nope. I almost let out a ridiculing laugh when I saw the price sticker of $173. Sure it's rare, and collectable, and an import. But there's no way I'd pay that much for it. No way. And judging from their other price hikes, I would guess that even now the game was attainable for under $100, assuming you can find it, online.

In other words, the dealer's room offers a chance for some rare and cool goodies, but you better be prepared to drop a small fortune on most things you buy there. As for me, I'll continue to shop online for most of my anime and manga related needs. If you want to get a fair deal I suggest you do the same.

As the staff announced the closing of the dealer's room, I already felt satisfied with having seen it. And that only lasted about fifteen minutes, so I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Given the chance, I probably would have spent a little more time in there, but I still doubt I would have bought anything. In the last few minutes we had been joined by another friend, Ming, and we all made our way to the exit.

As we got off the interstate, I was happy to find the convention center so easily, and had no trouble finding parking either. Somehow I had expected to get lost along the way, and be circling around to find parking for a while. Luckily that part went very smoothly, so kudos to the Animazement people.

With camera and Nalgene in hand, we made our way towards the front entrance, skirting past all manner of cosplayers. The registration procedure was quite painless, with the exception of the $30 admission for each of us. Yet once we got those little passes around our necks, we promptly forgot all about how much money we had just dropped.


Since we had planned on meeting a couple of friends there, we headed straight for the video game room. Nick had told us to look for him there, and as we entered we began scanning the crowd for him. Sure enough, there he was playing what else but Street Fighter. I gently let him know we had arrived, between rounds, and waited as he finished getting his ass handed to him by his opponent. Apparently the guy he was going up against was a tournament player.

After our brief reunion, Nick took us on a little tour of Animazement. Since this was our first time at the convention, we figured that we'd let the veteran show us around. Apparently our arrival was just about a half hour before the close of the dealer's room, so we hurried on through to get a glimpse of it's last operating moment that day. I briefly glanced at the tables in the artist's alley as we hurried on through and got into that large hall filled with all manner of anime, manga, and game paraphernalia.

We spent a little time going around to get an idea of the dealer's offerings, though I found nothing I couldn't live without. Most things were also quite overpriced, and soon the room was ready to close. We went back out, without disappointment at having had only limited time to browse. My interest was more focused on the artwork, and we spend additional time looking at each table in the artist's alley.

The majority of work there was done by fans and amateurs, but a few more seasoned artists were present as well. We decided that it was time to see the rest of the convention, and headed back towards the game room to see the art show on the way. The art room was right next to the game room, and it mirrored our experience in the artist's alley. Once again much of the work was decent, though admittedly not of professional quality, while a select few works stood out as being particularly well done.

Now that we had seen a good deal of everything, I was ready to head back into the game room. We split up and checked out the various games, representing just about all game systems, and eventually even played a little. Of course we too were easily defeated, but that was to be expected.

Eventually we just began wandering around, almost aimlessly, snapping pictures of cosplayers here and there. We watched a little of the JET! dramatic performance, though it was constantly interspersed with shouts of obscenities from the crowd. We peeked into the video rooms, but saw little more than mech battles on screen. All in all it was a very enjoyable experience, though certainly not a flawless one.

I think that for the high price of admission, we did not get our moneys worth. That is certainly one more lesson learned. We should have come on Sunday, with admission costing $15 a person, and we would have had the opportunity to partake in more interesting events. So I think our timing was partly to blame. Better luck next year.

Even when we lived in "the triangle" we missed the Animazement convention a couple of summers ago. Now, though we don't live as close anymore, we still really wanted to go. Our plan initially was to get a table and be there as artists.

As is often the case, life got in the way of these plans. We didn't get the art together that we had planned on taking there, and then ended up missing the registration deadline. At least that meant a little less pressure. Though we were still planning to make the trip out there, and just see it and have a good time with friends.

We drove out to Chapel Hill on Friday morning, and surprised Joe in the store. After a few moments of catching up and some game-talk, we made our way over to storm Sarah's castle. Making it past her ferocious feline defenses, we then proceeded to ninja all her phat lewt! Or something like that. Actually we just abducted her for lunch. We dined at the nostalgically awesome Weaver Street Market (pictured above), and had Rice Dream Pies for desert. Yum.

Later that night, back at Joe's place, we gathered with Joe, Misty, Sarah, Ed, and Michael for some more relaxed conversation. It was wonderful to see the few friends we had actually made in the whole state once again. I wanted to give them all a big hug, but I thought that would have been a little too enthusiastic. After all, it's not like I'm needy or lonely or anything silly like that.

We made some tasty dinner, wonderful hearty soup courtesy of Misty-dono, to fill our empty bellies. Afterwards we geeked out on some more anime and various other minutiae, until I decided to subject everyone to Casshern. I think we all loved this wonderful movie! This was especially evident when Sarah cheered for the death of the protagonists fiancé, as well as the big sigh of relief everyone let out when the film was over. Ah well'awell.

Saturday morning Nikki made us all deliciously fluffy pancakes, and we had them with Misty's wonderful maple syrup from Maine. Yum again. Since Joe was forced to serve out his sentence of working the whole weekend, we wanted to spend time with him during his off hours. So the plan was to hit Animazement after he left for work. We ended up playing a fair amount of Guitar Hero that morning, and then went out to have lunch with Sarah and Ed again at Carrburritos. Yum number three.

On the way out of Chapel Hill we all hit the store in U-Mall again. They were having a tremendous sale on certain items, and we got a copy of W3: Frozen Throne for $10, as well as FFXII (Collector's) for $30. I'd say that was a pretty darn good deal, even though I know we're not supposed to shop there. So, after all these reunions, gluttony, and game shopping, we took our trusty Subaru back out onto I-40 and at last made our way to Animazement.