Yaoi-Con 2011: general impressions
by V.E. on October 30th, 2011
filed under anime/manga, recap/review
This post is part of my Yaoi-Con 2011 recap.
the MC, Fusanasuke Mariya (Maiden Rose), and translator at Opening Ceremonies
All right, so I love conventions. I love the cosplayers; I love that I can walk by a sofa in the foyer of a hotel and see Grell, Mephisto, and Vegeta arguing—all in good fun, of course—about the best characters to slash together in Naruto (or Dr. Who, or pick whatever show you want). And, yes, I actually did witness such a conversation last weekend. But (1) I’m shy about getting pictures unless I really want that picture, and (2) I’m not a photographer anyway, so most of my images come out looking like I’m an amateur… which I am. (Everything always comes out blurry, for christsakes. What the hell, right?) I kind of feel like taking pictures—while most cosplayers don’t mind at all—is sort of an intrusion on… the atmosphere? Or something? I’m not even sure what I’m saying, but I just don’t take a lot of pictures like most people seem to think I should, so I don’t have many images from this Yaoi-Con. (I do, of course, have some…)
one of the bishonen, Ken, with the MC at Bishonen Bingo
I’m not a professional. I write professionally, but I’m not a reporter. I recap and review things, including conventions, because I love the subject matter and want to remember it, not because I’m looking for news so I can share it with everyone else. Therein lies the difference (well, a difference) between my stuff about Yaoi-Con and, say, Deb Aoki’s stuff, for example. Her stuff is good, too. Arguably better than mine, depending on what you’re reading any given article for in the first place. If you want news (industry panels, etc.), she’s your lady. Deb attends conventions as a member of the press; I attend simply as a fan. Well, I’d probably rank myself somewhere in between squealing fangirl and actual professional. Most likely. Now, with that said…
bishonen! their handles, from (far) left to right: Mephistopheles, Miku, America, Nero (policeman),
Marius, [unknown], Grell, [unknown], Ken
I didn’t attend a single panel this con. Seriously, not a single one. I had my eye on a few: “Why Can’t No Mean No?”, “Overcoming Writer’s Block 101″, “Being Queer in Yaoi Fandom”, “Slash, Yaoi and M/M Romance” (no, they’re not all the same thing), “The Limits on Online Fandom”, among others. I even went back to the panel rooms (way out of the way, if you ask me, and not really in a panel-friendly area), but I just couldn’t make myself actually go into any of the rooms. That sounds completely ridiculous, even to me, since I know the panelists would be happy to have more audience members, but I just felt so intimidated by the whole thing that I wrote them all off as a lost cause. I really wish someone (maybe someone like me who doesn’t have as many being-with-large-groups-of-people issues?) would take notes about each panel and then write up the notes for me, or videotape the panels so I could watch them later. Or, you know, just grab me by the arm and force me to attend a few of them. Jesus. I knew the minute I decided I wasn’t going to any of the panels that I was going to regret it, and I have regretted it. Also, the number of panels over the course of two days (not as many as I expected, generally speaking) made me think that if I had proposed a Gundam Wing panel, as I had wanted to, it may have gotten approved and then I would’ve had to attend at least that panel, right?
his shirt read: “I eat sexy boys”
I did visit everything else the con had to offer, including the video room & manga library, and I’m glad for it. The manga library was sweet, as expected. The video room was not all night, unfortunately, but that’s a trend I’ve noticed with other conventions recently, as well. I even went to the gaming room and actually played a fighter game in arcade mode. Reminded me of playing Street Fighter when I was a kid in the Round Table Pizza place a couple blocks from my house. I even beat this one guy a couple times, and we joked around about all the women characters not having any clothing to speak of (more or less) and all of them fighting in high heels. Reminded me of that one video about real life women fighters’ clothing falling off, though I didn’t mention it at the time.
my two favorite bishonen this year. and one is… stripping the other.
/nosebleed /fangirl /squee
I attended the swap meet (a place for regular attendees to sell their old legal stuff for a couple hours on Friday), opening ceremonies, and Bishonen Bingo on Friday night. Pretty sure my favorite bishonen this year were America and Grell (not the same Grell as I mentioned above). They were both totally hot and also relatively in character… and they didn’t mind taking their clothes off for the ladies. ^_^ Oh, and the MC/announcer. He was my favorite last year, and that hasn’t changed. (Having long hair, kissing other boys, confidence, and just casually carrying around a flogger will do it for me, I guess. Hahaha…) Opening ceremonies was fine… The two guests of honor were Fusanasuke Mariya, who wrote Maiden Rose (wiki) (one of my favorite manga since I discovered the OVA last year); and Jo Chen, of Guilt|Pleasure.
regular Bishonen Bingo cards (left) were 50¢ each; special “Five Star Round” cards (right) were $2.
yes, that is my notebook underneath the cards.
And they announced that Yaoi-Con operations will be handed over to Digital Manga, Inc. for next year and future years. Not sure how I feel about this; at first, it didn’t mean anything to me at all, but—as I said above—I didn’t attend the “We’ll answer your questions” DMI panel, so I don’t really know what the switch over entails. Someone later told me that they’re moving the con to Anaheim? (As I said: I didn’t attend the panel, so I don’t know whether that’s true or not. Nobody I spoke to at con liked the idea of moving the convention to another city at all, since they’re under the impression that the Los Angeles area has plenty of anime conventions already. Even though it would be easier for me to have Yaoi-Con in L.A., I have to agree with them; share the love, already!)
it’s blurry but, yes, that is a penis on the BINGO board; everybody was chill with it.
and yes, that blurry figure is a beautiful boy in nothing but his underwear; everybody was chill with that, too.
I’m breaking myself into all the “Bishies everywhere!” con stuff slowly (though it only occurs to me now that all this may change in the future and maybe I should’ve done it all while I had the chance), so I attended Bishonen Bingo on Friday evening and not the Auction or dance on Saturday. (Remember that thing where I have trouble with large groups? Yeah, that definitely played a part.) Bingo was sweet, even though I didn’t win anything, and I spent $25 on bingo cards. It was, basically, strip bingo. Except… none of the actual players had to strip. Every time someone won a round, that person won a prize, and one of the beautiful boys took off a piece of clothing. When the number “O69″ was called (and it was called twice that evening), all the boys took off something. We played fifteen rounds and by the end of the night, there were probably 10 or 15 bishonen running around in nothing but their underwear. You know, not that anyone was complaining.
hotel room door greetings (click image for larger); the blue reads:
“Welcome Yaoi-Con 2011! Draw us a doodle or leave a message! <3"
Although I bought a lot of manga and other cool shit in the Dealers Room and Fan Market, I don’t think I really liked either one (or rather, the set up of either one), and here’s why. They were both split into two parts in three totally separate parts of the hotel. Most of the Fan Market (the equivalent of Anime Expo’s Artist Alley) was in one room right next to the (main?) video room, but some of it was outside the second Dealers Room. And, you know, there were—semi-randomly—two Dealers Rooms, one for manga and one for plushies, they said. But here’s the thing. People who sold manga also sold plushies, and visa versa, so it at least seemed like just a luck of the draw how things were split up. Maybe there was a method to the madness; maybe everything had to be split up because of space restrictions (sometimes you just gotta work with what you have; I get that); but it seemed disjointed, confused, and kind of… not feng shui, you know?
Duo Maxwell crossplayer; she glomped me!
Overall, though, I had a really good time—I saw more Preventers at this con than I ever have at all the other cons I’ve attended… combined. That was sweet. I was actually glomped by someone who recognized my cosplay (and then she asked me if I could help her pin her wig into place better and I had to admit that I know absolutely nothing about wigs, much to her chagrin), and another girl came up excitedly and said, “You’re a Preventer, too? Awesome!” while showing me her Preventers jacket. Made me happy… and made me really really want to remake my jacket so it’s awesome/spot on/perfect. I should start on that now, right?
Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz Preventers (click for larger);
Duo Maxwell, Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, and girl!Chang Wufei (I think).
This is my favorite photo (above) from the convention. I literally screamed across the main ballroom and launched myself over three sets of rows of chairs to stop these cosplayers so I could get their picture. Don’t know what’s up with Trowa’s jacket, though; it’s special/mirrored/backwards for some reason. I wish like hell I’d asked where these cosplayers got their jackets (or what pattern, etc., they used to make them) because a Preventers jacket is basically the only cosplay I’ll ever wear and I need a new one.
[...] General impressions—the basic overview Thoughts from the video room & manga library The loot I had to haul home! [...]