AnimeUSA 2011

As a moderately experienced congoer, it’s easy to tell that AnimeUSA really gets why people come to cons: buy cool stuff, watch cool stuff, and meet cool people. It picks up on those great aspects of a convention and does them really, really well. Maybe I’m biased because as a congoer, I cut my teeth on AnimeUSA and Katsucon. As a conchair for Madicon, I got a lot of advice from their staff. However, I hadn’t been to AnimeUSA since 2007 or so, and I was glad to see they’ve only gotten better since.

From top to bottom: Tabletop/CCG Games,
Maid Cafe, Registration, Dealers and Artists' Alley
(The last two are down the escalators).

This year was different because it was my first time attending a con with a press pass. I wasn’t sure exactly what that entailed, but I packed up my camera, gently elbowed my way up to Con Ops, got the “I’m just covering her break, take your badge” orientation speech, and I was on my way.

I may not have used my press badge to the fullest extent, because I enjoyed the con the way I always enjoy cons: I people watched, but this time I took awesomely high res photos of them as well. On Friday night, that meant that I wound up in the concert having done inadequate research on the genre (as I mentioned in my mid-con post), because that’s where the crowd was headed. Being in the press pit meant that I was directly in-between the energetic crowd and Blood on stage.

Is that a child dressed in a Robin Halloween costume?

I didn’t see many panels, but I did slip into the end of a rather low-key, small panel: Convention Horror Stories. I thought I had bad stories, but the slide show covered an Otakon about a decade ago where all of the city was covered in potentially toxic fumes. I wrapped my Friday night commiserating with fellow attendees about the most drastic cons-gone-wrong.

Saturday, I had intended to attend more events, but there were just too many good costumes to stop taking pictures.

ゴスロリ So pretty.

Beyond the cosplay, I could go on about the expansive vendor room, the beautiful fan art, and the myriad video rooms, but that isn’t what makes this convention unique. Between Deviant Art, Amazon, and fansubbing sites, you could cobble together a rough understanding of those aspects of the event. For me though, the community has always set the tone for good conventions (it’s why I’m willing to drag myself down to Williamsburg every January for Marscon).

Even if you buy swag from them online, without going to a con, you wouldn’t get to run up to that webcomic artist you’ve been following for years and fangirl/boy all over them. You wouldn’t get to pack way more friends into a hotel room than may be strictly legal. And you can’t convince that timid, and slightly tipsy, newb friend to head into a 4am panel with a slideshow full of tentacles so that they’ll stop naively saying “I’ve seen enough hentai to know where this is going.” At a con, I once won an argument of “animated stuff is for kids” with a midnight showing of Elfen Lied (Yeah, I play to win).

Everyone at the con was surprisingly outgoing and friendly. Beyond just being kind, the attendees were pretty damn stylish. I’m still combing through the photos, and working on combining them into a Flickr set. The open balconies meant that I could just position myself two floors up and zoom in on any costumes passing through the arch below. Three cheers for whoever put those “I consent to being photographed” clickwrap-ish agreements on the attendee badges.

The two things I found at AnimeUSA that I hadn’t seen elsewhere: video games and maids. Now, every con has video games. The game room at AnimeUSA looked like serious business. The LAN had about twenty computers, but what made it stand out was that the room was ringed with full-sized arcade games. DDR in particular is always impressive to watch. Then the second unique part of the con caught my eye from across the atrium as I left the video games room: Maid cafe.

Every good stalker photo needs foliage.

With my creeper lens I could see a bit of what was going on in the bustling maid cafe. I usually have enough trouble finding good food in a con hotel, but having it served by adorable maids who trade photos for tips? Extra awesome. I decided to stop creeping and catch a legit picture or two from inside the cafe. (If you’re interested, the Otaku Journalist blog has far more coverage of the maids).

AnimeUSA was a wonderful con. Mark your November 2012 Google calender notifications. You can also follow them on Twitter. Don’t forget to check out Lauren Orsini’s website for related posts and otaku-style geekiness.