Anime Conji 2011
| 13 April 2011
The one thing that has been neglected for the longest time is an an anime convention here in sunny San Diego. I mean, LA has several, including the biggest: Anime Expo, and there are several up north in most of their cities. This is mostly due to the fact that down here we have this rather wonderful little event called Comic Con. It actually has much of the same things that even the larger anime conventions do, coupled with the inclusion of the general sci fi, fantasy, comics, movies, and various other mediums that evoke a certain level of fandom. Problem is that it is f'n huge. So much so that it has to limit attendance (something Anime Expo would do well to emulate), and in recent years, tickets for all days have been sold out several months in advance. We here at Dragon's Anime don't even try to cover that one (Hell, I haven't even GONE to that one in a couple years) due to the logistics involved, even with one of its members, and several friends, actually in the same city.
To address these, and many other issues, San Diego has seen the rise of its own anime convention called Anime Conji. This year marks its second year of wildly successful operation after exceeding all expectations of its first year. Last year it took place in the Double Tree hotel in Hotel Circle in Mission Valley. Figuring in at around 700 people, this is over 200 more than they figured they'd wind up having. With this in mind, it was moved to a much larger venue, The Town and Country Hotel. Having been there previously for work conventions, I'd known it was a much larger venue, and should be capable of supporting around 1500 or so people if they structured it right. But did it succeed? Coming in at about 1700 attendees this year, and given how it was structured, I'm going to have to say it needed some serious work, but only in physical location structuring. In this case, what we had, were those nasty choke points that our partner in crime Mayhem noted were a huge problem in most smaller conventions, specifically in his example Winter Sac Anime.
Anime Conji did not actually take up a lot of the venue. In fact, it didn't even take up the part of the venue I'd say was actually made for this type of convention; the area one would normally think of as normal convention areas were on the left with the ballrooms and exibit halls as you can see from the picture placed at the start of this paragraph. We were actually on the opposite side of the Hotel area, kinda shoved into the corner and forgotten. Well, honestly it wasn't that bad. Parking in that northern parking structure was more than adequate, and when it was full there were dozens of other parking areas around the hotel as you can see from the first picture. I doubt attendance warranted the use of the much larger and more robust meeting areas; though I suspect in a few more years that will change. The problem was, as stated before, the massive choke point I have highlighted here in this picture. It starts at the pool and continues on to room 3722, where they had their registration and a few of the convention shops, or Convention Mall, as they called it. This was also the way back to the parking structure and out of the convention for the most part. There were almost always lines to register for the convention with people trying to get to and from the pool area, which made for a seriously harsh traffic jam. It opened up slightly right beside the Hampton area where they had the dealer's hall, but given the foot traffic in and out of that area, it was insanity trying to maneuver. Coupled with people like me trying to get cosplay pictures, it was…interesting to say the least. My advice for next year, if they use this area again, would be to have registration on the other end, and have the line wrap outside of the convention area proper.
Cosplay pictures (which you can find here on TFA Cosplay) were many and varied this time around, and I always find it fun to go around and try to capture their talent. One thing to note, like in Doug's Sac Anime report, the majority of attendees were, in fact, under legal age for just about anything. It behooves one to be very careful concerning this, considering you may actually wind up hitting on a fourteen year old, when she actually looks much older than this. No, I will not point out an example specifically; I'm mortified enough as it is. There were several to note, such as this one where I found that water acts as a light pipe to reflect the bottom of the pool's blue tile; which in turn illuminates everything with blue light. There's still a great deal of Chi to be found, and this particular cosplayer was ever so surprised that people would want to take her picture. The most famous cosplayer of Ariel, The Little Mermaid, is of course, Traci Hines, which confused me for just a second when I saw these two and that flaming red hair, which I know Traci no longer has since she dyed hers platinum blonde. This guy was just badass, and I'll leave it at that. Everyone seems to like this picture, and yes, for obvious reasons. I do not believe I've seen the guy before, but I love the attention to detail on his outfit. The girl you may note is the same one who played Street Fighter's Cami from last year at several cons. I'd ask the girl over to the bar for a drink if I wasn't certain she wasn't near old enough for that (or old enough at all, heh). I found this young girl to be every so striking and probably young enough to be my daughter…fuck, did I actually just print that? Speaking of attention to detail, these two deserve special mention; especially the guy in the armor. That took some serious work all around. Finally, see this? Told you, platinum blonde. I could keep going on and on about many of the other pics, but just go through and see for yourself how awesome all the cosplayers really are.
The events I attended were the fanfiction panel, The Last Comic Standing, the Black Crystals concert, the Traci Hines concert, the Masquerade, and the AMV contest. It had been awhile since I've attended any fanfiction panels. In this one we shared more anecdotes and lessons learned than anything else, and we also found ourselves talking in tropes; which have obviously ruined all of our lives. The Last Comic Standing was done on Friday night, and was definitely not something you'd want to take your kids to. Nothing was sacred, and the language was rated H. It was also quite late at night, and there was a bar downstairs, so definitely not little kid friendly…which is okay, we adults needed something too. If this is just a taste of things to come, I'm looking forward to the next few years, because this year was hilarious. I can't seem to find out who won, but if I do at a later date, I'll be sure to update the article. The Black Crystals and Traci Hines concerts were, as they have always been, well worth attending. Especially when the former performed The Power Rangers theme song and the latter performed Plants vs. Zombies. Now if I can just get The Black Crystals to perform the Lion version of The Transformers theme and Traci to sing Rainbow Brite and Me. The AMV's were of unusually high quality for this year's convention, but it appears I'm going to have to update this article later with the entries, as there does not seem to be a list anywhere online. Or I'm going to have to start writing them down, but usually this is not needed. Finally, we get to the Masquerade. I leave this one last because it was around an hour late starting, which reminded me a little too much of Anime Expo. However, being a smaller convention we managed to get in and out in little over an hour when it did start, keeping us from feeling like we were going to fall over at the end. Again, for a smaller convention, the quality of the cosplay and masquerade was remarkably exceptional. Most of the time you'd think that people would wait for a larger venue before pulling out this level of effort, but that was not the case here. One can only hope that it continues well into the next years this convention runs. As in previous conventions and the previous years, I recorded video of the concerts, the Masquerade, and The Last Comic Standing, which will appear on Dragon's Anime as they get transcoded. If you're reading this well after the couple of weeks we seed those torrents, and you want a reseed, we might be able to help you out if you ask nicely enough. Or bribe us with cute girls, those always work.
Some final thoughts include the dealer's hall. It was actually bigger than the one at Anime LA, maybe even slightly bigger than the one at PMX. I didn't really buy anything, short of some Cthulhu soap (no one was selling what I really wanted), but it had a fairly large selection of items for a smaller con. Artist's Alley was right next to it, and they seemed to be doing a fairly decent business as well with their selling of crafts and artwork, both commissioned and premade. The food subject is something that needs addressed to everyone going here. The Fashion Valley Mall is right behind the Hotel, and you can pretty much get anything you want to eat over there. I recommend the Cheesecake Factory if you can get in. There's also a bar on the ground floor, and the food isn't half bad. The Maid Café is far too popular for me to get in to and comment on. Also the Lolita tea time is something I cannot comment on since they weren't really open to the public. Finally I didn't have a room at the hotel, so there was no way I was going to one of the drinking parties that went on really late at night.
Overall it was a fun convention for its second year. There wasn't near the feeling of everyone in their own little bubble like there was last year; though there wasn't really much in the way of anything a guy like me could hope for considering that again, most of the girls there were quite young, and the only time I was sure not to meet any, I had no means to stay in the convention to take advantage of the situation…maybe next year if I can get Mayhem or Gensao out here, heh. If they can restructure their badging location and refrain from being so late in the Masquerade in the future, this will be everything you could ever want in a convention. As it is, it's well worth attending if you're in the San Diego area, and I'm looking forward to next year if I can make it.
