On Saturday and Sunday, August 12-13, 2006, my comrades and I had the pleasure of attending our first anime convention in two years. We were pretty much hyped considering that the last con we had planned on attending, OtakuCon 2005 (bka KuniCon, aka OtakuniCon...), had totally ruined our lives by going bankrupt and dying. It was the only major anime con to ever hit Miami, but in the end we were all thankful for the fact that we still had one that would always be there: YasumiCon, run by the awesome people of the Florida International University's Anything Goes Anime Club.
YasumiCon is a free convention native to Miami and the only major oppurtunity for anime fans to gather 'round and sing the figurative kumbaya every year before summer vacation's devastating end. It is usually held on one of the FIU campuses, but this year was the exception. It was held at the Miccosukee Resort.
Which was not a good thing.
"Bigger venue" did not equal "better con"--especially when the supposedly bigger venue was even more cramped than the older one. Weaving in and out of crowds was a hassle and there was a long line just to step foot in the dealers' room and artists' alley. The game room was a sardine tin of sweaty males (my ladies and I were literally the only females present within the hovel of 1337 gamedom on the first day). Among my other complaints of the event are:
1- Staff disorganization was quite apparent after The Great DDR Tournament Fiasco which is what I haven chosen to dub the, to this day, inexplicable absence of the tournament coordinator once game time arrived. There we were, totally stoked about jamming out for prizes, and the guy in charge straight-up bails right around the time that Mother Dearest (aka our ride) began to get restless. Needless to say, there was no competition for us that day.
2- The con's policy on sales was a bit stringent and biased in my opinion. The punks and I were not "permitted" to sell our Manga Punk buttons without having purchased artist alley or dealer space, yet the sale of merchandise featuring fanart of major, copyrighted anime figures was perfectly fine and dandy.
Needless to say, we sold them anyway. Damn straight.
3- Too short for my tastes, but then again it's free.
4- Certain people whose names I shall not mention (mostly because I never bothered to find out their names) were particularly unfavorable. Tact was not at an all-time high at YasumiCon, especially among certain cosplayers who seemed a bit too big for certain characters' britches. Compliments and requests for photos were sometimes met with either hasty, unfeeling "No's" or blatant *ignores*.
All that nasty business aside, however, our time spent there was quite pleasant. All Manga Punk promotional fliers were handed out amongst the crowd, much to the excitement of many girls--<blunt shout-out>Emily and Kitsune in particular (pictured above) ;3</blunt shout-out> Next would come the tricky part: selling buttons. With all the shamelessness and determination of a door-to-door salesman, we floated from clique-to-clique, loner-to-loner, couple-to-couple, flaunting the goods and, literally, selling them. We've sold 33 buttons in all so far.
[/b]Fun Excerpts From My Group's Sales' Pitches:[/b]
On a seperate note, I saw a very grogeous pair of pants in the midst of a crowd in the dealers' room which I just had to photograph:
One could only imagine my shock/pleasure to discover as the crowd dispersed that those pants contained none other than Vic Mignona, voice actor for the protagonist of the popular series, and one of my favorites, FullMetal Alchemist.
Handsome, talented voice actor + reunion with best friend Monique + anime goods galore = awesome weekend overall.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The right to vote or equal civil rights may be good demands, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in the courts. It begins in [the] soul." -Emma Goldman
