Once again it's been a long time since I've updated my journal/cleaned up my dA messages and whatnot. It's a horrible habit, but I'm going to blame work because that is the most obvious course of action. And it's true, too, since work has eaten my soul the past few weeks. (Let's ignore that it's been over two months since I've updated this journal, 'kay?) My coworker was on vacation and my parents were off on a cruise so I had to do extra hours at work and then come home to four very demanding pets.

Not to mention that on top of that, Otakuthon was fast approaching and I hadn't made my cosplay or prepared for my panels. The cosplay--Marie's outfit from chapters 61-62 from the Soul Eater manga--thankfully didn't take too much time, though I know it would have looked way better if I hadn't been so rushed. And by 'way better' I mean 'actually good', ha ha. The panels didn't involve too much work either, though it was the first time my best friend and I have ever hosted panels so we were pretty nervous! In preparation we just ended up making a Powerpoint for one of the panels, which... well, I'll get into that in a minute.

The convention was so much ! Honestly, my friend and I were talking about it, and we both seemed to enjoy it more than Anime North even though it was way smaller. I guess it's because there was less stress involved in getting everyone organized with the hotel and transportation and stuff because it was so close to home, plus the company was different than usual in a good way. Some friends came who had never been to a convention before so it's always a blast to introduce people to the geek scene, especially when they're super enthused about it.

On top of that, we managed to go to more events that we wanted to check out (although still not everything we wanted to see, ha ha). For one...voice actors! We went to the Bleach Q&A panel with Johnny Yong Bosch and Stephanie Sheh, and then to both of their autograph sessions the following day. Got my Tales of the Abyss mangas signed--volumes 3 and 4, which conveniently have Guy and Natalia on their respective covers. It was a revelation to both of the VAs that there was an Abyss manga series, ha ha. Stephanie said she was really surprised at how many Tales Of fans there were at Otakuthon; she said it was the most she'd seen at any con! Now we know that Canada, specifically Quebec, apparently has more Tales Of fans than the States. I am both surprised and not. I always knew there were lots of Tales Of fans in the Montreal region, but I didn't think that it would be enough to leave an impression on a voice actor! Kinda cool.

The dealers' room and artist alley were super great! There was much more merch available than last year. Apparently more anime/video game merchandise stores have popped up in our Chinatown since last year because one of the booths we bought a few things from was actually from a Chinatown shop! Sweet to know we can get our anime merch fix so close to home. And then artist's alley; there was so much I wanted to buy, ha ha. It was all really great! I made sure to stop by the tables of a couple of acquaintances, and the fabulous France (a.k.a. =kaiser-mony)--so happy to actually take the time to talk to you this time, instead of AN when I only realized who you were in retrospect.

The panels, ah the panels~ On Saturday night, my best friend and I hosted a Vampire Knight panel because, well, we went to the one at Anime North and decided we could do better. And we totally would have! ...if we had a bigger audience show up. I mean, we dragged our friends along, but they only had so much knowledge of the series to keep a discussion going. There was really only one guy who was consistently there and talking with us. Nonetheless, we felt that we did well with what we were given. The next day we did our New Anime in Japan! panel and...whoa, what a difference in crowd!! The room was completely full! We were joined by another friend of my BFF for this one, and it was his first panel ever; the crowd intimidated us all. I think that the first thing we said when we started the panel was, "Holy crap there are a lot of you." It ended up going amaaaazingly though. We were so happy! People who watched the series gave their two cents, we got quite a few laughs (and had quite a few laughs ourselves at our fellow panelists' comments), the Powerpoint was appreciated, and some people from the audience talked to us a bit after the panel was over. It was a perfect end to the con!

So yeah... I am still in a great mood after this past weekend! I am so sad that convention season is coming to a close. It's going to feel like ages before another one comes along. Maybe this time I'll start my cosplay early so it will look better? Ahaha. I am thinking of trying to make Natalia's princess outfit, and fix up my Marie costume, and maybe something from Tales of Graces once more character art is released. We'll see! In the meantime, I'll try to draw more art, I swear.

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