Hey everyone, another convention review. Though this convention believe it or not... is NOT TMNT related. So it's here in the Lounge instead of General.
Youmacon is located in Troy Michigan, and is having it's first year convention this weekend. Ran by a cool friend of mine who's into cosplaying. I've met him a few years ago on an Anime Next trip, it's great to see him able to get a convention together and running! For more information on Youmacon itself check out
Youmacon Web Site.
I went to Youmacon for Friday and Saturday, both days got to meet up and hang out with Eclipse. So hopefully we'll get a review from her as well.
FridayI got to the convention center around 10, though found it didn't open till either 2 or 3pm... so I went over and visited with my Aunt who lives only 5 minutes from the convention center. It's located only about 15 minutes from my house, so it really wasn't far to travel too (closer to me than Motor City Comic Con is). I got back to the convention center at 1:30 When I first walked in the door, I met up with Vic Mignogna. He gave me a Hug, than I showed him the Dart gun I got from
Anime Vegas. Yuri was standing not too far away and said "Oh no, if I get hit by one more of those darts!" we all got a laugh from that. So I told them I want each of them to sign it, though they were heading out for Lunch at that time, so I told them I'll catch them later. So I went and hung out in line till they let us in. I got to talk with one of the guest Artist that was there,
Benjamin Rodriguesz, he had a really cool Tiger shirt on and was selling his art work at a table not too far from registeration. He had a few neat shirts like "How to glomp" and "FanGirls". I know if I had money, I would had have gottan the "How to Glomp" shirt for a few friends
He was also the artist that designed the badges for the convention.
After talking with him I checked out the dealer room. I had no money which killed me, cause the first table I saw was POCKY! I don't know about the rest of you, but I LOVE Pocky!!!! Was disappointed that there was none at Anime Vegas, so I was excited to see it at Youmacon.
Than I walked around, I saw a million things that I'd want to get for my sister and SW for Christmas, but I had no money for shopping so all I could do was drool. As I saw dolls from Fruit Basket, Calanders of Cowboy Bebop, plushies from Dragon Ball Z, watches from FMA. Talk about drool vill, the dealer room was small but it had a lot of GREAT stuff! I stood and stared at some purses they were selling from Fruit Basket, they had a Yuki I really wanted to get SW, they also had a Yuki wallet! I stood back though and decided to leave the dealer room. I saw they were going to show Fullmetal Fantasy at 4pm, so I went to go to it, though no sooner than I sat down in the room did they chase us out... seems opening cermony hasn't even taken place yet and it was almost 4pm... the line started to grow for this viewing... I was surprise... for this being his first convention the crowd was bigger than I excepted. So we waited till after 5pm before they finally opened the door and let us in. The open cermony was fun, though no where as fun as Fullmetal Fantasy.
For those of you who don't know what Fullmetal Fantasy. It is a fan video made by Vic of FMA. Someone asked him if he'd ever cosplay as Edward and it gave him the idea of doing this video. He got a bunch of the other VAs from FMA and put together this video that looks very perfessional. Specail effects and everything, it's about a fan turning into an anime character. All the VAs in the film get to cosplay as their characters, and Vic directed it. He was even able to get rain machines for some of the scenes and a 8 foot tall Al!!!! It was really done GREAT!
After watching the video, Vic stood up and told us about it and did a question and answer time. This was a lot of fun, and he told really did teach us a lot about it. How it cost him next to nothing to do this perfessonal film, he only shows at conventions (and will HOPEFULLY be a specail feature on a FMA DVD one of these days). It cost him under $1,000 to do it, only paying for the Rain Machine and a truck to move Al in. Everything else was volunteer work on the film. If you haven't seen this and like FMA (even if you don't like it, or haven't seen it) check this video out!!
After that I went and walked around the artist alley which was really small at this time, until I got the call from Eclipse saying she was there. As soon as I got that call I headed to the lobby and met up with her, which was Great.
She was dressed up as Son Goku from Saiyuki, still need to watch that anime Son Goku is from. Right after she got registered we went to the dealer room and got POCKY! She got me the Strawberry Pocky! Than we walked around, and she bumped into more of her online friends that I don't know. One of which was set up one of the Sailor Scouts. So she hung out with them, I kind of wandered... though was having problems because of people bumping into my arm... it was crowded in there for that small of a dealer room. I went to try and stay near Eclipse, though the Sailor turned and her back pack went right into my arm... had a feeling than I wasn't going to leave this con feeling well. I know no one meant to hurt me, and most people wouldn't even realize or understand how I was feeling, so I don't blame anyone at the convention for me being in pain. I know all to well how painful it is to go to conventions, so the only person for me to blame is myself.
Eclipse informed me that she's looking for another friend, so we left the dealer room on the hunt for the person she was hoping to meet on Friday. We walked around Artist alley a bit, than went up to the con Suite where we found FOOD! I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. Also got some Cheetos. After eatting we went back down stairs, and wandered around, finding the food area we let Eclipse dad rest there and get himself a few drinks. Than we wandered off again learning of the concert that started at 9:30, deciding we wanted to go to that show. Eclipse was also able to get herself some autographs durning this time from the FMA VAs.
Than we went for food joining her father.
This was Great, because from what I understand Son Goku is a lot like Goku in DBZ as in how much he loves to eat. So while Eclipse was eatting Yuri (who has played Son Goku) before came up to the table and did a Goku voice joking around and commented on Eclipse costume! That was GREAT! and she was really shocked to hear who he was, when he walked away. Eclipse and I both had pizza with Ranch and salade on it. We talked Turtles a lot, and about a few of our other animes.
Than we got in line for the concert. I did not know of the first performer who was going to be up, so I was only planning to record Eyeshine, which is Johnny's band. I know SW is a big fan of Johnny so I figured she'd like that. So I made sure to be up near the front with the show. And had my camera reading. Kristine Sa was the first performer, and I listedn and enjoyed her show so much that I did start to record durning her show. She had the crowd moving and singing along with her, she was great and really kept everyone in high spirits through the full show. Though what caught me before I started to record was her Turtle necklace, between songs I yelled up to the stage... "I LOVE YOUR TURTLE!" She smiles and said "Thank you!! This is Turtle Four, don't ask me what happened to One, Two and Three." I laughed a bit. She was so funny and nice. At the end of her performance the crowd was so wild she did one more song... which than told me I am a fan of her's... as she did the first season theme for Ranma 1/2 (my first real anime that I enjoyed!).
After her show was over the people in front of me left and I was able to get right up to the stage and record Eyeshine. I was resting right on the stage with the camera right up towards Johnny most of the time. Though I did try and get the other band members as well. My head was killing me from how loud the show was, of course the crowd wanted it louder. Durning this show Eclipse had to say good bye as she was going home. So I finished the show than went out and got Kristine Sa's autograph and told her how I'm a TMNT fan and collect all kinds of turtles. Than I went over and saw some friends who were working the convention and stopped to talked with them. One of their real names is Venus, and she's a really cool girl I know who Cosplays a lot and I've even done an event where we dressed up just to go the movies before.
While talking with Venus and her friends, Johnny came up to me and asked me to copy the concert for him. He'll talk to me more about it later. So I got into the autograph line for Eyeshine and while in line I told Johnny I could get the tape to him the next day. He seemed happy about that, so we did a few pictures together and I went on my way. I got home and had to find and set everything up for the video copies. I didn't get to bed till after 2am, to wake up around 7:30/8am.
Saturday coming soon...
Sites for pictures from Youmacon 2005Fans View Pictures from Youmacon 2005
Fiery Panda Studios Also did Youmacon
