Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Anime Evolution 2009

Another Anime convention less than a month since the last one XD I wasn't planning to go, but giving it some thought, it is the Vancouver one, I'd better go. So there I was from June 12-14 mostly at the newly built Vancouver Convention Centre walking around in a zombie-like state because I stayed up the night before each day of Anime Evolution ^^;

And yes, that is me in the first picture cosplaying as Kyon from the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It was cooler on Sunday that I decide to wear it since I didn't really see any Haruhi cosplayers much. So that's why I posted it... and yes my face is naturally blurry :P

The pre-registered badges were able to be picked up on Thursday, so I went there early and also to check out the place and possible parking places. I went down the escalator to see the end of the line... I stared and stared at this one person at the end... She looks like Chun. I walked up close to her and it IS Chun! What a weird coincidence! She claims that I was stalking her... but do not believe a word she says! >.> More stories about this meeting in another post.

Since this is a very photo-heavy post, I'll cut down the text as much as possible. I thought I didn't take as many pictures as AnimeBoston, but turned out I took more!! On that note, enjoy the pictures!

Oh and if you are from Vancouver and see your picture here, let me know if you want a bigger copy or if you want me to remove it ^^;; My email is on my profile :)

From the Opening Ceremony: MinxZone makes an appearance... Unfortunately I never got to watch their concert -_-

So many Vocaloid cosplayers during the whole convention 0.o But I'm glad someone cosplayed as Meiko! Here we also see Kaito, Neru, Rin and Len.

Zero Suit Samus from Metroid/Super Smash Bros. Brawl

A lot of Yoko (Gurren Lagann) around the convention too... This is the Bounty Hunter version.

Hehehe I laughed at this one after seeing Mothra's wings. I had to get a picture!

Nekomimi Shana! I even had a small talk with her about her Cocytus around her neck and I showed her my Azure as well ^^;

Vocaloid Kagamine Rin! From the Gekokujou PV. Thanks to Coco and Tenrou for the title and link, respectively. ^^



Some of the Soul Eater cast: Blackstar, Medusa, Maka & Soul

Rider from Fate/stay night. She even had the contacts for her eyes to look like Rider! Very cool!!

A weird compilation picture... I only recognize Link and Tetra though ^^;

Akaito and Kaito. Kaito is actually ClearTranquil from DannyChoo.com!

Funny story on how we met ClearTranquil here... I was just checking out the Art Gallery and bumped into Chun again on Friday. She was fixing up her and her friends' gallery. I thought I'd help along since she kept dropping tacks, clips and art all over the place XD Suddenly we see a Kaito checking out the art on the board we were fixing (check out this board on chun's blog). Chun and I were whispering and wondered if it was him or not, so I spoke up and asked, "Are you ClearTranquil?" He was surprised that we knew who he was and then he saw Chun's art. He exclaimed in real surprise, "Oh it's you!" and I couldn't help but laugh. A moment later I showed him my badge that says "Lightning Sabre" on it ^_^ Funny meeting. I think I saw CT a few more times on Friday or vice versa, but didn't see him again after that.

[Reminder for next year: set an arrangement for DC.com members to meet]

Meg from Bakuretsu Tenshi/Burst Angel. Kawaii onna no ko!

Chii from Chobits! Skirt... so... short...

An all female Kingdom Hearts cast. Namine, Kairi, Sora and Riku! Thanks to nyoron for the names ^_^

Ah and here are a couple of my friends from the store I buy my comics from. Roland on the left is Winry and Misty is Ed from Fullmetal Alchemist. And wow great work on the metallic arm guys! Too bad Winry's wrench was confiscated since it was metal ^^;

The Cybersix Panel on Saturday morning. A really great show that was a collaboration of TMS, a Japanese animation studio, and NOA, a Canadian company, to produce an animated series based on an Argentinian comic, called Cybersix. This is in honor of the 10th year anniversary. The woman in the middle is Cathy Wesseluck who voices the main character of Cybersix. Opening animation below.



I usually don't take pictures of cosplays I don't know... but I can't help but take a picture of her. Thanks to nyoron for pointing out that she's Kuja from Final Fantasy IX. ^^

Dot Matrix from ReBoot! WOW, just wow... Great cosplay! I heard she was Dot Matrix for two days in a row!

Candid picture... I see a few from Soul Calibur here, including the elven girl ^_^

The Glomping game? I have no idea. From what I gather you kick the empty bottle to somebody and give that person a hug and the next person gets to the center and kick it again to somebody else...

Muten Roshi from Dragonball series. Not the Chow Yun Fat version from the Dragonball Evolution version.........

Zelda cosplayers all gathered up! Hmmm not sure about the girl in blue though... Refresh my memory? One of the Links in this picture (Jessica) told me that it's Princess Ruto ^^

Gwendolyn from Odin Sphere... which I realized I took a picture of her last year ^^

The ReBoot panel on Saturday. In the panel were the creator, Gavin Blair, voice director/actor Michael Donovan, and other voice actors, Garry Chalk, Scott McNeil (in the cowboy hat) and a few more people whose names I don't remember right now... sorry m(_ _)m

Michael Benyaer was somewhat present for the panel from LA through a webcam. He's the original voice for Bob.

Oh I was so happy to take a picture of her... Mizore Shirayuki is one of my favourite characters from Rosario + Vampire.

Hatsune Miku, World is Mine version! Cute pose ^^

Chidori and Tessa from Full Metal Panic

Saber from Fate/stay night

Vocaloid Megurine Luka

Wow a K-ON! cosplayer already! Mio Akiyama, 'Don't Say Lazy' version.

SO I HEAR YOU LIEK MUDKIP?? Chun also found his Cosplay.com site ^^

During one of the events Mudkip was munching on a Shisengumi member ^^;

From the same event, a female Zidane from Final Fantasy IX getting real cozy with Yoko... Hmm, Yuri Mania potential... Too bad it wasn't the best condition to take pictures there. At least this one turned out somewhat ok >_<

From To Heart 2... I only know Chie unfortunately...

More Vocaloids! There's even a male version of Miku here!

A very cute Ryomou from Ikki Tousen ^^

Testing out the zoom and steadiness of the camera in my hand. I took this from the second floor and able to take a picture of this group.

One of the last things I did during the convention on Sunday was the Lolita Fashion show. It was a short even but the clothes were cute and they talked about the culture regarding these clothes. Bad lighting condition and I tried to take as best and as many as possible, but quite a challenge. Enjoy whatever I got here...













And finally I took a few pictures of the interior from the Vancouver Convention Centre. I think our event is probably the biggest one they had so far. We used two levels during the weekend; the basement and the 2nd floor. I saw on one of their signs that they were using the first floor for a high school graduation ceremony or prom for Friday and Saturday ^^;

This is the second floor. I got in a couple of Ganguro girls in the picture too ^^

The lowest floor. Very nice design on the floor, eh?

The ground level... lots of space!

From the second floor... very nice views of the water and mountain! You can also see Canada Place here, the boat/sail like building on the right.

These eagle sculptures were all over downtown. These are the only ones that were side by side in multiples.

And that's how Anime Evolution 2009 went down. A total of 5000ish people for the weekend. Hopefully that's enough for them to be able to use the Convention Centre again. We got a good use out of it. I didn't see too many things during the weekend, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I was walking around with a friend who was new to the anime world and anime convention. I also met up with a friend who worked nearby and had my first authentic Japanese ramen for lunch on Friday because of him ^_^

A very fun weekend... too bad my cough got worse again on the last day... what is it about me and the last day of conventions?? I'll be sure to go again next year for my 8th year in a row!

23 comments:

  1. God the Roshi and Mudkip ones cracked me up! XD

    Btw, I am rather impressed by your Kyon-play! Very nice!

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  2. Yay someone cosplayed as Mizore, Also wanted to hug that huge adorable Mudkip, gotta participate next yr.

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  3. @Snark: LoL I loved that Roshi too. And thanks! The emblem was quite a challenge to do ^^;

    @GunStray: I'm so happy to find that Mizore ^_^ And this year was bad timing from what I hear because some people were in exam season >_<

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  4. Namine and Kairi were their names (Kingdom Hearts pic)

    AE2009-17 is Kuja from FF9.. Is it a trap? lol

    Looks like you had fun~ I liked the randomness with meeting other DC members.

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  5. nice kyon jacket lol, thanks for helping me pick up the pins :P and was it really how it go with cleartranquil?! lolol but well it was good to bump into him in person ^^!

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  6. @nyoron: Ah thanks for the help on the names ^_^ Hmm... well she looks female and very sekshi XD Seemed like a lot of people from DC.com actually went too!

    @chun: Haha thanks, and I would've helped a lot more, but you were quite insistent on doing some of it on your own :P

    And yes, that's pretty close as to how it happened when we met ClearTranquil XD It was very funny!

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  7. Holy crap, I just saw Kyon! XD
    The uniform suits you very well! I think it's a very successful cosplayer debut! and the classic Kyon-pose makes it even more awesome ^^

    All the cosplayers seem to have a lot of fun (btw that Roshi blew me off, most accurate Roshi I've seen in my life)

    Must be so nice to meet internet people~ I don't know what to say if I meet someone from the internet ^^U most of the time it gets awkward since I don't say anything, they don't say anything ^^U (anime helped with the introversion but it's still there I guess)

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  8. @yakuri: Thanks -^^- Kyon's one of my favourite characters, so I want to make it the best as possible. "Yare yare." XD
    I found him in the dealer's room at first, but he seemed to be everywhere, so I had many opportunities to take pictures of him.

    Heheh I get nervous meeting people from internet too, those weird awkward silences... But I get uncomfortable with silences so I usually would start a conversation no matter how random it is!

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  9. We have to, I repeat, have to have DC members meet next year! ^^;

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  10. @Akari: If I decide to do that panel for next year then that would be a nice place to gather ^_^ If not, we'll make a post on DC before it happens.

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  11. that's pretty awesome. There were some really good cosplay (and some bad ones too). I missed out on the presell and didn't want to pay $60 for the entrance fee. :\

    It's too bad the turn-out was low. At that rate it seems highly unlikely that it will be at the convention center again, unless it was cheaper than hosting it at SFU.

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  12. Nice kyon cosplay! :D

    That Rin is from one of the Gekokujou PVs. Too bad there's no Len with her >.<

    LOL. Talk about a chance meeting! I wonder if I'll have any similar occurrences at AX. xD

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  13. @radiantdreamer: Regarding the cosplay, I was very adamant about not taking pictures of Naruto or Bleach cosplays, lol. Too bad you missed the pre-sell. I actually almost missed it because I didn't decide til last minute. My friend did pay that much even though he only went on Saturday & Sunday. I doubt they want to use SFU again since they had trouble there. 5000 is actually bigger than last year. So it only increased a little bit. If they had better guests then that might've been a bigger draw.

    @coco: Ah thank you ^^; Oh and I should've asked you too regarding that Rin. You should know a lot of them too ^^ Thanks for the title of the vid. Tenrou gave me the link to the video on Facebook, but I dunno the title.

    There'll be a lot of people from DC.com going to AX for sure, so I'm sure something could happen ^_^

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  14. Looks like a fun event, pretty neat cosplayers too. I really only go to Anime Central each year since it's close by to where I live XD

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  15. @Wolfheinrich: Yeah I usually only go to this one in Vancouver, but somehow went to the one in Boston for a few times now XD

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  16. the DC.com meetup would be interesting!
    ahha

    i was only outside as i didnt have tehe time to be there long term
    haha

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  17. @lyfeprojekt: I was going to plan something beforehand, but I never got around to it. I hope I'll remember to do it for next year ^^; Had something to do during that weekend?

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  18. The building looks awesome. Nice event, nice cosplays, and lots of cute girls. ^^

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  19. @T.I.P.: Aye, I'm quite pleased with this new convention centre :D Heheh, a lot of my friends have commented quite a bit on the cute girls ^_^

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  20. I took a whole bunch of cosplay pictures from Fanime Con. I used a Minolta Film Camera (X-570,Fuji Velvia 100) to take those pictures. I just got them last week and they are great. I just need to scan them.

    I love those cosplay pictures, it brought back memories of the cosplayers and I dressed up as Kyon too.

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  21. @Cadha23: I'm not really a camera person, so I barely know what camera I used to take these pictures, lol. But wow a film camera, eh? That's retro :D

    Hehe Kyon stick together ^^

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  22. although the girl cosplaying as Mizore wasn't quite hot enough to play her, you kinda dissed mizore as the character not the person... you said mizore is ONE OF my favorites FROM ROSARIO VAMPIRE.... Mizore is the best character EVER OF ANY ANIME OR MANGA!!!!

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  23. @Anon: ^^; My apologies, lol. I would give her more credit if she were in another series XD But I'm glad your passion for Mizore is #1! :D

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