Anime Boston: The Aftermath Part 1

 This year's Anime Boston 2012 has come and gone. I had some fun, but there have been certain aspects that have been better in the years past. Some of my friends have said that Anime Boston has become more of a "tourist attraction" for random people instead of an actual Anime convention for Anime fans. Personally, I think the people organizing the convention have let certain aspects slide for ideas of what to do at the Anime convention.

This is the booklet that Anime Boston handed out to everyone who attended. As you can see, they choose an "End of the World" theme, which seems convenient after all of the popularity of 2012 being the last year on the Mayan Calender. I liked last year's Rock theme more, but it was at least better than the underwater theme for the year before that.

There were a few interesting panels. Here is a postcard from Tainted Reality who held a panel about J-Rock I went to see. They are a company that helps bring J-Rock over to the USA. They help bring CD's, downloads, music videos, and even help bring J-Rock bands over to play at concerts. I enjoyed their panel, and they helped me discover more J-Rock bands to look into. I bought a CD from them of a band called D'espairsRay. The CD is Coll:set and I really liked it. I'm going to look into more music from this band and others on Youtube.

They even have a web-comic called "Fixer" by Danny Kang posted about a J-Rock band. I got to meet him at the Artists' Alley, and I enjoyed meeting him. He has some impressive work.

Here is a picture I took of myself wearing my cos-play outfit of Sasori's 2nd Kazekage puppet from Naruto. I took the costume I made last year and made some improvements. I know these improvements helped because people seemed to notice me more. I have gotten more attention previous years for more elaborate costumes of more popular characters, but this was alright. People don't go to conventions merely to be noticed for the costumes they wear of popular characters.

Here is my friend Ryan Carrio, dressed up as Wolfwood from Trigun. The huge cross was very well made. It is amazing what sort of props people will make or buy in order to complete their costumes. People even get $60 contact lens to change the look of their eyes in order to match certain characters!

Here is a couple dressed up as two of the main characters from the popular Anime series Gurren Lagann. Gurren Lagann is one of those Anime with a far fetched plot and some ridiculously good animation, and I really enjoy it. Most people who were in cos-play were dressed up as characters from Anime, but there were a few people here and there that were in costumes of characters from other genres. It is alright, for most popular things in the US trade over into Japan and back again.

Here are three people dressed up as Boba Fett and one person dressed up as a storm trooper. The classic Star Wars is acceptable to all other conventions (no one came as any new characters from the prequels) because everyone knows them. I just found it odd to see an army of Jake's from "Adventure Time" roaming around.

I will post more about the convention tomorrow.