Kasra's Yaoi-Con 2004 Report
For the third year running, I attended Yaoi-Con in San Francisco. With two years of the con already under my belt, I went to the con with some pretty high expectations, which were once again not only fulfilled but exceeded. This con gets better and better every year.
This year I learned my lesson from previous years and booked a room in the con hotel for the duration of Yaoi-Con. Even so, although I'm pretty certain I got more sleep than I did in past years, I think my overall time spent at con activities themselves actually went down, mostly because I was having too much fun hanging around with my roommates and taking silly fanservice pictures to go to either Cosplay or the dance this year. Still, I managed to get pictures of quite a few nice cosplayers. Take a look if you're curious:
I'd actually put most of my effort into new costumes earlier this year for Katsucon, so I reprised a couple of those in addition to bringing back some old favorites. Friday night we got to the con and registered, after which I changed into my Duo Maxwell costume. Unfortunately, as there weren't any panels I was interested in attending that evening, I spent most of the night hanging out in our hotel room in costume just geeking about anime. Duo is a nice simple costume for that kind of thing - comfortable street clothes and no weird accessories to worry about.
Since Bast and I were heading to the dealer room for the early bird entry, I got up around 7am on Saturday morning to get into costume beforehand. I decided to go as Gluhen Aya from last year, since it was a fairly straightforward (if elaborate underneath in the details) costume that did require me dealing with a recalcitrant wig. Bast and I were ready at about 8:30am and had walked all of maybe five feet from our hotel room when I ran into another Gluhen Aya cosplayer, along with her Gluhen Ken companion. Twins! We ended up hanging out with them in line for the dealer room and getting a few pictures in the meantime.
About mid-day, it was time for the next costume change of the con. This time I wore one of my newer costumes - Sena Izumi, one of the two new members of Weiss from Weiss Kreuz Gluhen. Since one of my Gluhen vids was entered in the AMV contest, I figured it would be fun to cosplay the character in question while I was a nervous wreck at the contest itself. I'd made the vest back in February, as well as the chakram and his armband. All of the dog collars he's wearing? That was a very special trip to PetsMart where I stood in the back of the store and tried every single one of them on before buying, much to the combined fascination and horror of the yuppie shopping for a dog collar that couldn't stop staring at me during the whole process. The tshirt, necklace, torq, leggings, and gloves were obtained and modified as necessary. Sena might have a simple looking costume, but I had to drive all over Silicon Valley to put the damn thing together! And the wig - yikes, my first wig. Hopefully I didn't look too ghetto in it!
Later that night after dinner I changed into my Gluhen Omi costume for pictures. This costume is much simpler accessory-wise than Sena - just a coat, scarf, belt, wig, and gloves - but because of the complexity of the coat pattern (and my relative newbie status for sewing) it had taken me three weeks and a lot of assistance from Starherd to complete it. I've very proud of my Omi coat, even if it's too hot for me to wear around cons except during the winter.
Sunday morning as per tradition I went as Watari from Yami no Matsuei. While trying to make my way to the dealer room for one final look, I walked right into a cosplay.com YnM photo shoot. Oddly enough, I think I was asked for more pictures while in my Watari costume than the previous two days combined. I guess that's what I get for cosplaying a somewhere obscure fandom!
As always, I have to make it to at least one panel per con. This year I only made it to two panels - Alternate Pairings, and the Be Beautiful manga industry panel. The Gundam Wing panel was not held this year for unknown reasons, and Anneke's AMV Panel had to be cancelled because someone stole her computer out of the back of her car on Saturday night. That was a major disappointment because her AMV panel two years ago was easily the most informative panel I've ever attended at any con; I still consult my notes from that panel today while making and rendering vids for other contests. With any luck someone will come forward with some information about her computer so that she can hold the panel at next year's con.
As for the panels I attended, Caer's Alternate Panels panel was a good followup to her panel last year. This time we were charged to come up with the strangest pairings we'd ever seen pulled off in fanfiction, and explain why it worked. Additionally, the panel explored the reasons why we like (and write) alternate pairings, including 'they make perfect sense together but fandom at large doesn't get it', hateslash, and the ever popular, 'they look pretty together'. At the beginning of the panel the room was only half-filled, but by the end of it, it was standing room only. Caer ran an excellent panel and I look forward to her running it again next year.
I attended the Be Beautiful panel partly out of curiosity but largely out of respect and support for Central Park Media and their dedication to their fans. Last year's CPM panel - where they officially announced Be Beautiful - convinced me of the company's good intentions towards treating fans of the yaoi genre well. After a short presentation detailing some of their new acquisitions ("Target the Finder" and "Haru wo Daiteita") and a quick FAQ on how to find Be Beautiful titles for sale, the head of Be Beautiful opened the panel to questions about their manga line and suggestions for future acquisitions. With both Kitty Media and Digital Manga Press getting into the yaoi manga market at the same time, it's going to be interesting to see which new series and old favorites get picked up for North American distribution. Be Beautiful's dedication to their fans may be just what they need to pull ahead in this narket.
The AMV Contest is, without a doubt, my favorite event at Yaoi-Con every year. It is also the most nerve-wracking two hours of the entire con, and the single thing I spend the most time preparing for in advance of the con, in this case nearly a year ahead of the con itself.
After winning Best Drama two years running for our Yami no Matsuei vids (Possession, Descent), Starherd and I both came to the realization that it was time to move onto new anime series. While she was enamored with making a Fruits Basket video, I took a slighly different direction and revisited a vid concept suggested by my husband originally for Yaoi-Con 2003. When he'd suggested it I'd had neither the time nor the source material to pull the vid together on my own in time for the 2003 contest. I was in between projects back in April when the brilliant insight hit me - why not ask my husband to work as a co-creator on the video with me?
So started the long process of pulling together our main entry for the Yaoi-Con AMV Contest. Ironically, Starherd's Fruits Basket vid, while on a technical level far more complex, took much less time to come together than the X vid my husband and I worked together on over the summer as time (and inspiration) allowed.
Being able to actually submitted a dvd master of our vids this year is what probably saved me from passing out at the contest itself. As soon as the contest coordinator popped in the dvd I'd sent in, I knew our vids were going to look good. With Jessie gripping one hand and Starherd holding the other, I was ready to face the audience's response.
The cheering was overwhelming for all three of our vids. I collapsed gratefully against Jessie and just enjoyed the rest of the contest. It was damn tough competition - it seems to get tougher every year - but I was happy to have our vids shown and received well.
Sunday afternoon once again brought us to closing ceremonies. Starherd's Fruits Basket vid "Come With Me" took the Best Technical award, but the real shocker was when they announced "All That Could Have Been" - the Tokyo Babylon / X vid co-created with my husband - was the winner of this year's Best Drama award. I damn near passed out where I was standing; there were so many damn good vids in the contest I didn't think we could do it!
Our entries for this year's Yaoi-Con can be downloaded off of animemusicvideos.com:
Come With Me - Fruits BasketFor more of our AMVs, please visit the main WTF Productions website: Wingboys & Two Fangirls Anime Music Videos
This report only barely touches on the highlights of my con experience. The report would need to be at least three or four times as long to cover the entire weekend: Maple Moose, midnight sessions of Eye of Argon, frilly pink aprons, and everything in between. The real fun of Yaoi-Con for me comes not from the con itself but as a gathering of like-minded, fun people that happens once a year. I've said it before but it bears repeating - what you get out of this con is directly proportional to what you put into it. If you bring to the con an open mind and a willingness to make new friends, your con experience will be a fond memory for many years to come.
Yaoi-Con 2004 was a blast, and as always I have a whole list of people to thank for it. Thank you to the con organizers, staff, and volunteers, for putting together one smooth-running con. Thank you to my roomies - Amet, Bast, Jessie, and Sephy - for being great roommates and putting up with my neuroses over the course of the weekend. Thanks to everyone I met during the con, whether they were someone I'd only previously known through livejournal, a fellow fan, or a new friendly face. Thank you to all of the wonderful cosplayers who were kind enough to allow me to photograph them. Big hugs to Starherd for all of her help on both costumes and AMVs, and to my husband - not just for the AMV help, but also for putting up with another pre- and post-con fangirl invasion of our living space. You know I love you.
That's everything. See you next year at Yaoi-Con 2005!
~Kasra
Questions? Comments? Email me at kasra_c@yahoo.com.