Belated con report (Otakon 2012) August 9, 2012

I did go to Otakon, which was excellent if far too short.

Loved the “history of Lupin III” panel, and enjoyed the Madoka staff Q&As. Was intrigued by the first few episodes of Fractale. Enjoyed many many cosplayers, though I did not stop for many many pictures. Oh, and I got a free Sailor Chibi-Moon poster at the Kodansha panel! Not the first senshi I would have gone for, but definitely not the last, either.

There were a lot of Sailor Moon and Madoka panels, sometimes stacked up against each other. Tough decisions…

I have one of the new SM T-shirts, the pseudo-collar-and-bow one, and paired that with a blue pleated skirt and stuffed Luna one day in lieu of the full Integra Hellsing With Hellhound getup. (Not that I have the hair for either outfit right now…and I’m too cheap to get a wig. Heh.)

On the third day I just hung around in the Kyuubey hat — also with the Luna. Someone should write fic about those two together. Either as archenemies, or deeply distrustful colleagues in the Magical Girl Sidekicks Union.

Walked away with a Homura figurine for politicette and a stack of nonconsecutive volumes of Her Majesty’s Dog for self. I had reread several of them in the manga library, loved them just as much as the first time around, and figured, screw it, I might as well at least start buying them. It took visiting almost all the manga vendors in the Dealer’s Room to find anybody who stocked it, so it’s probably a good thing I didn’t put it off any longer.

Also sampled in the library: +Anima (didn’t care for it; cute but not that interesting), some forgettable fashion manga (picked because the title sounded neat; turned out to be a letdown), and the start of Cromartie High (the classic parody of Tough High School Delinquent manga; as always, charming in its ridiculousness). Also something that was advertised in the back of HMD and turned out to have a similar “powerful human young woman in control of cranky male demon, with bonus cute animal form” dynamic…but was really badly developed and only two volumes long. Sigh.

Drew a bunch of stuff along the way, much of which Xuanwu ended up with, as part of our “I will do commissions to pay my share of the hotel bill” deal. So you may or may not ever see that, depending on if/when he feels like scanning them. The ones I kept have mostly already been posted (I spent a lot of the con working on the updated Xyll Saga portraits).

I am so looking forward to the new SM anime, you guys. Also, the Madoka movies. The only way this could be more magical is if the Hellsing OVA and its translations were coming out in a speedy and quality manner. And maybe if there were an anime for HMD.