The British are Coming! The British Are Coming! ....an Anime Boston Report.

[moonsheen]

So last weekend I was in Boston for con and general excellence. A few criminally stupid cosplayers aside, Anime Boston was probably seriously one of the best con experiences I've ever had! It was a very well-organized, well-situated con with excellent staff and none of the general CHAOSSSSSS that tends to follow most other cons I've been to.

Helped the weather was damn nice.




Thursday:


-lugged bags to Penn station, rendez-voused with adesso in Grand Central along the way. This is of note solely because the logistics of transporting a gigantic pirate hat with no free hands. That is: one wears the gigantic pirate hat on the New York City subway. I'm pretty sure the only reason not more people asked me what the deal was was because it was April 1st.

-hauled ass to make it to bus on time in said pirate hat. This proved a rather silly move, as the bus was late pulling up.

-bus had in fact been overbooked by about THIRTY SEATS. As adesso and I had online reservations, this was thankfully not the issue it could've, but they had to raffle off the remaining seats and about thirty irate customers were left on the curb, ready to run us out of NYC.

-nevertheless, we arrived in Boston later than expected owing to the previous delays and Rhode Island being UNDER WATER. I was not aware of this last fact until after arrival. We were delayed about an hour, which actually proved to be one of the gentler hold ups compared to everyone else arriving that night.

-Rendez vous'd with halyconjazz and pinstripesuit (who I had never met before! And who was super awesome! And warned me about the Yankees vs. Red Sox game on Sunday so my little old New York self wouldn't get myself heckled by irate Bostonians. JOKES ON YOU, MY FAMILY'S MADE OF METS FANS ... ... wait)

-dropped off things at the hotel! which proved to be close and super cute in a charming labyrinthian way.

-registered! Which was an odd experience to do as a guest. This was the part where I remembered I had to host a panel the next day and began to totally freak.

-acquired a similarly delayed meltedpeep! And the rest of the evening was spent planning panels and looking up ridiculously WW2 propaganda posters. (The Fighting Beavers is still my favorite). The term "HARRRD fantasy" came up way more often than it should have.


Friday:

-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH PANEL TODAY PANEL TODAY I HAVE NOT GIVEN A PRESENTATION IN LIKE FOUR YEARS I WILL HAVE AN AUDIENCE ARGH

-...suited up into pirate gear. This involved a good deal more belts than is good for polite company.

-polite company turned up being mithrigil lindensphinx and puella_nerdii who turned up about then with our cattle prods--er, flagpoles, and adesso's EPIC axe. We then proceeded to descend about con in full period drag. plus Peep, who had THE BEST COSTUME OF THE LOT OF US

-passed a Bill Nye, who recognized our Spain and informed her very cheerfully that the Bourbon dynasty was the worst thing to happen to Spain.

-found halcyonjazz in the artist's alley! She was seated next to Mookie of Dominic Deegan fame, a fact that left me MUCH AMUSED (his fans are sort of nuts) we chilled for a little, I at one point shouted at a conquistador from across the room, went over PANEL OUTLINE AAAH again before I was swept up by my posse of women dressed like men in copious lace to go check out the dealer's room.

-at which point someone recognized Peep's really amazing costume.

-found a Kuzunoha Raidou cosplayer! A male one at that. He'd come down from Montreal.

-"...and in front of CHILDREN." "Children?" "NO, SPAIN, NO."

-It was around this time that Linden rather mildly turned to me and informed that I should probably eat something before speaking in public.

-which, given our inability to walk more than five steps without incurring an impromptu photoshoot, took much longer than expected. The panel was at three, at around two I fixed my painfully askew bindings and hauled ass across con, jabbing a man!Misty in his booty-short wearing hairy ass as he sought to block my way in the food court. I MADE IT HOWEVER.

-hosted the Worldbuilding panel. To a... much larger audience than initially expected. I was thinking maybe I'd bully everyone I knew at con into going and maybe like, half the room would be filled! No, IT WAS A FULL HOUSE. The audience was actually really great and engaging and I think I might have even said a few things that were coherent! All and all it went off much better than I thought it would. Thanks to everyone who popped in!

-missed the Friday Hetalia photoshoot in favor of general dicking around, although everyone we ran into seemed to think we knew where it was. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it turns out we missed a very unpleasant incident that probably would have incurred a lot of yelling had we been there.

-instead attended pinestripesuit's and others panel on WHY IT IS NOT COOL TO DRESS LIKE A NAZI. Which CLEARLY MORE PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE BEEN AT. A really good primer on context, symbols and how they can be warped by historical and cultural context, and why sometimes we really do need to remember to show some sensitivity and respect to the not so distant past. It was a really well thought out and emotional panel and I think all the panelists deserve a lot of props for holding it. Look, a neonazi hellsing cosplayer once tried to pick me up at a con I'm REALLY COOL WITH THAT NOT HAPPENING AGAIN.

-Hetalia is still not affiliated with the Nazi Catboy.

-in lighter news attended pinestripesuit's Cuteness panel! Which was indeed, really cute with a very awesome presentation to match. I attended like, three panels at a con! That is probably more than the panels I attended total at all other cons in the last year.

-discovered a completely ADORABLE spain cosplayer and her nordic posse in the artist's alley! Words do not describe how awesome these people were. We wound up running into them all con, the next day they were vikings and their costumes were TOTALLY AMAZING AND DONE IT IN LIKE A DAY.

-two hour quest for food

-headed back to hotel, at which time puella_nerdii, dressed as a redcoat, incurred some hilarious heckling from a rather drunk Bostonian who had realized that the BRITISH WERE COMING.

-also, Linden, dressed as france, was cussed out by a couple of very loving fans. In French. A very international evening, this was.

-was too exhausted to emerge again for pinstripesuit's Dudes Who Like Dudes Who Look Like Dudes panel. But thankfully got to hear an initial run through of it. A LOT OF SERIES THAT I CLEARLY NEED TO PICK UP.


Saturday:


-attended the Hetalia photoshoot which was being run by one of the very awesome staffers who'd hosted the Why It's Not Cool To Dress Like A Nazi the day before! It was a really fun well organized shoot. Only a few instances of trolling and heckling from a Steampunk group the next level up. I got a lot of Steampunk people thinking I was One Of Them. I think the feathers might have done it.

-Conquistador!Danni got instant applause! Which was super awesome and also HER AXE TOWERED ABOVE ALL OTHERS.

-for my part, I kept knocking other englands in the head with my fake pistol. which at this point I finally figured out could be shoved into my very large and tall boots next to my cellphone.

-the best moment, hands down, was when Revolutionary mithrigil discovered a young man dressed in very eighties clothing who asked her what year it was, and upon being told what year it was declared: "We have to go BACK." Marty McFly and the Doc then went TEARING ACROSS THE MALL IN GREAT URGENCY.

-ran into the awesome vikings again! also autumn_estuary who was dressed as France and was just a really cool, chill person.

-hurried off after shoot to get to halcyonjazz's character design panel, determined not to be waylaid this time. However a very nice girl dressed as Sephiroth requested one last picture and well: "Well, if SEPHIROTH asks..." and so Sephiroth verily got a picture of ridiculous countries cosplay.

-I'm trying to remember if it was around here we had ice cream and laughed over shots of America with the cherry tree?

-after panel ran off with Peep for some lunch and some people watching. Spotted the dude dressed as a nurse from Silent Hill 2. He had the BEST LEGS EVER which was SO ENTIRELY UNFAIR.

-also spotted a lot of whipped boyfriend cosplay around this juncture. Frankly, a lot of Hetalia cosplay falls into this catagory: if you see a male Germany, it is usually some guy whose girlfriend talked him into the outfit. He is usually perfectly in character because he is totally awkward and embarassed about the fact he's dressed like a nazi for the sake of getting laid. The one I felt worst for though was this one fellow whose girlfriend had CLEARLY talked him into an Ushiwaka to match her human!Amaterasu cosplay. He was basically looking miserable in a big pink clownsuit. With pom poms. Of course, then you get the guys whose girlfriends dress them as, like, Dante from Devil May Cry. These gentleman are generally okay with this, because they are motherfucking Dante.

-One along these lines was this REALLY REALLY HOT XIGBAR COSPLAYER we spotted on the way back to the alley. Why this man was doing Kingdom Hearts cosplay I do not know, but he was working that tight black leather and the sniper rifles.

-when next we encountered Mith, Puel, and Linden they had changed outfits. This was possibly one of my favorite things at con because words do not describe how awesome those looked.

-ducked in on the Masquerade. The MCs were pretty great and the masque itself was actually pretty tightly run, unfortunately the skits were a little undnerwhelming. And so we ducked out. (but not before seeing TWO FFXII esper cosplays... and a Hetalia Canada roll across the stage)

-this was about when con exhaustion started to set in for me. Which shows how great this con was, I'VE NEVER BEEN SO ACTIVELY INVOLVED WITH ONE BEFORE. But yeah, while Mith, Puel, and Linden went for shoots I went to get a quick fix of fruit to keep from getting, well, scurvy or something. This was around the time me and Danni peeked into the karaoke room and found a Hitsugaya singing a soulful pop R&B song about how the girl he liked liked a total jerk and how he'd be reeeal or herrrr. It was pretty perfect.

-AND THEN WE FOUND THE ROBOTS I AM SORRY THIS WAS THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER. There was just. this group... with remote control robots, in one of the halls. And they asked Danni if she wanted to drive one. And so she DROVE THE ROBOTS. One of the robots was big and threw balls at people but then there were a bunch of little ones. And Danni made one of them fight the other little robot. AND KICKED IT'S ASS. Well, actually they drove away from eachother and five minutes later the other robot's arm fell off but I'll pretend it was that Danni kicked its ass.

-witnessed the epic dance off between Mith and Viking Denmark (yes, same vikings from above). Someone needs to put this on youtube. None of us can ever run for public awesome, but it was worth it.

-A PROPER DINNER. In which I got to meet ruffwriter for the first time! Sadly I was pretty out of it at this point due to general exhaustion and my bandages being much too tight. But she was super sweet and I wish I'd had more time to talk to her!

-spent dinner slooowly getting more and more out of costume. about midway through that process I was doing impromptu Temeraire cosplay, really.

-returned to hotel. passed the hell out.


Sunday:

-I was not a pirate! Much to the surprise of the girl managing this great tablein the Artist's Alley which was selling tiny mochi keychains. She had no idea who this person was who was talking like she knew her until she recognized the hat (which I was still wearing. see also: problems of transporting pirate hat)

-talked to yoiyami! Who I'd recognized at the Worldbuilding panel.

-ran into the vikings one last time while checking out of the hotel! TURNS OUT THEY WERE EVEN STAYING AT THE SAME PLACE. GO FIGURE.

-okay if you're doing vocaloid cosplay--or any schoolgirl-esque cosplay for that matter-- please don't put a framework in your skirt so it'll stare permnantly flared outwards. I mean, it might look good if people are standing at the same level as you BUT IF SOMEONE IS STANDING BEHIND YOU ON THE ESCALATOR THEY ARE GOING TO GET AN EYEFUL.

-relatively painless trip to the bus station. managed to be the first on this time, and as such snagged the top front seats of the doubledecker bus. Sitting right behind the huge window was a bit like sitting behind the window of, like, a spaceship or something. I declared myself lord of the bus.

-....and then we listened to a creepy congoer behind us attempt to pick up the poor asian girl he'd been sure to sit next to the whole way back to New York.

-got home, saw that cat was still alive.

-passed the hell out.



Unfortunately I got no pictures of my own! as soon as photos from various shoots surface though I will show you the ridiculous that was my pirate outfit. As that thing has to be seen to be believed. Overall: really great con, super organized, spacious, for the most part really well behaved save for one or two unfortunate exceptions. Props to pinstripesuit for all her help in getting us here and just being super awesome (THE REALLY GOOD BANNERS THAT WERE HANGING EVERYWHERE? HERS, GUYS) and props to everyone else for just being super rad. A+ WOULD RUN AROUND THERE AGAIN.

In Conclusion, people should totally post their pictures. So that I may bask.

Comments

[puella-nerdii.livejournal.com]

at which point someone recognized Peep's really amazing costume.
I STILL LOVE THAT. "Are any of you Meltedpeep?" CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR INTERNET FAME, HON.

But yeah! Totally awesome con! Very Much Want to go again! Next time we should run the Hetalia panel and BE GIANT NERDS.