Since this involves a major update and I've been very busy with work, apologies for the delay coming 3 months after the event. ^^;; Despite the FanimeCon being outclassed by Animazement in the guest department this year, it was my fourth year in a row in attendance, having pre-registered last year. Although not as Evalicious as last year, this year was still pretty good enough Evangelion-wise that it's worth blogging about the update that resulted. I skipped Day 0 (Thursday) because it remained to be seen if the linecon issues from last year had been resolved, but from Instagram it became clear that this had been addressed. After picking up my badge on Friday in just 5 minutes, I headed to Artist Alley. Now in all the years I have been attending cons it took a while for me to come around to the idea of patronizing artist alley because I had been so focused on the artwork I picked up being official or being created by someone in the anime industry. But after spending much time in Saboten Con's artist alley last year, albeit not picking up anything, I gave Fanime's this year a chance. Also, after seeing an Asuka and Eva-02 print on Instagram by Jimbobox (James Ghio) that I really liked, I was glad to see that he would be in artist alley so I made a beeline for his booth. The print wasn't on Ghio's Deviantart but it was up for sale. I opted to not get any others although on second thought wish I had. Based on the design I also commissioned Ghio to do an Asuka sketch based on the promotional photos of the Alter figure of her in her track jacket and Nekomimi hat, only my second commission to date after obtaining the first at Big Wow Comicfest the week before (also of Asuka). I hadn't brought any shikishi with me so this would be done on sketch paper. After emailing Ghio the image, I headed for swap meet. Following an hour wait in the growing darkness outside the City National Civic (previously the San Jose Civic Auditorium), swap meet's much smaller location for this year, I spent about two hours inside and made some good pickups plus some Ranma phone cards for a steal, Bleach shitajiki, and a Naruto art book (not pictured). On Saturday I picked up my Asuka commission from Ghio. He had it out at his booth so it had gotten some interest. I like his interpretation of the source material. Later in the day I learned that Masahiro Kanehara's Mazda RX-7 itasha was parked near McDonald's. I first became aware of this itasha just before the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival in April, when I saw pics of Kanehara driving it in the parade. However I hadn't been able to attend the festival. I had seen the itasha on Friday night and was glad to finally be able to photograph it at my leisure. On Sunday, all of Gainax, including Takami Akai and Noir, unexpectedly showed up again at the signing (originally just Hiroyuki Yamaga was listed). After having asked Akai to draw Lafiel from Crest of the Stars, this time I asked him to draw Asuka based on a Mana Kirishima sketch I had seen on Rubberslug. For reference I used my phone's lockscreen wallpaper, which was part of the K-Swiss collaboration. This one took Akai about five minutes to do and he specifically asked for red to color Asuka's hair clips. While he was working on it, a couple people after me asked Yamaga to sketch Asuka which he did, albeit slowly. I had seen Yamaga's sketches on Rubberslug too before, so next time I'll ask him to sketch depending on the circumstances. Akai's piece is definitely one of the jewels of my Asuka gallery. Monday was when my Eva purchases picked up:
Because of my gripe about Animazement's guests vs. Fanime's, I decided not preregister for 2015. Depending on my situation next year, I'll head to North Carolina or return to Fanime out of necessity.
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This year’s FanimeCon on Memorial Day weekend was my fourth in a row (after going sporadically three other times) and was very memorable because it was very much an Eva-themed con for me in several ways. I will thus focus largely on the Eva aspects in this post. First I wanted to show off my Eva pride with two Asuka shirts that I picked up a month before from Eva-T with some help. These were the Stay Real shirt, which I was going to wear on Saturday, and the white Cospa shirt for Sunday as these are the biggest days of the con. I also wanted to sport the Asuka button by GE Animation but it was released about two weeks before the con started, so I planned to see if one of the dealers had it. Day 1 (Friday, May 24) Right after getting my badge I headed to the dealers' hall, which was quite early for me as I usually don't go there until later. Fortunately, Anime Jungle had the button and it was the only one that they had out. Coincidentally I had scoped them out on the list of dealers posted on the FanimeCon website to check the button's availability. This was my final button set up starting on Saturday with no doubt left as to what my favorite series was: One of the things I like about FanimeCon is the swap meet, which gives attendees the opportunity to sell off any anime related or other goods that they want to part with it to their fellow con-goers. I asked to find what I was looking for at swap meet, which was Eva primarily and damn did I get what I asked for, along with some other oldies, but goodies. Here's what I landed Eva wise: Day 2 (Saturday, May 25) In the morning I found this in one of the open areas of the San Jose Convention Center where registration is typically held (not this year due to construction): This was serendipitous, as after dinner I considered going home, but opted to return to the convention center to see if there would be anything worth seeing. Turns out that there was. Day 3 (Sunday, May 26) In the morning I went back to where the cockpit was and it was still there, but not as busy. I also talked to the guy who put it together. He selected one of the four cockpit designs and went with the coolest looking one. It is supported by several scaffolds where the pilot sits but can be assembled and broken down. As a veteran modeler he just goes by the feel of putting it up and taking it down. Construction took three weeks. Crunchyroll later covered it. This time it was the Asuka cosplayer who asked me first for a photo. I had missed out on the opportunity the previous day to get a sketch by Tsuyoshi Nonaka, who is an excellent artist to ask for robots and the like as he is a toy designer. I figured that since he had worked on the Chogokin-Damashii series of toys that he would be able to sketch the Evas and this was confirmed when I saw some photos of what he had done, including the Berserker version of Eva-01 and Eva-02 in Beast Mode. I asked for Eva Shogoki and Nonaka got right to it. I told him about the cockpit in the convention center and shared my opinion of 3.0 when asked, which was that some things are better off just not understanding, and he agreed. Later I saw two Asukas, one in the test plugsuit and one in the yellow dress. I had also seen this lady earlier but missed the chance to get a photo of her at the time. This Mini Cooper S was across the street in front of the Fairmont Hotel. The left side has the same design while the Nerv logo is above the Cooper logo on the back. Nothing on the hood. These are 2.0 designs by character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, who also did the manga. At McDonald's I ran into the only other person I saw that entire weekend wearing an Asuka shirt. He told me that he was trying to get his friends into Eva via the Rebuild route as they thought the TV series too old and long. His shirt can be found on Redbubble. Day 4 (Monday, May 27) The final day of the con and no guest signings, so this is typically my shopping day. From my earlier scouting around I had an idea on what to get. Now a big reason for this website is to document my Eva collection and avoid buying duplicates. I brought a binder of printouts of it (since I don't have a smartphone yet) and it proved its worth as it saved me several times. However for some reason I didn't consult it when I saw a Real Model of Eva-04, the only one I don't have. Thus I didn't pick it up. My priorities were the older goods showcased in E-Mono. From Kimono My House (they had the Eva-04 Real Model), I picked up a complete set of six gashapon and four idol cards. The two on the right are from the Death and Rebirth out of a set of four. The other items are a Real Model of Ruri Hoshino (which I had seen so many times over the years but never this cheap) and a Plastic Little shitajiki. Seven posters from Nikaku Animart: Asuka, screensaver, Genesis 0:1, 0:3, 0:5, 0:8, and Death and Rebirth. And from Toyslogic, two Rei bikini figures as they were doing a deal. I did not pick up any Asuka figures this time around. All in all it was a very enjoyable con despite having taken some steps backwards. I picked up a lot more Eva goods this time than ever before but overall I still came in under my total con budget. The Eva exposure was also much, much higher. Of course I myself had a part to play in that and will do so again in the future. |
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