Nekocon Day 2 – I Came, I Bought, I Left

ROFL

Nekocon was not something I regret, because I got to experience a small con, got to run my first panel, and got to buy what is now my favorite figure in my collection. However, I will never go again, because those are things that could happen at any con, and there’s no reason to go to anything as shitty as Nekocon ever again. In the future, I’ll stick just to cons big enough to have Japanese guests.

So, I told my youngest brother, Shaidu (age 12), that I wanted to take him to a con because he was getting so into anime. We had agreed he should go to nekocon to start small, but we hadn’t had time to wait fo him to get home from school on Friday, so we took him on Saturday. My dad gave each of us three brothers 100 bucks to buy stuff with (and Shaidu had 50 already beforehand) so we knew it would at least be worthwhile. My mom also agreed to pick us up from the con, meaning Patz could leave the con at his own accord since he had to be home that night.

So we arrived at the con a bit before 2, and hung out in the game room that I had totally overlooked the first day. I played a couple rounds of Melty Blood as Ryougi Shiki and naturally got my ass handed to me, and then at two we headed for the Funimation Presents panel. Here, the Funi crew rattled off three-minute clips of a bunch of new shows they have coming out, and if they hadn’t done so already, they at least convinced me that I really should watch Blassreiter (since those I know who actually finished it said it was amazing.)

Awesome group cosplay, and he's bending backwards!

After that, there was literally nothing left to do for the rest of the day, so we headed for the dealer’s room. We hit it like a storm and my brothers and I were in there for something like 3 hours. Patz actually straight-up left the con after just an hour, no longer under the illusion that he was going to get his money’s worth just by sticking around the extra day. We all definitely regret getting 3-day passes who did.

This one was great because he stuck the sword out and yelled 'Bankai!'

I did get a very interesting moment in the dealer’s room, though. If you remember in my last post, the old man from the Anigamer’s booth kept plugging his booth during my panel. I stopped by his booth to talk to him, and he showed me a lot of the crazy rare stuff he had (to be honest, I was kind of trapped!) and then I asked him if anyone had showed up to buy the shows we talked about. He said that he had actually sold off several Kamichu collections as well as sent a couple of people over to the Media Blasters booth to purchase Simoun since he didn’t have it! (Can’t remember if he mentioned any others.) That was pretty awesome, so I know we definitely got through to some of the people at our panel. He also sold me Metal Fighter Miku collection for 20 bucks, which I’ve been meaning to buy, so that’s cool.

My brothers looking badass

In the end, we came out with a decent haul. Shaidu bought figures of Nagisa and Kotomi from Clannad (which he is a huge  fan of) and a miniature Haruhi figurine, as well as a huge Hatsune Miku ‘towel’ (really only meant for wall hanging, as no one would use it as a towel!) which broke him out. My yet-unnamed brother bought a Master Grade Blue-Frame Gundam Astray as well as two mystery-box Phantasy Star Universe figures. As for me, besides the DVDs, I bought a huge Toradora calendar for 2010 as well as the amazing Furude Rika figure in a school swimsuit, which is already probably my favorite figure in my collection. (sorry for the shitty lighting, it’s all I had.)

Once we were done in the dealer’s room, we called to go home – it was that boring there. By 7PM we were gone and, while satisfied, had no desire to go back in the future.