Katsucon 2010 – Keep on Going

This year’s Katsucon was a year of “the show will go on” no matter what. Before the convention, the “Snowmageddon” hit the area pretty hard, but since it’s DC, they can also recover pretty fast. The convention assured the convention attendees that they will be cared for if they can make it to the hotel; after all, Katsucon went though a snow-in during 2003.

By the time of the convention, the roads were clear enough to drive on; therefore, even though many people were warned to not come to the DC area, there were troopers who made it to the convention on the clear highways of Maryland and Virginia.

Katsucon really did show that they could push through and keep an anime convention running by dealing with many mishaps. The major issue for the convention was that the badges for everyone attending the convention did not arrive on time. Because of that, there was no Thursday night pre-registration pickup. During the following Friday, everyone from attendee to staff were given paper vouchers as temporary badges to enter some of the events going on Friday morning until the actual badges made it in. This caused some issues for the registration room because those who have already waited in line for their vouchers had to wait in line again to get their badges. It did not take long for the staff to realize this and made a separate line for those with vouchers to pick up their badges.

The venue itself was one of the most unique of the anime conventions of the Mid-Atlantic. In the National Gaylord Hotel and Convention center, it was a sight to see just entering the hotel. Live classical music, an Atrium full of vegetation, dancing fountain, and just things that are just classy. For the convention side, Katsucon took up two floors of the convention center, being the first floor (Atrium Level) and the third floor (National Harbor rooms). This seemed odd for the layout, but it seemed sufficient. Some of the issues of Katsucon and the convention were that some of the events that are not in the exhibit halls were quite cramped. Some of the events were closed due to capacity and others were going on with some security having to help out with the crowded rooms.

With some of the problems of rooms, there were also some issues with scheduling too. For the most part, the convention went on as planned; however, the Temp concert was moved from Friday to be combined with Saturday due to the band being a no-show. This caused some of the Saturday events to start later, in the expense of some of the events for Friday to start early.

Even with the scheduling, the events did go pretty smoothly. From the maid café to the dances, everything seemed smooth. Like many conventions, the formal was a big hit as many people showed up in formal wear for the formal dance. Following the formal was the more upbeat portion of the night with the rave. Oddly with Katsucon being known for their rave / dance music, this year seemed a little disappointing with the music. There was people dancing, but the results from many people seemed disappointing.

Down the maid café made an appearance at Katsucon inside the Gaylord National. Sadly the sports bar was taken over for the maid café and the nice burgers were put on hold for the weekend in place of extremely expensive food. Prices ranged from $3 for a drink, $9 for less than a handful of chicken skewered, $6 for two small onigiris, and more money to play games with the maids. The maid café itself was a mixed result for many people, some people adored the scene, others…they were not so impressed with the atmosphere, adding on with the food, and the list can go on. One thing the maid café did do pretty nicely was first, they offered reservation with a maid prior to the convention (via katsucon.org) and second credit card is a form of payment.

So the food at the maid café was pretty expensive, this doesn’t mean food around the hotel was any cheaper. The National Gaylord is in National Harbor, Maryland, where the nearest McDonalds is a drive away; so all that are nearby are restaurants on the National Harbor grounds. Some of the restaurants ranged from Pot Belly where you could get a sandwich for a decent price, to $15 burgers at the Cadillac Grill, $20 meals at the Mexican restaurant, and of course there were the restaurants in the hotel. Food in the hotel ranged from $12 burgers to $30+ buffet. The hotel at some point did offer food services throughout the days in the atrium and in the Ballroom level portion of the convention center.

After filling up on the food, there are the main events. The usual components of an anime convention filled up the schedule, including the AMVs, Artist competitions, and concerts. For the concert, the band Unicon Table was making an entrance to the Mid-Atlantic with their JRock / JPop. During Thursday night, you would see people walking around advertising for Unicorn Table and asking people to attend a single release party offsite from the hotel.

The Masquerade is a must at any anime convention (alright maybe not Sugoicon) for the cosplayers to put out some talent. In exhibit A of the convention center housed the event, where a good variety of genres showcased. Darth Vader did not stay to host the masquerade, only to the kicked off by two Dead or Alive Beach Volley Ball cosplayers to host the event. Can’t really go wrong with that since they did do well hosting and on the spot photo for twitter. Again each entry showed that the masquerade doesn’t have to be boring, from mocking Anime convention staff, YMCA parody (YAOI), to singing sensations. Guess the only problem was 1) Part of the audience could NOT see the stage 2) Another year where they shove press into a pit on the concrete floor with half of them being blocked by the judges (not cool).

Katsucon also had a big emphasis with maids, from the maid café, to the professional maid cosplayer.

The hotel proved a good environment for the cosplayers as the atmosphere on all parts of the hotel added to the cosplays. From the marble floors of the ballroom level, to the plants of the atrium, everything seemed nice. The cosplays where even coordinated, as there was a lot of group cosplays to go around.

From the oddity of an Anime Convention at the National Gaylord, other events happened at the same place at the same time. Raytheon had a seminar through Thursday, a Military event happened (which some seemed to have made their way into the rave Saturday night), “A weekend to remember” marriage conference gave a nice mix to the scene. There were a lot of open eyes from those who were not attending Katsucon.

Overall, this was another success from Katsucon. Even though staff didn’t seem to know each other, it seemed everyone got along with each other. The excitement was there even though Valentine’s Day came around and many singles were around.

Katsucon Reports and Pics Coming Soon

Photos and reports will be up after the crew gets some rest and items in order. We WILL report back ASAP.

MSNBC…Really Now?

Working really hard at work as usual……I read up on MSNBC to check out what’s around the world (including BBC, CNN, etc), I had to really Face Palm on this one. Last year when a friend showed me the youtube video of this Rebecca it was already a fail for letting a 14 year old whore herself out to the world and selling DVDs of her. Didn’t someone catch up on the stereotypical Japanese Otaku and little girls (*Looks for pedobear*).

Come one MSNBC, keep it real and at least report about cancer about or something.

Hasegawa Idolm@ster F-15E (Chihaya Kisaragi)

It’s been a hell of a month since that box arrived at my door step. Amiami was a good place to order from, just the fact of using PayPal was a pain and my package came right when the Spring semester started. This was probably my fourth model ever so it was interesting to see how tough (or easy) this project would be. First thing I’ve noticed when I opened the box was the fact the molds were colored, making it easy to deal with rather than having to buy another can of paint. Also in the box are, the instruction sheet, two HUGE sheets of decals, some clear plastic parts, and some metal parts.

This all started with Bandai/Namco releasing Ace Air Combat 6 and along with some Microsoft points for the XBox 360, you can have your very own IM@S jet with one of the characters from Idolms@ster. One thing I will admit is that this model was just impressive with the colors and design and well guess that’s why many people bought it.

A positive about the kit was it uses silk decals that are a lot nicer in terms of looks after it was applied. It was s fairly simple level 2 build similar to the Revell F-15E; however, like the Revell forward section of the plane was a pain to attach to the body because the canopy was hard to align. Like with any other model, gluing the pieces together was painful, since the wing was not set on-top of support for drying, and the vertical stabilizers looked like it could repositioned from zero-degrees.

Another thing I didn’t like about the model was the silk decals. It took a few tries and a few mess ups to finally understand how to use them. Typically with models you buy in the US, you’d have to apply a layer of MicroSet so it could absorb the decal. DO NOT DO THAT with this kit. Using thinner or MicroSet will immediately make the decal stick once you apply the decal.

1) Dip the decal in water for 10 seconds
2) Let dry, apply some water to the surface of the model where you’re going to decal
3) Apply and quickly put it into place. These decals do not play very nice
4) Let it dry for a bit then apply water or thinner to make sure the decals are flat on the surface
5) DO NOT TOUCH or ACCIDENTALLY TOUCH
…n) Once EVERYTHING is finished (minus putting the canopy on the plane), spray the whole plane down with a gloss coat.

Once the decals were dry there are the most fragile thing in the world. Another thing about being fragile, these decals are typically applied over uneven surfaces, so there’s a guarantee that it will tear. The plus side to the silk decals is that “Silvering” will not occur.

Some of the things I noticed when I got to the decal part, was some of the decals were going to overlap each other, overlap over uneven surface (as mentioned), and overlap parts that stick out of the model. When some of the decals were going to overlap a stuck out portion of the model most of the time they’re through clear parts of the decal, so the easiest thing to do is to cut out the clear parts or break up the decals. Most of the time, it was the “765″ and the stars that are towards the nose of the aircraft.

Other times, cutting up decals then applying then was just easier to deal with. Notable ones were the vertical stabilizers (decals #102, 103), the decal of Chihaya (decal #9), and the decal that goes around Chihaya’s hand (decal #15). Because of the delicacy, decal #9 had the arm tear off as I was trying to slide the decal off the decal sheet onto the model, fortunately it was an easy fix.

Another issue I ran into while making this model was actually reading the instructions. Since the decal instructions are like any other kit instruction, they show you an orthographic projections of the plane and decals. I completely messed up some major parts due to this because of the overlapping issue and lining up issue.

Here are some advices:

1) Look at it carefully and see what overlaps what (not a hard thing to do). Aligning the decals was the hardest part of the project, because the instruction set can be misleading at times.
2) Build the plane up to the point WITHOUT the afterburners, hardpoints for the weapons, and the horizontal stabilizers.
3) Work from the rear bottom towards the front of the plane, then away from the plane.
4) For the top, also work from the rear of the plane towards the front, and then away from the plane. Don’t let some of the bigger decals scare you.

Other than that it was a fairly straightforward project to put this model together. It’s a good topic to talk about with friends who’ve never seen Ace Air Combat 6 with these planes in them because, it would suck to be beaten by a girl, or a plane with some anime chick on it.

Few more photos during the project.