On the 15th through the 17th of November there was an anime convention in Portland Oregon called Kumori-Con that I attended. I was there from Saturday the 16th through Sunday the 17th in the afternoon.
An anime convention is a time when mostly volunteers put together an event focusing on anime. There are usually guest appearances, panels you can go to about anime, music, dances, vendor halls selling merchandise and many other things all related to anime. There are conventions all over the world and many in the US. Some of the more popular ones are New York City Comic Con, Crunchy Roll Expo, Anime Matsuri in Houston Texas and Anime Expo in Los Angeles California.
This was the first time for me that I have ever attended Kumori-Con so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I have been to Sakura-Con many time before which is an anime convention in Seattle Washington but this was a new venue for me. I decided I wanted to go to this as I was able to drive from Washington.
As I worked on Friday, I got up at five AM on Saturday to do the three hour drive to Portland. I got there right at 8:15 and after a little confusion of where to go, I found the check-in line. Depending on when you check in at Sakura-Con the wait has normally been 1.5 to three hours long. As I was expecting this, the check-in opened at eight and I expected to wait a while. However, even with them being short volunteers, it was a quick process and I had my badge by nine AM.
As the convention is held in a large building, there are many people that can walk around who are not attending the event so the badge lets you get into events specific for the convention.
Sakura-Con has an app that you can download on your phone that will tell you what events are happening and Kumori-Con had an app as well. This is very useful as many things change on the programming after the brochure is printed as well as other things that are not on the brochure. One of the big things that people do is to meet-up with other characters of your cosplay and take photos of people in your anime.
What is cosplay? Well, it’s basically Halloween where you dress up as a character in an anime, video game, movie or your own made up character. You will see many people who go to anime conventions cosplay and this is the normal. Some people go to conventions just to show off what cosplay they have created.
After looking at the app, I had some things I wanted to do after eleven so I had some time to kill. I saw there was a panel about doing a study abroad in Japan and while I am not thinking about doing a study abroad, I am planning to go to Japan and I thought I might get some information about traveling to Japan. There was some useful information I got from the panel and I’m glad I went. I usually end up going to a few panels but this was the only real panel I went to all convention.
One of the things I really wanted to do at this con was go to the vendor halls. I have been slowly building my figure collection and there were some pieces that I was hoping to find. The vendor halls can be bad news for anime fans. This is where you spend all your money. There are many things sold here and you want it all. Posters, pins, key rings, stickers, magnets, figures, books, movies, games, clothing, accessories and anything else you can think of. Most of it so cute you just want it. The vendor hall is where official merchandise is sold and then there is usually an artist alley where creative fans sell their creations. This is where I have been also spending some money as these are independent creators. There is also usually some sort of charity auction and a silent auction that has some interesting things.
While browsing the many eye catching things to buy, I got a text message that I was really happy about. This is one thing that I signed up for that I have never done at a con before. I wanted to get some autographs. There were some voice actors there who you could get an autograph for.
Earlier, I went to a kiosk and there was a list of all the people you could get autographs for and what time their autograph session was. At the kiosk, you fill in some information and then you put a check next to the person and time slot they were doing sessions for. Most people were doing one session on multiple days. This got you into a lottery. The text message was telling me that I had won a lottery and I would go stand in line to get my ticket. This ticket would put you in group A which is guaranteed or group B which is if there was enough time. After getting the ticket, you would stand in the autograph line. Some people were doing autograph sessions at the same time so if you won that lottery for both sessions, you would have to choose which ticket you wanted.
For the actually autograph, they would sign at least two things. Most people had pictures you could purchase at the time of the signing if you wanted a certain character or picture. As I had never done this before, it was interesting to see what other people were bringing to get signed. These other fans had obviously researched what they wanted signed. There were things from pictures of the character, movies, games, manga with the character featured on the cover and stuffed animals or plushies. One of the coolest things that I saw was a person with a large One Piece flag that have over twenty signature on it. He said that he would bring that flag to all the conventions that he went to and slowly built up his arsenal of signatures.
I was able to get into all four autograph sessions that I wanted to during the two days. There was Tia Ballard, David Wald, Brittney Karbowski and Luci Christian. All these people were voice actors of the show Fairy Tail and I got a art picture of many of the main characters of Fairy Tail. I think I will take this around with me and try and get them all signed.
There is one thing that is interesting to me about this. These are the voice actors of the dub or English version. Most of the shows that I watch are the subtitled version or the sub. Sometimes I find that I don’t like the dub as the voice doesn’t seem to match the character or I have already seen the sub and the voice is different so it doesn’t make sense. While it was fun to run around and try and get all these autographs, I think it may also be strange as I usually watch the sub. Maybe that is why movies are better or comic conventions that have American speakers.
One of the other reasons I wanted to go to this convention was that I was starting to get into art and there was an art contest. The panel for this was on Sunday. As it was a panel it was more of a meetup of people who submitted work. I spent about ten hours on a piece of art on the show The Promised Neverland. This was the longest time that I have spent on something. There were about forty people who submitted art which was much more then I was expecting. The winner and some runner ups got some really cool prizes and had some really nice art. I was very far from being a winner but I would place myself somewhere in the middle. I did learn a lot from conversing with some other artist there and I think their tips will be very useful for me in the future. What was surprising or perhaps I really knew it all along was how much people are just going to digital.
Another main draw for me is going to the cosplay contest. This is were people show off their usually about ninety percent home made costumes and try to create the best looking. They then show off their costumes for people. While there were some cool looking costumes, there was one recurring theme with this and Sakura-con. I think most cosplayers are shy and don’t want to be on stage. I am pretty sure they have at least thirty seconds or more to walk around but most of the people are on stage for less then ten seconds and don’t even pose so the audience can take pictures.
With the cosplay contest, there were also cosplayers who create skits that are mostly practiced and rehearsed to entertain the audience. Sometimes they dance and sometimes they just create their own scenes. One that really stood out for me was characters singing and dancing to Disney Musicals. This was really entertaining. Also, I want to give the MC’s or the DJ’s or the people who announce the next thing many good thoughts. They were one hundred percent better then the ones at Sakura-Con. They kept the show going and it was just done so much better.
The final main event that I wanted to go to was the AMV Contest which was on Friday. But, there were re-showing this on Sunday. AMV is short of Anime Music Video. This is where content creators submit videos in categories before the convention. Then a panel of judges chose the best and create categories. Best upbeat, best technical, most emotional, movie trailer etc. For me, I think the AMV quality has gone up so much over the last decade and this was no exception. Some of these things that content creators can do is just so amazing.
I planned to sleep in my car at a rest stop outside of Portland and that is what I did for Saturday night. When I got back to the convention Sunday morning I went to the manga library. There I read a manga called Peach Girl that was kind of interesting.
Overall, I think this was a good convention and I would go back. I think they said that there were over 10,000 people who attended. This was a bit smaller then Sakura-Con and I could tell. The venue was a bit smaller but I think it was a good size for the amount of people there. I think Sakura-Con is better set up for photo shoots and meet-ups as it has its own grass area while Kumori-Con didn’t seem to have a really good spot. I ended up buying a few things but they didn’t have the One Piece figures that I was looking for. One thing that was strange to me was the registration line never seemed to get any shorter. Even on Sunday, the line was so long and that was the last day. I guess I was able to get in at the right time. I’ll probably see you again Kumori-Con. I had a lot of fun.