This year I was prepared to jump on the streetcar and ride down to the convention center rather than subject myself to walking a couple of kilometers. As usual, there was a massive line up for the dealers' room, no less than two hours before it even opened. What were these people who were waiting in line for several hours going to get in the five minute head start they had on the dealers? What's worse, they made people line up outside this year. I was having none of it, so I picked a nice place to sit and draw. After sitting through some anime and letting the masses get their dire need to spend money out of their systems, I made my way to the dealers' room. It seemed slightly more sane than last year, but only just. I picked up some sweet looking artbooks by the likes of Josh Howard and Justin Ridge, and I was reminded of just how much of a hack I am when it comes to the whole art thing. After wandering around and talking to a few people in the artists' ghetto, I just went home, knowing this con sucks once the dealers' room/artists' ghetto closes. I was treated to getting to see the monthly Toronto critical mass go by on my way back. Very cool, I'll have to do it myself sometime.

Holy hell, there was a ton of people at the con this day. As I stopped to get some pictures of the crowd, some fine gentleman informed me that the con doubled in size this year. And here I thought the whole scene had to be plateauing after all this time in the mainstream. I made some rounds in the artists' ghetto, talking to fine, upstanding citizens. I caught a few episdoes of Genshiken, and I actually found it worth recommending, which is rare for the meta-anime comedy genre. I got screwed out of the masquerade though--this year, people were expected to get another ticket just to get into the show. Apparently everyone but me was aware of this new and annoying policy, so there were no tickets left for me two hours prior to the festivities. I wasn't all that attached to going, so no big loss, but it's still fucking stupid. Instead, I dropped by the lab to hang out with my friends who are too cool to pay to go to an anime con, and we watched anime. Also, it rained a lot, and I'm a tard and got soaked. My swag stayed dry though, and that's all that really matters.

Not much went on this final day of the con. I didn't even see any costumes worth getting pictures of, most of the cosplayers seemed to have burned themselves out after the first two days. I caught some anime, none of which was particularly impressive. One episode of Gundam Seed was more than enough for me; it seemed like some weird compromise between Wing and classic Gundam, which proved to be fairly forgettable. What the hell good is a big ball and chain mace to a giant robot in space when your enemies have beam rifles? It doesn't really matter anyway, as the battle sequences seemed pretty poorly composed. But anyway, that's just me praddling on about Gundam. I also caught this new short by the name of Kakurenbo. The concept was interesting, but it played out pretty so-so. It featured 3D animated everything with the usual toon shading and contour lines on characters. I think the effect has been pretty lame in every instance I've seen it used in anime, and this case isn't much better. They did get around the problem of animating those tricky faces by just putting masks on everyone, which I think I prefer to seeing poorly animated 3D faces trying to approximate a hand-drawn style. But I'd still take hand-drawn anime over this any day.

Naga was diligently guarding the hand sanitizer.


I'm not exactly sure what this is from, but I'm digging the color scheme.


Holy shit it's Kevin Sorbo!


It's some strange and wonderful Sonic bizarro world.


There is no end to Star Wars cosplayers.


So cute!


He'll cut you.


Leia seems concerned about the remote control R2-D2.