Toronto Anime Con
March 19th to 20th, 2005
Convention Report
Notice: Anime London does not have official ties with HobbyStar nor any other convention I or others from our club attend. There was some confusion over the 'Cosplay Poster' over this fact. Neither is inclusion nor exclusion from these picture galleries a validation of anyone's cosplay abilities or skills. The 'cosplay posters' were meant as a 'thank you' to you all. All of the pictures were randomly chosen.
My apologies for the confusion and at this moment, I'm stopping making any more cosplay posters. The 4 Koma Project continues with it's own poster.
A change with regular format of past, each link is to that section's con report which has a link to the picture galleries. Some pictures only appear in the report page.
Big change is a new Canon SD300 which has replaced my old 2 megapixel Nova DC-2L. Unfortunely, I'm still trying to get then hang of the camera and some pictures were no quite good.
As always, I allow those who pictures I take to post THEIR picture on their own website.
Another sad reality is that I will be watermarking pictures from this point on. this is largely due to search bots indexing our galleries as their own. If you require a picture of yours from this site without the watermark, please email me and I'll send you an unaltered copy.
My day started quite early. Early to catch the 4am bus from London to Toronto. Since I wanted to unpack at the Bed & breakfast I usally stay at on Nina Street. It's alot nicer than other bed & breakfast places I've stayed at and it's host is quite nice.
After catching a few hours sleep, I headed to College Street to buy some more SD memory for the camera then headed to the con. It is a long haul to the south hall, I know the place so I took elevators where possible. Needless to say though late, a lineup greeted me.
Obviously everyone wanted first crack at the dealers room in spite there were videos playing in theatre 1.
Thankfully the lineup for tickets was extremely shorter. Also outside was the artist alley, sadly only three artists were available and even more sad was most people ignored them.
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Heather Bruton |
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I chatted with Mark from Dragon Mango and handed his choice of 4 Koma started by some of Japan's fan artists. While he worked his usual magic, I stepped inside the fray of the now packed dealer's room.
Typical scenes there... wall to wall of products, people and B.O. I
did nothing but look. Being at a con for two days allows me to see the
con while making purchases later on Sunday so I don't have to carry stuff
all weekend long.
wall of posters |
wall of people |
more than anything |
and even more people |
art books gallore |
eager shoppers |
trapped in the isles |
Sea of manga |
Once out of the dealer's room most graviated to theatre 2 and the con's guests.
Michael Dobson couldn't make it but his brothers, Brian and Paul had some humourous stories. ;)
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BrianDobsonBrian list of parts are inpressive as the rest of his kin. Still he's up for a challenge.. even if it's his own line. _
What a haul!... |
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Paul DobsonMore laid back of the Dobson brothers, Paul is still entertaining. _
Hahahahha..
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Alexandra CarterThe lone lady among the group. It was great to see some fair representation that voice acting wasn't just a 'Guys Thing,' Hopefully Alexandra influence will encourage the next generation of female voice actors from this crowd. _That's
where I saw... |
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Brad SwaileBrad was more entertaining this time as there was less competition like last year. Brad is also a graphic artist so later next day I asked him to draw something... _Ranma!
Shampoo!... |
(Of course, everyone will want a sketch, Brad. Still for imprompt request you can really draw and draw well.)
Lineup for autographs lasted for hours.
I decided to try the next day and allow others who may only be there
for one day a shot at getting an autograph. Since the guests were booked
for the entire Sunday with events, there was no worry of them having to
catch an early flight.
Repeat Purrformance
Rather than being content with run of the mill costumes, she put out an effort to stand out in the crowd. I would be surprised she hasn't gotten a part is a play. |
Seemed like a good idea at the time...I wonder HOW I get myself into these things.... 
Conrad ( I assume his name) asked me to take some clips of his performance which was too long for Cosplay Idol. I thought 12 minutes was fair stretch for anything on stage, even if it's interesting. He had started performing when before I got there and I could see he was already in trouble. The attention span of a crowd is only long as the first individual with the shortest. Once one starts heckling, it draws the rest of the crowd's attention span even shorter. Periods in the act of what seems nothing happening made it worse. Finally I had to explain to Conrad that he lost the battle with the crowd and time to throw in the towel. Honestly, I told him the best I could do at that was maybe two or three minutes top. Frankly I must admit Conrad has courage to standup and perform in front of a crowd which I must admit, I lack. Still it wasn't entertaining at all. he needed to run this routine pass a few (more objective) friends before trying this.A crowd doesn't neccessary share the same humour as a close group of friends. It may have seemed funny when it was originally worked out.... but here amoung unknowns, it lost it's taste quickly. It must be noted that the winning routine of Cosplay Idol was about a minute and half which is the length of any anime show opening or ending. A time mark worth noting. |
I like spotting something different at cons. Particularly the dealer's room.
Adam Smith had gaunlets and other gear. His leather masks were some of the best I've ever seen of the craft. Still some of the prop swords managed to attract interest.
Enter the Cosplay Idol, I lucked out and got a single front roll seat for once......
...afterward there was more than enough incidents to dampen the spirit of this con goers. A girl was having a serious headache when some 'Triumph the Insult Dog' wannabe stepped up with camera man in tow. Thinking he was getting the best of the group hanging out, I made it very plain that they were ticked because of his antics were upsetting the girl's condition. He, realizing what was really going on, moved down the hall. It seems odd that every comedic act thinks con goers as jokes just because some other comedian picks on that target. Even my coworkers thought I was nuts going to cons until I showed them what was really going on and some of the stories. Heck, a few have attended cons since or have escorted their own kids to such.
The impression of cons being geekfests can only be combatted by acting responsible and sharing how cool it really is. So I thought, I turned around and saw the entire hall looking like a city dump. Garbage and shredded cardboard EVERYWHERE. I .... was not impressed to share a photo of that with friends. I headed back to my room for the night after stopping by an all-night internet cafe to burn off today's photos from SD card to CD.
Cosplay Idol
Saturday, March 19th, 2005
Cosplay Idol was shorter this year though the entries were of a higher
caliber. I think this time people caught onto the concept of performing
as their character rather than being regular masquerade. Sady alot of the
pictures and videos turned out dark or out of focus. Hopefully I can correct
this by next convention.
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Also I think Brad Swaile has found his calling of being a Master of Ceremonies instead of hanging on the side as last year. |
| Paul, Brian and Alexandra
filled their shoes as playing the judges quite well. |
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To all of the contestants, thanks for a good show.
Sunday, March 20th, 2005
Some problems developed with the camera and the new memory I used Sunday, which I didn't notice until I got home. Unfortunely some pictures were lost or hopelessly out of focus. My apologies for the inconvience.
I got to the con early this time only to be greated by some new faces.
Dragon Mango setting up bookmarks outside. DMF comics ended moving inside.
On Sunday, the Dealer Room was far more easier to shop by.
Costume Jewelery
One dealer brought new meaning to 'costume jewelery' with having a display of necklaces and bracklets from various anime shows. Definitely not bad idea given the crowd. I was surprised there was some many variants on one piece alone. 
The staff was also eager to show off their other products... 
...Well at least some ^_^ I had problems typing their contact info so I'll let them explain it themselves. |
The guest took to another round of question and autograph sessions.
I got some autographs and a drawing. These are the only pictures of the guest Sunday to survive. Sadly another person's camera, a Kodak camera went missing. I tried to help by lending my BOOMIN' voice to announce to the rest that it was missing. Sadly no response other than one guy thought I meant mine. I had bought a Gameboy Advance shoulder pouch which kept the camera and all accessories REALLY close. I felt bad because it's more than a lost of property, it's lost of memories. I hope she found her camera but I might never know.
The Longest Mile
Food run was another story during the con. The path to the nearest food
outlet, the chip wagon outside, was long and time consuming. Add another
couple of blocks for Tim Hortons. I had my food and coffee gone by the
time I got back. These three guys decided to camp at a bench and
we had a chance to chat a bit.
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I took a look inside at the anime con games in progress.
People lounge out on Sunday
Back in the Dealer's room I got down to spending. Unfortunely some of the dealers had already left. I did buy some wall scrolls. One for myself, the other for a future Anime London Day of Anime.
I got a manga for research on Negami Springfield. Possibly for a costume.
Before the last session with the stars, I started to feel a headache coming on. Also I didn't want to leave the long ride home too late. In some ways, this con was a downer. Dragon Mango booth didn't do that well. Friends who because of anime cons like this I become to know.
One the way out, a group of cosplayers were taking pictures of each other. One last set of pictures, of them that turned out, the last was of a girl covered in stickers. it kind of reminded me that you can still have fun at con inspite of yourself or those things that happen around you.
Sticker Girl