Toronto Anime Con

March 21st to 22nd, 2009

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

I had prepared and packed the previous night.  Even though I got up early, I nearly forgot to eat before heading out the door.  I grabbed a coffee at the Tim Hortons beside the bus depot. Several people in front of the line was a cosplayer who I've met previously. Brandon was dressed in his Gundam 00 outfit. He ended being the first cosplayer I photograph at the bus terminal in London before we even left.

We ended both sitting beside each other and talked about the con and such on the way down. I got off at Royal York but Brandon ended going to the bus terminal to meet with friends the come to the con.

  Lineup was split into two lines this one people could buy their pass before opening and then join another line that went in at 11pm.  It was a great idea since it prevented a bottle neck at the start of the con. I took many pictures since I didn't care to get into the dealer's room first.  I did meet up with one of our club members who just recently moved to Toronto.  Sadly I lost sight of him once we were in the dealer's room.

I did have some business in the dealer's room.  It was seeking stores to join our Manga List project. Just after New Years, I started compiling a list of manga available here in London. It was an extensive project of not just listing nearly 800 manga titles but also creating pages for each title with information gleamed from several sites. The real headache came when some of the titles had to be cross linked to the anime the spawned.  It took over six weeks to get the manga list complete. Out of several of the stores represented at the con, Labyrinth's owner express good deal of interest in the project.  Other store wanted to check out the Manga List Project before committing.

I'm still working on the list of New Shows that are starting in Japan in April.  Along side this, I'm adding pages for the manga which these new shows are based on.  Some of these shows are on the shelves already while others have yet to be officially brought over. Included with the redos of Dragon Ball Z (Dragon Ball Kai) and Fullmetal Alchemist 2, the shows so far, that have caught my eye, are Saki and Natsu no Arashi!

Dance craze has gone full blown with several spontaneous Carmeldance, Luckystar OP and Melancholy of Suzimiya Haruhi ED.  I mange to convince a couple of people to do the Nyan Nyan dance from Macross Frontier but not many knew it.

I usually catch the voice actor panels at M-TAC but this year I just manage to stick my head in the door. Only 3 out 5 guests scheduled for the con actually made it. I only got to briefly talk to Sonny Strait near the end of the day.

 

Vic Mignogna	Mike McFarland	Sonny Strait

   

Closeups of PVC figs at NAC table.

I headed outside for a couple of times for either food or coffee. I was disappointed that Bozo's hot dog truck wasn't parked outside that day. The guys at Bozo was a warm welcome to MTCC whither the weather was warm or blowing cold.  I ended getting a coffee and dog before the Cosplay Idol...