I had a relatively good time at Oni-Con XII this year, but I think overall that Oni-Con XI (last year) was more fun for a number of reasons, some of which are not at all the fault of the Oni-Con staff. For one, the weather was simply awful this year. The only nice day was the day we arrived, on Thursday. We got library cards from the Rosenberg (Galveston City) Library, then I gave my companion a tour of TAMUG (where I used to work for a time), then we wandered down to Seawolf Park and its pier and related attractions, the USS Stewart (Destroyer Escort) and USS Cavalla (Submarine). We watched the sunset begin in the park, then checked into our room at Red Roof Inn on Seawall Blvd and began our walk up Seawall Blvd to see if it was possible to pick up our con badges yet. Nope, the helpful volunteer informed, please come back at 8pm. We continued northwest on Seawall Blvd, with the Pleasure Pier visible in the distance (whose cross street we'd earlier used to get from Broadway to Seawall in the first place). I treated my companion to a nice seafood dinner at Nick's Seafood Cafe (formerly known as Casey's), then he agreed to accompany me a block or so north for drinks at a local pub (we sat outside, at the main bar), and, after an entertaining discussion of word etymology, we sauntered back in the direction of the Galveston Island Convention Center and our hotel. We dropped by for our badges, then went on back to the hotel. We watched a little anime on my iPad then went to bed.
Which reminds me, another disappointment of the Oni-Con XII experience versus XI....last year it was possible to connect either a PS2 or Xbox to the in-room television sets. We watched anime off our DVDs in our down time. It was a blast, and definitely heightened our enjoyment of the convention. In the intervening months, Red Roof Inn replaced all their televisions with models that no longer permit the hooking up of external devices (despite written directional literature stating the opposite still in the rooms themselves), which we confirmed upon complaining loudly to the front desk, who could only shrug and say sorry. This is a ridiculous backwards step for Red Roof Inn to take and definitely out of step with the needs & desires of today's 20-to-30 something con-goer (and teens too, obviously).
The weather turned bad on Friday much sooner than originally forecast, and never really got better like it was supposed to. When it was still raining for breakfast Sunday I decided we'd call it quits and head home early. We made one last buzz of the dealer's room then loaded up the car and got out of town and got our extra night refunded, which was nice of the hotel to honor. I didn't even bother to cosplay that last day because the rain was really getting to me and triggering my depression. It sapped my motivation completely. If we'd had last year's weather we definitely would've stayed through Monday morning (as many of the industry guests apparently did this year--hardier souls than me, I tell you).
Things I did this year that I didn't do last year: The J-Rock concert was LOUD but a blast. Also did the Rave on Friday night (but skipped out on Saturday's Rave--once was enough). I danced until my feet hurt and my legs got tired, which was roughly an hour. My companion left early, noting the noise level was too overwhelming for him personally. The next night the BECK Project concert was awesome as well. I also managed to snag autographs from all the industry guests I wanted this year. The FUNimation industry panel was good, and I got to ask Clarine Harp in general terms what the experience was like in broad, general terms, working on Eva 3.33; She gave me a polite, broad, carefully worded reply and noted that she could not get more specific than that. She had to know the question would be asked and it might as well have been me who asked it. At the very least she indicated she was DONE with her part of the work and happy that the street date (February 2016) was official. The rest of the panel was informative and interesting banter between Chris Bevins, Talesin Jaffee and Clarine Harp, while answering other questions from the audience.
I also sat in on Otaku Travel Tips to Japan and Samurai Dan's History of Sharp Pointy Things, both of which were very informative and entertaining.
The dealer's room was pretty good this year. I managed to find the schoolgirl Asuka Langley figure I was after, and also found box sets of Ghost in the Shell SAC and 2nd Gig (Seasons 1 & 2), which are super out of print and stupid-expensive on Amazon.com these days. I found both for a reasonable sum from the same vendor. I got a couple of more Fairy Tail plushes and a Fairy Tail t-shirt in my size that actually fits me (rare these days in most dealer's rooms). I tend to be pretty narrowly focused and targeted in my approach to dealer's rooms these days. I go in already knowing what I want to walk out with and don't let myself get distracted from my objectives, though I do keep one eye out for rare or unique gems like the GITS set(s).
Artists' alley was great and one print seller was tempting (I loved her renditions of Yoko from Gurren Lagann and Saber from Fate/Zero), but I'm running out of wall space in my work cubicle so I gave prints a pass this year. Hopefully she'll be at Anime Matsuri 2016 and I'll buy some of her artwork then. Lots of great cosplay, too, and I was much more bold in asking politely for photographs instead of meekly jumping in on "me too!" opportunities.
I went with the Star Trek cosplay for myself again this year because it's just easy to do and wear. I kept things mixed up, wearing Next Generation tunics as well as Original Series tunics as well. I'm tired of catching crap for wearing some of the "Command Red" from TNG, though because everyone still gives "Redshirts" a wide berth, even though that only applied to TOS, not TNG. The "Redshirt" mythology is just too strong, and even TNG's revised color schema doesn't put a dent into it. I mostly stuck to Science Officer blue (TOS & TNG) and Command Gold (TOS), which got the most positive receptions from others at the convention. I even saw 3 other Trek cosplayers, which made me happy.
I had a fun time with my travel companion again this year. We made do with my iPad for our down time anime, and mostly this was okay except for Saturday night when there wasn't enough bandwidth to go around and the shows were laggy and the picture quality was ass. I bought a multiple USB charger at Radio Shack for better device power management and also a wireless (bluetooth) speaker for the iPad so we could have better audio for our anime viewing. Big ticket items but they made the trip better overall.
Anyway, happy to add GITS to my collection along with Solid State Society on Blu-Ray.
Too early to say if I'll return to Oni-Con next year for Oni-Con XIII. But I'm definitely on for Anime Matsuri 2016, already have my tickets paid for (which also allowed me to exercise restraint in the dealer's room this year at Oni-Con).
Oni-Con is the goldy locks of anime cons in terms of size....not too small (Delta H) not too big (AX, Otakon), but just right.
