Katsucon + Harajuku

First and foremost the promised answer: Both! Its an Assassin's GUILD remember? There's more than one.

Not sure what I'm talking about? Check out the Con and Harajuku pics at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=41309&l=8c1a5&id=505085742

Now that thats out of the way, this years Katsucon was spectacularly different from any other in the past for several reasons. The first and best reason is that Tiffany Grant was there signing autographs in addition to doing other things like panel discussions. Who is she and why is it awesome that she was there? Only the infamous voice actress behind Asuka Langley Sohryu of Evangelion, the first voice acting employee of now famous ADV and generally nice person (Based on the whole 5 minutes of signing related conversation we had, which is absolute evidence). The second thing was the wonderful aisle blocking dance group "IchiP". I got video of them doing the Kodocha dance, and more importantly, the Lucky Star opening dance (The song of which I actually like better than Hare Hare Yukai, though I still like HHY's dance better. Real life Kodocha might beat them both though.... So fun to watch, tune so catchy....). The third thing was all the artwork I picked up in addition to the more normal merchandise. Usually I just get a few smaller things, but I got a lot this year. I actually need to purchase a binder thing to hold the art now because I'm starting to get so much... Which means I need to find somewhere that sells them... Anyway, it was generally awesome and I finally bought all of the Death Note manga so I'll be finishing that over the coming month of work I'm sure, if I don't just sit down and read it.

On Sunday I skipped church (I know, I'm going to put myself in HellSpace for my heathenistic ways :P) and went to a screening of "5 Centimeters Per Second" which is just really great in many way. The art work is fantastic, really top notch. The story is happy at times, but mostly very sad. Not depressing, but sad. As one man said while exiting the theater "Well, that was $15 worth of sadness." If you have Netflix, rent it when its available, its only an hour long so I think you can spare that. After that I tried to figure out what to do for 6 hours while waiting for the Millennium Stage performance. I thought about catching another of the anime premieres, but they were sold out. So I went over to Cup'a Cup'a across the street and got a Reuben and a Mocha Frappe (Both rather good if a little pricey). After lunch I played my DS on the steps outside the Opera house, battlng the Yahri in the land of Ivalice as classical music carried through the doors to my ears. I did that until Intermission and I got shooed off. I then pulled out my trusty NFT (Not For Tourists) guide book and located the nearest Starbucks. Now, being on the GWU campus I expected student, but the thing I found odd about this Starbucks was that 96% of the students studying were female. Why? Also they all looked somehow similar, it was kinda weird. So I stayed a while longer, again unsheathing my stylus to reign destruction and terror on the forces that my character presently perceives to be evil. At about 4:45 I decided to head back. Upon arriving I discovered that a line had started forming for the Harajuku showcase already (FF>>) by 6:00 PM the line stretched to the opposite end of the hall. I was lucky I got a scrap of carpet to sit on, but for reasons that I think I could explain, but will choose not to, the entire hall was full of people waiting to see the show. Why? Lets just say I think 80% of the people there had no idea what Harajuku was before they saw it was going on in the program, and still didn't after reading the blurb. Anyway, despite a man being strategically placed to block most of my view, I managed a decent view and got some good pictures. I really enjoyed it and was glad I stayed around. Oh, another thing I did while waiting was read Vol. 1 of a manga called "Beauty Pop" which I think is a play on "Beauty Shop", but I could be wrong on their intentions. Anywho, it was entertaining, but I wouldn't buy it personally. Thats all, go back to the top and check out the picture link if you haven't yet.

Enjoy refreshing time.