Army of Mom

So this is how liberty dies ... with thunderous applause.

9.01.2006

AnimeFest

After attending multiple sci-fi and comic book conventions, I thought I was prepared for an anime convention. How much different could it be? Well, quite a bit actually. There is a giant following for this and I never really knew it.

These fans REALLY get into it and there are a lot more costumed fans wandering around. I actually saw people I recognized from the sci-fi cons and, man, did that make me feel like a goober. But, it was special time for mom and son and we had a ball.

Naruto and my kiddo. I love how they're both doing the Naruto hand thingee or whatever it is. I felt so out of touch the whole time. I know Sonic the Hedgehog and some Dragonball Z stuff, but none of the stuff that is in vogue among this eclectic crowd. If you look behind these two, there is some girl in the background, who is scantily clad. That was a trend among the decent looking or simply thin (not so good looking) girls.

I saw at least three people with the scary cat eyes thing going on. This guy had cat-looking ears and a tail, too. We bought a "Cream" doll (from Sonic) for the boy. He wants to have all the Sonic characters.

Here he is with the Keymaster. Wait, that was a movie from my generation. But, this dude was selling the giant keyblade things from Kingdom Hearts.

There were a few hot chicks in attendance. Here Pickle is making a pained face with a chick dressed up as Link. She said she made the shield and sword out of wood using only a hack saw!!!

Here we have some Yugioh characters and Inuyasha playing some card game.

Some more anime fans dressed up. See the little animal hat on the girl in jeans? Those are big thing from the anime shows and they sell tons of them. Everyone has a different critter on their heads.

Of course, then there was this girl who made my son want to crawl under a rock and die. Seemed like everywhere he went in the dealer room, she was right behind him and she took great pride in completely bending over to look at anything on display on the ground. I wanted to tell her, YES, we all agree that you have a nice ass. Now, please go put on some shorts and quit flashing my 11-year-old. Then again, if my ass still looked like that, I might do the same thing. Ok, no, not in this crowd. I bet Luigi (from the Mario Brothers) there to her right was doing the enlarging thing that happens in Super Mario Brothers. Oh, I saw a guy dressed up like a mushroom from that game, too. I wasn't able to get a picture of him.

This very talented 20-year-old artist took the time to give Pickle tips on how to draw Sonic better. My kid was dying to get all of this guy's work. He did get a sketchbook, which I think might help him.

That is the start of Sonic.

And, my very ecstatic child with Matt.

I think he found a new thing he likes to do. I'm glad we went today, when it wasn't really crowded. Pickle doesn't care so much about the panel discussions, although I think they would be cool to listen to. He just likes watching the artists and meeting them and of course, shopping for Sonic and Naruto.