I’ll note first for anyone who only wants pictures instead of reading everything that the links for all the pictures will be below the description of my day.

I went to this convention for the 1st day only with my brother. We got there around 10 AM and the lines to get in looked long, but after standing in line for 20 minutes the lined about doubled in size… My brother pre-registered so he went to a different line that turned out to be longer than mine and move about as fast which surprised me, but at least for me it wasn’t too bad as the guys directly behind me in line were dang funny.

Having received my tag before my brother I waited in the nearby event room to watch Deal or No Deal. One of the guys who were called to play wore a huge block on his head shaped like a creature off Space Invaders. Anyways, my brother came in and the thing wasn’t too exciting for either of us so we checked out the store to buy random anime stuff. We went there a few different times to see other stuff they put out. The first and second times weren’t too special: looked around, saw some wall scrolls that my brother would have bought if his room wasn’t already filled with them, noticed an anime-based naginata I would have liked, but much of the anime based anything was much smaller than the actual thing so I had no idea of knowing if it was close to any real naginata. They also had many wooden replicas of stuff, mostly from Bleach and Final Fantasy only much smaller. On a side note there was a guy walking around with what looked like a full size Buster Sword which was pretty amazing. While he was looking I talked to a cool person and her friend who really want me to go to an anime convention in Idaho where they live; would be a good time, but too close to Anthrocon which I plan on attending and the chances of finding someone at an even bigger convention than Anime Bonzai…yeah. It would have been nice to go to Bonzai for a second day; she said she wanted me to see her in probably the only unique Bleach costume there, something from the latest movie to be released. But because she wasn’t in costume the day I was there I really wonder about her heterochromatic eyes which were awesome, but I didn’t think to ask about: her left eye was brown; right was a shade in between brown and purple.

So after the 1st trip to the store we went back to the main event room to watch “Whose line is it Anime,” modeled after Drew Carry’s “Whose Line is it Anyway.” They asked random audience members to come up and do improve type stuff. Honestly, even with the people who worked there, my friends in Logan, UT are much better at improv. The cool thing about that was one of the hosts was in a crazy Ryuk costume from Death Note: the guy was standing on what looked like flexible stilts to match the very tall legs, the clothes and mask were perfect, he had the attitude right, and a random audience member had an apple that she ran up on stage and gave to him. Also one of the random participants slipped and brought down the entire backdrop of the stage which made the entire audience cheer.

After another run to the store and looking into the game room (every time we went the Smash Bros line grew and grew) we went to the Cosplay Chess! Yeah, chess may not sound too exciting to watch, but this really was the highlight of my day. Real people/cosplayers moved as the pieces and had their own special attacks and deaths. By the end the room looked like it was full of everyone attending the convention. One of the things driving me to stay was how strangely excited I was to ask some people if I could take their picture. Team Rocket had the most eventful deaths and attacks with full quotes from Pokemon. At some point Warky who was going to play a concert later started playing music for the game which was cool. The final attack was setup so the kinds and queens would fight (queen was killed by Light Yagami of Death Note earlier, but was exchanced for a light pawn later), and it was epic. The “light” team I don’t know who the characters were, but the “dark” team was lead by Emperor Lellouch V. Britannia and Knight of Zero Suzaku. The fight went something like Suzaku clashing swords with the light king with various pauses for “dramatic” dialogue about Lellocuh’s world of peace, and Lellouch taking hold of the light queen to threaten the light king into not fighting when Lellouch then commanded the light king to hill himself. The light queen ran to her king and tried to stop him from stabbing himself, and I think Suzaku killed her before looking to Lellouch and asking if it was time. Lellouch announced, “It’s time, Suzaku!” and instantly Suzaku stabbed Lellouch! The crowd was all in shock, and Suzaku joined the light king in creating a better world.

After some more wandering aimlessly we went back to the main room (just so you know, there were more rooms than just this one. Just the events elsewhere didn’t seem too special) to watch the Warky concert. In the beginning he made sure to let everyone know who gave him the little chocobo riding on his shoulder and how awesome she is. Most of the concert he was taking requests from the audience for games they wanted music from, and he’d alter his synthesizer to have notes that just seemed right. He’s pretty amazing, as long as he knows the tune of something he can play it. Funny guy too.

With more wondering with a successful chance to play some Blazblue and we made our way to a different event room to some 2 hour thing about How to Survive a Zombie attack. It was funny for a while. Best part was when the guy dressed as a Licker from Resident Evil came in for a few minutes. Most of the thing consisted of info from the Zombie Land movie and the host saying how every suggestion of weapon or defense the audience proposed wasn’t effective in fairly humorous ways. It was also during this that I checked the time for the second time that day and noticed how quickly the day had gone by. We left for home afterwards.

This is the 1st con I’ve ever been to, and overall it was good, but I doubt I’d ever go to a con again without having someone to go with or meet. Sad to miss finding *GotthePoint but hey, if you ever did want to hang out, I’d be up for it. Just meet up somewhere half way or something. Anywho, the most common types of costumes I noticed were of Bleach; didn’t notice any Ichogos in particular, mostly the same Arrankar or various hollows, some captains. Quite a few L’s from Death Note, and many variations of all the members of Organization XIII from Kingdom Hearts. I also noticed that if there was a girl playing a male character, and a guy playing the same male character, the girls all looked more like the character than the guy did. But I did hear of a guy who plays Chun-Li of Street Fighter better than any girl. My favorite costumes were by far the Code Geass, Dark Link, Dark Rukia (freaking awesome scythe) and Cait Sith.

That was all very interesting, now wasn’t it? Well here’s what you’ve been waiting for, the pictures, starting with events:

Deal or no Deal:
[link]

Cosplay Chess:
[link]
James vs. Tidus- [link]
Light Yagami vs. light team’s queen- [link]
Emperor Lellouch vs. Link- [link]
Final duel:
[link]
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Lellouch and C.C.:
[link]

Emporer Lellouch:
[link]

Cornelia:
[link]

Dark Link:
[link]

Cait Sith (picture doesn't represent how cute the costume really was): [link]

Ryuk and Arrancar (only really want a picture of Ryuk, by my camera was malfunctioning and the picture sucks, but still wanted to show how fancy the Ryuk costume was):
[link]
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Rydia of FF IV:
[link]

Some Organization XIII:
[link]

Rena Ryuuguu and Rika Furude of When They Cry:
[link]

Spartan of Halo:
[link]

Dark Rukia of Bleach (the person I met in the store before):
[link]