Nan Desu Kan 2009

Photograph by Lionboogy

Nan Desu Kan 2009 was a lot of fun this year! People seemed to follow the rules more this year than they did last year, although it still was a drag at times for the 25+ crowd. After having such a fun weekend, full of color and late night games and anime, it was hard coming back to the “real world” on Monday. At one point, I stood in the hotel Starbucks late one of the nights, waiting for D. and J. to buy some snacks and sit down. As I walked away from the two of them, I looked down at a New York Times newspaper and then out a glass window to my left, and there I could see all the crazy cosplayers and anime fans, and suddenly the world around me seemed totally surreal.

Well, anyway, Tommy Yune had a great panel on Comic and Manga Production. He showed us some industry tips for using Adobe Photoshop as well as some drawing and script writing advice and some great websites for getting manga fonts and printing your own comic books. He seemed like a very cool person to hang out with and was very inspiring. I think he has helped me to rekindle my wish to start drawing manga more regularly. I also went to one of the voice actors panel, and now whenever I hear Aaron Dismuke’s voice in an anime, I cannot help but think of a young, blond kid!

Photograph by Nekosoft

Of course, I also watched a lot of anime! My favorites this year were Spice and Wolf and Claymore. Karin was also good, but very strange, and I would not recommend it to new anime watchers. I am still enjoying the first season of Code Geass very much, and D. and I bought a Code Geass art book that mainly focuses on Clamp’s designs for all of the Code Geass characters. We also purchased a traditional Japanese wall scroll of a red koi. J. bought me a pocket-sized Domo kun plastic figure, and we bought him a Haruhi Suzumiya art book. Normally, we do not buy anything at the few conventions we have gone to, but this year, we decided that if we saw something that we liked and that we really found to be useful, we were allowed to spend a little money.

I myself am not a cosplayer and probably never will be, unless for some reason J. convinces me and I can come up with a really good costume. I do not think it is worth spending the time and money to make a bad cosplay costume. And let me tell you, I have seen some really bad costumes! People wearing hardly any clothing, people wearing tight clothing when they should not, costumes that do not look realistic at all, smelly costumes that have been worn for more than three days, and the list could go on! Even so, I did see some good costumes at Nan Desu Kan this year, which always make me smile!