Con Piece: The Anime Matsuri Rodeo Round Up

Welcome to Anime Matsuri 2011 where you can find anime, manga, girls in hot outfits, guys in skirts and....cowboys? Well that what happens when you put your anime convention across the street from the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

Anime Matsuri went down during the last few days of Spring Break (March 18th-20th). There was clearly some problems that arose due to having the convention close to Houston Rodeo but it was interesting to have a mix of anime congoers dressed in cosplay next to people dressed in rodeo get-ups. Then there was the fact that this year Anime Matsuri had a cast of awesome voice actors that were worth seeing.

One Piece and Anime Matsuri 2011
This year Anime Matsuri seemed to have a lack of cosplayers and One Piece looked like it was affected by this. Still this doesn't meant that there was a lack of One Piece love. There were still great cosplays, cool stuff in the dealers room and awesome fans.

Cosplay
Cosplays for One Piece are always great things to look at since they could be simple or very complicated. Still they are unique since you most likely won't see anything like it anywhere else. The ChopperMan cosplay isn't an example of that but it was sure cool to see as a One Piece fan. Chopper as a cosplay is kind of common and plain but by just adding a simple cap with a 'C' on it and there is an awesome cosplay. That is just part of the magic of a One Piece cosplay. haha

A surprise at Anime Matsuri was a Tashigi cosplayer since she tends to be overlooked within the One Piece world and fan community. If anything she is most known for having one of the most radical design changes from when she first appeared to her current appearance. The cosplay itself was very simple to pull off since it was just jeans and a blouse but the jacket and sword was what made the cosplay complete.

Best Mom ever!

How awesome are One Piece fans? Let just say that it doesn't matter what age you are because you can even be a mom and still love One Piece. Got to love that even parents are getting into One Piece since the story is pretty awesome. Also this could be a reflection to how popular One Piece is getting here on the stateside. There are adults in Japan who enjoy reading One Piece with over half of the readers being over the age of 22.

Below is some of the other One Piece cosplays that were at Anime Matsuri.





It would seems like we had most of the regular clothed StrawHats which made it fun taking pictures. We took advantage of the environment found in the gazebo. It was great to have a ChopperMan cosplayer as mention before.

Also it seems like the Nami and Zoro cosplaye had fun a least. haha Too bad I didn't get all the pictures of those two interacting.




During the photoshoot, everybody seem to have fun picking on Zoro. Either he was fighting against Sanji or Nami is pushing him using her Climatact. Then you have Usopp and Chopper making fun of Zoro while he is sleeping.




A lot of great pictures and poses. May it be Sanji burning Zoro's wanted poster or Nami explaining her Climatact to a clueless Zoro. They were all great. Special thanks goes to the Sanji cosplayer for all those awesome ideas for poses.

Merchandise
There was some good merchandise in the dealers room at Anime Matsuri. It would seem that every dealer had something One Piece related to sell which is always a good thing. It shows that dealers know that One Piece is a hot item and fans are buying. I remember that some places were selling a mystery box where you can get either Merry Go in Flying Mode or Sunny. Most of the places were selling it for $8 dollars but I found one place selling it for $6 dollars. A lucky person during the (One Piece Fan) Panel won it and ended up getting Merry. Went back the next day to get one for myself but it seems like the dealer had ran out.

There were some impressive stuff in the Dealers Room. For those that are into the Portrait of Pirates figurine line, it would seems like Whitebeard has been released since the last convention. This POP is huge and stands almost as tall as the Kuma POP. His bisento is huge and this is one POP that you may want to keep in the box because it just too damn good to have out in the open.

One of the vendors was selling the latest colorwalks, Shark and Lion, which is something that anybody with money should buy. Just by looking at the cover they both look like awesome things to flip though. All those colorwalks from the manga must look great on huge paper. If you ever see these in the future please note that they are around $45 dollars.

For those that don't follow the blog's Twitterfeed then you don't know that I added more One Piece shirts to my collection. (I now have enough for everyday of the week now.) The Law shirt isn't a Funimation shirt from what I can tell but I couldn't pass up on the chance to own such an awesome shirt. It is nice to finally own a shirt that doesn't have the StrawHat crew on it. It is obscure to people who aren't into One Piece but at the same time One Piece fans would be smiling upon seeing it if they know about the Heart's Pirate's jolly roger.

The Chopper shirt was kind of an extra that I got because I love a good deal. haha Mikey and friend love a good deal on shirts so we would buy one each to get the discount but they didn't have the shirt that Mikey's friend wanted. Still now I have a shirt that will give diabetes because it is so cute.

There were a few cool shirts such a the famous "Start Living Before You Start Dying' Ace shirt, Red Hair Pirates Shirt, and Portgas D. Ace Shirt. All shirts that are cool to own if you have the money to buy them. haha

One Piece FanPanel

One Piece fans are always cool to see and once again they don't fail to impress. They either some of the best cosplays or they just know how to have fun. I think my co-host from my panel best sum it up.

"You guys sure smell better compare to the people from the last panel."
-Pablo R. (CoHost of One Piece FanPanel)

Please note that Pablo R. doesn't mean no ill will to the people in the panel before us (I think). They did have a great panel but he was kind of telling the truth that One Piece fans do smell better. haha

The panel was great fun and it seems like people really enjoyed the prizes that were given out for the trivial. Among the prizes was a movie poster for Movie 8 that Funimation made when they released the movie in select theaters. Found that in the dealers room before the start of the panel.

There was a good discussion about who were the real bad guys in One Piece. Some people said 4Kids for ruining the popularity of the series in America while other people said the World Government. Both were good answers considering what was being discussed. We talked over the latest manga chapter and I suggested that maybe the true bad guy isn't the person we are thinking. That suggestion got turned down. haha

After doing this pane twice, I think I finally know how people are taking it. People seem to get bored with the discussion part of the panel but really enjoy the prizes and manga part of the panel. People tend to leave during the discussion part which means nobody wants to discuss anything or I am not so great of a host. Since the host problem can't be solved so easily I am either going have to remove the discussion part or give more for my cohost to do. Another idea is to do some sort of Davy Back Fight type game or showing some cool One Piece stuff. Anybody that attend the panel, let me know how you thought the panel was in the comments.

By the way. This time we were able to use the projector but the image was reverse but we had no microphones. One step forward from OniCon but two steps back. Either way I liked the idea of having the projector. Expect video from the panel sometime this month.

Con Overview
This year's Anime Matsuri didn't seem to have gone over well for the majority of congoers. The hotel was small, service wasn't great, parking was horrible. If anything the things that made this con great was the awesome guests that were there and the fact that mostly everybody came with a friend.

I say it right here. About 80% of the problems were because of either the Crowne Plaza Hotel or the Houston Rodeo. The other 20% was Anime Matsuri's fault.

Some background about The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (Houston Rodeo) before I go on for those that never heard of it before. Every year there is a huge rodeo show that the city of Houston does every year. It is a giant rodeo where the people of Houston can take out their cowboy gear and just go all out. It is located in the same location, Reliant Stadium, and starts around mid February to Spring Break. Anime Matsuri falls on the last weekend of the Houston Rodeo.

It is possible to hold a convention the same weekend as the Houston Rodeo. Many other cons have done it before including Anime Matsuri. What isn't possible is holding one so close to the Houston Rodeo let alone only being across the street from it. This was something that Anime Matsuri should have considered when picking out the location of the convention. There are surely other hotels that could hold the convention that weekend. This would have solved the parking problem since the hotel weren't allowing people to park at the hotel unless they were staying there and even that was iffy. People either had to park blocks away and pay rodeo parking or in some restaurant's parking lot and hope they still have a car when they come back. Along with cramp hallways and some delays in events makes up the 20% that made Anime Matsuri bad.

Glad that they changed the location to be closer to Houston, they just need to find the right hotel because this one isn't it.

The other 80% is a combination of bad hotel staff and the Houston Rodeo. I heard horror stories about some of the things that the hotel was doing to con goers. Some of the things congoers were said that they were being directed to enter the hotel from the side instead of from the front entrance and being told that they couldn't park in the hotel parking lot due to it being full but could purchase a pass in case it empty later during the day. If you had order a room at the hotel then it wasn't guarantee that you would have that room when you went to check in. Apparently the Crowne Plaza was taking rooms away from congoers and selling them to people attending the rodeo. They refunded the congoers but it would have sucked for congoers who came from out of town to enjoy the convention.

Then their were rumors that the con staff was having trouble with the hotel. Some of the requests that the con asked from the hotel weren't being fulfilled which then lead to the con getting a bad image from congoers. It was clear that the hotel were catering to Rodeo goers instead of the people there for Anime Matsuri. Hopefully Anime Matsuri will not have be in the hotel for 2012 since many congoers this year said they will not attend in the convention is in the same location.

I have a good feeling that the con head and staff knew that con goers weren't have a good time at the convention. During opening ceremonies the con head spoke on stage and was trying to explain the reasoning for the location. He said that he wanted to show off to the city that anime fans are here and matter just as much as something like the Houston Rodeo. Nobel thoughts and I applaud him for thinking like this. If anything the con head knows what was going on and that is good. A friend of mines claims that she saw him outside on Friday trying to direct traffic so if that is true then it is nice to know that he was trying to help out in making the con a bit more enjoyable.

Enough of the bad things, time for the good stuff!

Like a formal dance that didn't turn into a rave! Very nice.

Anime Matsuri had a kick butt voice actor line up. There was top star voice actors such as J. Micheal Tatum (Eneru, Dalton, Pearl), Stephanie Young (Nico Robin), Luci Christian (Nami), Mike Mcfarland (Buggy, ADR Director), and Kyle Hebert (King Cobra) who all worked on One Piece. Then for those that are looking forward to Thundercats then Matthew Mercer was there once again as main MC for most of the big events. Always expect Anime Matsuri to bring in some high class voice talent that people will most likely know. Most of the Saturday's panels were devoted to voice actors in some form or way. Just in the morning Luci Christian had at least two panels where she was doing one alone while another one with Stephanie Young.

There were a few interesting points to take from the solo panel that Luci Christian had. First of.....They have NOT dubbed One Piece into the three hundreds. Somebody at the panel asked how far they have dubbed for One Piece and Luci threw out a three hundred number. She claimed that she wasn't sure and that she could be giving a 'stupid voice actress' answer. Luci also looked confused but somehow this seem to have spread. Later she confirmed (with Mike McFarland next to her) that they haven't dubbed into the three hundreds. Also one of the first questions asked to her during the panel was about One Piece and all Luci said was that she was told that she can't talk about anything One Piece. Take that as you want but it sounds like they are in the works with One Piece in some form or way.

Luci also talked about how stressful it was to dub for One Piece back when they first gotten the rights to it. They had to travel to different studios in order to record for the show which at the time had a weekly airing on Cartoon Network. This was hard on Luci since she had to travel from Houston to Dallas in order to record and when she was in Dallas to record then she would have to do long recording sessions to get her work done.

A few tidbits about Luci Christian:

•  When she first started out in voice acting, she would do odd jobs just to act. As she got more anime voice acting roles, she would let go of her odd jobs to focus more on anime. If the economy is down then she is willing to go back to odd jobs.
• When she isn't voice acting she does non anime voice work. Ex: The voice that you hear in training videos or commercials. Currently she is the Fiesta girl voice. (Can't find any videos of recent Fiesta Mart commercials.)
• Princess Tutu is her favorite anime of all time.
• Luci will not voice Wrath (Fullmetal Alchemist) out of respect for the character and the impact it had on her.
• Had a panic attack upon realizing how devoted anime fans can be into a series that they will nitpick on her performance. This was during her first work in Fullmetal Panic. 

As mention before, it seems as if there wasn't many cosplays at Anime Matsuri but that in on way meant there wasn't any great cosplays. There was a Princess Tutu cosplay that was marvelous and the girl actually knew ballet. Panty and Stocking was another popular cosplay at Anime Matsuri. Then you have your usual cosplays such as Hetalia and Naruto which I don't have many pictures of.

By the way, little kid is my little brother. First con. First cosplay. Got a lot of hugs.

Cosplay in general seems to be something that Anime Matsuri is trying to make themselves more known for. There seem to be some sort of 'Cosplay Repair Shop' located at the convention and a panel room right next to it that looks as if it was devoted solely for cosplay related panels. I wish I knew of the cosplay repair shop earlier when I lost the red ribbon to my Luffy hat. I couldn't be certain as in how popular these panels were but for next year I would suggest that they move the cosplay panel close to the main panels or make them more well known. Same for the cosplay repair shop.

Then there was the cosplay contest. A lot of people were left standing due to the limited amounts of seats set aside for the cosplay contest. Not sure if this was Anime Matsuri's fault or the hotel's or both but I am leaning a bit towards the hotel based on what I heard during the convention. Either way the cosplay contest was as great as last year's seeing that Anime Matsuri went the extra mile and provided custom music for each cosplay contest contestant. The only bad part was that they used the 4Kids Pirate's Rap for the Crocodile cosplay during the walk on. Face palms all around when that happen including one from the cosplayer.

There wasn't much of anything as in skits. There was only four and only one of them was good and creative. The half time show that was used to give the judges time to decided on winners was kick butt awesome. It was a musical of sorts where all the songs were parodies of popular Broadway shows and movies such as Wicked and Mulan. A tale of starcrossed cosplay lovers who are being divided due to their cosplay groups being bitter rivals. haha

As always below is a slideshow of all the pictures that I took at the convention. You can take a look at all the pictures of cosplays I took, interesting things at the convention and pictures from the formal ball.

I took more pictures then I expected since sometime during Saturday I realized that I haven't taken many pictures. This is why I think there wasn't many cosplays at the convention. There were great cosplays but not many. Then again it is kind of hard to take pictures in a narrow hallway so I guess I could have been respectful and not try to hold up traffic.

This year Anime Matsuri was an interesting one. It was also one that wasn't about to happen. The earthquake and tsunami had only happen the week before. The Con Head was debating on canceling the con. He had already given up his cargo space which had a lot of video game machines that he was importing from Japan just for the convention. Still he gave it up just to help get supplies and relief to Japan but that made the famous game room a bit lacking. The hotel and Houston Rodeo didn't help either. Still the Con Head decided that the show must go on because as anime fans now is the time where we need to come together. For that I would like to dedicate my ending remarks to Anime Matsuri and it's con head.

Even with all the bad things that happen with Anime Matsuri, it was still a fun convention. The convention is always evolving and each year I think they get a little bit. May next year be better.