Otakuthon 2013: C’ étais bon!

So a week after Otakon took place, I was off to Otakuthon which is held in Montreal at the Palais de Congrès. And yes, it was a jam-packed exciting weekend. Click on the photo to be warped to the Photo Gallery

I left Friday morning with Chantal and Tamar in tow, and stayed on the 401 for a good while. Getting to the hotel was fairly easy actually, I wasn’t aware that getting from Woodstock to the Convention center only took 5-6 turns! Naturally there was traffic, and what wonderful traffic it was, combined with all the road-work that’s happening in Montreal. We arrived a bit later at the con than scheduled, I managed to park my car and head to my first shoot a few minutes late!

Friday basically consisted of doing 5 shoots in a row, getting dinner which included two (2!) bubble teas! Large Lychee flavored. I was rooming with Vicky and company and had the honor of taking the floor space, don’t recall having the floor for any convention, so it’s a first!

Got up around 9 Saturday morning, got some breakfast complimentary of Embassy Suites, and I have to say it was a good meal. Bacon, eggs, potatoes, etc… I will admit there were many rude people that morning; I marked that down in my negative list. Still without a badge, I toured the con a bit, chatted with the usual suspects, cosplayers and photographers alike. Francois the dude with like 10 point and shoot cameras held down to a piece of wood was there again (he takes a picture with all cameras as the same time and creates gifs I believe).

I got to work in a few new locations for some of the photoshoots, there are more locations then I though! Unfortunately the fire fountain was partially under construction and thus wasn’t working; no water and no fire boo! Walking through Chinatown is always fun and crowded, with many looks given by the normies, and plenty of homeless who like to make small talk with female cosplayers...

I also had the chance to practice my French, cas prende un peux to patience pour que jeux me souviens les mots appropriare! Mais merci pour les lesson ce quis on aidez mois, je doit essayaz de pratiquer mon francais un peux plus. I admit probably butchered that last part a bit, so take it easy on me!

Lots of creative costumes were at Otakuthon, including a 2D party of mario characters!

Saturday night’s dinner included going to a good Ramen place where I ordered (surprise) Ramen, Sake, bubble tea (4^th total at that point) and rice, a group of 6 people was a good number and the place was packed. I hit the convention one more time for a video panel with my new friend Jimmy, and I found myself laughing at the obscene material, I think the sake helped make that happen.

Coming back to the hotel, everyone was asleep, not even 12 yet! I know Vicky spent the majority of the night before finishing her costume, so she deserved the sleep with Patrick. I had to MacGyver my way into making a bed since the bed cushion and blanket from the night before were unavailable. Luckily the pillow was still mine and I found a bed sheet in the top of the closet to which I could use as a blanket. It was a rather cold sleep on the carpet… I had to put on clothes in the middle of the night.

Finished up a few more shoots on Sunday, toured through the dealer’s room again, bought two T-shirts (Capsule corp & Companion Cube) and not much else sadly. I do wish to attend more panels and I’ll need to make sure I scale back on the number of shoots I take for future cons, it’s getting out of hand a bit. Before heading back home I managed to get my 5th bubble tea of the weekend, so good.

Thanks to everyone who did book a shoot though, I hope you had fun cause I know I did! The photo previews looked promising, and I hope to start working on them as soon as my Otakon shoots are done! So please wait patiently! : 3

I’ll be sure to try and attend once again next year! (Will be my 4^th time) In the meantime my next con will be FanExpo this coming weekend, and NYCC in early October, with Photoshoot schedule opening September 10^th, so mark your calendar if you’re interested; Youmacon will take place two weeks after that.

Check out my Gallery from Otakuthon and leave a comment. Thanks for reading and will see you later!

Mike