Smaller than I expected, a bit smaller than AnimeUSA, at least in terms of programming. I have no ideas about attendance figure though. But what it lacked in size, it made up for in disorganization. (More on that later.)
I was there with my brother who writes an anime dub review column on animeondvd.com. He tends to have a closer relationship with the Texas studios (ADV's ISM and Funamation) than with the California, New York or Vancouver studios. This is to the point where he gets accused of being an ADV shill online, and the ADV people (voice actors and producers) give him a hard time at cons.
So fun stories from Ohayocon:
1) During the ADV panel Vic Mignogna (voice actor; Full Metal Panic, Generator Gawl, and really too many other titles to mention) tried to put the moves on me. He had gotten as far a having his arm around my shoulders before David Williams (producer/director; too many titles to even get started on) came down from the podium and strangled him off of me.
2) During the same panel, David Williams took the time to specifically and publically single out my brother at the end of the panel. He walked down from the front of the room, stood right behind my brother, put his hands on my brother's shoulders and said that "this man is nowhere as bitter as he claims". And he had the suck bunny with him as he did this.
3) David Williams and Monica Rial (voice actor; Noir, Kiddy Grade, and pretty much any little girl who kills people in anime) got my brother to promise to watch Hello Kitty.
4) The convention center also had some sort of christian convention going on at the same time, I don't think I ever caught the name. There was some friction between the christian people and the anime fans. You could tell them apart with badges (and the fact that most of the anime people were doing cosplay). At some point the president of the whatever group was holding the christian convention decided to dress up like a bum and sit in one of the hallways holding a "repent" sign. Aparently, the anime people tended to be really nice and asked him if he needed anything, etc. The christian convention people were more rude, deliberately bumping in to him and telling him to get out, etc.
At the end of the day, during some speech in the christian convention, the president unloaded on them. I don't know the details but I understand the term hypocrisy came up a couple of times. End result, Vic Mignogna, who aparently is also a youth minister, got scheduled to give a talk the next day about how anime isn't just giant robots and killing people.
Turns out, a lot of the christian convention people were closet anime fans, and were giving the anime people a hard time so that they wouldn't be shunned by their fellow christians.
5) Giant microbes (stuffed "animals") were being sold in the dealers room in multiple places. They seem to be trendy now. I got mono. It's cute.
6) Guests were often double booked. I don't think I met a single voice actor or other industry guest that wasn't asked to be in two places at once at some point in time. One guest was actually triple booked once.
7) My brother got totally screwed over with on his panel. In the beginning they scheduled him for an hour slot by himself. Then he got an hour and a half slot. Then he got a couple of voice actors as guests. By the time the "final" con schedule was printed he was scheduled for a two hour segment with four industry guests on the panel. The day of the panel, they gave him I think six industry guests and half the time listed in the final con schedule. So not only did he not have the time to go through what he wanted, he was completely ignored by the audience at his own panel since they only really had questions for the industry guests.
8) Total number of distinct Yuna costumes I saw: 8. 3 FF X Yunas, 3 FF X-2 gunner Yunas, and 2 Songstress Yunas. On the other hand I saw about four Rikkus and they were all FF X-2 Rikkus.
9) I attended a panel on "Women in Gaming", which was ok. A few things really pissed me off though: The prsesnter was listing examples of bad depictions of women in gaming. Some I totally agreede with. Others Annoyed me. Yes, with a capital A.
One was Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. She was going on how this game was a horrible influence for young boys and girls since it was so misogynistic. Like how it teaches boys to grow up to disrespect women, etc. Hello? This is a mature rated game, in a series that has plenty of bad press about deserving it's mature rating. If you have a little boy playing GTA: Vice City, you've got a severe parenting problem. If that little boy grows up to smack women around, it's the parents fault, not gaming. Not Rockstar. The parents.
(There's a Penny Arcade comic that I'd link here if I could find it.)
Another example of not so good images of women in gaming was when she was saying that the first thing anyone noticed about Chun-li (from the Street Fighter series) was how stacked she was. I distinctly remember the first thing I noticed being her hair, and I'm a guy. I mean seriously, I spent like ten minutes trying to figure out if she had bread in her hair the first time I played Street Fighter 2.
The next was the DOA series, and how it portrayed all the women as impossible figures of female attractivness. This only pisses me off since the guys in the DOA series are equally idealized models of male attractiveness. Sure your average little girl isn't going to grow up to look like Kasumi or Tina. Well, your average little boy isn't going to grow up to look like Ein or Leon either.
But the one that really got in my craw was when she was bashing Harvest Moon for Girls. I mean seriously, it's the same game as all the other Harvest Moons except that the gender of the main character is switched. The. Exact. Same. Game. So what if one of the goals is marrying a villager? It's the same goal as when the main character is a boy. Let me say this again. The. Exact. Same. Game.
