YaoiCon 2010 - Are YOU man enough?

How'd you all like my intro post? As you can probably already tell, I'm a bit of a jokester. Consider me this group's comic relief, I guess. I'm also the only girl at the moment, which is sort of a cliche novelty, but also a bit interesting. Most male anime fans don't have a reason to get into genres like Shounen-Ai, what with the demographic and all, so that means a blog with an all-male writing staff wouldn't do much with it.

I'm about to change that, though. *evil grin*

Thusly, does this train of thought bring us to my first mission here at the CaliCon Blog:

YaoiCon 2010

Since it is now my grave duty to review a con that is notorious for quite a few outrageous rumors, I think it's my job to become something like the Mythbusters and figure out whether or not it really is true that all the attendees are single, easily-wooed-into-bed, women. So I'll pretty much be answering the age-old question of "Can a guy get laid at this con?" for everyone who's been dying to hear the answer we all already know.

Among the YaoiCon myths and rumors, there are also some unique guests of honor this year, such as Hidenobu Kiuchi--who provided his voice acting talents to series like Nana, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, and Prince of Tennis. We also have the standard regular, Ayano Yamane, who has attended YaoiCon as a GoH since 2004 when she was a rising star of Yaoi. Now she's a household name to fujoushi worldwide!

There are also countless sparkly-sounding events like Bishie Brunch, Bishie Bingo and Bishie Auction, there's a host cafe with REALLY good soup for lunch (which I sampled last year~), your standard fan-panels and copsplay meet-ups and the Masquerade competition, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show (as expected of a San Fransisco Area convention!) and since this year is YaoiCon's 10th Anniversary, there's even MORE shiny new events to check out, like a Carnival and a Hallowe'en booth decorating contest for fan-vendors.

I've also heard that the dealer's room at YaoiCon is pretty sweet, and last year they had two different rooms forindustry booths, plus the Artist Alley, Swap-Meet and Fan Vendors area. Since there's a pretty good chance most of the swag I return home with will contain explicit content, I'll probably just WRITE my swag list this time around, hahaha~

I was also invited to attend YaoiCon with a group of cosplayers from my local area known as CrazyOtakusPro, who are not your average cosplay crew. They're about the same size as the talkative Italian family that squeezes around a normal-sized dining room table for dinner every day in the movies, and they really do act like a loud and boisterous family of cosplayers. COP takes pride in their camaraderie and group-events, and they've got a very diverse range of interests in anime, despite most of their photo shoots involving just Naruto.

While they do draw influences from the more famous cosplay groups like FightingDreamersPro and KoiCosplay, they are their own organization and they just go with the flow. They have a member forum where they plan events and a deviantART group with tons of fun cosplay photos.

They also regularly update their YouTube Channel with all sorts of amusing cosplay shenanigans, such as a parody of a Lady GaGa parody called "Butterfish" which features the group's Kisame cosplayer, a charismatic fellow who goes my the name--you guesses it--Fish. The CMV is great for a hearty chuckle, and I recommend checking them out.





You can check 'em out on their dA here.

Note: California Conventions Blog is in no way associated with CrazyOtakusPro, FightingDreamersPro or KoiCosplay. The writer of this entry is simply an appreciative fan of all three, and glad to be able to tag along with COP for a convention this month. We do not share the opinions of any of these groups, nor do we endorse them in any way. They're their own people. We all just love what we do--cosplay. :-)