The day started early, with a visit with a bunch of manga bloggers, arranged by Brigid Alverson of Mangablog. Had a nice chat with those folks, about various authors, and comments from fans and other blog-y type stuff, then had to run to be there for the DR opening.

The crowd was pretty unique, as compared with most other cons I’ve been to. For one thing, I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many people in costume ever at any other con, as I’ve seen here. It’s like every third person is in costume!

We had great, enthusiastic people at the table today. Lots of them – it was really stunning how many positive, supportive folks came by. My super special thanks to Ashara who was *amazing* at lending us a helping hand.

Never, ever have we had a more receptive, fun and open-minded Yuri panel audience. You guys were *fabulous* – we all said so after it was over. Everyone laughed at the right places, which makes us all happy. We described a couple of Yuri series that hardly anyone has ever heard of – and everyone was so happy to learn about them. (And, the guys at Media Blasters tell me that their Yuri titles were selling like hotcakes, so you Anime Boston folks are really putting your money where your mouth is, which is awesome.) Seriously – one of the best crowds ever.

I did two slides for the panel, because I knew I’d want to get all the Yuricon/Okazu URLs up and because I knew I’d get a question about my screensaver ‘o Yuri. “Where did you find all these lovely pictures?” it went this time. So I wrote up a slide:

2chan

jfgiktx

I’m sure people thought I was kidding about some of those.

We had a visit from Ted, sponsor of so many of the reviews here! He hung out with us, and we took him to dinner with us where we all had a great time over Mexican and drinks.

So, despite the shortness of this post, it was a reallllly long day, full of lots of good and pretty much no bad. I call this day a total win.

Sunday, last day of the con ahead – let’s see if we make it three for three for the win. ;-)

Had a few things I wanted to share from yesterday.

The Fanfic Workshop…. Apparently there was a glitch and the Fanfic Writing Workshop never made it onto the paper schedule, only the Fanfic Panel. So we arrived there, only to find another group there already. That was fine with us, so we left them to it. We were told there was a glitch, no one saw a FF workshop on the schedule so we left and went to dinner. While at dinner, we got a call that the Workshop was listed on the room schedule and on some TV schedule we never saw, but we were already eating, so we passed. So, long story short, no workshop. My apologies to anyone who planned to come see us. It was simply some human errors and nothing personal. If it helps, our dinner was excellent. :)

And other than these teeny little things, everything here has been lovely. The folks at Anime Boston have been incredibly accommodating, pleasant and really helpful.

Secondly, here’s two amusing stories. One, a girl came up to the table to say that four years ago, she did an 11th grade book report using Shoujoai ni Bouken as the subject – despite it not actually being a book then. Lol I thought that was great. She was ecstatic to get it as an actual book.

Secondly, six years ago, I was having a conversation with a young artist in Toronto at Anime North, about American politics. We made a bet for $5CDN. I won the bet. But by that time a few years had passed, and we hadn’t run in to one another again since. In the intervening six years that artist, Svetlana Chakmova, creator of Dramacon and the upcoming Night School, has gained some fame ’round these parts. Every time a con chair mentioned that she was a guest, I always laughed and said, “Tell her she owes me $5CDN.” I’m sure they thought I was nuts.

Well, today, there in front of my table was Svetlana! She said that I probably didn’t remember her and of course, the first thing I said was, “You owe me $5!” She pulls out her wallet and says that she totally remembered, so when she saw I was going to be here, she made sure she had a Canadian fiver. LOL We both even remembered what it was that we made the bet over. LOL This just completely cracks me up. I am so framing that five dollars.

Otherwise, a very decent day, with lots of good people, and some not so good people and the usual crop of weird, belligerent or clueless people. Today’s going to be crazy. Yuri Panel at 3 – we *promise* to be there! :-) (Even though we’re all going to be named Bruce Pregger, because for some reason he’s listed as the only Panelist. Just another glitch. lol)