This was a smaller-scale anime convention run by Hobbystar on March 20th and 21st. Thus this will be a smaller scale convention report. Well, and because there wasn't really a whole lot happening that's worth talking about.

This much needs to be said right off the bat, though. This convention was billed and advertised as a Transformers convention as well as an anime convention. However, there was very little in the way of Transformers related content, and what was there seemed thrown together. Now I know that there were certain circumstances beyond the control of the convention organizers that I won't get into here, but when a convention goes out of its way to say that it's a Transformers convention, then by hook or by crook, it had better be! That's all I'll say about the matter, but I know for a fact that this show left a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths for this reason alone.

Saturday March 20th.

I got there late because I had to work that morning. I think the only think of importance that I missed was a Transformers trivia contest or something like that. You could say that it's a good thing for whoever ended up winning that I wasn't there. Heh heh.

I arrived right about when the voice actors panel had started. It was well attended so I had to stand in the back, hence this awful photograph that I tried to salvage. Sorry. From left to right is Chris Sabat (US Vegita and Piccolo from Dragonball Z) Michael Dobson (Starscream from Transformers Armada), Brad Swaile (Kicker from Transformers Energon, Quatre from Gundam Wing), and of course, my main man, Scott McNeil (Random person #3, among others). There was some discussion about video games and stuff like that, but I can't really remember a whole lot else. It was mostly a bunch of goofing around, which while not very informative, was really funny. I was very glad to see Michael Dobson in Toronto because I though he did a fantastic job as Starscream. He's a hilarious guy and he and Scott bounced jokes off each other the whole time.

When that ended there was a massive line up for autographs. I mean it was huge. So for awhile, nothing special happened until around the end of the show for the day, when we all where to bear witness to Cosplay Idol.

What's Cosplay Idol, you ask? Well, it's like American Idol but with Cosplay, obviously. I mean you could have figured that out for yourselves not, couldn't you? Oh, you probably did. Which means I'm just wasting my time in typing all of this. Well, there's not a lot to write about in this report and most of my pictures came out poorly, so I have to pad this thing out somehow, right?

Oh yeah, Scott McNeil came over to see his faithful fanclub members and chat for a little while just before the show started. So he shakes my hand and says something like, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Hey man! I was on the Internet just the other day and I saw some interview and it was like...... *long pause* .... but anyway you were there and I was like hey! I know him!" And I was all like "Oh yeah? Cool!" but I have NO idea what the hell he was talking about. I guess he was talking about this website, because he's said that he often Googles his own name, and he's been here before, but it was pretty vague. What a guy.

Anyway, people came on stage in costume, did a little something, and the audience would judge the winner via applause. Simple enough, right? Well, the funny part came into play after each presentation when the voice actors, each playing the parts of the American Idol judges, would add their comments. Chris Sabat played the part of Simon, and he just tore people apart left and right with abusive verbal barrages that'd put the real Simon Cowell to shame. It was purely in character, of course, but good golly was it so freakin' funny. Of course, the hot babes were spared from "Simon's" wrath. The funniest moment was when a particularly smoking hottie was on stage and Scott McNeil, playing the part of Paula Abdul, says "I think I'm a lesbian!"

Another funny point came when this one girl on stage, playing a very ditzy character, says "Oh my god it's Scott McNeil! Could you sign my boobs?!" Which somehow led to Kevin from Stillvisions.com saying "Scott, will you sign MY boobs?" And he did. We were then told that it was a very hairy experience.

It all came down to two finalists. One was a very clever send up of the video game Soul Caliber, which saw Nintendo's Link do battle against Master Roshi from Dragonball. Link was defeated, but then another challenger emerged. It was Neo from the Matrix! Or was it...? No! He took off his trench coat to reveal the orange martial arts outfit underneath... it was Goku! Hilarious stuff. A total crowd pleaser.

The other finalist was this impressive huge Gundam Deathscythe costume. Well, impressive while standing still, anyway. You can imagine that it was pretty hard to move around in. As it lumbered about, Chris Sabat, as Simon Cowell, said "This is the worst episode of Transformers I've ever seen." Ha ha. Pieces of it had to come off for it to leave the stage. Scott McNeil went on stage, grabbed a piece, and reenacted Duo Maxwell's scream when the Deathscythe was destroyed. Classic.

In the end, both entries were deemed as the winners. Hooray. In all seriousness, Cosplay Idol rocked. It was the best event of the whole convention, and one of the better events from just about any convention I've ever been to. It made the entire convention worthwhile.

The night closed off with dinner. But you don't really want to read about that, do you? Ok fine. It was at East Side Mario's. I had the veal. And no, I did not take pleasure in the suffering of the once living baby cow who died for my hunger, but it was delicious.

Sunday March 21st

The one major big thing that happened on this day was another panel with the 3 Vancouver voice actors, but this was a long one. In fact, of all the voice acting panels I've ever been to, this was probably the longest. It just kept on going. Several unusual events happened there too,such as audience members leaving for awhile and bringing back ice cream for the voice actors, a completely spontaneous moment of song which broke out for no reason at all, and Scott McNeil leaving the room and getting married to a girl in the audience, returning moments later saying it was over.

Scott even sat in with the audience and chatted it up for awhile, which actually allowed for some decent pictures, finally.

The absolute highlight, for me at least, was when an audience member asked Michael Dobson to sing "You are my sunshine"... as Starscream! It was insanely funny. He even changed the lyrics, saying how he'd obtain the Star Saber, defeat Megatron, and rule the galaxy. It was the greatest song in the history of all music.

Oh yeah, there was discussion regarding their current projects and whatnot. This picture doesn't have anything specifically to do with that, but here it is anyway.

I gotta mention this part too. They were asked what the strangest thing they ever signed was. Obviously we all pointed to Kevin in regard to the previous evening's hairy incident. Scott also looked over at me and mentioned the 2 sporks he's signed, which delighted me because I happen to own one of them! Whoo!

So after that was all finished, nothing really happened for awhile, I just hung around the dealers room and took a thorough look around for awhile. Met up with Scott while in there too. He was checking out the bootleg "Anime Girls Gone Wild" DVDs. True story.

At the very end of the show, a discussion was held with the organizers about this convention (and other smaller scale shows like it). It was good to know that Hobbystar is listening, and they're trying to improve things. Hmm, I wonder if they're reading this. Hello..? Well, if you are reading this, then... um... you should give away free Jello to anyone wearing a bandana. I think that'd be a great addition to the convention. Yeah.

And... uh... I guess that was pretty much it for the show. Yeah, some other stuff happened too, but this pretty much covers all the bases.

Stuff I bought.

Aside from aforementioned baby cow, which I reiterate was delicious, I bought the first volume of Mazinkaiser. You'll recall from my Montreal convention report that I had bought the second volume of this show for a good price, but was unable to locate the first. So I wasn't able to watch the show until now, because I wanted to start from the first episode. Now that I've got both volumes, I can safely say that it rocks and you all should buy it. Seriously.

I also bought this cool book about Japanese movie posters for a great price, about half the suggested retail. It's got a lot of cool posters from monster movies, gangster movies, and samurai movies. It also has several pictures of half naked girls. Recommended.

Conclusion.

First off, I'd like to say that I hope no one minds that I've written this review in this crazy, lax style. I generally try to be a bit more professional when I do a convention report, but doing it this way just gave me a bit more to work with, because the convention material itself was pretty weak on it's own. Besides, this is funnier anyway. At least, I think so. Ok, I'll stop. For now.

Ok, so it probably seems like this convention wasn't all it was cracked up to be. And you know what? It wasn't. I had fun at the events that I attended, but aside from that there was a lot of blank space surrounding it all. However, all of that said, I'm still glad that I went, and the reason is because I was lucky enough to be able to fill that blank space with some good company. It was hanging out with the people and us having fun on our own, the kinds of things that I didn't really bother to write about here, that made the show worth attending. The Toronto anime crowd is such a cool group of people, and the bottom line is that it's the fans that can make or break a show like this. We even came up with a new name for this company: Lobbystar. Think about it..

I realize that this was meant to be a smaller convention, however, this did take place on the weekend after TransformersCon, and after having been to both shows I have no choice but to compare the two. TransformersCon was by far the better convention. Not that I hated this one, but TransformersCon was just a much better experience.

Now I would like to make good use of this Japanese poster book. So, in closing, and since this is my damn website and I can do whatever the hell I want with it, here is a picture of Mothra. Pray to it and enjoy.

Sayonara.