Realms Con 2010

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Located on the sunny coast of the Gulf of Mexico, Realms Con provided anime aficionados in Corpus Christi a chance to celebrate their love for for the medium, along with gaming and other aspects of Japanese culture. The convention operated over three days, from October 1st to 3rd, at the American Bank Center. While not a large event, like at Anime Central or even San Japan, Realms Con was something more of a relaxed and laid back convention with opportunities to browse and chill with other con goers.

Me and my friend arrived in Corpus Christi on Friday afternoon. We parked outside the American Bank Center, where the convention was being held, and wandered inside for registration. We hadn’t pre-registered as we were unsure if we would be attending, but it was easy enough despite only accepting cash. After picking up our badges, we made our way through artist’s alley to meet up with another friend before heading out to check into our hotel.

Faye, Jet, and Ed
Faye, Jet, and Ed

Once getting settled in at the Super 8 down the street (I had originally planned on on booking a room at the Best Western, which was the convention-sponsored hotel, but was unable to get a room with the con rate), my friend changed into his Soul Eater costume and we hopped back into the truck to return to the American Bank Center. Along the way back, we noticed that all the traffic lights were out and that one of the nearby oil refineries had its flare stack blazing — a power outage had struck this part of the city, which meant that the con most likely would be closed for the duration of the outage. Surprisingly, this was not the case — the convention centre was running on emergency lights and still open. The gaming room was pretty much useless, but the section utilized the con still had good visibility due to the large windows which let in the afternoon sun. The dealers room was open as well, and some vendors had flashlights and one still had ice cold Ramune to cool down attendees.

Power outage!
Power outage!

The power returned a short time later and the convention picked up again. We stood in line for the opening ceremonies which were bumped back as a result of the loss of electricity. I’d never attended any opening ceremonies (usually closing ceremonies whenever possible), so this would be quite a treat. It started off with a trio of servbots being bossed around by Tron Bonne of Mega Man Legends fame. After locating a treasure they were ordered to search for, Pokemon’s Team Rocket made an appearance and tried to steal the treasure, but not before Kakashi from Naruto stealthily snuck onto the stage. From there on, con staff gave a short speech on what to expect over the weekend before allowing other staff to rearrange the stage for a band performance. There wasn’t much to do following the presentation so we called it a night.

Saturday morning arrived, and we made our way back to the convention centre to peruse the artist’s alley and dealer’s room in detail. The artist’s alley took up a whole hallway down the side of the convention centre with tables on each side and plenty of room in between. I was able to meet the ToonTwins, who are talented artists and big Naruto fans. The dealer’s room was packed — booths stocked with DVDs, figures, shirts, swords, snacks and other neat trinkets; so much to choose from. After chatting with a few friends, we hopped into the line for Steve Blum’s panel just before noon. Steve Blum, known for the voice of Spike Spiegel, Orochimaru, Vincent Valentine, and Leeron, amongst others, doesn’t make very many convention appearances due to his busy schedule, so it was quite a treat to sit and listen to his experiences and stories. I caught quite a bit of video of Steve speaking as his alter egos which can be seen on the YouTube videos below.

Kefka
Kefka

Once Steve’s panel had ended, it was back out and wandering again before having a short conversation with another voice actor, Chris Ayres, before attending his panel ironically. Chris shared some interesting stories about some of his experiences with fans at other conventions which were pretty hilarious. As soon as Chris’ panel had finished, we returned to the halls to wait in line for Steve’s autograph session. With most autograph sessions I’ve been to, it’s always been standing room only. In this case, chairs were provided, and then when a row of people were ready to have their items signed, those people waited in a short line.

Sundays are always the quieter days at a convention, seeing as everything is wrapping up and people are preparing to return home. The con didn’t open until about 10 am, and me and my friend had returned to get Steve’s signature on a pair of the rare Naruto Nike Air Rival GT sneakers, which had been previously signed by Maile Flanagan (Naruto), Derek Stephen Prince (Shino), Johnny Yong Bosch (Sasori), and Kyle Hebert (Kiba).  Steve was impressed when seeing the sneakers, commenting that these “were the first pair that didn’t smell.” On our way out, we had an interesting encounter with the cosplayer C.J. Collins, who was dressed as a woman and trying to pick up any available man.

Overall, this was a really nice convention. Realms Con was laid back and easy to wander around – an improvement from the feedback I had heard of from my friends who said the previous venues were crowded and very hot. I didn’t take too many photos, but the ones I did take are available on Gallery. There wasn’t too much to do, seeing as it was a smaller event, but there were a number of high level guests and everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves.

 

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