REVIEW: Yume-Con 2014

Yume-Con 2014 is the first ever anime convention that I have been able to attend. And it did not let me down. Many things happened throughout the day, many people were met, and a great time was had by all.

 I had left quite early in the morning from my home so that I could be on time. The convention was literally less than a five minute walk from my dorms at Bar Ilan University, so I ended up staying there until around 9, at which point I left for the convention. To my dismay, there was quite a long line already.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

I ended up walking around a bit, took some photos of people, and wondered why no one who had pre-ordered their ticket was going in at 9:30. Lots of little groups of people sat around here and there, joking with their friends or doing weird things. And of course, cosplayers.

Eventually, I ended up moving through the gaps in the line until me and a friend of mine could go no further. We waited a while, during which time the group ahead of us chanted in alternating English and Hebrew, 'Open Up! Open Up!'. Sadly, I didn't manage to capture this, but I DID get a clip of them singing the Pokemon theme song.

GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL!

Finally, at 10:02. the gate was lifted, and entrance to the convention  was finally permitted. Having been a gamer long before I got into anime, I headed straight for the console section. There were a few games: J-Stars Victory Vs, Phantom Breaker, Soul Calibur V, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and a Naruto fighting game. The only game available (i.e. no one was playing) was Phantom Breaker, and so I got someone to play a few with me. I fell in love with it immediately; it's a 2D anime fighter, very fast paced. Over the course of the convention, I would dominate everyone whom I played against (with the exception of my brother, and I lost only once to him). It was an awesome game, and it didn't get enough love.

Insert gaming meme here

After that I wandered among the convention's halls. So many stands! Jewelry, t-shirts, manga, figurines, and more! Sadly, I had to watch my money, and only ended getting Pokemon Adventure #1

At approximately 10:59, right before a lecture on cosplay was to begin, sirens went off. Lots of people went downstairs, some stayed where they were; thankfully, nothing happened. Unfortunately, whomever was supposed to give the lecture did not end up appearing, and the lecture never ended up taking place. Around that time, my brother came by, and we hung out a bit before getting something to eat.

Around 1:30 or so, we went to the main auditorium to see Trick Israel, a group that performs martial arts based acrobatic tricks. It was really, really cool, and I'm sorry that I forgot to take pictures or videos, so excited I was. They were supposed to have this whole show planned for us, but two of their members were in the reserves, so they simply performed free style.

Right after that was a demonstration on kendo given by the Mumeishi group. Its founder, Marco Edry, explained to us the different blades, how to use them, where you can hit, and other things. They even had people come down to practice hitting his students! I didn't get called down though.

The screaming is really funny if you're not used to it

It was around this point that I truly began to enjoy the convention, and not think of it as just a nice experience. I got myself a nice picture with one of the maids from the maid cafe (it was okay), and had a self-portrait drawn right before the cosplay competition...

Looking good there

...which ended up taking up 50 minutes to start. I had a friend nearby to talk to, so it wasn't all bad. We were also entertained by an onstage performance of BABYMETAL's Give Me Chocolate!, and this guy trying to get into a Big Daddy costume.

These are a sampling of the cosplay pictures I took (sorry about the quality, I was sitting way in the back)

With the cosplay competition over, I headed back to the console area again, THIS time to play that Naruto fighting game. Turns out that where I was really awesome at Phantom Breaker, I really, really, sucked at this one and had my ass handed to me. I also got my name written in Japanese by this lovely lady

And this is my name in Japanese

Great! I...can't read it

6:00 PM was when all the fun stuff started. All happening at the same time was a rave party, speed dating AND karaoke. Unfortunately, you can't have your cake and eat it to, so I ended staying for a while at the rave party until the next speed dating session started. It was a lot of fun, let me tell you

Around the time I went to the speed dating, my phone lost too much battery to be able to activate the camera, so I have no more pictures from this point forward. The speed dating was quite fun, although there were at least twice as many guys as there was girls. It took a while until it got to my turn, but I had a nice time chatting to the girls. I must say though, it was a little frustrating to find out that everyone thought I was Chareidi, and I had to explain that I was trying to cosplay as Oji Tanaka from The Legend of Black Heaven. Does this guy look Chareidi to you!?

Apparently so

After I finished, I asked Shir Brayer, who had this little stand right outside of the speed dating area, to draw me up a photo of Okabe Rintarou from Steins;Gate and Shrioe from Log Horizon having an arm wrestling contest. It actually came out pretty well.

Ha! Suck it, Shiroe-chi!

Alas, I missed the end of the rave, which apparently had turned into a giant pillowfight. That was super sad; I hope they do it again at the next convention. That was more or less the end for me, and I left soon after.

MY FINAL THOUGHTS

This was a fun convention, and my first anime one in Israel. It had its share of problems, such as the entrance to the convention itself, some of the events not taking place on time, and so on. Luckily, all of these things proved to be minor, and the overall experience was not impaired because of them. I look forward with pleasure to the next convention organized by the organizers, the Hotaru Team.

If you are aware of any convention taking place here in Israel, please notify me, and I will do my best to report on it!