San Diego Comic-Con International 2009 recap

Preview night + 4 days of Con = exhaustion and a lighter wallet. 4 day passes were $75 this year. They’re jumping up to $100 next year! How I wish I was still a kid and get in with a child’s 4 day pass. Crowds, toys, freebies, and a huge sensory overload: that’s what Con’s all about.

Thursday was mostly panel-hopping and running around, enjoying what we couldn’t cover on the floor on Preview Night. People were already up and at it in costume, such as the Cylon we ran into right when we got into the Convention Center. Also got some good finds that day, such as snagging Organic’s SF Zero 3 Cammy in pink for $35 and a JBox grab bag for $25 (with goodies retailing for well over $25 in the bag). I caught a glimpse of the Yoko oppai mousepad, too! It was quite comfortable, too ;x

They displayed all the custom Mighty Muggs for The Empire Muggs Back to be auctioned off for the Make-A-Wish foundation. The customs were made by artists, toy designers, fans, and the like to create these one-of-a-kind vinyl toys. This one is George Lucas with a Han Solo shirt and an AT-AT pet!

This booth has been at Con for as long as I can remember; probably since I’ve started going to Con (and that was when I was still in elementary school). Need replica swords from Naruto, Kenshin, Devil May Cry, or just about anywhere? This vendor’ll most likely have it. I’ve always wanted a Sakabatou/reverse blade sword ever since watching Rurouni Kenshin. The thing is: I wouldn’t know what to do with it once I own it

Interested in joining the 501st Legion, Rebel Legion, or The Dented Helmet? How about checking out other Cons from around the country or other costuming groups? The convention center’s mezzanine was a nice break from the bustling activity going on the floor. There were tables you can check out focusing on all kinds of interests. If you didn’t want to wait for overpriced food downstairs, you could check out overpriced food here too! My friends and I either packed food or ate at Horton Plaza. Much, much cheaper, except for the one time we ended up getting a cheese pizza. Mmm, delicious, greasy overpriced pizza.

There were also TCG rooms for Yu-Gi-Oh, Battle Spirits, Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, and Blue Dragon. Also in the same area is SD Tekken & Namco Bandai with a room solely dedicated to Tekken 6. I got a chance to play it since it was way too crowded to try it out at the actual Namco Bandai booth on the floor.

The amount of anime merchandise available for purchase has grown tremendously throughout the past couple of years! This shot was taken at one of my favorite vendors that specializes in gashapon/trading figures. You could either buy them on the table, or get some out of some tins for even cheaper. The selection may not be as massive as Anime Expo’s, but it’s still enough for me. The majority of the anime vendors, including Rising Sun Creations and J-Box/List, were in the quieter area of the convention center from 100 on up which made for a better shopping experience, considering once you get to the middle, all hell breaks loose. As for larger vendors, AAA Distribution was present as well as VIZ media and Kotobukiya. I was kind of bummed out that Tokyopop got reduced to a small booth this year, though.

Uglydolls have grown so much in popularity in the past couple of years. They had special limited-edition jackets featuring my favorite Uglydoll: Babo! My sisters and I all have Uglydolls of our own with me being the first to own one. I received a Babo as a high school graduation gift and, since then, I have nearly everything that is Babo-related. I also met David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim a couple of years ago, too. They’re such a sweet couple. If you don’t have one yet, then what are you waiting for?!

Square Enix always comes out to Con every year with their shop. They ran trailers for their upcoming games on their huge screen, including FFXIII, Dissidia and KH 358/2 Days. This year, if you signed up for their Square Enix Members club, you received a Final Fantasy Dissidia fan. They already had merchandise for FFXIII available! I wish they still had their Shinra card case. The XIII card case designs  are pretty, but the Shinra card case looked way cooler.

Friday was spent looking around the gaming portion of the convention. Capcom rolled deep as usual with tournaments for MvC2 and offering demos for Tatsunoko versus Capcom. TvC is very high up on my do-want list right now: played a demo of it and instantly fell in love! I also got a towel for demoing it, too. A lot of booths also had sections where you could take pictures and received copies on the spot or have them sent to your email. This was one of our pictures taken at Entertainment Earth with a Stormtrooper from the Joker Squad.

Later that day, Lester had to go suit up for a signing at DK Publishing with Daniel Wallace, author of the DC Comics Encyclopedia and Star Wars: The Ultimate Visual Guide. At the same time, I also got to meet up with Hau and Justin for a little bit!

Gotham City Police was handing out flyers: a Wanted poster for a certain Joker and a Missing poster for a Dr. Harleen Quinzel. The question is: who is to replace Heath Ledger for the next movie?

We got to run into Shogun Vader again! We saw him at Anime Expo a couple of weeks ago and were glad to see him again

To think that on a normal day, this street would be empty. Everyone leaving Comic-Con on Friday to get home or to their hotel room, get some rest, and get up bright and early for another day of Con.

Saturday was the busiest day for Lester and I, since he was suited up all day for a full-on 12 hours. Got suited up at 7:30 AM, walked from the U.S. Grant to the convention center, and made it in time for the 501st Legion photoshoot. I’ll make another blog post specifically for the shoot, but in a nutshell: I’ve never seen so many Star Wars costumes in one area like this before. Also notice there are not one, but TWO Shadow Stormtroopers! D’awww.

Another TX unit and fellow Filipino, Daniel. Nice meeting you! And I hope to get to see you at other events, too. They’re so shiny when they stand next to each other.

Before meeting back up with Lester after the photoshoot, I went around the floor to do some mad freebie hunting. Wherever you go, you’re bound to run into freebies, whether they’re posters, keychains, buttons, bags, and the like. Booths will run out of freebies really quick, so you have to be really quick about snagging them and even endure long lines just to get them! I seldom bring bags with me to Con because I know I’ll get a bag there sooner or later.

After acquiring a crapload of freebies, I met back up with Lester at the Lucasfilms booth for a Star Wars photoshoot. People kept coming in hordes to take pictures! Luckily, I’m tiny enough to stay in the front and take pictures. Before the shoot, we saw a beautiful trailer promoting Lucasfilms and Bioware’s The Old Republic in HD goodness. I was also able to snag an Old Republic shirt, too! Yayyyyy.

One of the last things on our to-do list for Saturday was the Kotobukiya Chop Saber Duel. The R2-D2 Builders Club even brought over an R2 unit and, by coincidence, it happened to be green! The R2 was fully functional and made all kinds of noises.

I went more in-depth about the Chop Saber Duel over at Dannychoo.com so if you’d like to read more about it, check it out over there. Even Elvis Trooper was able to try out the Chop Sabers!

Here is some footage of the duel. As you can see, the 501st doesn’t play nice.

Sunday was geared towards getting even more freebies and doing some mad shopping, as they usually slash their prices on the last day. It was also Kids Day, too! All the panels were geared towards kids and they all came out in the cutest costumes ever. I didn’t bring my camera out this time, but I think it was for the better. I was carrying bags everywhere and was literally wearing them everywhere.

As much as I’m going to miss the Con experience, I’m glad I finally get to relax and get some rest! Loot & Freebie post and the 501st Legion photoshoot are up next on my to-blog list, so stay tuned.

For even more photos of Con, check out the SDCC 09 set on Flickr.

Yuuichi-kun, it was great meeting up and getting to hang out with you! Hope to get to see you around at other events, too. It’s too bad that we couldn’t get all the DC’ers together for a meetup, but maybe it can happen at the next Con or at another event.Abe, Jen, Venus, Jason, Hau, Justin, and, oh jeez…EVERYONE. Glad to see you all at Con. Jonathan, Melvin, and Lloyd: I hope all of you are recovering well, especially the latter. For those I didn’t get to see, we’ll all get to see each other eventually

Here’s to next year!

Tags: Convention, san diego comic con, sdcc 09