It’s part of a hotel convention culture to avoid the elevator rush on the last day. As top floor dwellers, we ran into a bit of traffic going down. Bottom floor dwellers were smart and took the first elevators going up to ensure their trip down. Katsucon is not really a commuter con; people will claim their stake at the Gaylord. By the time we got down to the convention level for baggage hold, you can see rows upon rows of baggage and belongings to con goers.

Artist Alley by Eri Kagami
Artist Alley was held in their usual spot. Katsucon usually has a good number of artists presenting fandom wares. The most popular was No Flutter, best known for her Sakizou style sailor guardian artwork that has been cosplayed from time to time. Other than sailor guardian artwork, she also sells Lolita inspired tiny hats. Likewise, if you’re into boys love, there were plenty of sports anime related art that was sold throughout the artist alley. Additionally, you can see a live drawing of the Chalk Twins creating another piece of art for the convention. While I didn’t think of taking a few things home back to Boston (flying makes it hard transporting prints), I did like seeing people selling sailor guardian themed cosplay accessories. Zan-chan Cosplay sold Sailor Moon cosplay accessories ranging from $20 to $50 (I’m currently in the market for new odango guards). Also, other artists were selling custom henshin wands and weaponry starting at $80.

Dealers Hall by Eri Kagami
The dealers hall was much larger this year; obviously because there was no snowstorm in the local area this time around. It is your standard medium sized dealers hall. There were plenty of Pokemon plushies and figures if you’re into that sort of thing. There was plenty of room to walk around and check things out. There were a few industry booths present such as Crunchyroll and Funimation. I don’t recall many last minute deals, though I was quite tempted to pick up a Puchim@su plush of Haruka. Otherwise, it was worth looking around for an hour or two. If you wanted some nice cosplay photos, Droo Chin Photography has his usually photobooth set up. For about 10 minutes, you had a private shoot. You are guaranteed one free digital high resolution photo, but additional raw photos can be charged at a price.

Sailor Moon Cosplay Meet Up by Eri Kagami
There were a few Sailor Moon cosplay meetups during Katsucon. We went to the one scheduled for Sunday. I was part of a “white rose” artbook group. We all meet in the fountain level downstairs. There was a small turn out; it was Sunday after all. However, this was done with a twist. Team Misaki, our colleagues from San Francisco, had all Sailor Moon cosplayers carry the Canadian flag to show support and love for the Canadian fans and staff behind the first English adaptation of Sailor Moon.

Diversity in Comics by Jared
This panel was a discussion with a group of writers talking about writing diverse characters and removing negative tropes that can hold back a good story. Not only did the writers talk about their experiences, but also took questions from the audience. The panel did not focus on what people were doing wrong as much as it focused on how to do things right. The positive atmosphere was nice and it made everyone feel comfortable with asking questions, even I got an answer to a question I had about one of my new projects.

Let’s Go to The World: A Panel about the Hack Games by Jared
One of the lesser known, but fan favorite, series is the Dot Hack franchise. This panel gave a short description of the main series and then went in depth on the various games and included a short review of the different chapters of the story. It was great to see a panel that covered a lesser known franchise and got more in depth on the characters, how they grow in the side material, and what games are the more fun ones to play.

Katsucon was winding down. The sun was shining yet the wind started picking up. We took an Uber back to the airport. Thankfully, our flight back into Boston was still on time. We heard about a snowstorm hitting the Northeast. We were able to land safely into Boston Logan airport, but because the MBTA was shutdown (and our phones didn’t have much battery), we settled to take a cab back home.

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