YaoiCon 2017

Happy Halloween, y’all! I attended YaoiCon 2017 October 5-9 in Santa Clara, CA. Note: I only posted to my Instagram Stories and only created one post of the blind box figure I opened. I’ll add a couple of the pictures below.

Day 0

I flew out early Thursday morning at 0630 from my local regional airport. Arrived at Dallas/Fort Worth with just enough time to grab a cup of tea from Starbucks on the way to my next flight. Once I was in my seat to San Jose, my across the aisle neighbor had a Yuri!!! On Ice! backpack and of course I commented about loving her bag. Started up a conversation, found out she’s also attending YaoiCon, and we planned to share a ride to the hotel. That was the first time I used Lyft and I have to say we had an awesome driver.

After we checked in to our hotel rooms, we found out we were neighbors, which was awesome because we all decided we should hang out together. Once we were all unpacked we went downstairs for a late lunch. I ordered a chicken udon bowl, which was filling and delicious. After lunch, we walked around the hotel and convention center to get acquainted with the venue and figure out where they’ll have the pre-registered badge & Kickstarter goodie bag pickup table will be. Closed out Day 0 with dinner and setting up what time we’d all meet up for breakfast.

Day 1

I woke up at my usual time (0430), had my morning cup of coffee and read till 0930 when I was to meet up with my friends for breakfast. I ordered oatmeal with quinoa, brown sugar, dried fruits, & nuts and I expected a small bowl of cereal, but received a bowl 3 times the size I was expecting and I was only able to consume half of it. Good thing the breakfast buffet had to-go bowls because there was no way that I was letting all that good cereal go to waste. There wasn’t a lot of things I really wanted to attend on Day 1, so it was a leisure kind of day.

• Dealer Room
  After breakfast, we all went to line up for the Dealer Room. I first went to SuBLime Manga’s table and purchased Don’t Be Cruel 3-5, Don’t Be Cruel: Akira Takanashi’s Story, and Don’t Be Cruel Plus. Next purchase was a Naruto Shippuden Blind Box Figure, which ended up being the mystery figure: Teenage Itachi Uchiha carrying infant Sasuke Uchiha. I stopped by Digital Manga Publishing’s table and purchased Does the Flower Blossom? Volume 2 and Rabbit Man, Tiger Man Volume 2. While looking for my friends, I ended up purchasing Vice City by S.A. Stovall from Stovall’s table and received a chibi drawing of myself as an extra. Last stop was at Bishie Box’s table, where I purchased 2 acrylic stands of Sousuke Yamazaki from Free! Eternal Summer. I totally spent more money than I intended to.
• Opening Ceremony
  Opening ceremony is always a blast and a must for everyone who attends YaoiCon, but the most important must is what happens afterwards.
• Bishounen Bingo
  Imagine bingo, but with handsome or cute men as checkers and ushers. I didn’t get bingo during the normal rounds, but we have to write our name on the back of each bingo card and those bingo cards are put into a chest for after all the rounds. One of my bingo cards was pulled and the winning prize number I pulled was Clear Skies! light novel & manga volumes 1-2. I already own the series, so I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with the extra copies.

Captain’s Sing-a-long was after Bishounen Bingo, but we were all sore and exhausted from screaming the last 3-5 hours. We decided to go to bed and start the next day early.

Day 2

Originally, I had a lot of panels I wanted to attend, but woke up with a migraine headache and just wanted to sleep, which is what I did till I got hungry around 1430. So I walked half a mile down the road to the Taco Bell and grabbed some soft tacos.

• SuBLime Industry Panel
  Jennifer LeBlanc always puts on a fun and entertaining panel. Some new titles announced for fall 2017-fall 2018 release:
  • Strange & Mystifying Story Volumes 1-7 (volume 1 comes out November 2017)
  • VOID by Ranmaru Zariya (digital only one-shot will release November 2017)
  • Coyote Volumes 1-? by Ranmaru Zariya (Digital & print; volume 1 out July 2018)
  • The Boy Can’t Help It by Tei Hidou (digital only one-shot will release April 2018)
  • Escape Journey Volumes 1-? by Ogeretsu Tanaka (Digital & print; Volume 1 releases September 2018)
• Bishounen Auction
  “Anything that happens during Bishounen Auction is not mentioned outside of Bishounen Auction.” YaoiCon is partially funded by attendees through money raised during Bishounen Bingo, Bishounen Auction, and Spanking Inferno. The premise of the auction is to the Bishounen’s time and what’s during said time is out of the convention staff’s hands, but there are the Golden Rules and everything must be consented by the Bishounen. Let’s just say another 3-4 hours of yelling and/or screaming was exhausting on the vocal chords, but kinda worth it.

Day 3

Last day of the convention and after a LONG previous evening, we started a little later with a late brunch and some last-minute shopping.

• Dealer Room & Artist Alley
  “Because I really needed to spend money,” said no one. I snagged Ten Count Volumes 3-4 from SuBLime’s table. Then in the Artist Alley I bought Avialae Chapters 1-2 by Lucid. SO happy to finally have printed copies of this lovely web-comic.
• Learning Japanese with Yaoi
  Ryan-sensei, bishounen and former guests of honor interpreter, briefly taught us how to read, pronounce, and understand some yaoi related phrases. I had a lot of fun learning some Japanese semi-properly.
• Closing Ceremonies & Spanking Inferno
  I didn’t attend the closing ceremonies in 2015, but told myself the next time I attend YaoiCon that I will stay for the whole convention. It was highly entertaining to see what raffle winners would do after receiving their prize. They had the choice of hugging the bishounen they chose, spanking said bishounen, have someone else spank the bishounen, or the winner can choose to get spanked. You can imagine how creative some winners got.

Once the closing ceremonies ended, we all grabbed some dinner and then retired back to our rooms to pack our bags.

Day After Con

Woke up with a bittersweet feeling of wanting the convention to continue, but also wanting to go home. I caught an early flight out, so checked out at 0600 and caught a Lyft to San Jose since my flight was at 0800. My new friends and I hung at Starbucks till my flight start boarding. All my flights went well with a just a little turbulence, but all-in-all I had an awesome weekend. I look forward to attending YaoiCon again, but I’ll probably have to make an every other year thing.

Oh! Forgot to mention, I finally met one of my Digital Manga, Inc. project coordinators. We’ve been working on different projects together since I started freelancing for DMI, so it was awesome to meet her face-to-face after email or twitter correspondence the last 6 years.