Youmacon 2011! Detroit’s Anime Convention!

My third anime convention Youmacon 2011! Getting to Youmacon was an interesting venture, going on a six hour ride from Chicago all the way to Detroit with 5 people in a car apparently makes me pretty claustrophobic. Oh the ride was painful… still it was worth it!

Random picture in the middle of post! This was during the Touhou shoot in case that wasn't obvious.

This year Youmacon was held in the Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center, a huge and very nice looking hotel. My group was on the 44th floor, the view would have been awesome if a building wasn’t blocking half of the view. Anyway enough rants how was Youmacon itself you ask? Well it was awesome!

Being my third con I was figured out what I needed to plan on doing. Arcade comes first just because I’m a crazy Pump it Up fan and I need to get my fix, second comes vendor rooms to scope out what figures, doujin and hats (lol) are being sold, afterwards I get to any panels I’m interested.

So this years panels I attended was “A History of Sailor Moon Hentai” (just as the title states), “Mario Party” (IRL Mario Party, awesome), “Pokemon Quiz” (it had to be done!) “Cancer Killing Your Fandom” (I didn’t like this panel too much but meh), and finally a Touhou panel that I can’t remember the name of (totally worth missing Read Hentai Aloud).

The arcade was freaking awesome. First off as a PIU and DDR dancer I had to say Youmacon’s free to play on the machines was awesome, all the arcade machines in Youmacon were actually free to play (except for the mini-crane game they had). It was also counsel galore, Xbox 360s, PS3s, Wiis, Playstations, N64s, and a whole bunch of others. There were also tournaments but I didn’t participate in any. I should have tried out the DDR and Smash Bros tourney but I was running around the con way too much to have time.

As for the cosplay Youmacon wasn’t exactly Acen level but there were some great ones I saw around. Unfortunately I’m poor so I didn’t have a camera on me but my friend Bryce took plenty of pictures. So these are some of the pictures he took, all credit goes to Bryce Bandelgar.

This one was awesome, although I'm not sure it's cosplay exactly. Everyone should know Blinky from Pacman!

Kamina and Yoko in the Youmacon arcade. Then some innocent bystander that didn't know she'd be uploaded to the internets.

I'm not too sure whose she supposed to be. The cosplay is awesome none the less, this was taken at Youmacon's vendor room. Also dat pose.

An excellent Jade cosplayer! Oh yes... an excellent one indeed.

One of my favorite pictures! This Cirno cosplayer was ridiculously cute.

Mario is shocked and appalled.

We saw these three waiting in line for the "History of Sailor Moon Hentai" panel.

Then there was the Touhou shooting. We took a lot of pictures but only a couple came out good. Oh well can’t win them all… but still here are some of the pictures we took.

Haha Marisa and Reimu, main character love! Haters gonna hate!

All of them grouped in for this one!

This had to be done! This by far is my favorite picture in the whole con. Also whenever I see this I always think of Kero ⑨ Destiny.

Yeah, I know, I fanboyed out on the Cirno cosplayer but hey she was totally into character (baka! baka!).

Youmacon was overall a great experience. After going to two raves back to back, dancing in the arcade free of charge, buying some Touhou doujin with a couple of hats, seeing a load of great cosplay then going to some awesome panels and meeting people with the same interests as me. This was a great con.

I will definitely be coming back to Youmacon for another go. With that said it’s time for me to either wait for Acen 2012 or just randomly go to another con. Till then time to watch more anime!