Sunday 21 June 2015

Niagara Falls Comic-Con

Hey Guys! A couple of weeks ago I went to the Niagara Falls Comic-Con to meet the first blue ranger (David Yost) and second yellow ranger (Karan Ashley). The first yellow ranger (Thuy Trang) died in a car crash in 2001 (R.I.P). She was my second favourite ranger and unfortunately I won't be able to meet her. I didn't watch the show long after the original red, black and yellow rangers left but I did think Karan Ashley was the best of the newcomers. Looking back, they all did a pretty good job filling in, but as a kid, I was mad that my original team was split up lol. Moving on, let's talk about the con and some of the stuff that happened.


This con took place at the Scotia Bank Convention Centre and I have to say, this was one of the most organized cons I have been to. We reached there about an hour late but we were able to walk in, show our tickets and that was it. Usually, there's a huge line-up even with pre-purchased tickets but not here. We did have one friend that had to buy his ticket at the con and he waited for like an hour and a half. That is the norm for places like this so it wasn't surprising. What was surprising was the fact that it wasn't packed (for a con). The space they provided for everything was really well thought out and I never felt congested. A lot of the panels even had extra seats available. The first thing I did when I entered the con was get a picture with none other then...


...Alfonso Ribeiro aka Carlton! He's a really nice person and I attended his panel later that day aswell. He's a naturally funny person and he talked about his new gig at Americas Funniest Home Video's among other things. I also notice he has some of the same views I do about things such as: just because someone is calling you on your phone, doesn't mean you have to drop what your doing to answer it.  He also said if he was calling someone and they don't answer immediately then he would understand because he grew up with the old school mentality that if someone called your house phone and your not there then you'd miss the call. His panel was packed and people were standing up to hear what he had to say (all the chairs were taken). At the end of his panel he did the signature Carlton dance lol:


After meeting Alfonso, we attended the Power Ranger panel that was being hosted by David Yost and Karan Ashley aka the blue and yellow rangers.


It was great to hear their view on things that happened in the series as well as behind the scenes. David talked about how he is close friends with JDF, his thoughts on the Power Ranger short film and what he thought about Billy's last appearance. I share his same thoughts on the Power Ranger short film and that's the fact that they changed Billy's sexuality to match that of David Yost's (he didn't think that was a good idea). It's because David has been taunted all the time about it during his time at PR and to have people change a character depiction because of it just doesn't seem right. Plus, Billy was always into the ladies during the show.


Karan Ashley talked about her audition, her relationship with Johnny Young Bosch and how she had friends auditioning for her role before she even knew she was being replaced. The JYB story was really interesting to hear because when he first got hired and got money to rent out an apartment and live on his own for the show, it wasn't enough. He had to sleep on the floor with two sweat shirts because Saban didn't provide them with enough money. Karan Ashley didn't have that problem because she got stuff from her parents and friends but when she heard what was going on with JYB, she went and complained to Saban and they all got a pay bump to help better accommodate the living situation. They also hung out a lot because they lived close to eachother and even starred in a movie together in 2005 (wasn't well received but still).


You always hear about Saban under-paying their actors from back then and it's unfortunate to hear because they make so much off the Power Rangers but don't even show the actor's proper pay. I doubt we'll see any of the former Power Rangers make an appearance in the new movie reboot when they do things like this:


It was great to hear everything David and Karan had to say and I learned a lot during their panel. At the end of it, they gave everyone a chance to win a signed comic from all the original rangers if we could guess the number they were thinking of from 1-100. I chose 99 and the number was 13...No one guessed that number and they went with the person that was closest which was 12....


After the panel, we went to get a picture and autograph from Karan and David. They were both really nice and Karan offered to take another picture with me if the one that I took didn't come out right (not a lot of people offer that). David also commented on my Instagram picture which was awesome! Here are the pics:



After meeting everyone that I wanted to, I decided to walk around the con and see what they had to offer. The place was huge and had some great stuff such as a Star Wars, Dr, Who, horror and arcade areas. They also had places to play card games and speed dating (you had to pay to enter though). Here's a picture of some of the areas:

These are costumes that were used in horror movies such as Saw:


I took these pictures in the Star Wars area:




This was the arcade area


This was the room where you could play card games

This was part of the the Dr. Who area

This is a view of the main expo floor taken from the second floor

As you can see, there were alot of great things to check out! I just have a few more random pictures to show!

I thought the detail on these costumes were amazing

I wanted to play this game but it was out of order when I got there lol

 An art piece I got from Greg Horn

Some Final Fantasy 7 Figures

 Some cool posters and a Mikey statue

I highly recommend this con and would definitely go again. Now all I have left to get is the original green rangers autograph and picture and I'll be done the collection! Hopefully he shows up in Canada this year. I got two more cons that I'll be going to for sure which are the Hamilton and London ones. There are A LOT this year and if I go to any then I will definitely update this blog. Until next time, 
Peace!




Sunday 7 June 2015

Anime North 2015

Hey guys! What's up? I know it's been a couple of weeks since Anime North finished but I've just been too busy to update this thing in a timely manner. Still, I would like to cover my Anime North experience!


I wasn't planning to go to Anime North this year but decided last minute that I would go for Sunday. Anime North is a really popular convention that is over-packed whenever I go. The time you have to wait in line and the space you have to walk around could both use some improvement. That aside, I did have fun at this expo and got some really good deals on books. When I first entered the con, I saw an anime kigurumi booth and had to take a pic!


 I left and eventually came back to their booth to get a group shot:


Their booth was called 'Rise the Pig Studios' so check them out for some cool outfits. While walking around I ran into two people I had to take a picture with (Lord Zedd and Deadpool)






















Unfortunately the Lord Zedd picture came out blurry but it was cool to see someone dressed up as him nonetheless. I also thought the Kingdom Hearts x Deadpool concept was a great idea for a costume. Next up, I'll cover some of the cool items that I ran into. First up are two horror collectibles that have Jason and Freddy as women? Or women cos-playing as Jason and Freddy? Either way......they look great!




















I also ran into some Power Ranger items. I didn't buy any of them for one reason or another (size, price, not the version I wanted, etc..) Still, I got to support the Power Rangers and show off those products.


As many of you know, I am a big fighting game fan. As such, I took some pics of characters from different fighting games. We got Shermie (one of my favourite character designs), Poison and Akira (I think Virtua Fighter doesn't get as much attention as it should).

I also found a figure for my favourite X-Men (Jubilee) but held off because I think I can get a better price down the road. I was surprise they made a figure for her since she isn't the most popular character and I will definitely be getting it down the road.



My cousin was searching for this Pikachu x Charizard plushie the whole con but unfortunately couldn't find the real one for a good price. I have to say, I wasn't too impressed with the prices because I thought they would be better on Sunday. According to my people; the prices were better for certain things but not for much.


Next up is just a batch of photos I took of things that looked cool:



























I was surprised to see an Aeris figure worth 1000 dollars! I'd be more surprised if someone bought it but then again FF7 is the most popular in the series. After browsing around the con we decided to head to the Sheraton hotel because that's where the gaming goes down.



If I was staying in a hotel for Anime North then this would definitely be the spot for me. They had a bunch of TV's set up for different games (Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Smash Bros, Miku Dance Something, etc...) They also had a projector that had a live tournaments shown on it.





There were also Indie developers showing off their games in the main lobby. The first game is a puzzle game reminiscent to megaman and the second game is one where you have to work with your team-mate to keep the ball in your area for a certain amount of time. Both these games were fun to try out and it was nice that we got to play them before they were released.


They also had a bunch of rooms that were dedicated to certain things (one room was Rockband another was retro games etc...). I was surprised to see this room which had a DDR machine aswell as a Japanese DJ game that I never seen before! Not only that but they had a mixer game that seemed to be from Japan (if anyone knows the name of the games then feel free to let me know!)








We eventually went back to the con and decided to do one more walk around before we left. During that time. my friend noticed a black ranger picture and we decided to head over there to find out more about it. We found out that this artist was Kurt Lehner and he was commissioned to do some work for the second black ranger. After talking to him some more we found out he designed Franklin the turtle and did some work on Gargoyles. After talking to him for a while I decided to show that support and pick up some of his work (had to get the black ranger because of Power Rangers and of course Gargoyles because I watched that all the time back in the day).


 I also picked up a bunch of books that were a dollar each! This was the best deal at the con and I was surprised there were so much good titles left over.


That was pretty much all I did at Anime North. It was a fun convention and I saw a lot of really great costumes. There are some areas the event organizers can work on like space and line management but all-in-all it was a good experience. That's it for now though, until next time!