Anime North 2019: Wrap

I should add a huge question mark to this post, in that I YOLO’d Anime North to see Toda Megumi during Memorial Day weekend (in the States). I skipped Friday, mainly because of work reasons, but I carpooled with fellow Million Live P Moy Friday night and arrived in Toronto early Saturday. I stuck around and went home Sunday. It was a really quick sort of a deal.

Toronto has this great aspect to it for me in that it’s a well-equipped city that runs on Canadian Dollars, which currently has great rates against the USD. Road tripping again this year was fun, now that I know the routine and can just pace myself.

The con only gave Toda 2 signkai and 1 panel, so it was fortunate that I was able to catch the panel at all, and the signkai on Saturday. She was more or less what you would expect and she approached the oversea panel challenge in a fairly fun kind of way even if the crowd was pretty quiet.

I did prereg and picked up my badge pretty fast. The rain on Friday and Saturday was more annoying than any crowding, although there were a large group out and about in the parking area as per usual Anime North. Parking was quickly going by the time I got there at around 10am.

I didn’t really expect to do much at Anime North this year nor did I. The rain definitely put a damper on things. There were other exciting exigencies, which I’ll detail later.

Toda’s panel was not really eventful and now a couple months later it’s hard for me to recall much. There were some Japanese guys asking her role in New Game. That and Million Live were the bulk of it. She did end up going to the Falls and downtown Toronto, and seemed to have a good time? She also got a nice view from the CN Tower, which is a nice deja vu moment for me.

I asked her about weight training because she tweeted about it around that time, but it was mostly her training for more stamina for Fukuoka. I was kind of out of it due to lack of sleep so it was a bit more embarrassing than usual to think about to that experience.

For signkai, we talked about Meisou Mind being her favorite song, which she also mentioned during the panel. I had Makoto gear on so, lol.

The remainder of the weekend was for The World Standard, the fun Avex Trax backed idol group. Fun because, well, they’re fun. They are also in the middle of their prime years as idols, ranging ages 18-21 I think? Wasuta had a nice turn out since GTA is now a tiger’s den, but a lot of Japanese visitors also flew in. All of Wasuta’s events at the con were Saturday and Sunday, so that was nice for me, had I cared enough.

It was a crash course in learning about the group. I have only heard of them maybe a year-ish ago but before the con I looked them up on Twitter and IG. Not bad but still kind of stilted. I guess that’s what it means to be a Japanese idol this day and age.

Their live show Saturday night was fun and reminded me of WUG a little lol. Definitely some of the dance moves and the way their live videos are used are similar. I went to their panel Sunday. Really the only thing I did there, plus a signkai, on Sunday. Then it was time to bid the con farewell.

What else happened at the con? (Foregoing my usual postscript…)

• We ate at a new steakhouse and it was great. The dessert was tops. We also “heard” game 6 of the Eastern Conference Final at the steakhouse. Toronto is serious about their Raptors. “Heard” because it was a really loud crowd.
• On the way to GTA I realized about 4 and half hours in that I left my passport home. Well, we ended up getting into Canada anyways because I had my Global Entry card. The thing does not substitute for a passport, but at discretion of the Canadian officer they could let you in. The main thing is, you can re-enter the States with it. If I was denied entry I at least can drop off Moy so he can mass transit into Canada, so we got to the border earlier than planned. As a result of this we ended up with less sleep than initially planned Friday night into Saturday, and we ended up stopping at a charger somewhere south of Toronto to have breakfast and kill some time. I didn’t even get to eat that complimentary breakfast at the hotel in Syracuse…
• We stopped at around Niagara-on-the-lakes to buy booze to bring back to the States, on the way home. With just Wasuta, we got lots of time going home.
• We also stopped to eat some pickled pizza in Syracuse.
• Saturday was a pretty straining day, so after we were done with Toda’s events, we ate at Zets and I just crashed pretty hard.
• Wastua girls were at the con exhibition area Saturday giving out flyers to their show. Their show was pretty decently attended and probably what you would expect for a 25k+ con.
• Some JP fans definitely came and camped for it, and I saw some signs of at least normal wota behavior.

Toronto isn’t too far from Buffalo, so I guess the wings are legit enough.