Animazement - Thursday - Afternoon People

It turns out the author isn't the only person obsessed with anime conventions. On Thursday afternoon, this sign was prominent in a pickup truck stationed in the parking lot of the Hilton North Raleigh, Animazement's home. The vehicle which bore this sign in its rear window also carried a license plate reading "OTAKU K."

Animazement starts on a Thursday, but volunteers were at work long before the evening's pre-convention reception Doug Eckhart (left) and Shirley Kissel (right) were putting together the final details during the afternoon that was supposed to be quiet. The author spotted another pair of volunteers dashing through the halls on Thursday afternoon, and one volunteer joked that "We're just getting ready for the real thing."

This volunteer works harder than anyone else. She has a new name after she got married in February: now it's Yoshimi Yamagata Aoyagi. Regardless of the name, she didn't spend much time in any one place on Thursday, constantly rushing after food, paperwork and guests. Yoshimi has to be considered Animazement's secret weapon. She took over the Animazement director's duties for the first time in 2000.

Costumer Danny Hong (left) and his friends were overjoyed to be at another convention, and to be on hand early so they didn't have to rush too hard. What sort of costumes were they concealing for future exposure on this weekend?

For a lot of people, this is the most important room at a convention, the dealers' room. It looks so vast and open on Thursday, before the dealers and fans rush in to fill every space. In 2000, all of the tables were claimed by dealers long before the convention opened, said convention official Joe Maxwell (who was spotted carrying a printer through the parking lot on Thursday afternoon - his printer, by the way).

Thursday

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Sunday