I was there. Roomed with cool peeps that I'm too lazy to tag on mobile! Didn't suit in pidgey as much as I wanted, but I was OG for a fair bit. I defended my pokemon game show championship for the first year, and won again. This time I got a BK pokeball with the gold plated charizard card (I have the full set lying around somewhere).

I brought this up on twitter, but I've noticed a huge change in the way anime fans treat fursuiters. There was a time not too long ago, in the 90's to early 2000's, where anyone that fursuited at an anime con were met with harassment, both verbal and physical. It made us fearful of ever going to one and being able to suit safely. However, somehow, that began to change. I remember being at Otakon 2011 and being terrified of suiting as Buster. But once I got over myself and did it, I was met with joy and squealing. I even got pulled into a LARP battle (which can be found on YouTube if you Google 2011 Otakon LARP battle, filmed by  strawbunny). The past few Katsucons, including this one, was no different. Pictures, selfies, people admiring my suit and asking questions about her, who made her. It is very relieving that I can now suit without fearing for my safety.

That's not to say that there aren't still people out there with a huge hateboner for furries. There's still scattered reports of suiters being harassed even now (MandaPanda got hit for a "smackcam" meme recently at Further Confusion [not even an anime con!], but that seemed to just be an isolated incident of 'the knockout game' rather than any real hate). But thankfully, those haters seem to spew their filth behind the safety of their computer monitors, where it can easily be ignored (or countertrolled for lulz). I am just thankful of this change in most anime fans' demeanor toward furries. As Agent Elrond said over twitter, "We may be in different boats, but we're in the same Fandom Fleet."