Otakon 2013 Post-Mortem

Phew. Otakon.

Like my Zenkaikon post, this is also going to be mostly just me writing down thoughts on the experience.

In a nutshell: This was the best con I've been to so far. It's my fourth con, my third "proper" con, my second con cosplaying.

The curious thing is that I'm having slightly more trouble recalling what happened at this con than at, let's say, Zenkai 2013. Maybe because more caffeine, walking and shenanigans were involved in this one.

I slept like shit Thursday night, but since as a third shifter I know that WITH CAFFEINE, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE.

Caffeine = Spiral Power for a third shifter. I'd say Getter Rays but we know how powerful those are. They'd probably be more like meth.

First day is still something of a blur in my head, although I met a fellow Homestuck from the area near where I live, which was super cool -- before that I accidentally ended up at the Otakon Opening ceremonies. This was the con of accidentally running into things (metaphorically). The opening ceremonies were interesting, although not the most thrilling thing ever.

Also this was the first con where I stayed in a hotel (one that's like, a block and a half away) which had advantages and disadvantages:

Pros - You're near the con, you can hike it back to the room just to chill if you need to, you can take more stuff to the con without having to lug it all the time, and it's not a problem if you stay at the con super-late.

Cons - You're staying in a room with 9 other people and you're not sleeping in your nice warm bed. I also sleep weird in hotels to begin with.

I've already talked with some people, and I'm gonna do the hotel thing again, but the room is going to have a hard limit of 4 people. It'll cost more, but the nice thing about being a miser is that you can occasionally just blow a ton of money on something, giving the impression to your friends that you're a HI ROLLA. GOT MAD CASH. UNLIKE YOU POOR NERDS I EAT WELL AT A CON.

Incidentally, it's something we all know, but con food is such a ripoff... but two Otakons in a row I resorted to buying Gatorade from the BCC... although I'll take getting swindled out of 4 bucks over feeling miserable for several hours because I'm dehydrated. I'm just gonna take some down with me next year.

Went to the "Mechapolcalypse" panel.... it was thoroughly underwhelming. Amusing, but underwhelming. The presenters were clearly underprepared and unfocused. They were funny, but not much else -- saw people rage-quitting the panel, hilariously enough.  BUT there were two cool dudes I talked mecha with which is kind of rare at cons, since mecha anime's not that popular these days, it seems. (Plus, they knew what the hell ZZ Gundam is)

Friday evening/night was dominated by Evangelion 3.0.  It's a MUCH more enjoyable film on a big screen than on a computer screen. Although it's a LOUD film. Like "bass that rattles your lungs" loud. And I'm also the only person who doesn't hate Shinji. The yaoi fangirls squealed about every 15 seconds when Kaworu was onscreen. And when Asuka took her helmet off, everyone cheered. Once the credits started, the crowd broke out into applause.

I meant to go to the Persona/SMT photoshoot at midnight but I was exhausted (slept terribly the night before), so when I went back to the hotel to get a prop I forgot, I ended up taking off my wig, and then sat down, and didn't move for a while -- which was a sign to me that the day was done.  Played Cards Against Humanity with my roomies instead, which was great fun.

Additionally, I seriously wanted to go to that Otakon 21 or whatever thing... because it had alcohol but I ended up skipping that too WHOOPS.

Saturday one of my suspicions was confirmed: Homestuck photomeets are more fun to watch than to participate in. If watching, you're just standing in the same place watching hyperactive teens be silly which is what 50% of anime is, but if you're participating you have to crawl over about 25 kids in grey bodypaint. Which isn't fun. Much like Zenkaikon, I bailed early. I'm glad people have fun at them, but they're just incompatible with me.

Maybe if they were outdoors.

Although I did see the cutest thing (sorry, it's the only word to describe it): A father/child Bro/Dave duo. SO KAWAII I DIED

But mostly importantly: SHIN. VS. NEO. GETTER. ROBO. I watched the whole thing on Saturday, some other people agreed with me: Texas Mack is probably the best thing about that anime.

Before all of that, I accidentally ended up at the Crispin Freeman Q&A - I meant to go to the bad videogame accessories panel but I misread the schedule and ended up there - I stayed there because, shit, it's Crispin Freeman. He seems like a real cool guy. Plus I got to hear him sing "Baby Got Back" in Alucard's voice.

Saturday night I went to the midnight Homestuck Drawparty (or whatever it was called) and met some peeps there. It was fun! Although someone threw up all over themselves ... that was interesting.

Sunday just involved packing up and hitting the dealer's room one last time. I actually bought something, two artbooks: Volume 1 of a Final Fantasy art collection (Yoshitaka Amano!), and Oxide 2 (Hyung Tae Kim)

The biggest thing I took away from this con was that a 'successful' con isn't in how many things you do, but basically how much fun you have -- even just hanging out with friends in Artist's Alley or getting so-so chinese food with them is perfectly OK. You don't have to be at a viewing or a panel or a photoshoot at every waking moment (A "bang for your buck" mentality)... and that'd probably end up killing you.

Also: Never, ever, ever, ever agree to walk 12 blocks (one-way!) to pick up pizza for your room.

--

And before I forget, my cosplays: Persona 3 Protagonist, Summer Outfit on Friday, Aces Suited Dave on Saturday... just dressed normal for the short stint I was there on Sunday. My cosplays didn't get much attention (at least not much as Zenkaikon) but there were a million Homestucks there so really, nothing special.  A few people recognized the Persona 3 one which warmed the cockles of my cold, dead heart.

I think I'm going to be retiring my Dave cosplay for cons -- I've done it for two cons, and as much as I love looking super-snazzy, I'd like to start doing more non-Homestuck things. Not saying I wouldn't do it for some sort of photoshoot dongle thing if there's ever an opportunity.

A particularly hilarious thing about our group was that we're all of different, totally-unrelated fandoms, so at some points there was just this mishmash of cosplays wandering about in a group.

Taken at roughly 10:30 PM. lol exhaustion

Hetalia/Homestuck Alliance!
(Left: My friend Geni, as Prussia. Right: Me, as Dave Strider) 

There were a TON of Attack on Titan cosplayers, and a lot of Sword Art Online ones, too. I'd say that after Homestuck and Ponies, AoT and SAO were the most popular. Less Homestuck this year, and much less on the Pony front. Also met a duo cosplaying Char Anzable and Haman Karn at the Mechapocalypse panel. Gurren Lagann has made something of a resurgence, which in addition to the fact that mecha anime was aired at Ota, shows there is hope for the future.

A friend and I also are cooking up some hilarious/terrible/bizarre plans for next Otakon involving our cosplays... specifically an Evangelion-related one... this is close to what I'll be doing:

IM NOT EVEN JOKING NO REGRETS I WILL BE KAWAII AS FUCK

Zenkaikon Post-Mortem

Phew. Zenkaikon.

This is just gonna be a more stream-of-consciousness (moreso than usual) post, where I just write out my thoughts and experiences.

Overall it was a good experience, although GOD DAMN there were some organizational silliness on the behalf of the con. Some of the staff could be pushy at times (and not in the 'understanding' way the staff at Ota was where it was a "sorry guys but you gotta make the line stay against the wall thanks for understanding" kind of thing) and handing out 18+ wristbands at a place OTHER than where you register is ... not a good way to go about it. But they also were flexible at times (which I'll get to in a bit)

This was my third con, my second "proper" con (first was Ota last year), and my first con where I cosplayed.

Let's get the cosplays out of the way:

Friday:
Tank top/muscle shirt Dirk. I do not have the arms for it.

Saturday:
Aces Suited Dave because I am a classy bastard.

I got some really nice compliments on this cosplay (BUT I JUST THREW IT TOGETHER. THE WHOLE THING COST 50 BUCKS AND MOST OF THAT WAS THE WIG LOL WAT) ... a Latula cosplayer called me 'senpai' o_o

Nobody laughed at me, so that's also good.

Friday I just went solo, but the amazingly nice thing about a moderate-sized con is that if you know someone, you'll run into them. I hung with friends from the college anime club that I used to go to (and founded), and also my SUPER AWESOME FRIEND ABE who went as Excalibur from Soul Eater (if that means anything to all two of you strangers reading this blog)

The first thing, after loitering with friends, was the How To Eat Cheap and Well At a Convention panel. I was in charge of information about local things, etc.  The great thing about running into my friends earlier was that they gave me a WHOLE LIST of local things, much more than what I already had. We also went to the Central Market in Lancaster which was literally next door to the con. Great muffins.

My friend Abe (who was running the panel) was late, he was driving all the way from Philly and had missed his exit. I didn't want people to, like, wait outside the doors of the thing and possibly get frustrated and leave.  If we got them into the room, and get them to sit down, and I just start at noon and tell them about local things and buy time. Which is what I did, nobody left and I only had to burn about two minutes. I'm super thankful for the flexible staffers who let me do that, even though I wasn't officially (As in on-paper) part of the panel.

Abe ran the panel for the most part, occasionally I interjected, and I shared my local stuff. Some people filtered out (jerks) but the panel seemed to be a success.

I also pimped Noodle King, and gave out menus. Later I was told that some Zenkai peeps went there  so MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

John de Lancie was entertaining and educational and gave a thoughtful answer to my question (when it wasn't stupid questions, he generally gave thoughtful answers). He thought I was a chick at first (ahahaha). It was interesting that he was less about fan-pleasing minutia and more about the craft of acting -- which is refreshing because I really didn't want to hear every. small. detail. about teleporters or something.

A good chunk of Friday was spent in the dealer's room, as per usual, I bought nothing the entire weekend. I never buy anything at cons because I'm a cynical bastard who mentally judges prices constantly and actually knows what a Sonic the Hedgehog action figure costs at Suncoast Video.

Played, like, one game of that Naruto fighting game with some dude (he was cool). I sucked at it but hey!

The Homestuck photoshoot on Friday was alright... although we got relocated once in the time I was there. I accidentally touched someone's butt I'm sorry x_x

Also watched Serial Experiments Lain. Riffed it with some strangers, but I did enjoy it (both the riffing and the anime proper). The bad dub does kind of add an additional unintentional camp appeal but I do dig the stark art style and the plot and ideas behind the anime. At times I do miss some of the stranger aspects of 90's anime. Modern anime tends to be masturbatory otaku material (in both senses), and the international appeal of some of the more 'technological' and 'psychological' anime of the 90's and early 00's no longer exists. Thank God for Rebuild.

I've actually been meaning to see Lain for a little while now. Back when I was an animu-hater (for reasons that lose me) in the early 00's and late 90's, Lain was usually mentioned in the same breath as Evangelion (although it seems to have become more obscure)... and since I dig Eva... I figure I'd probably like Lain (which turned out to be correct)

The big thing friday was Cosplay Burlesque, which was one of the highlights of Ota for me (I got talked into going to the workshop at Ota, and I wanted to see their proper show) ... beforehand I actually got to talk with a few of the people in that before the event, namely the dude who was Belle last year and Irvine this year. I told him I was at the workshop at Ota and it was the highlight of the con, although I said that maybe my laughter (at the workshop at Ota) was probably not the best reaction... but he explained that burlesque started as a comedy-type thing so it was fine. They struck me as really nice/cool people.

I realllllllllllly don't need to explain why I enjoyed the show... Although I think Uncle Yo is rather unfunny. I don't care whether or not you use "bawdy humor" or are crude or whatever (esp. at a burlesque-type thing) but I do care if you're horribly unfunny. Whenever he was on stage, I just wanted him to get the hell off. If that was the point, then he did spectacularly.

But all-in-all I enjoyed it. I'd go see it again.

Saturday I went with my friend Kat. She had a good time (and thanked me for basically forcing her to go... she had a real rough week and it was good for her to get out of the house and hang out with people)

I don't have much to report about Saturday, other than Zenkai REALLY needs to space out the popular events and split them more evenly between Friday and Saturday. The selection of anime to watch on Saturday was .... very meh. Nothing amazing or awesomely bad.

 I didn't attend the Homestuck drawmeet (which I REALLY wanted to do) but I was both exhausted and I didn't feel like waiting a whole 4-5 hours for it.

I bailed on the Saturday photoshoot (literally saying "I'm too old for this shit", haha) partly because I don't like being cramped and clueless, but mostly because I lost a button on my suit jacket. I am so glad I brought spare buttons + needle and thread. My friend helped put the button back on so I wouldn't go through the con looking stupid.

ALSO Noodle King for dinner. Seriously. That place is boss.

If the drawmeet was earlier, I would've went too it. I was planning on it, but was exhausted but didn't really have anything to do... and was afraid it'd be chaotic like the photoshoots.

And we also left because all of the people our age seemed to just ... vanish. Another friend of mine told me how the game room's average age seemed to plummet in the evening and he felt weird for it.

So basically me and some friends went and hit a bar instead. We have a lurking suspicion that's what everyone else over the age of 21 was doing.

TL;DR - I had a blast, and I'll go next year if friends are going.

Also, for my next con (Otakon), I really, really want to put together some sort of cosplay group.

UPD8:

Here's the first picture of my Dave cosplay in the wild:

SOURCE