yet another

Kawaii Kon 2008 was my first convention ever, if you don’t count the various auto shows that my parents used to drag me to see.

TL;DR version: Kawaii Kon is freaking awesome.

When I first got to the convention center on Saturday morning, though, I immediately wanted to go back home. :P There were so many nerds hanging around the entrance and being otaku. I know that sounds really stupid since after all it’s an anime convention and I should’ve expected it, but I don’t know, I guess I thought that anime fans would be quiet, dignified, and polite. You know, like how I am. :P But I was so wrong.

To put it bluntly, otaku are all out of their minds.

They speak in gibberish language that is neither English nor Japanese, but some weird disgusting blend of the two (with some Internet sp33k thrown in for the hell of it). They’re all cosplayed as the most disgusting things in the entire world. Do you know how many Akatsuki guys there were? Roughly ten billion. Not only was everyone dressed up as gross anime characters that I neither know nor care about, but they were also acting it out… or at least being immature goofballs, which scared the hell out of me. It was almost too much for me to take. I was secretly glad that I hadn’t finished my time mage cloak, because if I had cosplayed then I’d probably be considered a freak just like the rest of them.

They were rude. They had absolutely zero concept of personal space. If I was sitting on the side playing my DS, some pimply-faced nerd with a squeaky voice would literally push his head in front of my face and block my screen, and loudly proclaim, “Your Infernape is only level 38? NOOB.” When I was waiting in line to pick up my pass, I got bumped into and rammed and bowled over by all kinds of weirdos wearing huge costumes, and they didn’t apologize or even seem to care that they were disrupting other people as they passed. I didn’t see what was the point in hunting them down to tell them off since there were 245346456 other people doing the same thing.

So when I got my pass, I didn’t just sit around and wait for the convention center to open, I walked to Ala Moana to buy breakfast at McDonald’s and bitch to just about every one of my friends in my phone’s address book about how much I hate otaku.

When I felt I couldn’t put it off any longer, I walked back to the convention center, back into the seething throng of crazy insane otaku, and forced myself to try and enjoy myself.

After five minutes, I realized I was enjoying myself without even trying. :P

The first room I got swept into was the video game room. I have to admit that I was kind of disappointed at the selection of games. I think there were five Wiis set up with Smash Bros and Kart, two 360s with Halo, and a PS2 with Capcom vs SNK. I thought the selection would be better, or that there would be more units to play on. I made a mental note to write on the con feedback, “NEED MOAR GAMEZ.”

The next room I went into was the tabletop room. That’s when I saw row upon row of TCG packs of just about every series imaginable. There were also rows and rows of tables set aside for the specific purpose of gaming. It was… it was unbelievable. I stood in the doorway for a long time, just eating up the scene with my eyes. Delicious.

I decided to remember this marvelous place and come back because I could sense that I’d be blowing a lot of time and money in this room and I wanted to see what else was going on. The next room was the Dealers’ Room, which is also known as the Portal to Sinful Riches. You leave your soul (and your life’s savings) at the door and are then immersed in a world of explosive color. That’s the only way I know how to put it. There was just… there was so much to take in. The merchandise piled high on the tables, the people pushing and grabbing and bartering and haggling, money being thrown about, practically everyone except me in some ridiculous costume… there was just way too much to take in.

Twenty minutes and $100 later, I tore myself out of there, almost against my will. I had to fight some invisible force that beckoned me to remain there and continue frittering away my hard-earned money on little plastic trinkets and keychains and plushies and on and on. I hit up the video room for a bit, where they were showing the Kenshin dub. To be honest, I mostly just went in there to catch my breath and fix the contents of my bag. Not a big fan of the Kenshin dub voices.

I checked my watch and saw that I still had like two hours before the “Meeting of the Asukas” panel that I really wanted to see. I went back to the tabletop room. I ended up buying these two decks with the intent of giving one to my sister when I got home, but instead I opened up both decks and started playing with random people. It was so awesome! I got to meet a ton of cool people that way. And okay, while we were playing we were frequently interrupted by those same pimply-faced nerds who gave me such a hard time when I was innocently playing my DS before the con opened, but for some reason it was much easier to put up with them once I had some “normal” folks on my side.

The Asuka panel really sucked. I mean, I really did try to like it, especially since that was what I had really been looking forward to, but it was just so poorly planned and executed. The MC person didn’t really have any questions written out beforehand, so she was just asking stuff off the top of her head, which resulted in a lot of long, awkward pauses and “um, er, ah,” crap. I don’t know, overall it was pretty disappointing.

I sat through two hours of that. That’s how dedicated I am to Asuka and Evangelion. At the end of the panel, they told everyone to get in line so we could get autographs. That’s when I realized I had nothing for Miyamura to sign. :P Since the line was so long, I thought I could sneak over to the Dealers’ Room, buy something Eva-related, and run back to get in line. But there were a few glaring flaws in this plan that eventually resulted in failure.

I had anticipated that there would be a lot of Eva merchandise for sale. After all, Eva is arguably the most iconic and popular anime series in recent history, it’s “new” in the sense that the movies are just coming out, it’s still pretty relevant since Adult Swim premiered the show only a few years ago and it’s been rerun periodically since then, and I also figured that since the main event at the convention was a “Meet the Asukas” that there would be a lot of Eva stuff to tide over crazy fans like me. But instead, the room was almost completely devoid of Eva stuff. I was so shocked! Eva is something near and dear to me, and to see bullshit series like Inuyasha and Bleach get so much merchandise while Eva gets NOTHING was just insulting. What little Eva stuff I did find was almost exclusively Rei stuff. And you know, it’s kinda awkward to ask the Asuka voice actress to autograph a Rei doll, especially if the Rei doll has unrealistically huge boobs and is obviously made to appeal to perverts.

(In a related vein, I was disappointed at the lack of Gainax and Ghibli stuff in general. Maybe I’m just being a snob, but crap like Death Note and Bleach were wayyyyy overrepresented at the convention.)

I finally found ONE booth that was selling plastic Eva figurines, and at the very bottom of the bin I found a battered Asuka doll set. I was counting on the clerk to take my debit card since I had already used up my cash. And that’s where the second unforeseen flaw kicked in: the booth’s wireless signal was really bad. So I could either run to the bank which is inside Ala Moana, or I could wait on the side and hope that the wireless signal would stay stable long enough for them to run the transaction. I decided to just wait it out, thinking that it couldn’t possibly take THAT long. I mean, making sure the credit card machines work at a convention like this is probably their top priority.

I was wrong. It took HALF AN HOUR. In that time I could’ve run to Ala Moana and back at least three times, maybe more.

So I ran back to the main event room with the Asuka doll clutched in my hand… just in time to see the security guard tell me they’re not letting in any more people for autographs. “But… but why not?” I said. At this point I probably looked like I was going to cry or something, because he very kindly said, “We’re running out of time, and we need them to wrap it up already so Miss Miyamura can go back to her hotel room.” “But… but I… I was in line… I just, I ran to get this doll so she could sign it, and it took so long because the dealer had trouble with the wireless signal, and…”

He looked really really sad for me. I know this makes me sound like a manipulative jerk, but I was secretly hoping that if I looked sad enough then maybe he’d sneak me in.

No dice. He apologized again and said that if it were up to him he’d let me in, but it’s not and so he can’t.

I still have the Asuka doll. All sales final, after all.

But it was also kind of a good thing. It gave me a funny story to tell people. I went back to the tabletop room and resumed my card games. I got to meet a lot of people who were both new to the game, people like me who used to play but stopped and now want to get back into the groove, and a few people who actually play professionally. I played this one guy who is a pro and gets paid by Nintendo to play the game, and even though he kicked my ass, he went really slowly and explained everything so that I could pick up on some of the techniques he was using. He was also really funny and laid back and nice, and when I told him about the Asuka thing, he said he’d help me break into Miyamura’s hotel room and get her to sign it for me.

I think I have a crush on him. Too bad I’ll never see him again.

In between games I’d walk around the entire convention area. It wasn’t as big as I thought it would be, but at the same time there was so much STUFF crammed into those rooms that it was an overwhelming experience anyway.

And that’s pretty much how I spent my time until Bryan and Jon showed up in the evening. Jon was dressed up as Wolfwood from Trigun. And yes, he had that giant cross. It was pretty fantastic.

After those two showed up, I cycled between Pokemon battling, watching Hellsing OVA with Bryan, wandering around the cosplay strip with Jon and taking pictures of cool costumed people, going through the Dealers’ Room and blowing even more money, and popping my head into the main event room to watch the cosplay show. It was a blast.

Sunday was pretty much more of the same, except this time I had my sister with me. We bought two more decks, the Darkrai one (part of the same series as those other two) and this deck. We also bought a couple booster packs so we could do trades with some other people. Oh man. I remember buying booster packs and doing trades just like this, back in the day. I HAVE UNLEASHED A TERRIBLE EVIL ONCE MORE. Now I’m going to be tempted to buy 245346546 booster packs so I can do trades. WHY DID I OPEN PANDORA’S BOX ALL OVER AGAIN?!

When we went to the Dealers’ Room, we ran into Rikki Simons. That man… is very intimidating. I had heard on the Zim DVD commentary that he is an ironically gigantic man who voices such a tiny little robot, but that still didn’t prepare me for seeing this humongous and physically imposing guy. But once I got over the initial shock of “Holy shit, this guy could probably crush me with his thumb,” he was super cool to talk to. I asked him to sign my program (since I didn’t want to go through the whole fiasco of “OMG I NEED TO BUY SOMETHING GIR-RELATED SO HE CAN AUTOGRAPH” all over again) and I am EVER so pleased with myself. HO HO HO. I got at least ONE autograph, even if it’s not Yuko Miyamura’s.

We left early (~3pm) because my sister had to go to some kind of banquet in the evening, and plus I was absolutely freaking exhausted. I spent my evening playing Pokemon on the DS and contemplating whether I should pick up a part-time job so I can afford the Pokemon booster packs that I will inevitably be tempted to buy.

Sometimes, it sucks being an obsessive maniac with expensive hobbies. :P

I’m really sad the convention’s over and that I can’t go next year. Oh well, I guess I can always just go to the one after that. By then, I might even be able to afford a trip through the Dealers’ Room again.

I am SO BROKE now. Damn. Time to look for a part-time job to tide me over until the Aeon position opens up.