Tentacle-Free Anime: A-Kon 2014 Review
Conventions. Whether they’re for anime, comic books, pop culture in general, guns, sports, car shows, or anything and everything someone can make a convention for… one thing is for certain: they’re made for like-minded individuals to attend and share experiences regarding themes and interests they all have in common. We’re all fans of something, after all. For me, it’s anime and comicbook conventions. I love them, and in my home state there were for the longest time only 2 small anime conventions, but even those are slowly getting larger, and more and more nerd-based cons are popping up. It’s an exciting time to be a fan. But one thing I had never experienced before was a giant out-of-state convention. That was until recently, when I got to attend Project: A-Kon 25 in Dallas, TX. Now let me tell you about it.
Calm before the Kon - Conventions are always more fun to go with friends, and thankfully I was able to round-up seven of them. My girlfriend and six others who I knew could make the weekend long commitment. For pre-con setup, we gathered in my apartment the Thursday evening before, in order help one another with our cosplay and make sure if we need anything, and if we have everything. All of us cosplayed. What is cosplay? It is the art of dressing up in a costume and playing the part of a character you enjoy. We had a Spike from My Little Pony (me), a Rarity from MLP (girlfriend), a Phoenix Ikki from Saint Seiya, a Seto from the Fragile Dreams video game, a couple of Touhou costumes, and a Pinkie Pie & Fluttershy from MLP. We were eclectic.
We had homemade curry and a couple of us went out and did a costume-walk, trying out our costumes one last time to make sure all the kinks in them could be fixed in time for the convention. I didn’t have my costume for this, but we did take Princess Rarity, Ikki, and Seto. Not long after we stepped out of our place did we get swarmed by tons of people wanting to take pictures and little girls who wanted to meet a princess. It was… a very stressful event to say the least. But funny to watch (since I didn’t have my costume, I just took photos). Day 1 of the Kon – We got up early and left that morning at 8:00 A.M. Central Time, taking a four hour drive to the convention. It had been a long time since any of us had been out of state. We went in two cars and decided to just meet up there instead of making sure we stayed together in all the heavy traffic. It was a nice morning, slightly rainy but nothing too bad. We paired up into cars by rooms; we had two rooms with four people in each and those staying together rode with one another. My car listened to a set of music discs I had made up for the occasion. Over five hours of music spread through four discs with a soundtrack of various music that I felt fit the occasion. In fact, the songs were chosen by all four of us riding in my car but I ended up making the discs. 
Wainting in line for the rave (photo by Seto).
We arrived sometime around noon and though we pre-registered, we weren’t the only ones. It took us two hours in line to get our weekend badges. While in line we, like so many others, had fun writing little messages on the tape on the ground for others to read. After getting our nifty badges and welcome bags, we promptly went and got food. It was already around 2 or 3 P.M. in the afternoon. We then got our cosplay together and off to the con we went! First day we had Spike, Princess Rarity, Seto (Fragile Dreams video game) and Lei Wulong (Tekken video games) in my car/hotel group. We traveled around, taking in the large amounts of people that were there. It was far more than we were used to, but it was also incredibly exciting to see so many people from around the country who loved anime and pop culture as much as we did. Our first day consisted mostly of looking around, seeing what was going on and just getting a lay of the land. We also did a photo shoot with Rarity. 
Seto is traversing the wilds of A-Kon.
Our Lei Wulong ended up forgetting his morph suit for Phoenix Ikki and so we made an emergency run to Target, where my girlfriend was able to put together a budget suit to put under the armor for less than $20. It also ended up looking better than the original morph suit. In this instance friendship literally was magic. That night we attended a late-night viewing of the first five episodes for a raunchy comedy anime known as Recently, My Sister Is Unusual and it was glorious. Anime is always funnier when watching with others and the whole room had a great sense of humor about the show which made the atmosphere very light and more comforting. Day 2 of the Kon – The next morning we all got up and got ready in our cosplay, with me going as another variation of Spike from MLP, I call it Risky Business Spike based on that famous movie scene with Tom Cruise in his underwear, my girlfriend going as another variation of Rarity, a pin-up version, and my friends going as Seto again, Ikki Phoenix from Saint Seiya, and other ponies from MLP. It took about an hour to get ready and then we headed on out. 
South Park does anime.
We perused the convention some more, taking pictures of other cosplayers and also being asked to have pictures taken of us, which felt nice. And then around 2:00 P.M. (American Central) I had a very important panel to catch: the official Aniplex USA industry panel. The map the hotel had laid out was to say the least incredibly disorganized and I had a hard time figuring out where the room was at. I ended up getting there just before it opened and was one of the last chairs to be seated, which was alright; because I would’ve been mad had I missed it. There was one particular anime that I was hoping would get announced, which you’ll either love me for or hate me for. The panel began and Aniplex discussed their current licenses, stuff I already knew they had and so I kind of just watched on. Shows like Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Silver Spoon, Fate/Zero, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and more. Then they got to their announcements and again it was mostly stuff I personally knew about though I’m sure others did not. Like their liscense of Kill La Kill, Anohana the movie and one that genuinely surprised me as I actually didn’t know about it: Mushi-Shi season 2. Originally FUNimation had that show, so now I have to contend with either a whole new dub cast or watch it only subbed and shell out a bunch of money too. Oi. 
Kite from Dot Hack & Ikki from Saint Seiya.
As the panel was winding down, there were a few other announcements made and I had gotten my wish. Come August, 2014 (a LOT sooner than I was expecting) is Oreimo season 2 to DVD. A show with an ending that truly divided its fandom which put you either on the love it side or hate it side; I consider it a second mini Evangelion in that respect and personally I love the show. It’s in my top 5 favorite anime of all time and I’m not afraid to say that. We were the first people to hear about Oreimo season 2 was coming to DVD, and I ended up being one of the first people in the world to tweet out that the show was heading to DVD and as an experience for my first out of state convention, this was definitely the highlight. Afterwards I made it to a scheduled My Little Pony photo shoot and from then on things wound down a bit. After the photoshoot we went outside and had our own personal MLP photoshoot which was a lot of fun, and while we were out there we got a few other pictures of epic cosplayers. We then went around the artists alley again, because I was in such a hurry for the Aniplex panel I barely got to look around, and it was there I bought these independent comics called: A Day in the Life of a Cat Girl and Enchanted both by a wonderful artist named Kristen McGuire. Both were very good and a lot of fun, next year I hope to pick up the rest of Enchanted.
I did not get to look around the vendor’s area on Saturday, but we did end the early evening by heading out for Chinese (a tradition among my friends, at every anime convention we go out as a group and have Asian food). After we got back we looked at any of the late night panels going on and one struck my girls’ eye: WTF 101 (18+) hosted by none other than J. Michael Tatum (Sebastian Michaelis – Black Butler, Kraft Lawrence – Spice & Wolf) where you get to ask him any question you want, and if you win a coin toss he will answer it, but if you lose the coin toss then the tables are turned. Mostly the questions revolved around sex and the like, but the panel was great and it was a lot of fun. I was busting up laughing so much; a great way to end the second and busiest day at A-Kon. It’s also worth noting that we got to witness the voice behind Sebby-chan (as the BB character is known among fan girls) twerk it out. #TatumTwerkIt2014 Day 3 of the Kon – The last day, the day everything was supposed to wind down; naturally it did not. We got up and got ready, I didn’t have a costume ready for this day so I just dressed in my rad Kite t-shirt and off we went. The girlfriend was dressed as Mockingbird from Marvel Comics (classic outfit) so guess who got to carry everything around? This was the day I finally got to look around the vendor’s like I was hoping for, it’s the place in the con where I thrive the most salivating over all the cool crap that I can’t have. Oh well. While we were in there, cramped as all get out and barely able to even get into a booth, I did find one DVD I had been searching for a while and found it cheap too: Digimon the Movie which is frustratingly out of print. After getting that I wasn’t much concerned over not getting anything else, because I love that movie way too much. Mockingbird got a lot of great compliments and it was nice to know others who can recognize the character, though there were some who assumed she was Black Canary from DC Comics, because why? Walking around we also got to score a free illustration in the back of A Day in the Life of a Cat Girl by Kristen McGuire. It was very nice of her and I love the print. Shortly thereafter we got word that my friend who was dressed as Ikki lost his camera, which had dozens of photos on it. Great. So we scoured the vendor's room asking around for a good 10 minutes. Finally we found it thank God at one of the sword booths. 
Spike & Rarity from MLP.
Before the day was over I stopped by a few artist alley booths and checked out the web-comic called Spinnerette about Ohio's #3 premiere hero of the same name. She has spider powers but is utilized in a much different way than the ole Parker spider-hero. I've actually read a bit of it and it's really enjoyable; the story and art is by KrazyKrow. Next stop was the LittleKuriboh booth, for those who understand, he's the creator behind the fan-favorite – and wholly awesome – Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged web series. The best part about this was I got to meet LittleKuriboh himself and he was very nice! I bought from him a pretty cool double-sided coin that had Yugi on one side, and Yami on the other. That was where all the excitement ended, and thankfully it was on a good note. We hung out in the lounge of our hotel and ate lunch, and then headed out while listening to a Touhou soundtrack. Over all, not bad for a first out-of-state convention! I remember our original catalyst for going was because professional cosplayer Yaya Han was to be there (she was) and we wanted to meet her. Unfortunately we were unable to but we did get to see her at her booth talking to others. Funny how things work out, preparing for A-Kon as a whole was just awful as everything that could go wrong was going wrong in order to keep us from attaining our goal. I know I was stressing so bad that I was getting physically sick. When you're a fan of something though, and you want to share that excitement with others, it's generally worth all the pain and strife that one can go through in order to do just that. I love conventions, I love seeing and meeting all the wonderful people at conventions. I love seeing the cosplay that everyone puts grueling hours of hard work into, and I hope to be a better cosplay just like them in the future. I love all the cool things you can find a cons, and the awesome panels that can go on. It's just a big, awesome, exhausting get-together of fandoms who share mutual respect for one another. The atmosphere is just lovely. Project: A-Kon 25 gets a solid 4 out of 5 from me, it wasn't perfect as nothing ever truly is but it was hella enjoyable and I can't wait to go back next year! Now I leave you with this music video made at the con, we're not in it sadly, but it's pretty dang awesome. I'm gonna go prepare myself for the next convention coming up on my 2014 circuit: Izumicon in Oklahoma City! And that's that! How did you like this con report? Let us know in the comments! 
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