A-kon 21

A-kon has come and gone, and here I am posting about it in less than a week! Exciting.

Unfortunately I don’t have much of a con report, because I didn’t see much of the con.  A great deal of my experience was ruined by terrible roommates.  I have learned a lesson there.  Sadly, I think I could have made room plans with a complete stranger and THEY probably would have been more courteous than these two people, one of whom I was acquainted with.

I’m happy to say that the cosplay this year was actually pretty varied.  There’s still some Chi’s (Chobits) about, but not near as much Naruto/Bleach/Kingdom Hearts/Final Fantasy as I’ve seen in recent years.  It’s nice to see that the crazes seem to be calming down a little bit.  However there must have been around 20 Luffy’s and at least a dozen Grell Sutcliffe’s which sucked for me, because I was looking for a specific Luffy and a specific Grell and I was also silly and didn’t bother to message either of them before the con so we could get together.  That’s an opportunity missed, especially since I don’t think I’ll be going back to A-kon next year.  I want to try and hit another convention, and my thoughts are going toward either Anime Boston or Anime Weekend Atlanta.

I did some cosplay for a few hours.  I got hugged quite a bit, mostly by people also cosplaying Deidara from Naruto.  It’s pretty weird, but nice to be loved.  I have to admit that at that point I was pretty down, and hugs from strangers picked me up some.  Yeah, I know.  It’s weird.  I also really enjoyed baffling fellow con-goers by simply staring at them when they decided to speak to me.  Mostly about how odd it was for Deidara and Gaara to be sitting together without fighting or being dead.  I’m pretty awkward socially, but it was also pretty funny to just watch the bafflement on their faces as they continued talking, like that was going to get me to respond to them.  Poor guys.

I did buy a lot of figures, and I will probably be taking some pictures to post over the weekend.  I was happy to find a Grell Sutcliffe, which goes nicely with my Sebastian, and I started a Zoro collection with a 10th anniversary One Piece figure – where apparently they had some joint thing going with Dragonball.  What a weird crossover.  Anyway, I also picked up about half a set of Petit Nendoroid Vocaloids, but I didn’t manage to get a Kaito, who I REALLY wanted.  However I did snag all three versions of Miku, though I have to confess that mostly I wanted her default.

I’ll leave you with pictures of my favorite cosplayer out of the approximately six cosplayers I took pictures of.  I’m getting weirdly shy about taking people’s pictures – I always mean to take more pictures, but I usually don’t.  Cursed shyness.  Anyway, here’s a couple pictures of a cool Zoro cosplayer.

Zoro cosplayer A-kon 21 (2010)

Zoro cosplayer close-up A-kon 21 (2010)