Kumoricon Day 1: For Real

At this point I was hyped.  I had all my things, we had just stepped off the bus and were walking up to the pavement.  Walking up to that hotel, I was looking around, looking for any sign of the con.  It was raining, and I saw two Goth-looking Girls walking up in the same direction as us with black umbrellas.

I knew we had found it.

The entrance was conspicuous enough.  Crowded with people that had blue hair, skirts, fake swords, and schoolgirl uniforms was the entrance.  I recognized none of the cosplayers, though I felt I should have.  But it was alright.  I knew this was just the tip of the iceberg, right?  In a way, it was.  There were far more animes, mangas, and video games that I did not recognize.  The few and far in between I did recognize, well... I was thankful I wasn't a complete noob.

So, into the lobby we went.

Hooray for Stairs!  (Taken on Second Day)

So all around were strange looking people.  It was great.  We were attempting to sign in and get our badge holders, and after a little confusion, we found the line, on the other side of the building.  We went up the first of many broken (or shut down) escalators, and picked up the holders (I clipped mine on my sleeve) and a swag bag, or schwag bag as it were.  Not sure what to do, as we had not planned anything from the schedule we printed out from the internet, the group looked to me to lead them somewhere.  I honestly can't say why, I've never been picked to lead before... but I took charge.  I headed straight downstairs, looking for the vendors.  They weren't open yet, unfortunately, but I did notice the video game room.  Now was time for some fun.  Checking my bag in was easy enough, but then I wanted to play some Brawl (Being a 360 guy, but a Nintendo Fanboy for the past like, 12 years, this was something I was waiting for) and that was a little more complex.  I asked somebody to play, and this obviously made me look like a complete noob, because they looked at me skeptically and asked, "Do you have a controller?"  I replied with a feeble "no."  So he gestured to the counter and said "Well then go get one, there are only two players here, geez."  My head still held high, I gracefully stood and ran over to the line, where I waited for about a half hour to get a gamecube controller.

And that's where I found the first theme of this trip:  Waiting.

But more on that later.  I went back, played some Brawl, and then the opening ceremonies were starting up.  Fortunately, we were about... 10 minutes early, so we were safe.  I should have learned from that mistake, but unfortunately, there was no line to show me a glimpse of things to come on the third day.  The opening ceremonies were fun.  I clapped, yelled, screamed, and cried out when Aries's death was stomped on with everybody else, excited to be part of the event.  But afterwards, that was the... not so fun part.

There was a thing, a little thing that I had tried to plan out for right after the opening, that I sort of wanted to go to.  It was the Persocomm Ear Workshop, and it just sounded like fun (I've been a fan of Chobits for a while...

There's "Cute Chii" As opposed to "Other Cute Chii" Pose.

And just thought it might be a fun thing to do here.

But the next hour was Hour≥Frustration.  Looking for the workshop with unclear maps was hard enough... the elevator was packed, with an actual line that this picture can't show accurately, as I hadn't started taking pictures yet:

Srsly??

That hall was crowded with people trying to get in from either side, the elevators saturated with people already.  Nobody could find the stairs.  I kept glancing back to my map, knowing that, according to it, there should be TWO sets of stairs leading up to that floor.  The first time I wanted to find the athletic club, my group said "No, I think that's for hotel guests only".  I had seen people going in, but maybe they were hotel guests?  I sighed, and continued my search.  Eventually, we started to wait in line, after a botched attempt at the quote unquote "information desk" (Be mindful that I'm not badmouthing the people that put on this convention at all – they did an amazing job, they just could have been a bit more informed).  But then I saw more cosplayers heading into the Athletic club.  I convinced my party to explore, and found the stairs.  It was like finding 50 bucks on the floor.  So, we found it.  The secret passage to the third floor.  After that we thought, why not go wait in line for the vendors?  Well, it was more... go see the vendors.  They had been shut down at that point, and we were trying to get in.  The escalators were blocked, and when we went down the secret stairs (Which were labeled after this point, I might add, though not on the Athletic Club doors) everyone had been evacuated.  Then we just hung out a little, trying to figure out what to do.  That was when I took my first picture in the lobby, on my phone.

Ah, Zelda... You shall never be safe, and will ALWAYS get kidnapped again.  Takes out the Joy.

It was so great... just asking and taking the picture...  At this point I really wanted to remember this con, so I decided the next time I texted my parents, to ask to bring the camera.

Anyways, we went out to eat mexican after we figured out how big the line was:

Curses!  Foiled again!

And I took another picture to complete my Zelda Disguise Set:

A woman, dressing as Sheik?  Impossible!

And when we returned, that was when the real fun began.

Kumoricon Prequel

So, right now, it's the end of the second day, and I'm just making up this post.  Honestly, I just wanted to think about how I felt before K-Con, though I can't think of that right now as clearly as I could then.  So, for now, this will just be a short chronicle of my fun at K-Con.

At first, I really wanted to go.  I love the idea of cons -- get a bunch of nerds together and go wild!  But the idea goes much deeper than that.  It's really a bunch of people that may or may not know each other, but they all love the thing that binds them together -- in this case, it's anime.

I know that's a broad spectrum(or small, depending on who you are).  There were video game fans there, movie, TV, even Star Wars fans.  But the Con is based on anime and manga, and everything spreads from there.

I was thinking about cosplaying, but I decided against it until I saw other cosplayers.  I didn't want to look like an idiot, and besides, I didn't feel like going through all that trouble.  The night before I had ribs, played some anime-based video games (like Ocarina of Time) to get myself in the mood, and went to bed, eager to start the con.

And what a con it's been.