JACON

Greetings from JACON, the con that led me to question whether or not I'm in the right fandom. I think I'm transitioning (or have transitioned) from 'typical anime fan' to 'older guy who remembers the glory days of watching cartoons'. I don't even watch a whole lot of anime anymore. Oh well, that didn't stop me from paying $36 for a 3-day pass (of which I used maybe 8 hours worth).

Anyway, let's get to the pictures.

1) Nerd fight club, presided over by the undead master of the ring (see background). Honestly I'm surprised the con and the hotel let them do this, even if they were using foam bats to beat each other with. Meanwhile, the ring was taking up valuable dealer's room space, negating the size increase from JACON's previous venue. Sadly, this was only 50% of what was worth taking pictures of on Friday. The other half was...

2) Motherfuckin' zombies. No, I have no idea why they were there. Maybe they got the wrong con? Who knows. Not that I'm complaining; there have been zombies in anime and video games before, and they fit in just fine with the rest of the crowd (zombie shuffling looks remarkably similar to convention meandering). There was one that was absolutely huge - I guess he'd started the flesh-eating early. And I was sad that Tomonobu Itagaki was added to their ranks.

We got our fill of the dealer's room and the adjoining halls, so we decided to mix it up and actually watch some anime at an anime con. I know, I was weirded out, too. We took in two episodes of Hayate the Combat Butler, which was exactly what its name implied and was better than I thought it would be.

After finding out firsthand that Friday evening is not the time to come to a convention, we got food at a goddamn Shoney's. You don't see those in the wild that often anymore. Unfortunately we made the mistake of going to a Shoney's after 12 PM so we were relegated to the dinner buffet. Shoney's isn't known for its dinner buffet, and this one was a prime example why. It wasn't bad, per se, it was just a) seafood, which I'm not a fan of to begin with, b) fairly small, only one three-sided buffet with a small tray of donuts off to the side, and c) $11.99. Our waiter took forever to get our drinks and we only got 1 refill, so that didn't help.

Saturday:

3) Anonymous. This is incontrovertible proof that Anonymous has to be stopped. It was funny at Megacon, but here it just seemed a little tired. They walked around the con with the pictured boombox blaring "Never Gonna Give You Up", "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", and I'm sure other tried and true songs that I'm blocking out at the moment. I could hear other con-goers complaining about getting RickRolled, and if people complain about Rick Astley you've done your job, so I'll let Anonymous live, for now.

4) Yet again in the anime room, I snapped a picture of a con's most valuable freebie: the guidebook and accompanying event schedule. I was disappointed, since JACON didn't give you a free loot bag to carry your crap in this year. Maybe that was to compensate for the bigger venue?

5) The book was kind enough to include some meta humor. I'm guessing they needed space to fill when an advertiser pulled out. Then again, last I checked this con was run by nerds so it might have just been an honest attempt at humor.

We watched Ghost Hound while waiting for the AMV contest. I didn't even think to suggest going to the [adult swim] panel, but I should have, since Ghost Hound was boring as all hell. I'll give it some credit though: after setting up this mysterious atmosphere in episode 1, episode 2 actually bothers to explain what the hell is going on (or at least what you're supposed to think is going on). Most anime doesn't even bother until the last episode, and even then usually opts for the mind screw. However, that was balanced by the fact that it was directed by the guy who did Serial Experiments Lain, so that should explain what I blew 60 minutes of my life on.

Next we sat in on the AMV contest. I got in some more time on The World Ends With You, since I'll be damned if I was going to watch some of that crap. Seriously, what happened to AMVs? Here's a brief primer on how to win a modern AMV contest: 1) Get an idea beyond 'Anime A set to Music B to make Video C', and at least try to select music that's either thematically relevant or ironic enough to get some lulz, not just stuff you hear on the radio; 2) Use DVDs or RAWs for your footage - please don't use fansubs; and 3) Don't be afraid to cut to something else. Jesus. One of the videos was a Sasuke video set to "Carry On Wayward Son," which was hilariously awesome, until I realized they'd just hit Play on their video and audio sources and called it a video. Whatever. At least some of the winners were good.

6) Dan sent me a picture of him posing with “Black Akuma”, so I felt compelled to snap a picture of “Black Akuma” on the east coast. Before anyone complains, Dan started it.

7) Again, I think someone came to the wrong con. Then again, with an Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device, you don't really have any control where you end up. I think this is a case of anime fandom adopting something outside its purview based on the fact that it's awesome.

8) High school friend dressed as someone. I couldn't tell if he was supposed to be Marth, Ike, or Parn at the time; knowing Kevin I should have known it was the latter. I was only 50/50 on whether or not to take a picture of him, until I realized it was him, then I totally had to. I think he called me Casey - which is way out of left field - so I was tempted to delete it :P.

Third time was the charm for anime this con. While waiting for the George and Spike panel we watched Spice and Wolf (or Wolf and Spice, depending on if you go by the fansubber or the anime itself). It's about a travelling merchant in some pseudo-European fantasy world who's joined by a pagan god of the harvest - in this case, a wolf who takes the form of a redhead with wolf ears and a giant tail - to take the god back to her birthplace in the north, as she's no longer needed in a world transitioning to an age of reason led by a monotheistic church. The little details of the world really drew me in, and both of the leading characters (and some of the supporting characters) were interesting enough to draw me into monologues about economies in a medieval society. We'll be watching more of this in the future for sure.

9) Space Ghost at the George and Spike panel. As always, George Lowe was great. That day he shared a panel with Spike Spencer (guy with the long hair behind Space Ghost's left hand), and not 5 minutes into the panel both of them had me in stitches. Like most panels they were bombarded with Dumb Fan Questions, but neither one took it sitting down. (Well, they actually were sitting but... you know.) This guy came in early in the panel and warranted George's attention. George then proceeded to regale us with his experience at Comic Con where a Space Ghost cosplayer had neglected to wear underwear, and he was, quote, "happy to be there." There, now you share George's pain.

10) This was a good costume. I forget the character's name, but this guy did a good job. That job when from 'pretty good' to 'totally awesome' when I snapped this picture and all of the reflective tape and florescent tubes on his costume caught the flash and made for a kickass pic. The guy on the right was Genesis, and I was hoping to get both of them in the same shot, but dudefella's costume completely overrode the other guy's.

11) I see Dan's Black Akuma, and raise him... Black Morrigan! Yes, I'm well aware I'm going to hell; no, I'm not comfortable with that. When I went to get her picture she offered to pose. I thought she looked good sitting like she was and I didn't to have her get up immediately after sitting down, so I asked her to pose right where she was. She didn't seem too pleased.

12) This guy's hair was hueg. Seriously. The duo's cool factor went up when I saw them walking piggyback through the con, so they got bonus points for character (if not costume) accuraccy.

13) This won Best of Show at the costume contest. This is probably because a) it wasn't Bleach, b) it wasn't Naruto, c) she had extendable/collapseable wings, and d) she had a wierd plasma laser thing on her chestplate. Good costume all around, too.

14) Last but not least. I don't know what character this is - probably from some ninja anime I've never heard of >.> - but I had to get this picture when I realized she was holding a live animal. I feel bad for any dog or cat that is forced by its master to wear clothing, but the idea of 'dogsplay' tickled me.

We topped off our adventure with a trip to another rare animal, Cici's Pizza. I've never had a bad experience here, since going for the first time before seeing Episode 1 in the theaters with my brother and his friend. For a $5.49 pizza, pasta and salad buffet, I think we'll stop any time. That might explain my waistline.

All in all it was a good time (otherwise I wouldn't have written a dissertation on it). I think we've come to the conclusion that we won't be buying weekend passes to JACON in the future (if we decide to go, since our attendance came into question several times). Some of these people are just weird - like the 15-year-olds going around with 'Free Hugs' and 'Will Yaoi for $1.50' signs - but it's starting to dawn on me that there's no room for elitism in this subculture. To paraphrase a similar revelation related to the roleplaying community, at the end of the day, we're still people who enjoy sitting down to watch cartoons.