Since 2004 friends and I had attended Anime Detour in Bloomington, MN. It was small but still fun, and conveniently located. However, the awful girl that ran the Masquerade for cosplay competition ruined it for us and we decided to hit Chicago this year instead.

Rising far earlier than I would normally consider civil, six of us (with one other waiting for us in Chicago) left Minneapolis and arrived for the three day weekend with plenty of time to get into our costumes and start a new Con experience for the first time in years.

To compare, Anime Detour has just over 3000 attendees. Anime Central had around 17000.

For me the highlight of any Con is cosplaying. Halloween is my favorite holiday for a reason. I love dressing up.

This year I was an original design of Emeralda from the classic video game Xenogears, and one of the more seldom seen costumes for Sheryl Nome from the anime Macross Frontier.

We had a whole Macross Frontier Group the second day, which is always the most fun, and were stopped frequently for photos.

I admit that my ego is well stroked at these events and that it is one of the main reasons I enjoy attending Cons.

How often do normal people get to experience being the center of attention to the point that they are mauled, glomped, and captured on camera because others think they are awesome?

Of course there is much more to do at Cons then just cosplay.

Artist Alley is always where I start because I enjoy prints of fanart and usually get a commission from one of the artists. I did not this year, but my friend Alexandria had a wonderful comic artist depict her as Jubillee from X-Men. Our money was well spent.

There is also the Dealer Room with merchandise of all kinds that are anime, video game, and sometimes just generally geek related. Like the awesome “Bag of Holding” D&D tote bag I almost bought.

Most of my money was spent on getting a real photo shoot for us, however, thanks to Cosprints that had set up a booth with very reasonable prices for stickers, 4×6 prints, and 8x10s.

Be sure and check them out at their site, Cosprints.com! They were a lifesaver, since we often forget to take the time for good photos.

The main events throughout the day for Cons are panels. We usually don’t hit the panels because when we do we are almost always bored and disappointed. The only one we attended this year was the one for Macross, and it was very lackluster. Just a sparsely attended slideshow. Informative for those who know nothing about the series, but not really the engaging discussion I would have liked for those of us who do know something.

We did hit one of the anime rooms and watched the Animatrix-like movie for Dante’s Inferno, based off of the video game that is in turn loosely based off of the literary work. I enjoyed it and the shift in art styles throughout the various scenes.

My husband kicked butt at BattleTec, which had simulators of Mechs for players to compete against each other.

He took first place his first time through.

There were video game rooms and tabletop gaming. Hallway cosplay and karaoke. And photoshoots galore outside for groups from the same series to all get together.

FYI, if I see one more Naruto, Bleach, or Kingdom Hearts cosplayer, I may have to kill someone.

There were dances both Friday and Saturday night with different DJs, even some direct from Japan. The only drawback at such a large Con is the wait to get inside.

They really need to have more than one available dance each night, maybe with themes, to better split the crowd.

Then there was the Masquerade where the lucky few who managed to get slots for the show parade their costuming talent for prizes. There were 25 skits and 75 walk-ons.

There were some amazing costumes, but as my husband commented the other day:

“Most cosplay is terrible. At least 80% is painful to look at.”

And it is. Most costumes are either poorly or wrongly made, the person wearing it isn’t right for the role, or there is some other telling wrongness about it.

Of course there are always exceptions. People who are just amazing tailors and seamstresses, people who are near lookalikes for their chosen characters, and just some beautiful people too.

Yaya Han had to go and be nice as well as gorgeous.

I have to admit though that one of the most surprising things at Anime Central was the amount of Crossplay.

It’s common to see girls dress up as male characters. I see it all the time. But in Chicago there was a much larger population of men dressing as female characters, or just cross-dressing in general.

To me it really drove home the reason I love things like Anime conventions. They give those of us who are different the chance to all get together and be as crazy and as much ourselves as we want without having to worry about anyone thinking we’re strange.

I had a great time overall. Maybe we’ll return to Anime Central, maybe we’ll give Detour a try again since we hear that the evil cosplay witch is gone. Maybe we’ll try Comic Con finally (here’s hoping).

Regardless, I always have a blast dressing up and seeing the sites at a Convention. If you haven’t tried one yourself yet, you are missing out.

To use a quote often referenced in one of my favorite anime, Saiyuki:

“If we’re all fools together, we may as well dance.”

~G³

Next week: “Lines that should no longer be spoken in movies”.

Thanks for tuning in.

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