Halloween has come and past. For many people that is an opportunity to dress up as a favorite ghoul, superhero, tv personality, etc.
For those with interests in sci-fi and anime and are convention attendees, it’s another opportunity (among many) to dress up as a favorite character. So, I did.
Work had a Halloween costume contest. Prizes were involved. I asked my boss: “Does this mean I can come to work dressed up as a magical girl?” His response was an emphatic “YES!”
So, of course, I did. I wore my “Man-doka” cosplay that I have worn to conventions this past year.
I will tell you…doing receiving in this outfit is no easy task…the heels are a killer after a couple of hours.
A bunch of my co-workers and friends already know about this cosplay I do, but to see it in person was a blast for many of them. Co-workers who I am not friends with on social media, and didn’t know I dressed up like this for cons, were taken aback and quite amused. It made a lot of people happy.
After a week or so, I found out that I did win the contest. That was awesome. Beyond the contest it got me thinking about cosplay and why I do it (to the limited degree I do), and the benefits of cosplay.
When I started going to cons, I was a newbie. I went for a day, then two days, then the whole weekend. Then I looked at cosplay and thought to myself: “why not?” It was another way to connect and immerse myself in an experience. At first, I did a few that were more “normal” for me to do. Older males, etc.
After a time I got to thinking, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is one of my favorite shows…Maybe I should cosplay something from that.
The idea amused me…for a couple of reasons. I make a horrible looking magical girl and it would embarrass my boys being the primary ones. I played around with the idea, pitched it to a couple of friends, and finally bit the bullet. My first magical girl cosplay was Mami Tomoe, I called my version “Manny Tomoe” and I spoke in a gravelly faux East coast (USA) accent. It was a lot of fun. After that, I did Madoka Kaname, or “Man-doka” where I walked around talking like a version of The Tick. Loud, confident, and superhero-ish.
Do I feel loud, confident, and superhero-ish? Absolutely not. I have to psych myself up to dress like this. It’s takes me summoning a combination of courage and an attitude of not giving a fuck. And then off I go. I’m happy I do it. If for no other reason than this:
It makes (some) people happy. People smile. Get excited. Want to take a picture. It brightens someones day just a little. A lot of people outside the con-going community might not understand this. For some people, Halloween is the only socially acceptable time to dress up in a costume, and that’s too bad. I think sometimes, as adults, we forget the power of play. Of simple ridiculous fun.
I’m not a good cosplayer. There are many who are absolutely awesome. They make amazing outfits. They are artists. I have a great respect for that. There are people who just want to dress up to represent their favorite shows, video game, movie, character, etc. This is also awesome. It connects and bonds you to others who share your interests. There are people like myself who like a show, and just like making people smile a little. And all of us are out there to forget about life for a little while.
That’s why I like to dress up on days beyond Halloween. That’s why I love the cosplayers, each doing their own unique thing. And that is why I will keep doing it. Beyond work prizes, I made some people smile and brightened their day in a small and silly way.
Cosplay: Literally “Costume Play.” Dressing up and pretending to be a fictional character (usually a sci-fi, comic book, or anime character).
Cosplay is often a fun way to express your fandom. It helps show others what you like, escape into a character, and bond with other fans be it characters from sci-fi, comic books, or anime.
I have cosplayed. My sons have as well. I have done Kensei Ma from Kenichi The Mightiest Disciple and Yuugo Tennouji , aka “Mr Braun” (Steins Gate). My son has done Kululu from Sgt. Frog.
It’s fun. And I have had nothing but good experiences, as has my son. In fact, earlier this year at Anime Milwaukee, my son got invited to participate in the Masquerade (Cosplay competition) where everyone was very welcoming and supportive to him.
This, however, is not everyone’s experience.
I became aware that bullying was a thing in the cosplay community last year at Anime Midwest while attending voice actor, Greg Ayres’s panel: “Why Your Fandom Sucks”. He told a few horror stories where some fans take things too far and ruin the experience for others. It was through Greg Ayres’s Facebook page that I became aware of the documentary: “Cosplay With Kindness”.
The film maker was inspired to do this documentary after attending Greg Ayre’s “It Gets Better” panel at Anime-Zap. It is to address, and hopefully combat, bullying in the cosplay and convention going community.
Cosplay and conventions should be fun. I remember when I saw the “Why Your Fandom Sucks” panel Greg saying (and I paraphrase): “There is no wrong way to cosplay. If you are not the same size, race, or gender as the character that you are cosplaying as: Who cares? You are being a fan. If your outfit is not professionally perfect: It doesn’t matter. You are being a fan and sharing your love of something with others.”
That struck a chord with me. As a parent, and as a bit of an outcast myself, I appreciated this message. Support this project.
And more than anything else: Be kind!
-As a side note. It was my experience at Anime Midwest and seeing the Greg Ayres panel in 2014 that inspired me to start this blog.
Anime Midwest has come and gone. I am tired, but really happy. It was a blast and is my favorite Con so far. I packed up my two sons, their cousin, and my older son’s friend (my best friend’s daughter) and headed out early for Chicago. A nice option from the con: this year they started mailing badges for pre-registered attendees. However, I forgot to click the box for my boys to get their badges mailed so we had to pick theirs up at the con. Since we got there early, there was no line: no problem. We checked into the Hyatt Regency O’hare, got our badges, and brought all our stuff in to get ready for the con. The first panels, merch room, and other events began at 12 noon. My younger son and I went to see the opening ceremonies and the teens went their own way. It was a packed weekend and I had a hard time figuring out how to divide it all up to explain it, so here I go.
Panels and Guests
As I said earlier, the first panel that we attended was the opening ceremonies. This is where the convention staff do a little intro and introduce the many guests in attendance. It was running a little behind so we did not see the entire thing.
We left to see the “Meet Billy West” panel. Billy West is the voice actor known for Futurama (playing Phillip J. Fry, Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, Dr. John Zoidberg, and Zapp Brannigan), Ren and Stimpy, and a host of other roles. A great speaker and seemed to be a genuinely humble guy who really enjoyed talking with the audience. If you ever have the chance, go and see him.
We also caught the tail end of “Meet David Matangra”. He has a much larger catalog of anime credits than I was aware of but some of his more notable roles are: Bertolt on Attack on Titan, Daichi on Say I Love You, and Tomoya in Clannad. We only were able to hear about the last 10 minutes of his panel where he was talking about theater and some upcoming work he was doing. One thing you find is that a lot of the American voice actors have a background in theater.
Most of the other panels we caught were on Saturday.
We started off with “Reviewing 101”. This was an interesting panel, but more focused on You Tube style reviews. It was put on by a person who was a My Little Pony reviewer (among other things). It was informative anyways and a good slow way to start out the day.
We also caught part of the “Meet Caitlynn French” panel. I found out from that she has serious nerd cred being not only a anime fan, but a video game player, and table top gamer. She was recently announced as the voice for Shiro in No Game No Life (which she was very excited about). My son’s main reason for wanting to meet her was for her roles in AKB0048 (Suzuko) and Girls und Panzer (Hana). She is also a pre-school teacher in her non-voice acting life. My son spoke to her briefly after the panel and she was very cool to him.
The highlight panels for me on Saturday were the Greg Ayres panels: “Why “Your Fandom Sucks” and “It Gets Better- Anime Con Edition”.
“Why Your Fandom Sucks” is a panel on how fans can go off the rails, take their fandom a little too seriously, and how this can ruin things for others. Greg told horror stories of where fans did dumb things, outrageous things, and sometimes downright hurtful things all kind of tied to their various fandoms. It is a panel well worth attending if you have a chance. Greg is a good storyteller and the over-arching message of the panel is a good one: Be a good fan, don’t be a jerk, make a supportive community of fans, and that as long as you’re not hurting yourself or anyone else there is not really a “wrong way” to be a fan. As a parent I can get behind this kind of message and find it to be important.
“It Gets Better- Anime Con Edition” is based off the “It Gets Better” project which was started in response to a series to teen suicides where kids were being bullied for being (or perceived as being) gay. Greg hosts this panel to talk about bullying of LGBT teens and bullying in the fan community as well. Being the parent of an openly gay teen, this is another panel I truly appreciate.
The only other panel attended that weekend by my younger son and I was the “Boxers or Briefs- Multi Guest Q&A” on Sunday morning. This was a rapid fire Q & A panel where any silly question was asked. Many of the guests were recovering from heavy partying the night before and it got pretty raunchy. Oh well…I knew there would be some questionable parenting moments at the con. I have come to accept this will happen.. he did find the repeated answer of “three dicks” to be hilarious (best in context I guess) as any 11 year old would. Guests : John Swasey, Caitlynn French, Greg Ayres, Chris Rager, David Matranga, Joel McDonald, Chuck Huber, Sonny Strait, Spike Spencer, Chris Cason, Blake Shepard, DC Douglas, and Eric Stuart.
There were many other panels I would have loved to seen, but only so much time in a weekend to see it all.
Concerts
Anime Midwest really shined in the amount of musical guests they have…really quite a great line up of acts. I saw more than I planned on seeing (which was great) and wish I would’ve seen more.
Face Time Police
We wandered on this performance on the mini stage off of the Con Sweet ( a place for con-goers to get free rice, ramen, and soda). The duo does songs inspired by anime and video games. They had a lively acoustic set which was pretty enjoyable.
Brentalfloss
A comedian and musician who has a popular You Tube channel where he does video game music “With Lyrics” put on an entertaining performance. We ended up in this show thinking we were coming to the end of the Mega Ran and K-Murdock concert so we could be early for Steam Powered Giraffe, but everything was behind schedule so we saw most of Brentalfloss’s set. He was very fun and my son liked the “Mad Libs” song he did (a largely inappropriate version of “Let it Go”).
Mega Ran and K-Murdock
After Brentalfloss these guys came out and..damn! I am thrilled I got to see them! I had no prior experience with Mega Ran, but he was awesome live. He is considered to be the best known video-game influenced musical artist out there and is licensed by CAPCOM as their official rap/ hip hop artist. They ended their set with YT Cracker coming up on stage with them: it was awesome! I have gotten a couple of his recordings since the con and really like his stuff. Check him out!
Steam Powered Giraffe
We saw them last year and had to go see them again. The steam punk inspired robots putting on their show that is both music and comedic performance. They put on an excellent, entertaining show and are well worth a watch. My boys and myself were all looking forward to seeing them again.
Raves
There were Rave dances on both Friday and Saturday nights. The teens attended the rave on Saturday until around 1:00 am and I checked it out a little as well. While I don’t really dance to rave music, I could appreciate anyways. I like what I saw of Greg Ayres set more than the first and my older so liked his more as well. The downside of curfew for teens: they happened to leave right before $1000.oo in small bills was thrown into the audience. They weren’t happy to hear they missed that.
The Cosplays
There are always so many great cosplays, so many that I don’t know, and I always mean to take more pictures, but never seem to get enough.
Holy Madoka! There were a lot of Puella Magi Madoka Magica cosplays at this con. I got so many pictures since my son was stopping everyone to take his own pictures of them. I have thought it would be hilarious/ disturbing if I cosplayed as Mami Tomoe sometime, but not shaving my beard and walking with an exaggerated “man” walk while complaining about the other magical girls and about getting older…
Metalocalypse
Zapp Brannigan cross-play and a minion.
Not sure who they all are, but video game related I think. They all did great jobs on their costumes.
Nudist Beach (Kill La Kill) and Mekakucity Actors
Clannad (Tomoyo and Tomoya) and Full Metal Alchemist (Lust and Greed)
Danmachi (Hestia), Ouran High School Host Club (Tamaki), Dragon Ball (Master Roshi)
Nisekoi (Chitoge and Onodera), A Spiderman, No Face, Winry Rockbell (FMA), and Stein (Soul Eater).
A few more pictures I took. A Jon Snow, some colorful people, and “Kawaii-Vader”.
It wouldn’t be a con without a couple of furries…
My favorite photo I took. A cross-play of Death The Kid (Soul Eater)
The kids
My son finally got Chuck Huber to autograph the headpiece for his Kululu cosplay, which was awesome.
Lesson: Never leave a horse mask unattended..
A ramen lunch at Mitsuwa is always a good idea.
Exhausted kids on the way home means a job well done.
A night of poor sleep and breakfast (tip: bring as much of your own food as possible. You will save money which is a good thing at a con) we headed out to see a panel.
The first panel of the day was of interest to me: “Parents Guide to Anime”. This panel was presented by Mr. David Rothman who is author of a book of the same name as the panel. He was a knowledgeable presenter who guide d the audience through a background in anime, it’s influences that western (American audiences) may find objectionable, and how to screen for things as a parent. He had a scholarly approach, but it was also very evident that he is a fan as well. It was an enjoyable and interesting panel. I had spoken to him the day before and I will be reviewing his book at a later date.
After that it was time to wander and go to the merchandise room.
Of course there were cosplayers of all sorts.
Like from Devil is a Part-Timer.
Dragons from Yona of the Dawn.
Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.
Eruka and Blair from Soul Eater.
And of course Soul and Maka.
Mayoi Hachikuji from Bakemonogatari.
No convention would be complete with out Deadpools.
My younger son and I decided we were going to go out for lunch at Mitsuwa Market, but on our way back to the hotel to get the car we did see these guys.
Mitsuwa Market is a Japanese supermarket chain that have a few locations throughout the USA. Each features a food court with several restaurants featuring Japanese foods.
We had planned on going there for their ever popular ramen, but decided on something different. We instead opted to go to the place serving rice bowls. My son got Katsudon and I opted for the garlic pork rice bowl. The wait was long…very long…probably 1 1/2 hours to order and get our food. It was good though. Very tasty!
And for desert from Releaf: Chocolate for him and a Matcha Parfait for me.
After the long break we returned to the con to see The Funimation Industry panel followed by the Noragami dub premiere with a voice actor panel after featuring Micah Solusod, Bryn Apprill, and Alexis Tipton. It was a good dub and the voice actors were amusing.
We encountered a few characters before and after our panels of course.
Monthly Girls Nozaki-Kun
Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist.
These two from Kancolle (I did not envy them trying to maneuver through the crowds).
La Muerte from Book of Life.
It was a long day and we headed back to the hotel to get some rest before a short day at the con on Sunday and a long drive home.
Sunday we hit the merch room one last time, watched part of a Anime Tearjerker panel and saw the Samurai Dan panel/ performance. If you get a chance: go see Samurai Dan and Jillian, they are a lot of fun.
This was my first trip to Anime Central, the largest and longest running (I believe) anime convention in the Midwest United States. It is held in Chicago at The Hyatt Regency O’hare and Donald Stephens Convention Center. It runs Friday- Sunday and attracts somewhere around 30,000 attendees. Guests this year included Scandal (band from Japan), fashion designers Akira and Mika Takeuchi, various DJs from Japan who performed at the raves, and American voice actors: Cherami Leigh, Micah Solusod, and Bryn Apprill. This is just a sampling: there were many more.
I took my boys and one of their friends down to the convention. This was our first year going. We headed out early and arrived at the convention by 10am. My younger son and I wandered one direction, the other two went off on their own.
We first watched the opening ceremonies where all the guests were introduced.
After that we went to watch the “One Hour Gundam Rant”panel and the left part way through for the “Meet Cherami Leigh” panel. That was a fun time, she was an entertaining, engaging, and friendly guest. She voices”Asuna”in Sword Art Online, “Lucy” in Fairy Tail, “Lizzie” in Black Butler, “Patty” in Soul Eater, and (the pressing reason for my son) “Natsumi” from Sgt Frog.
He even got a picture with her, along with the autograph on his head piece. She loved it!
After that we headed to the merch room and saw the dizzying array of vendors and artists who were there selling everything anime related.
On our way we ran into a few things…
Like a roaming pack of Skelators.
A yuri bear (Yuri Kuma Arashi) and her super hero friend.
Koro- Sensei from Assassination Classroom.
Nudist Beach and Ryuko from Kill La Kill.
And Elizabeth from Gintama.
After that we took a break back at the hotel room for a bit (which the two older ones had decided to do as well).
My younger son then decided he wanted to get in some “Magic The Gathering” card playing time, so we wandered down to the game room.
He played a sound tech who had some down time and got beaten both times, but to be fair the guy had a really good deck.
While he was playing I spotted a cosplayer from Kancolle across the hall.
Turned out to be a cross player, but that is to be expected at cons.
After that everyone was pretty tired. We ordered a deep dish pizza from Giordanos, had dinner and called it a day.
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