Reports of the Apocalypse - Ayacon 2013

So as most of you know, I go to anime conventions. In fact if you’ve been in contact with me for any decent stretch of time, you’ve probably had to listen to me squeal about them at least once. But fifty percent of the time, I tell people this, and get met with blank looks.

First let me break it down for any of the non geeks who read my blog:

Anime: Japanese animation/cartoons.

Convention: A large gathering of nerds from all over the country (although some come further afield) to meet, socialise, learn more about their shared passion, dress up and get rip roaringly drunk for the entire weekend.

Anime is the main theme for an anime convention, although other nerdisms such as comic books, manga, games (video and non), sci fi, fantasy and other Japanese culture are welcome as brothers in arms. Anime cons are held all over the world, and usually take place in hotels, on university campuses or other public venues. Aside from running social events and giving anime fans around the country a chance to meet and make friends, the conventions also offer panels, workshops, competitions and other fun events to keep us entertained when the alcohol starts to wear off.

This was my fifth convention (Kitacon 09, Amecon 10, Amecon 12, Sunnycon 13 and Ayacon 13 – I was registered for Ayacon 11 but came down with tonsillitis the day before) and in spite of how much I rant about them, I’ve never covered any of my anime conventions in detail. But as I have a netbook this year, I thought I’d take the opportunity to report some of the highlights of Ayacon 2013 for anyone who is curious.

So without further ado, roll the opening credits!

(Translation: terminology for the non geeks who read my blog attached in the footnotes where appropriate)

Thursday 15^th August

A not so auspicious start to our weekend away – our flight to Birmingham was delayed by an hour due to mechanical troubles. I don’t mind living on Guernsey – I really don’t – but on occasions like this I think mournfully of a time when I was at university, and events like this were just a train journey and under £50 away, as opposed to flight delays that set you back by about £250. I spent most of the wait in Guernsey’s tiny departure lounge yawning and declaring to anyone who would listen that AMs were a ridiculous notion and should be scrapped for the benefit of all, and cuddling Tai, who was leaning as far away as she could from the child who was loitering creepily at her shoulder for about half an hour.

On the plus side, The Jeremy Kyle Show was playing on Guernsey Airport departure’s lone widescreen TV, so we had something to take the piss out of while we waited.

We made it to Birmingham, and settled for lunch at Costa due to the small size of the airport, before setting off for the train station and discovering a Subway right inside – words cannot describe our disappointment.

I wasn’t sure what I expected Coventry to look like – its one of those cities I’ve heard mentioned in passing on television and film, but never actually seen or bothered to investigate. First impression was that it reminded me of Southampton, only with less sea and many many more trees. Also it has some rather interesting looking statues and sculptures around – the ones that twist and form weird shapes that you’re sure are supposed to have some kind of symbolic value beyond “it looks like a slinky on crack”, but bugger if you know what it is.

Warwick University, the location of Ayacon, is by far one of the most difficult to access anime conventions in the United Kingdom, unless you happen to be lucky enough to own a car, in that it’s miles from the city centre. Which is a shame because the campus is rather lovely. There’s a lot of road, admittedly, but the walks alongside it are shady, leafy and surprisingly peaceful. We got rained on as we arrived, and fled for the relative safety of the SU.

With rain striking unpredictably and our room keys still not ready for another hour, Tai and I hung around with her anime soc from York in the empty games room (1). The York anime soc are lovely people, and have awesome dress sense. I immediately went into fangirl mode over Mike, who informed me that he was cosplaying (2) as Rider from Fate/Zero, though I calmed down significantly when he told me that he was only wearing the tshrit, not the full armour (a little disappointed, but the tshirt is still cool). I also fell in love with a pair of Steve’s boots – heeled, knee high, and purple with black lace. I don’t mind telling you that I started drooling over the head of my Bakura plushie just looking at them.

Did I mention that most of York anime soc wear corsets (yes, the men too)? Now these are my kind of people! Next year, I’m determined to join the corset awesomeness!

The halls are what I’ve come to expect from student accommodation – standard furniture and blank walls. And for a con, that’s all you need. Your room is just a place to crash, store your cosplays and apply make up and hairspray. A polite sign on the hall doors informed us not to leave our windows open, for the magpies are numerous and fond of our complimentary biscuits. Tai and I instantly got to work hanging up our outfits – this is the soundest advice I can give any cosplayer. For Gods sake, find hangers as a matter of urgency, and bring a travel iron, especially if you’re like us and make your outfits out of cotton, linen and all of those other easy-to-crease fabrics!

There were two small leaks in my suitcase – my shower gel, and my body spray. Still, they’re both Lush, so there are worse things that they could smell of. And speaking of smelling, the belt of my Kisara cosplay, which was dyed in coffee to make the colour darker, still smelt like you’ve wandered into Starbucks. Apparently someone introduced Kisara to espressos. Beware the caffeinated Blue Eyes White Dragon!

As Tai had been to Ayacon before, she could report from experience that the limited eating establishments on campus are like a January sale in London during convention meal times. So after unpacking and locating the kettle and teabags (we got complimentary hot chocolate and biscuits too, which makes me love Warwick all the more!), we consulted our maps over a lovely cup of tea, and found that the Tescos was a twenty minute walk away. Might sound long, but its actually a rather nice walk, and there was a Boots next door too, which turned out to be a blessing, as Tai and I had both reached that moment in the first day of the holiday where we had remembered all the things that we did not have.

Top tip for cosplayers – if you’ve forgotten to buy a wig cap, buy a cheap pair of ladies tights. Tie off the legs close to the crotch, cut the excess off, and voila! Instant wig cap. If you are not wearing a wig, please disregard this advice, unless you wish to be mistaken for a bank robber.

Top tip for people wearing shoes – buy blister plasters! Tai learned the hard way at Amecon 12 that nothing will ruin your weekend faster than blisters. This advice may also be used by people who aren’t wearing shoes.

As well as all the little cosplay extras, we also purchased instant noodles, just in case the aforementioned rush of hungry con-goers proved too much. Its moments like this that I’m glad that I live in a country where we have electric kettles that don’t need a stove and boil in under three minutes (suck it America!).

Taking advantage of our free schedules, Tai and I headed into Coventry for dinner. After a little researching, we decided on Nandos, with me vaguely hoping that I might convert another of my friends to my favourite Portuguese chicken chain. Sadly it was not to be – Tai had a rather lacklustre pitta and left unimpressed. Next time, we shall bring our ID and go next door to Weatherspoons.

Fed, our next challenge was obvious – sorting out our cosplays for Friday. Hanging them up is all well and good, but breaking out the travel iron is almost a requirement for most outfits. We spirited one of the four ironing boards out of the kitchen and set up camp in Tai’s room. She got to work ironing Sango, while I tackled the second most important job of cosplay maintenance – wig brushing.

Experience has taught me that a good wig is always a more expensive wig. Nowhere is this more apparent than brushing. I never look forward to brushing my Lucy wig, which was cheap, and really needs replacing as clumps of the hair have vanished, and some of the plastic strands have been stretched out. Kisara was not cheap, and brushes like a dream. As I have no head stand, I ended up using one of our big bottles of water, which gave the unfortunate impression that I was displaying a severed head on my desk.

Prepped, all we could do now was get some sleep before the madness kicked off tomorrow.

Friday 16^th August

One of the biggest advantages of anime conventions is the cooked breakfasts.

I rarely have full English breakfasts, and these days I’m so conscious of my IBS that I avoid most of the stuff there like the plague. But on this occasion I treated myself in moderation and made sure to have a lot of fibre and peppermint tea to supplement the indulgence. Double bonus for breakfast –we met up with our long time convention friend Mew, and her companion con-virgin Adam.

Double negative for the morning – it was raining. Heavily. And two of my three cosplays had problems with the rain. I hastily abandoned the idea of Kisara that morning and donned my kimono instead. Luckily the Costcutter on campus was selling umbrellas for £3. Tai was smart and brought a raincoat, which at least sort of matched the colour scheme of Sango.

Fed, we headed for registration in the rain with our friends. Registration was remarkably quick, and I caught sight of possibly the bravest woman at the convention, cosplaying as Princess Leia in the gold bikini...in the rain. I had to salute her.

Our lunchtime stop was Cosplay HQ for the Tails Workshop, stopping at the cosplay board to add our own pearls of wisdom to the wall of post-it suggestions. I for my part, recommended body tape. The Tails Workshop turned out to be a lot of fun, and not only because it was two hours spent making terrible innuendo around the bag of stuffing. Tai walked away with a lovely white cat tail, and I came away with a brown wolf tail.

We had lunch at the cafe in the Arts Centre before heading for the opening ceremonies, which ended up being shorter than I was used to (but amusement was found in the queue outside where about eighty percent of the con-goers immediately got out their DS’s and began playing). I also spent the next two hours with the Imperial March stuck in my head after overhearing two blokes at the table next to us talking about Star Wars. We located many of our friends in the Opening Ceremonies – George, Zack and Gideon all popped out by the end (we’d also located Francis outside the Costcutter earlier and much hugging ensued), and it was lovely to see them all. We raced outside for a quick photoshoot before heading for the next panels.

Tai and I quickly discovered that our sentence of the day was “Steampunk and then Penguins” used to describe our evening. The Steampunk (3) panel followed on from the Opening Ceremonies, and made me rather hyper for hats and cravats. This panel was immediately followed by the Illustrated History of Anime Penguins, which was every bit as awesome as it sounded, and sent me into a giant squee-fit when YuGiOh! got mentioned. I was a little disappointed that YuGiOh! Abridged didn’t make it into the list, if only because it meant that the presentation was lacking one of my favourite quotes.

“Wait, how did you get all that information about me?”

“The penguins told me.”
“How the hell do the penguins know my bra size?!”

“THE PENGUINS KNOW EVERYTHING!”

Anxious about the history of Ayacon’s busy mealtimes, Tai, Mew, Adam and myself headed for La Gusta one of the restaurants in the Arts Centre, which I believe had only been opened recently. I was certainly inclined to believe this fact, as we went in and it was mostly empty. Service was a bit slow, but the food was good so I was not going to complain.

Adam and I shot off after dinner for our favourite panel – Bring on the Yaoi Army. As a huge yaoi (4) fan I always look forward to this panel, and I did enjoy it. I didn’t win anything this time, but to be honest I have more manga than I know what to do with. I enjoyed the clips and took a few notes on animes that I might want to get into, up until the last five minutes (anyone who was there may understand why the last two clips made me slightly uncomfortable).

Yaoi-ed out, I ran back to my room to change, before meeting up with Tai and Mew at karaoke. I did not stay for all of it, wanting a decent night’s sleep so that we could hit the dealers room (5) early the next morning, and I paid for this by missing Mew singing. Bollocks!

(The lovely board of cosplay tips, and me in my kimono) 

Saturday 17^th August

First thing in the morning and I already knew that my cosplay was going to cause problems.

With rain forecast on and off for the rest of the day, I donned Lucy with terrible cynicism in my heart. And sure enough, as soon as I put the wig on, I realised that this was probably going to be the last con that it ever attended. It was a mess, and being made of cheap plastic, it resisted brushing like a puppy being confronted with a bathtub.

Next wig I’m getting for Lucy will be short haired.

But I had no time to worry about that after breakfast. Sith Lord Tai and I had a dealers room to hit! We dropped into the queue and I happily whipped out my DS like a good little queuing fangirl. Just after ten, we were let loose inside. And what a dealers room it was! We popped in and out several times over the course of the weekend. Initially I bought a dress, but on trying it on at lunchtime I found that it was too small over my boobs (now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say!) so I swapped it for a trilby with cogs on it, which I have no shame in saying is now glued to my head when I’m not at work.

On top of this, I came away with a collection of steampunk trinkets, a cute little steampunk broach, some soaps for my friends, a tshirt with a chibi (6) version of Cthulhu (7) on it, a badge with a Creeper on it (8) and of course, my bodyweight in pocky (9).

Panel one for the day was Fanfiction: Make Characters Yours, where we did a load of character building exercises, and I ended up yelling at Yugi for not talking about himself enough (yes, we know you love your friends, but for the love of Cthulhu tell me how you’re feeling after almost being killed, not how they’re doing!). We then moved to Norse Myth in Anime & Manga, which was completely fascinating and featured a most beautiful memorable moment where the bloke presenting flipped over to the slide about Loki and began telling us about the Trickster God, only to pause as a Loki cosplayer chose that exact moment to walk into the room. To their bemusement, they received a hilarious round of applause.

Next up was Acting in Animation, hosted by voice actor and regular Ayacon guest, Matt Mercer. Matt Mercer, like many voice actors, is completely adorable in real life, and I did a small squeal in my seat as he mentioned being the man who voiced Kiritsugu Emyia in Fate/Zero, something that I was totally unaware of. We heard some really fascinating stuff about dubbing and voice acting, and some hilarious anecdotes about the kinds of mischievous and naughty things you can get up to when you can change your voice at will. An hour later, Tai and I were back for his second panel, Geek Pride: The Return of Mercer, in which he spent a full hour talking non stop about his current roleplaying campaign. I have never felt more at home.

We managed to find time here to go to the Games Room, which was quite possibly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Not just two DDR machines and fancy gaming consoles set up as far as the eye can see, but loads of old beautiful retro games consoles including the Sega Mega Drive and a Game Cube. During the opening ceremony the day before they had announced that the games room would be running a competition to see who could get the fasted speed run of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Emerald Hill Zone 1 if you’re interested), and sure enough there it was in all its glory. I ran my hands over the controller for a long time before shelling over £5 (for charity) to see how I did. I’ve played this game since I was a kid, and I have played it recently on the DS so I was familiar enough with the level, but I only managed to achieve 28 seconds, which was still a high score at the time, so I left feeling pleased, resolving to practise on the DS when I had a chance.

Five o clock saw us at one of the highlights of any anime convention – the Masquerade (10). There aren’t really words I can use to describe how awesome the masquerade always is. I snapped about a million pictures of a million different cosplayers, all of whom looked truly fantastic, and made me want to do my own entry for next year. Special mention must go to the poor furries who could not see out of their costume, especially Tails, who ran into a wall en route to the exit, and Totoro who caused the entire hall to collectively hold their breath and pray for the survival of the judging panel in the front row.

Take away pizza from the restaurant followed before we changed for the party that evening. I instantly ran into problems – the cyst in my eyelid was worse than ever after just two days of make up, and I immediately removed all traces of it from my face, and promised myself not to wear anything for Kisara the next day.

Anyone who has been to anime parties before knows how awesome they are. The entire York anime soc was there, along with several of the convention guests, including Akemi Solloway, who is one of the sweetest people on planet Earth, and who was reduced to hysterics with the rest of us by one of the anime soc’s unconventional dance moves. I got involved in two conga lines in which I high fived about half of the people in the room, and cheerfully rocked out with everyone else to Power Rangers, Pokemon Johto and a club remix of Still Alive. I called it a night just after one o clock, wanting to save my feet for Sunday night, and to give my eyelid a chance to rest.

(Me cosplaying Lucy, and some of my favourite cosplays of the day!)

Sunday 18^th August

Sunday dawned with the equal parts trepidation (nuuu its almost over! Whyyyy?!) irritation (this is usually the point of the con where the exciting days and lack of sleep start to take their toll on people, and tempers become just a tiny little bit shorter) and excitement. It was time for Kisara. This was the cosplay I’d been looking forward to loads, and for which I had been cursing the rain and its repeated attempts to crash the convention.

Which is why it was such a kick in the stomach when I found that my wig was misbehaving.

I had suffered terribly the day before with my Lucy wig. Its always been tight around my head, but my hair had spent most of Saturday doing its very best to thwart me, and I’d ended up with a pounding headache by mid afternoon. Now here was Kisara, by far the better wig, and already being thwarted by the same problems.

Let me explain – my hair is heavy. Not as heavy as it used to be when it was a foot longer, but still heavy enough to pull a wig off. So unless I tie it up, pin it to within an inch of its life, and put a wig cap on, it will always find a way to escape. And even with all those precautions it will find a way out anyway thanks to being remarkably silky and slippery. My hair laughs in the face of restraint.

I did my hair as best I could and put my wig on. The fringe was a problem, as I knew it was going to be – unfortunately it is nearly impossible to find a wig that does not have a fringe these days, so Kisara was having a fringe with pins in it to keep it out of my face. By the end of breakfast, I could already feel it slipping, so I took drastic measures. A hair tie, two hair clips and fourteen hair slides later, I was back in business.

Hair sorted, Tai and I headed for the dealers room again to make our final purchases before heading for the Combat for the Camera panel. I lasted half an hour before my wig started to protest at all this exercise, and I gave up. This turned out to be a good thing, as I was able to get some excellent shots of Tai pretending to punch people in the face. Matt Mercer showed up too, which was incidentally hilarious.

We missed Japanese Traditional Dancing (sorry Akemi!) and hung around for the end of the panel. This was about when my hair tie, two clips and fourteen slides failed me, and my hair finally slipped free of the wig once more. I cursed up a storm and marched my ass into the nearest bathroom. We hung around in the Games Room and I shelled out another £10 (again, for charity – I was determined to win that PS3 damn it!) to see if I could beat the high score. Unfortunately at that point, the high score was now 21 seconds, and I just could not get myself over 25.

We headed for the Winging It workshop next, and I fashioned myself a pair of fairy wings out of wire, tights and sharpie, while Tai made herself some lovely feathered wings out of foam. We then nipped off for the Closing Ceremony and Sunday Night Live. After watching grown men being forced into embarrassing outfits, and giggling myself silly, the skits began. Several stick out in my mind, including some fabulous stand up comedy about hentai, a beautiful Japanese dance, and a fun FMA burlesque performance, all of which can be found on youtube. The night ended with a hilarious show about the impact of anime on your life, which left all of us growling “Animeeeee!” to each other for the rest of the night, and the sight we had all been waiting for – Matt Mercer in a dress. I had to laugh at the fact that the MC could just yell “Anyone got a dress?!” to an audience and have someone immediately stand up and wave one out in offering.

Tai and I had no time for a big dinner – there was a party to be hitting – so we bought some pot noodles from the Costcutter and pretended that we could not feel the preservatives invading our blood stream. At just after ten o clock, we hit the party dressed as Moltres and Articuno once again.

Tai instantly encountered the same problem that she had last time – Articuno’s tails are long. Not as long as they had been, but still long enough for them to trail on the floor in range of puddles of spilt alcohol and people’s dancing feet.  I was also having problems with my dress, as I quickly discovered that congaing in such a huge skirt was potentially hazardous to my health, prompting me to hike it up around my knees and wedge the fabric under my arms before joining in. Next year, I shall install two ribbons at the front for such a purpose.

All in all, we struggled a bit through the party, but that didn’t stop us from raving until one in the morning with all of our friends and the York anime soc. Several of the boys were rocking gorgeous corset and boot combinations, and Si contributed with some of his truly epic headbanging. We ended on Bohemian Rhapsody, swaying shoulder to shoulder with everyone else as we kissed Ayacon goodbye and headed outside for the after party.

I went to bed after fifteen minutes because I thought I could see the empty bottles on the ground moving by themselves.

 

(In which Matt Mercer gets dressed up and I cosplay Kisara, and find more lovely cosplayers!)

Monday 19^th August

Opened the door to a zombie...or at least, that’s what Tai sounded like at seven thirty in the morning. She was shuffling like every single one of her limbs was a rusty hinge that had been left outside during an extremely bitter winter, and I soon found out that was not far from the truth. It turns out that after I left she had stayed until three thirty whereon she decided that leaping down the massive staircase in a tight dress was a fabulous idea. She had grazed all up her arm and knee, and her ribs were aching from the tight boning of her dress. I hugged very gently for the rest of the day.

They say that the blind should never lead the blind, and even on four and a half hours sleep, I was feeling the pinch of tiredness between my eyes. Tai was worse though, with the entire weekend now playing catch up with her. I kept praying that she would not be making a second flailing dive down the steps. I honestly didn't think I could save her. But thankfully we made it to breakfast with no more injuries.

And then we walked into breakfast - what was this? People queuing for breakfast, smartly dressed, fresh face, and well turned out? What was this devilry? Turns out they were a teaching convention that had just arrived, and they seemed just as shocked to find the room slowly filling up with the survivors of the Aya apocalypse, all of us on less than four hours sleep, most of us hungover, and a good portion still drunk. A small amount of us were still in cosplay, coupled with jeans or pyjamas, creating a horrifying cluster of patchwork people.

At anime cons, even the morning after effect is glorious.

I decided to go all out, and finished off my cooked breakfast and some cereal, alongside orange juice and peppermint tea. Tai revived a great deal over her own food, and Eevee informed us with a tired smile that she had left Si alone in their room with the cans of Relentless. Chuckling, Tai and I left for the arduous task of packing.

Tip for anime con goers - your cosplays grow when you wear them. That lovely flat ironed fabric that you brought with you will never be that compliant in a suitcase again. Tai and I played a lovely game of 'Find the Empty Space' before we headed for the lounge. We had two hours to kill before we had to be catching a train. We were in for a surprise as we passed the taxis and found Si, upright, dressed, and talking animatedly on his phone.

I will never question the abilities of energy drink again. Apparently it has the ability to resurrect Lazarus.

We spent a lovely two hours with the York anime soc, ripping the stories Daily Fail to pieces and recovering from our nights out. I swore like a trooper over my DS, and hugged my wonderful fellow nerds goodbye. I truly love them all. The beauty of an anime convention is that you are never alone. Everyone is your friend by default. Camaraderie among nerds is one of the most touching and warm feelings on the planet.

Eventually Tai and I said our long sleepy goodbyes and went to get a taxi. We shared with another con-goer who was heading back to Germany, and who gently informed me that I had a wasp on my finger. We spent the rest of the taxi watching it crawl in a droopy fashion up the seat and onto the back shelf, all three of us tense like we were transporting a Weeping Angel in our midst. I bolted from the taxi as soon as we pulled into Coventry station.

I mused over Subway, whilst humming Hare Nochi Guu and listening to Tai telling me to stop singing, that the life of a nerd is usually very lonely. We get teased, and picked on and bullied because we obsess over things. And because we have such an obvious passionate attachment to something, it’s like a huge target for someone to take shots at. And people know that shooting at it will be effective.

But one of the biggest boosts to self confidence comes from knowing that you are not alone. And nowhere is this more apparent than at anime conventions. Because there are other nerds out there. People who are just as obsessed with penguins, slash and numbers that exceed nine thousand as you. There are people who will come up to you and hug you and tell you that you look amazing in that costume. There are people who will sit in a queue with you and have a Pokemon battle. There is a whole community just waiting to get drunk with you and have a rousing round of Caramelldansen.

So find a con near you. Book yourself in. And remember, what's the one thing that can solve all the problems in your life?

...

ANIMEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

See you all at Amecon 2014!

(1)    An anime soc is a university student society which is full of people who share the same interest in anime – a little bit like a school club or sports team but with more adult themes and meetings in pubs.

(2)    Cosplaying is the hobby of fancy dressing as characters from various anime/manga/video games. Contrary to what you may read in some of the newspapers, it is not a time consuming, money draining, soul sucking waste of energy, and teaches many valuable skills, such as how to iron clothing, how to use a sewing machine, time management and presentation.

(3)    Steampunk refers to a subgenre of sci-fi and fantasy which features steam powered machinery. This genre is found most prominently in books, films, music and clothing (it’s a bit like what would happen if you stuck Victoriana and Wild West into a blender, added a pinch of Goth and hit the ‘go’ button).

(4)    Yaoi translates to ‘boy love’ and encompasses the entire genre of gay fictional media in Japan.

(5)    The dealers room is a large area at an anime convention set aside for traders to sell their merchandise. This usually includes anime DVDs, manga volumes, toys, clothing and accessories, trinkets, food and artwork. This room may also encompass a ‘bring and buy’ where attendees can bring their second hand clothing, DVDs, manga etc to be sold on like a yard/car boot sale.

(6)    Chibi is a Japanese word used to describe something that is both small and cute. Usually used in a condescending fashion, or (when screamed by fangirls) as a term of endearment used to express the delightful adorablness of a person or object.

(7)    Cthulhu is an eldritch abomination created by HP Lovecraft. Renown for being one of the most terrifying things in the universe, all who look upon his face are said to go completely insane. He is also the mascot for the Winchester Association of Roleplayers and Gamers.

(8)    A Creeper is a green monster from the popular game Minecraft. Its method of attack is suicide bombing, and its name stems from their silent approach (broken only by the hissing noise you hear right behind you the second before they explode).

(9)    Pocky are thin straws of biscuit which are then dipped in chocolate or other flavourings such as strawberry, banana, milk and green tea.

(10) In anime conventions, a masquerade is a modelling show for fancy dress and cosplay. These are sometimes judged, and occasionally will be used as ‘heats’ for professional cosplay contests such as Eurocosplay.