“Season 7”
I really enjoyed Kami-Con Season 6; I had a great time, got autographs from the cast of Cowboy Bebop, met the cast of Sailor Moon, saw a ton of amazing costumes, and found the general cost-to-fun ratio to be pretty at a fantastic level. This year still had great costumes; I had a fun time, met Team 4 Star… and not much else. Part of me wants to tear into this year’s Kami-Con, and part of me blames my own expectations; I guess we will discover which part wins out.
Night Panels – The Britta of Panels
Seriously though, nighttime panels are the worst idea in human history. Why would I want to go to a celebrity panel after 7 o’clock at night? …anyone? …Bueller? I can only imagine that the reason for Team 4 Star’s panels being so late was due to the fact that they were “adults only” panels. Someone in our group wanted to see the Nostalgia Critic at one point; the rest of us walked in, listened for a minute, then walked back out and sat outside the room looking at the stuff we had bought.
Really, there was not much more than that to do most of the time; there must have been a dozen instances over those three days when we stared at the itinerary and asked “Well, what do we do now?” Over the course of an entire weekend, the only official events we attended were the opening ceremonies, the costume contest, and the late-night “adults only” Titan PJ party, which turned out to be a bust.
A Family-Friendly Con
I want to harp on something here: This is an anime convention, and anime is not known for always being family-friendly. Last year there was a “dub your own hentai” panel; this year there was a straight-up “tentacle porn” panel. Yet even though it was tagged “adults only,” and no one under 18 was permitted, the Titan PJ party was about as raunchy as a twelve-year-old’s birthday party at grandma’s house.
To be fair, we got there about fifteen minutes into the event, just as they were listing the rules for playing Cards against Humanity. I was sufficiently excited to just play CaH in a large group setting, having a fairly horrible mind; I once won a game of Apples to Apples by matching “The Challenger Explosion” up with the adjective “Scenic.” Then they handed us the cards… the handmade cards… the handmade cards that, instead of being real CaH cards, were either vaguely risqué Attack on Titan references, butt jokes, or the kinds of things that only twelve-year-olds find funny.
Oh, and before I forget, we did not even bother with the Saturday night “Rave;” this event went one step further and made the age limit 21… but was still non-alcoholic. Compare this to the last time I went to Dragon*Con where I drunkenly – so very drunkenly – danced with Felicia Day. Now, I know you want to call “bullshit” on that, but no lie I was close enough to her that a bodyguard moved me out of the way.
Swag
This year did show an enormous improvement to the dealers’ room, as well as “artist alley;” there were a couple of dedicated comic book dealers, and more statue dealers than you can shake a stick at.
I did get the autographs of Team 4 Star, and Bryce Papenbrook (Eren Yaeger/Kirito). Team 4 Star was a genuine treat; they only charged $5 for each piece of artwork plus autograph, and didn’t charge anything to sign something you brought with you. The quality of the art Mr. Papenbrook had on-hand to autograph was so fantastic that I bought several pieces even though I have not watched either show.
Cosplay
Now on the cosplay front, there was a fine amount of good/great cosplay; oddly enough though, the single best costume we saw – Hiccup and Toothless – received no awards at the costume contest. Notable costumes included a Frozen/Frozone mash-up (not pictured), Mileena and Johnny Cage, Slender Man, Goku and Naruto, Spider-Gwen, and a Sinestro Corps Scarecrow.
The Kami-Con-clusion
A small part of me knows that K-Con is maybe too far into the deep end for me; I like anime, but I have not kept up with new releases in a number of years (with the exception being Studio Ghibli productions). I understand that there will be a lot of things I don’t get; however, that is not the problem I had. My problem, at the core, came from having nothing to do; this was only exacerbated by the poor scheduling, inconsistent tone about “mature” events, and an overly-juvenile approach to many of the events I did attend.
Erich’s Nerd Rating: 5/10 – Undecided if I would Kami-Con again.
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