After a half hour train journey, fifteen minutes on a jam packed tube and a short ride on the DLR, myself and my friend Jack arrived, equipped with our savings and a video camera, at the sheer enormity that is the ExCel center. Upon entering, my eyes were first drawn to the World Fruit and Veg Showcase on one side of the gigantic hangar, and then to the Pie shops and Costa Coffees scattered in various strategic places everywhere. Fortunately, they weren't what I was there for, and my attention shortly turned to the queues in one of the halls off the main hangar.
First impressions... well, I was quite pleased. Having spent most of our school lives thinking we were incredibly geeky, it was nice to know that compared to most people in that massive hall, we were probably the most normal. I got some good film of some people in cosplay (I'd say more than 50% were in cosplay) and a lot of random leaflets people were handing out.
Thanks to our Fast Track tickets (they were cheap as well: £10 for fast track entry to the entire day) we were shortly being marched out of the hall and back down the main hall, past the pie shop, past the World of Warcraft convention, and into...
It's massive. An amalgamation of the senses... Colour and noise overwhelms you... and then you realize that you're staring at a massive hangar full of Japanese tat and cosplayers who should not be cosplaying.
The walls were lined with such a ridiculous quantity of animé plushies, key rings and necklaces. Photo and poster stands were everywhere, and weapons and wallscrolls were being oggled at, but only bought by those with a lot of money. Moving towards the center, there were racks of manga and masses of animé DVDs being sold cheaply (and probably illegally). Food stores (selling pocky and super sour sweets) and cosplay weapon checks were bustling, while Warner Bros. HD previews and (dubbed *growl*) animé clips played on big plasma screens. A generous number of Xboxes and the occasional Wii or PS3 made up the gaming section, with plenty of pre-releases for us to play. Legions of nerds sat playing Star Wars and Halo trading card games and Magic:The Gathering, while the more athletic sportsmen/women played Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero while it was projected onto the wall so everyone could see your success or epic, epic failure.
The special guests this year were immense. There was Ed Quinn, Erica Cerra and Jordan Hinson from A Town Called Eureka, Jacqueline McKenzie, Richard Kahan, Billy Campbell and Jeff Combs from The 4400, Jimmy Jean-Louis and Nora Zehetner from Heroes, and Marina Sirtis (Counselor Deanna Troi in Star Trek). Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin were there plugging Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel (which is awesome by the way), while Johnny Yong Bosch, Laura Bailey and Colleen Clinkenbeard (animé voice actors) and Tony Lee, Billy Tucci, Mark Sparacio, Lee Townsend, Ian Sharman, Rich Johnston and Dan Boultwood (all comic artists) were all present as well. There were opportunities to get your picture taken with the stars, as well as lots of Q&A sessions.
Then there was the cosplay contest. I got a lot of it on film, and will upload and edit later (when I figure out how to connect my camera to the computer), but for now a description will have to do: Oh the horror... Like all Expos, there was a healthy mix of teenage girls dressed as boys doing Yaoi, bearded men dressed as 14 year old girls, and fat women pretending they're thin enough to fit into lycra. It was truly frightening, yet ridiculously fulfilling and amusing. You just didn't want to stop them embarrassing themselves, probably because they all did it with smiles on their faces - they were truly enjoying it!
The cosplayers combined with the numerous "Free Hugs" and "Free Glomps" signs created a strong (if frightening) friendly atmosphere, provided you didn't have a paranoia about being bear hugged by a complete stranger.
7 hours after entering, I had bought my fair share of Kingdom Hearts manga, had almost every leaflet under the sun forced upon me, met at least 6 of my friends from the forums, seen two (male) FMA characters experiment in various sexual poses in a massive crowd of people, watched Naruto give Sasuke a lapdance to the tune of "Girlfriend", and avoided so many free hugs and glomps I was breathless...
Successful Expo, I'd say. See you there next year?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment