Whiskey, Texas: The A-Kon experience

Why is this convention hall filled with people?

Filled with dealer tables and freaks in costumes, something BIG must be going on...

It's A-Kon 19 in Dallas! A-Kon is an annual convention celebrating anime, manga, cosplay, gaming, and all things in between... and if you don't know what any of that stuff is, look it up -- I had to!

They would get there or die trying... The person I met who came the farthest was a dealer from Colorado...

A little bit of background info... L has been interested in anime and manga books for about the past year or so after her friends introduced her to some manga titles like the "Naruto" series. Several months ago, L urgently announced that we just HAD to go to this anime convention in Atlanta in September. I had never heard of such a thing, but I figured if there was one in Atlanta, then there must be an equivalent (superior, actually... since everyone knows we do things bigger and better in Texas) convention somewhere in the D-FW area. It didn't take me long to find a website for A-Kon 19.

After looking at some of the photos of last year's event on the A-Kon website's Photo Gallery page, I was almost as interested in attending this event as L was. Even before we registered, L was busily planning her costume... and just to show that I was "in the spirit" of things, I planned one of my own. No, you don't get to see it quite yet; I'll post photos in my next entry. In the meantime, surf around on the photo galleries on the A-Kon site; you just might spot me.

A few words about Cosplayers... these people are f-ing NUTS! This was my first exposure to the world of Cosplay and I was blown away by how much time and work some of these people put into their elaborate costumes. Most of the costumes were consistent with the anime / manga / gaming themes (everything from Pokemon to Power Rangers to Halo 3 to Mario Brothers were represented) but there were also costumes as random as the Ghostbusters, Spider Man, Burger King, and Darth Vader. We didn't get to attend the actual Cosplay contest; it was held on Saturday night and I had to work. Maybe next year I will ask off for that day so that we can attend and possibly even participate. But we saw more than an eyeful during our day and a half at the convention... here is a look at some of the more noteworthy costumes.

A group from the popular "Naruto" series

Some familiar faces, along with some relative unknowns...

One of the main attractions of the convention -- besides running into Cosplayers at every turn -- were the convention halls full of dealer tables, hawking no end of dvd's, books, t-shirts, art work, Japanese candy and snacks, paper parasols, weaponry... you name it. There was some serious commerce going down. I'll share more in my next entry.

Everyone is welcome in Yaoi-land -- even heterosexual men! (But I didn't see very many...)

We also spent some time looking through the various entries in the Art Show...