If you just want the pictures click the below links.
A year and a half ago or so my buddy uranushertz and I came up with the idea of going to the SakuraCon anime convention and taking photos of the people dressed in costumes for entertainment. If you've ever seen any of the people who dress up at conventions then you have a good idea of the amusement potential in this idea. For some reason we didn't make it to the convention last year (I was out of town or something) but we made sure that we weren't going to miss it this year.
The day started out on a good note. I picked uranushertz up at the ferry dock without getting lost or getting confused on the drive there. Any time I manage to get where I'm going on the first try I'm doing pretty well. When we were most of the way to the convention I asked uranushertz if he'd remembered his camera. Of course he had. As I was asking this I realized that I had forgotten mine however. Oops.
Once we got to the convention the fun started. The first people we saw were in front of us in line and were dressed as Sailor somethings or Magical Girl whatever. Amazingly enough they were all female. Actually, this was the biggest suprise of all to me. Like half of the people there were female. When the heck did otaku-dom start attracting women? Ten years ago 90+% of the people that showed up at anime events were male. Anyway, it was somewhat suprising and welcome I must say. I'd rather look at women dressed in weird costumes than guys in the same.
The next suprise was the size of the thing. There were more way more otaku than I was expecting. The announced total was over 3000 attendees. This meant that the hallways were totally filled with dorks of all shapes and sizes. I would guess that about one in five attendees was dressed in a costume of some sort. This provided plenty of fodder for uranushertz's camera. Unfortunately, some of the costumes were as minimal as a mere pair of cat ears. That lends itself to strangeness but not the degree of strangeness we were looking for. Additionally, it was difficult to tell if some people were dressed in costumes or not. Around Seattle there's a pretty big goth and alternative movement and there were a number of people who were either in their normal alterna-goth clothing or were dressed as some character. In spite of this there was plenty of full-blown costuming amusement to be had.
After a quick look around we ended up at Penny Arcade's panel. Gabe and Tycho were both entertaining and have very similar views to my own about 2D fighting games and art design as it relates to 3D games. One stat of note was that in direct contrast to the rest of the con the majority of the people at their panel was male. I'd guess that it has something to do with the target audience of the comic being gamers. It doesn't appear that women have taken to gaming like they have to anime, at least not yet.
After the panel uranushertz wanted to get his Megatokyo graphic novel signed by Fred Gallagher. So we got in line for that. I hadn't brought mine because frankly signatures don't mean crap to me. I've done my share of signing autographs and don't care for it so I won't subject anyone else to doing it for me. The line was like at least one hundred, possibly one hundred fifty people long. I'd talk about the random insanity involved in setting the line up but this story is too long already.
As I'd feared when I saw Fred the line moved very, very slowly. It was obvious from a first glance that he was a nice guy who would spend time to chat with each person and draw sketches or whatever for them. I know a ton of comic artists, and it is usually obvious in like a minute if their autograph line is going to be a slow one or fast one based on how they act. Some people just churn 'em through and others stop to interact with each person. Due to this we were in line a long time. On the plus side the line was in the lobby which was a high traffic area. This meant that we didn't have to go looking for costumed victims. They paraded themselves right by us for our amusement.
I had to try very hard not to laugh my ass off as some of the quality we saw. The only thing I didn't see were cross-dressers. This was both a relief and a disappointment at the same time. It was a relief because I didn't need to see some pudgy male otaku sailor scout. It was a disappointment because it would have made a hilarious picture. During our time in the line I remarked to uranushertz that this may mark that first time that I'd ever been one of the most normal people in a large building. If you know me then that statement should really scare you.
Eventually we gave up on the line because it became obvious that the we weren't going to get to the table before the closing ceremonies. As we wandered our way back through the hall I ran into an old friend of mine, Dan, who just happened to be the designer of the SakuraCon logo this year. Here's a scan of the badge with Dan's logo. He and some friends had dressed up as Aliens Colonial Marines for the con but I guess their costumes were a little too realistic so he'd taken it off. That's too bad because I would have liked to have poked fun at him.
The closing ceremonies were more than forgettable other than a really cool drum group who did the music. One thing does stick out in my mind though. A couple or three thousand anime people crammed in an auditorium is a couple thousand too many. The otaku vibes could have killed a weaker soul. Actually the other thing I noticed was the latex clad cute girl who mistook me for a staff member or something and was asking about her prize. Ten minutes later I had at least half a dozen witty remarks but that was ten minutes too late so I just told her that I had no clue.
After that we headed over to the Penny Arcade booth and met Gabe and Tycho. Like I said before they seemed pretty cool, and I promised to send them a link to our photos of amusement. That marked the end of our SakuraCon experience.
As promised here are our photos complete with captions.
nekoken
