Fantasy/Anime/Comic con experiences

[Trianglewave]

Have you even been to a convention?
If so, what was it like?

I went to a moderately big anime-con a while ago. The theme was cyberpunk, so I dressed appropriately. There was a performance by Okinawan band High Tech Low Life, which was pretty dope. They deserved a bigger crowd.
Lastly I went to make some pics of my friends, only to be surprise-booped on the nose by a furry. Strange experience.

Tell me about your experiences at cons though. From the weird to the mundane, I'd love to hear them.

 

[№56]

I was part of my high school's anime club for a brief period of time. The very first meeting I went to was dedicated to organizing a group trip to the local anime con, and one of the club leaders went on a fifteen minute rant about how anyone who came along should expect constant sexual harassment and groping regardless of who they were or what they were wearing. She finished by encouraging people to come along despite this. It was really weird and made me not want to go, not because I thought she was telling the truth, but because I just didn't want to be around people like her. I don't think I missed out on much, but I kind of regret not going out of curiosity.

 

[Trianglewave]

I was part of my high school's anime club for a brief period of time. The very first meeting I went to was dedicated to organizing a group trip to the local anime con, and one of the club leaders went on a fifteen minute rant about how anyone who came along should expect constant sexual harassment and groping regardless of who they were or what they were wearing. She finished by encouraging people to come along despite this. It was really weird and made me not want to go, not because I thought she was telling the truth, but because I just didn't want to be around people like her. I don't think I missed out on much, but I kind of regret not going out of curiosity.

Damn, that's kind of a weird experience to start out with. Warning of constant sexual harrasment is a bit much, and it would've scared off most rational people I think. Sadly there's still a lot of people like her in anime communities, so i do think you dodged a bullet there, lol

 

[JamBrain]

I used to go to a lot of the larger regional anime cons for a number of years. Had nothing but positive experiences from them and met a lot of great people. If you're more extroverted you'll get a lot out of them since you can strike up conversations with pretty much anyone since you're guarenteed to have something in common with them. After a while, I got involved in some friend cliques and spent half of my con experience going from hotel party to hotel party talking about obscure anime and old internet culture. I wouldn't be surprised if some anons from that time post here.

The cons themselves vary in quality, if you've never gone to one before, I recommend the smaller hosted panels. I learned a lot about the industry through them and made some lasting connections which are quite valuable.

The very first meeting I went to was dedicated to organizing a group trip to the local anime con, and one of the club leaders went on a fifteen minute rant about how anyone who came along should expect constant sexual harassment and groping regardless of who they were or what they were wearing.

I've never heard or seen such an event ever happen in my time going to conventions. It may happen on a micro-scale, but I think its overstated. Even my female friends in skimpy outfits felt quite safe during their time on the con floors.

 

[Obake]

I've never been to any kind of convention. I grew up in Maryland and Otakon was the local convention, I wanted to go but never had the opportunity until after high school and by that point I didn't want to go because I could easily imagine the smell.

There's nothing like that over here in Japan. I guess Comiket is the closest thing but it's not a convention, it's an indie comic market. I've heard it's also extremely crowded. Other stuff like Tokyo Game Show are trade shows, not conventions.

We have Comic Con over here now. I've thought a little about going but I'm not entirely sure what you do there. I checked out a video on YouTube of someone walking around the event last year and it looked really dumb. Just a lot of people walking around looking at action figures in display cases or taking pictures with display pieces from some Netflix series that had nothing to do with comics. I'm not interested in paying extra to meet a celebrity. I guess it's just not for me.