A-KON 21 Recap

It is now Wednesday.. and I am still so sore and achy from the crazy weekend. BAH!

Gotta tell you though, it was a wonderful, wonderful weekend! I LOVE A-KON! Some say it brings out the crazies, the freaks, the weird but you know what… eff them! I believe it is a coalition of those with a passion for something, a passion strong enough that we frankly don’t give a rat’s ass if you think we’re strange. A-KON isn’t necessarily a gathering of just anime fans either, there are plenty of sci-fi fans, video gamers, and just people who love to cosplay. I see it as a release from life and a means for me to get creative and dress up as someone else for a day!

Got there Friday morning with Jen (2x) and we made our way in.. it was kinda empty compared to previous years but let’s just say we got there early. Checked into our room, got dressed and made our way down. Jen W is working for a mag so she couldn’t cosplay, Jen M cosplayed Hinamori Amu from Shugo Chara (she got LOTS of love) and I did Hello Kitty (only Friday). The crowd wasn’t very impressive but Saturday is usually the day for that.

Fast forward to the concert – OMG! It was AWESOME! SEIKIMA II was incredible! I was a little hesitant coming in but as soon as the guitar and bass hit it, I knew it was going to be a good concert – and it was! I loved their interaction with the audience, definitely made it more amazing. Their English was actually really good! Wow. Demon Kogure cracked me up and I think it was either Luke or Xenon.. they looked like older version of Tora and saga of Alice Nine. No joke. Jail and Raiden were also very cool. Actually.. Jail could pass for an older Nao too. Funny eh?? The most incredible part, to me, was when Demon Kogure got upside down, clacked his heels together in perfect rhythm and kept singing/rocking out like nothing was going on. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??? AMAZING! And I learned a new word… “manko” (I think that’s how it’s spelled. Means “orange” in one area.. but means “pussy” everywhere else in Japan. HAHAHAH… I enjoyed them a lot! Here is a YouTube vid of theirs (we were not allowed to take photos of or video of them, sorry!):

Yes.. they look like KISS. Afterwards, Jen and I went to the rave. It wasn’t as awesome because of… annoying members of the male species. Asking us how to rave, how to move their hands, how to move their feet. Really? Just do whatever dude!

Saturday was awesome – I was Morrigan and Jen was Amu. In short, we took lots of pictures of some amazing cosplayers, got to interact with many people, there were lots of nice things for sale in the dealer room and on artist alley.. we still didn’t get to go ice skating in our costumes but mark my words – WE WILL NEXT YEAR! My hugest complaint will have to be the elevators… someone butthead pulled the fire alarm on our tower so it was shut off for a good long time. And then.. there were incredibly looooong lines to get onto the elevator. And then.. most of them broke. By Sunday morning, there was ONE working elevator on our tower. >__<  But it was cool. We met lots of other Jennifers… and got to meet some old friends. Took pictures in the plaza and park – got to mull and be a bit gloomy about my lack of… being photogenic but I’ll survive.

What is super awesome about Saturday though? Meeting IBI (the guy in the featured image) of Sixh! Yaz was super nice and sweet and so was IBI. He had this awesome hair! Super IBI-JIN haha! We were trolling the booth with all the merchandise and went to their panel.. where I took some videos. (Also got to play with my new camera and boy is it amazing!) They spoke of the fashion, showed a slideshow of the images (one of the models looked sooooo much like Adriana Lima, seriously) and I really liked a lot of their clothing and style! It was edgy and different. some of the lines though made me think of the fake fashion line Mogatu created for Zoolander called, “Derelique”… hahaha I chuckled to myself for sure. You’d get it if you’ve seen Zoolander! Funniest thing in the panel – Yaz asked why none of the girls wanted to know what kind of girl IBI liked! HAHA.. so many of us were thinking it but wanted to stay “professional”, therefore didn’t ask.. just in case you wanted to know, he likes girl with good individual style, who know how to express themselves… well. I suppose that excludes me! I’m just blunt and honest, not really sure I am “cool”. My hair sucks, my cheeks are huge.. the coolest thing I can do is nail polish color. HAHAHA.. I kid I kid.. I have a tattoo that expresses me pretty well I think. But anyways, there was an autograph session later and not only did I get an autograph, I also got a picture with him! YAYYYYYYYYYY! He recognized I was Morrigan Aensland, though I didn’t understand what he said (time to invest in a Rosetta Stone for Japanese!) but he told Yaz that my cosplay was cute! YAY! Went to the booth later and talked to Yaz for a bit. They are such nice people. <3 Here is a vid of SIXh!

I’m sad I didn’t get to partake in any of the Doctor Who photoshoots going on.. no one could really tell me when and where it was so I didn’t really know where to go.. and when. HAH. Yeah.. oh well.. dalek girl will make an appearance again someday! I am sooo looking forward to next year!

AKON 21: Revenge of the Penguins in Dallas, TX at the Sheraton