The Mike Toole Show

The Con Job

This weekend, I'm at the combined Hetalia, Hatsune Miku, and V for Vendetta costumes.

Comics has the bigger footprint- while the anime program has scared up the delectable Michael Jackson video game. So clearly, it's not just about the comics anymore.

What the convention was about was crowds. Lots and lots of crowds. Long lines, short lines, snarls at the escalators, throngs hovering around the cafes waiting for seats to open, full rooms, circles of attendees playing duck-duck-goose - you name it, at least a hundred people showed up for it. When I go to these conventions, I like to dream up a stock question to ask people while I wait in these lines, because making conversation with strangers is an important social skill. At Otakon, that question was "What is your essential Otakon moment?" I got a lot of answers, but the clear winner was the con's masquerade, which takes place in an 8,000 person theater and is quite a production. At New York Anime Fest, the question I've been asking is "Is this your first convention?" For the majority of people I've spoken to, the answer has been yes.

That's gotten me thinking about my first anime convention. It wasn't all that long ago - only fifteen years, which means that there's about a 50% chance that you were alive when I visited, dear reader. Back then, there wasn't a "con season" during the summer, because there weren't enough conventions. The biggest convention by far was voice actor. Was it any good? In a word, it was awesome.

In fact, I'm finding it difficult to capture the mood of the con without sounding like a shithead. I mean, I arrived at this midsized suburban business hotel with fucking stars in my eyes, picked up my badge (it was in color! and there was no line to wait in!) and quite literally gaped at the first Metal Fighters Miku. I had to have it, you understand-- it was new! Nobody had seen it before, and as we all know, anything that is new is good. (It wasn't.) Toshio Okada was larger than life (seriously, he was pretty fat) and was able to answer questions in English, which was a big hit.

The entire convention turned up for Saturday evening's events, which opened with an impressive concert by legendary anime song artist MIO (now known as Apollo Smile – who re her? – and then there was the masquerade, which featured some twenty five entrants. I don't who won, though. How about you?

Of course, back then, events like AnimEast were once-in-a-lifetime events, and now there's four or five “mega-cons” every single year. In fact, I'm pretty sure there are more people in this room than were at Anime East. Just as I write this, I'm sitting smack in the middle of a room with almost nine hundred J. Michael Tatum, is putting shoes on a lady dressed as the heroine. Earlier, I witnessed what had to be at least five hundred people sing along to “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” in perfect unison. It's hard not to smile at that kind of spectacle, but not THAT hard.

All of these experiences, at cons both old and new, wouldn't have carried any weight if I didn't meet people, which is probably the best part of all conventions. There's a Bantu world called “ubuntu,” which, before it was hijacked by Linux nerds, was a central tenet of philosophy across the African continent. It essentially means “We become people through our relationships with others,” and clumsily wielding ubuntu at my first convention allowed me to meet the likes of the late Anime Central, where I happily staffed for a decade. 

Going to a convention and being a huge nerd with hundreds of others ultimately established me with a network of people that would come to define both personal and professional aspects of my life. A decade and a half later, I find that this still rings true – the movie premieres and special guests and stuff are pretty great, don't get me wrong, but I won't them the way I seeing my friends and making new ones. So when you're queuing up for that Hatsune Miku movie showing at DoofusCon next week, don't be afraid to turn to the guy or gal behind you and ask a question. How about “What was the last anime you watched?” As for me, it was the Gundam 00 movie.