I have post-convention depression. It’s totally a real thing; it’s on Urban Dictionary. The crowds of nerds, the cosplayers, the programming, the D.C. convention area takeover, the celebration…

It’s over.

My boyfriend took me to my first convention last year: Castle Point Anime Convention in Hoboken. This may be where the addiction was born. Since then I’ve been to two others; Liberty City in Times Square, and Borough Con in Queens. These were all local cons on a much smaller scale, but just the sort of events I’ve been looking for all my life: celebrations of anime culture with a facet for every type of fan. Only now I have money and the means to travel to attend, as well as someone to share it with. 🙂

And now I’m steadily becoming addicted to con-life. It’s made my list of favorite hobbies. And let’s face it, the older you get, the harder it is to make room for new hobbies. Let’s have a recap of this past weekend’s Otakon during its first year in D.C., and what I like to call “My First Big Girl Con.”

I’ve never traveled across state lines for a con before (no, NJ does not count to a New Yorker). But here I was arriving at my hotel room at the Marriott at Metro Center (EXCELLENT HOTEL CHOICE, by the way) for a 3 day immersive experience. The first thing I noticed was that the streets were flooded with Pokemon hats, gamer t-shirts, schoolgirl socks, dangling Otakon badges, and convention goody-bags. Our kind had literally taken over the streets and it was wonderful to see. No matter what time of night it was (and we strolled the streets at 3 in the morning), you’d encounter someone else in cosplay or with a badge. With our powers combined, we’d erected a bubble of con-dom-ness (Don’t laugh).

The Walter E. Washington Convention Center was a massive venue. Even after 3 days, I still hadn’t mastered the map and still got lost occasionally. The first day, my feet were exhausted from all the walking, and I’m a hardcore Pokemon-GO-er! By the second day, I was a hardened convention-stroller. A few highlights and lessons learned:

1) SO MUCH AC.

They crank the air up good in these places. If you’re wearing a schoolgirl costume, steel yourself and be ready. I tried cosplaying something seasonal, but all that goes out the window when you enter the building. You could easily have a fur coat as part of your costume and be good in there.

2) There’s a reason they have reminders all over the place to REMEMBER TO EAT AND DRINK.

At first I thought, who the hell would forget something like that? But then you discover Guidebook, and you schedule a grid of panels and events to attend, and then realize there are lines to get into the panels and if you don’t show up a little early, you may not get in, so you have to factor that in, as well as time spent traversing the Dealer’s Hall during a free time slot, and maybe the last food option you saw was 20 minutes ago on the 2nd floor but you’ve already walked up 2 escalators, made 4 turns and took a connecting tunnel to an adjacent building so are you really going to go all the way back just for FOOD and miss being on line early for the MASQUERADE?? I’ll get better at this with time.

3) Nobody smelled. 😀

I was warned by multiple people beforehand to expect heavy B.O. I am not sure why there’s a stereotype that nerds are dirty hobos that don’t shower, but I am happy this stereotype was not encountered during my experience at Otakon.

 

4) Arrive at panels/events at LEAST 30 minutes early, but probably more.

When I discovered the Guidebook app, I went CRAZY adding anything that looked like it could be interesting to my schedule. My boyfriend appreciated my enthusiasm, but gently told me in no way would he be accompanying me to all of them. As it turns out, I didn’t make it to 75% of the activities I put on my schedule. Con time is a different sort of time. The breakdown of my valiant efforts were as follows:

DAY 1

~Nintendo Urban Legends panel at 9:00 am in the morning – MISSED.
Didn’t wake up early enough and got lost on the way to the convention center. -.-‘

~Maid Cafe – MISSED.
I didn’t arrive early enough and there was a line cut-off. >:/

~Opening Ceremonies – Not really a panel but we made it through the traditional Japanese blessing of the con and a list of guests before bouncing early because I expected more excitement and I never actually care about the guests or know their names well enough to get excited.

~Tales series photo shoot – MISSED.
Boyfriend wanted to traverse the Dealer’s Hall in its place.

~Attack on Titan viewing – WALKED OUT.
We tried asking everyone involved in this viewing whether it would be subbed or dubbed, but no one could give an answer. The second the intro began in English, it was a wrap.

~All late night activities that required the 18+ wristband – MISSED.
My badgeless cousin with friends in tow showed up to DC so we had to remove ourselves from the convention in search of non-nerdy good times.

DAY 2

~WE OVERSLEPT. T_T
So the panel for cosplay posing was missed.

~Tales of Tales panel – FINALLY MADE IT TO ONE SUCCESSFULLY.
A fun costumed crew took us through the Tales series timeline and asked various trivia questions for each game for prizes. I did not immediately know the answers to a single one. My Tales knowledge is not as good as I thought. I left prizeless.

~Official Gundam Wing panel- Boyfriend never saw this series, and as such, didn’t wanna sit through it with me, so I solo-ed it.
They showed the very first episode to give us all some serious nostalgic feels. Then they did Q &A with the actual writer and producer of the series who flew here all the way from Japan. Katsuyuki Sumizawa was such an animated person and full of personality! He was so much like a character himself, that he had the audience cracking up despite the fact that we needed a translator to actually know what he was saying. A hurried raffle capped it off. I won nothing once again.

~The Masquerade – Easily the most highly attended event I think.
Here is where that “Remember to eat” rule failed me the hardest. Even arriving half an hour early, the line was ruthless. Cosplayed characters performed various skits from singing to dancing to comedic acts to Broadway-like musicals. My fave was the old Team Rocket meets the new Team Rocket skit. But we left early because there were 30 skits and I could only make it through 15 because I was starving, and had tried to survive on Pocky, ramune sodas and the ice-cold rock balls served in the Japanese dining area passed off as onigiri, and the dude directly beside me was smart to bring some sort of warm, meaty sandwich, which I could not sanely sit through the scent. So I hope Team Rocket won something.

After we left the Masquerade, we headed for the Sonic Boombox sponsored after party at the Hard Rock Cafe that we had tickets for. Some drinks and party vibes and, thankfully, a burger later, we were back at our hotel room hosting a very unofficial Smash tourney with fellow con-goers the boyfriend had recruited from the Gaming Room. They seemed overwhelmingly grateful to chill out with us, which warmed my heart.

DAY 3

~WE OVERSLEPT AGAIN BECAUSE EVERYONE GOT DRUNK THE NIGHT BEFORE AND NO ONE WAS WAKING UP EARLY. So final chance for Maid Cafe, MISSED.

~Awesome-sounding Otakon Game Show where audience members can particpate? – CANCELLED.
That one hurt. That one was going to be my headliner of the day. I was looking forward to that one.

~We opted to skip Closing Ceremonies since the Opening ones a few days earlier hadn’t impressed me. One of the cool Smashers we’d met the night before came back to our room to play with us instead.

As we later strolled the D.C. streets, we realized the majority of our kind had already checked out and departed the area. The sidewalks no longer bustled with cosplay frolickers, badged attendees and fellow nerds. Now we saw normal businessmen, families, and the usual dining crowd. The magic had passed. The immersion was over. It was like a reverse culture-shock. Post-con depression is a real thing, guys.

And the best remedy seems pretty clear to me. Moar. Moar. CONS! 😀

And more cons it shall be.

~Tael