So what are you here for? Ah yes, the inevitable grilling of a meatgrinder for logic that is MCM Expo. Bear in mind, you douches, that certain things here are fact, and certain things here are my opinion. Learn to distinguish the two, or do one.
Now, for all I've said about free huggers, I must say I'm actually impressed that I barely saw any. Sure I saw the shitty signs they made which looked like it was made in the special class with the broken crayons, but for me it felt like a significant decrease. So well done you plebs, your ranking in my books is less negative than usual. I did get glomped, by one little girl but I'll let her off. That level of joy for my character I was cosplaying was genuine, I just wish she could have used words and sentences but when you're a glomper I guess many neural connections are fused solid with stupidity. I'm kicking myself because I never got a picture of her friend's despair face when I turned her down for a hug. Bugger.
I had plans, and actual passion for stuff for expo once. I even had it prior to this expo, but as I got there it faded fast and I found myself pinned under the gravity of apathy. I just wanted to get out, and you know when you get that mini-sick in your throat?
Getting the tickets was okay, but a pointless queue after I got my ticket was just.. wtf.. I feel like asking for that time back. Literally queuing for nothing, I may be delicious with hot sauce but I am not livestock. But let's gloss over that.
Entering expo hall, holy crap I almost facepalmed so hard I tickled my brainstem with my elbow; Yaoi Guy RIGHT THERE. After all the complains about this dude, and they call ME a troll. I am, but I gotta hand it to the organisers for Trolling me and the other 10,000 attendees back. Placing a vile douche who screams and shouts about non-hetero sexual cartoons as the first stall on entering? A family event where you hear "GLORIOUS MAN SEX" Either this really is a troll or someone's getting the world's best reach-around.
The hall itself got packed, ridiculously packed. Wall to wall stupid meat shuffling around, I kinda think that the pointless queuing beforehand was a gentle way of grooming us into being livestock. It was actually interesting to see people walk in, take 5 steps then turn right and head immediately for the exit with a "FUCK THIS SHIT" expression. The Irish guy behind me said, and I quote "Feck me sideways Gary, ye said this was about anime not a clusterfuck. Shall I take me clothes off now, because I know someone's getting shagged in this feckerama."
Feckerama. Irish Guy, where ever you are, you sir are a Legend.
I don't see this problem of volume ever getting solved, it's gonna get packed in harder than that storm trooper and his armour with the 18 stone swagger.
Some other shit happened and some shit didn't happen, nothing really interesting about that. I can say that Security for the swim event, and the swimmers themselves were very pleasant and straight forward. They did have a point for moving the sitting Expo attendees for blocking a through-fare, we can't argue against that.
What did happen that I've just heard about is a little bit more serious than free hugs and that faggot who called my cosplay a Slenderman, lurk moar newfag, is that an attendee of the Expo went home with a broken leg. Put your pocky down, and read that again. Many of you may know a douche who drinks petrol called Crimson (nevermind the fact that he gets his alcohol from me). As they were walking his friend suddenly faceplanted the floor and let out a yell that pretty much told everyone in the 7 mile radius he wasn't fucking around. An open unmarked deep drain, took a couple of hours for the ambulance to arrive and the nearby hotel staff came out, looked at the drain, herpaderped and then covered it up/put signs up/stuffed the yaoi guy in it and cemented it over [/Ifuckingwish.]
Also this from Crimson:
Hotel Douche Staff: Yeah, that's dangerous.
*Geoff is screaming in pain*
Me: NO SHIT ASSHOLE.
Now, I hear this is the jurisdiction of the ExCel, NOT Expo for giving this guy a shattered knee and a bad Skyrim meme for the rest of the term of his injury. We wish him all the best and hope he gets better soon, and that the douchebagel who left the drain open gets a honeybadger to the crotch.
Well done ExCel. Well done.
Something else that hounded me all weekend was that I didn't see many stunning cosplays, sure there were tons of knobheads in wigs, but no amazing individuals milling around in the crowds. I didn't want to stick around for the masquarade, I wanted to go talk to someone about their freakin' awesome costume and all I saw was the same carbon cutout mass produced monkeys that were kicked through Tokyopop. I know for a fact that there are amazing cosplayers at the Expo, yet they choose not to be in the crowds or go round the expo hall much. Instead they have photoshoots away from the event itself. As these individuals create a void, the uneducated masses and have-a-go cosplayers take over the event.
For a moment, think about what just happened in the past 5 years. Anime and Manga got a hell of a lot more accessible, the younger crowd got involved and to those of us who have been in it for a while or from the start it all looks so superficial. That's how elitism begins. It's also how that undying urge to sock an L cosplayer right in the kidneys starts off.
MCM Expo is the event that caters for the masses, from the novice to the intermediate. The hardcore, veterans etc will find it annoying and a pain in the arse. The heavyweight God-Tier cosplayers go to showcase their works of art due to the size of the event.
This is where conventions come in, for those of us that have gone past Expo and need something else. I don't want to promote hatred or incite mob mentality for anyone who works really hard and it's clear that the Expo staff work pretty hard, even if some of them are arsebagels. However they have a target audience, and if you didn't like the expo then you fall into a minority for them which is outside that target audience.
What I'm saying is support your conventions, and go all out at those events. They give you so much more and they're always a hell of a time. It makes me sad that Kitacon won't run till 2014, as that is by far my favourite. Where else could I get drunk, do a front flip, ruin a game, and win a pony all in 10 minutes?
(Ranzatsu, please do another Con! Hell I'll even do that satirical panel I said I'd do on how to deal with weebs. I'll make it so funny I'll get sued for multiple internal organ rupture from making the audience laugh so hard they have to sign non-disclosure forms and wear mandatory catheters as they'll fucking piss themselves senseless.)
There's so much more love for cosplay, anime, manga, games and the whole culture at a convention that makes Expo feel heavily watered down, drawn out and stuffed with so many idiots that I feel if I stick around any longer than 3 hours I need to get to the bar to kill my braincells with beer before the ambient stupidity does it for me- I'm looking you twats dancing at the exit to the ticket hall, picked a more inconvenient spot to dance? Yes? Go die in a fire, you make me want to tear my spine out through my mouth and beat you to death with it.
Now, if you ever used the line "Expo was like kicking away horseshit with a fine pair of Italian loafers to get to a bar of gold at the bottom, and by that I mean I only endured the feckarama to see my wonderful friends" or similar, then link this blog to your facebook and for the love of David Hasselhoff's glorious chest hair use the word "feckarama" in your daily vocabulary.
~Warai Otoko
Ohgod Feckerama is going into my dictionary \o/ srsly tho what happened to Geoff sounds awful, but I have to say overall myself, I didn't sort of do much at the event, I had all my fun outside hanging with people?
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