wrong about japan

You know how last week I nonchalantly mentioned how I would be attending Sakura Con during the weekend? Well that statement was the perfect example of how unprepared I was for what I saw on Saturday. In retrospect, I can't believe I thought that I could just walk into a comic convention off the street without any prior mental preparation. Oh, the hubris! What follows is a brief account of my unfortunate, amusing, and inspiring Saturday.

I probably wouldn't have gone to this thing if my other male heterosexual life partner, Guido, had not come to visit. Like me Guido is a nerd, mostly he's a Trekkie but he's into the anime and videogames too. After this weekend though, I don't think we can count ourselves amongst the truly nerdy. Well, maybe not Guido. For you to fully understand what happened I am going to have to unleash the full power of my geekiness, and you are going to have to forget all of the mis/preconceptions you might have had about me. (Guido I am so sorry I am outing you right now, you're Dad was bound to find out sooner or later, my suggestion? Cambodia.)

After a night of heavy, "Haven't done this in awhile have we buddy?" drinking, Guido came a knocking on my door. We had agreed to get breakfast and then hit the convention center afterwards. In true BAABP fashion, I treated him to a bus ride on the 49 through the always colorful Broadway area. I was surprised that there weren't more nerds on the bus, because the day before on my way to work, I had seen at least 5 dudes with pony tails and scraggly facial hair. This wouldn't have been weird if it hadn't been 8am, because most of their type are still asleep in their Mother's basements because they spent the previous night playing W.o.W. until 6 trying to get "Shmagmars" +2 Enchanted dark-fire sword. My surprise would soon fade when we exited the bus a block away from Pacific Place.

We hadn't even made it halfway down the block before I had seen at least 15 people doing cos-play. Here is my explanation of what cos-play is. To me it's a lot like Halloween, only the people take themselves way more seriously (often they will not break from the character they are trying to portray), the costumes are way more ornate, and people really want to get their picture taken with them.

As we entered the center, we were confronted with all sorts of dorks, geeks, nerds, doofises(?), otaku, and "chesters" (as in: Chester the Molester). Guido and I stealthily maneuvered through the surprisingly large crowd, barely exchanging a word, aside from me making the odd observation of a cos-play character and how him/her did/didn't look anything like their intended character.

After riding several escalators, and seeing several ill conceived costumes, we arrived at what we thought would take us to the show floor. I hadn't actually come here just to "nerd out". I had actually came to meet one of my favorite artists...ok so I had come here to nerd out. Fuck you. Anyway, we joined a line of people who were going to the show floor via another escalator and were just about to get on when we were stopped by a really nice security lady who asked us for our passes. Of course we didn't have any, but if we had been any kind of men, we would have tried to finagle our way in there. Instead, we turned around and decided to go get cash and a drink before we attempted to re-enter the fray.

G. (yeah we're close like that) and I sat quietly mulling over our respective drinks, mine a Bloody Mary, his, an Appletini. We were trying to figure out what we had just seen, and at the same time, trying to imagine what it would be like on the main show floor. We finished our courage juice, and set out once again for the convention.

This time we knew where we were going. We had seen a moderately short line leading to some booths that would sell us the passes that were required to get us in to the main exhibition. As we walked in we couldn't help but notice how there were way more people there. Many, many more cos-players with even more outrageous costumes. There was the someone dressed as Sonic the Hedgehog, who could have easily jumped right out the television straight in to the real world, he looked that real. There were like 27 Inyashas, which in my opinion is the lamest anime/anime character ever. At least 5 Snakes from the videogame series "Metal Gear" who couldn't have looked less like him if they tried. As a side note I probably could have made a better Snake than any of those losers could have ever been in their wildest dreams. Shit, Guido is like the Italian Snake!

Anyway, we made our way towards where we had originally thought where the line began. As we got closer we realized that it went through a set of doors, that led in to an airplane hanger like hall. The minute we walked into that hall we knew we were fucked. Imagine a basketball coliseum without the seats, then imagine a line of people 4 wide, lining the walls. At this point our jaws dropped along with our hopes of actually getting in to this thing. We retreated to the foyer and hung around for another few moments just soaking it in. With the taste of defeat fresh in our mouths, we went for plan B, which happened to be GameWorks. Guido managed to beat me in every game we took each other on in, including a game I consider myself rather good at, Virtua Tennis. I should've been Roddick.

Ultimately what ended up being the most amusing and inspiring part for me was the mix of people who were down there. It was nerds who knew what was going on versus the tourists and Everett. I loved seeing the looks on the tourists faces as they walked and drove past the cos-players, nerds and dorks. Every time I saw the interaction between the knows and the know-nots, I snickered a little to myself, but at the same time I felt a little shitty for not really being a part of it either.

It was like a huge in-joke. Except it was for nerds. The thing is, all of these nerds, were so comfortable, dressing up like complete idiots! Again though, these people were getting their pictures taken with complete strangers. How often do you see some stupid hipsters, or frat doods getting their picture taken by sober strangers? Well, other than people like me trying to find some sort of weird irony in it.

The point is, I often try to hide this side of me from people who don't fully know my personality. Maybe it's time to stop being so guarded on that front. Though, I still don't think that chicks dig dudes who dress like this, cos-play or not.

BTW: A big thanks goes to Guido for being there for this one, and also a thanks should go to Steve who inspired yet another joke. Thanks guys, I love both of your perfectly formed asses equally in a completely straight way. Seriously, ladies take note.