Midoricon 2012

This guest post was wrote by Zach Weaver, an avid manga and anime fan. Not to mention he is becoming a regular guest writer here at JP. Being the workaholic I am, I was unable to get the day off to cover the con. So here is Zach’s take.

My group headed over to Salt Fork State Park early Friday morning for the first ever Midoricon and also my first anime convention ever. Right as we got to the lodge, I could easily tell this would be very laid back and comfortable for a first time con. There weren’t too many people there (I read on the Midoricon Facebook page the total count for attendees was around 296), but to me that added to the feeling of being close to all the other attendees. I didn’t attend as many panels as I had wanted to, or that I had planned to. I mostly spent my time over the convention wandering around and taking pictures of different cosplayers holding a “Mr. Popo for President 2012” sign I had made. There were so many moments I enjoyed at the convention that I had a hard time making a list, but here’s my Top 10 Favorite Moments of Midoricon 2012 that I experienced (in no particular order).

1. Getting laughs and compliments from everyone that saw my “Mr. Popo for President 2012” sign

I was carrying around a sign that I had made, and almost every person at the convention that saw it gave me so many compliments and laughed at it. I even had one guy start yelling in a Mr. Popo voice about running for president. A few people asked me for pictures of the sign which made my head three times its normal size.

2. Having my first big fan boy moment over cosplayers

I was walking from my room to the main convention area and saw the two Digimon cosplayers on Friday and began yelling something along the lines of “OH MY GOD THERE’S A TAI AND AND AND A KOROMON AND A MATT AND A TSUNOMON!!!”. Needless to say my friends who were with me and everyone else around lost it. Then on Saturday I was hanging around the maid café being run by the D20 Girls and saw a Slenderman cosplayer. My voice raised a few octaves and once again I yelled “OH MY GOD SLENDERMAN!!!” and of course had to have a picture. At the bonfire Saturday night, I got a picture of my girlfriend and myself with Slenderman creeping in the background. I also got a picture of a Goku and a Slenderman fighting!

3. Mr. Giggles

A member of my group wore a creepy clown outfit with a black robe and called himself Mr. Giggles. He’d go around the con and just stand next to people to creep them out. We even had a couple people ask us if we knew “where they could find the clown stalking people”. At the beach party there was a family not involved with the convention, and Mr. Giggles decided to scare to the kids. No, it wasn’t nice, but it was oh so hilarious. Mr. Giggles then spent Saturday asking people “Would you like some butter?” while handing them little butter containers. This was definitely weirdness at its best!

4. Getting pictures of cosplayers holding my Mr. Popo sign

I spent Saturday going around the convention taking pictures of different cosplayers holding the Mr. Popo sign. Surprisingly, none of them said no. Most of them jumped at the chance to pose with it. There was a Jack Sparrow cosplayer who posed with it that after I took the picture held the sign in the air and began yelling around “Everyone vote for Popo!!!” In total I had 37 different cosplayers pose with the sign. I really do wish I had asked basically everyone pose with it, and had thought of doing it starting on Friday.

5. The beach party

The beach party on Friday was so much fun. There was food, swimming, and Dragon Ball Z volleyball (normal volleyball but the ball itself was the 1 star Dragon Ball), and Suikawari. Suikawari is a Japanese game in which the players lay a watermelon on a towel, and each player takes turns attempting to smash the watermelon open while blindfolded (think of it like a Japanese piñata except instead of everyone getting candy, they get smashed watermelon). The best part of the beach party was when the DJ at the beach began playing music and the first tune they played was a song that recently became hugely popular called “Gangnam Style”. The instant the song started playing the Volleyball game and everyone else stopped what they were doing and did the “Gangnam Style” dance in unison.

6. The Dealer Room

Even though the dealer room was very small (what would you expect from a very small convention?) it was amazing to me. There was so much stuff smashed into such a small area, that it was like Otaku Heaven. There were 5 different dealers that between them had a large variety of otaku related items. One of the dealers had cheap used anime DVDs that were in near perfect quality. A friend of mine got the complete collection of “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” for $25, which anyone knows is cheap for a complete collection of any series. Due to a lack of money, I only got a Blue Exorcist poster for myself and a pack of Vocaloid playing cards for my girlfriend. Even had a little “back-and-forth” with one of the dealers on whether or not I was paying my girlfriend (it was all in good fun of course).

7. The bonfire

My group went to the bonfire on Saturday night and had a blast. We ate marshmallows, hung out with some people, got some nice pictures, and went on a short walk with a 50 year old otaku named Mike Flury, but had several nicknames, my favorite being “Old As Dust”. It got even better when Mr. Giggles actually scared and freaked out the Slenderman cosplayer.

8. Having a friend get escorted back to the room by the weirdest crossover

Long story short, late Saturday night going into early Sunday morning (right around 3 am) a member of the group I was with had some issues with the convention area while the rest of my group was in our room. We were sleeping when we heard them knocking. We answered the door to find our friend had been escorted back to our room by a Goku cosplayer, a Shizuo (Durarara!!) cosplayer, and a Neko Swat Team soldier. While the issues were pretty serious, we can’t help but laugh that his escort seemed like the weirdest anime crossover in the world.

9. Swimming with Goku

My group went swimming in the indoor swimming pool Saturday. While we were swimming, the Goku cosplayer we made friends with (he was the same one in #8) was walking in the hallway that overlooks the pool and looked out. He saw us, and we saw him. I motioned for him to join us. Lo and behold, about 10 minutes later he joined us! He was out of cosplay of course. We had a great time chatting about DBZ, the convention, etc. Afterwards we pretty much went our separate ways for the convention, but he’ll forever be known as our “con buddy Goku”. We didn’t even learn his real name until we got home and looked him up!

10. Ramblings of an Old Otaku

This panel was the best panel I attended. Going into it, I didn’t really know what to expect from this, I kind of figured it’d be an old otaku talking about anime from long ago. In reality, it was exactly as the name implied, it was nothing but an old otaku rambling about whatever came to mind, but it was so much fun. Mike, AKA Old As Dust, ran the panel. Mostly he shared some stories of cons he went to, and then shared a ton of hilarious pictures from the internet he collected. He also gave us Smarties candies, and everyone knows you can easily win over any crowd with free candy.

Overall the con was AMAZING! I can’t wait to go back next year and meet old con friends and make new ones. I’m really interested in seeing how the convention will have evolved and improved since this year.

Midoricon website: http://www.midoricon.com/

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