Anime Boston

It's been going 6 years now so I'm guessing the majority have gotten used to it and thus, there may not be as many questions/reactions from passerby but if any of you cosplayers (or normal clothed fans) had any funny or interesting experiences with the blissfully ignorant public(and I mean that in a nice way! ) feel free to share them here.

We(My Family and I) Were going onto a elevator to go get our car, and some lady when i walked on open her eyes so big, it was CLASSIC =D. then there was this guy that walked over to my sister and cousin and said 'i like your hair, no im lying' lmao.
theeeeen oh we were sitting on a bench and some drunk guy was taking pictures of us, and screaming at us. it was soo funny. this was on friday, yesterday, lol

on our way out the door a family came up to me and my bf, meanwhile i am dressed up, and the father asked us why people were dressed up in interesting costumes and where are they all coming from, me and my bf laughed and just explained that it was an anime convention, he didnt know what anime was, again we laughed and tried to explain while we were slowly walking away, a great way to end the day haha

i got stares in my kimono walking down the streets of boston and in the mall to get to the hynes convention center.and some indian lady in sari was taking pictures of me

OHOH

I was in the car(in costume), and these guys drive by, staring at me.
AND, when I left, I went through a food court at a mall, and all these old people are going 'wtf!?'
I got a up at the mall, though.

Today I got on the green line train and one of the guys was just sitting and as my friends and I got on he opened his eyes and just stared at us and I was talking to my friend and pretending I didn't notice the guy staring at us and said "If someone looks at me funny I WILL give them the OWL Finger, no one is going to mess with me today and if they try to...twitch twitch" so the guy just turned around and began to mind his own business again xD

As I got to Beacon Hill though people were actually normal with it~ :3 Guess it's because most are tourists and don't really care.

I think not only were people staring at cosplayers but that they notice the badge people wear for the con and so they stare at non cosplayers with the badge as well. It's like their thinking. "great, more weird people." lol

Well on the red line a kid pulled the bow off my lolita dress....i super glued it back on. I got grab assed going to the green line. then my outfit got ruined....and i could afford a naruto cosplay and on the way home after a very nice woman helped me figure out how to get home (she didnt care i was bright orange XD) a little boy was like it's naruto!!!! his mom scolded him saying don't be rude and call people insults XDXDXD i corrected her and said thats the character that i'm dressed up as name. She just stared at my blank and all i had to say was pay attention to your kids and what they watch. Kid was cool the whole ride home. i love people XD

Not ten minutes ago, I had a woman ask me if the con was about teaching prenatal care skills to med students, it seems she mistook this convention for another being held soon. I had to tell her it was an anime convention three times before the message finally registered, the fact that I wasn't dressed like a person attending a medical conference should have been a pretty obvious clue.

I had a lot of people come up to me and ask why i was all dressed up. First it was on our way to the Marriot from the convention and then back in the Marriot hotel lobby. Both times it was these older woman asking what was going on and I was trying to explain. They did not know what anime was. So to simplify it I just said "Japanese cartoons"

Also did anyone notice that the National Lacrosse finals were being held this weekend? I had a lot of weird stairs from people in the Marriot who were there for that...

The lacrosse players were very rude. Talking behind our back about how we're total freaks. I was like, hey, I'm standing right here, within earshot, I can HEAR YOU! Made me laugh.
Also when heading back to our hotel room my friend and I were in the elevator and got asked "Why it looks like Halloween out there." I responded with oh it's an anime convention and went on to try and explain anime, but the guys kept asking, "Who's anime?" Like it was a person. That's was the first time I ever had someone ask, "who?" x3

I was Dressed as shino and my friend was kakashi and we were leaving wall greens that was right across the street from the mall. as we were leaving some guys walk by saying that we support terrorism.

I took off any anime-related stuff when I was on public transport as to not stick out, because, for some reason, people in the city are mean. I didn't do cosplay, but I did take off my pass and hachimaki for the ride home because I'm always afraid people will judge me as being one of 'dem 'dere wapanese annie-mae freaks.

Hehe, it was funny. There were a bunch of people who were like, "You guys look awesome! But what's going on?" so we tried to explain and stuff, and some people were like, "Oh anime! =pause= Can I take a picture with you guys? :"D" And so we did that a lot too.

I had one person ask why everyone was dressed up in costume on saturday, and I just told him we were having one giant 3 day nonstop party XD, i also had other people constantly just keep staring at me on the T and subway (I was L and acting like it everywhere), and I just stared right back, i was also swinging off the top rails on the train :content:

While waiting for the train, some kids came up to my friend Jin (who was Zack from FF7: Crisis Core) and wanted to look at his sword. They asked him questions and he let them hold it. It was cute.

We were walking through the mall and one woman stopped and asked in that rich prude sophisticated snob nasal voice why we are all dressed up. We were telling her there was an anime convention here and she just kept walking off in a sigh of disgust saying "oh".

Also some of those lacrosse jocks deserve to be murdered... just saying, if it happens again don't be surprised to find one dead in an alley way because of how rude they were being.

We generally got good reactions, people being really interested in my friend's cosplay. I passed some pretty rude people who were all, "oh, what's with all the Halloween costumes" but for the most part people seemed really interested. idk, when people ask me stuff like that and they don't know what anime is, I just tell them it's like a sci fi and comic book convention. They can usually put the pieces together from there, but I find that people are usually enthusiastic about it!

We did get some weird reactions late in the day Saturday when my friend just had her wig on...that was mostly just drunk baseball goers though, I think.

Subway and Commuter Rail was filled with yellings of Marco Polo

And in Alewife a lady made a loud weird "HA!" at a Gara

the only bad reactions i had to cosplay really was people bumping into me while i was walking to the subway, small chance it could have been an accident since i mostly always make sure never to bump into people if theres a good deal of sidewalk between us

I didn't even notice any lacrosse players, huh.

My favorite was, saturday night me and my friends went to Burger King. As I was getting ready to go, this stereotypical british dude came in and asked (I wasn't in costume at the time) "Have ya seen the people for the harry potter show? All these witches and wizards at the hotel down the street"

Me and the friends just tried not to laugh

I've got 3 of them this year.

Saturday I was in line for pizza in the food court and one of the guys working at Regina's said "I have absolutely no idea what's going on, but I'll give you a slice of pizza for free for your sword." XD

On Friday, I had to move my car to a different parking lot. Some jerk on the street stopped walking, stared at me, screamed "Happy Thanksgiving" in a rude manner and walked away. (I was Viral from Gurren Lagann. I can only assume he thought I looked like a pilgrim. Viral looks NOTHING like a pilgrim.)

While walking through Hynes, some guy looked so confused and scared. I just heard him say "What the HELL is going on here?!" to himself.

If I got rude stares, I didn't notice them. XD But I wasn't really in full cosplay, so yeah.

I was in the food court and this old lady came up to us and asked, "Why is everyone dressed like that?" I kindly explained to her that it was a gathering for anime fans where people dress up as their favorite characters (after explaining what anime was, of course). She was very nice. :3

Actually, speaking of the Harry Potter thing, there was another Convention going on a couple blocks away, LeakyCon. A friend of mine went, so I can understand why they'd think they'd be similar.

And as for my experience, I also bumped into a Lacrosse player on the elevator. And, to my surprise, him and his father (at least I'm guessing) were very nice. They asked what it was all about, and when I told them about anime, their reaction was a polite nod and "Well, that's interesting. I didn't know people dressed up for it."

I was wearing a British soldiers uniform and passed by a Lacrosse team that were staying in the hotel I was, they asked if the British army was trying to recruit soldiers from the U.S.

Oh, and I saw a few cosplayers late coming back on Friday night to their hotel and some guy in a taxi cab screamed, thinking that the guns some of them had were real or something - it was all quite funny xD

I was in line and overheard a guy dressed up as Kenny from Bleach trying to explain what cosplaying was/what anime was to what looked like a 60ish year old woman. It was quite funny, because she kept nodding and saying"hmmm" "yeah" but it was obvious she was lost.

Not a lot of "normies" spoke to us this convention, though most of them looked pretty bewildered. The best was some guy making a serious "O.o" face, but we got called gay by a bunch of drunken idiots who sped by outside the convention center. Really? Please die.

I didn't really have any problems from any "regular people" I did have this old man that pulled my tail on my Kiro outfit >.>. What was really cute though were some Mothers pushing around their little ones that pointed me out to them. So I was able to play with them for a little bit^^

Haha, the whole time on the T we played marco polo. It was close to when closing cerimonies ended so there was so many of us. Everyone else was just like 'wtf is going on, heheheh. well im just going to smile and laugh so the people with swords dont hurt me hehhehheh' it was hilarious.

some dude asked if i was dressing like a stereotypical middle eastern >.<; i wassuppose to be from hetalia which is one, and sme dude told me i looked like some terrorist which wasnt funny at all...

another one was i was at a noodle shop with my friend cosplaying as naruto, and this dude is staring at my chest trying to see my badge in the window lmao! i was covering myself for a while after that....since i had no litteral shirt ._.;

I got a similar reaction from people a few times. It pretty much went "I hate when these weirdos in costumes invade the......Is that Quail-Man? Holy poopy that is awesome!"

i was waiting in line at ben and jerry's (yummmmm... ice cream) and i heard this adorable little girl ask her mom why my hair was so spikey. sunday i kept getting asked if there was "some sort of convention" in town, but i mostly got freaked out stares, especially when kaoru and i were posing for pictures *brotherly love stlye* in the middle of the mall. THOSE were some weird ass faces people were making. homophobes much? XD

i had some wierd ones

a lot of ppl were asking wat was goin on, then those lacrosse pplw ere calling me nazi! (since i was dietrich and all). oh and i cant forget my own fathers reaction "LOOK AT ALL THE FREAKS!!!!" i laughed when he said that. i also got a lot of freaked out looks from other random ppl, who probably also thought i was being a literal nazi

-I was sitting in the food court sipping a milkshake in costume (with a bit of difficulty), and the godiva chocolate employees kept pointing at me.
-Some german tourists said something but I didn't get it.
-I had to explain to a few older people what this convention was about. I just said, "Japanese cartoons and stuff."

It was kinda interesting trying to explain what was going on to a couple of foreign tourists who were in the mall and the elevators, but otherwise if people were talking about me behind my back I was too busy not caring about them and going about my merry way.

Mines not so strange, but still funny to me xD

My friend and I were walking through the mall to get outside to where my car was, both dressed in our costumes respectively, when some women behind us continually was like "Excuse me, excuse me". It took us both about a half a minute to realize she was calling us XD. She then proceeded to ask us what we were dressed up for, what anime was, before complimenting out costumes and telling us that we both looked very nice.

It was amusing xD

[quote=Nurilka]Hehe, it was funny. There were a bunch of people who were like, "You guys look awesome! But what's going on?" so we tried to explain and stuff, and some people were like, "Oh anime! =pause= Can I take a picture with you guys? :"D" And so we did that a lot too.[/quote]

They sounded nice! It's great that some people can be nice to us and appreciate the lengths that some of us go to for these cons.

Lacrosse team sounds rather rude, though.

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I was on the subway platform at Hynes and all of the Ts going as far as north station were filled with Red Sox fans who were giggling at the crowds on the platforms. Luckily for us, the station before us must have been passed by the empty T that was going the whole length back on the green line and picked all of us up! Thanks, MBTA! and thanks for not texting... @_@

One hguy came up to us before in cosplay and asked what was going on, we told him...

And then Ed and I WERE in cosplay and went to eat. We sat next to a family of 4, with two little girls who looked terrorized by our appearance. We said we wouldn't bite, explained to their parents, and ate our meal with the girls staring at us...

And then we ate at the same place he next day and some guy was like... "Those outfits are really neat... what's going on today? Those costumes are awesome!"

I was talking to an L an he said that he sat like L on the train all three days and at first people were like "woah what?" then by sunay they got used to it, he said XD

Well I had two couples come up to me and tell me that they thought I was really cute. There was a group of girls who wanted a picture of me. Oh, and then there was a tour bus who were all staring and taking pictures of my group of friends and the surrounding cosplayers. as we were walking to the Hilton. Generally good reception I think.

I was cosplaying a hunter and as such was walking around with duct tape all over me and pretty much all my exposed skin and pants drenched in fake blood.

Suffice it to say, when I was walking back to the car to change, the pedestrians gave me some really really strange looks. Still fun though.

Oh, please. It's Boston. Someone looks like that every eight minutes. hahaha at least we were in the good parts of town.

lol i was doing that too XD, i was also swinging from those handrails on the ceiling ^^ i was still getting/giving weird looks on sunday too though, sunday going there i sat across from a man reading the paper/a book and i just stared at him for like 3 minutes

haha I would've loved to see someone cosplaying on a bus or train XDD I should use public transportation next yer just for that hehe

On the T I was basically surrounded by congoers, even on the train to Haverhill, so I was the only one who was sticking out (I wasn't in costume).

lol u should XD sunday, me and my friends met a group of people and we had a section that we defined as the cosplay section(even though non cosplayers/congoers sat with us too), and we saw zero from code geass and shouted at him to join us

I was a little more daring and actually decided to look for trouble. I went as El Fuerte from SF4 and figured "Ya know, the guys at GameStop should know who I am" so I waltz and got a "It's Super Dynamic Cooking Time" from the guys on staff. Felt all warm and fuzzy.

lol while that's true. I looked like I had just brutally beaten then cannibalized someone. And that doesn't typically happen that often in Boston...at least not recently.

I have a reverse situation (inverse pedestrian reaction?), my brother and I came out of the elevators in the Marriot lobby where a bunch of lacrosse players were standing around in uniform, he looked at them for a few seconds then turned to me completly serious and asked what Anime they were cosplaying.

[quote=Einnar]I have a reverse situation (inverse pedestrian reaction?), my brother and I came out of the elevators in the Marriot lobby where a bunch of lacrosse players were standing around in uniform, he looked at them for a few seconds then turned to me completly serious and asked what Anime they were cosplaying.[/quote]

HA! Oh man I gotta tell my uncle that one, he's a lacrosse fan. What did you tell your brother? If it was me I would've messed with him and said "The Prince of Lacrosse".