Did this years con feel a little off?

This forum is for sharing photos, videos, reports, and finding people from Anime Boston 2012.
Taurosgrl
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Re: Did this years con feel a little off?

Post by Taurosgrl »

Rappak, I just wanted to apologize quickly. Someone saw my post, told a friend, and that friend proceeded to tell another friend, who told another friend that I was assaulted at the con and had my cosplay destroyed. It was basically a game of telephone that happened. I just wanted to say that that was not the case, and I have worked hard to inform Tumblr, where the exaggerated story went somewhat viral. As admirable as it was to see how many white knights there were among the fandom, no Homestucks were assaulted at AB this year as far as I know, and I definitely was not cornered and beat up. False alarm, sorry! ^^;;
AB 2012!
No Set Dates Yet:
Dolorosa - Homestuck
Blind Mag - Repo! The Genetic Opera
Sasha - Infamous
Austria - Hetalia
Xion - Kingdom Hearts 358 Days/2 (Maybe?)
IndigoDragon
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Re: Did this years con feel a little off?

Post by IndigoDragon »

Taurosgrl, regardless of whether you were not cornered and beat up, it's still not okay for you to have gotten your cosplay destroyed by other con goers. That absolutely is a form of assault. If someone accidentally stepped on your prop, then that would be okay because accidents happen. But the fact you yourself mention various pieces of your cosplay needing fixed says it all. Please, don't be modest. It's a problem that needs fixed, and a social stigma that needs addressed. Basically, what happened to you was really uncool. I was not one of the con goers, but from the bottom of my heart I am sorry that had to happen to you, and I applaud the fact you still had fun despite your cosplay being damaged.

To everyone else:

Regardless of fandom, an anime convention is not simply a place to cosplay from anime but a place for fans to come together and celebrate the Japanese culture they enjoy. Every single person at an anime convention is a fan, or friend of a fan that was dragged along. Every single one of us has a right to be there, no matter what cosplay we decide to wear. It's our right as fans, and such one sided thinking as "Homestuck, MLP or other non-anime doesn't belong there" is, frankly, appalling. You're going to cast your own out just because what they're wearing doesn't fit into the neat little package of "it belongs to an anime"? Disgusting. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

By the way, I'm just getting this out there, but I am not a fan of Homestuck either. Generally, I'm just as disgusted as the majority of you for the sheer fact that I see ugly trolls everywhere in great numbers when I go to cons. That doesn't mean it's right to take it out on it's fans. It's immature and childish, and wreaks of school yard antics where kids throw sand at each other and hope to get it in each others eyes. Just because we're fans of animated programming and comics doesn't mean we have to act that way. It's very uncool and gives the Japanese-loving (anime/games/manga/music) culture a bad name. In society's eyes, it's already bad enough since we're viewed as gigantic children. Don't contribute to these stereotypes.

On the cosplay front... being elitist is bad news. Being stuck up and elitist is even worse. Even if a bad cosplay arises out of it, and EVERY fandom has bad cosplay/cosplayers - don't kid yourselves on that - it absolutely does not mean that we should hate them for it. There could be any number of reasons as to why it's bad. Maybe they lack resources? Maybe they only just decided to go, whipped something up so they didn't feel out of place? Maybe they can't sew or don't have a creative bone in their body but enjoy it? Point is, bad cosplay or not, at least they're doing something they enjoy and have the courage to brave the elitists who look down on them for not looking as good. Leave them alone. You would expect the same courtesy if you wanted to cosplay under circumstances, so why treat someone else like crap?
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Kusuguru Usagi
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Re: Did this years con feel a little off?

Post by Kusuguru Usagi »

I personally had a fantastic time at AB this year. I went to 14 panels and went to the video rooms twice. There were just SO many panels I wanted to go to. ^_^ It was hard when there were panels that coincided at the same times, it was hard to choose which ones to attend and which ones to give up. LOL!! But, the panels I went to, I was very pleased with them and enjoyed myself tremendously. :D :D

I don't know if it was me or not, but, to me, it seemed Friday wasn't as busy as Saturday was as far as # of people (I was at the con all 3 days). Maybe I'm wrong, but, that's how it seemed to me.
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Fetch
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Re: Did this years con feel a little off?

Post by Fetch »

Qu-ko wrote:Re: Homestuck, the only thing that really downright annoyed me about the massive amount of cosplayers from it was the fact that they chose a terrible location to hold their Saturday photoshoot.

And by "terrible", I actually mean "the whole 100+ person group was crammed in a corner of the hallway and was blocking doors to panel rooms by being so huge". For a smaller shoot, this wouldn't have been a problem, but I can't imagine whoever chose that location DIDN'T expect a Homestuck shoot to be huge. Putting it in a hallway near panels, even just the very end of the hallway, still managed to block the door to a panel I wanted to attend. I had to take a very brief pause in-between people shooting pictures of one group and weave my way quickly through the mass of people just to get to the door.

They were still there by the time I got out of the panel. I was really tempted to complain to security or SOMEONE about it, because it astounded me that they weren't shooing them out of there for the very reason I had encountered, but I didn't. I regret it, though.

So, I guess PSA to all Homestuckers for next year: please hold your photoshoots somewhere bigger and more open next year, where you won't be obstructing access to panels, walkways, or anywhere people might need to walk. There are a lot of you; it's unreasonable to be cramming all of you in a small area, for both your group and other people.
imo, Photoshoots should NEVER be held near where the panels are. Best places inside for photoshoots are the ends of the hallways on the 2nd and 3rd floors (the ones with windows). If you have a BIG photoshoot, it is best to try and move it to the courtyard inside the Pru (with the fountain), the courtyard outside the Pru (with the big statue), or over to the Christian Science Plaza.

Oh, and fyi: Blocking the doors IS on the list of "Things you do that can have you thrown out of the Hynes".
Taurosgrl
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Re: Did this years con feel a little off?

Post by Taurosgrl »

IndigoDragon, my costume was not intentionally destroyed either. I mentioned nothing about my costume being destroyed by others, yes I was shoved lightly once or twice and there are pieces of my costume that I need to repair, but A) the repairs are not going to be lengthy and B) most of the damage was due to my own negligence. My tumblr is Tauros-xiv, I have a video on there explaining everything. But thank you kindly for your sympathy, and I do agree that the social stigma should be addressed. I just don't want anything blown out of proportion due to assumptions and a game of telephone.
AB 2012!
No Set Dates Yet:
Dolorosa - Homestuck
Blind Mag - Repo! The Genetic Opera
Sasha - Infamous
Austria - Hetalia
Xion - Kingdom Hearts 358 Days/2 (Maybe?)
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RolanMcDolan
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Re: Did this years con feel a little off?

Post by RolanMcDolan »

The way I see it, it seems like the big fad franchises like Homestuck and MLP serve largely as a sponge for half-assed cosplayers. Remember how there were dozens of shitty "casual" Hetalia cosplays and orange-trackpants-Narutos at past cons? This is just the new manifestation of it. I was honestly expecting lots of crappy casual Barnabies and Kotetsus and Madokas and Homuras, but to my surprise, most of the Madoka and T&B cosplays were downright awesome due to the HS/MLP/AT/BBC stuff soaking up the mediocrity. On the other hand, it does suck for the HS/MLP/AT/BBC cosplayers who actually DID put effort into their costumes (and believe me, there were plenty of them) - they get swept away in the sea of painted t-shirts and grey face paint.
Kico_kun
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Re: Did this years con feel a little off?

Post by Kico_kun »

Viran wrote:I only went to Anime Boston in 2011. Therefore, this year was my second year. To be quite honest, I enjoyed last year better. There were more anime cosplayers rather than non-anime. For friend it was her first year, so she quite enjoyed it. Last year I didn't really go to any panels, so I can't really help you with that. I went to a few this year; it was really fun~ The Vocaloid photoshoot was really small this year. It was kinda disappointing because last year, there was a lot and it was so much fun. The Masquerade lightened up my mood though. Roadie was a great mc hehe. I hope next year will be better but all in all, it was an enjoyable experience. :)
LoL that sounds like my story. Last year was my 1st year too. Me and my friend felt this year was off too. Mostly due to panels not being as interesting. The concerts being on Friday was a plus though. They were awesome and I saw alot of cool cosplays (but had no camera) I learned about Homestuck this year by asking one of the people cosplaying about it. They really took over. I was kind of hoping with the drop of popularity from bleach/naruto that people would try out other anime. Just glad I got to see some Tales of, Guilty Crown and Shakugan no Shana cosplays
Write knight wrote:I think one of the problems was that there weren't any really Big anime hits the past year, and if there were, they got completely overshadowed by my little pony. Usually I can figure out the newest mainstream series by gauging cosplayers, but that didn't really work this time. I decided to jump back a decade for cosplay, and I saw quite a few other people do the same thing. There was a bit of a surge of throwbacks, and childhood memory cosplays. Last year the only zoids were Liger zero and Nightwise, this year, we had liger, nightwise, Konig wolf, command wolf, shield liger, bit cloud, and berserk fury. The Fox-Box stood out as a unique cosplay. There was a little micro-swelling of .hack cosplay (Elk, Tsukasa, Kite, Alkaid, Ovan.) making 5, compared to the usual 2-3. I had Silver knight to possibly make 6, but I decided to not stay long enough on Sunday to make it practical.

So all in all, that "Huge surge of new hot anime" costumes was overshadowed by MLP, and by cosplayers taking a step back and doubling up on older favorite series' rather than doing newer ones.
Well I know I for one will be jumping back and forth as this is my 2nd con and I feel I got alot of catching up to do when it comes to cosplay. I want to cosplay as my old/current favorites before jumping to newer animes. Hopefully get some people into those series XP
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