MBS festival was AMAZING. MCM was, at best, 'Meh'.
Okay no, it had some pretty sick moments in there. But let me start from the top.
I had a feeling that we were in for some serious queue waiting as MCM is supposed to be pretty big. I got up seven-ish, we left at half eight and got there 10 o'clock. The queue was already HUGE. They separated us into those with an early ticket and those who were buying general entry tickets. When we looked over and saw how long the queue for early entry is - as those people got priority - we knew it was gonna be a looong wait. Which wasn't great 'cause I already needed the toilet, I just had to bury that feeling deeep DEEEEEEP down.
NOW. I saw loooads of people, some One Piece characters, I saw some Narutos, a guy who I think was meant to be Hitman; outside the venue I saw a Khal Drogo and freaked out a little bit; when we finally got inside, I saw a Daenerys, an AMAZING Tails (from Sonic the Hedgehog) costume and some Hatsune Mikus (I freaked out again) but that's later. I saw quite a few Links but none were particularly impressive, sorry to those people. They did get the Master Sword and Hylian Shield looking pretty tight though. But the green of the tunic was never quite right and the hair always looked weird. Oh well. Link's just a hard one to do!
Okay, didn't see ANY Princess Zelda's, which made me so saaaaad. I saw a Princess Peach outside but she wasn't wearing the iconic pink dress, but an outfit from one of the Mario sports games. I saw Ichigo, I saw a Dante, I also saw ten thousand bloody Pikachus, which sucked cause my friend said he was going as Pikachu and so in the queue I thought aahhhh duuudee! You and everybody else!
I saw one Charmander tho. Had to shout out Charmander for being the only Pokemon I saw that WASN'T Pikachu.
Okayy, I saw some Marios, I saw someone who I think was meant to be M Bison, I saw a Chun Li too but not with him, and loads of Gothic Lolita and Japanese schoolgirl cosplayers who I think may have been from animes that I didn't know. I didn't see any Nabari No Ou characters there, but I had a feeling I wouldn't. Just wishful thinking really. I woulda cried if I saw a Yoite.
Okay, so. We waited in the first part of the queue for an hour, until 11 o'clock when the general entry was finally open. A HUGE cheer went up from everybody when they saw we were finally moving, and then cheers kept happening every fifteen minutes or so. It was random, fun and somewhat hilarious to just scream for no reason. That's the great thing about Comic Con - there doesn't really have to be a reason for.... well, anything...
Me and my brothers (one older, one younger) payed and got our tickets - you could pay by card, hip hip hooray - then at the very next bit they took our tickets and stamped our hand (oookaaaay), and then we waited again for a long while, waving around all these metal barriers until we finally were right outside the entrance. That was a relief because we could finally dive out of the queue to go to the toilet.
So for anyone going to Comic Con, some advice:- GET THERE AS SOON AS POSSIBLY POSSIBLE
- DOOOO NOOOOT DRINK, DON'T EAT EITHER AS YOU WILL GET THIRSTY
- GO TO THE LOO AS MANY TIMES AS YOU CAN BEFORE YOU JOIN THE QUEUE
- FOR THE BEST QUEUING EXPERIENCE, DRESS UP AS SOMEONE, PREFERABLY AS SOMEONE COOL, NOT AS PIKACHU OR SOMEONE FROM X-MEN
When we finally got into the venue, it was... wait for it... 12:30.
So we waited in line for TWO AND A HALF HOURS, and even then only because we got there an hour early. When we left just over an hour later, we could still hear random bursts of loud cheering from people in the queue. Dang.
In the final part of the queue, we finally decided to sit down as we knew we would be walking a lot inside, and thank God we did. By the time we got in, the first thing we wanted to do was fuckin sit down! It was so jam packed at times, we could only shuffle forward in very very small steps, and that was as frustrating as hell. I expected the long queue, but I didn't expect it to be so packed inside that nobody could move. It was already a big venue. That sucked. We were already feeling tired, and the last thing we wanted to see after getting past those barriers was MORE queues for the food stalls or signings or whatever.
There were loads of really great things to see; stickers, posters, t-shirts, figurines, sweets and chocolate stalls (POCKYYYY =D ), game and Wii U demonstrations, Cosplay competitions, comic villages where the anime artists were and where you could buy issue comics or compilation comic books, retro games for Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Game Cube etc, and also for more recent gaming platforms, ceramic weapons (my brother bought a kunai knife along with his Naruto headband), cosplay gear (more Pikachu costumes, GROOAAAAAN), kawaii stationary (literally, soo cutee), kimono robes, and then you had sushi, ramen, noodles and crushed ice stalls.
So it was very, very entertaining, but thing was... I'd seen all of it before.
I'd never been to Comic Con, but aside from Forbidden Planet and Chinatown (which is like, Leicester Sqaure area) in Central London, and then Camden Market, you can find pretty much all of that stuff online, and none of it was new to me. So yeah, it was exciting being with my brothers and friends and seeing it all in one place, but after the intial browse, it was very boring VERY quickly.
My brothers, exhausted, left at half one, me and my friends got tired soon after and left a two. Two and a half hours waiting, for a hour and a half inside the venue.
There was one perk that I really appreciated, and that was seeing the work by Destiny Blue in the anime artists area. I checked out more of her work on Deviant Art afterwards and its just AMAZING, I can't barely describe the talent and originality that shines out of each piece. There was one that stuck out at me, a girl with a finger to her cheek, which had a labyrinth etched into it. It was really cool, and I was going to buy it but guess what? Yeah. That's right. A queue. I made myself wait five munites, ten minutes, then I couldn't do it any longer. I wanted to pass out. I think that's when I went home.
To sum it all up, MCM was cool enough, and definately worth the experience at least once, but I won't be going next year.
If I do ever go back, it would be at least a couple years from now and I would DEFINATELY dress up, or there would really be no point. I'm black, and as good black heroes are hard to come by I'd probably go as Ergo Proxy, maybe some sort of creature like them blue avatar things, a life-sized Momo from Avatar: Legend Of Aang (HAHAHAHEEHEHE) possibly Storm from X-Men (BORING). My sister suggested Catwoman too, drawing a horrible (silent) comparison to the fact that both have been played by Halle Berry... yyyyyyeahh, let's not go there.
I think MCM Comic Con is for people who are either don't have access to this sort of stuff at ALL and are completely clueless, or for those who are completely hardcore and do the whole Dress Up, Get Stuff Signed and Buy Loads Of Useless But Aesthetically Pleasing Shit routine. Another friend of mine went on Sunday so she could see the knights from Merlin, and if there was someone I really wanted to see from TV or a movie or something, then I think it would definately be a highlight that would make my experience a lot better.
For people like me and my brorthers, who are about midway in that we keep up with the latest Comic, Anime, Fantasy and Sci-Fi related jazz and get our shit online, it was entertaining at first but nothing more.
Like I said - a damn shame.
Never mind, it not like it's the only one. Hyper Japan is this July, and I think the fact that it's about Japanese culture in general means I'll be guaranteed to learn things I DON'T know. Without allowing myself to be as ecstatic as I was for MCM, I think I can safely say that I am mildly (okay, very) excited for that one.
Me.
________________________________________
