It’s like Halloween, only more esoteric and with less candy. Wait, no really, it’s more awesome than it sounds.
Cold skies give way to warm gulf breezes, birds chirp merrily as they take care of their hatchlings and delight in pooping on newly detailed autos, and of course the flora covers everything in sight with yellow pollen that makes the antihistamine manufactures need a cold shower. Of course it wouldn’t be spring in Houston without Anime Matsuri to ring in the transition from OMG I can’t feel my fingers to OMG I’ve immolated all over myself.
A little while ago I found out Delta H Con was happening in North Houston. Never wanting to shy away from an opportunity to nerd out, CJ and I decided to stop by last weekend and take a peek.
A-kon 2013 in Dallas Texas was, by far, the largest and most packed convention I have ever been to. In fact, I hear through the grape vine that it was the 2nd largest anime convention in the US to date. There were lines over 3 hours long for each event every day of the con, with The dealer’s room and the artist alley both managing to exceed even that. Every where you went you could smell the scent of too many bodies packed too closely together.
It’s always a good idea when planning anything to factor in Murphy’s Law. In fact, in the 27 years of being on this wonderful little dirt ball, it’s probably one of the most sage pieces of advice that I personally adhere to (That and not being a douche). With that in mind, when a friend from New Orleans offered to have me tag along with him to Austin’s IKKiCON during the last weekend of the year, I jumped at it.
Me and the lovely Lana Marie have been trying to schedule a shoot for quite some time now. Finally we both found ourselves on the cold, dark streets of Austin. Fortunately she was armed to the teeth with blades and guns and I had plenty of heavy glass to bludgeon evil doers with. A special shout out goes to Joey Lopez, Nacho Likes, and Hai Ngyuen for their help with this.
The Onicon anime convention for this year was held in Galveston, Texas on the weekend of October 19th. While I have attended an anime convention before, it was quite a long time ago. I was in high school and a friend’s sister was organizing Kamikazecon. Turns out she was short handed on free labor volunteers and enlisted us to run a live action anime adaptation room. My friend and I ended up suffering through two hours of live action Sailor Moon every day of the convention, and when our shift’s were over, we’d just wander around downtown Houston instead of the actual convention we were allowed to attend for free. Anyway, this was my first time ever attending an anime convention as a guest, so I made it a point to show up on Saturday for the cosplay showcase.