It’s been almost a week since I got back, but I totally forgot to post how it went, but damn I have a lot to say.
First, holy fuck I didn’t realize Genshin Impact was as popular as it is. By far the game/series that had the most amount of cosplayers was Genshin Impact, and the most popular cosplay by far for Genshin was Raiden Shogun. For a gacha game, especially one made in China, I didn’t think it would have the fanbase that it does, but it does, and I bit the bullet and started playing it on Monday. The game’s pretty fun imo, but it’s honestly up to you how you wanna do it.
Anyways, I got there on Thursday, settled into the Airbnb I was staying in with friends, then I found parking. For any convention at the GWCC, unless it’s full, park in the Red Deck, it’ll save you so much time walking, as you can access all three buildings the GWCC has from the Red Deck by using the walkway on the 7th floor.
Thursday I mainly did Karaoke and took pictures with cosplayers, but that was pretty damn fun. The whole setup for the convention was cool, it was all 4 floors of building B, with the first floor being autographs, the vendor hall, and all the e-sports stuff, and the other 3 floors were for panels. Friday I just went around to a bunch of panels, there were a few woke panels, I just didn’t go to them, but I did go to karaoke and a “cosplaying on a budget” panel.
Saturday was the start of Smash, didn’t do well, but I’m taking a break from Smash anyways, waiting on a new controller, but after that, I didn’t really feel like doing much, so I took a ton of pictures, bought a few shirts and then went to karaoke, before I found out about a party going on at a nightclub that night, and holy fuck was it fun.
Got there, it opened at 10, but it started slow AF, and people didn’t really fill it up until 11:30, but once people started going at it, I had tons of fun. I have no clue if they were employees at the nightclub, but they had a Raven, a Catwoman, a mummified Anhka and some random kitsune cosplayer (couldn’t tell who they were dressed up ass) rotate being on stage and showing off, but that was fun as hell. The rave ended at a solid 3 in the morning, and I went straight back to that Airbnb because I wanted to enjoy Momocon before it ended at 5 on Sunday.
On Sunday I didn’t do much, I mainly just walked around, took more pictures with cosplayers (which I should probably specify, there were so many from Genshin, so many people just wearing UA’s PE uniform from My Hero Academia, a ton of black guys being lazy and just wearing Akatsuki cloaks, a bunch of Mitsuru from Demon Slayer, a ton of Miruko, I’d say about 25-30 percent of the people there were cosplaying, which I definitely need to do.
Anyway, the last thing I went to was a panel explaining what Genshin Impact is and what the world’s about, which is why I started playing it on Monday. Very fun weekend, and I might go to more cons, it just depends on location, if there’s a Smash or FGC major as well as the panels, as I spent way too much time listening and doing karaoke last weekend.
I'm glad you had fun. I play Genshin and am continually surprised by how popular Raiden is. I dislike her character as presented, fundamentally. She becomes slightly redeemed in epilogues of the main story, but it was an uphill battle for me to ignore what had come before. I wonder if people really like her character, or they just like how she looks.
You didn't mention trouble with the hazmat policy of this event, which is striking to me. I loathe to ask, but what were the impositions you had to deal with concerning mandates and policies impeding the fun?
I ask because it coincides with a similar event I witnessed last weekend: "Combo Breaker." This is one of the staple yearly fighting game tournaments. I tuned in as I often do to these events to see good matches, especially offline matches (finally) where skill isn't dampened by lag. It is mid-match of Guilty Gear as I tune in. Commentators sound a little strange. Then the round ends and we get a shot of the competitors.
They have masks, and one is fumbling with his because he wants to drink some water, finally does and immediately pulls it back up. I assume this is some kind of virtue signal thing because they're on-camera. Pan the crowd: masked to the man. Every single one. The commentator booth is in the front row, and they are masked. This is why they sound like they're talking through blankets on the broadcast.
I go to their main site to see what policy has resulted in this and find: Mask required at all times in all locations, security staff will throw anyone out without a mask on. Additionally: must have full boosters of this (fairly complicated) list of approved injections, weird inconsistent definitions of what constitutes 'full,' official papers required to this effect and another complex list of entities that constitute 'official.'
The entire thing is a celebration of insanity. You have to be certified immune and wear a mask at all times. Everyone does. Justification for any one of these rules is contradicted by every other rule. The mask prevents spread, ok, then wear one and you'll be fine. No, no, your mask protects me so YOU have to wear one or I won't be safe. Ok, so lets all wear masks. But you need to have the government approved injections too, why if the masks do their job? To be extra double sure. Ok, then I'll take my mask off since now I'm immune. Yes but how will I know you didn't just sneak in with a mask and then take it off?! You have the injections, and you have the mask, you are fully battle ready, why do you care what I do? YOUR INJECTIONS PROTECT ME THOUGH!
Round and round we go. It never stops. Think up a new performance and we must all do it "for grandma" or... "for the kids" or... for someone probably, the messaging is muddy.
Fundamentally I knew, I wasn't going to see good matches at this tournament. The only people who attended were OK with all of this shit. I stopped watching.
I also know (hope) that geography plays into this. Combo Breaker is in Chicago. Momocon is in Atlanta. I'm eager to hear how it was different or the same.
I think a lot of why Raiden’s popular is because of her looks, but also she’s part of a really good team, also people like shipping her with either Miko, Sara or both.
There was security on the 4th floor at the escalator where you need to go down to get to the panels and exhibit hall where they did check for masks and badges, right by registration/badge pickup, but if you were outside, you didn’t have to wear masks, and you didn’t have to wear masks on the fourth floor at all, only if you went down to the rest of the con. Did it suck, yeah, but at some point people just stopped caring except at the 4th floor escalator, and people just carried water and food and never wore masks. They didn’t check us for vax cards, just masks.