Middle Tennessee Anime Convention 2008
I got back from MTAC Infinity late Sunday night. This convention was... interesting. Well, especially so considering some drama and chaos that happened Saturday night, but if you want to find out about that you can dig into the MTAC forums. All I'll say is that the people who work Public Safety have a tough job and they did it well.
Sadly, I didn't do much. I dropped out of line for some of the concerts when they ran excessively late. I didn't really attend any panels to speak of. I thought about going to a couple, but skipped them for some reason or another. So, I ended up doing my normal wandering-the-halls, following-other-people-in-our-group-around thing. And I spent a lot of time in the dealer's room, only to end up with 3 t-shirts (including a Portal Aperture Laboratories shirt) and a Maya Ibuki (from Evangelion) figure. (Somehow Jen and John started associating her with me... I dunno, I guess it's the "geek with a conscience" thing.) I also didn't have any particular interest in the voice actor guests--I've seen some shows that Johnny Yong Bosch and Greg Ayres were in, but nothing that I wanted to get signed. Strangely, I probably spent a good chunk of time wandering back up to the room, waiting there, and then heading back down.
I have very few pictures (which I've posted here on the site), but I'll try to pester other people for them and post them as I get them.
Costuming
As regular readers may remember, I had something of a Jin (from Samurai Champloo) costume worked up for Halloween last year. In all honesty, it was something I came up with when Jen bought John a bathrobe to use for a makeshift Bleach costume. I ended up replacing basically everything from Halloween, including making a not-really-real-but-more-real-than-what-I-had hakama from this pattern. (Also the wig. Without the wig, I'm told I look like Jeff Goldblum if he was cast in a live-action Champloo movie.)
Considering the crazy stuff people wear to conventions, I was strangely not self-conscious at all. Actually, I think I was less nervous in the crowd with it on, and I would have had more trouble wearing the full costume around the house than I would wearing it around the convention. Actually, the fact that I made something that (well, ok, that at least I thought) looked freaking cool was a big help. Somewhere deep inside me, there is an attention-starved loser begging for approval.
Despite this, I am certainly not the personality type that's common among the cosplay crowd. They're usually... well, social. Case in point: I had at least three people ask me for hugs over the weekend. One of them was a guy dressed in an Alucard (from Hellsing) costume... I pretty much couldn't say anything but "OK" because I was afraid of him. The other two were younger girls (much younger, so I don't want to hear any "awwwwwlright, giggity giggity" comments). I'm pretty sure I crushed the first one's world for about thirty seconds when she asked me for a hug, and I reluctantly answered, "I guess so." On the other hand, Jin is a serious, brooding character like myself, so it sort of works out. At least I didn't get glomped without warning.
As for other people in our group, Jen made a White Mage costume from Final Fantasy, but I had to hound the crap out of her to finish it. Liz, Heather, and Jenny did new Naruto outfits (Hinata, Neji, and Tsunade) this year as well. Chad absolutely refuses to dress up, but that's because he's a Con Pharisee ("Lord, I thank thee that I am not like these other geeks"). John and Charlie will probably come around, but possibly only for their next stunt (see below).
Also, Jen is telling filthy half-truths if she says I did it just to impress girls.
Guerrilla Marketing
I am the worst guerrilla marketer ever. You see, we'd decided to leave out various promotional materials for Chainsaw Buffet on the "free flier" tables that MTAC seems to always have. Except this year I didn't see one of these tables. This didn't stop Chad and Charlie from leaving the fliers at every water cooler table they passed. And in the elevators. And pretty much anywhere there was a space to place something where no one would see them doing it.
Now, I would have been fine with this, except (1) I was instrumental in making those fliers and (2) some of them were "tracts" for Chad's Scientology parody, The Church of the Immortal Robot Reagan (praise capitalism!). From Friday (when Chad arrived) on, I was pretty much living in fear we were going to get griped at for leaving them everywhere, or get the con in trouble with the hotel or something. I am not even kidding when I say this sapped a lot of the fun out of the con for me. And yes, I realize the bitter irony of a 26-year-old man being afraid of "getting in trouble." I have no problem with admitting I'm an emotionally stunted child in a man's body. (Well, at least online, because that's not as embarrassing as in person.)
You know, because no one at a con has a weird sense of humor. And they're all easily offended. And Public Safety doesn't have anything better to do than chase down some pesky kids who are leaving out tracts that might possibly offend fundamentalists or Scientologists.
Luckily, we talked Chad out of walking up and down the halls preachin' the gospel of Roboreaganology.
More Wacky Hijinks
But I was actually quite proud of some of the stuff we accomplished. John, for example, wrote one of his Real-Time Reviews of the convention. That's right, we blogged about the event as it was happening (which meant we stayed up far too late Friday night and paid $10 for a day of internet access). You should seriously go read the article; it's hilarious.
And Charlie, Chad, John, and I came up with the next great project: KUNGFUTRON. I can't say any more about that yet, but just remember: you can't avoid Kungfutron.
I will say this: I think John and Charlie may have bitten off more than they can chew when they came up with this one.
In addition, John and Charlie talked to some of the guys from The Man Power, a local Nashville band that played a concert at the event. I haven't heard any of their songs except "Jackie Chan" and "Rock and Roll Time Machine," which were playing on their CD player when we stopped by their booth later on, but they're pretty cool guys. John mentioned them in his review, and they were happy to hand out our Chainsaw Buffet business cards. They even threw a shout out to us on the MTAC forums.
And I should mention to anyone who organizes these sort of things: they wouldn't mind playing a Knoxville event.
One of the other bands that played there, Chickenbox, was apparently also awesome, but I didn't get to meet them. I will say, however, that they are responsible for Charlie and John walking around the rest of the con singing "[random phrase], f@#$ yeah!"
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