A Con in Review

I've been bad about this. I've been taking pictures and have been meaning to share, but have been lazy and not doing so. Now that I've found the chance, I will present to you, my fellow reader, something that happened several weekends ago.

Hijikata enjoys a bottle of mayonnaise.

The picture you see above is one of many from Con-G, which I attended a few weekends ago. This was a smaller con than the ones I've been to in the past (not as small as EMC, mind you), but there was no shortage of good times. Let me regale to you some of the highlights.

Upon arriving, the first major event that I went to was the 404s show, which was a 2-hour improv comedy show in the vein of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and was quite entertaining. It dragged a bit at times but was some pretty solid comedy overall.

A frightened audience volunteer is subjected to the whims of comedians.

Next, we went to a panel entitled "Villainy 101" which was an in-depth presentation on what it takes to be a villain. I felt that it was a bit long and unfocused (they went a bit over their alloted one-hour block) but the presenter was charismatic and presented well, which kept me entertained for the duration. So job well-done, I guess?

PowerPointing us on the path of the dark side.

The final major event of the con was the Masquerade, which is a series of judged skits/presentations from people in cosplay. Many of the characters were ones I didn't recognize, but my favourites are the ones below:

LIMIT BREAK!!!

The dark horses of the competition. IMO, should have won.

Those were the events I enjoyed. I also spent a lot of time buying stuff from the various vendors in attendance. Here is some of the stuff I bought:

From left to right: Kirby, Donkey Kong (front), Sudowoodo (back), Boo

An awesome Soul Eater wall scroll that is now on my wall next to my similarly awesome One Piece wall scroll that I picked up at Anime North last year.

A neat thing about anime conventions, even smaller ones, is that there is no shortage of awesome cosplays. I opened this blog post with an awesome picture of Kagura and Hijikata from Gintama. Here are some other good ones that I came across:

This is the same lady who did the Hijikata cosplay in the first picture, this time dressed as "Toshi," Hijikata's anime otaku alter ego.

The puzzle-master himself, Professor Layton, makes a rare personal appearance.

Mo dressed as the Pokémon, Weavile. It's based on Pokemon gijinka, which involves clothing-based interpretations of the designs for Pokémon.

One last bit of entertainment. In the booklet that I got upon registering, there was a neat little scavenger hunt that involved finding clues at various stations and then doing everything from counting Exit signs to chasing down a plush dragon to writing a poem.

My triumph!

I think there was only 5 people who actually completed the scavenger hunt. Our names were entered into a draw to win a free pass to next year's Con-G. Unfortunately, I didn't win, but the hunt was a lot of fun.

So that was Con-G, essentially. Some shows, some cosplay, some loot, and a great time. I will definitely be returning next year.

Oh, I almost forgot. I don't have any good pictures of it, but I was cosplaying Canada from Hetalia Axis Powers. That is all.

I'll try to catch up on previous weekends when I get a chance. Until then!