Alcon 2010

There’s a man perched on top of a ten foot high wall. That is itself is something that you don’t see every day. But what makes this even odder is the lack of the expected reaction from people passing by. There’s no tutting, no head shaking, no muttered comments and no walking by without making it too obvious just how much attention you’re really paying to what’s happening.

The man on top of the wall is Altair, of Assassins Creed fame. Not the real one, of course – after all, everyone knows that video games don’t magically come to life (yes, I’m talking to you, Jack Thompson). Gathered at the bottom of the wall, taking photos as the figure at the top strikes different poses, is an assortment of general onlookers…and anime characters.

This was Alcon 2010, a chance for anime and manga fans to meet up and celebrate the anime scene and Japanese culture.

Walking through the campus at De Montfort University, where the convention was being held for the weekend, it wasn’t uncommon to see people milling round in a variety of Cosplay outfits (Cosplay is short for costume play, see Hunter’s article for more information and for interviews with different Cosplayers).

The weekend wasn’t monopolized by anime characters however. Over the convention, we also saw a variety of Disney characters (Ariel from The Little Mermaid, Woody from Toy Story), video game characters (the aforementioned Altair, Link from The Legend of Zelda series) and my personal favourite, one of the Biker Mice from Mars – a flashback to a cartoon I used to watch many years ago. And of course Furries – people in furred costumes. One of my personal highlights of the weekend was watching a group of furries walk past each other before beginning a friendly scuffle for the amusement of a crowd that amassed to watch VERY quickly.

As expected from a convention that focused on anime and manga, you couldn’t walk more than two feet through a building without having to sidestep very quickly to avoid tripping various artists perched on whichever ledges they could find, sketching their surroundings as though their lives depended on it.

Picking a path through the artists and various characters posing or staging epic battles for the good (or evil – I will take no sides here) of something, towards the games room, it was hard not to stop for some amazing smells coming from the tables selling a variety of Japanese snack foods. Even harder to resist was the Cosplay Café, which not only had the draw of some amazing sounding cupcakes, but was always full of people wearing all manner of colourful garb.

On to the games room, which was absolutely packed, no matter what time of day you went in. Hosting a collection of current games consoles as well as some classics, there was something for everyone to play, regardless of which game genre you were in to. Bomberman on the Nintendo64 got the better of me, despite not seeming that difficult when I used to play it years ago. Hunters gaming skills proved better than mine when we squeezed in a quick game of Street Fighter IV (I had a bad controller…and there was lag… honest! Not buying it? Well, it was worth a shot.)

There was so much going on over the weekend, that I won’t be able to go into it all in detail, but here are some highlights:

• Wandering into a talk (almost by accident) about Japanese culture and the way that it has changed through history. An amazing presentation which gave us a lot of facts that we never knew, as well as showing some unbelievably good photos.
• Cosplay karaoke. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen someone dressed up as what appeared to be a Sailor Moon character, belting out Alanis Morrisette.
• The Dealers room. A common feature of many conventions, there were the usual witty t-shirts and posters available to buy, but also collections of anime and manga that would be hard to get hold of otherwise.
• Screenings of both well-known and ‘obscure’ anime. A room was dedicated to showing different anime movies back to back over the weekend, some of which we had heard of, and others that we never would have been introduced to had we not gone along to Alcon.
• Showings of Abridged shows. Level One (when it wasn’t host to parties or karaoke sessions) screened episodes of Dragonball Z abridged, one of the funniest creations I have ever seen. We had to tear ourselves away from what was playing on a huge screen to a crowd in hysterical laughter to visit other areas of the convention. The episodes can all be seen online at www.teamfourstar.com – have a look, you won’t be disappointed.

The one thing that stood out overall was how friendly everyone was. No one that we spoke to over the weekend turned down our request for photos, and people who had never met before would stop in the street to talk to other people. If you have a chance to visit Alcon when it comes back to Leicester next year, I would strongly recommend you do so.

We would like to thank FreeSaiyan and the rest of the Alcon team for their help over the weekend and for taking on the stress and sleepless nights that running a convention entails.