The one thing that was at the absolute top of my list of things to check out was Friday night’s Midnight Channel gathering. Basically, all the folks who were dressed as Persona characters would be gathering at the stroke of midnight (just like in the game) for a massive photo shoot. Naturally, I had to be there!
Getting there early meant the chance for some up-close shots, like this gang of P3 people, highlighted by Mitsuru and her Persona that she decided to bring along for the fun…
Another Chie! Her glasses were simply boss….
And here we have Naoto, giving me the finger, and Rise…
… The slightly sexy-up Naoto btw is Mia whom I finally got to meet that night! Moving on, soon it was time for the group poses. First up, everyone from Persona 3…
… Again, because of the sh*t camera (which I’ll be complaining about throughout my report, for better or worse), the details are completely lost (can you believe that I was using a 12 megapixel device?), but my favorite would have to be Shinjiro, mostly because he was the spitting image of my pal Mike Moosehead from the Beer Drinking Fools!
Next, time for the Persona 4 people…
… I was a pretty big fan of those girls as Yukiko, so cute! But what about Rise, Naoto, and Chie? Oh wait…
So it was basically this huge fashion show, as is anime cons in general actually, and eventually individual characters were called out. For whatever reason, my favorite Akihiko was the one all the way to the left…
And here we have four Yukikos…
The Teddies offered perhaps the most variety within a single character. The first dude was perhaps my favorite of this bunch…
All right, time for Chie! Must say, was a bit shocked by the low numbers… was expecting slightly more. As I believe it was Mia who pointed out beforehand, the popularity of a haircut in the real world has an influence upon the popularity of a costume, sometimes….
Oh God, the one of the left with the pencil mustache. SO awesome…
Naoto was surprisingly the most visibile character of the bunch, though perhaps not so much given her gender-bending attributes. Also the hat…
Meanwhile, there was only one single Margaret to be found…
… I’m a bit bummed out that no one bothered to assume the mantle of her sister, Elizabeth, the Velvet Room attendee from P3. Oh well.
And I only saw one Aegis as well, which was also very surprising, given how popular the character is…
After the standard studio poses, everyone would get together in goofy pairings, like this Naoto professing her love for cross-dressing Yosuke…
And of course, things ended with the obligatory showdown between P3 vs P4 players…
I of course had to get one shot of myself with a Persona character, with Mia being the lucky person…
It was time to call it a night! Though while on my way out, I ran into these two Tales of Vesperia characters…
Day 2
The next day I found myself running late for a panel that was simply titled “Metal Gear ?!?!” Once there, I found myself exiting within five minutes. Now, imho, running a Metal Gear panel practically runs itself, there’s just SO much material to cover; you’ve got the convoluted story, even crazier characters, it’s playing around with real life history, all the symbolism that’s sprinkled throughout, as well it’s philosophical nature, the awesome weapons and mecha, the goofy sense of humor, the list literally goes on and on. It’s also a topic that’s practically begging for four or five people on-stage, yelling at each other about all the nuances and assorted interpretations. But what did the audience get instead? Just some f’n dork going “Umm… so…. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that I didn’t like Metal Gear Solid 2. It was just too wacky. And…. umm…. I didn’t like Metal Gear Acid either. Umm… any questions?” Perhaps because I came late, I missed out on the amazing video presentation, but my gut instinct tells me that there wasn’t any. By far the best revelation from this asshat was how he had never seen Escape From New York, but saw Escape From LA?!?!?! Total and utter horsesh*t.
So I decided to go back to the primary reason why I was there, and that was taking pics of cosplayers! Here we have Bridgett from Guily Gear, actually played by a woman!
Always a crowd favorite, Jill Valentine in her Resident Evil 1 duds….
Not sure if they’re from an anime or anything, but here’s a puppeteer and her puppet…
Aside from being a Mega Man fanboy, no matter what the incarnation, I’m mostly passing along the following Star Force pic only because it’s one of the absolute few that have accurate color reproduction. Again, out of 600+, only 5 came out correctly. Jesus Christ…
EDIT: Sorry, I was mistaken, that’s actually Greiga Beast Out Mode Mega Man from Battle Network 6!
Maybe Lamar can correct me, since he’s a big-time Star Force player and I am not, but I’m pretty sure this is Sonia Strumm…
This girl’s Screaming Mantis costume from MGS4 was easily one of the most impressive ones from the entire weekend…
Where there Kingdom Hearts cosplayers at the show? Does one even have to ask?
This guy with the gigantic SNES controller? My hero…
Hey, it’s the Katamari cousins!
And the prince himself. I mean herself, sorry…
I love this girl’s Zoid get-up…
Mudkips…
And where there’s mudkips, 4channers are always close by…
… The 4chan panel from my first Otakon still stands out as a rocking good time, was sadly missing this time. Actually, it’s been banned ever since a year or two ago, when things became too unruly or something like that. Which is a real shame, since it would end up leaving a rather big hole in the programming later on. In fact, I had heard from various folks going in that the programming this year looked lacking, and I’ve yet to detail the worst examples yet.
Though here’s one I suppose, of how precisely bored people had become from the anemic and inadequate the programming. Either that or some people just bizarre enough to spend too much time grabbing the end of a fishing line…
… Don’t ask me why.
Here we have Buddha and Jesus…
… Hilary would later note how both are from some manga or something.
The best part of these Street Fighters was how the girl playing Chun Li is actually Asian…
You really can’t tell, but the girl playing Sheik is one of the hottest things on earth…
I personally cannot stand Ubi Soft’s Raving Rabbids, but will admit that this costume was pretty neat…
