I was watching this:
"Cosplay in America" @ AX 2014 (The Road to Anime Expo)
by Cosplay in America
http://youtu.be/pzGlgnH3NDo
There's something comforting about watching other people, just as busy preparing for Anime Expo as I am. ^-^
But when did I trade in rushing to make cosplay, for rushing to make artist alley stock? I feel like I've lost something nostalgic. ;-;
I remember when I first started attending Anime Expo in 1996, it was all about the shopping. But that was because I only attended for 1 day. My big collection fetishes back then were limited to anime and manga. So in successive years, my main focus at Anime Expo was to watch anime. There was no reliable internet and you couldn't just watch AMVs on YouTube, so I always printed out the schedule before the con and highlighted all the new series I wanted to check out in the video rooms. Sometimes, I'd watch anime at the con that I had already seen, just to get the experience of watching it with an audience. There's something about watching everyone, especially people new to a show, laugh and gasp at all the show's beats, to revive that initial impact from when I first watched it myself.
I always made sure to get tickets for the AMV contest, no matter how often it delayed and made us wait for 2+ hours. But then YouTube happened and I didn't have to expend all my time at the AMV contests anymore. Eventually, not at the video rooms either.
Which was fine, because now I had time for panels and my manga obsession was in full swing. Just as I had pre-planned and highlighted every hour of the schedule before for video rooms, now I was doing it for panels. And I had an equally regimented plan for tackling the exhibit hall. Since so many exhibitor booths had sales on the last day of the con, I'd spend the first 2 days of the con (back then, AX was only 3 days), scouting out all the booths' stock, asking for prices, making notes, comparing prices, and systematically walking through every ailse of the exhibit hall. Back then, exhibit hall was small enough, that I could even post-pone my shopping until the last day (in order to spend the other days in the panels and video rooms). It used to be you could go through every booth, in every ailse, in one day, and do your shopping during the last few hours of the con, when everyone was dropping their prices...or at least much more open to haggling. But now exhibit hall is just too big. It was a shock, the first time I realized I could no longer go through every ailse in just one day, and trying would leave me no time to shop. Then I started buying my manga online, and so significantly dropped the amount of necessary shopping---and the weight on my hands from holding shopping bags.
But still, that hunting was a big part of my fun at Anime Expo, especially with the video rooms being replaced by the internet. So I focused on other things in my collection to shop for: artbooks and plushies. I even started collections I didn't really need, like pins for my backpack or rubber die-cut keychain charms I could sew to my messenger bag. Then I slowly got into figurines. I told myself that I just needed models to draw, since I draw so much worse without references. And I kept running into the same booth with $4 gachapon, so why not? Little did I know that figure collecting would turn into a huge part of my otaku life, years later, after joining the Figure Photography community on Google+ (https://plus.google.com/communities/102424536798369424860 ). ^_~
Meanwhile, my brother and I started exploring cosplay. He was primarily a photographer and did not even attend video rooms or panels. He spent all his time on the con floor, asking for photos. I started researching cosplay gathering schedules from Cosplay.com, immersing myself into costumes, and striving to provide video documentation of my favorite gatherings. (Behind the camera is a great place to hide. ^.^! ) My focus for cons was now cosplay gatherings and panels in between. Soon, my brother was organizing cosplay gatherings himself, using all his experience as a photographer at gatherings. The gatherings he moderated were very well run. So well, that when series I loved were not getting gatherings at AX, I could feel less timid about starting a gathering myself, because I could lean on my brother for moderation advice. It was very nice. ^_^ So for a few years, I was focused on cosplay and gatherings, to the extent that my exhibit hall time began to regularly include wig shopping.
I had dropped video rooms, the AMV contest, and even the masquerade. Because there is a lot of video coverage of masquerades on YouTube now anyway, and sometimes, there are just some really interesting panels going on at the same time. (But maybe that's just the opinion of a documentary junkie like me. I'm sure other people would never give up masquerade...no matter how strange it is for AX to suddenly be charging for it in recent years.)
But after several years, I think I've come to this point of cosplay burn-out. I'm an introvert, and I'm pretty sure I have social anxiety disorder. At some point recently, I could no longer immerse myself into my cosplay characters. People were starting to talk to _me_, not the character. It was breaking my fourth wall. Cosplay was no longer this space where I could lose all my weaknesses and take on a character's strengths, until I could internalize them. Cosplay was becoming another source of my social anxiety. ;_______; I never thought I would become disillusioned with something I was so dedicated to.
But on the up side, I feel less pressure to make new costumes for every single convention. I no longer have this delusion hanging over me, during the last 2 weeks before AX, that it will somehow not be fun at all, unless I can whip up 4 new costumes, 1 for each day. ~_~;;; Really delusional... So glad I can let go of that stress.
So what does Anime Expo hold for me now? Well, now that they've become the established, biggest convention, Good Smile Company and lots of other official companies are regularly having booths and panels here. I can talk directly to the producers of Guilty Gear or buy exclusive Nendoroid figures.
But the thing that really revived my excitement for AX, was finally participating in artist alley. Sometimes I feel like it's the natural progression as a fan. (If you prescribe to the Joseph Campbell idea that the worth of a story is in finding your own meaning in it.) Obsessing over a story, analyzing the hell out of it, figuring out why you like it so much, internalizing what you learn about yourself from its themes, loving characters, making fan-art, joining online fandom communities, making more fan-art, then selling it off. Now suddenly, my pre-AX crunch is about making artist alley stock, instead of making new cosplay. ^^; Speaking of...I've got less than a week before AX, so I better get back to it! ^o^
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