Murg and I went to ExCeL London at the Royal Victoria Dock on Saturday after nasi lemak for, yes, wait for it… the MCM London Comic Con. We didn’t have tix for it and surely enough, the queue was humongous and it probably meant a good couple of hours standing in line that would’ve been wasted time. All was not lost because the main reason to come to a Comic Con was this:
People in cosplay[1] were in their hundreds, milling around the ExCeL grounds. I wondered if these guys were there just to get together with kindred cosplayers, as opposed of actually attending the Comic Con itself. This wasn’t a Japan-centric event (there’s the annual Hyper Japan event that is held at Earls Court), hence the cosplayers included a myriad of non-anime characters, ranging from Disney to film characters to comic heroes/villains. There were some right not-so-good ones (they’d get an A-star for effort, bless ’em) to some right fantastic ones (like the Walter White lookalike whom we met on our way to the crap burger bar). See if you can recognise any of these characters. If you asked me, I didn’t recognise half of ’em. So much for being an anime fan, eh.
The cosplayers were happy for people to take photos of them, usually in pose. Of course, the polite way to do this is to ask if we could take a photo, and they’d oblige. Good practice in preparation for my Sunday visit to Harajuku next spring.
If we had tix to enter the Comic Con, we would have the chance to visit the various film, comic or games booths present. Personally, I would’ve been right enthralled to check out the merchandise stalls and the Japan Ex section of the Con. Apparently, the producer and animation director of Shingeki no Kyojin 「進撃の巨人」 were at the Con, as was, err… Kelly Hu. Hmmmm.
I was pretty knackered come 4 o’clock, and after a quick bite and caffeine fix at the highly recommended Kaffeine on Great Titchfield Street, it was a much needed nap before I headed up to Angel for the OOR gig.
There was another event that I’d love to check out but just didn’t have time:
Hokusai’s the guy who painted the ukiyo-e of the large wave, and, err… this shunga involving a cephalopod[2]:
All these on a weekend in London. I could’ve been in Tokyo seeing all these for all you know.
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[1]Seeing people in cosplay unfortunately reminded me of the recent incident that happened in KL a couple of weeks ago. May her family and friends find strength in the coming days, and may she rest in peace.
[2]Okay, two cephalopods.
