Last weekend I made by yearly trek to Columbus Ohio for Ohaycon. My first Ohayocon was in 2008, Seven years ago. Aka a billion and a half years in Dangerr Time. This year was the second worst animecon experience I've had, second only to Otakon 2012 with that succubus Satan. This year was more underwhelming than anything. I could have gotten drunk and wandered around the haunted inn down the street, it would have been more fun, and involved less driving. I could have talked to ghosts, real or imagined!
Friday started off with a snowstorm, and everyone who is not me lived in the sticks, meaning I drove nothing by unplowed roads in my Cavalier. Luckily I put new tires on it two months ago, but I still couldn't drive particularly fast. I picked up the two unknown group members, and we headed to pick up my friend Tommy, and his sister. I had to park my car in the road, which was nerve wracking, as I was scared about someone hitting it. Most likely an Amish horse and buggy. Tommy was wearing an entire hot pink outfit, which would not be the gayest thing I've seen all weekend, though it was certainly close. The drive there was awful til I hit the freeway, the snow wasn't as bad in corn country,though we stopped to get Speedway and whatnot, because I run on Speedway and whole milk. I was low on both.
Eventually we arrived at the parking garage, and walked two blocks in sub zero temperatures, with the wind burning our exposed skin numb. Once we got there, I immediately headed into the line, only to be finally told after 30 minutes of waiting that my hotel room wasn't ready. Fucking awesome. We waited in that hotel lobby for 2 hours, and eventually I received a call saying my room was ready, and immediately went to stand in line. The line was split in two, the people who hadn't checked in yet were in a fast moving line, while those of us just picking up our keys waited three times as long, despite our line being shorter, and their being the same number of workers on either side. Once I got up there I realized this was because some fat fedora was holding up one of the attendants, most likely giving her a detailed synopsis of My Little Pony and how his mom buys him the best Fedoras from Target. Ugh. He was still there after I left.
We headed up to the room to change into our respective cosplays, I did Goku, Tommy did Tingle, Tommy's sister did Tifa, and the one dude did Frieza, a costume Tommy bought, but didn't fit him. The final chick wore a link cosplay that Tommy had brought. We headed down to the dealers room, since they had all given me a pile of cash, and I felt a need to blow through it. Unfortunately, they has NOTHING! Everything was so overpriced and I tend to import, even more so with the low exchange rate these days. I couldn't stomach the prices, especially since it was all on crap I already owned. We got our pictures taken a few times, and I made a point to take pictures with any DBZ cosplayer I found.
We headed back to the room (up a brutal 14 flights of stairs), and sat down. My feet hurt because my dumbass decided to break in a fresh pair of Nikes at an anime con. Brilliant right ? I knew I should have brought my workout shoes. Everyone but Tommy's sister headed to the rave, they urged me to go, but i told them it was take a large sum of money to get me to hangout in a loud seizure inducing room full of sweaty teens. I went to bed at 10, but slept like crap due to it being an unfamiliar place, and the Fire Alarm going off at 1 a.m. Thanks asshole!
I woke up early on Saturday, and headed down to the game room, hoping they would have Dance Dance Revolution, and they did! Everyone in my room was asleep, so I played for an hour, til some chick (I think anyway) kicked my ass at DDR (I had the higher score, but she played at a harder difficulty), and a few other people showed up to play. I headed back to the room, and everyone was finally awake. We dressed and headed out. This day was pretty miserable.
There was only one panel I was interested in, and that was the cosplay masquerade at 7:00 p.m. There was literally nothing to do all day til that point. We wandered endlessly, me taking pictures, and Tommy attention whoring. Everytime he got his picture taken he made a big deal out of it, it was the most attention he had ever received in his life and he was drunk on it. It was obnoxious. I basically took pictures of cosplayers, but I felt awkward because they were just so young. Anime used to be for crotchety neckbeards, when did it become for kids ? Tommy kept obnoxious slobbering over them, despite my Chris Hansen jokes I hoped would deter him. He must not have gotten the reference. We wandered for hours and hours, the cycle endless repeating. I did find some cool cosplays, but it was pretty boring overall. Finally the masquerade had arrived.
We got in line early, and then had to wait til the show started, close to an hour of just standing there. The masquerade was overwhelming. The emcees were funny, but largely inappropriate and were stalling for time for over half the show due to there being no entrees. all the skits were just dancing to vocaloid, and one or two actual skits. I think there was maybe 10 cosplays, so I'm guessing they all received awards. You know when the highlight of a show is people dressed in .hack attire playing the duck Tales theme song you have issues. We left before the awards were given out, they had half an hour to fill with just that, and my brain couldn't handle that.
Everyone headed to the Rave aside from me, because I figured being the driver the next day, I should get some sleep.Plus Rocky II was on TV! Apparently Tommy headed back from the rave and spent an hour knocking on the door, but I'm a heavy sleeper and he didn't wake me. I got up to pee and finally heard him out there. Why he didn't take a key, I'll never know. I think everyone else got in around 3a.m. The next morning I woke up early and headed down to the game room. Most people had left, so I got in two solid hours of DDR. Yummy. Tommy came down looking dead tired and I challenged him, but he was tired. We eventually got food, and I bought some overpriced Japanese snacks. Tommy bought some overpriced food, and we headed back to the game room. Sadly DDR was taken so we played Marvel vs Capcom. I whomped him using character I liked, Dante (Devil May Cry), Chris Redfield (Resident Evil 5), and Spider-man. We did this til 10, at which point it was time to head back to the hotel room, and leave.
The ride home was terrible, with roads getting worse the further North we went. I was tired, everyone else was asleep, and it was just such a pain. I kept getting tunnel vision, and stopping to take a break and caffinate myself some more. Eventually I got home, exhausted. My mom had went to Target that morning to get me 2 Rosalina Amiibos, and my sweet Health Insurance package came. I then promptly made waffles and headed to my room. I bought 5 different Dance Dance Revolution games (all under $5 each!), and used ps2 slim, and a Dance pad of course. I built my Master Grade Wing Zero Custom model too, he has been sitting on my shelf for almost a week! He needed to be assembled!
So all in all, it wasn't worth it. I'll give Ohayocon a 3/10. That's a failing score for those who can't into math. It's grown too big, and no one is stepping up to make more panels, you know when you're listing a blood drive as a panel there is something seriously wrong. There was nothing to do unless you like hanging out with people in hallways. Plus I could have gotten more Rosalina Amiibos, and made even more Shekels! RAAAAAAAAAAGEEEE! I might be back next year, but if it sucks Ohayocon can go to hell. I'll take my Shekels and head to the Haunted Inn down the street. Image Dump commencing:
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| I will get one of these someday. I swear it! |
