Romeo brought a very intriguing Otaku Community chart to my attention today, which piqued my interest. Very few things about the community pique my interest these days because everyone is acting so predictably.

(Which is my way of excusing the complete lack of activity on this blog for several months. How handy.)

Apparently everyone is acting so predictably, however, that some enterprising soul has drawn up what appears to be a Con Community Job Tree a la Final Fantasy Tactics. Part of me wants to kick myself for not thinking of making one myself. The other part of me points out that anyone who draws up a chart like this inevitably reveals just as much about their own biases and inclinations as they do about the actual community in question.

Take a look at it again.

Don’t you see what I mean? No? It’s clear as day to me just by looking at the chart.

Fine. Try to keep up, would you?

On this Job Tree, everyone starts out as a ‘Curious Congoer’, which I assume is the equivalent of the Squire job. The arrows leading away from that initial class, inexorably to the right, imply on one hand a form of evolution over a function of time, and an initial sorting process.

There are two endpoints to this evolutionary process, handily labeled in blue, implying good, and red, implying bad. Heaven is labeled ‘Enlightened Otaku’, and Hell is labeled ‘Community Cancer aka Crab People’. While some insight into what these designations mean can be gleaned from the terms themselves, the full picture can only be made clear by tracing the paths leading to these win/lose conditions.

The initial sorting process reveals five 1st Jobs: Capitalists, Fans, Jejemon Iskwater Hordes, Photographers, and Trolls. The person who formulated this chart immediately condemns Trolls because their arrows inexorably lead to Community Cancer. Trolls fall into Hell simply because they’re trolls.

Capitalists evolve into Entrepreneurs, who either become Otaku (presumably because they care about their product), or Conmen/Scammers, who are therefore Community Cancer.

The Jejemon Iskwater Hordes and Photographers appear to have more freedom in their evolution, but the choices they are given are false. In actuality these two classes have almost the exact same evolutionary paths, sharing the ability to become Otaku at best, Weeaboo Scum, or Perverts. Weeaboo Scum can at best only hope to be C0zZpLaYERzZsZ (which I can only assume is like being a Cosplayer, only lower-class). Otherwise, they devolve into Alodiatards, which is coincidentally the best Perverts can hope to become. Perverts who manage to widen their pervoscopes beyond just stalking Alodia at every con become Pervographers, preying on other nubile targets. It really doesn’t matter in the end, however, because Alodiatards and Pervographers are ultimately CANCER.

Photographers, however, have a shot at becoming Otaku, together with Fans, as long as they avoid becoming perverts. Here is where it gets interesting. Otaku can devolve into Weeaboo Scum (presumably if they can’t afford to buy original Nendroids or Mix-styles, or tickets to attend international cons). Otaku can also either be Cosplayers or Genuinely Into The Hobby, a very strange dichotomy that either reveals sloppiness of formulation or a mild bias against cosplayers.

Still with me? Good, because we’re about to start on COSPLAYERS.

The only advantage Cosplayers have over C0zZpLaYERzZsZ is that they have a shot at becoming Genuinely Into The Hobby. Otherwise, there are four CANCER traps awaiting them: Attention Whores, Underage/Jailbait (which made little sense to me considering we’re into CARTOONS, TOYS, COMICS, and GAMES until I reached certain conclusions about the psyche of the chart’s formulator), No Idea Who They’re Cosplaying, and Social Climbers.

Only the few who survive the gauntlet of pitfalls and traps and manage to be Genuinely Into The Hobby can be Enlightened Otaku, belonging to the ranks of the blessed.

Based on the preceding facts, I have deduced the following:

1. The proponent of this Job Tree is at least lower-middle class and hopelessly bourgeoise, and therefore possesses the uncanny ability to condemn those beneath him in the ABCDE demographic scheme to the bowels of CANCER. This is because Jejemon have no way of redeeming themselves from the moment they are labeled Jejemon.

2. Note I referred to the creator of this chart as ‘he’. This is because the chart is undoubtedly formulated from a male perspective, because he reveals himself to be largely unable to relate to attractive cosplaying females as anything but objects. Note ‘Underage/Jailbait’. Where the other three ‘bad’ classifications can be unisex, ‘Underage/Jailbait’ is most commonly used to refer to girls who have not reached the age of majority.

3. There is, however, an escape clause for these cosplayers. Should she reveal herself to be into the same stuff he is, and is therefore Genuinely Into The Hobby, she can therefore eventually be Enlightened.

4. This is an important turning point for the prospective Worthy Cosplayer, because the chart’s author also considers himself Enlightened.

From these deductions, we can reach a conclusion about the author and the chart itself:

Whatever its author intended this chart to be, it is actually a roadmap for potentially-worthy Girlfriends for self-proclaimed Enlightened Otaku (read: pretentious geeks) and the CANCER Jerks who may steal her along the way.

Let me demonstrate.

Boy is an Enlightened Otaku looking for love. He spies an attractive Curious Congoer/Otaku. First he checks to see if she meets the minimum required social class. This he does by visual inspection and by checking her command of the English language. If she fails, she is a Jejemon Iskwater Hordie and is therefore CANCER.

Having ascertained her economic worthiness, Enlightened Otaku notes his rivals: Rich Business Owner with Lots of Toys, Pervy Photographer, or Troll. He takes Otaku Girl aside, and after initiating her into the Otaku mysteries, tells her that Rich Business Owner With Lots of Toys is a Conman/Scammer. He accuses Photographer of being a Pervert/Pervographer, and simply calls out Troll for being a Troll. Naturally Girl should avoid these males because they are CANCER.

He then begins to talk to her incessantly about his hobby. If she is interested, she is Genuinely Into The Hobby and is a prospective Enlightened Otaku love match. More often, however, she is uninterested in his fandom and is into her own thing (making her Weeaboo Scum) or is a Cosplayer. Cosplayers can be educated into becoming Genuinely Into The Hobby. If they persist in being uninterested in Enlightened Otaku’s selected fandom, they are dismissed as being Attention Whores, Having No Idea Who They’re Cosplaying, or Social Climbers.

Underage/Jailbait is a special class. If she’s into Enlightened Otaku’s hobby, she’s ok. If she isn’t, she’s CANCER. The double standard of the Enlightened Otaku.

(The Enlightened Otaku has long since given up on winning Alodia’s heart, mostly because she’s surrounded by so many Jejemon Iskwaters, Weeaboo Scum, Photographers, Con Men, Scammers, and Perverts.)

Q.E.D.

So. Thank you, whoever is responsible for this chart, for letting us have such an intimate peek into your subconscious. Maybe if you keep at it, you’ll get that peepee touch you’ve been wanting all this time. Then maybe we’ll find out what Enlightened Otaku become when they grow up.

He was loud, stocky, swaggered, and wore a shit-eating grin as he tried to overwhelm me with facts about Alan Moore comics that he owned but never read. He reminded me of a lot of other toy collectors I’d dealt with since coming back to the geek scene. He loomed me, trying to both intimidate me and impress me with the size of his toy e-peen. He reminded me of an adult schoolyard bully.

“Hey, I checked online for the lightsaber thing.” He was a toy collector. I met him through a friend, and he promised me he was so connected that he could find whatever it is I needed. “I found one where you can mix and match parts to make the lightsaber you want.”

I rolled my eyes. Discreetly. “Yes, I don’t want that. I want a Luxeon conversion kit for my lightsaber.”

“Wow. Mmm-hmm. What series is the lightsaber?” he asked, hoping to wow me with his knowledge of Master Replicas Force FX lightsabers and distract me from the fact that he had no idea what I was talking about.

“It’s an Anakin AOTC,” I replied. “It’s got the standard row of 64 LEDs, but I want to replace it with a single Luxeon in the hilt. A few of the lights on the end have gone out. A Luxeon would be less fragile and would make the lightsaber lighter.”

I waited for his internal flywheel to spin up. “Wow. Yeah. Hmm. How did that happen? Did it fall of the display case or something?”

“No, I’ve been dueling with it.”

He stared at me blankly. It apparently never occurred to him that I would actually PLAY with my lightsaber.

=====

Back in the 90s I used to collect mainstream comics like Uncanny X-Men and JLA (the Blue & Gold era). I’d started to follow the comic seriously from the Goblin Queen storyline onward, tried to follow the team post-Siege Perilous. Then Image had its big debut and #1 chromium cover die cast holographic wrap around variant covers became prevalent. I discovered that I could no longer follow my favorite storylines because all of the copies had been snatched up by hopeful speculators hoping to make a buck on them in the future. Which is a big reason why I switched to manga. It seemed immune to the speculator market.

Same thing happened to Magic: the Gathering. At first it was an underground hobbyist scene, but then price speculation on the cards meant that you couldn’t get the cards that you wanted because they were locked inside a mylar sleeve somewhere, owned by some guy who matches the description in the first paragraph. M:tG cards, like comics and lightsaber replicas, had become just another commodity, to be traded and profited from.

That’s the problem with tabletop RPGs. They’re hard to commodify, since most of the action occurs in the imagination. Sure you can make a buck selling designer dice and book after book after book of supplements and source material, but after you have one copy of a book you don’t need another. In Magic you need at least four. With comics you need three — one to read, one to lend, and one to keep for investment. And with lightsabers, since they’re numbered limited editions, the one you DO have you keep under glass, untouched.

I don’t understand this. I don’t like it. My limited ed Vertigo Tarot (in the big white pizza box) is 2000-something out of 4000, and they’re well worn and used. My iPod touch is naked — because if Apple wanted to keep it from fingerprints and smudges they would’ve built them that way. My figmas and pinky:sts are actually out of their boxes.

I play with my toys. Why is that so shocking?

I mean I get it. Part of it is profit motive. Money is a mundane but easily understandable motivation. But having gone to an all boys’ school, I know what else is really behind it. It’s the same motive that drives other guys to collect cars or guns or women. It’s the need to have the best toys in the playground — and then dangle them in front of the other kids without playing with them. It’s an extension of comparing penis sizes in the locker room. It’s a not-so-subtle way of compensating for a certain… lack.

Normally I don’t care, since I don’t run into that crowd much anymore. But every time a new toy or comic or game comes out and is immediately sold out because speculators have snatched up two dozen copies each, I curse the profit motive and I mentally kick these overcompensating douchebags in their undersized nuts. Because I play with my toys. I don’t have them just to say I have them, or to feel secure about the size of my stash.

So… does anyone know how to perform a Luxeon conversion on an Anakin AOTC Force FX?

About a month ago, the day Go Kaisho became No Kaisho, a bunch of people decided that it would be fun to simply show up at the Eastwood Mall instead of waiting for an excuse to cosplay. Since it was also Children’s Day at the park, this led to some rather amusing consequences. Among the cosplay guests at this so-called ImpromptuCon: Jagi-sama (Romeo), Hatsune Miku (Sese), and an off-duty Geisha Girl (Monique).

As I was laughing my head off watching Jagi-sama get thrown off by an mechanical bull, I wondered: Why do people need an excuse to cosplay, anyway? This convention-centric view of cosplay doesn’t seem to be shared by Akiba itself. Every Sunday the main road that cuts through Akiba, Chuo-dori, is closed to vehicular traffic and becomes a stage for cosplayers. No entrance fees, no cramped venues with poor ventilation, just miles of concrete serving as the ballroom for a weekly fancy dress party.

Monique, as it turns out, would be instrumental in organizing another non-official event — visiting Magnetic Rose at the hospital while she was recovering from her recent operation.

There is a comment on my blog by the so-called CosplayNati about how they were the secret cabal behind cosplay and that they were irritated by the free-thinking nature of my blog. Now as far as I’m concerned this is probably just some merry pranksters stirring up the already-agitated cosplay waters. Besides, this is entirely beside the point of the subculture as far as I’m concerned. I keep ranting about dominance because any community dominated by a single entity is boring. One-dimensional, you might say. Homogeneous.

I’ve been blogging (despite strange hosting problems recently) about the local otaku scene for about a year now. It has slowly dawned on me that the term SNAFU applies to the scene. “Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.”

And that’s a good thing. Because a scene like that is organic, alive, and emergent. It’ll come up with new ways to surprise people.

So a bunch of us eventually went to visit Magnetic Rose (minus Monique, who suddenly contracted an eye infection that she was afraid to give the post-op patient). We managed to prevent K from eating the cookies we brought as a get-well-soon present and just chatted with MagRose about random stuff like Kuroshitsuji doujinshi and tennis.

We simply hung out. Which struck me as in stark contrast with a couple of other events I was invited to, which turned out to be corporate press conferences. I never really know what to do at those things anyway. Am I supposed to give a glowing writeup because I got free food and swag? And what is the deal with this Ani-mates stuff anyway? Combined with ‘costripping’, I think the terms we choose to signify ourselves are giving the general public a really skewed impression of what it is we do when we gather, exactly.

Here’s the thing funny about the otaku community: when push comes to shove we’re all really just people. Sure, opinion may be sharply divided on one issue or another (in this case, the value of a publication like Otacool2 in the grand scheme of things) and there’s a lot of name-calling that passes for open debate, but we’re all just human beings, and we look out for each other. Some things are just more important than what really constitutes a true cosplayer.

Rotch, I hope you liked the cookies. We saved them from extinction.

(As usual, all photo credits go to Ksolaris, whom we pacified with a nibbler pack )

Read Part 1 here! Part 2 here!

Sunday at Ozine made Saturday look like a lazy day at the park. The con was packed with hundreds of cosplayers — so many that registration was still ongoing as the first cosplayers started strutting their stuff on the catwalk.

As expected, the “first ever cosplay photo studio in a con in the whole world EVAR” (or so Mike Abundo claimed repeatedly, but I distinctly remember having my picture taken as Lelouch at a Brother-sponsored cosplay photo studio setup at Cosplay Mania 2009) had a long queue. I was wondering if I would ever get to have that coffee with Richie dela Merced, who was busy clicking away and gently guiding the cosplayers’ poses.

Richie, one of the Cosplay Photographers’ Guild’s head honchos, spotted me, flashed a big smile and shook my hand. “I’ll be with you in a second, let’s go have that coffee!” The man’s personal charm was much stronger in person. I found myself predisposed to liking this jolly giant, at least compared to me. Why do I always feel so short at these things?

Another well-known photographer at the studio, Gian Bacuyag (who was rumored to have been sucker-punched sometime during the convention, although he seemed fine at that moment, rumors being funny ephemeral things) leaned in to whisper something to Richie. “Anong nangyayari (what’s happening)?” he said, flashing a suspicious glance at me.

“Wala. Si Otaking. Okay lang, (Nothing. It’s Otaking. It’s okay.)” Richie replied.

What was that about?

“I like your blog. I read it all the time. The last thing I wanted to do was pick a fight with you on your own blog,” Richie was telling me over green tea frappuccinos. “The difficult thing about having a discussion on a comments thread is that I have to wait a day for a response, and by then I’d have forgotten what we were talking about.”

“You know, we’re probably just disagreeing over terminology, and about a side issue at that,” I said. “My whole point with the dominance post is that any Us vs. Them thing, Pros vs. Amateurs or whatever, is bogus, is pointless. My whole point is that it’s a dominance strategy, and dominance ruins any scene.”

“That’s what I don’t get about the post,” Richie said. “What is dominance?”

“Dominance is a survival strategy. It’s not the only survival strategy but it’s the one most of mankind has favored since we started clubbing our enemies with femurs. Basically, to ensure that your tribe survives within your ecosystem, you aim to completely dominate it, to eliminate your competition.”

“But this is human nature,” Richie replied. “If you have a field with a hundred cows and one T-Rex, at the end only the T-Rex will be left. I guarantee it. Dominance works. Mankind will always use it, and it’s worked so far.”

“And now we’re killing the planet,” I replied.

“Ah. Well, that’s another issue,” he said.

“But that’s the whole point of my post. The natural consequence of the dominance strategy is the death of the whole. If the T-Rex’s strategy is to eliminate all the cows instead of coexist with them, when all the cows are dead, what would the T-Rex eat?”

“You’re right, I don’t think we’re disagreeing. Professionals and Amateurs will always have a place together in the scene,” Richie said.

“But I keep saying this isn’t about Pros vs. Ams,” I repeated. “This is about the dangers of wanting to dominate the scene.”

“The fittest will always survive, professional or amateur, especially when corporate sponsorship money comes pouring into the scene. Amateurs will always be free to cosplay, as long as they only do it for fun, but the best will always rise to the top. This is the future. Dominance is human nature,” he reiterated. Finally as we returned to his photo studio he flashed me another smile and said, “It was great talking to you and sorting things out.” He clapped me on the back and told Mike, “I told you Mike, we’re not really disagreeing!”

I stood there, sipping my green tea frap.

I was waiting for my friend Joey (aka bumbayker) to arrive at the con. It was 9PM. He said he was coming at eight. I rang him up.

“Hey Cliff,” Joey said on the other end of the line. “I’ve been here a while now but the guards won’t let me in to get my figures.”

“They won’t let exhibitors in?”

“Not until the con is over,” he whined.

“Wait there.” I made my way to the entrance and began using my lawyer-trained Negotiation skill. “My friend here has figures at the exhibit and needs to collect them,” I said to two security guards.

“Sorry sir, we can’t let anyone in until the event is over,” was the rote reply.

“The event IS over. It’s 9PM. Everyone is cleaning up. The remaining cosplayers are dancing in a conga line over there.” Sure enough there was a conga line of cosplayers holding up Free Hugs signs. Mike decided to take advantage of this, hugging everyone in the line one at a time. Some of the cosplayers ran away from him in fear. I nodded toward them in sympathy.

“Sorry sir. Take it up with the man in white over there,” they said, motioning toward Dennis Uy.

I walked up to Dennis. “Hi Dennis, my friend over there is an OtaKai exhibitor, and he–”

Another look of irritation crossed his face, the look of a man who had been dealing with this sort of thing for three days. I understood. He wasn’t irritated at me or at Joey. He was just… tired. Without letting me finish, he went up to the guards and said, “Let him in.”

“Thanks,” I said.

He grunted at me, probably the best thing he could muster. People don’t realize how tired someone in charge of an event of this scale can be. I silently hoped he would get three full days of sleep after this was all done.

“So if you don’t want the Pros or the Ams to dominate, what do you want?” Mike asked over a rum coke at Big Sky Mind.

“I don’t want anyone to dominate,” I said. “Hail Eris!”

“All Hail Discordia!” Joey said, raising a glass.

“So just… chaos, then?” Mike asked, unconvinced. “You want rival groups to fight amongst themselves without anyone emerging as the dominant faction?”

“You know, for someone who sings the virtues of the free market, you’re taking your time getting the point of all of this,” I said. “This isn’t about Pros vs. Ams at all. Here’s an analogy. When different TV channels have to fight over market share instead of one channel dominating the airwaves, who wins?”

“Nobody wins,” Mike said. “All this time and effort is wasted trying to best the competition.”

I shook my head. “No, of course the competing factions don’t win. The audience wins. They get more interesting stuff to watch on TV that way.”

Mike paused. “Ah.”

I grinned. “Popcorn, anyone?”

[This is Day 2 of my Ozine Fest 2010 report! Read day 1 here! All pictures are by my friend Ksolaris, as you can tell from the watermark -- not that it's stopped some very high profile scrapers from swiping her pics and posting them on their Multiply without attribution before. And what's with those uniformly crappy captions?]

“Two day passes please?” I asked the ticket lady.

She shook her head. “Two tickets?”

I sighed. “Three please.” For me, my wife and her niece Marielle. My wife was attending primarily because she wanted to have Utena and Liara T’Soni t-shirts done by the Doujin Shirts people. Marielle, totally oblivious to the cosplay scene politics, was attending for the simplest reasons again — her friends were going, and she wanted to score some loot.

The con was much more crowded today; even before arriving at the con itself we ran into a large crowd waiting outside — posing for pictures, taking pictures with SLRs, taking surreptitious pictures of cosplayers in short skirts from low angles with more compact digicams. Your typical con-going crowd.

“Oh, I didn’t know you’d be here!” Kia said as we greeted each other. The last two times I saw her in costume, I easily recognized who she was — Chun-Li and Phoenix. Today, I was at a loss.

“Who are you dressed up as?” I asked.

“Oh, nobody really, this is just something I threw together,” she said. Red hair, black-and-white striped outfit. She wasn’t cosplaying, she was just dressed up. Same as me: with my old-school Grado headphones, The World Ends With You Player Pin, and Cobra t-shirt, I wasn’t in costume (although I did seem like a dark side version of Neku), but I was dressed for the occasion.

Suddenly Mike Abundo passes by, herding a small crowd of very young-looking cosplayer girls toward the highly-touted cosplay photo studio set up just for the con. Kia and I watch this spectacle unfold, speechless for a long moment.

“So,” Kia finally said, “how do you know Mike?”

“We were in the same ROTC unit in UP together. Yeah, I know, he’s weird,” I said, to vigorous nodding from Marielle, “but I’m used to it.”

“GamerTotoy wrote about us, you know,” Kia said. “Said I was his girlfriend.”

“Oh, you mean the way they used to say ____________ was his girl before,” I said.

“Yeah. I’m not, but I’m not going to stop hanging out with him just because some jerk spreads rumors about us. That would be letting people know that I’m affected by that sort of thing,” she said.

And there it was — the simplest reply to the vicious mudslinging the cosplay scene has become famous for. Why should I change the way I act or the people I hang out with just because some maladjusted perverts or some jealous harpies can find a way to paint what I do in a malicious light? Who am I in this for, anyway? Them or me? What was wrong with being a weirdo?

I looked back at where Mike had gone. He was regaling the slightly-frightened girls with grand gestures and a really, really loud voice.

“…He is pretty weird though,” I admitted.

Kia pursed her lips.

Marielle kept nodding.

There seemed to be equal proportions of cosplayers and non-cosplayers at this con, with the non-cosplayers thinning out as the day wore on. How exactly did that happen? Not that I minded, but it did make me regret not being in costume. It’s easy for non-cosplayers to point and laugh at the weirdos in costume because non-cosplayers risk nothing. Being ‘normal’ is a social defense against ridicule. Conforming is just another way of seeking safety in numbers.

My dream cosplay event involves everyone, without exception, being in costume, just partying, hamming it up, and having a blast away from the judging eyes of outsiders. Has this happened yet? There is a general rule in LARP (Live Action Role-Playing) that LARPing should be done away from non-LARPers. Aside from the fact that people pretending to be vampires or werewolves or mages would freak out unsuspecting passersby, we tend to be self-conscious about our performances if outsiders are present.

There’s a thought: how do cosplayers act when they’re alone?

As we headed to the parking lot we ran into our friends Romeo, Sese, and Kune, who were out of costume and resting after a hard day’s work. (Don’t think cosplaying the whole day is hard work? Try it.)

“Hakushaku~!” Romeo greeted me. Romeo is an endangered species, a cosplayer who does it purely for fun, making up for the lack of technical polish with sheer pluck. This Ozine Fest he topped himself by wearing three different costumes, one per day: Zero from Code Geass, a Scholar from Ragnarok Online, and Jagi-sama from Detroit Metal City. He was already out of costume at this point, and was leaning against the metal service door.

“Hakushaku~!” I greeted back. “Are you going to catwalk?”

“Nope,” he replied.

“What?” I cried in mock-alarm. “You’re not going to compete? You’re not a real cosplayer! You’re just… a COSTRIPPER!”

“Oh noes!” he gasped.

Then we burst out laughing, while everyone else looked at us funny. Weirdos.

(To be continued in Part 3! Check out other Ozine 2010 reports from Sese and Romeo!)

I attended an Ozine event (O-zeen? O-zayn? No one I’ve talked to seems to agree…) the year before, but only during the final day. I wanted to get a sense of the entire con this year, so this year I decided to attend all three days of Ozine Fest 2010.

Day 1:

“It’s 100 per ticket, 260 for a three-day pass,” the ticket lady said.

“A three day pass, please.”

“We’re out of three-day passes. Would you like three tickets?”

This was off to a great start, I thought. Immediately through no fault of my own I was down forty pesos more than I should have spent. Oh well, no big deal. “Just the one, please.”

Ozine on a Friday was… spacious. The organizers rented out Megatrade Halls 1 and 2 and with so few people (compared to the crazy contest days where you have to stand toe-to-toe with someone who considers hygiene lower on the hierarchy of needs than having watched every single anime Minorin has ever contributed a song for) I could have actually brought my lightsaber and did some saber spinning tricks without hitting anyone.

Bloody thing’s too heavy to lug around though.

Another thing: if you aren’t in some sort of costume, you are immediately considered a lower caste. This is not to say that you get intentionally treated like second-class citizens. But the difference between walking around in costume and being a regularly-dressed gawker is clear as night and day. I found myself wishing I had a new costume, or at least a vastly-improved version of my previous one. Cosplayers are the center of attention, getting away with anything they pull.

Well, almost anything. There were some cosplayers who went largely unnoticed because either their costumes were too simple, too shoddy, or because the cosplayer himself seemed too creepy to approach. Yes, I said ‘himself’. Female cosplayers always, always had someone approaching them.

Unless they were patently unattractive. In which case elaborate costumes usually compensated. Usually. When they didn’t, I was greeted with a spectacle that was almost too painful to behold: A cosplayer who desperately wanted to call attention to himself/herself but couldn’t break character to do so, surrounded by a crowd busy ooh-ing and aah-ing over someone right next to them. The saddest thing in the world is a cosplayer holding a ‘Free Hug’ sign surrounded by empty space.

Many (but not all) of the shops were in this corner of the con separated from the main flow of traffic. This was an interesting choice that was probably made to ease crowding, since would-be purchasers stand around and gawk when everyone else needs to pass through to get somewhere.

This opinion was not shared by the people running the stalls.

“I keep getting lost,” said Raymond Sison of CSCentral. “They should open up the corner.”

“Hey Raymond,” Mike Abundo said, motioning toward me, “have you met Cliff from Project Otaking yet?”

Raymond looked at me disinterestedly, simply emitted a grunt, turned his back to me, and returned to what he was saying.

Nice to meet you too. Simon says “Have a nice day.”

I walked off to the Waku Waku stall and purchased a yellow PEN’Z GEAR (PROTIP: If the PEN’Z GEAR is yellow, it means the ink is yellow, too. Much confusion under incandescent lights.) and a Peri Peri keychain for my wife, which replicates the sweet sensation of tearing open a mail parcel or a box of Tongari Corn.

My wife spent the next morning ripping imaginary packages open over and over again.

I also bought a pair of aviator goggles from a shop that specializes in all sorts of geeky eyewear, like steampunk goggle’s and Willy Wonka’s shades.

I paid a visit to OtaKai’s figurine exhibit as well, to check out my friend Joey’s glorious Yoko Littner Bounty Hunter PVC figure.

I ran into Kunebitt who was hanging out at her friends’ contacts and wigs stall. Mike was once again applying ‘social lubrication’ as he charmingly puts it.

“Kunebitt is going to be on a live web chat this Tuesday,” Mike informed me.

“Live web chat, ha?” I gave her a sly look and grinned, rubbing my chin.

“Gago ka Cliff,” she shot back. Then she grinned too. “Anong sinabi mo, Kuya Dennis?”

God I hate that guy.

“This is Cliff. He writes Project Otaking,” Mike said, introducing me to Dennis Uy, of the Ozine Uy brothers.

Dennis regarded me as he shook my hand. Once again I couldn’t help notice how much taller everyone else seems compared to me. “Oh. So that’s you,” placing particular emphasis on the last word. My reputation, whatever it is, keeps preceding me.

“Yep, that’s me,” I replied. “Say, I’m having trouble getting a three day pass.”

“Is there any chance we could get Cliff a press pass?” Mike asked.

“We’re having trouble with the IDs. We keep running out of them. Apparently people keep lending them out to friends who never come back,” Dennis said. “You can get a three day pass at the ticket booth.”

“No I can’t,” I said. “They said they were all out.”

“What? How is that possible?” A look of irritation, not the first one all day considering that he was the boss of this huge party, crossed Dennis’ face. “Anyway, we’ll be selling two day passes tomorrow. Will you be coming back?”

“Yeah, with my wife and her niece. I’m supposed to have coffee with Richie dela Merced at some point.”

He shook my hand again before leaving to take care of another minor crisis. “Great. See you then.”

[EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that there are two Dennises in my narrative. No, the Dennis I hate with a vengeance isn't Dennis Uy. Move along. If you want to know who it is, ask someone who knows the inside joke. ]

(to be continued in Day 2 and Day 3)

Stuck in traffic.

For some reason, the 2009 Komikon, at Megatrade Hall 1 in SM Megamall, was held on the same day as the 3 Day Mega Sale. That meant traffic jams. That meant parking wars.

I stayed upbeat about it, turned up the music, plurked on my phone. It’s tradition to curse in traffic, blame the traffic aids, blame reckless drivers, blame the government, blame the weather, but I guess I’m not much of a traditionalist. Even the empty parking lot next to Podium, my go-to place whenever I suspect that parking is going to be scarce, was full.

I hoped a lot of the people in line with me liked comics.

(more…)

(Read the rest of my Cosplay Mania 2009 report! Part I is here. Part II is here.)

By 4pm most of my crew were too tired to even attempt to reenter the convention hall and left just me and Marielle, my wife’s niece, to brave the crowds. I said I had to go back because I wanted to see the cosplay competitions, and Marielle wanted to go back because she was high on sugar, and she wanted to meet with her friends.

But I really wanted to go back because being in costume at a cosplay convention was… addictive.

When we got back it was worse than when we left. A huge crowd had gathered around the stage in anticipation of the cosplay competition. I wanted to watch my friend Sese’s group perform but they seemed to be having trouble with their soundtrack for their skit — apparently they’d been told to submit their soundtrack on the day itself, but when they did they were then told that the deadline for submission was the day before, so they were in a bit of a fix.

We decided to escape the crowds by entering the Cosplay Museum, but before we did we had a short chat with Rotch at the entrance to the Mech Cafe.

Rotch told us that they were still recovering from the previous shift, since apparently some rowdy customers ignored the queues, took a bunch of photos, and then left without paying. Although clearly harassed, everyone was still in high spirits by the time the last shift started and the crowds started milling in.

I checked out the costumes, adorning some rather plain-looking mannequins. Each costume was accompanied by a placard explaining who wore the costume, when it was worn, and why it was so significant to the history of Philippine Cosplay. The legendary Saito costume by JM Chua, the teeny Voltron outfit worn by Belldandy, all of the costumes served as a reminder that the organizers valued everything that had come before.

And yet… With the costumes on mannequins, I was struck by how plain the costumes seemed without the cosplayers who once wore them. Particularly the Saito costume, which seemed like a simple uniform without the razor-sharp portrayal of the man who for all intents and purposes WAS Hajime Saito, as long as he was in costume.

Marielle and I lined up for our free studio photos that came with the Cosplay Museum tickets. Other cosplayers came in for their own photos: War Machine, the girl who cosplayed as Maka Albarn from Soul Eater, and Bumblebee. Marielle wasted no time in arranging a photo op with her and Bumblebee.

While waiting for our photos to develop, we watched the young mecha-headgeared maids and butlers of the Mech Cafe go about their business, to the sound of Initial D Europop playing over the sound system. Even though they were all tired, they all seemed to be having fun despite it all. They played games with their patrons, they cheered, they greeted new arrivals, they skillfully weaved around each other while serving tea and snacks. It occurred to me that these kids loved what they were doing. I doubted any of them really wanted to be waiters and waitresses, and yet here they were, giving up a Sunday to serve other people in costume.

Meanwhile, the mannequins and the once-famous costumes they wore stood silently, impassive witnesses to everything.

We stayed in the cool conference room for a little while longer, reluctant to subject ourselves to more push-and-shove. But eventually we returned to the convention center, just in time to witness a truly epic Valkyrie Profile skit. The technical excellence of the skit amazed me. The costumes were spot-on. The choreography (especially with the kurokos performing all the attack special effects) was breathtaking. If this was the benchmark for what could be accomplished locally then the mark was set pretty damned high. It didn’t surprise me one bit when they won. Their prize… a printer. Good luck divvying the loot, guys.

After this, we wandered around, checking out the cosplayers who didn’t participate in the competition.

I spotted the Joker (Heath Ledger edition) posing for photos. I asked him if I could get a photo with him, and he agreed. I suggested a pose. “Kill Lelouch,” I told him.

“Gladly,” he replied as he put his knife up to my neck.

The facts of what happened next are in dispute. As far as I can tell, a girl and her mother went up to me and the girl asked if she could take a photo with me. Marielle swears that the girl said, “I’m a big fan of yours, I think you’re really cute,” and that I blushed beet red when she said this.

I have no recollection of these events, I’m telling you! (Plus I think she meant she was a big fan of Lelouch, not me, per se.)

At any rate, her mom took a photo of us, and then she took a photo of me and her mom. As she walked away, I gasped as I realized something.

She popped my cosplay photo op cherry.

The photo op requests kept coming after that, and I got more and more comfortable posing for them. I guess it’s only really hard the first time.

Something clicked inside me. When you’re in costume at a cosplay convention, it is everyone else who is out of place, not you. I felt completely at home, even though I was running on fumes at this point. I could strut around in costume without feeling the least bit self-conscious. It was, as I’ve asserted, but never actually experienced at this scale, as if I was someone else, as if I was freed from my everyday identity by pretending to be a fictional, two-dimensional character. If people gawked at me, pointed, took pictures, laughed, it only made them stick out more, as if they were tourists and I was in my home country, surrounded by wildly-different looking countrymen, but countrymen nonetheless.

It was truly Play, in Costume, like a festival. It was a Technicolor Mardi Gras. It was a rush. It was liberating. And as I found out too late, it was addicting. Because I want to cosplay again.

So when’s the next event?

(Read Part I of my Cosplay Mania 2009 report here!)

As soon as we stepped out of the relative calm of the Conference Room we encountered a mass of people denser than the crowd at Otaku Taiki, even if the venue was just as large as the Metro Comic Con. Every other person was in costume, some costumes more intricate or involved than others. Just outside the actual con area, next to the escalators, was an even larger crowd with even more cosplayers, a lot of them groups of friends dressed in theme. Six people were wearing the military uniform of the State Military of Amestris. Another large group wore the Vampire Knight uniform.

This was the most massive turnout for a local convention I had ever seen. John (aka Seedsop of the dot hacker review) repeated the point he’s made time and time again: “We need a bigger venue.”

I’m not sure I completely agree with that, though. I mean, naturally I would like to be able to make my way around a convention without worrying about tripping over five other people. But getting jostled around by the crowds seems to be part of the entire convention experience, and taking that away might take away an intangible but important ingredient of what makes a successful convention.

Or not. I was getting dizzy from the heat, made worse by the coat I had on for my Lelouch cosplay. It was time to get lunch.

After lunch, we all met up with Shuu, the artist of The Vigilant, in a quiet little corner of an otherwise packed convention hall. The others started passing out the free bookmarks we were using to promote our webcomic. We joked that the corner was the unofficial Vigilant booth at Cosplay Mania.

Suddenly a little boy and his father took refuge from the crowd with us. He was tired but happy, especially since so many people appreciated his costume — just like we did, when I suddenly pointed at him and blurted out, “IT’S AANG!”

I spotted Captain Jack Sparrow and Tia Dalma working the crowd. I knew Jack as Hank, the friendly bartender from my favorite bar Big Sky Mind. “Hank!” I cried out.

He turned to face me, looked at me for a moment, and then said, “Cliff! You cosplay?”

“I do now,” I replied, grinning.

Tia Dalma aka Calypso, who turned out to be Monique, also a bartender at Big Sky, was even more surprised to see me in costume. “Hey, it’s you! I didn’t know you cosplayed.”

“I didn’t know you did either.” Before I knew what I was doing I took her hand and kissed it. Was it the costume? Was it the festival atmosphere? For some reason it seemed like the natural thing to do.

Hank said, “This Saturday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!”

“I know, I celebrate it with friends every year,” I replied.

“Drop by Big Sky! Free rum cokes!”

“Can I cosplay?”

“If I can be your bartender while cosplaying,” he replied, “then you can drink while cosplaying.”

(to be continued)

I was afraid.

Sure I’d dressed up as a few anime characters back during my college days, like Gendo Ikari and Trowa Barton. And I’d spoken in public a lot of times: speeches, oratorical contests, debates, and the occasional stage play or four. But I was afraid. I’d never done both at the same time. I mostly cosplayed at private gatherings. And it’s one thing to act out a role on stage, and another to come out and say, “I enjoy dressing up as fictional characters.” My employers would soon find something more than a little interesting if they Googled my name.

Costume was shaping up to be a problem child, too. The kindly old lady who had stitched it up was apparently a better dressmaker than a tailor. The collar didn’t close right, and the Velcro patches chafed my neck like crazy. The sleeves were too loose. The gold corners in front weren’t level. I had it sent back for repairs once, and then sent it to another place for more alterations. Rotch wasn’t kidding when she said commissioned costumes sometimes had major mistakes.

Wearing contacts was an entirely new and somewhat unpleasant experience, since I’d never needed to wear contacts or glasses. And wearing a wig was like wearing a hairy and unruly hat.

Also, considering the resistance my opinions have sometimes encountered, I was bracing myself for a battle. People had gone so far as to warn me of possible physical violence.

But that didn’t happen.

And a stranger thing happened: The moment I stepped into Megamall, I stopped being afraid.

Maybe it was because all around me were people in the same boat. There was a sea of humanity, some people in costume, some people there to support them, and some people to gawk and snicker. Or maybe the spirit of Lelouch descended upon me. Who knows?

I managed to obtain my Guest VIP pass without pain or hassle, although it did require me to stand behind a middle-aged couple complaining to Information about the long lines for a couple of minutes, while patient staff members listened to their suggestions. I decided to be as pleasant as possible. Little point in adding to their worries.

I was greeted at the Megatrade Conference Room by Mark Poa, who appeared to be as professional and efficient as the impression he gives off in his emails. In fact the entire operation struck me as professional and efficient. We arranged a few last minute preparations for my presentation (just my webpage and the logo of my webcomic The Vigilant) and then I shook hands with Marcelle Fabie aka Kel, whom my readers may remember as the host I had heckled back at Cosplay Fusion. He was passing the time playing Dissidia on his PSP.

After exchanging some friendly chatter, I said, “I wonder if we should expect any trouble. Especially from You-Know-Who.”

“Well, this is just a panel about blogging,” he replied. “Nothing controversial about that.”

What is it about me and controversy, anyway?

At this point the people started to file in, a lot of them avid readers of the blog. To those people: Hi guys! Thanks for turning out in droves to support me! I really appreciate it.

Rotch arrived after transacting business with my wife outside (business involving the exchange of cash and pinky:st dolls) and we all prepared for the panel.

We were all told to give short speeches about our blogs. Which I didn’t realize was part of the panel format (having made assumptions in my mind about panel discussions), but since I was perfectly prepared to wing it it was no problem. Meann Ortiz from the New Worlds Alliance introduced us one by one before our talks.

First up was Rotch aka Magnetic Rose, who had several orphaned mangas with her as an incentive for people to ask questions. Considering how rowdy the audience had gotten, she probably didn’t need to do it, but it was a nice bonus. As expected she was quite the firebrand. She talked about her experiences with UP Tomo Kai and studying in Japan. She clarified that anyone from the Philippines who wanted to join the Regional Cosplay Championships could do so, just that only one team would have their travel and accomodations paid for. (Which team would that be, though?) She talked about blogging for MTV. She defended blogging product endorsements, which I thought wasn’t really an issue since I firmly believe in getting paid for writing anyway, although I could see how some people would criticize such a stance. She took charge. She didn’t even need a microphone.

Next up was me. I pretty much rambled my way though my talk. I explained what an Otaking was, in the context of Otaku no Video. (Someone who has decided to play the role of otaku to the hilt despite societal pressure to conform.) I talked about Tags, not Categories. (Tags include, categories exclude.) I talked about Cosplayers vs. Cosplay Fans vs. Models (to some good-natured catcalling from the audience). And I talked about dealing with trolls. (Troll them back, and treat it as a game.) And I plugged my webcomic. (Read The Vigilant!)

Finally Kel spoke. He talked about being a deejay and a magician. (He’s a mentalist by specialization, something that totally fascinates me.) I especially enjoyed the part where he talked about separating his personal blog from his magic blog. Also, he was apparently cosplaying as Ryan Evans from High School Musical.

Finally the actual panel discussion started. We talked about blogging as self-publishing. I asserted that it blew the doors wide open for anyone with something to say to speak their minds, and that it was up to the Internet at large to vote whether your opinion resonated or not, by reading your blog instead of someone else’s. Kel made the interesting point that blogging allowed him to redefine his identity as a magician. And Rotch enlightened us on the perks of being a blogger for international media. There was a brief exchange between Rotch and Kel about wannabe political bloggers and blog event dilettantes that flew right over my head, since I don’t actually attend political blog events. And we all had a good laugh at a certain Boy’s expense.

This wasn’t so bad at all, I thought to myself! The discussion was lively and not at all hostile, like it seemed to be at the Mini-Summit. Or at the very least it was civil. That’s really the most you can ask for sometimes, and this was much more than that.

In fact the discussion was so lively that we went overtime, with the participants of the next panel (The Society of Young Voice Actors) milling into the conference room before we were done.

So after the panel ended, and after a nice lady whose name completely escapes me took my cell phone number in case she wanted to contact me for ‘voice acting’, Rotch hurried to the Mech Cafe which she was in charge of, Kel stayed for the Voice Acting panel, and I swallowed hard and stepped out of the conference room, in costume, and into the main convention hall.

And into utter chaos.

(to be continued)