I went to my first and only anime convention, SwampCon at the Reitz, on March 2nd this spring with my friends! Two of my friends dressed up in cosplays of Alastor and Vox from Hazbin Hotel. Sadly I didn’t have any costumes on hand and was a little self-conscious so I didn’t end up cosplaying, but it was fun to see everyone else’s outfits!
I don’t remember what the event was called, but first we went to a small vocaloid event. There were people cosplaying as Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Len, Kagamine Rin, Kasane Teto, KAITO, and others. They hosted a vocaloid quiz where some of the audience members were picked to put their hand inside of a box and guess what vocaloid-related item they were touching. I don’t know that much about vocaloids so I didn’t volunteer, but it was fun to watch the other audience members to participate. I remember that there was someone who cosplayed as Luffy and kept getting frustrated bc the items were so hard to guess. I think I would be able to relate with them because it seemed really hard!
Then we wandered around for while and decided to check out some of the anime merch that was being sold. Of course I accidentally forgot to register and didn’t have a wristband, so one of my friends went with me to get registered. On the way, we saw a pikachu car filled with little pikachus. It was super cute! Then we went back to the to the rooms where they were selling merch. The items were all way too expensive for me (as to be expected at anime convention of course), but they were pretty to look at! There were lots of stickers, posters, pins, figures, plushies, and more! My friend bought some stickers and gave me two :)
After that we kind of just wandered around for a while trying to figure out what other events there were to check out and said hi to other cosplayers. My friends’ cosplays were really popular and lots of people came up to them to ask to take pictures with them. Meanwhile, I noticed some familiar cosplays, specifically cosplays of characters from Genshin Impact and Bungo Strays Dogs. I was honestly super nervous but my friends encouraged me, and I got to compliment their cosplays and take a picture with someone who was cosplaying as Childe/Tartaglia/Ajax from Genshin Impact.
(A picture I took with someone cosplaying one of my favorite Genshin characters, Childe! Dazai from Bungo Stray Dogs is photobombing in the background lol.)
We got some food, then one of my friends wanted to check out the idol fest so we split up. We managed to ask for a light stick before going in and got to watch some of the singing and dancing. It was pretty fun, but we both thought it would be much cooler if we had the color changing light sticks they sell at vocaloid concerts. Afterwards, we got a little lost trying to look for our other friends. On the way though, we found a room full of manga and comics. A series I had recently been into caught my eye, Inuyasha.
(Inuyasha manga I saw. Of course I had to take a picture and post it on the r/Inuyasha subreddit.)
Finally my friends needed to go home so unfortunately we had to leave before the fan fiction reading or vocaloid convert. It was also pouring so my friends who were cosplaying also had to try to keep their outfits dry while running to their car.
Overall, my experience at SwampCon was really fun and it was great to go to my first ever anime con! Though while it was fun to go to SwampCon, I hope to have the opportunity to visit other anime cons in the future, and maybe even create and sell my own merch, or meet my favorite voice actors. One of my online artist friends got to set up a booth at an anime con and sold Scarameow t-shirts, and Scara’s English voice actor, Patrick Pedraza bought one! I think an experience like that would be super exciting! (Although I was able to talk to the English voice actor of Skirk from Genshin Impact, Cat Protano, during a Q&A she hosted over voice call which was still an incredible experience!!) I also want to cosplay for next SwampCon if I end up going, since it sounds like a lot of fun.
From my experience at SwampCon and with anime fandoms in general, I think that they serve as spaces were fans can unite for their enthusiasm about a fandom and create and share fan-made content, which can make us feel more connected to our anime interests and each other. It’s always exciting to meet other people who share your enthusiasm about something, and in anime cons you can cosplay and go crazy without having to worry about feeling judge. It’s also really fun and valuable to be able to connect with people you admire like voice actors and manga artists, as well as other fan content creators like fan artists and animators.
