Another Convention has come and in the next few hours it will be gone. This was the first time that i have went to Tekko. I sit here and think about the weekend i spent at Tekko while i watch man of steel. For those of you who are not familiar with Con’s or conventions Tekko.us is a predominantly Anime and Manga convention. There are wide varieties of conventions you can go to ranging form home and garden to Comic books and horror movies. I have went to a few comic book conventions a Horror movie convention and a collectibles convention. Tekko itself was a very unique experience. When i first walked in to the convention center that was hosting the event i was rather surprised by the size. By that i mean the venue seemed a little bit smaller than i thought it would be. Now talking with several people they thought it was fairly big.
There was a large number of vendors But it just seemed rather spaced out. Honestly it was not a bad thing. It felt like there was a lot of room to walk around and move through looking at what all of the venders had to offer. I have been to some conventions that are packed as tightly as possible with Vendors and there isn’t as much room for people causing a lot of congestion and making it an annoyance to walk through. There was quite a bit to look at while walking through the vendor floor. There were several vendors Selling Manga and and Anime. There was a pretty big selection to pick through. They had more than anyone can really ask for. They also had a big selection of games and phones covers. Pretty much anything you can slap anime character on they had at the convention.
The thing that i think surprised me was some of the adult or 18+ items that they had for sale. There was a vendor selling swords, i mean honest knives and machetes and other swords. He had a number of prop swords that were pretty cheaply made and dull but further down the table he had some serious stuff. I can’t imagine him really being allowed to sell that stuff. I saw a few weapons that i recognized from different shows or video games. I was a little surprised that they were at the venue. The other thing that was there were full body pillow covers. Basically they are a giant pillow cover that has a certain anime character on the cover. What was even crazier is that there were 18+ versions. I don’t have to go into detail but they were there being sold.
The second level had a good bit to do. It took a little bit of finding the rooms on the second floor. Everything you could do on the second floor was on the back side of the convention center. Most of the upstairs was the rooms where all the panels were being held. There were several booths on the second floor, most of them just clubs that you could join or different conventions that were coming up. In one of the second floor there was a roped off area where you could fight others with prop swords. It was a rather large area that they had set up. There was a group that was selling prop swords that you could buy. It was rather amusing to watch people go at each other with the foam weapons. One of the rooms had a large quantity of different video games. There was xbox’s play stations and DDR pads. They even had tournaments that you could sign up for, some free and some that had a $5-$10 entry fee.
The video game room had to be one of the busiest rooms all day. There were i think 6 different Panel rooms that you could go into. One of the panels that i sat in on was building Cosplay props on a budget. It was rather interesting but the projector that they were using kept going down which was causing issues with the presentation. I heard several people mention that the other panels were having issues. Another one of the rooms was playing all music videos and another was where you could dance along with a video on the screen. You could spend the entire day on the second floor doing different things which seemed to be where multiple people were gathering for the large part of the day.
One of the biggest things to do at a convention is to dress up as your favorite character or Cosplay as them. I think the majority of the people there today were dressed up. I walked around for several hours in a Darth Vader costume mainly because i knew there wouldn’t be many people at an anime convention dressed as a Star Wars character. I had my camera with me and decided to snap photos of the Cosplayer’s. I think after going through my camera i had at least 180 photos. I honestly enjoy watching people who Cosplay. I think is makes the conventions more fun when you see what people can come up with. While i appreciate everyone i must say i prefer the people who really put effort into their costume. I realize that not everyone has the time and patience to really put a costume together to where it looks very authentic and believe able but from a camera stand point they always make for the best photos. There were a lot of people who really do know how to cosplay. Some of the costumes were very impressive to the point that they almost looked purchased. I Saw quite a bit of people dressed up as characters from attack on titan which is a very popular Manga that has been converted into a popular anime series. There was a large handful of Naruto and Hatsune Miko characters. I wish i could list all the characters i saw but i can’t keep up with every series.
All and all the convention was a lot of fun and i am glad that they keep coming to pittsburgh. Next week i will be going to Steel City con.
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