« Under The Cap: Fanime Looking In »

I was on a street corner in downtown San Jose, flanked by a French maid and a bipedal wolf when I saw a man that summed up my experience at FanimeCon. He was on a bicycle, and he was carrying a goldfish in a cup. An odd sight surely, but the look of confusion and surprise on his face mirrored what I was feeling. I was a strange man in an even stranger place.

I have never been to an anime con or ever really watched an anime in my life, but I am not oblivious to the culture. Even with my meager knowledge I cosplayed as someone who literally knew nothing about anime, asking questions every chance I got. My goal was to experience the event from an outsider's perspective in order to see if anyone can come to these events and have a good time. The short answer is yes.

Picking up ladies with Ezio.Fanime consisted of three halls, four panel rooms, half a dozen video rooms and a giant space in which to cosplay. Suffice to say, there were a lot of things going on at once, and I quickly found out why this event was four days long. If you want to see me walking through the event you can find me doing just that here.

If you were looking to purchase something there was ample opportunity to do so in the dealers hall. When you walked in you saw a large crowded warehouse filled with anime and video game paraphernalia. From body pillows to Portal shirts they had everything an avid anime enthusiast ever wanted. I managed to trick my friend into buying a yaoi book, but then figuring the allure of buying a Yoko body pillow was lost on me, I exited without buying anything. Everything seemed to cater to either super stereotypical nerds that would come out of The Big Bang Theory or to the guy who brushes his body pillow's hair on the subway.

However, my disappointment in the dealers hall was hemmed by the Swap Meet, which was essentially a market full of nerds peddling their odd wares. This might seem terrible—a garage sale where the public gets to post up and sell whatever they want—but let me tell you it is the coolest thing ever. From hentai to the limited edition box set of Bioshock 2, they had a metric ton of video game and anime wares to dump on the attendees. Everyone I went to the market with found something they liked and bought it at a bottom-barrel price; it was akin to treasure hunting if you were knowledgeable enough. I even bought a Warcraft III figure for $15, only to find out later it was worth $90. As crowded as a bazaar and as homegrown as one, the Swap Meet was one of the coolest things at the entire event for me.

Chillaxin with Darth Revan

Fanime housed many rooms where they just played anime. Ranging from Dragon Ball Z to Intial D there was something always on for you to enjoy with your buddies. I wanted to experience one of these rooms, and was subsequently referred to the Hentai room. Now I know what hentai is, but I have watched maybe two so I was not prepared for what lay ahead. As I walked into the dark theater a succubus was trying to kill a man by having sex with him repeatedly—and I mean repeatedly. By chance I was seated next to a lady who was kind enough to answer my questions regarding hentai. Halfway through the viewing she was bored with the constant "regular sex" and wanted an anal or a foursome scene to get it going. I realized that one is not bashful in the hentai room of all places, and it might be the one place everyone lets go of their social mores about sex to just be themselves. This is especially true for the myriad of hecklers in the crowd—soon to include myself—shouting the most absurd things at these absurd images and making the experience a humorous one instead of a purely sexual one. I believe most people wanted to see the absurdities of hentai and laugh at it, plus it was 1:00 a.m. so everyone was either drunk or tired, which made everything that more hilarious. Even though I could see this was supposed to be a funny event a staff member shouted “HANDS UP” and everyone put their hands up as he passed over the rows with a blacklight, reminding you that someone could be cosplaying as Pee Wee Herman.

Cosplaying was the big draw to the event, and most attendees was dressed up as something or someone. I couldn’t identify around 90 percent of the characters but I could see the dedication that went into the costumes. I can’t really describe the culture that revolves around cosplaying, but I can see it exists and extends beyond just dressing up as a maid to be cool. I really want to cosplay next year incognito in order to shed light on cosplay culture from an outsider, so I can understand why people do it.

Crashing Psylockes photoshoot

The game room was probably the biggest of the rooms and hosted close to 50 tournaments in a variety of things from Street Fighter IV to Team Fortress 2. I was there for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, and ended up getting second place losing 3-2 to Apologyman in grand finals. The tournament was all for fun though, it being single elimination, and I really enjoyed the matches I played. There was a large turnout for both Street Fighter and Marvel, the latter getting more than 80 entrants and the former providing more than 100 players, so fighting games were alive and well at Fanime.

All in all Fanime is truly about friends and who you spend your time with. It gives you all the things you need in order to have a good time, and if you don’t then it is your own fault. I had a blast at Fanime and I don’t even like anime. If you are thinking of attending a con either bring friends you like hanging out with or make new ones at the con, because there are a lot of friendly people as well as weirdos. Although there was a lot of weirdos at the event, if you are coming from the FGC then you should be well versed in weirdos because everyone is in the scene and no one cares. The FGC is one of the most accepting communities underneath its rough exterior, so don’t get all hung up on the fact that some weird people might be there. Fanime was great, and I am already planning on going back next year.

Under The Cap is a feature series by Honzo Gonzo. Views found on Under The Cap are not representative of IPLAYWINNER as a whole.