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Ushicon Author's Notes 2004 Notes started while waiting for the Saturday night costume presentation to begin, and finished while watching the dreary first half of the Super Bowl: While most of the U.S. spent the weekend looking for ways to ignore or celebrate the Super Bowl, hundreds of anime fans had their own big event in Austin, Texas. Dr. Susan Napier, the college professor from down the street where Ushicon was located, said she's noted that anime fans seemed to be more mainstream than she expected. That certainly wasn't the case with the big football game, which was only a small event in the lives of the convention fans. At the brief opening ceremonies, someone asked the audience how many were pulling for the Patriots or the Panthers, and a few raised their hands. Then the crowd was asked how many didn't care about the Super Bowl, and nearly everyone cheered. And that's not trivial in Texas, which is the world center of football obsession. For Texans, the Super Bowl isn't necessarily the biggest football weekend in February; they get really excited about "signing day," the date when colleges announce their high school recruits. "Signing day" is more important to football fans than a list of product acquisitions and release dates is to some anime fans. Anime fans must be different, and Ushicon showed how some real-world people cope with the odd subculture. The best example was the guy in the lobby who held a sign saying "anime dad, need cash and therapy, God bless." Sometimes you get subtle boosts at conventions, like total strangers asking you "Are you that Fansview guy?" when you pull out the notebook PC to write a story for the web site. But a couple of the unique ego boosts were linked to the Koda Kumi concert. After the show was over, the author of this site found what seemed to be a seat off to one side to work on the pictures to be uploaded. Suddenly appeared a group of Japanese fans in white shirts who had seen the Koda images on the notebook screen. The author flipped back through the concert pictures, to a chorus of "Sugoi!" from the folks in the white shirts. Then the author looked closer at those people, all who were wearing pendants that said "Koda Family." Turned out to be Koda Kumi's mother and relatives who had traveled from Japan to Texas for the concert. The next day, after Koda Kumi met with writers, the author decided to show her the same pictures her mom had seen, which elicited the same reactions of "Sugoi!" Stuff like that gives the author the unfair opinion that he knows what he's doing with a camera. Koda gave off none of that "big star" air. Despite her rapid rise to success, she seemed a modest person who likes fans and credits her mother for inspiring her musical career. Ushicon fans reacted by treating her with enthusiastic respect; when the singer happened to be in the hotel lobby on Saturday morning, a few people gently approached her, and Koda was happy to accommodate them. The only person more modest than Koda was Johnny Yong Bosch, who was a shy presence at the convention, even though his Vash character inspired a legion of costumers. During a Greggo game that featured a quartet of actors, Bosch calmly walked into the back of the hall, sat down and watched the show for a few minutes, then quietly walked away. Most people visit this site for the costume pictures, so we'll note that there was something of a gothic lolita and J-rock trend at Ushicon, but there were also separate pairs of Boogie Pops and Miss Deeps. And there was a Master Shake from Aqua Teen Hunger Force; for those who love to complain about non-anime costumes at anime convention, you should note that absolutely no one had a bad word to saw about the seven-foot white cup with legs. Yes, there was a Jesus Christ costumer in the Saturday night stage presentation. And Jesus has been an anime character: check out the "Superbook Video Bible" series. No one complained about Jesus, but there was one Saturday cosplay scandal involving a scantily-clad costumer who was required to cover up. It was a man in Yatta green leaf and white briefs. The word must not have gotten out, because a couple of hours later, there was another equally unclad costumer in the halls - again, a male as a bare-chested Vash. The author of this web site had some selfish reasons for wanting to get out of town. As he walked from his car in the airport parking lot on Friday morning, the thermometer was below zero. A few hours later in Austin. it was around 50 degrees - cold by Texas standards but torrid in comparison to the subfreezing cold. A week earlier, the author needed to spend five hours struggling over snow-covered highways to get home. The author figured nothing could get worse than that scary experience...until he took a cab from the austin airport. The cab driver was one of the types who really liked the back bumpers of the vehicles ahead. It got interesting when the cabbie decided to pass a truck by changing lanes - right toward another parked truck. The author stayed cool as the cab lurched toward the stopped vehicle, figuring that the cab driver would have enough sense to swerve back. He did, at the last instant. Nothing else was that scary during the Ushicon weekend. The closest this writer saw to fright came from the convention volunteer who was worried that Koda was going to have to make her way through a crowd of fans to an autograph line. So the convention pulled what looked like a football play, where the biggest volunteers surrounded Koda and escorted her to the line. No one touched her and the crowd loved the sight. Except for a couple of guests of honor, the Texas scene was a total change from the Ohio weekend. Even though everything's bigger in Texas, Ushicon had less space than Ohayocon, to the point that things got crowded a few times on Saturday. There was room for only a couple of hundred or so fans at the costume presentation, and the line for seats nearly stretched outside of the hotel. So the convention organizers pulled the last few rows of seats, turned that into standing room, and let others stand in the aisles on either side of the ballroom, Somehow it worked. There's probably no reason to note that both Ushicon and Ohayocon were roughly equal in the number of late starts for big events, and the number of loud hotel parties. When the author of this site checked out of his room at 4:30 a.m. Sunday to head to the airport and a flight home, there were still parties underway next to his room and in the convention's gaming room. We heard talk that the fourth Ushicon is slated for a larger facility in Austin, and there are lots of larger places available. At least two major downtown Austin buildings were completed in the year between Ushicons in 2003 and 2004, and one of them is said to be the tallest building in town. Ushicon Main Page