London MCM Expo - Oct. 2008

I have been wanting to go to video games & anime manga expo for decades. And I finally got the chance to go to one.

America has E3 which is absolutely massive, unfortunately, I doubt I will ever have the funds to pay for a trip to US just to attend an expo... and then we have Leipzig Expo which unfortunately takes place in Germany, which admittedly is much cheaper, nearer and affordable than E3 but it still is more of a luxury than mere something I would like to do.

And that, brings me to MCM Expo, an expo geared towards consumers and which is meant to showcase the latest consumer goods and games etc. In reality it is a small (very small?) expo which is mainly geared towards sellers wanted to get more exposure for anime/manga (East Asian) stuff. As you can tell, I was quite disappointed by what I actually got. I was expecting big names like MS, Sony, Nintendo, EA, Activision Blizzard to be showcasing some of the big games and maybe some companies selling merchandise, but instead, we had hardly any presence from games companies and almost exclusive focus on anime manga merchandise sellers.

But... it was not boring in anyway. I finally got to experience first hand all the hype around cosplays and I have to say, I was not disappointed. Its simply amazing just how much effort and hard work these boys and girls put into the costume design and stitching, making every effort to stay true to the original character outfit.

On the right hand side is a picture of Morgan from Dalkstalkers and I am not sure which game that flower is from but its uber cute! The energy and light banter where two or more people had the same character costume was enjoyable and quite funny. Reminds of this instance where two guys were wearing the same costume from Naruto and they had the enormous sword which was the anime character's main weapon. They immediately squared up each other and compared each other's efforts. Very cool and enjoyable.

Overall, it was a good experience, one that did not meet the expectations, however small or large but it did remind me in no unclear terms just old I am getting.