M Dash 27 – Blog by Hecko X

Ok, wow. I’m so tired… Anyway, this weekend was when KodachiCon 2010 in Lund, Sweden, took place, and boy was it cool. I actually wanted to take a bunch of pictures, but my cameraphone went into roaming mode as soon as we entered Sweden and the entire battery was drained before I ever got the chance to take pics, so I got zilch. Check out their gallery on facebook though: KodachiCon Gallery

This was actually my first con abroad, so it was big relief to me to have the ‘safety net’ of going with a few friends as well as the con being organized by Mangakai Lund, the Swedish partners of Genki. I initially wanted to write two big posts, but I’m tired and busy with exams and such, so I’m just gonna make things short.

All in all, the con was pretty cool and chillaxed. In number of participants, it was about the same as Genki 2009, but they actually utilized the venue space (which I think was smaller than what we had) REALLY efficiently. The only place that ever felt crowded was the 2 metres between the doorway leading to the gameroom and the stairs leading to the lower level.

In terms of events, there was a cosplay show that I unfortunatelly didn’t go to, game room by Terebi-Gemu + game tournaments (I won the Tekken 6 one~ 8D ; got a medal and two games), an auction, a karaoke room supplied by us (Genki), a traditional game room (i.e. boardgames) + contests by S.A.R.Z., two cinemas; one dedicated to anime, the other dedicated to J-drama (they had also planned for an outdoor evening cinema, but it started raining), cool in-between events like Jeopardy and Mafia (which I really wanted to try having read the manga Doubt, but I was just way too tired), and lots lots more.

I got to meet a lot of really cool people, including some of the best Street Fighter and Tekken players in Sweden (I was no match for them in SF, but in Tekken, I whooped ass >:3 ), and in my opinion, their con was super duper awesome!! The only thing I regret was spending too much time in the game room, I wanted to go see some of the other stuff as well D8

Oh, one thing I thought was a bit “… but why?” was that the ‘kiosk/cafeteria’ didn’t really sell food other than snacks/candy and then breakfast during the morning. I mean sure, there was a McDonald’s and a petrol station like 5-10 minutes away so it wasn’t like people were dying of hunger, but since they already had an electric keddle free for use (if people had bought like tea or something, I guess), why then not hook up an extra one and then sell cup noodles or something? I think that would’ve been pretty cool. But then again, it might have been done like that for safety reasons (to avoid people being idiots and scalding themselves or others big-time) or maybe they need some licence to sell that kind of stuff, I dunno.