In the greatest cosplay development since a man wore a cardboard box with "Gundam" written on the front, an A-kon attendee was seen cosplaying as a TENGA onacup. His costume was surprisingly accurate, replicating the packaging text, and even including a scale sample for comparison. Hopefully such comparisons do not include testing.

TENGA is a leading brand of onanist aid and likely contributor to declining birthrates in Japan and other developed countries. Their disposable onacups are the weapon of choice for weapon-polishers everywhere. TENGA helped propel Masanobu Sato to victory in the 9th Annual Masturbate-A-Thon. Yes, there is such a thing, and it happens in San Francisco. The world championship is in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The cosplayer's choice of subject in this case was the TENGA "Double-Hole" model, with both "Sweet" and "Bitter" sides. Hit the gallery for a full-sized picture, as well as pictures of the progenitor Cardboard Box Gundam, Casual Friday Gundam, and the anthropomorphization of various TENGA products. The pictures are arguably SFW, though the links are not.

[Via DannyChoo]

As you may have noticed, Bandai was noticably absent from every con so far this year, including North America's longest running anime convention, Project A-kon. However, in a recent e-mail exchange with Bandai's Director of Marketing, Robert Napton, I was pleased to find out Bandai will be attending some conventions this year after all. We can't really blame them for wanting to wait until now before attending any conventions, as it's costly for everyone involved. Thankfully you should expect to see them at Anime Expo in LA, Otakon in Baltimore, and the New York Anime Festival.

While I have no confirmation as to if these are the only conventions they'll be attending, it's a start. After how awesome their surprise panel was at Otakon last year, we were left wanting more. Needless to say, we're looking forward to any new announcements they may make, as the con season has been rather tame. While, it's certainly refreshing to see that they haven't completely abandoned cons, I can only hope they, and other companies, will continue to show their support for the convention circuit in the months to come.

The third impact of cosplay from this last weekend's A-Kon 20 in Dallas arrives and the cosplay just keeps getting better and worse. Though I have to declare that the best cosplay of the con is in the picture above. That's the one-eyed dragon, Date Masamune, from the videogame-now-anime Sengoku Basara/Devil Kings, who is sporting six swords which had to be restrained because he's just that f*cking awesome.

You know the drill, you choose which one's the best and worse.

Also, BOOBS.

For those of you who aren't aware of his art, it's time to get with the program. Potentially my favorite artist, Shunyama is known for his beautifully drawn, full figured character designs, often inspired by 1950's pinup models, several of which have been used for PVC and Revoltech figurines. Some of you might also recognize his work from Valkyrie Profile 2. Last year, I managed to obtain both of his art books Wild Flower, and Sweet Dreams, both of which are a bit ecchi, but if you don't mind that, they're quite worth the price. They're filled with various illustrations, which are often quite detailed. He does a wonderful job detailing the eyes and lips of his designs, but the poses he tends to use also emphasize these features, complimenting them well.

Included in one of the books is a particularly beautiful rendition of Rei Ayanami. It wasn't long before I found a PVC statue based on the design at a con sometime last year, and ever since, I've wanted one. That said, it wasn't until these higher resolution photos appeared courtesy of Danny Choo, that I was completely sold on getting it and finally that day has come. I managed to snag one from A-Kon for $60, which is actually a pretty good deal. The PVC has been out for quite some time now, but as I've noticed, they're becoming increasingly few and far between. I've also seen them going for between $65 to $85 depending on the vendor at various cons. The level of detail is quite stunning, so I hope everyone enjoys the photos.

I bring upon you the second onslaught of both good and bad cosplay from this past weekend's A-Kon 20 from Dallas, Texas. Now we have even more cuter girls in this batch. I could've given you more if it weren't for my entire 24-pack of cheap batteries which couldn't support my camera to catch all the kawaii from the con floor.

Expect more to come tomorrow for even more amazing cosplay, I hear there's some shitapai in there somewhere. I'm not making any promises but shitapai is hot, unless its from a guy.

About this being the "best and worst" cosplay of A-Kon, it's your call which one is which. Enjoy!

It was a pretty sad sight, at least I'd like to say that because honestly, there wasn't much to see. For what is the longest running Anime convention in the US, you'd expect there to be major announcements, numerous guests, and at the very least, booths for major vendors like Bandai and Funimation. Unfortunately, they were nowhere to be found. Instead you had a night of concerts--which, while decent, were only for one night--and a long list of workshop panels. On the bright side, some of them at the very least sounded interesting, and I might have stayed until 11 for a Robotech panel if I didn't already know it'd be 30 minutes of "Macross was so awesome, but Southern Cross was so much better!."

So what happened that caused all the major vendors to stop showing up? Who knows. I've heard a fair bit of speculation related to monetary issues, but even then I have a hard time believing that Funimation--who are well within driving distance--couldn't afford booth space. What does it mean for the industry when the major players don't even bother? Well, I'd rather not read too far into it. Who knows, they could just be trying to save a few bucks. Maybe they just don't like Dallas. Maybe Bandai is busy investing in development of their own gundam army. I'm inclined the believe the latter.

Either way, one thing I do know is that the cosplay didn't suck. It was actually better than both Redzie and I expected, so we'll be posting plenty of it through out the week. And no, don't expect pictures of Vic.

So A-Kon 20 totally happened this past weekend in the city of Dallas, and Japanator was there. Out of the many cons I've been to, there's always one thing you can count on: The Awesome Cosplay.

I consider myself somewhat of an elitist when it comes to cosplay, so it does reflect in the pictures I take. Usually I take pictures of pretty people and pretty cosplay but this weekend I did try to take as much cosplay as I can. Though I did try and take pictures of not-so-common cosplay (sorry Kingdom Hearts and Naruto cosplayers).

I bring to you the best and worst of cosplay at A-Kon 20, but its up to you to judge which is good and bad. Enjoy! More pics to come throughout the week!

Saturday proved to be less than exciting, but we managed to enjoy ourselves at the con, despite the lack of major outlets and their usual announcements. We started the day going out with the kids at AnimeVice for lunch. It was interesting to note that they were about as disappointed as we were. After grabbing a bite to eat, we made it to the con and promptly began our sweeps of the dealer room.

It didn't seem as if the sales were really going that great. Some vendors expressed dismay due to the economy. A couple of them who wished to remain anonymous even mentioned that they might be skipping the upcoming Anime Expo in LA due to a number of factors ranging from the downtown location to the economy itself. I wasn't able to find anyone selling decent business card cases, as I've taken to collecting them ever since I bought my first Kamina case last year. Makes me wonder if they've just gone out of popularity, or if it's merely an issue of cost on the part of the vendors themselves. I had several of them tell me they could order the cases if I request them specifically, but I'd rather not pay the extra fees involved with them importing them specifically for me.

After that, we sat in on the Camino Q&A, and that was rather interesting, for lack of a better word. They seemed to be really enjoying themselves in --Texas, especially since every girl there was freaking out over them. Highlights from the session included a story about their drummer pissing in a dresser drawer while drunk, their guitarist being a badass for loving X-Japan and Yakuza 3--which the translator clearly didn't catch, but Red Z and I picked up on right away--and the how the other members enjoy walking around naked (presumably together, since they mentioned they have to share at times) in hotel rooms while on tour. While I don't think they were counting on anyone writing about that last part, they said it knowing full well that the Japanese fangirls would jizz in their pants if they knew that tidbit. They seemed like genuinely nice guys and I enjoy their music, so I hope they come back in the future.

It's 2 am and I'm here in Dallas and tired as f*ck from driving all day. You ask why I'm in Dallas? For A-Kon 20, you silly goose. The oldest running anime convention in North America, A-Kon, is celebrating its 20th year and Japanator is here to cover it. Sadly, team Japanator isn't as big as last year since it's hell week for the Modern Method network at the moment.

This year, team Japanator is represented by myself and a Mr Tim Sheehy, who is sleeping soundly in the other room (or is listening to his Twilight audiobook on his iPhone). I just wanted to give you a small slice of what's to come in the following days from all the shenanigans and cosplay foolery that's gonna be going down, much like in the picture above where a character from a severly whored-out franchise is getting owned by a character from a franchise that is actually awesome again.

Check back frequently for updates from the con. I'm going to bed now. I'll be taking pictures of good cosplay as well as terrible cosplay. Tell me if there's something you want to see at the con and I can maybe make it happen for ya.

And yes, I can hug John Carmack for you all.

I've put this post off, not only because the past week has seen me running around like a monkey on acid back and forth 'cross central Texas getting ready to go back to "school" or "move" or whatever the hell's been keeping me away from the 'puter; to put it simply, I also haven't been able to find enough of the AMVs that were shown in separate Fan and Expert categories at last weekend's con. Now that I see more of them linked on Ye Big Damn List and have tracked more down on YouTube - thanks in part to Len linking a creator who made one winner - we can show off some of the fruits of the finest AMV showcase I've ever attended, out of, like, a lot of conventions and video-surfing and stuff. The fine work you see above was created by one vellure, who made this Fans' Best in Show winner, "Blend," as well as the Experts' Best in Show, "Rainbow Revolution"! I totally didn't realize that at the time. :o Damn good stuff, vellure.

We'll see way more of these after the jump - in no particular order - as well as Aoi's suckitude with HTML. Don't let that scare you, though. They're all good. (And if any of you know where I can rewatch the Experts' Runner-Up for Best in Show, "Lollipop Complex" by Kichigai...I would offer you money, like, actual PayPal currency, but that'd probably be a three-way of illegality, so I'll just pretend to say so, because that video had me grinning like a moron the rest of the day when we watched it at the Sunday breakfast banquet, and again at the awards ceremony, and I will totally give you a shiny new dollar to see it again.)