Con Piece: The Great Akon Adventure (Part I)

Alternative title for this post was going to be 'The AKon Adventure and Dallas Sucks' but I decided to drop the last part even though it was very true. Their freeways and streets are horribly designed and the signs don't make sense. Anybody who plans to go to Dallas and travel around the city needs to make sure they carry a map with them, GPS, life insurance, car insurance and plan to leave an hour early when traveling. If you don't do that then expect to get lost, upset and suffer dire consequences. 

In order words...Dallas sucks.

Still enough about me hating on Dallas. I did enough of that already and I am sure nobody wants to hear me talk about that. Instead lets talk about how great Akon was because it was! I had a great time at the con and I am sure the tweets I sent from the con were showing that. First thing first, Stephanie Young (voice of Robin of the Funimation dub) so made this con for me and she was totally awesome! Special thanks to her since I really enjoy attending her panels. Then we saw so much great cosplays which you can see in the 200 plus pictures I took! Still just an amazing con and my friends and I had so much fun!

Though enough about me talking about how much fun I had and more about why I had so much fun or whatever I do in these post! haha

One Piece and AKon
There was so much One Piece! So much that I couldn't capture it all on camera! If I had tried then there would have been no way I could really enjoy myself and I would be in a huge con coma for my con hangover. I mean I would have been REALLY happy that I captured all the One Piece cosplays at the con but I just can't be at all places at one time. I am only just a guy dressing up as a rubber man after all. haha

Though me being unable to take pictures of all the One Piece cosplayers at the con is a sign that there was tons of One Piece love at the con! So much that I would need ten Mikey-sans just to get it all! Then don't forget we had the awesome voice of Nico Robin there, Stephanie Young. If you should know anything about Stephanie Young, it is that she loves her role as Robin and looks forward to every time she is in the booth playing her. That is just from listening and talking to her after seeing her two years ago but enough about her for now. I mean when you think about it we had One Piece professional and fan love at the con.

I missed out in a lot of One Piece pictures as you will notice eventually in this post. After looking around on the net, I am guessing that there was three One Piece photo meet ups at Akon and I only attended one of them which was the smaller of the three. This above wasn't at one of them but the other two that I didn't attend did have some kick butt cosplays like Sengoku, the Admirals and Ivankov. I did see a Garp when I was walking around but I am ashamed of myself for missing the other two.

Special thanks to Elissa for letting me use her photos

I wasn't expecting to see anybody cosplaying the Marines even though when I think about it I guess I shouldn't be too surprise. They will/do (depending if you are reading the manga or watching the anime) play huge role in the last arc. Though I am wondering why we haven't seen any Garp cosplays in the past but I guess that cosplays really do depend on what is happening in the main storyline. I mean I wouldn't be cosplaying as Strong World Luffy if the movie wasn't so awesome.

I am amazed at the Sengoku cosplayer because I want to know what is keeping that seagull on that hat. I have so many question for that cosplayer just concerning that hat. The seagull does look stuffed or something but how is it able to not fall off the hat is beyond me.

You can guess who won this....We are just that awesome.

The One Piece photo meet up that I did went to had a good bunch of cosplayers there. Not as much as the other ones that you can see in Elissa's Facebook album but a good bunch of interesting cosplayers. We also happen to be very close to the huge Bleach photo meet up and as you can see from the picture above. They thought it be best to come over and crash our little photo close up. We did what any good One Piece cosplayer would do and took pictures with them in a crossover thing here. They brought the fight to us so we had to accept it because we know who will win in the end. (Just look at who is selling more in Japan hint hint) haha

That little moment made the whole photoshoot really fun to do. I was a bit disappointed in this one since I heard this was to try to get more photos but I think the word didn't spread fast enough or something. Still it was fun since it is always great to get picture of yourself and other One Piece cosplayers. haha

Thanks goes to this guy for getting us together and coming up with all the ideas for pictures while at the shoot. He also has one of those nice cameras so I know that all of the flaws in my outfit can be seen. haha The guy was nice and since we were doing the same cosplay we shared some secrets that we had. I told him where I got my jacket since he was missing it while I found out after the con that we had the same shoes. I so need to get my Luffy sandals done one day. I think that be the next improvement for my Luffy cosplays.

The One Piece fans were strong at Akon too! I got to see some great One Piece fanart in the Artist Alley and I even got some for the ride home. I may have lost a pin that I got but the art was really good. I even got a good bookmark that is suppose to be a fanbadge but it is my choice in what I do with what I get right? haha Still the guys where I got my fanbadge/bookmark happen to be huge One Piece fans! I mean just go to their site and you can see that their logo is a jolly roger! They had a good amount of One Piece fanbadges too among with other popular series like Hetalia. It took me almost fifteen minutes to buy my badge since we spent a long time talking about One Piece from that latest happenings in the manga to what we think is going to happen next all the way to Strong World. Turns out that these guys attended a con in Hawaii that was happening the same weekend that Strong World was being played in the film festival. The artist duo were able to get tickets to watch the film subtitled. They said the movie was awesome and I am taking their word for it.

Eventually we traded business cards where she pulled out her fancy One Piece business card holder (I SO WANT THAT!) and I am hoping that this could blossom into a beautiful relationship. We rubbed heads a bit and hopefully we can do some cool things here. Still I suggest you guys go to their site (Scuttlebutt Inc) and take a look at their stuff.


There were a lot of interesting cosplayers ranging from a female Luffy to a Garp. I had some fun with the Garp and I wish I had done more but that was my fault. Then we had a Unlimited Adventure Luffy which was cool to see. It would have been cool if he found a blue ball that could be that orb thing from the game. That could lead to some great poses.

My favorite out of the collection of pictures above was the Jimbei and Chopper there. The Jimbei was something that I wasn't expecting to see at this convention. Still that cosplayer made sure to not cut any corners by painting himself blue and adding the fins on the side of the head. He even had the teeth coming out of his jaw which is something that I found impressive as a fellow cosplayer. As for the Chopper cosplayer I am just impress that a girl is doing the cosplay and I am not sure if it was her intention to cosplay a female Chopper in Human form or not but I can imagine.


Above is most of the cosplay pictures I took at the One Piece photo shoot that I went to. Not many people went to this one but you got to say there were some good cosplays there. My favorite from this group here was the female Sanji and Zoro. I think both are very creative and unique. They were well done cosplays too since you can tell who they were and the scar down the female Zoro was a nice touch. I think these girls were going by the drawings that Oda made in a SBS since in those it was hinted that if Zoro was a women then she would be a master of  single sword style. I forgot to ask the girls if that was the case.

Props to the Franky cosplayer though. I think under the shorts he wore was a speedo because later on during the cosplay contest, he was a walk-on and there on stage you could see the guy in his speedo in full Franky glory. *thumbs up* You are an idol among One Piece fans for doing that.

Other cosplays of note was the other Strong World Luffy outfit done by the young lady there. We had some fun talking about our outfits while posing. That hat she is wearing if I remember correctly is a three piece hat. There is the straw hat, the goggles and the little hat thing under the straw hat.


Even though I couldn't take pictures of everybody I still did get some of the cool ones. Well I didn't get the Admirals and Sengoku but I did get the nice Impel Down Crocodile cosplay. I was looking forward to seeing the guy that cosplay as Crocodile since we have been keeping in touch via Twitter and Arlong Park forums after meeting at Kamikaze and AnimeMatsuri. He been talking about cosplaying as Crocodile and I was surprise to see him have both Impel Down and Alabasta outfits of Crocodile. He even made the cigar which shines orange if you look at it from a certain angle. Very impressive.

Other familiar faces in the set of pictures above is the guy who was Zoro from AnimeMatsuri. He pulled off the Strong World Zoro outfit really nicely. Everything from the bandanna to the shirt was detailed. I am not sure if I am more impressed with him because he cosplayed Zoro from Strong World or because it was just that good. Unfortunately, his group couldn't make it to Akon but I have a feeling that the next time we see each other that they will be dressed up in Strong World.

I can see that somebody did bought the Nami body pillow. Whoever bought that body pillow then you sir are a man among men.

So here are some of my favorites from Elissa's pictures. As I said before, I couldn't be everywhere but I can't believe I missed out on some of these cosplayers. You think it would be easy to spot somebody dressed as Kuma and Ivankov but that is how big AKon is. Unless you don't go to the official photoshoot then you missed out on all the cosplayers. Another lesson learn I guess from this convention. Though there were a lot of One Piece cosplayers and I have to say judging from what I have seen that I got only about fifty percent of them.

Still you can see all the photos that Elissa took on her Facebook.

 What is hard to believe is that I didn't buy any of the things pictured above

There was a treasure trove of One Piece merchandise in the dealers room. So much that I don't know what to get since there was so much of it! I mean they had some of the small Strong World  figures that were for $10 dollars and the big ones that cost up to $70 dollars. Then there was the cool looking blow up fist for Third Gear Luffy which would be very useful for my cosplay. The thing is that I didn't want to blow it up.

I was considering buying one of those pirate flags since I would love to have a Kuja Pirate flag. The thing is I don't know where to put it since I have a StrawHat Pirate flag in my room already. If they were big enough then I would have gotten the StrawHat Pirate flag so I can use it as cape. That would have made my Luffy cosplay a bit cooler when it comes to poses.

Then of course I want one of those bigger Strong World figures but I don't think I want to spend that much money on a figure. That is a bit out of my budget for a single item.

Two things that every healthy One Piece fan needs in their room

Another thing that I notice in the dealers room was the push of official Funimation One Piece merchandise. Seems like Funimation is really trying to get more One Piece stuff out there in the conventions. I really wish they would make this stuff more known on the web and in actual stores but this is a good start I guess.

There was tons of stuff with the Funimation One Piece logo in the dealers room. There was almost everything from keychains, shirts and even plushies. I saw three different types of One Piece shirts there. There was the first one that Funimation release when they first got the show. Then there was black color version of the One Piece shirt that you seen me wear a few times. I wanted to get this one since it was black but some factors that came in which leads up to the last shirt. This last shirt was damn awesome! I mean it had all the StrawHats up till Franky and it was black! The shirt looked beyond awesome and I don't know what else to say about it.

There was also several wall scrolls to choose from including one with the StrawHats during the East Blue Saga and one with the StrawHats during their adventures in Skypeia. Both great things to have hanging in your room.

Also something that you guys may want to know, the hug pillow and wall scroll that you see above are both OFFICIAL Funimation One Piece merchandise. They have the American One Piece gold logo and Funimation's seal of approval. So now American One Piece fans can either hug closely to the image of Nami or just look up at their wall to see Nami laying on there knowing that they supported One Piece and Funimation. I think that is great! haha

Still the fan turnout at Akon was amazing! I was expecting to see a lot of One Piece cosplays but nothing at the level of what I saw at AKon. There was so much that I couldn't get it all. Then the fans themselves were beyond me since you could have seen it in the artist alley to people shirts! Then the merchandise that was there was amazing as you can tell who were people who supported the series and who weren't. Throw in Stephanie Young who is a fan of the series herself and you have a huge blob of One Piece fans in one place.

Con Overview: Day 0- Thursday
If anybody from out of town ask me how to best enjoy AKon then one of the first things I would suggest to you is to leave the day before so you can fully enjoy Friday. That means you need to leave on Thursday so you can be there sometime in the afternoon. That way since you are there you can also get your badge. Thus it leaves you to have all the fun that you want to have on the opening day of the convention.

Though that means if you are driving then it will be a long trip. This long trip for me means a four hour drive and unfortunate for me the weather was against us because it was raining. That added time considering that we left later then planned. Though I guess I should be happy that my friends and me made it to the hotel in one piece. Merry (the name of my car (Full name: Going Merry)) was able to reach Dallas with no problems and once again living up to her namesake in being the vessel that won't give up.

For those that were following the TwitterFeed then I guess I owe you guys an explanation for the moment of beaver pictures I sent. In Texas there are a chain of gas stops called Buc-ee's and their mascot is a beaver. That is correct, a beaver. They are really popular here in Texas since they are huge places and have lots of things including a deli, clothing, food, gas and very clean restrooms. If you are ever in Texas and see a bunch of billboards with a beaver on them then that means you are getting close to a Buc-ee's and I recommend that you make a stop just to see the restrooms.

Though I am surprise at some of the people that I saw at Buc-ee's since it seems like we were not the only people from South Texas heading up north from AKon. I am not sure about you but anime fans have a certain fashion sense that makes them easy to pick out from a crowd. You can't do it all the time but most of the time when you look at a person and wonder if they are an anime fan then there is a good chance that they are. If anything at least I found one anime fan since a person came up to me and said I had a great shirt which was for my One Piece shirt. That was really nice of him and if he is reading this then thank you very much. I think the shirt is cool too. haha

Who is this car's navigator?

So I didn't have too many problems getting up to Dallas and getting my badge wasn't that bad even though I didn't even have to stand in the long line for it. I just stood in the long line because my friend had to pick them up and it is always better to stand in long lines with friends then alone right? The real nightmare happen after getting our badge....

Dallas sucks.

Why you ask? This all happen as we went to go pick up a friend who lives in the Dallas area and was going to room with us during Akon. The first of this was when we were trying to get out of Downtown Dallas and we couldn't find the entrance ramp to the freeway that the directions were telling us. Then when we did find a ramp we weren't sure which one we needed and then had to hurry to get in the right lane after an educated guess. After that we got off the freeway and weren't sure if we needed to turn in this thing and it turns out that we did...so that made us happy.

After some angry words and some dinner, we went back towards our hotel but weren't sure how to get into downtown. So that took a while since there was no sign on the freeway that said, 'Downtown Dallas this way!'. Eventually we found a way to downtown but the problem was finding the hotel. Apparently Downtown Dallas isn't as nicely layout as the downtown in my 'hometown' and is a pain in the butt. Merry and I were really upset and if it wasn't for the giant Toy Story 3 advertisement that was on the side of the parking garage that was across the street from the hotel then we would have never gotten to the hotel by midnight. After that it was day over and sleep.

So what did we learn from our first day at AKon?

Dallas sucks.

Very good!

Praise our lord and savior!

That there was Day 0 of the great AKon Adventure! So what about the convention? Well there is more to this since I am apparently going to cover more of the convention in Part II. So look forward to it as I discuss how the first day of the convention was and my experience with Stephanie Young. There is more to come as Day 1 of Akon was one of the busiest first days at a con that I ever had but it sure was fun!