It’s been a minute since I went to an anime convention (11 years!) and even longer since I helped out at one (21 years!), but when you start becoming an old dude sometimes you’re just compelled to give in to the mid life crisis and do random stuff just because you have a free weekend. After a semi-successful round of driving at Lone Star Drift where I barely picked up a camera (gasp!) I found some down time to go volunteer at Tokyo X!
This post will be kind of lame because when I say I volunteered at Tokyo X I really mean that I actually was working most of the time I was there. Previously, the only other time I’ve worked at an anime convention was when I was literally in high school. My friend and I were enlisted by his older sister to be in charge of the Live-Action anime room at KamikazeCon. The experience was pretty much a shift consisting of watching episodes of Sailor Moon and Cutie Honey (both amazing live action adaptations by the way) and then wandering off to explore downtown Houston. Comparatively, this time I spent my weekend directing lines at the registration desk which sounds way more involved in writing than in practice.
Tokyo X was definitely a cool con though (even if I missed a lot of the good stuff.) There were tons of Asian food booths bringing the full spectrum of gourmet from fanciful desserts to the cultural staples of cup noodle.
I didn’t get to attend events on Saturday, but I did meet up with friends who attended one of the tournaments they had in the gaming section. Always a bitter-sweet FGC moment when you enter a fighting game tourney bracket and the only people you beat are each other.
Sunday, I did have a little more time to wander around before and after my shift though. I got to meet one of my favorite cosplayers of all time, Yaya Han! Absolutely one of the nicest people I have ever met, and truly incomparably prolific when it comes to the depth of cosplays she has under her belt.
Tokyo X also managed to work Hot Import Nights into their programming. To date I have yet to see a case where smushing a car show into your event has made it worse. Tokyo X had RC Car drifting, fencing, sumo wrestling, Mahjong and countless other activities and still had room for the defacto godfather of Import Tuning Car shows. With the amount of itasha cars in the show, it was always neat to find a matching cosplayer wandering around from the anime con side.
Compared to previous Hot Import Nights that I’ve been to, it was a much smaller show, but the quality and uniqueness of cars was definitely there.
While volunteering for Tokyo X was a neat experience, I was lowkey devastated I missed so many cool events going that weekend, I think I’d be better served to attend in the future as an attendee and will definitely have to sacrifice my wallet to the merch booths and artist alley.
