London Anime and Gaming Con

The main reason for my visit to London the weekend of 8th to 9th of February was London Anime and Gaming Con. To get there my sister and I decided to take the bus to Hammersmith and take the Picadilly line from there. Turned out Hammersmith Bridge was closed for traffic for the weekend due to work being done to reinforce the bridge. We had to walk from the last stop before the bridge to Hammersmith Station. I didn’t mind because it meant I got to walk over the bridge and see it up close. You see, I’ve been in love with this bridge ever since I saw for the first time this autumn. It is just beautiful.

London Anime and Gaming Con was different to all the other cons I have attended. There was an 18 years age limit because there are alcohol served on the premises. As a result you don’t get the 12 year olds and families with children. Instead you see how many people there actually are above the age of 18 that share the interest of anime, cosplay and gaming. 

There were also a lot of people with fancy camera equipment running about, even though the overall level of cosplay weren’t all that high. I tried taking photos myself, but I couldn’t find people I really wanted to take pictures of and ended taking a lot of pictures of stuff happening on stage.

M.O.E. Performance

M.O.E. Performance

 The opening show/ceremony consisted of a lot of information and introduction of guests.

The main or one of the main organizers?

Cosplay guest: Chiquitita Cosplay

MasakoX and xthedarkone

London Anime and Gaming Con has a feature called The Clan Battle. There are three clans and you can choose one to be a part of. You then gain points for your clan by winning tournaments, events or finding things in the scavenger hunt.

The leaders of one of the clans.

Theese people got to hide inflatable animals for the other guests to find in the scavenger hunt. 

 London Anime Con this year evolved into London Anime and Gaming Con, so there was of course areas dedicated to gaming.

There were panels, this is from Parlé Production's SFX & Makeup Guide and Crossplaying 101. Bandursnatch Studios filmed it if you want to see.

My sister bought this cute little thing from the artists alley. It is a plush thing with a hole through the middle, so you can use it as a muff.

Look how cute it is!

I got some pictures of cosplays.

Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service.

Don't know what this is. I just like the picture.

One half of Daft Punk, chilling and plotting world domination,

Don't know anything about Star Trek, just that this costume has something to do with it.

My sister and I cut the day a bit short on saturday and took the tube down to Covent Garden.

We wanted to catch the Transport Museum before it closed. I like transport museums. Full of cool vehicles.

Fun fact: the word 'bus' (or 'buss' in Norwegian) comes from the latin word 'omnibus' which means 'for all'.

I saw this fact on a wall:

It is these moments that make me realize how tiny Norway is. The current population in Norway is after all just over 5 million. I dug around SSB and found out that in 2001 Norway reached a population of 4 503 400. So It only took a 100 years for entire Norway to catch up to the population of 1901 London.

London Transport Museum is pretty close to Nando's so we figured why not eat there again. The food is good and relatively cheap. So we did, and the waitress serving us food recognized us from the day before. A sign we've been there too much? No, there is no such thing as to much Nando's.

Sunday

Sunday was the day somebody had been brutally murdered in the women's bathroom,

 and we discovered the ceiling was actually quite beautiful.

We saw a panel, first a Q&A with various abridgers. I haven't watched any abridged animes but after listening to these guys I definitively will.

From left to right: EileMonty, FoulFangedFiend, Gigguk, xthedarkone, MasakoX,  The6SeptaG.

I studied the speed dating from afar:

And caught a glimpse of Cosplay Stars Q&A.

From left to right: Presenter, Tim Lucas, Tabitha Lyons, Valentine Cosplay, Cosbabe,  TigerLily Cosplay, Stacey Rebecca, and Lisa Marie Cosplay. Hope I got the names right.

I ate a pink muffin from the maid cafe, while my sister ate a yellow one.

Gigguk does anime reviews among other thing and he held a Q&A about anime. Very interesting, I wrote down some animes I will check out some time. If you want to hear what he said you can go here.

Right afterwards was a Cosplay Armour & Props Making panel with Artyfakes.

Tabitha Lyons and Valentine Props.

Gail was called up on stage to show of her cool weapon.

Valentine's weapon.

Lastly, about the only pictures of costumes I took this Sunday. Some Dragonball, which there were quite a lot of during the weekend, more than usual anyway, and a dress I really liked.

I also bought some stuff! Now Eevee and some of her evolutions are playing on my bookshelf, Totoro is loitering by my school work, Charizard is guarding my internet and my new Kaitou Kid deck of cards is sat in a drawer waiting to be played with.

I took pictures of the Cosplay Masquerade on Sunday, but that is quite a lot of pictures, so I made a separate post about that. You can find it here. This post is long enough as it is.