After battling an invisible foe more vicious than the Jabawockey, we have departed from Wonderland and sadly returned to the Madness of everyday life. Tekko 2018’s theme was Alice in Wonderland, disappointingly the theme was underutilized and congoers felt that The Pittsburgh Japanese Cultural Society could have done more with such an eccentric theme. Congoers had the opportunity to interact with some of the biggest names in voice acting while getting to share in their love for Japanese culture; Tekko 2018, brought guests the opportunity to fight each other, show off their newest cosplays, ask Voice actors about their careers, and socialize with others that are interested in the same things that they are.
Tekko 2018, started on April 5th with a preview night to give attendees a taste of the events that were to come throughout the weekend. On Thursday evening, we had the opportunity to attend three panels and interact with a bunch of excited attendees. Although it had been years since we had last seen Yu-Gi-Oh! (2014), we attended the Yu-Gi-Oh! A to Zexal Panel and surprisingly won a few star chips thanks to some former Yu-Gi-Oh! knowledge. Overall the panel was well put together with a wide variety of content, but the panel host’s lack of energy limited the audience’s excitement. After leaving the Yu-Gi-Oh! panel, we decided to give Urban Legends of Japan a shot. It was shocking to discover how many of the Japanese urban legends covered during the panel involved murder and death. The host of the panel came as a rendition of the Slit faced woman and even though the outfit tied into the panel, it did make it difficult to understand her at times. The panel was well versed with a variety of murder or death urban legends but it would have been interesting to hear about any that did not involve violence. If you are interested in watching the panel, you can go to check out the Tekko Business Tumblr for the full panel.
The final panel that we attended that evening was an Improv 101 panel hosted by Pop Ramen; the panel focused predominately on the basics of stage work and improv. It was a pleasure to be able to participate and act out killing someone with a cheese grater at Applebees for some exotic reason and having other guests trying to guess what occurred. The panel felt well put together with an excellent balance of audience participation with hosts explaining how each scene worked. We ended the night by visiting the game room and watching excited congoers dance, fight one another through arcade games, and even had the opportunity to flip a table or two.
On the first official day of Tekko 2018, guests had a wide variety of events to choose from; guests could choose between either playing games, interacting with the special guests, dance, go to photo shoots, or experience Animes they might not have seen fully. On Friday morning, we started out the day by attending the Efforts and Reactions In Anime and Video Games with Bryce Papenbrook panel. Although we arrived a bit late, we still had the opportunity to hear how Bryce Papenbrook got into voice acting because of his father’s work in Power Rangers. He also went on to discuss how the best sound effects are done by repetition and envisioning the scene. During the panel, Bryce hinted towards a new show that he and another guest at the convention had worked on together that would be officially announced later in the day.
With a break between the main panels that we had planned to attend, we decided to attend the Video Game in Trivia (18+) with Indra Rojas; In the panel, we were divided into teams and had our video game knowledge put to the test. Sadly our team, “The Gang”, placed third after we could no come to an agreeance on two questions. The trivia panel offered a nice variety of questions that made guests recall memories of past video games. After sitting down for too long, we had the opportunity to loosen up at the K-Pop random Dance Play for a few minutes and then went off to take pictures of guests in their outfits.
On Saturday despite a rough night duel hair, we returned to the convention center invigorated and prepared for Overcoming Voice Acting Challenges with Bryce Papenbrook and Vic Mignogna. At the start of the panel, they invited two guests to join them on stage and share their story about why they enjoyed anime. During the panel, special guest Nancy Kepner came out to sing part 2 of “Her Hey Vic Mignogna Song.” Vic and Bruce gave audience members an inside perspective about Twin Star Exorcist without revealing any pertinent details. Close to the end of the panel, a guest asked Vic if he could do the Broly scream and instead of doing it himself, he paid an audience member twenty dollars to do it for him. Once the Vic and Bryce panel had concluded, we set off for the A Million Dollars But (18+) Panel where audience members were asked to come up with twisted tasks for the panelist to choose between X or a million dollars. For guests who came up with unique ideas, they were rewarded with prizes that they could choose between. For NSFW, reasons we will exclude the examples, but the raunchy recommendations left the audience shocked and awed.
Even though we did attend a variety of other panels such as: Whose Line is it Anime, Fans and Fan Service, Let’s Make a Date Cosplay Edition, and I Watched it for the Plot, we spent a majority of time talking to local cosplayers, interacting with staff, playing video games in the game center, and browsing the merchant alley. Tekko 2018 featured an escape room that guests could experience. Although security at the David Lawerence Convention Center had vastly improved compared to last year, the increased security measures meant an overcorrection that had congoers frustrated. Individuals were limited as to what they could bring in the dance on Saturday that frustrated many dancers.
Since the convention, a large number of attendees complained how the PJC society failed to plan events that aligned with The Mad Wonderland theme. After the convention, a rumor started to float around that Tekko 2019 will have full access to the David Lawerence Convention Center. Tekko 2018 had the honor of welcoming voice actors Monica Rial, Bryce Papenbrook, Vic Mignogna, SungWon Cho, Luci Christian, Nancy Kepner, Charles Dunbar, and special musical guest LM. C; their Tekko 2018 bios can be found here. We want to thank the Pittsburgh Japanese Cultural Society for allowing us to attend Tekko 2018 and interact with the Pittsburgh community.
