Naka Kon is Kansas City’s largest anime convention and, being a Kansas City native myself, a home town favorite of mine. This year over 8000 fans came together over St. Patrick’s day weekend, and remarkably so due to the fact that another local comic book convention chose to hold their event the same weekend. Naka Kon has seen growth year to year and much of that can likely be attributed to the improvements that are implemented annually. From bigger and better programming to the improved functionality of the con as a whole, Naka Kon is proving to be a mainstay in the Midwest con circuit with a very promising future.
As a third year patron I have seen some of the changes implemented over those few years. Let’s begin with what could be described as the most daunting for con goers, the infamous registration line. Without a doubt Naka Kon 2014 registration was exponentially better than Naka Kon 2013. Hats off to the registration team this year for making registration as painless as possible for everyone. The vendor room was full of goodies that would delight any otaku with a pocket full of expendable cash. A common comment I heard expressed by various attendees was that although they found the vendor room easily navigable, they wished there was some clear separation between the vendors selling various good and an artist alley. Maybe that is something to consider in the years to come. I was very impressed with the selection of guests this year especially the voice actors. The convention had in attendance:
Scott McNeil: The voice of Duo Maxwell in Gundam Wing, Koga in Inuyasha, and Piccolo the first in DBZ among many others.
Monica Rial: The voice of Mei Ren in Black Butler, Mirajane in Fairy Tail, Bulma in Dragonball Z Kai to name a few.
Michelle Ruff: Best known as Rukia Kuchiki in Bleach, and Jill Valentine in Resident Evil: Revelations and Operation Raccoon City. Ruff was also recently nomination for best female performance in a video game for her role of Jill Valentine, and she is a 2009 SPJA (Society for the promotion of Japanese Animation) Best Actress Award winner for her role of Rukia.
Travis Willingham: Most widely known for his role as Roy Mustang in the Full Metal Alchemist series. Other credits include Naruto, Bleach, and Ouran Host Club among other various anime and video game titles.
Among the many things the con got right there are some areas that could use a bit of improvement. Take, for example, the opening ceremonies which I found to be a bit lack luster. The opening ceremonies should be an exciting beginning and set the tone for the rest of the weekend. Instead we found a series of introductions to the different departments of the con, a few mentionable guests, and ending with a sketch that was poorly mixed from a technical aspect and fell flat. The audio levels were all over the place drawing your attention away from the performance and the lip syncing seemed ill rehearsed. I understand that most involved in the production were unpaid volunteers and there are certain time constraints surrounding a convention, but if that is the case then maybe a sketch with pre-recorded audio isn't the best option. With the addition of Yamato the Fox being a focus of the Naka Kon lore this year, I imagined that a “What does the fox say?” skit was inevitable. I was pleased to see that the opening ceremonies ended without my fear coming to fruition.
On a more positive note the good of this con greatly outweighed the bad. Some minor improvements I found worth mentioning are things like the placement and operating hours of the game room this year versus last year, and how smooth the cosplay contest ran. The game room found its way back to one of the conference rooms in the Sheraton where, in my opinion, feels more like its home. The previous year had the game room splitting the space of a major exhibit hall. It seemed like a misuse of the space and felt a bit awkward. I know some may feel like having the game room in the Sheraton causes the gamers to fell removed from the actual convention, and that may have been the reason for the previous year's experiment of moving it. Returning the game room to its "home" in the cottonwoods allowed for a use of the entire space and dedicated it strictly to gaming, not to mention this also allowed for it to be open around the clock which, in my opinion, was the right call. In my years of attending this con I have also seen a gradual improvement in how smoothly the cosplay contest is ran. The first year I attended the contest seemed quite disorganized from the contest starting noticeably late, to the wrong names or characters be announced as the cosplayers hit the stage. The next year this must have been a priority of the con staff because it was greatly improved. There were only minor mishaps which I would attribute to trying to wrangle cosplayers into a straight organized line. (Which I can only imagine would be a lot like trying to herd cats.) The cosplay contest this year ran very smooth. Not only was it punctual and well organized but I can't recall a single cosplayer that was announced incorrectly. Well done con staff, well done indeed.
Congratulations to Fatima "Yin" Allmubarak and Josh "Yang" Stamm of Yin-Yang Cosplay for winning Best In Show in the Naka Kon 2014 Cosplay Competition! We will see you next year at the judge's table!
Click here for a look at our Naka Kon 2014 Cosplay Competition Gallery!
Also, a couple points that I found unique to Naka this year that need mentioning are the Cosplay recovery lounge and the random medical emergencies that all happened to occur at the same time. The Cosplay recovery lounge is probably something that has been utilized at other cons for years now, but this was my first experience with it and even though there were a couple of speed bumps I felt it was a really nice touch. Additions like that really show the con cares about its attendees, and I know that the recovery lounge will only improve with the coming years. Also by some terrible happenstance the con found itself facing not 1, not 2, but 3 medical emergencies all at the same time. The con has well designed procedures that were executed to a T which allowed all parties involved to be brought to designated areas and given the care they needed with little to no impact on the rest of the convention. When instances like that happen it really shows what the con staff is made of and they rose to the occasion. There is a comfort in knowing that the attendee’s security really is a priority to the security staff.
There was an "interesting" exchange that me and my colleague Rousseau kept experience with the security staff. It came down to a problem that we (and we would assume that a lot of other con goers as well) weren't even aware was a problem, and an issue that the security staff wasn't exactly forth coming with either. Ultimately it was a matter of protecting con attendees from people posing as "media" which ended up being a problem for Rousseau and I doing our documentary work. A mixture of there not being any standard operating procedures for what determines one as "media", certain information being withheld from different "levels" of security, and an uninformed general public of the fact that this is an actual reoccurring problem caused a larger unnecessary problem that I have to say did leave a bad taste in my mouth. This topic will be elaborated on in Rousseau's entry titled "The Black Stripe."
Another unexpected yet quite enjoyable experience was the karaoke room that was held Saturday night. This is explored in depth in Rousseau's review of Naka Kon 2014 but I do have to say it was a highlight of my entire con experience.
The closing ceremonies did suffer some of the same audio issues as the opening ceremonies but that did not stop it from leaving the crowd satisfied and with feelings of anticipation for Naka 2015. Alongside the few missteps there was a large portion the con the staff nailed this year and I would personally recommend this convention to anyone. Overall we had a great time, met some great people, and Melon Pop can't wait to come back next year.
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