So for those who don't know, MCM is the UK's biggest pop culture event. It covers anime, manga, TV, film, fashion, the list is never ending! It takes place in London twice a year-in May and October. The full event spans from Friday until Sunday, but I only ever go for the Saturday.
So, rewind to yesterday at 5am and witness me, and my friend Rachel, painfully awakening from our short sleep. Why so early? Plenty of reasons! Due to the distance between us and London and the fact that they closed the DLR I knew it would take a while to get to MCM and you always have to be early! Not only are MCM queues infamously long but you also get freebees if you get there soon enough! However, I'm not entirely sure the little goodie bags are worth it any more. They used to have anime and comics in them, this time around I got a mini comic, a coaster and a silly DVD. Not even a poster! I know I shouldn't complain about freebees, but they didn't even bother to give us a programme. We had to hunt out the programmes for ourselves which was a bit of a pain.
Anyhow, after entering the exhibition, I had to go collect my specially pre-ordered MCM Genki Gear top. It's such an uber cute top! Also, it's really awesome to see that Genki Gear, who had a small stand at the first convention I went to, are now supplying the official short for the UK's biggest convention. After wandering around the hall for a bit me and Rachel got a bit hot and decided to take the time outside. MCM have changed the queueing system to supposedly make the lines shorter. But the disorganized manner of this change meant that those with wristbands and those with out tickets ended up in one great clump trying to get through the door! We did get back in though found a really cute photo booth and took our photos (not as good as the Korean/Japanese photo sticker booths where you get to customize your photos, but ute nonetheless) and also played a bit of DDR. I found lots of cosplayers to take photos of too!
This month's MCM must've been the biggest yet though. Not only was the usual room jam-packed with stands (VidFest, Japan EX, the video game section) but another room had to be opened up for some steampunk and food stands and there was a Yu Gi Oh room. That's right, a whole warehouse devoted to Yu Gi Oh. Tables ready for people to duel, stand selling rare cards, Yu Gi Oh anime on a little TV and a super awesome looking giant game of Yu Gi Oh! But I didn't go in there for long seeing that neither me nor Rachel play Yu Gi Oh. Then there's my personal highlight of the night: The Euro Cosplay Championships Final 2013. After seeing the UK finalist be picked back in May I was really excited to see the competition and I was not disappointed. The level of performance, the detailed props and the costumes themselves: absolutely stunning. Unfortunately, we couldn't watch the whole thing since we had to get a replacement bus service, but what we saw was amazing!!
Cosplay aside, the most important thing to me is always food. Usually the extortionate prices in the exhibition hall lead me to just take my own food, but yesterday I only took some tomatoes and oaty bars! So first I bought a Japanese fried chicken skewer. Quite what was so 'Japanese' about it, I don't know because it tasted like KFC on a stick to me! But let's not mind about it's ethnicity, it was tasty and cheap (£3 for one stick) and most importantly: I love chicken. Fast forward a bit and me and Rachel were sharing a portion of shaved ice. Shaved ice is regularly bought up in manga so I was really intrigued in it from that perspective, but also it gets very hot in the exhibition! So I picked mango flavour, the most refreshing looking option. Shaved ice is quite literally shaved ice but with a mango flavoured juice on it, but it was really nice! They put some real mango on it and also some kind of milky substance which gave it a nice creamy aftertaste. The portion was really big too and well worth the £4. Continuing with more sweet food I bought some KitKats. Not just any KitKats though, these are Japanese KitKats. Although smaller in size than any KitKat sold on the high street, Japanese KitKats come in all kinds of flavours! I accidentally picked up two strawberry cheesecake and also a Red Bean Pudding flavour-although overpriced (£5 for 3 tiny KitKats) they are really tasty. The strawberry cheesecake was heavenly and the the red bean pudding flavour was something truely unique (I've never had red bean pudding before, but I definitely want to try)! Finally, to stave off the thirst (and because I wanted to show them off to Rachel) some fancy Japanese fizzy pop. I don't know whether you've ever seen them before but the glass have a marble as the stopper and to access the drink you have to push the marble into the bottle where it rolls freely around. It's kind of impractical, but so cool it's worth it. And 3 for £6 is quite a bargin in my opinion.
But what about non-food related stuffs? Well, I got a Gothic Lolita Bible to find out all the latest trends. A duck backpack with a 3D beak and totally cute eyes. And a BMO (Adventure Time) jumper to wear with my LSP (Adventure Time) top that I bought in May (I kind of like Adventure Time by the way). Only 3 things! But they're all quite big things though. I also bought some Adventure Time merch (badges and playing cards) on behalf of my sister who couldn't make it to Expo this time.
So, all in all a good expo. Did you guys have a nice weekend? Any one else go to MCM at all this weekend? Leave me a comment, I'd love to hear! Also, I'm sure this post is littered with grammatical errors but it is 12:30 and I've been up for 18 hours on 6 hours of sleep so be nice. Also, don't worry, next Sunday I'll be back to normal with an anime review post.
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