Gen Con
So Gen Con happened this year again. Considering that I am a fairly typical tabletop gamer (pictured above), I took four days off of work and went downtown to get my geek on.
This year was the 41st anniversary of the event, so nothing really special was going on. No one celebrates the 41st anything. It was still fun, though. I went with some of my friends and we had a great, if somewhat nerdy, time.
As one might suspect, we met several people in costume. Most of them were either dressed as Naruto characters or Bleach characters. That was pretty sad for me, since I am not a particularly big fan of either show. On the plus side, though, I saw a trio of guys who were possibly the most awesome set of costumed individuals ever seen together. One was Captain Jack Sparrow, one was Solid Snake, and the last was a Stormtrooper wearing a kilt. I guess he was from the Scottish part of the galaxy far, far away. Unfortunately, the camera a brought died at the beginning of the day I saw them, so I never got a picture. Feh.
The real highlight for me was learning of a new series coming to TV (and children’s card gaming, I think) called Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds. Now, for those of you not familiar with the concept of the original Yugioh, it was a comic that made the transition to TV anime and was the tale of a short, freakishly-haired boy who saved the world by playing a children’s card game. And not just once, mind you! In the original series, I believe he saved the world at least four times by playing the card game (called Duel Monsters in the anime).
A spin-off series came out later called Yu-Gi-Oh GX. This show was set in a school where children were taught to play Duel Monsters. Now, I want to repeat that so you understand the impact of what I just typed. Children went to an expensive boarding academy to learn to play a card game. A card game. They were going to become professional CHILDREN’S TRADING CARD GAME PLAYERS. Do you understand the insanity in this? And don’t even get me started on the technology used in the show to make life-size holograms of the monsters used in duels. And the fact that the holograms regularly hurt people they attack.
But I digress. Getting back to 5Ds, the plot seems to have degenerated even farther. The main character is some angsty-looking anime teenager with hair that is only slightly less goofy than the original protagonist’s. The real jump-the-shark aspect is that the characters duel while riding motorcycles. Yes, they play cards while driving as fast as they possibly can around a track, or maybe in the streets of whatever town they’re from, I don’t know. All I know is that they have to race on these ridiculous things:
Zoom! I play card games!
You know, this post was supposed to be about Gen Con. Instead, we get some bizarre diatribe on motorcycle card games. How the hell did that happen?