Anime Nebraskon, or NebKon (the two are pretty interchangeable), is an anime convention hosted by the UNL Anime Club, Otaku Jinri, held in the fall in Omaha Nebraska.
'Anime' is short for 'animation', or cartoons. Specifically Japaneese animation, which tends to be targeted towards a more mature audience than traditional cartoons. There is a HUGE range of what can be found in anime, with a wide range of topics, styles, and stories. Much anime is targeted towards highschool/college ages boys, but there's lots of stuff for girls, young or old, dark and gritty or light hearted, serious or funny. Really, whatever you're into, there's an anime about it somewhere.
But what's the actual convention like? Well, imagine going over to a friends house to watch some movies and hang out. Fun and awesome time, right? Maybe it's not just the two of you, but a whole bunch of friends all over to watch movies and hang out. Maybe there's a couple people you don't know, but they're already friends with your friends, and you're all together to watch the same movies and hang out, so most likely you'll soon be good friends with the new people as well. Maybe it's not at your friends house, but a house you havn't been to before, but it has a big screen TV and lots of room for everyone. Quite a few people you don't know, but they're all friends of friends, here for the same reason, and most likely awesome people. Oh, hey, some people have already seen this show, so a couple are over in the other room playing cards, and one guy is in the kitchen talking about his trip to Japan. Throw in some more potential friends, and a second TV in the basement watching a different show, some guys out front playing tag, and people in the other room drawing their favorate charecters. Hey, one guy came in costume, dressing up as his favorate charecter while he watches the movie. It's getting kinda crowded for even a big house. Let's move the whole thing to a hotel, with TVs playing movies in some rooms, and people hanging out in the halways and just talking, and a couple people who are giving little talks or demos in other rooms, and there's quite a few people dressed up in costume. WOW! One of the actors, who plays in the movie showing in the other room, is here! He's walking around, talking to people, and generally being a cool guy. So now the hotel has thousands of people, many are freinds, many you havn't met yet, lots of people wandering around in costume, three rooms showing movies/shows, a large room dedicated for video games, several rooms for panels on assorted topics, a dance off to the side, and a handfull of celebrity guests, and even a room full of vendors selling stuff, all being overseen by a group of dedicated Staff who are putting in a lot of time and effort to make sure everything runs smoothly and everyone is having fun. But when you get down to it, it's all still a heck of a lot like going over to a firends house to hang out and watch some movies.
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