MomoCon, a family friendly gathering of anime, comics & more

MomoCon for 2015 is May 28-31rst, we went today with the kids and it was absolutely amazing. First off, it really is family friendly. I understand the hesitancy that some parents have about going to a con because the costumes are too sexy or scary. MomoCon has just enough edge to be cool for the kid while allowing the younger generation to role play, dress up and enjoy the finer things in pop culture.

Every May MomoCon brings together fans of anime, animation, cosplay, gaming and comics to meet the leaders in their respective fields.  In future years MomoCon will be held over Memorial Day Weekend. That could mean a panel being led by celebrity voice over artists, actors, game designers, costumers, personalities or whoever is influential in those areas. Like any con, the event is broken out into vendors and panels.

The panels are where the celebrities speak, meet and answer questions; while the vendors area is where those cool ‘only at a con’ thing can be purchased. These are the ultra rare t-shirts, cosplay accessories, import toys, costumes, comics and more.

What is different-and really makes MomoCon an all ages, family friendly gathering is that there is a huge game play component to the conference. Gamers of any age will have a field day competing with groups of others playing any video game-on any console imaginable. They even have a retro gaming area with pinball machines and dozens of old school, original video games like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders and others.

There is also an area where every board game imaginable is there for you to play with. There are a couple isles devoted to independent artists who will draw your picture (or anything else) and some of the top comic book artists were on hand also.

The main draw of the vendor area was anything related to anime. There were thousands of mangas, anime DVDs, costumes, props, kimonos and photos of teen Asian bands just ready for your trendy teen’s bedroom.  A couple of vendors also had some choice Japanese snacks, there were some Pocky’s (chocolate dipped biscuit stick) and others equally as tasty. There were also a couple reps from JapanFest, which also great to go to if you dig things from Japan.

What really surprised us was how utterly family friendly MomoCon was. By that I mean that all of the attendees were there to have fun and none were of the sort that you’d cover up your child’s eyes for any reason.  Bonus: children 9 and under are free!

There weren’t any scary costumes for either of our children. The youngest didn’t seem to care for Rainbow Dash, but it’s not because she was scary. It was also great to see so many young kids dressed up in homemade costume for anime characters who I didn’t know. These kids were just being themselves, dressing up, playing games, talking to friends and it was awesome. As an attendee you’ll have a blast too wandering, looking and simply enjoying what is going on.

*Oh, the costumes were awesome and I wanted to take loads of photos. However, I was also potty training little Mr. Scared of Rainbow Dash. So in addition to watching the potty training and his five year old brother I was unable to take photos. Look for examples of the great costumes in the next post.