Hi, my name is Jeff. I love anime, manga, memes and Japanese music in general. I see myself as a regular Otaku, but after a certain event in Sweden, that may have to change. It has pretty much gone three weeks since Närcon summer 2019 ended. Even though the event kinda started slow for me, lots of great memories were made. Especially during Saturday where I just won, won and won!
Before I get started on ”the-saturday-of-wins”, I just have to mention friday evening, the day before. So this was the second time I attended the event, as Närcon summer last year left a huge impression on me and I just had to relieve the hype. Up to the event of Friday however, that feeling just wasn’t there. I mean besides the familiar faces, people with awesome cosplays, the atmosphere, shops and activities were all in one place. It may or may not have to do with the extra unluck I’ve experienced the past few months, which in turn affected my initial experience of this convention. So what happened?
PART 1
For starters, I do what I always do when exploring stuff or places. Guiding myself through gut feeling. It’s just a passive skill of mine that works roughly about 42% of the time. When it works however, unexpected surprises are sure to follow. In this case, it led me to fateful encounters, a certain magical quiz and wholesomeness. That day humanity faced its extinction, I met some of the most satisfying challengers and I’ve faced in my entire life.
My hype started during this pecuilar Friday during the convention. The first one was a student at the University, which the event itself took place in. He had no one to play with, so I went ahead and fought him. Digitally of course. Though neither of us were well-versed in playing with the arcade controls; from time to time, we had to do the extra inputs to make sure ”something” landed; works 100%, 1% of the time. Though neither of us could perform our characters ultimate moves, shame on us, the matches were quite even and inexplicably thrilling. Despite this not being my first time playing the game, both online, on console and at other arcades, I felt like I was exploring the game all over again; even if I hadn’t really played this particular version of Street Fighter IV. It was just incredible!
After about the tenth game, I was getting the upper hand in terms of winning percentage; not a boast by the way. I shook hands with my first arcade rival ever, and parted with nothing respect for one another, as it was ”late”.
*Translators note: the definition of ”late” varies depending on whether you were a night owl, a morning person or like me, someone who sleeps around one O’clock.
PART 2
I stayed at the arcade to face other challengers. There were ok-wins until that one last opponent who would eventually get that 69% win rate against me. I didn’t ask for his name, but we should call him ”the Golden Fan-Dude”; since he possessed one. And oh boi, do these matches ignite my fighting spirit even further.
He played as Makoto (the tomboyish Karate Master), while I faced him as Sagat (the King). The ”only” reason why the Golden Fan-Dude won more was simply because he played with arcade sticks regularly; therefore he could pull the ultras with ease. Though our skill gap wasn’t too far off, the mastery of being able to play on the arcade would in several situations determine the outcome of each clash. At one point, we punched each other so hard that both characters health dropped to zero at the same time; a Double Knockout, which is incredibly rare in fighting games. So both of us were like ”Oh shiieet”.
When I lost the last set, unfortunately, I wasn’t too upset. It was actually quite the opposite, since I’ve found myself another rival. We shook hands with deep respect. A common gesture even though it’s not a formal encounter whatsoever. But at the same time, I was thinking: ”Next time, I’ll find you, and I will beat you (digitally).”
Now, on to the Saturday 🙂
PART 3
With the ”prologue” out of the way, the glorious day of victories are to be unveiled to the public. My first win would be the quiz competition hosted by Mangakai, a club . It consisted of two rounds. The first one taking place anytime from the day Närcon opens, until the finales on Saturday at six O’clock.
In order to participate in the final round, you needed to have a certain amount of correct answered questions from the first round. There were 20 questions in total with a three-choice format. I think my fellow finalists, a total of (sinister) six including myself, had an average of 16 correctly answered sheets. I however, unnecessary flex incoming, got 19 out of 20 questions right. Honestly, I ”50/50 guessed” about five questions, since I had a vague idea of what the correct answer was for those. But man, does this put a smile on my face.
As for the second round, the new arrangement consisted of a combination of ”everyone answers at the same time” and ”first to three”. This time around, there wasn’t a single question I knew the answer to…
In cases like this, I use one of my special abilities: Hyper intuition; which allows me to get answers beyond my spectrum of knowledge.
However, that was not enough to beat my current pseudo-rival at the time. Mainly because her intuition was greater than mine, and because she actually knew one of the questions that the host read. Once again, I shook hands with and complemented her skills. Even if she techincally did place first in the finales. I was the overall winner of this competition; my sad attempt to save my pride in this very scenario.
Moving on. The first placer is granted the honour to choose between one of three fabulous prizes; Evangelion Modelkit, Frame Music Girls Hatsune Miku and Macross Frontier figurine. Aaand of course she was going to choose the most delicous kit of them all. The Evangelion. I then proceeded to claim Hatsune Miku as my prize for placing second. The third placer was, if I remember correctly, the friend of Pseudo-rival, that will be her name for now, which also means I kind of ruined their ”friendship-spotlight”. ”So that in itself evened out any inconsistencies.” And the rest of the pest would each recieve a participation prize. Just kidding of course.
I was more than pleased to have won anything at all. I was half-expecting to participate the final round since day 2 of Närcon, only to actually propel myself to victory. An astounding achievement if I say so myself! As it was also my inner wish to either get the Eva or Miku models. I’ll let you know that I couldn’t react properly, trying to stand still from the excitement that was trying to pry loose (I have witnesess from Mangakai who can testify on this matter). Furthermore, it was my first female figurine! I usually buy 1/100 Master Grade Gundams; so, ”this will be a nice addition to my collection” and I have to update my status from Otaku to Weeb, *puts sunglasses/sungrasses on*.
After calming down, forcing the Pseudo-rival to take a picture of my win and thanking both Mangakai and Pseudo-rival, I imperial-marched triumphantly towards my next destination. I worded it that way because I would eventually meet my hero. Who’s none other than Obi-Wan Kenobi himself!
I forced choked him to say what I wanted to hear; meme lines. Specifically ”Hello there!” and ”You were the chosen one!”. I had to do this because, I am a Danksider. Not Darksider, but Dank-sider. Other that, he wore the cosplay very well along with the hairstyle and beard. Unfortunately I cannot show you since I forgot to ask for his permission to upload them online… Here’s some compensation:
OVA
Here’s a more of a side story win.
I randomly met a friend and his unit right after my clash with Obi. I couldn’t resist bragging about winning the quiz and we hyped together in unison. We then proceeded to chat about anything that came up in mind for a while, just because, since we don’t usually meet up very often. At the same time, we played PoGo. I rarely play the game anymore, but we happened to do that, which eventually led me to the catch of ”Evil Dratini” from the Team Rocket event. I don’t know the odds of getting that particular pokémon, but based on the reactions of my fellas, it was a rare win. I even caught a shiny Buneary the day after. And if that wasn’t enough, a 100% Bagon some week later. Maybe I should play a bit more…
It was dinner time, so we had to eat. Before that, I had to ”hide” my newly won figurine in a safe place. Upon returning, we saw two female cosplayers dressed as Part 1 Jonathan and Dio. I had no choice but to do a Jojo Pose and shout ”Kono Dio Da!” and they responded in kind with the same phrase. Totally worth it. My only regret was not asking for a picture; especially since they captured the younger versions of their character pretty well in my opinion.
After that our unit went for the food court. And while we were eating and discussing, two people from different teams working at Närcon dropped by. One revealing that there was a traitor (you won’t get anymore details on this one), the other reminding me to return in my radio to HQ. So, while somewhat brief, it was a good change of pace to share with my friend and his unit about Närcon stuff, and parted ways. *”A meeting, and Parting” plays in the background*
PART 4
After leaving the radio to the dad of HQ, I needed to meet up with Karl Von Kallé; yes, he is the direct ascendant of the botanist Carl Von Linné. Our meeting has since months, been scheduled to take place in the Street Fighter V room. Just one problem. The ones who arranged that specific room had a Tekken Tournament at the same time. So we moved on to Smash Bros instead; I can never stop wondering why they chose that specific word combination for their franchise.
Later on, more of Karl’s crew came along, our numbers grew to 7. One of them being a somewhat more of a seasoned player; we had no choice but to play 3 vs 1, with friendly fire on to make things more interesting. It was for most of the time even. Us who rotated in the 3-player team won more often than not. So that was enjoyable for both teams. But the , everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked; a kid joined the battle, and beat all of us. Twice!
What? Oh, you thought it was going be a story about me only winning? But it was I, Dio!
The crew had to leave after that, not because we lost or anything, but there was going to be an event starting soon, forcing us to leave the kid by himself. It was sad.
We arrived at the dance floor, which featured multiple K-pop extracts which everyone was free to jump in and dance along with. Despite the nice atmosphere, none of us would dance. The air was simply too muggy from the heat, during late evening at that. So we were just people watching until I suggested we go for the arcades. partly to make up for the miscalculation from earlier.
When we reached the arcade we spotted a trio who had occupied the Street Fighter machine. *Kusottare!*
All of us ended up making a deal, rotating with whoever lost a best-of-three-rounds, so everyone got to play. Some of the crewmembers hadn’t played before. But it was still fun to watch. Especially when I guided them a bit; like giving the advice to use the heavy punch button for the character Ken, which made a huge difference in his performance. There was one this particular guy from the trio, who would soon become the ultimate rival for the night.
His name was William. We had exchanged our names as we recognized each others prowess in digital fighting. Despite losing against him twice, those were some intense games. Karl Von Kallé avenged our crew by defeating him once, so all was in order. Well almost.
After a few roations. The trio was going to leave; it was late after all. But before that. William wanted a last rematch. I had no choice but to answer the call. When the rotation finally switched to us though, a new challenger appeared! She apparently saw appeal of the game, while watching us play and wanted to try it out too. A funny thing that happened from the game I just won, was that the character I played, Ibuki, had a win-quote which read ”No rematch”. So everyone, especially William, be like ”Wow, really?”.
I performed a crash course on how to use Chun-Li, the character she chose, and quickly explained basic commands like grapple, focus attack and how to shoot a fireball (but not other charge commands). Things went as it should when facing a beginner, until she actually won the second round. I was like ”Nani!?”, because she actually landed some impressive counters. She was OP for a beginner. After I won the odd but fun match, my rematch with William ensued.
I accidently the wrong character for my ultimate rival. You see, in this particular arcade machine, there was no way to ”go back”. So I had to get my double perfects as a warm-up before getting to our rematch. He chose M.Bison, who would face off against my Sagat.
PART 5
As a repeat of our previous match, I lost the first round fairly quick, regrettably. But then took back a win the round after, finishing with a Tiger Knee(-co nico nii~); a close exchange that either of us could have won. The last and final round was on, but started with anything but in my favor. I ended up with about 10% health against my opponent with half his health bar intact. I thought I was going to lose, but kept my cool as much as possible, changing my play style in the process. So much so, that I manage to counter react his leap attacks, connecting two shorter combos before landing the last Tiger Uppercut for the comeback of the night! Everyone roared with excitement. We then parted ways with a handshake, and the conclusion was set.
We were all supposed to leave at the same time, but stayed for a (final) final match, between me and Karl with the rest of the crew experiencing the Glory. It was our main reason we were here today to begin with.
The final match would determine which player had the best legs; I played as Chun-Li, who’s famous for her thiccness, and Karl played as Juri, a Taekwondo user possessing a sinister eye. Both of us had similar conditions regarding our skill to play with arcade controls and combos with our respective characters. It was quite even on all three rounds. It was not as intense as my previous rivals, but another sense of what I would explain as ”whatever Ryu and Ken feel when they fight”. In the end, I prevailed as Champion of the Night (as it should be). A truly wholesome game between JoBros (The Jonas Brothers are back together). It was a Golden Experience.
Memes and random encounters. Those are, in my opinion, the main reason for the existence of Närcon in it’s entirety, and that will probably remain the same for years to come.
And that concludes my victory spree. My first blog post turned way longer than I had anticipated, so I had to shorten or cut certain stuff out. Maybe I will (not) post them some other time.
But I shall thank you for reading about my glorious of memories on Närcon summer 2019. Not that I wanted tell it just for you, baka (it means ”baking” in swedish).
Jyaa ne! XOXO
/Dank Lord of Memes, Weeb Master Jeff
