The Mizu Con this past weekend was disappointing for anyone except diehard fans of Japanese animation. Cons are supposed to be big -- that's why they're con-ven-tions. But, the Mizu Con took up a few small halls at the Hyatt Regency Downtown and not much else.
The most fun to be had seemed to take place between people running into friends they usually only converse with online or shopping for Japanese boy band merch (yes, there are Japanese boy bands) or anime-related stuff.
There was a "maid café," which had been touted as a café where guests would be "served" by "maids" but the entire weekend we didn't see a single maid -- even when we loitered in the "café" for a couple of hours. Also, the café served....wait for it.....ramen soups. Yeah. Lame.
The main demographic here was kids -- tweens and teens mostly. A bunch of zombies in their prepubescent and pubescent angst walking around for hours and spending their parents hard earned money on stuff they can buy online for half the price. Oh, yeah... but then they wouldn't get too put on their Lolita outfits and skunk tail and cosplay for the weekend (smh).
As one attendee who would asked to remain anonymous put it, "Everyone knows that this is the smallest con, even fans. We know it sucks as a con. But we come anyway because we get to hang out with friends, look at cool stuff in person instead of pictures, and cosplay. Everyone likes to cosplay."
The con did have a large ratio of people in costume to people in civvies whereas other comic cons have only a select and special few who don costumes -- which just proves that Americans comic books and cartoons are way less dorky than Japanese mangas and anime.