Wedding BellSprouts

by Mike Covers

One recent weekend, I attended an anime convention in Boston, which was named–and you can probably pronounce this even if you don’t read Japanese–”Anime Boston.” I have been attending anime, comic book, video game, and even horror conventions for almost twenty years now, which is probably why I don’t have a massive amount of savings. Nevertheless, I always enjoy myself at these weekend-long gatherings. Like most others who attend, I get to interact with friends who are screen names the rest of the year, enjoy other attendees’ cosplay, and buy a ton of merchandise that I will never use or even remember that I have, oftentimes placing it next to the pile of crap I got at last year’s convention. 

Folks who attend these gatherings religiously–or even once–tend to be labeled as “social outcasts,” by both others and themselves. I proudly include myself in this description. Others who know, or who have even just once been my cashier, would agree with this sentiment. During those dreadful 362 days a year when, for whatever reason, the anime convention is NOT going on, we outcasts have to exist in shudder-inducing reality alongside “normies,” some of whom have–if you can believe it–never seen even a SINGLE episode of Chio’s School Road! Thus, once the convention–or even the trip TO the convention–comes around and we are surrounded by thousands of like-minded fellow “otaku,” we tend to express our true selves, engaging in behavior and/or isolated acts that the aforementioned “normies” in our lives would likely label as “weird” or “clinically insane” or “borderline criminal.” 

In the years that I have been attending such conventions, I have witnessed a number of things:

Someone was so into the act of recreating a scene from a childhood TV series during a panel about Saturday morning cartoons that they picked up a chair and chased another fan around the conference room with it.

Someone dressed in a head-to-toe leopard print bodysuit and a cape playing music from two speakers on his belt (because such an outfit of course calls for accessorizing). When I asked my friend what anime he was from, he replied “That isn’t from any anime.”

A popular anime voice actor got drunk and bashed other industry voice actors, and seemingly anyone else who came to his mind. He prefaced each and every sentence–including an announcement that he had to use the restroom–with “This doesn’t leave this table, but…”

A street vendor who made up his own catchy song to sell bottles of water to convention attendees who became an Internet meme, leading to…

Convention attendees at the next year’s show COSPLAYING this street vendor

An actual marriage proposal in which someone dressed as Ash, the longtime Pokemon trainer, said to their fiancee, dressed as Pikachu, “I choose you.”

At Anime Boston 2023, however, I witnessed something that I had never seen before at ANY convention.

I was wandering the sprawling halls of the convention center, snapping photos of con-goers whose costumes I recognized from anime series, video games, BASEketball movies, etc. As a fan of Pokemon, my eyes fell upon a group of women dressed as various characters from the series: Jessie from Team Rocket, Meowth, Wobbuffet, and Arbok. They agreed to have me take their photo and even posed like their characters would. As I did, I noticed that all of them–except for one (Jessie, to be specific)–were wearing sashes that read “Team Bride.” Admittedly, I am not deeply knowledgeable about every last property in the Pokemon series, but I am fairly certain that “Team Bride” sashes did not grace the chests of wild Pokemon.

“Wait…are you all a bachelorette party?” I asked.

They answered yes. Not in unison. I don’t think. One said “No boys allowed!” It was then that I noticed that Jessie from Team Rocket was not dressed in the character’s usual regala, but rather a short bridal gown with the red Team Rocket “R” emblazoned on it. She had also carried a sign that read “I choose him!” with a photo of Team Rocket’s other member, James, on it.

“OK, that is awesome,” I replied, assuming they needed my approval.

They thanked me and headed toward either the Johto region or the expo hall.

At an anime convention, where the creativity is just as strong as the body odor, it is hard for something to really stand out to me. A Pokemon bachelorette party, however, managed to do it (at least on that day of the con, anyway).

As I shared the photo with everyone I knew, including my mom (who wouldn’t know a Pokemon from a Digimon, if you can fathom such a thing), several things raced in my mind.

First of all, I am OLD. Enjoyment of Pokemon used to be limited to people who still believed in Santa Claus and college. You know, the young. But alas, the first game had dropped in the mid-1990s, which means that lifelong fans of the game are indeed of the marrying age today (Monday). I never thought that they were of the marrying MENTALITY or MATURITY, but then again, I may have just been thinking of my own friends.

Secondly, they were truly committed and, in 50% of U.S. marriages, commitment is a huge factor. They weren’t walking around in TRADITIONAL Pokemon costumes that everyone, including remote Amazonian tribes without access to video games or drinking water, know about, like Pikachu or Charmander or Gible. They were VERY specific Pokemon that did not have commercially available costumes, if their outfits were any indication. They were TRUE fans of the game. I do not know these women at all, but I would bet my (or at least your) paycheck that more thought, effort, and fighting was put into which Pokemon costumes they would be wearing for the Anime Boston bachelorette party than there was into the bridesmaid dresses for the wedding. That is, assuming they were even DOING bridesmaid dresses. It’s likely that they would all be turning up to the wedding dressed exactly like they are in the picture, arm-in-arm with groomsmen Pokemon who gel properly with their individual Pokemon species. I mean, we sure as hell don’t want the one who is dressed as Arbok with Gardevoir as her groomsman, you know? (You don’t know, admit it).

But mostly, I was happy to see them truly paying homage to the game that they all obviously enjoyed, even at this defining milestone of their lives (their friend’s weedding, not Anime Boston) (I assume). Every now and again, you will see something like this or a Star Trek wedding or something get passed around social media. Casual–and even hardcore–fans of the series being depicted will gush about how cool such a thing is. And, of course, many of them will say “I am totally doing this for my wedding!” But of course, when time for the ACTUAL wedding comes, they submit to what is socially acceptable and spend the wedding in traditional dresses that lack ANY Team Rocket insignia, and bachelorette parties in typical party dresses, clutching cups with penis-shaped straws instead of Pokeballs. That kind of thing makes my individualist ass sad. A wedding is something that most people have only 1-3 times in their life. If they can’t bathe it in something they are ACTUALLY interested in and instead succumb to whatever Target tells them is “normal,” are they even really having fun?

While I spent no additional time with the women dressed as Jessie, Wobbuffet, Arbok, and Meowth outside of the photo I took of them, I nevertheless knew deep down that they were all TRULY happy and GENUINELY satisfied with their unique bachelorette party. And I hope also for the wedding.