Gotta Meet ‘Em All!

May 23 – Saturday

As I write this, I’m in a hostel in London, with my friend Bry fast asleep next time, not even Shaft yelling “What’s my name?!” on the background managing to wake him up. I’m looking through the photos of the day, proud of the Pokemon I managed to meet.

And sad at the ones I missed.

I hope you don’t mind time travelling, cause I’m going to take us back to the start of the day.

It was early morning, Bry and me walking to the convention. Bry had to set up a stall for his friend, and I had to go early because I’d forgotten to buy a ticket, which according to Bry, was “the key” to getting in.

“Don’t worry, the line won’t be long.”

“But there are thousands of people who are gonna be here today!”

“Yeah, but it’s early. Who’d be awake at this time?”

Now I want you, the internet, gateway to the whole world to know this. Bry is not a reliable source, for any information, ever.

This was one of the biggest lines, of all time. I knew looking at it that it’d be a good two hour wait, with not much to do other than look at the other people dressed up in their costumes. And then I got the feeling. The feeling you get when you’re at one of these conventions and you’re not dressed up. Ironically, it’s the same feeling you get coming into work as Superman on Halloween, only to find nobody else could be bothered. I’d spent an hour in that line, painstakingly trying to find anything to do, when my eye caught hold of something. Something… that I’d literally dreamed about. But I never imagined I’d actually get to see it.

It was a Gyarados.

And it was mind-blowing.

The costume to make must have been an ordeal. It was like one of those Chinese dragon costumes that you always see at festivals, where it takes something like six people to wear. It showed the dedication these people put into not only creating the costume, but wearing it alone.

Now no offence to any of the other twenty two Pokemon I’ve had so far, but I think that Gyarados is possibly the best I’ve seen yet. The room was about 500 metres wide, but this 12 foot serpent dominated it.

And you know what I was thinking?

‘That costume is incredible… I must get it in my collection. It would make coming down to London worth it alone…

… but I’m all the way through this line. If I go, I’ll have to go to the back of the queue, and wait another two hours? I’ll just wait until I get my ticket, and then go find him again. No problem!’

I’ve talked to people about the London trip to find Pokemon. When it gets to this particular part, there’s always a tension. There’s always a pause, which is only ended by them shamefully saying “What’s happened to you Tommy? You’ve changed.”

So I stood there staring at my Gyarados, like a nerdy kid to the cheerleader in gym class. It was a good forty minutes later until I got my ticket… but Gyarados had already gone.

I scanned the room, just being doubly sure. He wasn’t there. Must’ve went to the dealer’s room. Yeah, that made sense. They were in the queue for those tickets. Of course they went to the dealer’s room!

I was just about to make chase, when my quick scan of the room suddenly ended on someone. And this made me smile. Gyarados may have slipped away for the time being, but I certainly wasn’t going to lose this one.

“Hiya!” I chirped up to the girl and her friends.

“Oh, hello.”

“Hi… this’ll sound odd, but I’m trying to meet all 151 Pokemon. And I haven’t got met yours yet.”

“Oh wow!” said her friend, “that sounds like a great idea! And fun!”

I didn’t want to respond. It was usually fun, yes, but my heart was breaking with every Gyarados-free second that passed me by.

“Aw, thank you. Would it be possible for a picture?”

They said yes.

And I was happy.

“Agh,” cried the Mewtwo, “It’s impossible to hold anything with these fingers.”

It was a very good costume. I’m sure you, too, are thinking the same thing as I was, and I’m sad to say, that – would you believe it – no where sells that hat.

We chatted briefly, most of which was me answering their questions and joking around with them. I think I pulled a muscle in my face… it’d had been way too long.

But sadly, the queue waits for no one, and they had to get a move on.

So did I.

 

 

“I don’t get it…”

“What do you mean?” asked Bry.

It was two hours later, me and Bry had wandered off to get lunch at one of London’s finest cuisine’s.

“I don’t get it. He was there! In a room full of hundreds of people! How could they all just… not see him?” my tone was a little whiny. And rightly so. I had been hunting Gyarados down for the most of the day, to no result. Well… not no result.

I got another one.

The one who should have been the first.

Bulbasaur.

Picture quality is a bit iffy. I had to ask Bulbasaur’s dad (disappointingly, no, not Venasaur) to take the photo. He held it in his hands, and glared at it a while. After thirty seconds of me trying to pull the same face, he raised “It isn’t appearing in the screen?”

Still trying to hold the expression, I demonstrated how to hold it.

“Think I got it.”

“Sorry,” said Bulbasaur, “my dad and camera’s…”

The shades made it impossible to see, but I was fairly sure there was some eye rolling action going on behind them.

I laughed. “Haha, I know the feeling. My little sister tried to –”

“Think I got it.”

I took the camera, and took what I got. It got the job done, and I gratefully thanked the both of them, despite neither probably knowing exactly why they were being thanked.

“See?” chirped up Bry, eating one of my Doritos. “You got your Bulbasaur. That’s… more than what most people can say.”

I agreed, and decided to stop obsessing over Gyarados. He was only the one Pokemon after all. I’d gotten a Mewtwo, a Bulbasaur, and the place was a hotspot for Pikachu’s. Who knew who else I’d get whilst there? Maybe none, maybe all of them. I just had to hope for the best with my Gyarados…

“Hey, Gyarados could be that special one, you know?” said Bry. I didn’t understand. “You know… the one that got away.”

…

The hell he was.

“You got a pen on you?”

 

 

I was getting a lot of looks. Some people read the sign and then avoided eye contact. Others wished me good luck. A few laughed… which I still don’t understand.

I’d done this trick before, back in Birmingham, when I was looking – for the now unnecessary – Bulbasaur, and I now remembered how confusing an experience it was.

“You looking for the Gyarados?” asked one guy, out of bunch of blokes sitting in a corner.

“Yes!” I said, ignoring the usual glares from the Free Hugs people. “You haven’t seen him have you?”

“Only at the beginning when the tickets were being bought.”

Ah.

“But you do know that they’re hosting the World Record Most Cosplayer’s In One Place here today?”

Oh?

“Oh?”

“Yeah, they’re lining up outside for it?”

It was just what I needed. Before everyone had kept moving around, moving from stall to stall to stall, thousands of them. But now, they were stuck. In a queue. All I had to do was walking down the line whilst keeping an eye out for anyone who looked potentially like a Pokemon.

Sounds flawless right?

Dear reader… it was.

Within seconds I had one. It was a girl, with spiky gold hair and jaggy white collar.

I recognised her as Jolteon immediately. Time to do the usual drill.

“Excuse me?”

“Yes?”

“Are you Jolteon?”

“Yes…”

I explained the situation, her friend happily took the photo, and I’d managed to get yet another one.

“This is brilliant! Thanks!”

“No worries.”

I was about to head down the queue, when I quickly thought to ask.

“You haven’t seen a Gyarados around have you?”

She hadn’t.

 

 

An hour later, and I was making my way down to outside. Having had three for the day, I made one last attempt. The queue for the World Record attempt had given me my Jolteon, which was nice, but imagine what the actual event would give me? I made my way down the steps, when I saw a young kid, dressed as Ash Ketchum pass me. I strange combination of a smile and sigh came over. He was dressed up as something from Pokemon… just not a Pokemon.

‘Give him time’ I thought to myself.

But as I looked round, my brain clicked with something else. His friends who were him… one was Pikachu, and another was…

“Eevee?”

As if this was her very own name, she looked round.

“Yes?”

I explained the situation to her and her Pokemon friends (sadly, most were post-151 Pokemon… one was even a Mudkip…), they laughed at the idea, and asked how many I had now.

“I think you’d be the twenty sixth?”

Enjoying that she was now part of the gang, we got the photo taken, to mark the meeting.

“Thanks, really, it means a lot to me!”

“No worries!”

We all said bye to each other in a high mood, and I made my way to the World Record Event. Although I sweat, as I was walking, I heard someone in the crowd yell,

“So I head you like Mudkipz?”

I will hate whoever did that forever.

 

 

“Any luck?” asked Bry, having finished working at his stall.

We’d managed to find our way to the front of the crowd, just before where the Official World Record people were taking a photo.

“No…”

The crowd was massive. I knew then that I could never again sum up my hobbies as ‘not weird’. There was one person from everything in there. Halo, Final Fantasy, Transformers, Bleach, Air Gear, Death Note, Digimon, Batman, Zelda, Mario, Kingdom Hearts, Phoenix Wright-

“Any Pokemon?”

“… well, yes, but…”

They were of no use.

The only Pokemon in there were either post-151, or ones I already had. I checked and checked and checked again.

“That sucks man.” Said Bry, whilst taking his own photos.

“I guess.”

Except my mood didn’t deflate. Staring at the hundreds of characters on those steps, posing for their group photo, I thought about what I’d gotten out of the day.

Mewtwo, Bulbasaur, Jolteon, and Eevee. Plus, I had a small lead that there was a Gyarados in the UK.

The World Record people confirmed that they hadn’t broken a World Record, and everyone threw up their hands in celebration.

Bry turned to me. “I’m still gonna be at the stall tomorrow by the way. Sorry, I feel bad leaving you like this.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I said, looking through the photos. “I’ll just meet some new people.”

 

OTHER PHOTOS

Lucario

Lefeon and Mudkip

Team Rocket Grunt

Two fans (but not fanboys)

Two of the many, MANY Pikachu’s

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