Megacon 2025 Day 2
Feeling refreshed and well rested after a fun day at the first day of Megacon 2025, I returned for Day 2. There was plenty of cosplays to check out on the sales floor. And even more art to consider buying than day one. Especially with an extra paycheck in my pocket by that point.
Friday had far more people than Thursday. Which makes sense since its a lot easier for many people to take off one day of work as opposed to two like Thursday. Naturally my work schedule as of this blog post let me attend Thursday without taking off. Lucky me that I only missed Friday.
Let’s take a look at a little of what I saw on Friday. Its impossible even in a few pictures to showcase everything. Certainly not at an event as packed as this one.
Cosplay
I got the chance to take many more pictures on day 2 of Megacon 2025. And with a larger group of people attending, there were far more costumes to distract me from buying art. Still, those same larger crowds made it so I needed to pick and choose when I would ask for pictures with care. And I always asked first. Cosplay is NOT consent.
I saw an incredible Clorinde, even equipped with a replica weapon as the duelist demands. A Hulkenberg and Strohl made me smile because I was disappointed by the lack of Metaphor ReFantazio cosplay. I laughed when I saw a Pokeball Guy. Its all around a wacky costume after all.
Captain Falcon, Eevee, and a Helldiver were some of the other costumes I saw towards the start. Notably the Helldiver attended one of the panels I went to and was kind enough to wait after we had exited the room for me to get that picture. For Democracy!
I saw a Power holding a sign about retaking Japan. And with a Jinx by her side, they might very well succeed. Of course, Power needs that Noble Prize too. But a Blood Devil’s work is never done.
I’m always impressed with the robotic cosplay and the Wall-E was no exception. The amount of care that goes into some of this stuff is incredible. It makes me wish I had the resources and time to really create something incredible. And speaking of incredible, the Ranni the Witch Cosplay pictured above had the full getup. Several arms defines the character and the cosplayer didn’t skip this detail.
I’m always excited to see Frieren Cosplay cause that Anime ticks all the boxes for both wholesome and incredible storytelling. Which is a hard line to stick with. Imagine my surprise when the Eisen appeared seemingly out of nowhere to join the picture. An action very in character for that Dwarf. Lastly I got a picture of Flower Girl Aerith with Nibelheim Tifa. Thanks to Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth, there have been a resurgence of Final Fantasy Cosplays.
Panels
I went to three panels on Day 2. And I regret that due to the crowds, many of the pictures were far too blurry for my liking. I ask that you take my words for it when I mention who I saw. Maybe next time I can get better equipment and snap better photos.
Skeet Ulrich and Matthew Lillard
The first panel I went to on Day 2 featured actors from a movie close to my wicked and twisted heart. Scream is one of my favorite horror movies. And the sheer number of meta conversations as well as the fact that the movie sought and failed to end slasher movies forever has something to do with it.
When I saw that both the original killers (spoilers maybe?) would be at a panel, I had to check it out. A long line greeted me and I didn’t get the best seat possible. But thankfully Matthew was willing to get off the stage and move around a bit. So I got an incredible almost front row seat picture of him.
The pair were quite funny and even roasted a person who asked a question that seemed a little… redundant? Is that the right word? And I felt a bit silly myself when I realized that Matthew Lillard is also Shaggy in the Live Action Scooby Doo.
Stephanie Nadolny and Paul Castro Jr
The second panel I attended at Megacon 2025 featured Stephanie Nadolny, the original voice actress of young Goku and Gohan. She had been asked to reprise her role as Goku for the new Dragon Ball Daima Anime. I’ll admit that I am not caught up on Dragon Ball. In fact I have not watched a single episode of Super even. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that Dragon Ball is one of the major reasons I watch Anime. And a big part of that involves Stephanie as Gohan was one of my favorite characters in the show growing up.
But she was not alone on that panel. Vegeta had not been portrayed as a child in Dragon Ball up until Daima. And so the show got a new voice actor to fix that. Funny enough, I know Paul Castro Jr from Genshin Impact. Almost immediately during the panel I did a double take because he sounded just like Freminet. As it turned out, that is a character he voices.
I have not watched Daima yet and don’t know how he sounds as Vegeta, but during the panel he talked about how he watched Chris Sabat. That man happens to be one of my favorite voice actors overall, and not just because he voices Piccolo, Vegeta, and countless other characters in Dragon Ball. He has voiced a whole lot of characters from tons of shows I love.
I listened with interest to learn about what producing a new Dragon Ball show was like. Its a shame that I don’t know much about Daima but it didn’t take away from my enjoyment. Perhaps after I finally get caught up on One Piece, I’ll get back to Dragon Ball Super and ultimately this show as well.
Avatar the Last Airbender Panel
The third and final panel I attended during day 2 was the one I was most excited for. And it didn’t just feature one or two voice actors, but several of them. My biggest shame was that as you can see from the above images, I was so far back that the pictures came out extremely blurry. At least you can tell that its pictures of people.
Anyway, that panel featured all the main voice actors from Avatar the Last Airbender. And part of the way through, King Bumi’s voice actor joined the Gaang. But you can also pretend that I was so excited for this panel that I took two different blurry photos for it.
Avatar the Last Airbender was one of those shows that served as a heavy influence over my writing. Not only is it a benchmark I use to this day to measure the character development in my own stories, curtesy of Prince Zuko, but the magic system in my Search for Eden Series certainly took some ideas from this verse’s version of alchemy elemental magic.
Still, I wasn’t thinking about that during the panel. Instead, I was amazed to see the whole Gaang in one place. And I learned that many of them had been in high school when they recorded their roles. Aang’s voice actor decided not to continue acting after Avatar had finished. And I don’t blame him. It seems like a hard job.
It was refreshing to hear the moments that the voice actors liked the most from Avatar. I agreed with many of their choices. And groaned at a few of them. But that’s fine. I’m an edgelord and it was clear that many of the voice actors present were not. Zuko’s Voice Actor though was my favorite and I liked basically every single answer he gave to questions during the panel.
Wrap Up
Day 2 was far more crowded and action packed than the first, but I had only gained a small taste of what Megacon had in store. Day 3 is always the most crowded, and with parking sold out a month out, I knew that there would be a lot more people.
Look forward to that write up soon. Saturday is normally my favorite day of the con with the most to see and do. Time will tell if that ended up being true. But not too long. You can expect an answer sooner than later.