As I waited in line for Tekko 2025 outside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, I watched a costumed convention-goer compliment another’s outfit. So charmed that someone knew the reference of the costume, the woman gave her a tiny fish figurine from a baggie and some kind of badge. I had no idea what was happening, but I was really happy for them.
Tekko, the Pittsburgh area’s top anime convention, came back this year for a packed weekend of panels, vendors, art, gaming competitions and more. As someone on the non-anime side of the nerd spectrum, I enjoyed my visit despite feeling a bit bewildered.
Simply walking around and enjoying all of the elaborate cosplays proves one of the top pleasures of Tekko. I didn’t recognize many of the characters, but my comics and gaming fandom helped me spot (and greatly enjoy) cosplays of Spider-Man (in both Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland flavors), Dr. Mario (complete with a wheeled-around cart of mushrooms and other supplies), and The Legend of Zelda’s Tingle (if you know, you know).
The presence of a “Manga Library” charmed me. There, visitors perused various tables filled with a variety of Japanese comic books. More a fan of American comics, I nonetheless found lots of fun stuff to leaf through, including a All You Need Is Kill, an adaption of a science fiction novel illustrated by Takeshi Obata of Death Note fame, a Marvel Comics joint called Wolverine: Prodigal Son, and an adaptation of Twilight in the form of two hardcover volumes with connecting cover art.
I always get a kick out of looking at retro video game consoles and merchandise. One vendor had boxed retro game consoles, such as the Super Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and an Uncharted 3-bundled Playstation 3, which, yes, is now most definitely considered retro. A glass case of boxed first print Pokémon games and loose Game Boy and Nintendo 3DS models also caught my eye, but nothing could compare to the old-school strategy guides on hand. Higher education and freelance journalism doesn’t give me the kind of money to throw around on purchases of good-condition Donkey Kong Country and Super Metroid guides, but gawking at them made me feel something.
In the gaming section, after seeing Rock Band running on an Xbox 360 for the first time in two decades, learning Japan has its own version called Gitadora, and admiring a guy’s skills in Dancerush Stardom (think Dance Dance Revolution), I decide to play some rounds of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. My first opponent, sadly, didn’t put up much of a fight, and I like a challenge.
The second guy left a good first impression. He brought his own controller, a fancy Smash Bros.-branded GameCube controller released by Nintendo to coincide with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, then changed the language settings between “symbols” and “English” to make his name a visual representation of a classic cheat code dubbed “The Konami Code.” But then, picking “random” on the stage select, which got us a non-competitive-legal stage with goofy hazards, gave him the stink of a filthy casual.
“Let me fix one more thing,” he then says, before changing the ruleset to only allow a carefully selected list of competitive-legal stages. From then on, for about five fun yet brutal games, he wiped the floor with me.
In one of the hallways, I noticed a different, non-virtual kind of combat: a few guys fighting each other while wielding foam swords and an epic level of enthusiasm. I wondered if they’d get in trouble but later realized this to be an officially-sanctioned event, called “Convention Foam Fighting.
As I said: enjoyable and bewildering. If you’d like to experience the enjoyment and bewilderment for yourself, Tekko 2026 will take place next year July 24-26.
This article appears in Jul 16-22, 2025.
