Today we’d like to introduce you to Maid Ursa.
Hi Maid Ursa, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Mochi Cafe was first started in 2009 and while I was not a member myself until about three years ago, I had been following the organization since about 2013, back when Anime Conji was San Diego’s only anime convention. After joining the group myself in 2022 I started out as their social media manager. I gradually took on more and more roles such as merchandise and art and here I am today as head maid!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Because the convention and anime scene in San Diego is ever changing it’s been a challenging few years. We have lost many conventions and events due to the cost to keep them running these days so we haven’t had a “home” convention in quite some time.
Our roster of members has also changed drastically since I had first joined with many long time members retiring and moving on, basically leaving us to start from scratch. Thankfully our team has some amazing people who all bring their own skills to the table but it was really hard to watch the people who had been around for 5-10 years decide their time had come. We struggled to pick up the slack for a while but I feel like we’ve finally gotten back on track.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I myself am a self taught artist and cosplayer. I’ve loved cartoons and Japanese pop culture ever since I was little. My dad had brought me to Comic Con starting at age 6 so I’ve always grown up around nerdy creative types and I love that I’m able to use my hobby and skills to host these events! I feel like in this day and age a lot of people are so worried about their art being so polished; especially when it comes to cosplayers and convention goers. But I make sure I stay true to myself, I stay silly and remember that at the end of the day we are all just nerds in costumes who love the same stuff.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
Convention culture as is definitely changing and shifting but I honestly don’t know that it’s for the better…I feel like a lot of conventions these days have unfortunately become very cooperate. They care more about the money than the community but there’s only so much we can do about it. It’s a labor of love to try and run a convention, you put in a lot of time and effort but there’s never any guarantee you’ll break even and be able to run that convention for more than another year or two. I really hope we get some more passion project conventions here in San Diego in the upcoming years but it’s a little hard to try and stay positive given the state of conventions in SoCal as a whole.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.mochicafe.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mochi.cafe
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MochiMaidCafe
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@mochi.cafe.2009?si=CWPCPAS71K6hWo6i
