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cosplay General

NYT and catching up on things

I was catching up on the news today, following an article in the New York Times about the bodies of the murder suspects wanted in Canada had been found. Over the course doing this, I decided to take advantage of the $1/week offer to subscribe to the New York Times digital edition.

That lead me to an article about Victoria’s Secret hiring their first transgender model, which in turn lead me to an older article about Playboy’s first transgender and most recent transgender models.

Hefner tweet screenshotThis then lead me to remember that I met Hugh Hefner in an elevator at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Rosemont during Anime Midwest on July 9, 2016. I sent a tweet about it at the time.

I was cosplaying Android 18 heading back to the convention when I stepped into the elevator he was riding in. We were the only ones in the elevator, and I immediately recognized him. I asked him if he was the real thing to which he humorously replied that we wasn’t always sure himself. He also complimented me on my cosplay!

Hefner was there for the Exxxotica convention which was taking place in the Stephens Center during the same weekend as Anime Midwest. I told some friends about my encounter, but some raised the possibility that I had met a Hefner impersonator. But up until today I had not verified that Hefner was actually at Exxxotica that year. My curiosity was piqued by my NYT reading and a quick search turned up a video (on a site I won’t link to, lol) that seems to indicate that the Hefner I met was the real deal. So there ya go!

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc

Cleared for Anime Midwest

Last year I went a bit overboard with cons, so this year I was planning to cycle back a bit. But this month, I’ve put in a lot of overtime work hours and it reminded me of how important it is to have fun events to unwind. So I’ve added Anime Midwest to the 2013 convention schedule.

I had a great time at Anime Midwest last year, and with the con making the move to the Hyatt Regency O’Hare, the same hotel Anime Central uses, things promise to be even better! It should also be a nice warm up for Otakon a month later.

Now I better werk baby! Those cosplays and videos won’t make themselves!

YOU BETTER WERK!
YOU BETTER WERK!

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc cosplay

Anime Midwest 2012 Aftermath II: Another Late One!

Saturday of Anime Midwest would see the debut of my newest cosplay, Mamimi Samejima from Furi Kuri, aka FLCL. It would turn out to be a fun cosplay to wear even though she isn’t a character likely to get a lot of notice. That was quite alright with me since Mamimi herself doesn’t get a lot of notice which is actually not so bad if you’re planning to take pictures of other cosplayers. Oh, and Mamimi is into photography too, so it all fit.

Over the day I spent most of my time tasting panels here and there. One that I made an extended visit to was the Fanservice Renji QA which also featured the most beautiful Pocahontas cosplayer I’ve ever seen. Renji was pretty cool, a nice likeable guy who I first saw at Youmacon a number of years ago. Since that time he’s become a convention staple with some cool original music videos about the anime fandom. I enjoyed his masquerade performance too!

The Perfect Pocahontas

In the afternoon I was treated to The Pillowcases, a fabulous Pillows tribute band! I saw the Pillows years ago at Anime Central and they were awesome. The Pillowcases did not disappoint, they were equally awesome with bonus points! Mamimi had a great time rocking to her favorite FLCL songs. ^_^ The Pillowcases also did some other nerdy tunes including a cool remix of the Dr. Who theme song. Saturday night would bring up the the masquerade and later, the way too popular for the room, Midwest Karaoke Madness. The cosplays for the masquerade were quite good on the whole, but the night was stolen by a Chobits group with the cutest little girl ever as Sumomo who lead the audience in morning calisthenics! I also had the pleasure of helping a lady use her Flip camera to shoot some video of her daughter’s most impressive fur suited cosplay.

AnimeMidwest-2012102

After the masquerade, it was off to karaoke. One of my Midwest Karaoke Madness friends was disappointed that I hadn’t brought my Uhura to the con. Maybe I’ll bring her next year. Since this was my first Anime Midwest, I figured I’d stick with anime cosplays. The small room was packed and overflowing. Nevertheless, I got a song in and had some fun seeing old friends and new perform too! I bounced out briefly to go to the dance which I found was running late. Instead I found a dude rapping about video games and nerdy stuff. I learned later that it was MegaRan. It was freakin awesome! And now I know what nerdcore is! After that I went back to karaoke and did what is seemingly becoming a signature song for me, It’s Raining Men. This is coming way too naturally for me, but the ladies in the audience loved it and sang along!

I eventually got to the dance but did not stay too long before ending the day. I’d had a lot of fun already, and didn’t want to be greedy. And my Mamimi cosplay had gotten a really good shakedown.

Sunday it was back to street clothes. I made a few more photo runs and then a dealer’s room pass. If there was anything I was a tad bit disappointed in with Anime Midwest, it was the very small dealer’s room. There just wasn’t enough variety to spark my interest. I was hoping to find some DVDs and some suitable gifts to take home, but came up empty on that note. Still, I’d had my fun and was happy to head for home knowing that Otakon was just a few short weeks away.

Anime Midwest 2012 Pics

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc cosplay Media and Entertainment

Anime Midwest 2012 Aftermath I

What can I say? Anime Midwest proved to be a small con with some big fun. While I love the sensory overload of the big cons, Anime Midwest was well worth the time and effort. Naturally I was feverishly finishing up a new cosplay before the con. Yeah, I can never just relax and get ready. LOL

Taking place over the July 4th holiday period, I was lucky enough to be able to take both the 5th and 6th off. So getting out to the con in Chicago suburban Lisle, was pretty low pressure. When I parked the car, it was over 100 degrees F outside. So I was less than happy when I learned that the hallways outside my hotel room were not air conditioned. Hot halls do not make for happy cosplay makeup and wigs!

Friday, I wore my Stocking cosplay which has proven to be one of my favorites. The wig is hard to manage, but I love this costume and the gothy makeup style I can use with it! Since it was a small con, I activated small con picture taking mode. Even at a large convention, the chances of most cosplayers finding pictures of their cosplays online is fairly small. So at smaller conventions I make an extra effort to take pictures whenever I can. Then afterwards I place them on my Flickr account and squawk about them on Twitter, Facebook, and this blog so that they are easy to find.

One of the first things I noticed was all of the Homestuck cosplay. This had to be the largest single contingent of fans at Anime Midwest. And my oh my were they having a great time. They were literally singing and dancing all weekend long. They were closely followed by the Hetalia fans. Oh my! ^_^

AnimeMidwest-2012009

After opening ceremonies I went to the first guest panel featuring voice actors Jamie Marchi, Ian Sinclair, and Joel McDonald. Greg Ayres popped in briefly as well. This was one of the biggest reasons I decided to attend Anime Midwest. I first saw Jamie at Kollision Con last fall and really liked her. At most of the cons I’ve been to, the actors have proven to be really fun, smart, and entertaining.

I wanted to asked Jamie a question about the English dub of Panty and Stocking. She’s the voice of Panty and the English script writer. But the *ahem* language I’d need to use just to ask the question forced me to wait until the after hours panel. That panel was totally off the hook! At the beginning, each person who wanted to ask a question was required to use at least one swear word in asking it. Over the course of the evening, that number increased to five! The Panty and Stocking dub is awesome! My question was who came up with the exclamation of “Repent Motherfuckers!” during the angel transformation sequence. Jamie said that was her idea. And it fit the lip flaps perfectly. It definitely fit the flavor of the series, that’s for sure.

By the end of the panel, the white board was covered with numerous depictions of genitalia, and I’m sure we had all earned ourselves a thoroughly soapy mouth washing! I rarely swear, so I think I must have used up at least two weeks worth that night.

My first day finished up with a costume change to my Miho cosplay before the Friday rave. Miho has become my go to rave cosplay. She looks like a goth rave girl anyway. Though I’m not completely sure what she looked like to the people I encountered in the elevator on the way to the dance. Apparently, the hotel was also host to a wedding party that night. So my purple hair caused a bit of a stir and one young woman was unsure whether I was a woman or a man. As we left the elevator, she apologized profusely for possibly using the wrong pronouns in reference to me. I assured her it was quite okay, quite happy, as any crossplayer might be, to have done a good enough job to engender such confusion (pardon the pun).

I had fun dancing, but wasn’t too hot on the music. So I only stayed a couple of hours before drawing my first day to a close. The next day would be Mamimi’s big debut. But more on that later.

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc cosplay

Anime Midwest Prep Is On

I’ve been getting a new cosplay ready for Anime Midwest which is this coming weekend. With Otakon at the end of the month, at first I hadn’t planned on going, but you only live once, lol. Anyway, I figured it would be fun to check out a young con and the guest list is looking pretty good with Greg Ayres among others slated for the weekend. And of course, we cosplayers rarely pass up a chance to strut out a new costume.

I made really good progress on my Mamimi this weekend, so I think I’ll have it ready in time. FLCL is one of my all time favorite anime series, so I thought it would be fun to run about the con taking pictures of cosplayers as Mamimi!