It’s been a week since I set out for Otakon 2008 and I’m still riding a post convention high. I had a lot of fun. The road trip out was pretty flawless, only some heavy rain (scary) just outside of Baltimore posed any significant problem. Checked in, picked up my registration badge, and got to the Megatokyo Forums dinner on time for once!
I never did get write down any kind of plan for the con, so it was pretty much adhoc all 3 days. I ended up spending a lot of time doing karaoke broken up by intermittent cosplay photography. I also went to the JAM Project panel and concert. They were awesome! And the Saturday Masquerade is always a must for me.
A few things really stood out for me this year. I got a lot of compliments for my costumes this year which really put me on cloud 9. I put a lot of work into them, and I’m pretty self conscious about them so getting a lot of positive notice was really cool. I like cosplaying female or female dressed characters, so you never know what reactions you’re going to get. Then why do it? Because it’s a ridiculous amount of fun and a cool artistic challenge to present the illusion of a woman cosplaying a character. I’ve always enjoyed a good challenge. Being conventional just isn’t who I am!^^
On Friday I did my Yuujirou cosplay with the goth-loli nurse uniform. I was wearing new sandals with it which would prove to be a great challenge to walk in. They just kept sliding around because I think they were slightly too big for my feet. No sooner than I’d gotten to the convention center, a woman taps me on the back and says I look cute!<33 Later, a woman who told me that she was a real nurse told me that I looked beautiful and took a couple of pictures. I suppose guys aren't supposed to care about this sort of thing, but that really moved me. And it meant that I'd done a good job on the costume. Interestingly enough, one picture of me in this costume was used in an article that lightheartedly mocks cosplayers. While the captions are flippant, the pictures and costumes themselves are actually quite good. Click here to take a look. The comments are interesting too, especially the one comparing me to Seal. LOL!
I spent a little time watching AMVs before going up for karaoke where I was very happy to meet one of my favorite con people of all, Alissa!<333 She's very cute and has a great singing voice. She was cosplaying Mozilla Firefox. Yes, the web browser, Firefox. There are so called OS-tans which are personifications of computer operating systems (OS’s) and now, apparently, browser-tans as well. All I can say (see photo below) is, KAWAII desu!! I’m such a fan boi sometimes, but I behaved myself and enjoyed a brief chat with her. I had the great fortune of bumping into her on several occasions during the con, and she liked my costumes too! On that note, I’ll end this first installment of my con report.
