Author: blueZhift

After weeks of editing 6 years of anime convention blogging, my new eBook, Anime Aftershocks: Afterwords on conventions, cosplay, karaoke, and crossdressing is now on sale at the Barnes & Noble NOOKbooks store!

It was fun going back over 6 years of road trips, people, and interesting costumes. I think the whole set of experiences, aside from the fun, made me a better person. Or at least more comfortable with just being myself. So I’m hoping to share some of the fun and discovery now as a tasty little ebook!

As always, Saturday is the big day I look forward to at any convention. I was planning to wear two of my favorite and newest cosplays. Up first was Mahoro Andou, the android maid from Mahoromatic. And later I was going to change into my newest cosplay, Miho Tohya, the dark goth chick from MegaTokyo. I had thought about entering the Mahoro cosplay in the hall cosplay competition, but got too far behind schedule and lost in the maze-like hotel and never got around to registering for it.

Today I stepped up my picture taking, but the one thing that really stayed with me was just how crowded it was everywhere. I was sure Youmacon attendance had hit a new high. So getting around was kind of a hassle with people and lines of people everywhere. Nevertheless, I still managed to get into Live Action Mario Party. I don’t know how, but every year I go to LAMP, I end up on Team Hentai which of course is always the rowdiest of the four teams. I thought about defecting to Team Magical Girl which had this lovely ganguro girl as their player character on the board. I was very happy to get a picture of her later! Speaking of pictures, I later discovered that my camera settings were all wrong. Awwwww!!!!! I was able to fix some things in Photoshop, but still I was pretty upset with myself about the goof up.

Lunch in the food court was fun. It was swamped with cosplayers! Indeed cosplayers were everywhere, far outnumbering people in street clothes. On the way there, I got a picture request from a grandmother who had brought her grandkids to the con. And later I took a picture with a Japanese tourist. I had a lot of fun with that one, hamming it up Japanese style! (^_^) After that, I ran into my friend Venus and we headed over to the always awesome and hilarious Team Four Star Q and A panel. I really love these abridged series. It’s too bad the copyright holders are always trying to shut them down because they definitely increase my interest in the original series. There is no such thing as bad publicity!

I got really lucky with the elevators, so changing costumes took a lot less time than I feared. My Miho cosplay was a new challenge in makeup. None of my other cosplays had ever required eye liner, shadow, and mascara. But my pre-con practice had paid off and I really didn’t have much trouble getting ready. My elevator luck continued and I was able to get a good seat for the masquerade after standing in line with a very interesting and lively fangirl.

The masquerade skits were pretty good with only a few really bad ones. Quick shoutout to the pair who put on an awesome stage fight with weapons. I really enjoyed that! I skipped out before the winners were annouced because I really wanted to do karaoke. Karaoke is always very popular, so I really don’t understand why it always ends up in small rooms. The room was packed with people and hot. But karaoke is one of my convention MUST DOs, so I signed up and settled in. A dedicated group of background dancers, including a cute Faith cosplayer, spontaneously formed and would continue to dance pretty much the whole night.

Everyone wants to sing, but I really enjoy watching people perform as well. My friend Tony was there and as always did a phenomenal job. That guy can really sing, and he always does some new songs. He freakin knows just about every popular Japanese anime song and more! While waiting, I got some compliments on the motorcycle boots of my cosplay and just had the feeling that there were eyes all over me. I guess a short leather skirt will do that for ya, lol. Eventually I got my chance to sing Shell, an old favorite. It was fun, but I really should memorize the lyrics so that I can expand my performance. That’s my goal for the next con, to have a few songs I can sing in Japanese from memory.

After singing, I headed for the video room hoping to see my entry in the Hentai AMV contest, but it was too late. So after a brief visit to my room, I headed for the rave. The sets were okay, but it was a real challenge dancing in motorcycle boots. Like the night before, I had an interesting dance partner for little while. From her body language, I think it was the same person I had danced with the night before.

I think I got back to my room after 3am and somehow managed to get packed up so I could get an early jump on Sunday move out madness. Somehow, despite the long night, I did just that and had zero wait for an elevator. I didn’t cosplay on Sunday for logistical reasons, so I was a little down. But still, it always feels good to be back in my own skin so to speak.

One thing that really struck me about Sunday of Youmacon this year was how much it felt like a normal full con day. It was still crowded and busy with a lot of cosplayers about. Without a calendar, you could hardly tell it was the last day of the con. I got some more cosplay pics and went to some cool panels, including the Potter Puppet Pals, Yugi-Oh the Abridged Series, and Touhou.

And unexpected bonus came out of going to voice actor Vic Mignogna’s Star Trek Trivia panel. Vic is a big fan of Star Trek, the original series, as am I. He really really knows his Star Trek! So if you can stump him with a question about the original series, you get a prize. Well somehow I came up with a question he couldn’t answer and won a freshly signed picture of Vic as Captain Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise. People waited hours in line for autographed pictures of Vic, so I considered this to be quite a score!

As much fun as I had at Youmacon, I always miss my family. So I decided to skip the closing ceremonies and headed back to Chicago. I was hoping to get back in time for trick or treating, but it started earlier than I had anticipated. When I arrived I was happy to hear that the Domo-kun and Banana man costumes I had made before I left we such a big hit! The kids were very happy and had fun with them which is more than enough thanks for me.

All in all, another great Youmacon. The new, bigger space was definitely a plus for the con and by next year I’m sure the kinks will be ironed out. At the rate it is growing, Youmacon will soon compete with the likes of ACen in size. I hope I’ll be able to go again next year! <3

I think one of the marks of having a good time is that at the end of it all, you’re left hungry for more. By that measure, this year’s Youmacon was a lot of fun. I knew that being in a new space, the ginormous Renaissance Center in Detroit (GM’s HQ BTW), would make things different than last year in some ways. Fortunately, the hiccups that resulted from the change of venue did not cause more than some mild frustrations for me at least.

The Thursday drive out was uneventful and at the end of it, I only overshot the Ren Center by a mile or two. I pulled over and used Google Maps on my iPhone to plot my final approach. But once I was pointed in the right direction, it was pretty hard to miss such an enormous building. And I achieved my secondary goal of not accidentally driving into Canada!

Normally, I don’t cosplay on the Thursday of a con, but with 4 costumes and only 3 main convention days, I decided it would be good to have a warmup cosplay. So after I checked in and got a bite to eat in the food court, I got into my Princess Princess Toru cosplay. This gothic lolita styled nurse’s uniform is one of my favorites and is always well received. There were a couple of people who recognized Toru and told me that Princess Princess was one of their favorite animes. Yay! (^_^) I had really wanted to see the Anime Style panel, but the panelist never made it, so I bounced out to the Dr. Who panel and then the always hilarious How to Con panel. Finally spent a little time at the Cosplay PJ party before calling it a night. I may well add Thursday cosplay to my con SOP from now on. Not only was it fun, it forced me to get my other costumes ready for the next day.

On Friday, I was very happy to have pre-registered. The registration line was enormous and pretty much stayed that way the whole freakin day. Sadly line management issues would be the bane of the con for me. I missed the concert and was late to other activities because of it. Part of the problem was the tiered membership system. Platinum members paid extra to guarantee early admission to events and other perks. To support that, lines were delayed to allow Platinum members to go first, which usually meant a search through the line by staff for Platinum members. It also meant that rooms were cleared after each event. The result of this was a long line up for almost every event. A better solution would be what I saw at Wizard World Chicago Comic Con. Rope off preferred seating for the Platinum members. This allows people to enter the rooms earlier and then after a prescribed time, let any unfilled premium seats be filled by anyone there. This would have cut down on the long lines and the delays in starting events. The Ren Center is a new space for the con, so I’m sure next year will be better.

Friday’s cosplay was Sakura from Tsubasa. This is also one of my favorites, now more so with much more comfortable boots. Thursday’s cosplay had given me a lot of confidence so I thought I looked pretty good which must have been the case with some others too. I was drafted into the It’s A Trap! game as one of the traps! I had actually planned to watch and showed up early while preparations were being made. One of the staff saw me and suggested I should be in the game. They were short of cosplayers, so I agreed to do it. After all, being part of the show is one of the reasons I cosplay at cons to begin with. I had fun with the other cosplayers, and gave some, *ahem*, interesting answers to the questions I was asked by the player.

I had hoped to go to the concerts, but the line simply was not going anywhere. So I decided to bail on the line and head back to the room to freshen up. This led to the epic battle of the elevators. I tried a number of strategies to get a space sooner, all honorable of course, to no avail. So 30 or 40 minutes later, mostly through luck, I got back to my room where I changed out of the boots, which I didn’t want to dance in, and fixed my makeup. That done, I made it to the Yuri and Yaoi/Bara panels and then the VAT dance. Interestingly enough, I met a Jesus cosplayer at the Yaoi panel (Chicken or Beef) who asked me for a picture. No inconsistency there, as Jesus probably would hang out with people at anime cons no less than He did sinners and tax collectors in the scriptures. I’d see the Jesus cosplayer a few more times around the con, and got his picture later. He seemed to be a pretty cool guy.

Whoa! Look at the wall of text! Here’s some Sailor Uranus until I finish this up next time!