Category: cosplay

To wrap it all up, I had an awesome time Saturday night at Ohayocon. While I discovered that there was indeed karaoke too late to sing myself, I did enjoy watching and cheering on other singers. After that I dumped my bag and headed off to the rave.

I don’t know whether I got there before or after room crowding forced the rave to stop and empty out before resuming. In any case I’m glad I missed that part of the drama. Upon entering the room, I was struck by how hot and humid it was. I’ve been to a number of dances by this time, but I’ve walked into a room that was hotter than that one. After looking around for a bit I settled into my usual favorite spot, somewhere in front near the speakers where I can see the DJs. I never bother looking for a dance partner these days. I just want to dance dance dance, and anyone who wants to join me later is welcome. ^_^

It turned out to be a really good place to dance. There was one point where Greg Ayres came down and danced very suggestively right up against the speaker. I kind of wish he would have come and danced with me. :3 Greg and the other DJs were awesome! While I didn’t like every track that came out, it was a nice mix and I really enjoyed watching them work. At the end of it all, I probably danced continuously in costume for about an hour only leaving when my legs started to cramp up. The next morning I would pay dearly for being in front of the speakers for so long. My right ear was ringing for two days!

I didn’t get bed until well after 3am. I had a lot of fun, but was a little saddened by the realization that it was all coming to an end tomorrow. One of the thrills of cosplay at a con is the chance to be someone else for a little while. Being a girl for a couple of days made me very happy.^_^

Sundays are usually somber and relatively uneventful. This one started with the hellish problem of getting my stuff down 11 flights of stairs to the car before checkout. Luckily, I only had to walk up once. I caught the bellman on the way down with my last two heavy cases. I love you Hyatt Regency Columbus!!! Once free of my bags, I was going to make one last pass through the dealers room and then attend the AMV awards. I try to cosplay every day of the cons I go to, so I’d put on my Roger Smith. I love Big O, and the Roger Smith cosplay is something I could drive home in too without getting into any awkward situations at a rest stop. I love the chance to be a girl for a while, but it really felt good to be a guy again too. There were still plenty of cosplayers around, so I was able to get a few more pictures before leaving after the closing ceremonies.

The drive back was filled with crazy people driving way too fast on wet highways. I was fortunate enough to make my one stop just before I would encounter a big delay due to an accident. As I passed the burnt out remains of one of the cars involved (didn’t see the other), I was saddened and chilled by the thought that someone probably died there. If I hadn’t stopped earlier, I may even have been involved. As it stood though, I’d only been involved in giving a few people in Burger King an eyeful of Roger Smith. My luck would come into play once again passing through Indianapolis where I noticed a police car pacing me soon enough to avoid getting a ticket.

With swag in hand for wife and kids, I was very happy to arrive home in one piece, but still a little sad that it was all over until next year. In the meantime, I’ve had enough fun to hold me over until Anime Central in May! Now I’ve got to get to work on those kid costumes!

Saturday is always the biggest day of the con for me. It’s the day that I’ll often have nightmares about a month before the convention begins. The nightmare usually involves running around the convention all day and forgetting to cosplay! That, of course, did not happen to me at Ohayocon. In fact, it was a two costume day.

I led off with my Kaname Chidori cosplay which continues to improve. I took the blouse in a bit so that it fit better (no manning the harpoons here), and I finally got the front bow right! That bow had been my bane the last two times I’d worn the costume. So I made a real bow a day before the con, making it twice as wide and about 20% longer. The blue wig is still out of control, nevertheless, I got some nice compliments and a few picture requests. The most surprising came while I was standing near a wall in the hotel just outside of the convention center. I was frantically searching my bag for a receipt I needed when people started asking for pictures. I happily obliged and soon thereafter found what I was looking for.

I was saving my third costume, the Yuujirou Shihoudani goth-loli nurse cosplay, for the afternoon and evening. I like to bring out my best stuff on masquerade night. This is my best costume, but I didn’t feel up to entering the competition this time around. I wasn’t even sure I was going to be at the con until just a short time before I left home.

Ever since I missed the masquerade at Anime Central last year, due to it filling up and no overflow area, I’ve been kind of paranoid about missing this event. So I was very happy that Ohayocon had a huge space for it in the convention center. I rushed over after the awesome Voices for concert and was greeted by a long line, to get into the line for the event. I was a little worried at first, but the line soon started moving and soon I was in with a good seat. Ironically, I was sitting next to a former nurse who was taking pictures with a very professional looking camera and told me that she absolutely hated those old style nurse uniforms. She said she always needed bunches of bobby pins to keep the hat on. My hat was actually pinned to my wig, so I fully understood the feeling! She was pretty cool. I told her about Princess Princess, the anime and manga the costume is from and we had a few chuckles about how the small community she came from probably wouldn’t permit such a manga to sold in the local bookstores.

The masquerade was pretty good, with the exception of one bad monologue and perhaps too many Naruto skits, most of the skits were entertaining. I felt bad for the woman whose monologue fell flat. If it were me, I think I’d have left the stage a little bit earlier, but I guess you have to admire her guts for sticking it out until the end. The audience, however, was not in a charitable mood and roundly booed her off the stage. Fortunately this was followed by one of the best skits of the night, a break dancing face off between Naruto and Sora (from Kingdom Hearts). How this skit failed to win an award is beyond me!

Looks like I’ve created a wall of text again! So I’ll finish this up later. After my last horrendous experience with Windows Movie Maker, I bought a copy of Magix Movie Edit Pro 12 online. I used it to create the slideshow of cosplay photos below with much less heart ache! :3

I hit the road for Ohayocon with a lot of hope, in the dark of night, 2:30am to be exact, and in the end, I was not disappointed. Ohayocon was a lot of fun for me, the drive through the night, hungering for dawn, was well worth it. Though it was not without a few hiccups, but I’ve come to believe that you can never fully appreciate the flavor of fun without some bitter spices of disappointment, just a dash of course!

I had no problems getting to the hotel and convention center, and for me at least, the staff of the Hyatt Regency Columbus were excellent. So I got in and went through the pre-reg line without any trouble, the only real problem would turn out to be the lack of printed schedules initially and then changes and additions (ie karaoke) that I wasn’t ready for.. Under the circumstances though, the Ohayocon staff handled it very well, so I don’t really have a complaint there either.

One of my personal cosplay rules is that if I pack a costume, it MUST BE WORN! I packed four costumes, Kagome, Kaname, Yuujirou, and Roger Smith. I love doing the crossplays, but it always takes me soooo long to get out of the room the first time. Part of it is just not knowing what to expect, and the sneaking suspicion that it’s horribly perverted. But perverted or not, it’s just too much fun to pass up on once you’ve experienced it. So I finally got Kagome out the door and got a mix of nice legs compliments (from the ladies) and some WTF (guys). LOL! I love being part of the show! ^_^

The Greg Ayres Roast on Friday night was incredible! These people must be really, really, really good friends to be able to say things like that about each other! I almost busted a gut laughing! The guests of Ohayocon really made the con for me. They were really awesome and one of the best reasons to go to a con at all. I mean, I can buy stuff on the internet and watch DVDs at home anytime. But only at a con can I enjoy these incredibly creative people and their fans. I had hoped to dance a lot longer at the Friday night dance, but alas, six hours of driving was too much, and my feet gave out! I was pissed, but you can’t argue with foot cramps…grumble…grumble…

Can’t argue with hand cramps either, so I’ll pick this up a little later. Here is the last picture I took before driving back home on Sunday, one of the cutest Yachirus ever!

Ohayocon 2008 Pictures

The weather forecast appear quite favorable for my Friday departure to Ohio for Ohayocon. Sadly, neither of my AMVs made the cut for the finals in the Ohayocon AMV Contest…*sigh* Oh well, contests are not the reason I make anime music videos anyway, still, it hurts not making the finals. I’m sure the winners will be full of flashy effects and transitions, set to Linkin Park and clips from Death Note. :3 Okay, that said/vented, I’m looking forward to seeing what people have made to enjoy and learn from it.

On the cosplay front, most of my costumes are ready, though I haven’t finalized which ones to wear. This time out I’m going to focus more on getting some good pictures of the cosplay meetups. The space of the convention center appears to be very good for photos with some interesting and open indoor spaces.

Right now my lovely wife is cross with me because I’m more interested in planning for my departure in two days, than in the scheduled events of over a week away… Needless to say, it’ll be nice to get away for a while!:3

Five or six months between conventions is too much for me, so I’m getting ready for my first trip to Ohayocon coming up in January 2008. I’ve been missing my Roger Smith cosplay, so I’ve decided to wear it on the trip. Roger wears normal clothes, so only the initiated would even notice and I’ll get a kick out of looking sharp to boot. Chicago to Columbus is about 360 miles, so I’ll need to make at least one stop, maybe two. So Roger will get a little outside public airing.

I’m not planning any new costumes for Ohayocon, only tweaks to old ones. Nice, low pressure con, as far as costumes are concerned. And I’ll enter two AMVs in the Anime Music Video contest. I hope they’ll have an overflow too so I can submit my other two.

Home life is fine, most of the time, but if I can get away from it all every few months, that’ll keep me happy. ^_^

Youmacon 2007 has come and gone and I can sum things up neatly in one sentence. I had a lot of fun! ^_^ Like most things in life, Youmacon was not perfect and I did run into some trouble, first getting off course trying to get there, and later just dealing with events starting very late. I think I must have increased my bladder size at least 50% having to wait in line so long for some events! But the overall feel or spirit of Youmacon was very good and I look forward to returning next year if I can.

I can scarcely believe it now, but I actually managed to wear all three of the costumes I brought and they were well received. I entered the Saturday Hall Cosplay competition with my Princess Princess cosplay, and while I ultimately did not win a prize, I really enjoyed telling the judges about my costume and the work that went into it. I got a number of compliments for the outfit and it just felt sooo comfortable to wear that I think it’s become my favorite. I loved dancing in it too!

My video entry for the AMV contest didn’t win a prize (or at least I’ve not heard of one yet), but I was so excited when it started to play during the screening, my heart almost knocked me out of my chair. I was worried about technical issues, but it played well and turned out to be one of the few that used a Japanese song. Personally, I think it ran a close second or third compared with the other romance category entries.

Saturday night was the most fun for me. I had been looking forward to cosplay, dancing, and karaoke. I got all of those almost simultaneously. The Saturday night karaoke crowd was a lot more fun than Friday, so after really messing up Houkiboshi, sang a few more tunes I knew better and enjoyed some really fine and spirited performances. One thing I won’t forget about that night were these black guys staring at me from just outside the restaurant while I was singing Shizukana Yoruni. They were far enough away, that I don’t think they realized I was a guy…hee hee… I got some similar attention at the dance later that night.

After karaoke, I headed to the dance. I’d been looking forward to dancing in costume since the last time I did it months ago at Otakon. It used to be that you either had to find a partner or not dance rather than look like a dorky loser dancing by yourself. Well, fork that! Times have changed, and if you want to dance, just dance! So I hit the dance floor and didn’t leave for over an hour, dancing solo or with the occasional partner. The music was pretty good, and I had a ball twirling and shaking my dress. A knee length dress is definitely teh fun on the dance floor! ^_^

My leg started to cramp a bit after over an hour of dancing, so I left there and headed for the con suite for some refreshments and to hang out a bit. There I was treated to a bit of uber-geekiness from the Penguicon party in the form of ice cream made with the help of liquid nitrogen, teh win! Refreshed I headed back out and met a couple of friends from Crossplay.net. One I met quite by accident after my right leg totally cramped up while I was listening to the Spoony Bards play. I needed somewhere to sit for a while and quite literally limped into the AMV room which was showing totally over the top Hentai AMVs! O.o After that, I thought Nate and the AMV people were amongst the coolest on Earth! I didn’t get to bed until about 3:30, quite happy we were getting an extra hour due to the time change.

I also watched Cosplay Shougi and the Masquerade Saturday night as well. The shougi was interesting mainly for the hamming it up of the cosplayers, especially Sanji, and an incredibly sexy Duo Maxwell who the MC, Card Captor Will seemed to have his eye on as well. The game itself was only so so, so I left early in order to get some real dinner. I hadn’t eaten normally for almost two days, so biting into my first real food almost brought tears to my eyes before sending me into an ecstasy reminiscent of Yakitate Ja-pan! Given the small size of the event spaces, it was pure genius that Youmacon did a simulcast of the masquerade on the hotel’s local cable channel. I was able to eat, watch the masquerade, and freshen up my costume before heading out again for karaoke.

Sunday is usually a quiet day for most cons. I spent much of the morning packing before putting on my last costume, Kaname Chidori. I’ve never cosplayed on Sunday because of the problem of having to change after checking out from the hotel. But I decided that I could pull this off easily by putting a pair of sweatpants and my coat in the car. I’d pull the sweat pants on over the skirt, pull off the wig, and put the coat on over the blouse. Then I’d drive 300 miles home, and nobody would know the difference, as long as I didn’t get into a wreck or pulled over and searched! XD So I cosplayed one more day and enjoyed Otaku Family Feud and the really great voice actors. Jeff Nimoy and Quenton Flynn were priceless!

It was too crowded to get as many pictures as I would have liked, but the ones I got were pretty good. This includes a so so attempt as a self portrait. I don’t usually get a lot of photo requests, in part because I don’t cosplay wildly popular characters. Most people at Youmacon knew nothing about Princess Princess, oh well… Anyway, as always, I looked for people cosplaying characters I like or who had outfits that really resonated with me. One of my favorites was of Rukia in her yellow dress and hat, which I’ve never seen cosplayed by anyone.

Youmacon 2007 Cosplay Pictures

Again, I had a great time! Can’t wait to do it again in 2008!

Well time to head out the door for Youmacon! Hopefully I haven’t forgotten anything important. This is my first time going to this con, so I’m a little nervous. But I’m really looking forward to a little vacation time and meeting some new people. I’m even thinking of entering my Yuujiro outfit in the Hall Cosplay competition. And my latest AMV, Yasashisa Asuka, is in the AMV contest in the Romance category. If I win, great! But I just want people to see my work, so I’m happy it made the cut! ^_^

With little more than a week before Halloween, it’s crunch time for my costume making. So I haven’t kept up with my email and didn’t catch this little gem until this morning. This is from the New York Times, Fearing Crime, The Japanese Wear The Hiding Place. Before I read it, I thought that with such an odd title it must be about hidden pockets in clothing or something like that. But it turns out that a literal reading is exactly the correct interpretation. This reminds me of an early Naruto episode in which Konahamaru hides himself by holding up a cloth painted like the fence he was standing in front of! Never thought anyone would try something like this for real! ^_^

Deftly, Ms. Tsukioka, a 29-year-old experimental fashion designer, lifted a flap on her skirt to reveal a large sheet of cloth printed in bright red with a soft drink logo partly visible. By holding the sheet open and stepping to the side of the road, she showed how a woman walking alone could elude pursuers — by disguising herself as a vending machine.

The wearer hides behind the sheet, printed with an actual-size photo of a vending machine.

And it gets better…

Take the “manhole bag,” a purse that can hide valuables by unfolding to look like a sewer cover. Lay it on the street with your wallet inside, and unwitting thieves are supposed to walk right by. There is also a line of knife-proof high school uniforms made with the same material as Kevlar, and a book with tips on how to dress even the nerdiest children like “pseudohoodlums” to fend off schoolyard bullies.

I get the feeling that I’ll be seeing that vending machine idea at some future anime convention. I’ve seen people dressed as Pocky and Sushi, so why not a vending machine?

I think my interest in anime and cosplay has made me more observant of fashion in general and hair styles in particular. Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing a woman near the Apple Store with her hair spiked in the back like the soul reaper Kenpachi on the anime series Bleach. The spikes weren’t as big as his, and there weren’t any bells on the ends, but it did look pretty good. On a related note, I have a feeling that this is the year I’m going to see more pink hair…just a feeling.

Inspired by some others, and a little bored, I decided to remix my Otakon pictures as a YouTube slideshow.