Acen 2009 Report! - Part 1
Behind the cut is my rather long report on Acen 2009 which occured last May. I'm pretty sure that there are some typos, but nothing that spell/grammar check found, and I think that it should still make sense. Apparently it's too long to be one post, so I'll post the second half after this and then pictures from the con will be up after that!
For the third year in a row I went to ACen cosplaying as Riza Hawkeye from Fullmetal Alchemist. This was the first year that my little brother was able to come along, and the first year that we stayed out in a hotel near the convention, rather than commuting from our home in the city (ACen is held in Rosemont, IL which is about 30-40 minutes from our house).
We got a little lost on the way out to Rosemont and I kind of got worried that our hotel was going to be quite a bit farther from the Hyatt and convention center where the con is held. As it turned out, however, our hotel was in the opposite direction than we were going and wound up being just a short walk - about seven minutes - from where the con was held.
My brother and I arrived at the Aloft hotel around 11 PM on the Thursday before ACen. The hotel had a very modern sort of vibe about it with a flat screen TV, very strange faucets, and glass walk in shower. The exterior also looked modern, as did the lobby which featured a bar and lounge type area with a pool table, fireplace, and some various plush seating areas, as well as a little snack shop where you could by cereals, chips, ramen, instant mac and cheese, some pastries, prepackaged sandwiches and salads, coffee, and a variety of bottled drinks. It was a nice place to stay. I should also make note that the outside logo of the hotel was in the Amestrian Military colors of navy blue and yellow, which was pretty fitting with regard to my cosplay.
I believe I got in touch with my friends Paulene and Aryn after we got to the hotel. I definitely talked to them before we left our house, so I may have just texted with Paulene before bed that night. Paulene and Aryn were staying at another hotel in the area, though farther from the con than our hotel.
The next morning we got up pretty early, had breakfast using the little boxed cereals and milks we brought along, and then got ready to go. It wound up taking me longer to get ready than I would have liked, and we got a slightly later start that we wanted to. I talked to Paulene before we left our hotel room and planned to meet her and Aryn in the lobby area of the convention center.
Before heading out, I asked someone at our hotel’s front desk about how to walk from there to the convention center. They told me that the fastest way was to walk through this parking garage and then do something else, but it wound up getting my brother and I a little lost and so we stopped into an office building of some sort and asked someone there about how to get to the convention center. The man showed us and then we didn’t have any further trouble finding our way.
It was a great sight to start seeing cosplayers as we approached the convention center, as it always is. The light to cross the street took a very long time and on the other side of the street my brother spotted and brought to my attention a couple of people dressed up as the Purple Parrot team from the 1990s Nickelodeon game show Legends of the Hidden Temple, which was pretty awesome. It seemed like they were walking with someone cosplaying as the host, Kirk Fogg, and maybe one of the helper type people from the show, but we couldn’t really tell.
When we got into the convention center lobby my brother spotted some people from the video games Lunar and maybe Lunar 2 and took their pictures. One of those cosplayers also asked him to take a picture for her.
We walked to the big room in the back where registration as happening, and we got our goodie bags (our badges were already mailed to us, although in the goodie bags they had lanyards which were useful for putting our badges on). My brother needed to fill out an emergency medic card, and while he did I asked one of the staff about where to go to get my weapon approved. The staff guy told me to find someone with an IRT vest and ask them to look at it.
As we left the registration room, my brother spotted a moogle (from the Final Fantasy games) cosplayer and I took a picture of the two of them together.
I decided to give my friend Alexis a call. Alexis and I have been friends for three or four years now online, and have talked on the phone too, but hadn’t met in person before. As it turned out Alexis was on her way to the convention center, and not too long after that we spotted one another and happily hugged. She was cosplaying as L from Death Note, a series that I only know a little about and haven’t read/seen any of it, but I could still tell that she was doing an excellent job cosplaying. I introduced her to my brother and told her that we were waiting for my friends Aryn and Paulene to arrive. Alexis hadn’t gotten her bag of goodies yet and so I took her over to that area and we chatted for a while.
When we got back to the area where my brother was in the lobby, he pointed out to me that there was a Squall and a Ward from Final Fantasy VIII standing nearby and so I went and took their picture. I kind of wonder if they had a Laguna and/or Kiros with them. If not, I hope that sometime they’ll find them. It would be cool to see a Laguna, Kiros, and Ward trio of cosplayers.
There was this one guy cosplaying as Snake from Metal Gear Solid who had this cardboard box he was hiding under as part of his cosplay (referencing Super Smash Brothers).who Alexis had a fun interaction with, gently kicking the box he was hiding under until he came out from under it. I would have liked to have gotten that on video, but oh well.
Paulene and Aryn arrived, we hugged, and then I introduced them to my brother and to Alexis. I let Paulene and Alexis know that the other one also speaks German and then they talked a little in that language, which was cool. Aryn was cosplaying as evil Rao from Okami (a video game that I’m not familiar with, but have heard of), and Paulene was cosplaying as Wrath from the Fullmetal Alchemist anime for the second time.
Alexis needed to drop her stuff back at her room and so she left. Then Paulene, Aryn, my brother, and I headed to the registration room so Aryn and Paulene could get their goodie bags, and then we moved on to the dealers’ room. The dealers’ room was in a different location this year - same building, but there are about three exhibit halls in that building and they’ve been switching the locations around through the years for some reason. We walked through the car show area, and then stopped to look around in artists’ ally where Aryn and Paulene have a friend who runs a table. This was the first year that I really appreciated artists’ ally and I was sorry that I hadn’t I the past because there is some pretty awesome stuff in there (and for cheap!) like buttons, key chains, of course various drawings and paintings; plus the money goes directly to the fans/artists which is cool too.
Either I saw, or someone pointed out to me, that there were a couple of IRT people, so I left my group and approached them to ask if it was okay to have my airsoft gun out again this year. The two women didn’t think it would be, but they told me to follow them to their office for further checking out. On the way there I spotted an Ahiru and a Fakir from Princess Tutu - and before that there were a couple of characters from Naruto who were dancing, but I can’t remember who they were. The dancing Naruto people cracked one of the IRT ladies up as we walked by them
Anyhow, when we got to the IRT office several more people examined my airsoft gun and told me that I couldn’t use it this year, despite it clearly having the orange tip, being unloaded, and with the magazine removed from it. I told them I’d been using the same prop for the past two years and IRT approved of it then, but one of the IRT guys explained to me that apparently some gang members in the Rosemont area had been painting the tips of their real guns orange so as to make people think that they were airsoft guns like mine, and therefore the Rosemont PD banned the use of airsoft guns. An IRT person offered me one of two guns made from duct tape that they’d found lying around, but I declined and said that someone probably would be looking for those. This really pissed me off. I know it wasn’t IRT’s fault, but I mean the gun wasn’t loaded, I had the magazine out, but I still couldn’t use my gun for pictures, etc. it felt really weird to be walking around and not have my gun out, plus it threw off my planned pose. I felt like I really needed some sort of prop, so I decided to see if I could find a plushie of Black Hayate (my character’s dog). Before that though, my brother and I bought some buttons at this cool stand in Artists’ Ally where they had adorable chibi style buttons of a whole bunch of characters from various anime and video games, and you could get three of them for only five dollars. My brother bought me a pin of Riza, and I got one of Roy Mustang. I also bought a pin for my brother of Boo from the Mario games, and a pin for Alexis, but as I didn’t get to give that to her yet I’m not going to say what it was in case she reads this.
We looked around the dealers’ room some more. My brother found some cool Final Fantasy Play Arts figures and some games. I got an adorable Tony Tony Chopper from One Piece toy, and I feel like maybe we got some other things too, but am not sure. We stopped by the Fire Emblem booth and entered a contest, as well as got promotional trading cards. They had some presumably hired cosplayers there dressed as Marth and a female character whose name I don’t remember, and so my brother took a picture of them. Some people stopped me to take pictures, and at some point we got separated from Aryn and Paulene. Since there was no cell phone reception in the dealers’ room, we had to wait until my brother and I needed to go back and drop stuff off in our room.
I think it was on the way back to our hotel on this trip that we saw a Queistis from Final Fantasy VIII cosplayer walking along with a girl who looked like she could be cosplaying as Ellone from Final Fantasy VIII. My brother decided to ask her if she was cosplaying as Ellone (that’s his favorite character from that game) and she said that she wasn’t, she was cosplaying as Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil games, I think. But, the girl said that she had been getting that all day so perhaps she should cosplay as Ellone sometime.
Once we were back at our hotel, we had a quick snack and something to drink, and then my brother let me borrow the tiny plastic gun that came with the Vincent Valentine figure he had just bought. My brother thought that there was no way that IRT could tell me that wasn’t allowed. I was really amused by this.
We met up with Aryn and Paulene in line for the Ouran High School Host Club voice actor panel at the Doubletree across the street from the convention center. The panel featured Vic Mingnogna, Caitlin Glass, and Colleen Clinkenbeard. It surprised me that Colleen was there because at that time I had seen up to episode 19 or 20, I think, and had not heard a character voiced by her. Still, it was cool to see her at a panel again. We got seats near the back but in the middle. The panel was lots of fun. Caitlin made us all sing “Lo-be-lia” like the girls from Lobelia school do - she divided the audience into groups, telling us to each sing a part. Thankfully they didn’t spoil anything, at least not for where I was at in the series during the panel, but they did tell lots of fun stories. Vic talked about how much he wanted to play Tamaki, but so much wanted to be part of the series that he auditioned for other parts as well. Caitlin told us that she hasn’t read the manga for Ouran because she sees that as a separate story and didn’t want to be influenced by that in recording and directing the anime, which I thought was really interesting. Someone got Caitlin to sing the Ouran theme song, “Sakura Kiss” which sounded fantastic! My friend Paulene got to ask a question to Vic about if the Rangers had anything planned, to which he responded that he didn’t know, but encouraged them to organize something. At some point someone did something or said something which caused Vic to dramatically run over by the wall and get into a little ball to “build hamster homes” like his character Tamaki Suoh does when he’s depressed. This cracked everyone up.
Vic told us that there would be some really cool surprises at his concert the next day, but obviously wouldn’t tell us what they would be. The promise of cool surprises helped my brother and I to decide that we had to go to the Saturday afternoon concerts, rather than the Friday night ones - despite really wanting to see the Japanese band M.O.V.E. who were performing on Friday night only, and according to the Acen website, rules stated that you had to either go to one or the other, not both.
After that panel my brother and I ran back to our hotel room so I could grab the FMA fan mix that I made and brought with to give to Colleen. I got a call from my friend Beth who I had been in touch with off and on during the day to try and figure out a time for me to meet up with her, and our friends Kelly and Jennie. We agreed to meet up after they finished doing a fan panel on Axis Powers Hetalia which is a series I’m not familiar with, yet anyway. Then we met up with Aryn and Paulene again in the garden area where Aryn was doing a photo shoot for Okami. My brother and I had tried to locate the Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross photo shoot sometime around then but hadn’t been able to. While the Okami photo shoot was going on, we spotted an adorable little baby dressed as a chobobo from the Final Fantasy games. She couldn’t have been older than like a year and a half, I would say. Obviously she was with her parents. A bunch of people - myself, Paulene, and I think my brother too, included - took pictures of her.
At a little before 5 PM I walked my brother over to the line for Caitlin Glass’ panel in the Hyatt, and then I started to make my way to find the room where Kelly, Jennie, and Beth’s panel was ending. On my way, I ran into a Wooden Sword Ryu (from Shaman King) cosplayer who had a cool Tokegeroh shield and I asked to take his picture. It seems so rare to find Shaman King cosplayers. I told him that Shaman King is one of my favorite series, and he said that he had to represent. Then we shook hand and I continued on my way to try to find that room.
I looked around for a little while more and then asked a staff member sitting outside the room where I met Travis Willingham, Chris Patton, and Greg and Chris Aryes in 2007. He didn’t know for sure where the room I was trying to find was, but he thought it might be in the lower level. He also asked to take a picture of me, and I after he did, I started to head out to go to the stairs, but before I left that area a Roy Mustang cosplayer asked to take my picture while he was using his cell phone. After he took the picture I continued to the stairs and found Kelly and Beth standing with a group of people at the top of the staircase. Jennie came along about a minute later. I told them about the issue with IRT not letting me use my gun this year - which they thought was ridiculous given that there were people with more realistic looking and/or bigger weapons which IRT cleared. Then showed them the tiny plastic gun my brother had lent me, and Kelly commented that Riza could totally take someone out with that. Which is true.
Kelly, Jennie, and Beth needed to put some stuff in their car, so I walked with them out to the parking lot and we chatted a bit. Then we decided to go someplace where we could sit down and get some water, which sounded like such a good idea to all of us. We wound up back in the area where I had originally gone to try to find the room, and we joined a table - or rather we pulled up chairs near the table - that was full of people who had apparently been at their Axis Powers Hetalia fan panel and were continuing to discuss that series and some other things. There were water coolers and plastic cups in that area too, which is awesome.
I got a call from Paulene telling me she was in line to meet Vic and that I was to go meet Aryn at the fountain around 6PM to tell Aryn where Paulene was. While I was on the phone the Roy who took my picture earlier came up to me along with another Roy, and a Maes Hughes. The first Roy noticed that I was on my phone and so the three of them waited until I got off. When I got off the phone I asked what they wanted or said “yes?” or something like that, and the first Roy notified me that they would be kidnapping me to which I replied either “okay” or “oh?” Then I told Kelly, Jennie, and Beth that I had to go as I was being kidnapped, my friends were headed off to a photo shoot anyway, so we hugged and said bye. One of the Roys asked if I had a gun, and I said yes, but explained the situation and then showed them the little plastic gun, which the three of them found amusing. I asked where they were taking me and was told that we were just going to walk around. I said that was fine, but that I needed to be back around 6PM to meet my little brother and they said that was fine.
Once we got into the main lobby area someone asked to take our picture. I got out my tiny gun to pose with and knelt down on one knee in front of the others to protect them. Then a whole bunch of other people came along and wanted to take out pictures too. I asked someone to take a picture using my camera as well, and when I started to get up I just about fell over backwards onto the first Roy. Then we talked and walked around some more, heading outside with the idea that maybe we would walk over to the convention center or something. But when we got to the corner the first Roy got a call from one of his roommates and said that they needed to head back to his hotel but that they would kidnap me again sometime. We saluted and said bye, and then I headed back to the Hyatt.
On the way back to the Hyatt a Godot from the third Phoenix Wright game stopped me and asked for a picture. He asked if I had a gun, and again I explained about IRT not allowing it this year, and then I got out the tiny plastic gun and he started cracking up, and then he took my picture.
I returned to the area in the Hyatt where my brother had been in line for the Caitlin Glass panel and found that it was still going on. So, I called my friend Alexis and we talked for a little while. After the Caitlin Glass panel ended I met up with my brother again and he was about to take a picture of a Tonberry (from Final Fantasy games) that he had met in line. He took the picture of the Tonberry attacking a plastic cup, which I found really funny.
As it was about 6 PM, my brother and I headed over to the fountain to meet Aryn but wound up seeing her and the Okami group walking in the other direction. Aryn notified me that they were going to enter in the masquerade as a walk on group, and she asked me to tell Paulene that she would meet up with her later. So my brother and I continued into the convention center and into the dealer’s room to try to find the line that Paulene was in. On the way, my brother found a Shadow from Final Fantasy VI cosplayer who even had a plushie on a leash of Interceptor (his dog). Inside the dealer’s room my brother found a Scar from FMA cosplayer, and then we found an awesome Shaman King group, which really took us by surprise. There was a Yoh, Anna, Horohoro, and Tao Ren, and they were all looking at a shop together. We both asked for their picture and they said just a minute because Tao Ren was finishing up buying something. Just before the pictures were taken, Tao Ren quickly turned around and as he (though I think it was a girl cosplayer) turned around he extended his sword in a really awesome way. It was very cool!
We finally found the line for the autographs and spotted Paulene in the middle of it. I yelled to her that we saw Aryn and that she said she would meet up with her later. I think I mentioned that she was headed to sign up for the masquerade, but I can’t remember.
There was a little bit of time left for the dealer’s room to stay open, so my brother and I decided to look around. We ran into a cool group of One Piece cosplayers - Luffy, Sogeking, and Brooke. The Luffy was holding Sogeking’s mask and my brother said to him, “You’re not Sogeking!” and then he responded, “…I could be.” My brother got their picture. At the same booth, a couple minutes later, a Terra and a Locke from Final Fantasy VI walked in and my brother asked for their picture as well. He told them that FFVI is tied for his favorite video game, tied with Chrono Trigger, and he also asked if they had seen the Shadow that was by the escalator in the lobby. I believe they said that they hadn’t, but that they had seen some other characters from the game, maybe a Gao, and a Gogo or something?
The dealer’s room pretty much shut down not long after that, but we were made aware that the artists’ ally stays open like an hour or so later. So, we decided to go buy some more buttons from that one shop, or at least I did. On our way out, in the lobby, we found another Tonberry, a Carbunkle, and a Garnet from FFIX and my brother took their picture.
When we left the convention center we spotted a Saint Tale cosplayer, who I’m pretty sure was the same one I was in line with to meet Vic Mignogna last year. My brother wanted to get a picture of her, but she was on her cell phone and when we looked for her again, she was gone.
We walked back to the Hyatt after that because I wanted to buy some ginger ale as I wasn’t feeling so great and I was pretty sure that our hotel didn’t carry any in their shop. So I bought ginger ale, some more batteries - my brother needed those for the recording device he brought with, and a little box of Frosted Mini-Wheats. On the way out of the Hyatt a Naruto cosplayer stopped me and asked for a picture, he also wanted to know if there was going to be an FMA photo shoot. I said that I didn’t know of any, and then my brother and I headed back towards our hotel.
As we walked from the Hyatt to the corner there was a group of homunculi from FMA that were across the street. There was Greed, Envy, I think there was a Lust too, and I feel like someone else was there too. Anyhow, they spotted me and the Greed kept on pointing at me. I kept on shaking my head at him and giving a hard stare. I should have gone over there to see what he wanted, but instead I kept walking on.
It seemed to be a trend that in the narrow and busy sidewalk area between the convention center and the Hyatt we kept seeing awesome cosplayers that we would have loved to get a picture of, but didn’t ask on account of not wanting to hold up the mass of people walking either or both ways. On the way back from our hotel that night we saw a pretty awesome Sanji from One Piece who had really long legs. I think we also saw Kidd from Chrono Cross, and there were others too, but I can’t remember who.
There are some things that I can’t clearly remember what point during they day they happened. Like my brother spotted an awesome Parappa cosplayer and got his picture when we were on the way between the Hyatt and the convention center. He also got pictures of Kirby and King Dididi, an Ichiro Mihara from Chobits and Angelic Layer, Sora and Kairi from Kingdom Hearts, a Crono from Chrono Trigger, and a Hugo from I think it was a Suikedon game? At some point I got a picture of a cool Selphie and Rinoa from FFVIII.
Another thing I can’t clearly place was during one of our walks between the convention center and the Hyatt there was this guy standing up on this ledge of a little flowery area on the corner who was singing the first Pokemon them song (that is, the first US dub theme song). That was pretty awesome.
As we crossed the street to our hotel we found the HItachiin twins from Ouran High School Host Club, who apparently were also staying at Aloft. My brother got their picture.
We got back to our room somewhere around 8PM I think, so that we would have time to order pizza from Giordano’s. We go a stuffed spinach, mushroom, and onion pizza, and it was delicious!
Before bed we talked to our dad, and I also talked to Paulene who caught me up on what had been going on with her and Aryn. She told me about how she had gotten to meet Vic and he gave her a hug, and about finding a shop that sells the Ouran jackets and ties, and that she was even able to purchase a Usa-chan doll - it was apparently the last one that they had. So pretty much she was all set for cosplaying as Honey. Also about how she and Aryn had walked back to their hotel, which was about 20 or so minutes away and how that wasn’t such a great idea given that her costume didn’t involve shoes, and Aryn’s costume involved high heels. They were able to get some food at the nearby McDonald’s though, which is good as at a con eating actual meals is kind of neglected. We briefly discussed where to meet the next morning, and decided to call one another once we got on our way.
Saturday morning we woke up sometime between 6 and 7 AM and had more of the little things of cereal and milk we brought along - or rather, mostly ones that we brought along, but also the one I brought the night before. There was a panel we wanted to get to early in the morning, I think at 8AM, about Japanese mythology, but we wound up getting to the Hyatt late (totally my fault for taking too long getting ready). I think I had talked to Paulene either before my brother and I left our hotel, or on the way from there to the convention center.
On the way to the convention center, I think, though I’m pretty sure it was sometime on Saturday, we noticed that there were some random sweat socks and I think some underpants too, that were lying out on the sidewalk. It looked like someone had had one of those plastic packages of maybe both of those, which had ripped open. Weird. The socks and underwear stayed around that area of the sidewalk for the rest of the con, I think. Or least most of the rest of it.
Somehow we had found out that tickets for the afternoon concert were going to be given out starting at around 10 AM and we definitely wanted to go to that. The only thing was that at the same time as the tickets were to be given out, there was a panel we wanted to attend featuring both Vic Mignogna and Mark Hildreth - who were performing in the concert that afternoon, which struck me as strange because obviously the fans who would want to see them in concert would also want to attend their panel, so it seemed like not so great planning to have those two things conflict. My brother and I decided that getting the concert tickets was more important to us.
I think it was around 8:30 at this point, and I was in need of coffee, so I went and got a latte at the Starbucks/snack shop/gift shop in the lobby of the Hyatt. Afterwards, I decided to give my brother a little tour of the Hyatt pointing out where different things had happened in Acens’ past, this included a walk through the crazy maze-like above ground tunnels that connect several of the hotels in the area - I think The Hyatt, Embassy, and maybe the Doubletree - to the big parking garage and the convention center. We primarily avoided taking the tunnels this year; though they seem convenient, it actually takes a lot longer to walk through them from the Hyatt to the convention center, than it does to walk across the street outside. But the tunnels can also be kind of fun depending on what’s going on while you’re walking in them - sometimes people start singing, etc. while they walk along.
During the part of my tour that was still in the Hyatt a Phoenix Wright cosplayer (who was eating Poptart - which seems like something Phoenix Wright would enjoy) asked me where I got my coffee, and so I showed him and his friend, but then they were disappointed that it wasn’t free, which seemed very in character. I also ran into the girl who I met in line to meet Travis Willingham in 2007. She actually spotted me first and I think this year she was cosplaying as Alucard from Hellsing , whereas I’d seen her cosplaying only as Maria Ross and Alphonse Elric from FMA. We talked for a minute and then my brother and I continued exploring. My brother got a picture of a Zack from Final Fantasy VII and associated games, who was with a Yuffie from Final Fantasy VII. I couldn’t get any cell phone reception inside the Hyatt for some reason, which wasn’t good because I wanted to get in touch with my friends to plan what to do next and so forth.
Sometime during this early morning exploring of the Hyatt my brother found and got a picture of a family who were dressed as characters from Tsubasa Resivior Chronicle. The mom and dad were Fai D. Flourite and Kurogane and the kids were Syaoran and Sakura. He also came across a Final Fantasy IX group with Zidane, Vivi, and Stinier.
When we got to the convention center after going through the tunnels, we stood around for a bit and some kid took my picture with him on his DS, which was interesting. A security guy told everyone they had to leave after a little while though, because the convention center portion of the con wasn’t officially opened yet.
A little before 10 AM we met up with Paulene, Aryn, and their friend Anna, and Anna’s sister and mother, and we all walked to the end of the very long line that wound around the driveway of the convention center and down the block. Paulene was cosplaying as Mitskuni “Honey” Haninozuka from Ouran High School Host Club that day and Aryn was still Evil Rao. I think that the line was primarily to get in when the dealers’ room opened, but a fair number of people were also in line for the concert tickets - you couldn’t purchase the concert tickets, it was first come first serve. Anyway, the line seemed to take a really long time getting into the convention center, but once we were in there we got to watch some entertaining cosplayers such as a girl cosplaying as Pac-Man with someone cosplaying as one of the Ghosts from the game who was chasing her. We also saw a cool Harley Quinn from Batman, and some others.
I have to mention that there were a lot of Jokers from Batman around the con. I think it was early on during the con one of them held the door open for us, which was sort of strange. And at another point, one o them asked to take my picture and then talked to me about my not having Black Hayate with me. It was pretty surreal given how sinister the Joker is.
So back to the Saturday morning concert tickets line. When we finally got up to the kiosk where they were handing the tickets out, the man told us that the tickets were only for something else, the masquerade or something, but that there was no need for tickets for the concert. We all felt like we’d wasted a bunch of time, but at least we got to spend more time hanging out. Once we got out of the line my brother and I spotted another Shaman King group. This one had Yoh, Anna, Iron Maiden Jeanne, Tao Jun, and Tamao. I think we temporarily blinded them with the flashes on our disposable cameras. I also got a picture of the Pac-Man and the Ghost sometime around then.
Paulene led the way to the booth where she bought her Ouran jacket and tie so that I could purchase my own. Before the con she had told me that she was planning on trying to find an Ouran uniform at the con and if she could, she would cosplay as Honey. I had also been thinking about cosplaying as someone from Ouran, but I wasn’t sure who. My brother had suggested I could go as Tamaki Suoh, and then later Paulene independently suggested I go as Tamaki as well. So I agreed that if I could get the costume, and figure out a way to pin up my hair so it’d look short, I would do it. The woman at this booth notified me that they only had one size left of the Ouran uniform jacket, which I tried on and it seemed to fit alright. They only had one tie left and it had a pink stripe down the center instead of a purple one, but it worked. The lady told me that I couldn’t be Honey, and then Paulene told her I was going to be Tamaki (I think that’s what happened), which the lady seemed okay with, although she did try to sell me a Beelzenef puppet so maybe she thought I could be Umehito Nekozawa.
Anyway, after making my purchases, Paulene, Aryn, and I waited around for my brother to finish buying some import video games from a nearby booth. I caught Aryn up on my having been kidnapped and my encounter with the homunculi across the street (I had told Paulene about these over the phone the previous night but Aryn had been sleeping at that point). Aryn commented that she wondered if the Greed wanted to fight me, or if he wanted me. She had a good point lol. I also showed Aryn and Paulene the tiny plastic toy gun, which for some reason I hadn’t shown them the previous day. They loved it.
We walked around the dealers’ room some more, and my brother took a picture of a Haku from Naruto that I had seen earlier, but not gotten a picture of. Then we went into artists’ ally were we found a group of Ouran cosplayers walking around. They had a Tamaki, a Kyoya Ootori, one of the twins, and then Paulene ran over to them and joined them for some pictures. Somehow she had gotten a lollipop prior to this. I think she got it from one of the artists’ ally people. While some of this was going on, my brother took a picture of a Godot (not the one who asked me for a picture the previous day) who was with a Riku from FFX and a Queen Serenity from Sailor Moon.
There was a rule stated in the information about the concerts at Acen which said that no one was allowed to bring in any sort of bag. Since my brother had on his emergency medic card that his medicine was located in his backpack he went and asked them at the ticket kiosk if he would be allowed to still bring the backpack with him. The people at the ticket kiosk weren’t sure, but told him to stop by the special needs area in the Hyatt and ask them.
I think it was before we left at that point, that we found the Purple Parrots from Legends of the Hidden Temple, and I got their picture. Although the people from Legends of the Hidden Temple really have nothing to do with anime, manga, or video games, I’m totally cool with the old school Nickelodeon representation at anime cons. Don’t really know why, but it just seems to fit.
On the way back to the Hyatt my brother took a picture of a cool Roronoa Zoro from One Piece who did a great pose with his three swords.
My brother went into the medic/special needs room to ask about if he could bring his backpack with him, and while he was in there I decided yet again to try to get a hold of some of my friends via my cell phone, which still wasn’t working. While I was on the phone, the first Roy I met the previous day came walking down the hall towards me with his Hughes and a Heymans Breda, and Roy asked me, “What’s wrong Riza?” to which I replied that I couldn’t get any connection for my cell phone. Roy told me that they were going to kidnap me again and I agreed to it but said that I was waiting for my little brother. Then someone came by and wanted to take a picture of the four of us. Breda made sure that I was standing next to Roy, and then we posed and various other people came by to take our pictures. I made sure someone took one with my camera. After people were done taking our picture, Roy said that since I was waiting for someone, they’d just have to kidnap me another time lol.
I decided to go and double check with someone at the nearby information desk about if tickets were really not needed for the afternoon concerts, and to my surprise the woman said that they were. Apparently whoever was over in the convention center made a mistake and she had sent someone over there to correct it. So, once my brother finished up with the people in the medic/special needs room I caught him up on what had been happening and then we headed back to the convention center. On the way, I was able to get a hold of Paulene who agreed to meet us back there so that we could get tickets. Also on the way back my brother found a Xellos from Slayers cosplayer who really did look like he had a secret. He got a picture of him.
We met up with Aryn and Paulene and got in line again at the convention center to get our tickets. Luckily the line was shorter this time. The guy who had told us earlier that there was no need for tickets for the concert apologized to us as he gave us the tickets.
My brother and I may have stuck around in the dealers’ room a little longer. I’m not sure. But not too much later we headed back to our hotel because we both needed to leave our bags back there before the concert started.
One of the times we were in the dealers’ room that day I got a picture of an Ema Skye from the Phoenix Wright / Apollo Justice games, and my brother got a picture of the Red Jaguars from Legends of the Hidden Temple just outside the dealers’ room. At some point we also found an armor Alphonse Elric from FMA in the lobby of the convention center, and around artists’ ally my brother took a picture of a Namine and Kairi from Kingdom Hearts.
While we were in our hotel room we quickly had some of the snacks we brought along, as well as something to drink, and then we headed back.
On the way back from our hotel I got a call from Beth, but now wasn’t a good time for me to go and meet up with her, Kelly, and Jennie. I also tried to get a hold of Alexis but wasn’t able to. I did talk to Paulene again and told her that we were going to get in line for the concert and she said that they were finishing up doing something, but I can’t remember what, and they would be there as soon as they could.
On this walk that my brother spotted a Cecil from Final Fantasy IV that seemed really cool, and since he left his camera back in our room (no cameras were allowed in the concert either), I used my cell phone camera to take a picture.
Sometime earlier though, when we still had all our stuff with us, my brother took a picture of a Misty with a Togepy, and an Ash Ketchum, all from Pokemon, though they weren’t all together.