The Gathering: TAGCOM Convention
I had nothing to do last Saturday so even though I originally planned to stay at home, I went here instead:
My friends aiah1999 and hime_takarai were gonna be there with their respective college friends and since I've been with Aiah's crew once a couple of years back during the Toei 20th Anniversary Convention, I met up with them. It was quite overwhelming to see all the cosplayers with their waxed hair and outrageous costumes milling around the mall as if it's the most natural thing on earth. I'm sure the older mall-goers were going, "WTF?" in their heads; makes me kinda proud of the cosplayers. Here are a couple of shots I was able to take of the early birds, Rui's (my phone) batt got drained early in to the event so these are the only ones I was able to take:
Other notable cosplayers we saw: Bananas in Pajamas (mecha kawaii!), kids in Transformer costumes and this realistic Darth Vader one with matching sound effects coming from his... er, mouth.
The venue was really, really small; I never even knew that part of the mall existed prior to the event. You have to literally squeeze your way thru otaku's to be able to browse the stalls and get near the stage. Anyway, first stall that we stopped by was a comic book kiosk that sold some titles for Php 20 apiece. Here are my purchases:
The cover arts on these are really, really nice. Too bad the photo wasn't able to capture it; it's a bitch trying to take pictures with only your camera phone, webcam, and fluorescent light to work with. I bought another one of these, btw, but it's my least liked cover so I didn't bother taking a pic of it.
Anyway so up next we saw this kiosk selling 2nd hand Jap cd's for Php50 apiece. We were staring at the shelves trying to decide where to start digging when we heard this squeal from down below: it was Ojou trying to work her way thru the cd's that are stil in the boxes, having finished looking up the stuff on display on the shelves. Here are my cd finds:
Every Little Thing's "Time to Destination" and Orange Range's "Natural"
The Every Little Thing cd was really clean, as if it was new and the inlay's intact but it seems to havew been wet at some point so the pages are stuck together. The Orange Range one had a scratch or two and the inlay and container were in a sorry state but you can't really complain - it's Php50 for a full-length album. Some more:
Bump of Chicken's "Flame Vein+1" and another album I don't know the title of
Jun mentioned Bump of Chicken in one of his magazine interviews and I had been curious about it ever since. I got these cd's for the price of one since they were stored in the same container (without an inlay, btw) and the storeclerk didn't notice that when she counted the stuff that I bought. They were badly scratched, but they worked perfectly fine. I had my misgivings about them because of the silly name (Bump of Chicken? What the hell?), so I was surprised that I like it. It's actually my kind of music.
Finally, the accidentally-bought cd:
Remioromen, right?
It had very few scratches, here's what it looks like when you open it up:
Ojou warned us about mislabeled cd's earlier on because she saw a Kinki Kids Single Collection album with a different disc inside it, but I can't read kanji, so I thought this was still Remioromen. Aiah told me to double check my stuff though after I've paid for it because Ojou's friend, Renee got this LunaSea (or was it B'z? Can't remember) cd with A Detective Conan cd inside it. So I asked Aiah to check this one, and upon closer look, here's what it was:
Ken Hirai 10th Anniversary Complete Single Collection
Good thing I like Ken Hirai.
So off we went to check out the rest of the venue. We saw RC cars that were drifting (how cool is that?), too bad we weren't able to take a video because we were being constantly pushed by human traffic. We also saw this stuffed toys kiosk, and even though i've resigned myself to the fact that I won't be able to keep stufed toys clean (ergo, I don't buy them) I couldn't help myself:
Gachapin a.k.a. Ryo-chan and 2 uchiwa's we bought at the same store
How cute is that? The uchiwa's were (a) a pink one with the label Johnny's Film Fiesta (how often do you get to buy a Johnny's uchiwa for Php35?); and (b) a blue soccer ball-like one which has Japan National Team written on it along with the JFA emblem. I was sad that I had to spend a lot but Gachapin came in relatively cheap (Php250), so what the heck.
We were waiting for my change at the stuffed toy place which was incidentally near the stage so we were watching what must've been the nth Naruto group cosplay. They were about to start their presentation when a familiar intro started playing...
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
It was Love So Sweet by Arashi.
I was screaming my lungs out, sore throat be damned. (Yes, that "NO~!" scream actually materialized) I was really torn whether I should hate them (because, cmon, that IS LSS) or applaud them because they memorized the entire dance - steps, formation, the works. Oh well. It WAS the first time that I heard an Arashi song being played in a large-ish venue so, ok. Aiah and I were laughing halfway thru but after their perf Aiah screamed, "Arashi janai yo!" and I followed up with "Zen zen janai!" *shakes head*
My last stop before I went home was this place where you had to buy tokens and then turn a knob to get a keychain/cp strap/trinket. There were disney character keychains, gachapin ones, super mario nintendo ds lite pens and nightmare before xmas figures in cute metal boxes. I really stopped myself from buying tokens this time, especially since I was thinking, "What if I don't like what I get?" Aiah's friend France and her sister got the Nintendo DS thingies and France also got Oogie-Boogie from Nightmare Before Xmas. Aiah also took her chances because she wanted Jack Skellington in pyjamas but got the Mayor instead. Just as we were making fun of her this guy agreed to swap with her so now she's got Zero, Jack's dog. Lucky girl.
I went home ahead of everyone, demo, tanoshikatta!
My friends aiah1999 and hime_takarai were gonna be there with their respective college friends and since I've been with Aiah's crew once a couple of years back during the Toei 20th Anniversary Convention, I met up with them. It was quite overwhelming to see all the cosplayers with their waxed hair and outrageous costumes milling around the mall as if it's the most natural thing on earth. I'm sure the older mall-goers were going, "WTF?" in their heads; makes me kinda proud of the cosplayers. Here are a couple of shots I was able to take of the early birds, Rui's (my phone) batt got drained early in to the event so these are the only ones I was able to take:
Other notable cosplayers we saw: Bananas in Pajamas (mecha kawaii!), kids in Transformer costumes and this realistic Darth Vader one with matching sound effects coming from his... er, mouth.
The venue was really, really small; I never even knew that part of the mall existed prior to the event. You have to literally squeeze your way thru otaku's to be able to browse the stalls and get near the stage. Anyway, first stall that we stopped by was a comic book kiosk that sold some titles for Php 20 apiece. Here are my purchases:
The cover arts on these are really, really nice. Too bad the photo wasn't able to capture it; it's a bitch trying to take pictures with only your camera phone, webcam, and fluorescent light to work with. I bought another one of these, btw, but it's my least liked cover so I didn't bother taking a pic of it.
Anyway so up next we saw this kiosk selling 2nd hand Jap cd's for Php50 apiece. We were staring at the shelves trying to decide where to start digging when we heard this squeal from down below: it was Ojou trying to work her way thru the cd's that are stil in the boxes, having finished looking up the stuff on display on the shelves. Here are my cd finds:
Every Little Thing's "Time to Destination" and Orange Range's "Natural"
The Every Little Thing cd was really clean, as if it was new and the inlay's intact but it seems to havew been wet at some point so the pages are stuck together. The Orange Range one had a scratch or two and the inlay and container were in a sorry state but you can't really complain - it's Php50 for a full-length album. Some more:
Bump of Chicken's "Flame Vein+1" and another album I don't know the title of
Jun mentioned Bump of Chicken in one of his magazine interviews and I had been curious about it ever since. I got these cd's for the price of one since they were stored in the same container (without an inlay, btw) and the storeclerk didn't notice that when she counted the stuff that I bought. They were badly scratched, but they worked perfectly fine. I had my misgivings about them because of the silly name (Bump of Chicken? What the hell?), so I was surprised that I like it. It's actually my kind of music.
Finally, the accidentally-bought cd:
Remioromen, right?
It had very few scratches, here's what it looks like when you open it up:
Ojou warned us about mislabeled cd's earlier on because she saw a Kinki Kids Single Collection album with a different disc inside it, but I can't read kanji, so I thought this was still Remioromen. Aiah told me to double check my stuff though after I've paid for it because Ojou's friend, Renee got this LunaSea (or was it B'z? Can't remember) cd with A Detective Conan cd inside it. So I asked Aiah to check this one, and upon closer look, here's what it was:
Ken Hirai 10th Anniversary Complete Single Collection
Good thing I like Ken Hirai.
So off we went to check out the rest of the venue. We saw RC cars that were drifting (how cool is that?), too bad we weren't able to take a video because we were being constantly pushed by human traffic. We also saw this stuffed toys kiosk, and even though i've resigned myself to the fact that I won't be able to keep stufed toys clean (ergo, I don't buy them) I couldn't help myself:
Gachapin a.k.a. Ryo-chan and 2 uchiwa's we bought at the same store
How cute is that? The uchiwa's were (a) a pink one with the label Johnny's Film Fiesta (how often do you get to buy a Johnny's uchiwa for Php35?); and (b) a blue soccer ball-like one which has Japan National Team written on it along with the JFA emblem. I was sad that I had to spend a lot but Gachapin came in relatively cheap (Php250), so what the heck.
We were waiting for my change at the stuffed toy place which was incidentally near the stage so we were watching what must've been the nth Naruto group cosplay. They were about to start their presentation when a familiar intro started playing...
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
It was Love So Sweet by Arashi.
I was screaming my lungs out, sore throat be damned. (Yes, that "NO~!" scream actually materialized) I was really torn whether I should hate them (because, cmon, that IS LSS) or applaud them because they memorized the entire dance - steps, formation, the works. Oh well. It WAS the first time that I heard an Arashi song being played in a large-ish venue so, ok. Aiah and I were laughing halfway thru but after their perf Aiah screamed, "Arashi janai yo!" and I followed up with "Zen zen janai!" *shakes head*
My last stop before I went home was this place where you had to buy tokens and then turn a knob to get a keychain/cp strap/trinket. There were disney character keychains, gachapin ones, super mario nintendo ds lite pens and nightmare before xmas figures in cute metal boxes. I really stopped myself from buying tokens this time, especially since I was thinking, "What if I don't like what I get?" Aiah's friend France and her sister got the Nintendo DS thingies and France also got Oogie-Boogie from Nightmare Before Xmas. Aiah also took her chances because she wanted Jack Skellington in pyjamas but got the Mayor instead. Just as we were making fun of her this guy agreed to swap with her so now she's got Zero, Jack's dog. Lucky girl.
I went home ahead of everyone, demo, tanoshikatta!