Sakuracon Day 1 - Friday
Ok, enough stalling. Pictures to come somewhat later, but writing while I still remember everything that happened >.<
I got up at a horrid hour of the morning, 6:00, and wobbled my way in to Agito cosplay. I was supposed to met a friend to stand in line together, but apparently she got up at 4:30 *_*. So wading through picture requests and fangirl glompings (<---- surprisingly not exaggerated), I made my way to the back-ish area of the line, and stood waiting for the line to move. Being in line wasn't actually bad, I got 20-30 picture requests, and more after my friend cosplaying my twin, Akito, showed up. I got my pass by 7:45, so I dragged my other friend to some breakfast yumminess. Akito couldn't show since he had staff work, so the two of us plodded to get crepe flavored deliciousness.
Wandered around as Agito for a bit, signed up for karaoke contest, found out when the air gear shoot was, and generally slummmed about until it was time to go change in to the wedding dress version of Agito. Met up with the room mates, and slogged around while getting mistaken for Rei and some chickie from Ikki Tousen >_<;
The Air gear shoot was a little slow to start off with, since me and Akito were the only ones there at 1:00, but just as we were about to leave, a group of Canadian cosplayeres showed up! And to my surprise, I knew some of them; they were a Gintama crew I hung out with at AX~ unfortunately Elizebeth, their Ume, couldn't make it to the shoot, but we saw her later and she was so cuuuttte~~
But it was not yet the over! A Kogarasumaru team showed up, escaping their place in line, and they were able to do the pose~~XD.
At some point Rai changed in to the orange outfit, and had some wonderfull twin spammage. ^_< I brought the spare outfit in a duffel bag, and there was a bathroom two minutes away, so Rai managed to change in less than five minutes~~ XD I ended up confusing one of the kameko(Eurobeat King), he saw me and was happy for the full set of twins, but he asked me where the other girl went. ^_^
After air gear was the Bleach shoot, so I spent two hours getting Byakuya (And his goddamned hair things) ready, and ended up showing ten minutes late to the shoot....which wouldn't have been so bad, except that they had started 20 minutes early >_<. Jim did get this nifty picture though, so I wasn't too disapointed? But I had to beat off other Byakuya's from laying stake to my Renji (laugh). It was a wierd afternood to be Byakuya, since I kept getting lost, and felt like doing a lot of un-byakuya esque things, like eating sweets, or sitting oddly, or poking at people and making Shunsui's hat fall off and seeing him blame it on Nanao-chan.
In fact, I felt a lot more like L than Byakuya, but I already had cosplayed L two years back when people thought I was just a suspicious boy in rascally clothes, instead of an actual cosplayer. -_-;
I walked around as Byakuya for a while, but Big Chris (Someone I made a Kenpachi costume for last year) had missed the times, so it didn't really feel like a fun photoshoot. And it prolly didn't help that everything felt like it was over with by the time I got there. Maybe it is time to just go off and cosplay Mayuri instead?
I went back to the hotel and changed ...again.... as Suit Byakuya in hopes that Obscure Character Power would keep the kamekos off long enough to grab that xxxHolic pencil board board in the dealers room, but >.< Rai fail. Gah, why cannot I say no to a photograph?!
After failed bout in to the dealers room, it was Off To the Hotel Room! Once more to change in to costume for the Karaoke contest, which was a Jigoku Shoujo-esque Waloli outfit, with Hibari in a Kikuri-style costume, but with matching hair with Rai, since I was singing the second opening for Rozen Maiden Traumend, Seishojo Ryoeki.
I was waaaaaaay down on the list, but I finally got up on stage to encounter....technical difficulties. They started my song intro reeeaaaly quiet, then turned it up really loud, so my intro skit I had was spoiled. Then my mic was down low, and I heard some people say that they thought it was off for half of the song. >.< they managed to fix it midway out of the song, but by then, Rai's chances of winning the contest were gone ;_;
On the plus side, I saw someone with a dolly from onstage, and the owner, one of the Bleach shinigami girls who did Houki boshi, came over to talk to Rai~~~ Isane had a DZ Feng (?) which I had been curious about, so we had various conversations~~~ One of the many people I wished I had been able to talk more with/exchange email with and forgot to....
After the results were posted (A long rant about that to ensue), Rai was pretty tired, so I said good bye to some friends I met up with, ran in to the Canadian girls again (In Lolita X3), and headed back to the hotel room, where I promptly crashed. Hibari looks so cute in girly clothes, but I swear, some day I'm going to wake up to little dolly hands around my throat.
----------Warning: Rant about Karaoke. May contain emo bitching/sore loser commentations-------
Aside from bitching about one staff member (Who I used to know on a personal basis) who was a bit of a a dick through out the whole thing, "Oh good, all this is messing up my- I mean, our Karaoke contest." (<--- direct quote), not to mention his blatent favoritism of a Haruhi cosplayer, literaly telling the judges that she should win (wonder if his girl friend knows about this *.*), and Fucking Up Rai's Shit, my main complaint is about the first place winner and the best group.
This is purely Rai's opinion, but a song sung in a Karaoke contest at an Anime and Japanese Culture (snicker) convention, should contain songs in JAPANESE. Or considering my nation's lovely habit of Engrish (Choose one making you better feeling!), at least 60% Japanese.
The first place winner sang 'Ave Maria' from cowboy bebop, but is a song that Frantz Schubert had composed. While the guy did a very fucking awesome job at this song, it wasn't an Anime song any more than 'Fly me to the Moon' gets Frank Sinatra called as a Guest of Honor. The second winners I had a bigger issue with were the winners for best group. They spoke a song that had three Japanese words in it. The four minute song had five lines of lyrics repeated through the song. There were not the only group, there were aforementioned Shinigami girls singing Houki boshi. In Japanese.
I think the thing that bothers me so much about it is that none of these songs require memorization of a foreign language that many of the people who participated went through. I can't say I did too hard on that since I already speak Japanese, but you try memorizing a Ali Project song. It's no Cutie Honey OP.
Ave Maria probably required a lot of practice, and it is in Latin, but it still defeats the purpose of having a karaoke contest for anime/J-songs.
I'm not even going to start on the v-tards who won best group.
----------End Rant-----------
All in all, I probably found Friday the most hectic and most enjoyable of the con days/events, since Saterday was more of hanging out with friends than any explicit con activities.
The karaoke thing had me bummed for a while before I had the thought: "hey, most people are only on stage for five minutes or so. I have an hour long show on Sunday."
Which of course, simultaniously stroked my ego and made me panick about the upcoming show >.
I got up at a horrid hour of the morning, 6:00, and wobbled my way in to Agito cosplay. I was supposed to met a friend to stand in line together, but apparently she got up at 4:30 *_*. So wading through picture requests and fangirl glompings (<---- surprisingly not exaggerated), I made my way to the back-ish area of the line, and stood waiting for the line to move. Being in line wasn't actually bad, I got 20-30 picture requests, and more after my friend cosplaying my twin, Akito, showed up. I got my pass by 7:45, so I dragged my other friend to some breakfast yumminess. Akito couldn't show since he had staff work, so the two of us plodded to get crepe flavored deliciousness.
Wandered around as Agito for a bit, signed up for karaoke contest, found out when the air gear shoot was, and generally slummmed about until it was time to go change in to the wedding dress version of Agito. Met up with the room mates, and slogged around while getting mistaken for Rei and some chickie from Ikki Tousen >_<;
The Air gear shoot was a little slow to start off with, since me and Akito were the only ones there at 1:00, but just as we were about to leave, a group of Canadian cosplayeres showed up! And to my surprise, I knew some of them; they were a Gintama crew I hung out with at AX~ unfortunately Elizebeth, their Ume, couldn't make it to the shoot, but we saw her later and she was so cuuuttte~~
But it was not yet the over! A Kogarasumaru team showed up, escaping their place in line, and they were able to do the pose~~XD.
At some point Rai changed in to the orange outfit, and had some wonderfull twin spammage. ^_< I brought the spare outfit in a duffel bag, and there was a bathroom two minutes away, so Rai managed to change in less than five minutes~~ XD I ended up confusing one of the kameko(Eurobeat King), he saw me and was happy for the full set of twins, but he asked me where the other girl went. ^_^
After air gear was the Bleach shoot, so I spent two hours getting Byakuya (And his goddamned hair things) ready, and ended up showing ten minutes late to the shoot....which wouldn't have been so bad, except that they had started 20 minutes early >_<. Jim did get this nifty picture though, so I wasn't too disapointed? But I had to beat off other Byakuya's from laying stake to my Renji (laugh). It was a wierd afternood to be Byakuya, since I kept getting lost, and felt like doing a lot of un-byakuya esque things, like eating sweets, or sitting oddly, or poking at people and making Shunsui's hat fall off and seeing him blame it on Nanao-chan.
In fact, I felt a lot more like L than Byakuya, but I already had cosplayed L two years back when people thought I was just a suspicious boy in rascally clothes, instead of an actual cosplayer. -_-;
I walked around as Byakuya for a while, but Big Chris (Someone I made a Kenpachi costume for last year) had missed the times, so it didn't really feel like a fun photoshoot. And it prolly didn't help that everything felt like it was over with by the time I got there. Maybe it is time to just go off and cosplay Mayuri instead?
I went back to the hotel and changed ...again.... as Suit Byakuya in hopes that Obscure Character Power would keep the kamekos off long enough to grab that xxxHolic pencil board board in the dealers room, but >.< Rai fail. Gah, why cannot I say no to a photograph?!
After failed bout in to the dealers room, it was Off To the Hotel Room! Once more to change in to costume for the Karaoke contest, which was a Jigoku Shoujo-esque Waloli outfit, with Hibari in a Kikuri-style costume, but with matching hair with Rai, since I was singing the second opening for Rozen Maiden Traumend, Seishojo Ryoeki.
I was waaaaaaay down on the list, but I finally got up on stage to encounter....technical difficulties. They started my song intro reeeaaaly quiet, then turned it up really loud, so my intro skit I had was spoiled. Then my mic was down low, and I heard some people say that they thought it was off for half of the song. >.< they managed to fix it midway out of the song, but by then, Rai's chances of winning the contest were gone ;_;
On the plus side, I saw someone with a dolly from onstage, and the owner, one of the Bleach shinigami girls who did Houki boshi, came over to talk to Rai~~~ Isane had a DZ Feng (?) which I had been curious about, so we had various conversations~~~ One of the many people I wished I had been able to talk more with/exchange email with and forgot to....
After the results were posted (A long rant about that to ensue), Rai was pretty tired, so I said good bye to some friends I met up with, ran in to the Canadian girls again (In Lolita X3), and headed back to the hotel room, where I promptly crashed. Hibari looks so cute in girly clothes, but I swear, some day I'm going to wake up to little dolly hands around my throat.
----------Warning: Rant about Karaoke. May contain emo bitching/sore loser commentations-------
Aside from bitching about one staff member (Who I used to know on a personal basis) who was a bit of a a dick through out the whole thing, "Oh good, all this is messing up my- I mean, our Karaoke contest." (<--- direct quote), not to mention his blatent favoritism of a Haruhi cosplayer, literaly telling the judges that she should win (wonder if his girl friend knows about this *.*), and Fucking Up Rai's Shit, my main complaint is about the first place winner and the best group.
This is purely Rai's opinion, but a song sung in a Karaoke contest at an Anime and Japanese Culture (snicker) convention, should contain songs in JAPANESE. Or considering my nation's lovely habit of Engrish (Choose one making you better feeling!), at least 60% Japanese.
The first place winner sang 'Ave Maria' from cowboy bebop, but is a song that Frantz Schubert had composed. While the guy did a very fucking awesome job at this song, it wasn't an Anime song any more than 'Fly me to the Moon' gets Frank Sinatra called as a Guest of Honor. The second winners I had a bigger issue with were the winners for best group. They spoke a song that had three Japanese words in it. The four minute song had five lines of lyrics repeated through the song. There were not the only group, there were aforementioned Shinigami girls singing Houki boshi. In Japanese.
I think the thing that bothers me so much about it is that none of these songs require memorization of a foreign language that many of the people who participated went through. I can't say I did too hard on that since I already speak Japanese, but you try memorizing a Ali Project song. It's no Cutie Honey OP.
Ave Maria probably required a lot of practice, and it is in Latin, but it still defeats the purpose of having a karaoke contest for anime/J-songs.
I'm not even going to start on the v-tards who won best group.
----------End Rant-----------
All in all, I probably found Friday the most hectic and most enjoyable of the con days/events, since Saterday was more of hanging out with friends than any explicit con activities.
The karaoke thing had me bummed for a while before I had the thought: "hey, most people are only on stage for five minutes or so. I have an hour long show on Sunday."
Which of course, simultaniously stroked my ego and made me panick about the upcoming show >.