Fanime 2005
Fanime 2005...I cosplayed as Viki from Suikoden III. Much more people recognized me than when I cosplayed as Touya Akira the year before and Harada Riku the year before that. Some people across the room yelled out "Viki!" I turned around and they said, see, it is Viki! Hehe, and when I was sitting down for a game show, the person behind me commented too. Seems like Viki is quite recognizable, even though I was most likely the only Suikoden cosplayer there...I didn't see anyone else. Either that, or I totally missed them.
You can tell that I have no sewing skills. And, I gave up on making my hair look like Viki's...ran out of time. And I couldn't put my hair to the back or else you'd be able to see my ugly collar. My staff was made very quickly on the night before the convention. ^^; I sort of didn't even want to wear my costume since I was the only one out of my group that finished. Everyone who said they were going to cosplay with me ended up not doing it, which made me not look forward to Fanime as much as I had before.
The registration line was quite scary...when I walked out of the parking lot, it was all that I saw. I couldn't get a good pic of the line because the wall was too close, but anyway, I was glad that I pre-registered. The preregistration line was only two people long. :3 When I went to pick up my registration stuff on Thursday, I was extremely disappointed that they didn't include a schedule. They didn't have it online either. Turns out they didn't get it out until 5AM the day of the convention, which was Friday. And then, there wasn't even much scheduled. There were so many empty time slots. Didn't really give me a good feeling of how Fanime 2005 was going to turn out.
My friend gem2niki 's art table. (She and her sisters cosplayed as characters from D.Grayman.)
I hung around her table everytime I had nothing to do. My two other friends who went with me left early, so I just sat behind g2n's art table and stopped random people to take their pics. A whole bunch of Bleach cosplayers were gathering next to us, so I kept taking pics of them. The amount of Bleach cosplayers was quite overwhelming. There was even a Hanatarou. XD
g2n does such pretty artwork...though I didn't buy any. I really should have though. Maybe she'll give me some for free now that the convention's over....(wah, I want the Raito and L one!)
The dealer's room. I probably spent the most time there...even though there wasn't much that I wanted to buy. I circled the place a lot...saw a few things that I was sort of interested in, but wasn't willing to spend that much money on them. One place had a set of 5 Hikago plushies. For $90. Waaaay too much. ;_; I sort of wanted a Kon plushie...but he was sold out right from the start. I found out that the Ichigo plushie was $30. Just because he's Ichigo. It wasn't even that big of a plushie! Crazy. The seller said something about Ichigo getting sold out, so they had someone drive up a whole bunch of Ichigo's from Los Angeles. ^^; I also wanted to buy a Kyo cap, but alas, those were sold out too. They only had Yuki ones, which I wasn't that interested in. The furuba bag I wanted was also sold out too. Geez. Oh, and I was stopped here once because of my flimsy staff. I was supposed to register it since it was a prop...but I didn't. ^^;
These were the stuff I ended up buying (not the laptop of course). *Sigh* I already have too many Ryoma's, but oh well. He was cheap. ^^; I don't know why I bought Atobe...since he's not even remotely close to the top of my favorite POT characters, but he did look cool in his casual clothes. Vivi ended up as the most expensive plushie out of the lot, but he's cute...so...oh well.
There were no Rikkai plushies at all. Made me sad. I was only able to find a chain with all of them on it. Darn chain was more expensive than all of the plushies I bought. ^^;
Bought these two for my friends' birthdays, which are next month. One of them is crazy over Tezuka, while the other one likes Kawamura. The casual clothing Tezuka was all sold out (boo! since it was cheaper!!), which made me look frantically around the place for any sort of Tezuka. And this was the only one I found. -_- His sword is stuck to his face, by the way.
This is the theater were the Music Fest and the Der Cosplay took place. Music fest, we had (Petite Princess/Puchi Puri) Yucie's voice actress (forgot her name), Ramen and Rice, Kumiko Kato, and ZZ perform. Yucie's voice actress dressed up as that character and sang the opening song to the anime.
Ramen and Rice with their beautiful renditions of anime and game music! One of them even dressed up as L. XD They played one of the Naruto openings, Ready Steady Go from FMA, the chocobo song, a Smash Brother's melee, Melodies of Life from FF9, and some other stuff that I don't remember anymore. Hehe, the cheering was so loud! Last year, they performed during the convention (not during the music fest) and their crowd ended up blocking the elevators, so I guess that was part of the reason why they got moved to the music fest instead. XD I love hearing them play.
ZZ was very energetic. They ended the music fest very nicely, with everyone hyped up. Their lead singer is very cute. XD My brother's girlfriend bought one of their cd's and had them sign it. Hehe, I think I might start following this band now!
After the music fest, my brother and his girlfriend went to the dance. I went with them, but the blasting music made my ears ring. I ended up going to the other side of the convention and watching the karaoke contest instead. It's amazing how many people still have energy (to sing even) at midnight during the convention. A few of the songs that the participants sung were Ready Steady Go (again, it makes an appearance), the new ending to Bleach, a Gravitation song, and so forth.
The der cosplay on the next day was very enjoyable as well. I especially liked the performance of the one piece group. They had so many characters and danced to such a happy, annoying song. It was very cool to watch. They certainly deserved 1st place.
But what made me laugh was the TeniMyuSide performance. I started laughing the moment I heard their name announced.
Lo and behold! They really were going to reenact one of the songs from the musicals. They even had all of Seigaku.
Forgive my blurry pics...I was sitting in the very back of the theater. But anyway, they certainly were copying those cheesy moves well. XD
Hehe, I couldn't help but take a lot of pics of them.
And more...
Fuji's solo part. My brother couldn't tell if it was Fuji or if it was Kikumaru, but I assured him that it was Fuji, since I remembered Fuji having most of the solos.
And then Tezuka sings.
The other Seigaku people come in as a group, hiding Ryoma behind them.
They separate, and out comes Ryoma in between. Their Ryoma's pretty good. :)
For their ending, they had everyone pose with their moves. Fuji, of course, was doing Higuma Otoshi in the front. Wah, this picture is so blurry!!! ;_; Anyway, I couldn't tell which musical they were reenacting, but after going home and taking out the musicals again, I found out that they were reenacting the first song to the second musical. :)
All of the cosplayers in the Der Cosplay contest onstage for the awards ceremony. I was surprised that there wasn't even one FMA cosplay, since that was most of what we had last year. This year, there were still a lot of Naruto cosplays, and in addition to that, Bleach cosplays. Final Fantasy cosplays were of course present. The Mermaid Melody group had a good skit...but it was way too long. They even had "two episodes" for it. -_-
Overall, this year's Fanime wasn't too bad. It got a bit boring near the beginning because there weren't any events going on at all. I just wandered around the dealer's room and sat with g2n at her art table. We had very little guests of honor as well. However, despite getting the schedule late, the convention was better organized. The music fest ran smoothly. We didn't have the half hour waits in between switching bands as we had last year. The Der Cosplay also went very well, and the participants were much better than last years. The skits were impressive, though a few were boring. The karaoke contest was also better organized and they didn't have much technical difficulties during it. The rooms were well assigned as well. Everyone actually fits into the karaoke room now! I think the friend that I dragged along to the convention got bored since she left on Saturday and didn't attend the next two days. =/ Most people cosplayed as Bleach, FMA, Naruto, and Final Fantasy. A lot of POT cosplayers as well. I did, however, see one Lloyd cosplayer, two Disgaea cosplayers, one Harada Risa, and so forth. :3
Hopefully, next year people will actually cosplay with me! I should help them finish their Suikoden III costumes. ^^; I kind of want to participate in the karaoke contest as well...though I suck at singing. -_-