I have three words to
describe Otakuthon: Oh My God. It was
amazing!! I had the most fun this past
weekend at any con I’ve ever been too. I
didn’t get to do all that much in terms of panels, but I talked to some really
awesome people, made new friends and felt 100% magical in my costumes. Here is a brief rundown of each day.
Friday: The day started out with me frantically
styling my Sakura wig. I woke up late
and only started working on things around 1:30 ish. I spent two hours working on the wig until I
was satisfied with it. In the meantime
we determined that my apartment was not going to have water in the
morning. This made us look into booking
a last minute hotel room for Friday night, which we managed to get! I spent another couple of hours packing and
getting everything ready. My boyfriend
came over with his stuff and we got a ride to the hotel with our friend. We checked in, I got changed into Mew Zakuro
and we headed to the con.
We got there around 7
pm just in time to check out a few cosplays and head over to the World Cosplay
Summit. The show itself was a little
short but the cosplays were awesome! I
was really looking forward to seeing Melting Mirror/Calamity Cosplay and
Detailed Mess’ skits. Personally I found
some of the skits a little too wordy; I prefer to see flashy things. We ended up staying up super late in the
board game room playing Click-Clack Lumberjack (which was surprisingly amusing)
and Dixit which was super cute. Once
everyone beside my roommates decided that they were leaving, my boyfriend and I
went and did a little photo shoot of my Zakuro.
Saturday: I woke up super early to get ready for
masquerade registration. Being the
person I am I wanted to get into costume before heading to the con just to
reduce the number of trips to and from the hotel. I ironed my costume, showered, put everything
on, packed and head out the door. I got
to the convention center and checked my weapon.
I was given the wrong directions to the masquerade registration line and
I almost didn’t get in! I was number 77
out of 80 in line. And it was only 9:40
am! The masquerade registration (from my
understanding) was only supposed to open at 10:00 am!
Once I finally got
through the registration line I walked around a bit and went into the dealer’s
room. I wanted to try and find a small
Kero plushie to bring on stage with me.
Of course I never did find one but I did run into somebody who I was not
expecting: Jesse from Midnight Armour! I
wasn’t keeping tabs on the guests because I’m not normally one who follows that
kind of stuff so I was kind of surprised.
We talked and I showed him my first large prop I made (Sakura’s
staff). He wanted to know if it was light
so I let him hold it. He agreed with my
statement of feeling 20% more magical J I then determined that he was
going to be a judge for the masquerade which I thought was awesome and scary at
the same time!
After meeting Jesse I
met up with my boyfriend and we went to attend Jesse’s panel, “Meet the
Hero”. It covered a lot of what the
cosplayers had to face behind the scenes and how the show actually worked. It turns out that the cosplayers were only
told one or two weeks before the con that they were being flown out to a
specific place and they had to make a costume for it. So all that drama of being last minute in
making costumes wasn’t their fault! He
also revealed some funny incidents involving a mechanical bull. After the panel we went to a cheap Italian
place to eat before rushing me to the green room space.
The green room at
Otakuthon this year was so fun! It made
my weekend! We walked in, had our dens
assigned and our judge’s photos taken right away. I was placed in den 12, entry number 72
alongside my friend Bandit Spurs. We
made friends with everyone in our den and even with people in different
dens. I got to meet Shushuwafflez who
was wearing her gorgeous Queen Esther gown, Anniechie dressed as Maiden Zelda,
Piratica in her Nonon cosplay and many others!
There were three craftsmanship judges, one of them being Detailled
Illusion, and three performance judges which included Jesse from Midnight
Armour.
Sometime before I was
judged the food arrived. I was
distracted by food (they have good cookies!) and then even more distracted by a
couple of guys who were cosplaying Ashura Ou and Yukito from the Tsubasa
artbook. I had never seen those cosplays
done before so I decided to chill with them for a bit. I apparently stayed too long away from my den
at this point because my den mom came and scolded me, telling me to get
back. It was not going to be the last
scolding that night.
Eventually the show
got started and participants were able to show off their costumes and skits on
stage. Since den 12 was one of the last
dens, we were in the green room with nowhere to go for a long time. A few of the participants stayed in the green
room to watch the rest of the show after they finished. A few of my den mates and I went on a
paparazzi spree to pass the time.
By the time our den
was called to line up, I was starting to get the jitters. When I get the jitters, I tend to bounce… a
lot. So I was trying to refrain from
bouncing which resulted in me vibrating.
All along the line the girl behind me kept trying to calm me down. I only became calm the moment before getting
up on stage. I had only a vague idea of
what I was doing, namely that I had to pick up my staff and book off the stage
and that I wanted the mood of my skit to be emotional. Being on stage everything seemed to move in
slow motion. The music to me seemed like
it was going too fast and I had to exit the stage a little bit before the music
finished. Heading back to the green room
I was welcomed by my den exclaiming how beautiful my skit was. Fors those curious, you can find my portion of the show at 8:15.
After the masquerade I
met up with Henrickson for a private photo shoot, my very first one. I was unsure of how to proceed with things
and I was also pretty tired at this point.
I think things turned out well though, I’m looking forward to seeing the
edited photos J After the
shoot my boyfriend and I went up to the hotel room that we had booked as a
large group (a different hotel). We
stayed up pretty late playing games and hanging out.
Sunday: I had a very good complimentary breakfast
Sunday morning. The only thing that was
missing was the bacon but they made up for it with chocolate brioches. Since we didn’t have to check out of the
hotel until 1 pm we headed out to the con early. I wore Sakura as I had way too much fun being
magical the day before (and I had decided that the white rabbit was going to be
pushed back to another con). My
boyfriend and I attended a leather working panel for an hour before heading
back to the hotel to check out. The
panel was pretty interesting and informative.
I asked a few questions, mentioning that I am a klutz and got told that
maybe leather working wasn’t meant for me (jokingly of course).
We had to run to the
hotel earlier than expected because we were given the wrong message regarding
hotel check out. Luckily we had packed
up all our stuff before we left that morning so it was quick and
efficient. We check in our baggage and
hurried off to the masquerade awards ceremony.
It was in a tiny panel room with people sitting on the floor and
standing up along the back and sides of the room. They announced the award for the World
Cosplay Summit first and the team Detailed Mess won! I am so happy and excited for them! Bandit Spurs was late getting in and she
missed them announce her award she won for craftsmanship! I ended up winning the Most Touching
Performance award! It is official,
Bandits and I are now Journeymen! The
awesome Tsubasa group also won an award… for best in class for
craftsmanship! Aww man, so many
deserving cosplayers got recognized for their effort and work! Congrats everyone!
After the ceremony was
done, we spoke to Jesse lagers for a bit and asked him if he would be willing
to take some photos with us (Bandits wanted at least one picture with a
judge). Detailed Mess unfortunately had
to run to catch a train so we couldn’t talk to them. Jesse was super fun to hang out with though
and he even said that I had really good stage presence! Looks like I know what my strong point is
now!
We decided to wander
the dealer’s room one last time before the con closed up. I got a cat collar with a little bell on it J We
found one of the people who came to our room party in the artist alley and I
supported her by getting two adorable digimon buttons! We searched the entire room for prosthetic
ears but in the end we didn’t find any.
Once everything closed up, Bandits headed back home and my boyfriend and
I decided to go and take some pictures along the way to the hotel. We got some really great shots of my Sakura
cosplay! It was a good way to end the
con.
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