Katsucon 2012

SO back from Katsucon and finally about to write about it.

Sometime in January, glayish and I got invited to Katsucon with Rock nam Lee (Mike) and his girlfriend Alex.






We got 4 people in a car and 4 people in a hotel room for $200/each so that was AMAZING considering what we ended up paying last year.

We started out on Thursday morning from North York and the ride down was fun- WAY better than being on Megabus has been last year (despite the fact that we missed out on a trip with most of the other Canadians going). Turns out Mike and I have the exact same taste in music (honestly the playlists were uncanny) :'D

We arrived at the Gaylord Hotel around 8:30pm in the evening and as soon as we pulled up, Kaiser-Mony and Andrew (Aerialdown) walked up o___0. LOL. How ironic the first people we encounter (even before a bellhop) when we arrive 500km+ from Toronto, are our friends from Toronto. XD;

Actually the Canadian flocking was unavoidable as we ran into stillvisions, and Jess while waiting as well~!

We got settled into our room, which ended up being cheaper because it was a handicapped room LOLLLLLLLL;;; Mike was sure the hotel staff had seen my Hetalia Italian flag and knew we were 'speshcial'..... OTL (The only thing different with the room was how low the beds were so it was a great idea XD)

We were starved so all four of us went to the bar & grill to eat dinner. Really American food does taste better and it's half the price of the typical restaurants up here.

Went back to the hotel, and got in contact with Ex-Shadow and his wife Malindachan who had arrived at the hotel too. glayish had eaten too much and managed to make herself sick (-_-; ..) so I went to visit their very busy room and chat a bit. I've admired both their cosplays sooo long and it's been years since we saw them at a convention (Anime Central 2009) so it was nice to talk to them!

Ended up just going back to the room to sleep and be exhausted from the long trip (9.5 hours).

Friday

In terms of cosplay for this convention, I DID manage to make something new! I finally finished the official genderbend of North Italy (nyotalia) ~!



(Taken by glayish at the con) on DeviantART

(Taken at home)


It was very odd and uncomfortable being in a female cosplay lolz. I managed to fuck up my mascara into a sponge-bob like look, so I attempted to put on false eyelashes for the first time. Fuuuckkk lol, let's just say the glue globbed everywhere and they kept popping off until I found a moment to fix them.

glayish and I met up with izunadrop247 (one of our DBZ cosplay friends from Otakon) and joined the registration line. izunadrop247 was kind enough to help carry my bags and camera all of Friday :'D!! It's difficult to get around in heels and skirts, so that was very pleasant.

Of course the reg line was awful and I managed to slice my hand open on the schedule book and got a viciously bleeding paper cut. The band-aids I had gotten for North Italy (she wears one on her knee) came in handy then -_-;.... I got into an insane worked up mood too, so the con didn't start out perfectly;

izunadrop247 wore his Light Yagami cosplay to match with glayish's Misa Amane. They looked really good!!





Anyway I'm glad they walked with me, because being alone in Hetalia cosplay is pretty lame XD;;

We 3 went to lunch at the bar/grill in the hotel atrium and then headed into the dealers room. We wandered around but I didn't really see anything I wanted to buy. The collection of DBZ figurines weren't very good so I didn't get any.

Stopped by the Funimation Booth and spotted sppandaaa in her China cosplay. Rushed up and molested her from behind like Hetalia fans must do bahahah XD.





GUESS WHAT WE WERE ACTUALLY WEARING HETALIA AT THE SAME TIME FOR ONCE!!! Though I failed by being in Nyotalia OTL. Oh well, this con was great in the fact that I actually got to see sppandaaa in costume more than once for a split second.

At the Funimation booth I had wanted to pick up the Slayers Revolution and Slayers Evolution-R boxsets, but apparently they didn't bother to bring those OTL. WHRYYY!!!? Shit I was looking forward to not having to pay for shipping and import on those. Gawhrh

Picked up Axis Powers Hetalia: Season 3 though, to watch with my axis glayish, _anatra_ and jiyoon<3

After checking out the dealers room we headed over to the atrium fountains where the Hetalia gathering was taking place. Stuck around for a bit then headed back to the dealers.

Saw grayhour and emudii!! <33

I totally forget all the shit we did now.. crap I usually don't take so long to write these reports so I can't remember it all in chronological order.

SO... Also on Friday..

Saw Nerdception from tumblr!




And also,





Letelle and her gf as Uranus + Neptune! They were so pretty!! I remember them as USA and UK from last year's Katsucon. Letelle is one of my fav Hetalia cosplayers for sure.

Met with lonym82!! Rocky~ She is sooo nice, she found me while we were in Artist's Alley and got me a cute Italy bookmark/card. *-*!!! <3 I also found her later while she was in her Holy Roman Empire cosplay:



Sorry lonym82's eyes are closed, it was nighttime and hard to get a pic!


I waited around the Gazebo area in the evening in hopes of seeing sppandaaa's full Nyotalia 2P group, but it turned out that they were late in getting together OTL;! I didn't get to see, but I did manage to catch Letelle and her friend as 2P Germany and Italy!





After that glayish, izunadrop247 and I attempted to go to a few panels. "Con Horror Stories" and "DragonBall Evolution: Roast" SOUNDED promising, but after trying to sit for the either HORRENDOUSLY boring, or NOT FUNNY panels I remembered why we usually don't end up going to any. Both failed miserably to be entertaining.

Anyway, after that izunadrop247 went on his way and glayish and I ended up finding a whole bunch of Canadians in the Gazebo area. Sam Lau, solartempest, sakurak, and Mike/Alex our roomies to name a few!!

Thanks for the mini-shoot solartempest~!!! <33 And having a relaxing time being able to chat with sakurak was so nice and yet strange. WHY does it take being 500km away from Toronto for such an event to occur?? OTL. <3

Anyway, we went back to the room and I was very happy to change out of fem!Italy. The shoes weren't the most comfortable after 14 hours. Also, I had managed to forget to pack regular shoes. (I only had my intense snow boots). So I had to borrow glayish's flat Misa shoes in order to walk to the 18+ panels & anime. Roomate Mike (Rock nam Lee) joined us.

LONG STORY SHORT, the 18+ stuff failed as well OTL. LOL. See this is what we get for not knowing anime names and the new stuff. We ended up sitting in on an "Ikeburo after dark" panel that we thought was going to be 18+ anime viewing. It turned out to be some kind of yaoi role-play panel which had Mike shed frightened tears and bolt from his seat.

We found some 18+ anime to watch, but we only caught the ending, and it was generally just fanservice. It was late and we were all tired from the day anyway, so we just went back to the room to sleep.


Saturday

DRAGONBALL DAY. Lawd, lol, well it was damned difficult to wake up in the morning, but we somehow managed. glayish got into her Narcissa Malfoy cosplay, and I wore my Son Gohan (Android Saga) cosplay.

That version of Gohan has been one that I've wanted to do for ages, but it never quite fit with the groups that we had set up, so I never did it. I'm very happy with how the wig and cosplay turned out though!






I'm doing a KameHameHa at the 2:06 time mark!


The DragonBall gathering at the Gazebo/Atrium failed. Like.. what. Seriously nobody showed up at the right time. So glayish went around to try and get some workable photos of ourselves.

The weather was VERY much on our side. It was sunny with a high of 15 degrees. I did for once hope for snow with this costume though. It would have made for a nice photo for an "original timeline" kind of mood.

Actually ran into the DBZ people later in the dealer's room. glayish snapped this pic for me!





Saturday we kept running into Kaiser-Mony, Jess and Andrew (Aerialdown) (ALL of whom looked amazing in their outfits!!)

It was also the day where I was trying to run around and meet up with the girl who bought my Chibi Trunks cosplay off of me. It proved difficult to meet up with her because she wasn't staying in the Gaylord Hotel;;;

Anyway, glayish and I did manage to check out some programming! The Masquerade was well done with plenty of great skits. Seriously the costuming is some of the best at Katsucon.



My favourite was definitely the Ranma 1/2 skit!!


Unfortunately I didn't see the World Cosplay Summit. I was busy trying to meet up with that girl for the Chibi Trunks cosplay, and then the need for food won out. glayish and I had wanted to try that awesome Chinese restaurant in the National Harbour, but the wait was an HOUR;;; Lol the hostess and some local patrons KNEW I was from DragonBall Z though. This is what I like about America (and Baltimore), DBZ is so well received and known!! (mostly cause of Black people.... lol... love DBZ I guess)

Jess and Andrew (Aerialdown) joined us for dinner (:'D) and in the end we picked up some Mexican fast food and went back to the hotel to eat in the atrium.

Later on I finally was able to hand off the Chibi Trunks cosplay, and glayish, Mike & Alex, and I decided to make another try at 18+ anime and programming.

We sat in for the 18+ Anime Music Video awards. There were only about 5 videos played, and the crowd got obnoxiously biligerent >_<. So the panelists put on a hentai series called Dark Love.

UMMM YEAH WTF LOL *SOBS*. That video will haunt me. After the scenes with the worms and the bleeding sex scenes and so on we picked up and headed back to the room for sleep.


Sunday

Sunday we woke up and immediately got everything packed up and put into the car. Didn't bother to cosplay since it would have been too much of a hassle. glayish and I did our last tour around the dealer's room and Artist Alley picking up a few things for gifts for people at home.

It should be noted, since I recently got [S][H][E][R]locked by the BBC series Sherlock, glayish and I entertained ourselves by taking photos of all the BBC Sherlock cosplayers we could find.

There were actually plenty of great ones @_@!!

Our Photos from Katsucon 2012

There was an awkward moment where glayish almost rushed a woman in a blue scarf and dark coat, thinking she was a Femlock, but she was actually just a normal woman XD;;;

Mike & Alex, and glayish and I met up for 3pm and we started the long drive home. I'm definitely glad we stayed with Mike & Alex. They were funny to talk to and it was a great rooming experience and roadtrip!

Overall Katsucon 2012 wasn't as good as 2011 (WE MISSED YOU _anatra_ ). But it was good anyway! Great time seeing more of our American friends and I got to churn out 2 new cosplays that I've been meaning to complete.

It was fun!