Someday I should really get in the habit of documenting events either during or directly after they happen because my short-term memory seems to be extremely short term. Welp, let's give this thing a try.
Anime Boston, for me, started around Thursday afternoon when I went to meet my friend at the bus station. We planned Thursday months in advance--we wanted to meet up, eat a quick lunch, then go see some fish at the Boston Aquarium because, you know, what's a better way to start a con than looking a pretty fishies and sea lions?
Let me just say this: the Boston Aquarium is worth the admission price, EVEN during their renovation (which I'm told is supposed to be finished sometime this summer).
There were fishies (piranhas!).
BIG fishies.
Penguins.
And, SEA LIONS.
They were having quite a playful time.
While the 23-year-old just kinda wanted to chill.
Then we ate Mexican food at an Irish bar. My friend got some concoction known as "Irish nachos," which was apparently quite deadly. We also decided to go pick up our tickets for AB because we knew the lines would be long on Friday morning. A good half hour sit on the Green Line later, whilst the train sat in the tunnels and waited for other trains to vacate the station platforms ahead of it, we got our tickets and headed home for a good night's sleep before the important opening of the con.
At this point I'm going to get a little less detailed about the events of the convention. There are a few I'd like to cover. As many of you may already know, I was turned down for the AB masquerade, which really ticked me off for a multitude of reasons. That's dead and gone now. Let's focus on the fun that was had.
My cosplay line-up for the convention was as follows:
Friday:
Morning: Seth Nightroad from Trinity Blood--This is the last time I'm wearing those infernal pointe shoes. A few hours at the convention was enough to hurt my feet enough that I'm still in pain now, almost a week later. For the next time I wear this cosplay, I'll redo the shoes. In all likelihood I'll just transfer all the decoration to a pair of regular dance slippers. Much more comfortable!
Afternoon: Jushiro Ukitake from Bleach--Didn't get nearly as many photos as Seth, but there was some recognition and my feet got a rest.
Saturday:
Morning and afternoon: Jushiro Ukitake from Bleach--I was convinced to participate in the Bleach Photoshoot. There'll be photos of that later on in this post! It may be a good idea to reconsider this wig, for it gets hopelessly tangled as the day wears on.
Evening: Sakura Kinomoto from Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle--This was for the Spirit Charity Formal Ball, which I would not have been able to attend had I been in the Masquerade. Again, more on that later in this post!
Sunday:
All Day: Jedi Master Luminara Unduli from Star Wars--My friend and I both wore our Star Wars cosplays and received lots and lots of high praise and photos! It was a lot of fun. We linked arms and skipped around the halls as well and took photos with a stormtrooper and a very cute father a daughter couple who were also cosplaying Star Wars! If you have photos of us, or if you see any, please please send me a link. I will be in your debt!
I was somewhat disappointed not to wear my Kakyo Kuzuki cosplay from X/1999 and my Fujimoto cosplay from Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, but in the end I think things worked out really well and I'm happy to have worn the cosplays I did!
The Bleach Photoshoot:
At this point I haven't found any photos of myself (although if you've found any, please please send the links my way!), but here are a few choice photos from my own camera. Unfortunately because of the weather we were forced to hold the shoot indoors and that made the lighting weird. Most of my photos turned out blurry or hazy. Someday I'm gonna have myself a real camera so that won't happen as much :(
This was the Epic Battle for Ichigo. Just so you know, I'm hoping that the little Nel in front wins because she was so perfect.
I don't have much love for the Arrancars or the Espada, but I do really like Ulquiorra, particularly here. This cosplayer was Epic, and yes, Epic with a capital E.
This is the last photo from this shoot that I really wanted to share. There were others, but for the purpose of not dragging this on forever I'm going to stop here. Somewhere, sometime, I'll upload all the photos I took not matter how awful they are. Perhaps I'll even devote an entire blog post to them (cue: "yeah right"s)! Anyway, this little Hitsugaya was probably the most adorable cosplayer I've ever seen. It took some coaxing to get him to pose with his Zanpaku-to spirit Hyorinmaru, and if you look closely you can see his mother, cosplaying Rankiku, crouched behind him, but...it was quite good! I wish my parents had dressed me up in cosplay when I was little...they just wanted me to quit wearing costumes when I was about ten years old. Now look where I am. I'm never gonna grow up I swear -_-
Better that than becoming a stuffy adult!
The Spirit Ball was really good, actually, although I really do with I'd gotten the chance to compete in the Masquerade, which would have overlapped the Ball. I've never really danced before, nor learned to dance, but it was good to learn that plenty of other people had not either. It was quite a rainy night and we got very cold getting to the dance. Luckily we made it in one piece and I got to dance with a man for the first time. It was very nice to be asked to dance by the men--perhaps this helps to boost my mental image of men, for I've been faced with far to many slobs to not keep my armor on. My cosplay seemed perfect for the event and many of the guys who asked me to dance stated that they asked because they liked how the cosplay looked. I am glad! Sakura Kinomoto took a lot of work.
On a related note, we did have a photoshoot for her on the 27th before I left Boston. I won't release too many photos at once, but here is the first (which will be on Deviantart soon):
For the penultimate part of this post I'm just going to share a few choice photos from the convention.
These Merida cosplayers from Brave were quite good. The one on the left even had archers' gloves and her dress fabric looked very historically accurate! I can only imagine how much work it must take to care for those wigs *shudder*
This is my friend, and two other cosplayers, as Touko from Pokemon. My friend is the one on the right holding a Raichu plushie. Can you believe that some people mistook him for Pikachu? Come on people! (And that moogle in the background is cracking me up right now...)
And THIS...is Darth Tater, held by my friend who is currently wearing her Jaina Solo cosplay. And yes, I took this photo on the bus. Darth Tater is part of the Mr. Potato Head line--such fond memories of those things! I had no idea they made a Darth Tater version until I saw him at AB...
I'm dedicating this last section to acquisitions! Needless to say, I spend way too much money. Wah. At least now I've got head start on some new cosplays!
For the record, I have no idea why I bought this wig. I just liked the colour I guess. I was trying to purchase a wig for my Shino Acadamy Ukitake cosplay and the girl at Arda Wigs brought out this style as a possiblity. On Monday I wore this wig when I accompanied my friend to the bus station, then went to Harvard Square to look for magazines in Spanish. I loved the weird looks from the hoity-toity people.
Also from Arda wigs--this one is in the same style as the dark blue one pictured above. It's for Ukitake and it's pretty much perfect. I wish it was a little longer in back, just because of personal preference, but it is extremely accurate for the character. There'll be more about this wig in a separate post when I get started on this cosplay in a day or two.
LAST thing I have energy to photograph for now. I got this wig for my upcoming Daenerys Targaryen cosplay from Game of Thrones. It's a beautiful colour, nice and thick, but the hairline is awful. The people at the booth where I bought this were really snotty when I asked how the hell I was supposed to make a straight hairline look natural AT ALL. Then again I clearly know nothing about wigs. In fact I wouldn't have bought this wig at all, because of their behavior, but I doubt I would have found a nicer wig elsewhere for a better price. This'll require major work, which I'll talk about later when I start work on this cosplay!
That's all for now. Phew! And I though the Internet and I wouldn't get along long enough to get this post finished. I hope you survived this long post and I promise shorter ones in the future! (Maybe)
Sounds like you had a great time!! I wish I could've seen you there, but forgot to message you to try and meet up somewhere. :/
ReplyDeleteIn retrospect it feels like I was really disorganized at AB, because I forgot to contact a lot of people about meeting up. There'll be next year though! And maybe Arisia?
DeleteI'd like to get to Arisia at some point! Working on getting a job (still) so maybe I'll actually have money for it by the time it rolls around.
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