Cosplay Festival 8 in Benyland
Trip Start
Jul 26, 2008
1
76
110
Trip End
Aug 06, 2009
Sendai,
Tohoku,
Japan
Sunday, May 10, 2009
On Friday, a few days after Hiroto's birthday, said guitarist wrote a blog post about the things he was thankful for. The last two lines were in English, thanking the fans outside of Japan. That was all I needed to just be happy for the whole weekend (even though I was getting sick). My efforts haven't been in vain; they've read my emails. I always figured that they would, but it was awfully nice of Hiroto to acknowledge us. Later I found out that he had the exact same message last year. :p That's okay since I definitely recycle Japanese phrases
CosFest1
. It's the thought that counts anyway.I almost didn't make it to the Sendai Cosplay Festival in Benyland. In addition to running late (as usual -_-;; ), I had a Dino moment of clumsiness and almost hurt myself tripping over air essentially. However, I got to Sendai and met up with Kavita and her friends, Amy and Mika. They were equally excited about meeting a fellow cosplayer and Lolita enthusiast as I was.
Benyland, an amusement park, was much smaller than expected, but I'm used to Disney Land and Six Flags. CosFest had a larger turn-out than the previous cosplay events, maybe because it's at a fun location and they allow male crossplayers. I wore my slightly improved Kyoya Hibari costume. Kavita was Sanzo from Saiyuki, and I totally forgot the names of the series Mika and Amy's cosplays were from. We took maybe a few steps out of the dressing room before we were asked for a picture. ^o^ That doesn't even happen in America unless I'm cosplaying Yomiko Readman. ^^;; Mika was very camera happy so I'm stealing some of her pictures.
We also met up with Dolly, a French cosplayer I met on the Cure cosplay site. She lives in Naruko now with her husband and four sons. She cosplayed Allen Walker from D.Grayman and one of her sons was Road Kamelot (who, as his older brother liked to point out, is actually a girl ^^). Another one of her sons was Kitaro from the popular kids' anime Gegege no Kitaro. Both were mecha kawaii hits with anyone who saw them! I have to thank Dolly for getting some pretty badass shots of me. The posing is getting easier, and it helped to be on steps even if I risked another Dino moment
CosFest2
. My facial expressions could use more work. I definitely heard a couple passersby utter "kakkoi" and "atsui" when I was doing the action poses. Hibari has become one of my top 3 favorite cosplays. ^_~In the meantime, the others had gone off to ride rollercoasters. They enjoyed themselves so much that they were already planning their next cosplay. We all agreed that doing characters from the same anime would be fun. Vampire Knight got selected as our best choice. As a result, we went to GeeStore once we got back to downtown Sendai to see if they had the uniforms. They did, but man, they were expensive! I'm hoping that we find alternative places to buy them and that I don't have to buy a wig.
Anyway, it was a fun day. I finally felt like myself again, which doesn't happen too much when I'm here. I guess I am most in my element when I cosplay or go to lives. The former is kind of ironic considering that I am pretending to be someone else when I cosplay. I used to think that going solo was better, but now I like having friends. Probably I enjoy doing other stuff at anime cons on my own. Plus, Japanese people in general are more cliquish so I hesitate to approach cosplayers (there's also the language barrier). I know they're willing to have their picture taken, but I feel so weird when it's just me asking. Maybe I need a bigger camera to hide behind. :p
Glossary
mecha kawaii - super cute
kakkoi - cool, stylish, hip
atsui - hot, passionate, intense
(Heehee, I was both cool and hot. XD)
