My Future Cosplays Part 2

Here's the problem with being a cosplayer at heart: the list is constantly growing. Seriously, in order to stop the list from growing, I would have to stop looking at new things. And that just isn't going to happen anytime soon. I'm supposed to watch 150 anime series this year. So far I've completed twelve and am in the midst of two more. I've tacked new cosplays onto my list from five of those. Clearly this is dangerous.

But oh well.

Here's the fourteen that have jumped onto my list since my post last month.

...Wait, did I just say fourteen in the last month? Crap, I'm in trouble.

(Guys, in reading this post, please remember that my husband is female.)

Ai Enma (Jigoku Shoujo) I've noted in the past (yesterday) that I love Jigoku Shoujo, and Ai Enma herself. This is a cosplay I've been debating for quite awhile now, since finishing out the series last year, really. Finally I thought about it, and I really do want to do this cosplay someday. I chose to stick with the school uniform version rather than one of the complicated kimono ones, partially for the sake of cost and partially because...well, red and black school uniform. Pretty awesome right there.

Love This Cosplay: It's pretty simple. And I can carry around a straw doll, offering it to people. Fun stuff.

Hate This Cosplay: School uniforms tend to be a little on the expensive side. Cheaper than kimono, but still.

Black Swan (own design) Okay, when I went to see Black Swan I fell utterly in love. It was so...twisted. Oh, and the lesbianism aspects were pretty cool as well—not something I get to see very often, at least not presented the way they were. If you haven't seen Black Swan yet, I highly recommend it. Natalie Portman earned that Oscar. But anyway—I'm not actually planning to wear the black swan ballet outfit, this is something I'm designing myself. It does involve feathers though. No details yet, since I'm not done with the design.

Love This Cosplay: Black Swan. Enough said.

Hate This Cosplay: May be a bit skimpy. And that makes me slightly uncomfortable, but we'll see.

Hideki Hinata (Angel Beats!) In theory I'll have a review of Angel Beats! up tomorrow, and you can all see what I thought of the series itself, but for now...Well, this was the first time I'd ever been a yaoi fangirl for something so typically Key. (Note: Yes, Haruhi is from Key and I thoroughly support Kyon/Itsuki, but Haruhi is not typical happy-followed-by-soul-ripping-Key.) And not only was I a yaoi fangirl, I was supporting a threesome—Yuzuru/Hideki/Naoi. So I'm going to do Hideki and my husband shall do Naoi. We lack a Yuzuru. But I do have a friend who will do T.K..

Love This Cosplay: It looks so easy to pull off. Oh, and an excuse to own a blue wig? Hell yes.

Hate This Cosplay: What's there to hate?

Itsuki Koizumi (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) I mentioned being a Kyon/Itsuki fangirl, didn't I? Right, well I'll be cosplaying Itsuki as part of a Haruhi group at OMGcon 2012, and yes, my husband is doing Kyon. I'm glad that when I asked which she'd rather be she said Kyon, because Itsuki is my favorite character in that series.

Love This Cosplay: Well I already own half of it. That is always nice.

Hate This Cosplay: Couldn't the Haruhi uniforms just be the same color as the Ouran ones so I could use my Tamaki blazer?

Miku Hatsune (Vocaloid) I am not a Vocaloid fan. Their voices weird me out and I am entirely incapable of enjoying the songs. But well, I've been learning Love & Joy (still a few bits I can't seem to get down) and in this process I have come to develop a love of Miku's outfit, at the very least. So while it's dependent on weight loss, I do intend to do this Vocaloid cosplay someday.

Love This Cosplay: Do I want to own that wig? God yes.

Hate This Cosplay: It's so short...

N (Pokémon Black/White) N is awesome. I haven't actually finished playing Black yet (I'm at the Elite 4) but man...this guy. If not for the whole Team Plasma thing, he'd be a pretty cool guy. As of the ferris wheel scene it's like...dude, you're epic, why the hell are you on their side you twit? But I still want to cosplay him, despite the Plasma nonsense.

Love This Cosplay: ...My addiction to awesome wigs tells me that N's hair makes my life better.

Hate This Cosplay: I'll be walking around as a member of Team Plasma. What the hell.

Naoto Shirogane (Persona 4) Because I am in love with the Persona games and feel like they're the best ones to ever be brought into existence, I've been determined to choose a cosplay from 3 or 4 (the two I've played) for quite some time now. Finally I decided on Naoto, because I adore him...her...I'm still in denial.

Love This Cosplay: It's just a school uniform, pretty easy. And the hat is very nice as well.

Hate This Cosplay: ...Not applicable.

Renamon gijinka (Digimon Tamers) Someone on cosplay.com created a thread about doing Digimon gijinkas, since there seems to be a lack of them. I took this as my sign to...well, design one. And Renamon is one of my favorite Digimon, has been since I first saw Tamers, so it was her I decided on. I've already designed the cosplay, but can't draw for the life of me, so I have no picture to offer.

Love This Cosplay: If I felt like explaining the aspects you would see that it will be pretty cheap to pull together.

Hate This Cosplay: I'm not sure how I feel about it, since I created it myself.

Koichi Shidou (Highschool of the Dead) So I started watching Highschool of the Dead yesterday while waiting on a download. Now here was me while starting up the series--

Episode 1 Arianna: Oh, I'm not going to have any new cosplays from this series. They're all just school uniforms, and lame school uniforms for that matter, so I'm safe.

Episode 2 Arianna: La dee da, oh look someone died...

Episode 3: This is mildly entertaining and—ohmigod I think I may have to cosplay that man. ...Yup, yup, I have to cosplay him, for sure.

So he's a giant asshole. So is Izaya, so it's not like I don't obviously like assholes in anime. And I'm going to cosplay this one.

Love This Cosplay: Are those pinstripes I see? I think they are. Do want.

Hate This Cosplay: ...Why am I cosplaying from Highschool of the Dead? I'm pretty sure there is not a worthy, acceptable answer to this question.

Katsuki Shima (Clannad ~After Story~) It is not a secret that I view the anime Clannad as my friend. Like, one of my best friends. So it should be obvious that I'd want to cosplay from it, but I wouldn't really want to do any of the girls other than maybe Kotomi. Well, there is this kid...he was only around for maybe two episodes, but I got pretty attached to him in that time for being such a sweetheart. I have now decided to cosplay him.

Love This Cosplay: It looks like it should be pretty easy to pull together.

Hate This Cosplay: It also looks like it will be entirely too warm in a convention environment.

Shirogane (Monochrome Factor) This is a series I got midway through yesterday, and it's so very...gay. Which is really not a problem for me, as I think we know by now. I'll be doing Shirogane, and the husband will be with me as Akira in his Shin form. I think Shirogane is a pretty cool guy, considering he is capable of being both powerful and flamingly queer.

Love This Cosplay: Look at that braid. God yes.

Hate This Cosplay: His lips kind of bother me. I am not making my lips look like that. Period.

High School Shizuo (Durarara!!) Well, my husband already has a High School Izaya cosplay. I figure I may as well match her by pulling together a High School Shizuo. It's only logical.

Love This Cosplay: It looks so easy to get. I am a fan of easy.

Hate This Cosplay: I do not.

Touko (Pokémon Black/White) All right, when I first got Pokémon Black I felt like I needed to cosplay Cheren, because he's really awesome-looking. Then I talked to my husband and found out she wanted to do Cheren. Well, I support him as a pair with the girl character, whose real name is Touko. Thus, while it requires losing weight, I am going to pull off this cosplay at some point.

Love This Cosplay: That wig will make me a happy person.

Hate This Cosplay: Those shorts...they will make me less happy.

Tsugaru (Durarara!!) Tsugaru is the other version of Shizuo that's floating around out there. He's pretty cool. I hadn't really planned to cosplay him at all, because that is one heck of a kimono and I wasn't sure how I would be able to get the darn thing. Then one of my friends informed me that she's planning to make the kimono for me, so that sorta changed the plan.

Love This Cosplay: It's another Shizuo. Why wouldn't I love it?

Hate This Cosplay: I don't want to accidentally hurt the poor thing...

So, yeah, this will be a lot of fun. I need to stop adding to this list, but that just isn't going to happen.

WonFes 08

Unfortunately I live in the US so I wasn't able to attend Wonder Festival this year, but many others were.



Those interested in WonFes coverage can check out Danny's post. He also has links to more coverage on other sites in his post.



Pic is of Nendoroids at WonFes, via dannychoo.com. Original source at Ota-Suke

Comic-Con 08: part 2

I'll begin with a (somewhat quick) description of all the loot in the first picture:

The things we paid for: a ton of manga, the wallscrolls, the figures, the art books (Tony Taka, lucky star, and Arina Tanemura; sorry, didn't take closer pictures of these, let me know if anyone wants some.), different versions of the Mokona plushies for my sister, Pocky and Black Black, Gundam Seed "Complete Best" cd, Shojo Beat, and the Love Hina Christmas special dvd.

And now the free stuff: about 6 or 7 sampler manga, all the Bleach things (including the game), the Square Enix fan that has the words "I'm a fan." printed on it xD, and other little trinkets, including some very cool pliers from some booth selling a lot of Revoltechs, even though I don't have any Revoltechs just yet the pliers work very well with Figma parts, quite useful when you're trying to be gentle pulling out joints and such.

Sorry about taking so long to make this post, I got kind of busy yesterday and had a hard time finding the time to finish taking the pictures. Finally got them though. Also, I found a program called IrfanView to do batch resizing and renaming of pictures, very helpful.

Now, here is a closer look at the rest of the loot. I didn't take individual pictures of everything, so if someone wants to know about something in particular, let me know. ^^

Here is a close up of the manga, we mostly got volumes to finish off series that we had already started.



My first two figmas: Haruhi.



And Yuki. Finally got them!



Woo, Nendoroids, they're so cute. xD Haruhi.



Yuki.



And L. This one is mostly my sister's. I think it's a cool figure and all, but no where near as cute as Haruhi, Yuki, or Misa Misa, to me.



I gave in to the fan-boy side of me and bought 2 shirts (got a third for free) from the J-List booth. xD I also got to meet Peter Payne, he runs J-List and the J-List side blog.

Miku.



Haruhi, this one supposedly says "I would die for Haruhi". Still learning Japanese, so I can't read many things. I went through a bit of trouble (because it was fun xD) and romanized what's on the shirt: "Haruhi no tame nara shineru". Shi is a kanji so I had to do some googling, as I know no kanji at all.



This is the shirt I got for free, I think it says "looking around, looking around", romaji is "kiyoro kiyoro", I do believe.



Ikkitousen poster I bought. Who else likes Ikkitousen? I always hear both, negative and positive comments about it. Most negative comments are in regards to all the fan service, I never found anything wrong with fan service, as human beings we all have our carnal desires, there is nothing "wrong" or "dirty" about it in my mind, and fan service is, well, a service to that. xD



A cool Haruhi poster I happened upon, just saw it when I was walking by a booth and bought it.



Another one that's mostly for my sister, the guys from Tsubasa Chronicle and xxxHolic, both are CLAMP series.



These next two are actually scans of freebie posters we got, I couldn't manage good pictures of them and they were small enough to scan. I had to scan both the top and bottom, then photoshop them together since they were too long for the scanner.

Haruhi



Soul Eater



Freebie Afro Samurai poster.



Code Geass wallscroll.



xxxHolic wallscroll.



And now, the freebie bags. You can't walk away from Comic-Con without getting at least one or two HUGE bags. First up is the Astro Boy bag, I had to have this one so I ended up standing in line for it.



Bag for the comic book series Watchmen, now being turned into a live action movie. Does anyone read American comics? Personally I only read Japanese manga, something about American comics just doesn't appeal to me.



Bag from the Viz Media booth. Viz is the American distributor of series like Bleach and Death Note.

Comic-Con 08: Part 1

Some storm troopers wouldn't let me pass, I had to use my Jedi mind control on them. ^^

Well, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts I was attending this year's Comic-Con for two days, held at the San Diego convention center.

It was quite fun, a ton of booths with all kinds of different subject matter, from video games, to comics (of course), to anime/manga, gothic clothing, figures, statues, the PC magazine "Maximum PC" even had their own booth, they always give out a TON of free things. There were WAY too many people though, every single day was sold out and they estimate that they served about 200,00 unique people over the course of the 4 and 1/2 days. x.x

Anyway, without further ado, here is my coverage from Comic-Con. Another post with my loot to come soon (I.E. once I take all the pictures). xD

Here are some of the original Japanese Bleach manga panels drawn by Tite Kubo. He was also doing an autograph signing there, but that was impossible to get into, only 200 autographs signed over the 4 days. =/















Some manga and posters of the latest from Yen Press at the Square Enix booth. Sorry about the out of focus and shaky pictures, I'm still quite an amateur when it comes to photography, getting better though. :p



























And now some figures from the Kotobukiya booth, once again sorry about the shaky and out of focus pictures.









A huge Hulk. xD




Some cosplay pics now, the first is out of focus but the rest aren't too bad.











This one was very cool, it was taken at the Broccoli Books panel, they brought in the author of Fairy Tail (フェアリーテイル): Hiro Mashima and after answering some questions and talking about his manga he drew this up for everyone to see. He was very quick, he did it in about 2 minutes time, quite amazing. I have a video of him actually drawing it but the video is quite horrible quality, I'll upload it somewhere anyway if someone wants it. Let me know. :p



Here are a couple of pictures from outside, they had the terracotta statues from the third Mummy movie set up outside: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, very cool.




And to finish up here, some pictures of the bridge leading to Coronado island where there is a US naval air station along with some pictures of the boats parked right behind the convention center. These were taken from the top level of the convention center.