Anime North 2013 Report [image heavy]

I'm back from Anime North~!! What to say, where to start?! I think this year was the best so far...I definitely had the most fun and had the least amount of stress and bad incidents...despite my constant paranoia leading up to the con! I guess since I've been attending AN since high school, I've *finally* gotten the hang of things and have developed a proper system so I won't have any upsets. And, this year I put a lot more effort into making more things to sell and also dressing up different for all three days. Somehow I believe that dressing up really makes a difference to the whole con experience...if only I realized sooner, haha...all those years of not dressing up!! >__<"" I'm so extremely happy for all the nice people who stopped by to chat/fangirl with me and of course those who bought things from me!! People kept saying positive things about my stuff it really made me feel all giddy...ヽ(;^o^ヽ)

We were lucky enough to have beautiful weather again this year~ though it was much cooler. I guess that's a good thing, but it was also so damn windy too  o(-`д´- ｡)

Registration was in Hall F, just like last year! I arrived quite early on the Friday and already there were many people on the con grounds. I was keeping an eye out for some nice cosplays I might recognize from the shows I've been watching recently but I guess all the complicated and fancy cosplays show up on Saturday or something lol.

I realize I forgot to take outfit pics on Saturday so here is a rough idea of my outfit lineup for the weekend. Friday I decided to go gothic lolita, Saturday I wore my favourite lolita dress out of the ones I own, my red Chess Story JSK with the diamond pattern socks from Enchantlic Enchantilly to match, and finally on Sunday was my day to cosplay with Jess! At first I was shocked at how people can manage to cosplay three different characters for Anime North but now I understand it's do-able!! And also boring *not* to wear three different outfits for the three days of the con! xD;;

 I wore my new light ash purple-ish red wig. The color is pretty difficult to describe and it's hard to tell from the photo but the ends are more darkly coloured, almost like wine color. I hadn't worn a wig since my my Chrome cosplay in 2008, and it made me realize how much I dislike wigs. >_< I have way too much hair and it's a pain to stuff it all up there. The black dress was a simple cheap one from the brand Boguta on Taobao and the headpiece was made by me.

I shared my table with Tiff and sat beside Jess and her table buddy Sonya. This year our tables were near the end of the Photo Alley and was facing a nice wall with lighting (good background for photographing cosplayers from our tables lol) At first I thought it was a horrible location because we were facing a fall instead of the main flow of traffic but there seemed to be a constant flow of people passing by~


I ended up taking up 2/3 of the space since I overestimated how big the table would be...T__T since every year I always seem to have trouble filling up my portion of the table. I made sure to make lots and lots of stuff this time to make up for last year!!

 I didn't put out much doll props for display and I was even too lazy to set them up on Sunday since not many people who collect bjd's seem to walk by...

Tiff's porings, mochi's and doll clothes and accessories! I forgot to take a pic of Jess's things but she had her collection of handcrafted, detailed fan art plushies for sale. She was also doing a raffle for a No Face plushie that a lot of people were excited about!

I guess another reason why this year was so much better was because there were a few (much needed) changes, one of them being the location of certain things, such as the noisy wrestling ring no longer being in the same spot as the artists' area. And it seems like the line ups are much more controllable this year, not to mention... all the con goer badges were super nice and came with lanyards and everything!! I was so jealous ..I wanted to be a regular con goer lol. Granted, I had my "Crafter's Corner" badge but it was still one of those plastic ones with the rope attached, boo..

 I didn't get that many photos of cosplayers because I wasn't paying attention and most of them I think they were outside, and I was in the building most of the time... but I will share what I have!

I was on the lookout for Magi cosplays because I finally finished the anime...I kept seeing groups of them! Mostly consisted of Aladdin, Sinbad and Judar, and I happened to see two Morgiana's walking around (I looove Morgiana so much >__<!!)

Colombo and Miso stopped by!! Every year I'm excited to see these amazing Katamari cosplays! Haha, the Colombo cosplayer asked if I made a Colombo felty...and I was also asked if I had Miso, but sadly I didn't. >_< I am pretty sure I would need fur to make Colombo and not felt (hmm...I actually do have some black fur I got randomly to try making a doll wig though) ...

I hope I wasn't being too creepy as I saw this girl's dress and immediately stopped her for a photo and proceeded to touch her dress because I recognized it right away..>__<" It's designed by a Korean indie lolita brand named Haenuli, and coincidentally I put a dress on reserve that is designed by their sister brand, The Snow Field. The material of her dress really surprised me as it felt more like satin and was very light weight, not like normal cotton like I expected!! I really wonder if the dress I will receive will be like that!

Anyway, she was really cool and I regret not getting her name. :(

I recognized this girl as Cadney, one of the sweet lolitas I follow on tumblr! I really love her co-ordinates, they're all so well put together! She is wearing the original Milky Planet, one of the prints I love most from Angelic Pretty (I say that, but I don't think I could never pull off sweet lolita so I'll just admire from afar, haha) She purchased one of my cloud hair clips and I helped put it on her head..! She looked soo cute and was really nice~!

I actually saw a lot of beautiful lolitas walking around but I was too shy to ask them to stop for photos.../regret..



Anyway, I think that was all that happened on Friday. I didn't have a chance to leave the table and I guess it was a good thing because normally I'd be itching to be in the Dealer's Room, already spending money lol

On Saturday my friend Jordan came to the convention for the day with her brother Justin. While she helped me watch the table since Tiff was doing the PuriMeido photo booth, (thank you Jordan, again) I was able to leave and go to the Doll North Doll Market with Justin as my chaperone, haha. I hope I wasn't being too demanding but he was such a good sport even though he wasn't into dolls in the slightest! Anyway we had to walk to the Crown Plaza hotel which was some 10-15min walk away because that's where all the Doll North events were being held.

I saw this group of Kurobasu cosplayers the moment I stepped outside and I stopped them for photos. I was really ecstatic to see such a big group, but I asked "where's Kagami??!" and they said "he's not generation of miracles, he sucks!"  (;¬_¬)

I really wanted to see a Kagami cosplayer because he and Kuroko are my favourite characters...sigh

So, I brought Yukio (my Volks YoSD Puff) in his sheepie costume and he attracted more attention and love than I thought! I forgot to take a pic though...but I put him on display at our crafter's table and got a bunch of questions about him. People kept asking if I made the outfit and lol I felt ashamed every time I had to say no. Maybe I should, maybe I should.. -__-

Doll North events were in the lower level so it was kind of amusing how it was like stepping into a secret world where only people who knew about the hobby came to hang out. xD It was a really nice area to host the event though and I think I prefer this location to the Sheration hotel last year. There were two rooms to host events this time - one for the marketplace and one for other workshops/panels happening at the same time.

I was really excited because Sadol, Blue Fairy, and Peakswoods were official vendors that came here for the weekend from South Korea.

My friend Laura was hanging out at the Blue Fairy booth so it was nice to drop by and chat as well. The booth was amazing and had so much stuff! Even option parts...I saw the "holding hands" parts that I wanted so long ago but now I definitely think the resin color has changed from when I first bought my TF Louis...or rather I think my Louis has yellowed quite a bit. >_< I didn't really have a set wishlist... but a certain outfit caught my eye and I ended up caving in and buying it! I knew I had to buy something from here because I could save on shipping costs. It was definitely the most expensive outfit I have ever purchased...and it was for MSD size too! @__@ I am not sure what the outfit is called as I haven't been keeping up with Blue Fairy at all but the staff was super friendly and they even showed me what the outfit had and the little buttons and aghh I was sold LOL..orz

Sadol had some pretty dolls on display but I was more interested in their clothes...sadly it was all in a dark corner and everything was all packaged up so I had to dig through everything. Basically they had everything from their website... or probably everybody bought all their new stuff because I thought their selection was a bit limited and a little boring! I was a little disappointed by this and ended up not buying anything. I might order from their webshop instead because then I could have it custom-fit for Crobidoll's R-Line (Kaede's) body instead of just buying a general "SD13" size..

Peak's Woods had a really cute and elaborate display. But to be honest I don't follow their updates either nor am I really interested in their dolls. The only sculpt I'm interested in is Hucky... and I was soo extremely worried that I might have caved and bought him right there and then.... but I managed to control myself and came to the decision that he is indeed just as perfect in real life as I imagined and that I would order him online instead because it can't compare to the thrill of having a doll shipped to you and the whole box opening/revealing experience is just something I look forward to most in the hobby... (yes, it's an addiction alright ;__; ..)

Aside from the tinies, they also had a bunch of larger dolls on display. I feel really snotty for only taking photos of the legit doll companies at the Doll Market but really, I'm not going to lie... most of the vendors there aside from them did not interest me at all or just wasn't my style, or they had very little to sell... and actually the whole marketplace was pretty quiet during the time I went. o.o

I wonder if there was more traffic on the other days. There were also lots of freebies like last year from the sponsors and I nabbed Crobidoll's mini poster promoting their new collaboration otome game, NAMELESS. I'm pretty sure they had their Lance on display too for the raffle but I didn't take any photos of them because I was in a rush to get back to the Crafter's Corner >_< I was tempted to go back on the Sunday and maybe buy something from Sadol but in the end, I didn't. So this was my very short Doll North experience and I hope next year they will have even more great things in store!

On the way back, there was this group of amazingly accurate Avengers cosplay. Except with a random unicorn, lol. I really don't get where those horse head masks originated though...and I saw another person randomly walking around with one...o.O"

Bahwah so that was Saturday!!! On Sunday ... it was the established cosplay day for Jess and I. It was Sunday because Friday was too rushed since we were setting up our booths and unfortunately the BLEACH photoshoot was right during that time, so we had to miss it. :( But that aside, we look simply ridiculous right?! xD This cosplay plan has been going on for two years now and I'm really happy we finally got around to completing it. It started with me daring Jess to cosplay Hiyori from BLEACH, because I simply couldn't imagine her pulling off the blonde wig and everything...but she accepted my challenge. It was fitting because her favourite character was Shinji and I think she had fun acting in-character and showing the middle finger in photos, hahah. In return, I cosplayed Lisa Yadomaru, also from BLEACH. We didn't see any other Vaizards though, not very much BLEACH hype this year, which was surprising since the manga is getting to be so good now that it's on it's final arc and things are starting to..happen. I know I had tons of fun acting in character and being a meganekko, LOL. What would've made this even more amazing would be Tiff cosplaying as Mashiro to complete the girl Vaizards trio team!! But anyways, I had fun and we got asked multiple times for photos! Thank you Jess for cosplaying with me! :D

And ta-da!! Of course I was on the look out for Shingeki no Kyojin cosplayers too and I was able to chat with other fans as well..I'm getting pretty obsessed with this series, hah! I actually saw quite a few cosplayers (there was an AMAZING Annie and Rivaille I didn't get pics of them, but I spoke to the Annie cosplayer) but this Eren and Mikasa were the only two I managed to get photos of. Love how they made the 3D maneuver gear and swords too because they look super complicated to make!

Another Magi group, this time with Sinbad, Aladdin, Hakuryuu and Judar.

Stephanie/Cadney dropped by again, wearing Day Dream Carnival by Angelic Pretty. The print fabric had gold accents up close and it was gorgeous! I had to snap a pic of her and her friends because they all looked so cute and elegant together!

After this, Jess and I walked around in the Dealer's Room like we do every year now on Sundays...and on the way back I saw a Riko, Kuroko and Kagami cosplayer. I was like... O_O..!! But...I didn't have my camera with me!!! T_T So I dashed back to my table to get it...but by the time I came back to where they were, they were gone, lost amongst the crowd... so I was pretty much sulking. Jess kept saying "Give it up, they could be anywhere by now" and I knew she was right. But I didn't want to give up. Because that Kagami cosplay was pretty amazing. Kuroko too. I know they're not real and cosplayed by girls and I probably sound like a super creeper by now but I don't care. I just want a damn photo so I can put my fangirl mind at rest and be happy knowing that people are fans of Kurobasu like me, enough to put effort into making such a good cosplay...

And then, another con goer (I should have gotten names, arghh) came by my table to look at my chibi head charms and asked if I had an Aomine...I said that I didn't, that coincidentally Aomine, Kuroko and Kagami were the first to go, to all one buyer.... and then I randomly asked if she happened to see a Kagami cosplayer (as I'm sure there's only one in the entire con, if I'm not mistaken) and ...she did! She even had the cosplayer's business card with a photo/twitter/contact info and everything!! And it was the same person as the Kagami I saw before.. O_O So I took a photo of the card and I asked her how long ago did she see them...and she said not that long, and pointed somewhere behind me, saying "they're right over there, go get a photo, I'll keep an eye out on your stuff!" so...I did. I dashed out with my camera and asked for a photo.

And they set up a scene for me, omg. *__*

I had to cut Riko off a bit because there was a guy in the way ...but yeah. I blurred out the background a bit to subdue the random people..doesn't it look like they're in slow motion?! (」゜ロ゜)」

The Light and his Shadow!!!! They did such a good job, it made me really happy to see this. I hope they know that, whoever they are. And I hope that the girl I talked to knows how thankful I am for helping me out. This really seals the deal as to why I enjoyed AN so much this year--it's the other fans. You don't know who they are but just put one thing in common in between--anime, manga--and you can simply talk about it and get along as if you've known them forever. It brings people together, yo. :')

And...that was that. As the final minutes went by, I started to feel pretty sad that the convention was over already. It ended on a happy note though, so I guess I shouldn't be too down about it! I managed to get some good loot this year: My obsession with Kuroko pretty much explains the plush I got from Jess, haha. (It's funny how Jordan and I both got matching Kuroko's from her. But his deadpan face... I couldn't resist it. >_<) I also finally got to buy from Morico and Atomic Ami, whose crochet works I've been admiring for a while now..because I don't crochet myself and they make the cutest little toys...though I need to find a better place to display them!! The doll outfit I got from Blue Fairy came in a cute little baggie (will take pics of that in another post..) and they also gave me a free file folder! From the Dealer's Room I bought a random BL manga oneshot (I think it's become a tradition to buy at least one book per year and force Jess to help me choose LOL. I settled on "suave and sexy" business men this time :'D) I also bought a little Alpacasso keychain because I've been wanting one to put on my lolita bag...damn those branded alpacas are expensive!!! @__@ But after speaking to a girl about the actual retail price I guess I can be sure that they're not some cheap knock offs... Also from the Dealer's Room I bought this randm cat toy. You can't tell from the photo but it has a really derpy face. Derpy is the only word I can think of to describe it lol.

It was the last one and the lady didn't charge me tax so I just got it. It's a little fat cat hauling a large tuna fish on it's back, I just find that so adorable!!?? I wonder if there is a series of these, and I wonder that these cats are called?? I took a closer photo of the tag so if someone knows what the deal is with these cats with fish on their backs, please let me know? :'D Ahem I had planned to get some prints, but I guess I was fed up with too many people in the Comic Market and I didn't really take a closer look at all the art because it seemed like it's the same people there every year... and I'm pretty sure some artists upcycle their drawings... but I did see all the nice ones that other people were carrying around..ah next time...T_T

Looking back, I've had some great times at AN. For fun, to end this post, I took a photo of all the Anime North program booklets for all the years I've attended. What's strange was that I didn't remember what the 2012 one looked like at all. When I pulled it out, it was like I'd never even seen it before, which was really weird...o.O

I feel like I started out with a serious con report...then just ended up mostly rambling/fangirling in the end...haha. ^_^"" A big heartfelt thank you to everyone who helped me out this year and made my experience wonderful. Another year gone. Here's to AN 2014~!♪(´ω｀★)